#Tomb raider lara croft and the temple of osiris full
It's a bit jarring to go from having a full suite of puzzle-solving tools on hand as a soloing Lara to depending on one of the two magician class characters to properly wield the essential Staff of Osiris.I found my couch co-op experience far more conducive to the adventure than playing online I could easily point my partner to a specific spot where I wanted them to go, or even switch controllers if I felt their skills were better suited to use the archaeologist-exclusive grappling hook to solve a given puzzle.
Switches would be moved to different areas, orbs would removed entirely, and brick walls would be put where a clear path used to be in order to force teamwork and communication. Where a solo puzzle had me pushing combustible orbs to temporarily depress switches or using my momentum while rappelling down a wall, replaying it with partners added variables. What’s really impressive is how the puzzles in Temple of Osiris scale in scope when you’re playing them by yourself or with a party of up to four. As you start each of the nine tombs you're given an introduction to the core puzzle type, whether it be reflecting the orb-destroying beam from the staff of Osiris, lighting torches that power gates, or finding the correct path through spike-laden grounds that escalate quickly into some truly tricky trials at the end of an excavation.In addition to the stages througout the campaign, there are also five "Challenge Tombs," each featuring a puzzle even tougher than the mandatory stuff. The pacing of the puzzles throughout this six-hour adventure is the key.
While there's a level of excitement that accompanies testing every new gun as you find them – machine-gun pistols, a magic staff, a rocket launcher, and a high-powered rifle – the resurrected rank and file populating Egypt never really poses much of a fight, save for a few boss fights and wave-based battle challenges available in the hub world.įortunately, the obstacles put in Lara's path more than make up for the average gunplay. It’s the Temple of Osiris itself that fills that void with creative level designs: From the lavish golden flourishes of a mirror-based temple to creepy green eyes adorning the poison-tinged traps, the biggest carrot dangling in front of me wasn't the resolution of Lara's battle against the Egyptian god Set or more loot, it was seeing what new hazardous wonders awaited Lara Croft and company.Much like Lara Croft's original adventures, combat in Temple of Osiris largely exists to fill the gaps between puzzles. The high-angle isometric perspective may work in terms of showing large sections of the visually distinct temples and properly framing the brain-bending puzzles, but even when engaging in rare banter with her team of co-op allies, this iconic adventurer heroine doesn't show anything resembling emotion or even vulnerability as we watch her explore the gorgeous yet dangerous environments from afar.
Consequently, a game that should be remembered for its graceful level design and collaborative spirit is, instead, condemned to the tomb of missed opportunity – a fine concept undermined by technical shortcomings.There's really only one thing missing from this version of Lara Croft: personality. Cut-scenes give way to players falling into an infinite abyss, leaving only a looping animation of their endlessly plummeting silhouette, and the save data between group and solo play also corrupted during our play through. Sadly, the co-op focus is betrayed by some genuinely crippling bugs. Played in isometric perspective, and supporting up to four temple-plundering team-mates, gameplay cycles between light run-and-gun combat and mental or navigational challenges that scale in accordance with the number of players. For better or worse, Temple of Osiris plays almost identically to its superb predecessor, the last top-down multiplayer Tomb Raider, Guardian of Light, meaning a hefty focus on co-op adventuring – hence two of us tackling this review together – as players gather artefacts to defeat the Egyptian god, Set. L ara Croft’s latest journey to the archaeological badlands returns to the puzzle-riddled tombs that saw her first make her name.