In the midst of a three-player session, my partners and I stumbled into a challenge tomb that involved standing on pressure plates to stop freezing ice from shooting from the floors. The most impressive example in my playthrough was a challenge tomb - a one-room bonus area with a single, extra-difficult puzzle to solve. Likewise, playing with more players adds an element of teamwork to the puzzles. If you have a couple of friends with you in the Tomb of the Ferryman, more supernatural enemies will spawn, and they'll be more tenacious. But adding players affects both of these elements. The temples generally divide time between simple combat, where you aim your weapons with the right analog stick while moving with the left, and the much more complex puzzles, which are the real star of the game. The camera works this way both during local and online co-op, and it has a limit to how far it will zoom out as well. Rather than giving each player their own view of the action, you share a single camera that zooms out further and further as characters spread out. Multiple characters bouncing around the screen makes it difficult to keep track of your own character. The unshifting perspective was especially an issue in co-op. The locked point-of-view makes it difficult to judge some of those jumps. This works fine for 90 percent of the game, but - as you might expect from the acrobatic Croft - you'll need to perform some tricky platforming at certain points. The biggest issue comes from Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris' top-down view. Co-op was a delight in that game in Temple of Osiris it's simultaneously the best part of the Lara's new adventure and the part where its weaknesses are most evident. Other players can take on the roles of Carter, Horus and Isis for up to four-player co-op multiplayer - up from two-player co-op in Guardian of Light. Temple of Osiris' sizable cast isn't just around to serve as a sounding board for Lara's jokes, though. No cutscenes in the game run longer than 30 seconds aside from the intro and the ending, and you won't miss much if you skip them aside from some bland witticisms from Lara and friends. The Temple of Osiris embraces dime-novel action storytelling - emphasis on the action, not the storytelling. They're joined by two more mythological figures, Horus and Isis, as they attempt to resurrect Osiris and stop Set from destroying the world.Īs you may have determined by the number of living, breathing gods involved, this isn't a dark, dreary, hyper-realistic tale. In a short introduction, the two adventurers delve into the ruins and inadvertently wake up Set, the evil deity responsible for Osiris' death. She discovers an ancient temple devoted to the god Osiris, but her celebration is short-lived, as rival archaeologist Carter Bell races her inside. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris finds our hero on a journey to the pyramids of Egypt. The Temple of Osiris embraces dime-novel action storytelling but it's also undeniably skilled at what it does. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris isn't really what I'm looking for in the series at this point. It's focused on arcade action, avoiding deadly traps and solving puzzles, with very little storytelling, character development or lofty cinematic goals to get in the way. While work on a sequel to 2013's Tomb Raider continues, The Temple of Osiris picks up where 2010's Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light left off. I understood the disappointment some felt at the loss of the traditional action hero in Croft, but she was now a character I found myself much more invested in.Īs it turns out, Square Enix and developed Crystal Dynamics had a little secret: The death-defying, one-liner-tossing classic version of Lara Croft wasn't gone at all. After more than 15 years of pulpy, Indiana Jones-inspired adventuring and treasure plundering, last year's reboot - simply titled Tomb Raider - reimagined the series and its protagonist as more dramatic and emotional, though still badass.
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