This write-up probably won’t be very long, because there really isn’t a whole lot to talk about. I was actually looking forward to Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris when it was announced. I downloaded the first game in the Lara Croft side series on the Xbox 360, something which coincidentally is still in my 360 backlog (but I’m not going anywhere near that nightmare, not yet). Yet, it released with a bit of a thud, with several key differences from the first. The main one was the fact that the puzzles in the tombs scaled, depending on how many players were cooperating. It was an interesting concept, but I remember reading in reviews that while the four player puzzles were adequate, if you played alone it was very underwhelming.
Having just played through the entirety of it all by my lonesome, I can attest to that statement. The puzzles, while some of them were clever, never really went much further than “put heavy object on plate” or “bomb stuff.” Lara’s skill set never changes from start to finish, though she does find rings and pendants that give her buffs and elemental advantages, plus she does get better weapons by completing challenge goals.
It’s almost laid out like a mobile game. The constant collecting of gems to open chests made me feel like there was originally going to be a pay model, but it was scrapped at the last minute. In fact, everything about the game feels kinda cheap. Not cheap as in unfair, but it almost feels like it started out as a generic game, and they substituted one of the characters out with Lara and named it after her. The camera is pulled really far back most of the time, and the characters are tiny. I assume this was for co-op purposes, but damn, if it wasn’t for the animation of Lara approaching the relics, the only way we’d know it was her was because her name was in the title. That’s a shame, because she’s the original femme fatale of video games, and now with the reboots making her a more realistic and grounded character, this Lara is our only chance left to see the good ol’ blue tank top.
If it wasn’t for the cutscene of Lara touching the statue piece, we wouldn’t even know what she looked like.
I would’ve liked to see more variety. I mean, I know it’s literally called the Temple of Osiris, but stomping around the same area for the entirety of the game is a tad dull. I will give it credit for making the last few tombs truly unique, even if they still used the same basic mechanics throughout. The first two-thirds of the game are rinse-and-repeat affairs.
The saving grace for L.C. and the Temple of Osiris was that it didn’t overstay its welcome. Unlike Darksiders, the developers here knew when to wrap it up. Most of the tombs are short enough to not be a chore, with the exception of maybe a couple that had a puzzle mechanic I just didn’t want to deal with. That’s totally personal preference though, I just don’t like certain kinds of puzzles. Overall the game, while not bad, definitely doesn’t try too hard to hook you. There’s nothing here that’s terrible, but nothing that makes you really want to keep going. Luckily I had my personal motivations to push me onward.
Hmm, this really ended up sounding like a review. That wasn’t my intention, but what else could I have talked about?
Be sure to follow along on the Backlog Bingo page to stay up to date on my ever-diminishing pile of shame. As a bonus, you might have noticed an image is behind those games. Call it an homage to Major League.
Like I said, personal motivations.
