Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris Preview

 

Recently I was able to spend some time with Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris, the follow-up title to Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light. When any press attends these sorts of events to play a demo build for an up-coming title such as this, it is definitely a tense time for developers and publishers alike. When I sat down to play the demo I was immediately informed by a Square Enix representative that this title is best played together and she jumped in to help me out, which ended up being a blast. To start off you can choose from four different characters, Lara Croft of course the dynamic treasure hunter, Carter another rising star in the field and two gods Isis and Horus, who are both Egyptian Gods for those of you who fell asleep during history class.

Lara and her human companion both have the same abilities, which include a grappling hook to reach those high places, and burning brands. While the gods feature an encompassing shield and a staff of power. These abilities are dynamically changed if you wish to play the game in solo mode, where your character will have both the grappling hook and staff to enable you to overcome those puzzles. However, I played it in co-op and honestly this is exactly how Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris should be played. The level we played had various different puzzles and traps to overcome but you will need to work together in order to overcome these obstacles, for instance Lara will use the grappling hook to climb up on high ledges and once at the top she will attach it to another character and pull them up. Another instance is the gods using their shield as a platform to aid players to jump and reach high places. This all sounds pretty standard co-op play, and it is, until you find out that throughout each level you, as an individual player, will be scored on your performance. Thus enters the competitive side of things and these will see you being a bit devious, for example you will be competing for gems that are dropped by enemies or broken items in the environment. 

Thanks for the spikes Horus

When you have four players all scrambling around trying to kill everything in sight, collecting all the gems before your opponent, and aiding each other through the quests, it fast becomes one of the most hectically fun titles I have played in an age. We are all a bit greedy when it comes to gaming and will always want to be on top, so if you grapple your way to the top, you can simply leave the god player below while you collect the gems first. This is also true using the god characters as their staff is the only thing that will raise certain platforms to progress, and in turn you may also collect all the items before aiding others. This rapidly turns into a frantic dash only stopped by how helpful your companions are willing to be, and as a party game this would just be an absolute blast. The Square Enix representative said they like to call the gameplay “co-petitive”, which I think describes the tremendously fun action perfectly. With players remotely triggering spikes and impaling their supposed friend, I quickly found out that it’s all out war, and although you may need each other, you enjoy letting another player fall to his death as he is climbing up your grappling rope. As in the previous title all characters have bombs that they can plant and detonate, these rapidly become another tool in the war between players, as you fall prey to being blown off the edge of a platform or get downed so the gems can be collected.

All this play seems more conducive to a war game in which you are all enemies, or a deathmatch on COD, but you still need these other players to progress, so as much as you want to be the best, you won’t finish without their help. So what comes around, goes around, and you can easily become trapped if you refuse to simply get along! With many gamers somewhat peeved about Rise Of The Tomb Raider being exclusive to Xbox One, you can always get your Lara fix with this gem. I do suggest that playing online may be fun, but having some mates around to play this title is a definite must, as you can always kick them if they fail to help you before they steal all the collectables. I can see Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris being a definite hit that will delight gamers with it’s co-petitive gameplay. I am looking forward to this game very much.