William Bibbiani Reviews Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light!
This isn’t the kind of compliment that makes it onto the advertisements, but Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light made me forget all about my laundry. It’s not a terribly complicated game and it’s not going to change the way you view videogames as an art form, but it’s involving enough to make you completely neglect your day-to-day activities for quite a few hours. It’s highly recommended.
I never played any of the Tomb Raider games before this. I have it on good authority that the protagonist has breasts, but that’s about all I’m confident about. So I don’t have my opinion of this Xbox Live Arcade game elevated or diminished based on prior experience. Rumor has it that the series has dipped in quality somewhat over the last decade or so, which explains franchise’s very sudden creative shift. Gone with the 3rd person action-platforming, and in with the… 3/4-down action-platforming. Well, I guess nobody asked developer Crystal Dynamics to completely reinvent the wheel. The new camera angle does deemphasize those breasts I’ve heard so much about, so maybe Guardian of Light is all part of an elaborate scheme to alienate Lara Croft’s target demographic. Thank heavens it holds up on gameplay alone.
In the game, Lara Croft finds a cursed mirror in Central America that awakens Xolotl, an ancient God with a pretty serious chip on his shoulder, although that chip might just be a piece of all the ruins lying around. (For a supposedly “lost” civilization, there sure seems to be an awful lot of it.) Lara needs to defeat Xolotl before the sun rises, and to assist her arrives Totec, an ancient warrior type who gets resurrected also as a failsafe or something. If you’re playing cooperatively, Lara and Totec will fight off wave after wave of enemies and assist each other in navigating treacherous terrain using their individual weapons as tools. If you’re playing a single-player campaign, Totec has the decency to sit out most of the game and let Lara solve her own problems, of which she is apparently more than capable.
To the game’s credit both the single and multiplayer campaigns work well, and it’s refreshing to see a developer actually alter the game based on whether or not their audience has any friends. In single player Lara Croft encounters slight variations on the puzzles she’d have to solve with Totec that allow her to navigate the game solo, and it’s still challenging enough that you won’t feel like you’re missing anything by not socializing. It’s a well-crafted experience, often difficult but rarely hairpullingly hard.
The Good: There are a few particularly clever levels in which Lara has to ascend a tall tower solving puzzles along the way in order to drop boulders below you to activate a switch on the first floor. The boss fights are few but varied: I’m particularly fond of a T-Rex who can best be destroyed by rockets, but you never have enough ammo so you have to repeatedly navigate a time-sensitive platform mid-fight in order to reach the stockpile located in the center of the stage. There are also a decent variety of enemies, many of which have distinctive requirements in order to take them down. Plant monsters explode into debilitating poisonous gas, so you’ll need to keep your distance. Skeletons keep resurrecting themselves unless you blow them up while they’re down, so you need to stay close by them instead. These monsters often attack in packs with each species represented, keeping the run-and-gun action from feeling ho-hum by forcing you to alternate your battle plans on the fly.
They’re extinct NOW, bitch.
The Bad: Nitpicks mostly. There’s the usual head-scratching action game nonsense here. Ancient plant monsters seem to be carrying an awful lot of grenade launcher ammunition, for example, and the quickest way to run is once again by rolling around like an idiot. As with many 3D platformers collision can sometimes be an issue, and I predict that on more than one occasion you’ll be screaming “But the ledge was RIGHT THERE!” But here’s something new: Every time you die the music dies down like your old cassette player has just run out of batteries. It’s a weird choice, and not conducive to suspense. Here you are, running from a giant fish monster and OH NO! You miss a jump. Instead of the soundtrack fading out, ceasing suddenly or just cutting to the last checkpoint, the game has to remind you that all forward momentum has been lost, and more annoyingly that you’re the one who screwed it up. This is the kind of sound effect you’d find in a trailer for the Scary Movie franchise, and it only adds insult to pretty serious injury, particularly on those occasions when you find yourself dying over and over again.
Story takes a back seat in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and that’s a good thing too because whenever it pops up you’ll wish it would just go away. Like I said, I am unfamiliar with most of the Tomb Raiders but I get the impression that this is the Saturday Morning Cartoon version of the franchise. At least, I hope it is. After the concept is established, every single plot point boils down to: “Xolotl went that way. Let’s follow him!” And indeed you do. As with many children’s adventure stories, Xolotl doesn’t seem like that much of a threat anyway. Think about it: A single human being is able to take him and all of his minions down using standard military issue weapons. Even if Lara fails, the national guard in whatever the hell country Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light takes place in should be able to handle it, no problem. But the worst offender has to be the dialogue, which appears to have been cut and pasted from an old episode of “Captain Video.” There’s a bit where Xolotl says he’d like to make a robe out of Lara Croft’s fine skin, to which she cleverly replies, “We’ll see about that!” Also be on the lookout for cameo appearances by the witty “Looks like you’re out of luck” and the classic zinger “Don’t hold your breath,” but these comebacks are old-timers by now, and at the risk of sounding cruel they’re really just embarrassing themselves these days. Time to retire, boys.
Minor quibbles aside, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light be straight up ballin’.
Again: Nitpicks. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light may have a weird title (Totec’s the guardian of a mirror, guys) but it’s a solid game, particularly for an Xbox Live Arcade release. Even on the easiest difficulty setting you’ll probably be able to wrest anywhere from six to eight hours of gameplay for less than $20. In contrast, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days comes out this same week, costs $60, and somehow has an even shorter single-player campaign (albeit with more robust multiplayer offerings). Lara Croft may a simple game but it’s an entertaining one. If you’re looking for much more than that, then don’t hold your breath, because it looks like you’re out of luck.
