There has always been a certain intimacy with the Tomb Raider games. Being from the third person perspective, right behind her as she jumps, dodges, and shoots has always made me feel like I was more her sidekick than her controller. It always felt like you were just one step removed from the action, when she would drown or miss a jump and leap to her death you were right behind her when she did, following her over the cliff or listening to her gasping death. You saw what she saw, so if something came sneaking up from behind you knew when she did and swung around to face the enemy. With the new style you see the whole screen and you know where the enemies are hiding and where they will attack from. You anticipate their moves and go grab treasure that she never could have seen from her perspective. In this you gain the advantage of knowing where everything is and what will be your next obstacle or reward. This definitely makes for a fast playing, quick shooting game, but when she leaps to her death you think of her last save point and not so much that she just leapt to her death. It has lost it’s intimacy. That may be why this doesn’t carry the Tomb Raider brand, it is the same character in the same kind of setting but an entirely different experience. As long as you are fine with that this is an excellent arcade game.

Atmosphere:
Though not immersive like the Tomb Raider games, the levels are well designed and are well rendered jungles and ruins. The cut scenes vary between motion comic and animated and all add to the feeling that you could be in a local arcade plunking tokens in and fighting your way through. The storyline is told during the cutscenes for the most part leaving you to concentrate on the action when you have control.

Gameplay/Controls:
I tried playing it with both the keyboard and the game pad and the game pad won hands down on both responsiveness and ease of control. The keyboard could be a little tricky and unresponsive when it came to diagonal jumps while the same sections are a breeze with the game pad. Shooting accuracy is better with the mouse but since that usually isn’t much of a concern the game pad seems by far the best choice. It is a standard Run/Jump/Shoot/Action setup with periodic items that give you bonuses and minuses on stats and weapon upgrades. Single player you get a spear at the beginning of the game which has unlimited throws so you will probably find yourself only changing to other weapons for mini-bosses and bosses or just for the fun of it.

Achievements:
Achievements are setup in three basic ways: speed, skill, and exploration. There are achievements for clearing levels or beating bosses in a certain amount of time, there are achievements for making certain jumps, shots, or puzzle completions a certain way and there are achievements for finding all of certain treasures or relics. Because all of these achievements can’t be completed at the same time it sets the game up for replayability at least a couple of times because while you can do the skill and exploration achievements at the same time, you can’t complete all the time ones if you do.

Multiplayer:
Multiplayer is a lot of fun because completing puzzles and getting to treasures require teamwork. Each player plays one of the two main characters (in single player you just play one while the other periodically interacts in cut scenes) and that character has certain strengths and weaknesses. I won’t go into too much detail because finding these out is part of the fun but I will say sometimes clearing an obstacle requires one player to use a primary talent so the other player can complete the task. Achievements are rewarded to both players and should be a consideration when looting. It is possible for one player to horde most of the loot, which can bring out the competitive nature in some folks leaving one person to fight off the enemy while the other collects the loot. This can actually have a benefit because some achievements are based off of how many points are reached so if one player does most of the kill blows and collects most of the treasure then both players will get the achievements. The fact that there is so much teamwork involved in the game really made multiplayer tons of fun and very replayable.

Replay/Play Time/Cost:
Replay is a no-brainer on this title because the achievements are set up for a miniumum of two plays and multiplayer is so much fun. How long it takes to play through really depends on what achievements you try for and which control setup you choose. If you play on the game pad and go for speed it is only a few hours of play. If you play for skill and exploration and stick with the keyboard and have some problems with the jump it could take you quite a bit longer. Longest play time on a once through would probably be about 10 hours. The game will run you $14.99 from Steam or 1200 points for the XBox 360 so it is pretty cheap for a new title with built-in replay, even if some of the play throughs may be a bit short time-wise.

Last Call:
The game was made as a departure from the Tomb Raider series so if you can get past that and enjoy an isometric arcade game that just happens to have the same character name and take place in a similar environment as the Tomb Raider games then Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a great play at a good price.

*DISCLOSURE: A copy of this game was sent to us for the purpose of this review.