Okay – get ready for a rant and a half!
Although I did enjoy many aspects of this game there was unfortunately many extremely annoying aspects that just did not balance it out in any shape or form. So, the first annoying issue I had was every single time someone joined or left your game you had to reload your game. This was extremely irritating for many reasons. First was the fact that you could be in the middle of an epic boss battle and be seconds away from defeating him, then someone decides to join or leave your game and the whole thing is reset and you have to start the whole boss battle again. The Co-op mode also does not pair four people with you straight away but rather just starts with one other person which means you are guaranteed to be interrupted at the very least two more times and this does not f
actor in the people that are lousy at puzzle games and keep joining and quitting.
Second, if you have a player who is simply being annoying and won’t help out, or who keeps running to the other end of the screen to stop you from continuing in your game there is no way of knowing which player he or she is. This means that when trying to kick a player out you haven’t got a clue who to kick out as it only shows you their online name in the menu and in- game it only shows you the characters, so there is no way to differentiate (I had to kick a player out for constantly bombing me and not the enemy on purpose and the only reason I could kick him out was because the three other people all had mics so I could only see one player with no mic and knew it was him). This actually annoyed me so much that I decided to quit the offline and not play it again for the rest of the game, it was just too much hassle with interrupting the game what felt like every two minutes adding and removing players and setting me back. The only thing that is somewhat good about the online mode is how the game mechanics change and you have to rely on each other to get further through the game as you haven’t all got the same weapons available to you.
Aside from the incredibly bad online set up, there are another few issues. These issues were not as annoying for me – could anything be more annoying than the above? I found the game was actually way too easy and didn’t really challenge me in any way. The mini challenges for each tomb were probably the hardest, and to be honest they still weren’t that hard. As well as this the game was far too short. I was expecting a longer more difficult game or at least a replay mode that was more difficult, but to no avail. Finally, the last thing I will moan about is overall the game had not really built upon Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light. The only difference really was the online co-op which as we know is done very poorly. The game is the exact same only for it being set in a dessert.
Finally, I can get to the good. The game itself is good fun and very enjoyable. It is very light and easy entertainment. The storyline is easy to follow and actually quite good considering it’s simplicity. The map in the game is also very easy to navigate. The statues dotted around also point you in the direction you need to go, so if you knock off your game and turn it on the following day and can’t remember wheat you were doing last it is very easy to get back on track. There is also a good amount of extras to collect and discover as you are running around in the game mostly consisting of health, ammo, relics, amulets, weapons and outfits. The best part of this game is definitely the boss battles, they are quite epic and some require a little bit of skill and a puzzle solving mind, and grant a good sense of accomplishment when defeated.
In conclusion, it really seems like the developers need to go back to the drawing board and re-consider the online aspect and how it works. The offline side of things was pretty good but again just an extra mode or longer game would have given it what it needed.
Good game to pass the time, but nothing more. 5/10
