Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: Xbox One
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris – Review
Lara Croft is back and as expected she once again finds herself in quite the predicament in this newest adventure. This is the second Lara Croft game that does not opt for the typical third-person view but rather a top-down approach. It seems the game does not end up being a forgotten relic but rather and interesting tomb to explore. Pack your guns, flashlight and enter the Temple of Osiris.
Story
It seems Lara has gone from going solo to becoming a duet after her rival Carter Bell has entered the temple of Osiris. When dwelling through the temple of Osiris, it seems Lara and her competitor Carter have stumbled upon what seems to be the staff of Osiris. Trying to be the first who gets to go home with the ‘prize’, Carter removes to the staff from its resting place, which had a fairly horrible consequence.
Both Lara and Carter have awakened a divine being, namely the evil god Set, who is kind enough to curse the duo, even though they have released him. Luckily, in the process of waking up Set, the unlikely duet also wake up the kindhearted Isis and Horus, who still have some powers left, albeit limited ones.
To undo the curse that has been set upon Lara and Carter and to completely release Isis and Horus from their tomblike prison, they will have to find the pieces of Osiris, which are scattered throughout what seems to be a massive temple. Of course Set will do his best to foil the plans of the quartet of heroes.
Overall the story is brought to you in a fairly basic but interesting way. You will be treated to a decent amount of short cutscenes, in order to keep things fun and exciting enough to keep crawling through tomb after tomb.
Graphics
Graphically the game does not really have the wow-factor the Tomb Raider reboot had two years ago but nonetheless, for a top-down version of our favorite British heroine, the game looks quite good. Lara looks like her good looking self and the rest of the cast has their own fun distinct features.
With the top-down view, the environments will prove an important role when it comes to the overall visuals. Even though the game situates itself in the temple of Osiris, there is still a lot of difference when it comes to the overall themes of the game. There’s a lot of difference between a certain amount of the temples, the overworld of the game looks detailed and the game has a fair amount of destructible objects, which give the impression that your environment is somewhat alive.
Sound
When booting up the game, you will immediately be blasted away with the quite ‘epic’ intro-theme. This theme proves to be very fitting for the journey you’re about to embark upon. During the game itself, you will occasionally be bombarded with quite adventurous tunes to highlight certain events, which proves to be a nice touch to the overall atmosphere of the game.
Voice acting proves to be just right. That being said, don’t expect wondrous dialogues but rather basic but good short conversations, in order to keep the mood right.
Gameplay
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is a true adventure puzzle platformer with the necessary dose of gun battles. You will find yourself crawling, running and jumping through a dozen of dungeons, tombs and crypts in order to achieve your goal of collecting the pieces of Osiris or just fun extra power ups.
When entering the temple, which at first just looks like an ordinary forgotten structure, you will notice that you will actually enter a fairly big area that will serve as the ‘hub’ for the rest of your gaming experience. This hub proves to be a big semi-open world, which presents you with a fair amount of puzzles, platforming and a small dose of monster slaying. After each tomb you will always come back to this overworld in order to either go back to the center (for story purposes) or navigate yourself towards the next tomb.
The main goal of the game is collecting pieces of the Osiris statue, in order to release his powers, escape and aid your divine helpers in the process. These pieces can be found throughout the different tombs across the map. Crawling through the tombs will present you with a decent amount of obstacles, be it puzzles, monsters, platforming or even boss battles.
Overall the puzzles prove to be quite doable when you’re playing on your own, but when playing with more than one player, you will immediately notice the increase in difficulty. Whilst the single players prove to be fun yet challenging, the multiplayer variant can be quite frustrating if you’re playing the game as someone who’s new to the genre. The game changes the lay-out of the stage when you play with more than one player, which in the end proves to be a great addition if you decide to be ready for harder puzzles and if you simply want ‘other’ content you haven’t played before.
A few mechanics tend to differ when playing alone or with friends. For example, Osiris’ staff is an important item to solve puzzling, seeing you will need it to activate certain objects to create paths etc. When playing alone, it will always take up one of the four weapon slots in your inventory, when playing multiplayer, only the ‘god’ characters, will get the staff in their inventory. A second difference is the fact that only Lara tends to have a grappling hook when playing multiplayer. It’s fun to have these slight differences when playing multiplayer, seeing you will have to work together instead of having one player solve all the puzzles whilst the others just watch.
For those who can’t be satisfied with the main tombs the game throws at you, there are secondary tombs with their own unique puzzles. Even though you will not earn a piece of the Osiris statue, you will earn other goodies such as passive upgrades or weaponry. A fun touch for the true archeologists amongst you.
There are a few options to play Lara or the character you fancy (when playing multiplayer) in a way you’d prefer. Throughout the game you will find a decent amount of weaponry and jewelry that you can use to kill certain monsters more easily or to buff your character. A lot of the jewelry you find throughout the game will be stashed away in treasure chests. To open these chests you will need a specific amount of gems that are scattered throughout the tombs. You will see a difference between chests when it comes to the required gems to open them. As is to be expected, those with higher costs often give you better items than the cheaper ones.
The only mishap the game seems to suffer from are the controls, which often prove to be annoying when platforming. Some movements don’t register correctly all the time but other than that, there are no real issues with the game.
Conclusion
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris proves to be one of those spin-offs that is actually worth it. With the low retail price, the decent amount of content and the difference between single player and multiplayer you will surely get your money’s worth out of this title. In short: Don’t fret about getting your clothes dirty, because it will be worth it.
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris - Review,
No Comments