Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Review

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Review

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One of my earliest gaming memories - indeed, one of my earliest memories overall - is playing Tomb Raider II and, like every person who played that game, locking the butler in the fridge. Tomb Raider and Tekken are the two series that have been part of my life as far as I can remember. Having been in love with the original fearless Lara Croft over the course of more than a decade, I wasn't too happy when Square and Crystal Dynamics did away with her to reboot the main series with a new Lara, even if it was the only way to keep the franchise going without throwing Lara into a floating timeline where she's always in her thirties. Thankfully 'old Lara' is still around in the spin-off series simply named after her - she's had two more games, one being Guardian of Light and the other being Temple of Osiris.

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Guardian of Light ditches the third-person camera of the main series for an isometric view, and focuses far more on challenge-driven gaming than on story. In fact, the story is the only part of the game I can't laud. Lara's raiding a long-lost tomb when a warlord shows up with his goons and picks up the Mirror of Smoke they'd both been after without realizing it would set free an ancient evil, his name being Xolotl. This villainous dude thanks the warlord by killing him and all his men. Totec, the Guardian of Light, awakens and teams up with Lara to stop Xolotl plunging the world into chaos. After that, the story takes the furthest back seat in the house - you simply chase after Xolotl through a series of well-designed levels until you stop him at the end.

The dialogue suffers from the fact that there are only three characters to work with. Most of Lara's line are well-written - maybe it was just a delight hearing her sarcasm that underlined that this wasn't the reboot Lara - but Totec's lines are so weak that his voice actor simply can't deliver them convincingly, and Xolotl just drones on and on about how he's going to ruin the world and make it his kingdom. There isn't a lot of dialogue though, so it isn't too huge a concern.

Now that we're done ripping into the story, we'll move on to the good news: Guardian of Light has excellent platforming sequences, rewarding puzzles and some pretty fun twin-stick shooter gameplay when enemies show up. The controls are mostly the same as those of the previous Tomb Raider games; with a bit of tweaking, it's best enjoyed with a gamepad.

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Platforming is definitely the highlight of this game. You can use a spear as a step-ladder, grapple along walls, and use both your weapons and mines to activate switches from afar, all while avoiding the many traps in the way. The best parts, however, are when death traps start activating in earnest, forcing you to think fast and keep moving. If you die (and you will die quite a bit), you won't lose too much progress since there's always a checkpoint after a challenging part.

Puzzles in the main game mostly revolve around you trying to coax spheres needed to activate pressure plates out of their hard-to-reach places, although you should try to solve the puzzles for the health and ammo upgrades too; you'll need them later in the game.

If you want as many power-ups as you can, there are special Red Temples which have more challenging puzzles. You'll be able to solve most of them with a bit of head-scratching, but I gave up on a couple as impossible or just too time-consuming. Solving these puzzles lets you claim a Relic or Artifact, which can be equipped to make you more formidable in combat.

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Combat-wise, Guardian of Light offers twin-stick shooter gameplay with rapidly spawning enemies and a wide assortment of weapons, which have varying degrees of effectiveness against different enemies - spiders succumb quickly to flamethrowers, while Shield Knights can't stand grenade launchers. It makes you feel like Rambo to have so many enemies back you into a corner and then slay them all as they come. Be mindful, though, that the more powerful your weapon, the quicker it drains your Ammo Gauge.

There are also several conditions you can fulfill to unlock rewards: Artifacts, Relics and even new outfits. There are ten Red Skulls in each level which give you quite nifty rewards for finding them all, and there are specific conditions for each level too - destroying all the arrow traps in a location, for example. There's also a scoring system, and getting a high enough score nets you a shiny powerful weapon.

The graphics in Guardian of Light are absolutely gorgeous. The levels are highly detailed and look very believable, and very often I found myself wishing that the game had a standard third-person camera instead of the isometric one because Lara looks so darn beautiful in the cutscenes. The music is great too; there are several themes recognizable from previous games, and it never overwhelms the sounds effects.

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Overall, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light establishes its strengths quickly and keeps you entertained throughout. Taking only around five hours to complete, it's pretty short, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't have me play it addictively. There's a co-op multiplayer mode and unlockables that provide incentive for more playthroughs, so it has decent replay value. Don't go into it for the story though, do it for the triumphant combination of platforming, puzzles and action.

Score: 7/10
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5.00 star(s) 2 ratings

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Great review Spinner! ^-^
Nice review spinny
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