review
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POSTED 14/10/10


LARA CROFT AND THE GUARDIAN OF LIGHT

Square Enix



The most pneumatic heroine in gamedom is back – although something looks a bit, well, different. It took us a while (no it didn’t, we’re just trying to inject some drama), then we twigged. She doesn’t appear as, erm, buoyant as she once did. Could Lara’s programmificating handlers have matured a tad, bringing her proportions vaguely closer to those of real womankind?

Short answer (as this isn’t some raging feminist manifesto), apparently. Yay! However, when Ms Croft is trundling about pulling shafts and playing with balls we’re not going to give too much credit for the boys having grown up. But when they pop out a game this good, we’re prepared to overlook some trespasses.

Just don’t call it ‘Tomb Raider’ anything, for this is an adjunct to that particular legend, whereby our formerly floatatious heroine has entered the realm of isometric 3D, and buddied up with some Mayan bloke called Totec (the titular (no snickering, please) ‘Guardian of Light’). A big nasty demon’s been released, and they must negate it. End of story.

LCatGoL is, in many ways, two games. The solo campaign’s challenging, what with the puzzling, jumping, lancing, shooting, shimmying, collecting, achieving challenges, boss defeating and general arcadiness that you contend with. But kick this baby into two-player co-op and the whole experience goes up a notch, as the emphasis is very much on teamwork.

Some worship Lara Croft games for the heroine’s polygonical beauty. We were too distracted by the gorgeous vistas, time-sucking gameplay and myriad urns to smash (after all, urns are the new red barrels). If this had been a boxed game we’d have been titillated – but as it’s a more affordable download we’re just really bloody impressed.

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ALL WRITTEN CONTENT COPYRIGHT © AMY FLOWER 2008-2018. GAME IMAGES COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE GAMES COMPANIES.