“So, I see that red skull up there and also a golden ring but how am I supposed to get up there?”
“I could poke spears in the wall.”
“But the angle is all wrong.”
“What if I start from here and you grapple there and then I jump on the rope and then throw the spear there?”
“And then you can shield me up to get to the first spear, I can detonate my bomb at the same time.”
“And then you can pull me up…”
“And we can blow up the giant spiky ball!”
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is an isometric adventure treasure-hunting game that can be – and is most definitely meant to be – played with two players.
According to the story Lara has found an ancient Mayan artifact, the mirror of smoke but some mercenaries immediately steal it from her and unleash Xolotl, the Keeper of Darkness. Lara teams up with Totec, the Guardian of Light, who seems to have zero problems with the English language and machine guns. Together they beat a series of puzzles, traps, and a plethora of evil minions.
The story is pretty minimalistic, and simply serves as an excuse to place all the events inside ancient temples riddled with elaborate contraptions. There are a couple of cutscenes, some cinematics, but it is all pretty meaningless. There is nothing wrong with this, the game is pure fun, and let’s be honest, nobody expects deep existential dilemmas from a Lara Croft game. Maybe in twenty years we could get an old disappointed Lara with a deep, heart-wrenching story a’la God of War 4. I would definitely play that.
The Good
The two playable characters (Lara and Totec), each have unique skills that you need to combine to solve the puzzles. The level design is clever and detailed, the puzzles are the right amount of challenging, you do need to think about them, but not for too long, and then at the end you do feel good about yourself for solving them. Some of the riddles are genuinely memorable and intricate, so the game definitely deserves praise for it.
Furthermore, it is not enough to just solve all the puzzles and reach the end of the level, each run is scored and you get upgrades and weapons for reaching a higher score. There are also different challenges (e.g. finish getting something into something in ten seconds), that would earn artifacts, relics, weapons, points, etc. These challenges are for achievement-hunters mostly, they don’t impact the game too much, you will do perfectly fine without that extra pair of uzis. You will get the essential weapons during the levels anyway, and the rest is just for fun or for that weird breed of people who are obsessed with achievements.
The combat is simple, lots of explosions and bright colours while you just try to shoot all the evil minions dead. The game offers different weapons (shotgun, uzi, rocket launcher, etc), so everyone can find the weapon most fitting to their playstyle. The two characters differ in the riddle-solving abilities, but are pretty much the same when it comes to combat. Totec seems to be very comfortable with machine guns, so he gives up throwing spears at monsters pretty quickly. Occasionally you can also use the environment to do damage, e.g. blowing up oil barrels or trucks.
This is a very sad-adult topic, but another great thing about this game is the length. It is just the right amount, long enough to be memorable, short enough to not get boring and daunting for working people.
The Bad
The controls are wonky, to say the least. Both characters have to be on the same screen and if one of them would walk out of it, the other player gets dragged with the screen. Yes, it is as annoying as it sounds, and more often than not this phenomena results in someone dying and being pissed about it.
The Co-Op
Overall, the game would be pretty mediocre if not for the co-operative element. Somehow this game achieves that great feeling when you play with someone and you really feel like you are doing it Together. Each puzzle requires input from both characters, there are no situations that can be solved alone. Even messing up is just purely hilarious. In our little gaming team I am the one who sucks at dexterity games, so avoiding obstacles and jumping through falling rocks on a timer is really not my strong suit. However, during this game I never got frustrated, whenever I fell from somewhere we just laughed about it, respawned, and continued on.
The Recommendation
We recommend this game for players who just want to have some casual fun, and don’t mind some mild puzzle-solving. It’s not a groundbreaking achievement of the industry by any means, but it’s fun and entertaining, and if you like treasures and guns, and have a buddy to share this enthusiasm with, this game is for you.
Info
| Release Year | 2010 |
| Genre | Action-Adventure, Puzzle |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Number of Players | 2 to 2 |
| Length | 5 - 10 hours |
Rating
| Overall | Good |
| Story | Bad |
| Co-Operation | Good |