Ruslan74
17th August 2010, 11:34 AM
A whooping 9/10 from Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-16-lara-croft-and-the-guardian-of-light-review)!
Squeezing an entire new Tomb Raider game into a downloadable nugget – admittedly, a rather chunky one, at just over 2GB – has necessarily involved some downsizing. Guardian of Light's opening cinematic is a series of stills with none of the acrobatic action-heroine antics or sharp delivery that we've come to expect from Crystal Dynamics' take on Lara Croft. Before you take your first steps into Guardian of Light's first temple, you wonder whether Tomb Raider without the pizazz can possibly be the same.
Guardian of Light is emphatically not the same, but that's no bad thing. It's a radical departure from every game in the series to date, both in its isometric 3D viewpoint and its arcade-style controls. And yet, it's still unmistakeably Tomb Raider: still a cerebral and exciting mix of puzzles and action. Once you get used to the change in perspective, you forget that things were ever otherwise.
Most significantly, the classic action-platforming structure has been reworked for two, resulting in one of the cleverest and most enjoyable co-operative games you'll ever have the pleasure of playing. It turns out there was a superb multiplayer game hidden in the Tomb Raider formula all along.
Guardian of Light's 14 levels are surprisingly vast, full of hidden areas and collectible gems, and they're mostly real, honest-to-goodness tombs: musty, vine-covered tombs, volcanic tombs with falling rock and bubbling magma, vertiginous spider-filled mazes, all full of traps and pressure plates and tantalisingly inaccessible ledges. They're unfailingly well-designed and easy to read; despite the fixed camera, it's always easy to tell whether or not you can make a jump. They take between 20 and 40 minutes to conquer on your first try, giving the campaign a good six to eight hours depending on your skills with firearms and lateral thinking.
Remember that this version ONLY has local coop, the online coop patch will be out in mid September. Going to download it tomorrow!
Squeezing an entire new Tomb Raider game into a downloadable nugget – admittedly, a rather chunky one, at just over 2GB – has necessarily involved some downsizing. Guardian of Light's opening cinematic is a series of stills with none of the acrobatic action-heroine antics or sharp delivery that we've come to expect from Crystal Dynamics' take on Lara Croft. Before you take your first steps into Guardian of Light's first temple, you wonder whether Tomb Raider without the pizazz can possibly be the same.
Guardian of Light is emphatically not the same, but that's no bad thing. It's a radical departure from every game in the series to date, both in its isometric 3D viewpoint and its arcade-style controls. And yet, it's still unmistakeably Tomb Raider: still a cerebral and exciting mix of puzzles and action. Once you get used to the change in perspective, you forget that things were ever otherwise.
Most significantly, the classic action-platforming structure has been reworked for two, resulting in one of the cleverest and most enjoyable co-operative games you'll ever have the pleasure of playing. It turns out there was a superb multiplayer game hidden in the Tomb Raider formula all along.
Guardian of Light's 14 levels are surprisingly vast, full of hidden areas and collectible gems, and they're mostly real, honest-to-goodness tombs: musty, vine-covered tombs, volcanic tombs with falling rock and bubbling magma, vertiginous spider-filled mazes, all full of traps and pressure plates and tantalisingly inaccessible ledges. They're unfailingly well-designed and easy to read; despite the fixed camera, it's always easy to tell whether or not you can make a jump. They take between 20 and 40 minutes to conquer on your first try, giving the campaign a good six to eight hours depending on your skills with firearms and lateral thinking.
Remember that this version ONLY has local coop, the online coop patch will be out in mid September. Going to download it tomorrow!