Still waiting to hear if co-op mode has made it into the game.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will be released in Nov 2011 for the Xperia PLAY.

For those who haven’t played the game on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Guardian of Light is not your standard Tomb Raider game. Instead it’s a 3rd person, non-linear adventure game. There is also an emphasis on co-operative gameplay as you control either Lara or an ancient Mayan tribesman called Totec through puzzle-infested levels in search of treasure. You have to work together to survive, rather than just lone wolfing it through the game as in previous Lara Croft adventures.

No word yet on whether the multiplayer component, which allowed you and a friend to take on the levels together either locally or over Xbox LIVE has made it into the Xperia PLAY. There aren’t any screenshots available of the Xperia PLAY version so you’ll have to make do with these lovely shots from Xbox LIVE arcade release.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light will be released in Nov 2011 for the Xperia PLAY.

The first DLC pack entitled “All the trappings” will be free for 30 days, so download it quick before you have to pay for it. This pack gives players a whole new area to pillage and destroy explore.

However, this update is only for Xbox 360 owners at the moment. As for PlayStation 3 and PC owners, their update is “coming soon.”

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is out now on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Has a character redesign ruined how you feel about a character?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I was a big fan of Lara Croft as a teenager. In a world saturated with male action stars, male scientists and, of course, male archaeologists, Lara was a welcome sight. Here was a kick-ass woman who could climb up impossibly high walls, pilot speedboats and take on a pack of tigers while doing backflips. She faced down T-Rexes and supernatural monstrosities of the highest order. And she did it all by herself.

Hollywood gets involved and what do they do? Give her a man. But not just one. Nooo, now Lara needs a whole pack of men to help her out. Men researching what to do, men whispering in her ear to tell her where to go, men telling her how to use her own equipment. In one fell swoop she was reduced from self-sufficient adventuress trailblazer to just another woman who can’t handle things by herself.

Not impressed. Not impressed at all.

This post was part of Gamer Banter, a monthly video game discussion coordinated by Terry at Game Couch. If you’re interested in being part of this, please email him for details.

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• Pioneer Project: A Change in Development
• Oxcgn: New Look Character Redesigns A Good Idea – Or Bad?

Short and sweet background to the upcoming Tomb Raider Underworld. No sign of the ominous QTEs yet :)

You could ask, well why don’t you unlock them yourself by actually playing the game? Well, errm, good question. Anyway, here’s the lowdown on unlocking the bikini outfits:

• Cream bikini - Complete the game and all time trials
• Black bikini – Complete the game, all time trails and collect all artifacts

So far I’ve nearly collected all the artifacts, but completed none of the time trials (and these are quite hard). So I’ve still got some way to go. However, when you’ve finally got Lara all dressed up in her bikini outfit you find that she can’t go outside! You can only use the outfits within the confines of Croft Manor. Boo. Very disappointing.

Black bikini:

Cream bikini:

Related posts:
Read Tikipod’s review of Tomb Raider – Legend here.

Update 11th Aug: You can now replace Lara’s white bikini with a black lingerie (sort of see-through) version by using this patch (235k) which is available from fileplanet here. This patch is only for the PC version (obviously), and also includes a 100% complete save game with every outfit unlocked for your viewing pleasure.

Update 2nd Jan 09: The Sun newspaper has a slideshow (23 pics) of the latest real life Lara Croft – Alison Carroll in a bikini and in her Tomb Raider outfit.

Update 28th Sep 09: There’s an awesome Lara Croft bikini mod, for all your Lara bikini modding needs!

Check out all the Tomb Raider stuff on offer.

Age rating: 12+

What is it?

Adventure, action, but not really enough puzzles.

Is it fun?

Yes, for the most part.

Is it worth the money? £29.99 (from Play.com)

Yes, but the game is a little short (…I am seeing a theme recurring here)

Why?

Now Tomb Raider Legend has been released, the first Tomb Raider game in a long time. I heard Angel of Darkness (the most recent TR title before this) was utter pants, and was even blamed for the poor box office showing of the second film (which was a tad harsh, I wasn’t keen on either of the films) – I never played it though, having mostly given up on the franchise after playing TR3 (too much mucking about with flares for my liking).

I was really keen to see the new game regain the franchise’s former glory, and have just played through the PS2 version. How does it fare then?

My first Tomb Raider experience was playing TR2 on my old Playstation1 – it was the first PS1 game I bought (released a month after I bought the console – so I had to endure the games on the demo disk in the mean time). When it finally arrived I thought it was faaaan- flippin – tastic! A real 3D game that made you look in all directions, back in the days when many games were still only 2 dimensional in actual gameplay (although the art was 3D).

At the time of its release some would fault its choice to allow you to save at any place and reliance on urban locations, but I really didn’t understand until I played the original TR game. In that you had to find and stand in save crystals located within the levels, they asked you to take more of a risk – “Do I save now, or leave the crystal for later in case I cross back this way?”, much more fun than just saving anywhere at anytime. Also as I remember the locations were mostly outdoors, raiding tombs (as a tomb raider should do) which is something the sequels forgot as time went on. Shooting angry killer animals and mummies is always more fun than facing up against faceless swat teams – it’s part of what helps to make the game stand out from the competition. Half-Life 2 went down that same path to some degree. I found taking on the Combine (in their various iterations) far less fun than the huge range of unique enemies that the original delivered. Anyway, on to the review!

The controls are very good once you get used to them (I kept wanting to press R1 to look about), you now have a commando-style grapple wire to help you swing about and some binoculars with a built-in hint mode (for dummies only really). You also get a torch, but it’s rarely used.

PRETTY
On the art front the game delivers 100% – This is a very pretty PS2 game. Lara’s climbing and acrobatic animations are far more organic than ever before (with great tiny details like the falling dust and rock fragments coming from your hands as you shimmy along a rock crevice). Everything is generally very polished and detailed. The enemy agents you tackle look a bit bland, sadly, like nondescript James Bond baddies – and there are only two real animals in the game, leopards. They look wimpy and unthreatening, I even ran past the first one hoping for some sort of bonus for not hurting endangered animals. More animals in the next games please – piranhas/dinosaurs etc – bring it on!

EAR PIECE
You have a 2-man support team now back at base – always chatting into your ear, giving hints and encouragement. I wasn’t too keen at first, being a purest who enjoyed all the lone trekking about of the first two games – but I see how they help let things tick along, and stop less hard-core gamers getting stuck.

BANG BANG FIZZLE
The combat is a real let down. Very boring, and never feels that threatening (apart from when they start flinging grenades at you). Enemies in this sort game work best when they chuck visible projectiles at you that are then dodgeable, or need to get close to take a bite out of you – that way you have a real challenge of trying to tackle the enemy whilst dodging. Enemies with guns are no fun as their bullets can’t be dodged in the same manner, so when you beat them you don’t feel as rewarded.

HOME SWEET HOME
The old Croft manor is one of the best bits of the game. With no help from people chatting into your earpiece you need to work out the puzzles on your own – it feels most like the original games and is a real challenge. The manor space isn’t that large overall, probably so they can scale it up in games to come (there is no outdoor assault course and no hedge maze – but the new indoor gym is fantastic).

MAKE ME THINK!
The game is not as long as the old ones – levels feel very short, but they are solidly constructed. There just aren’t enough puzzles for my liking, and most that are there are just far too easy. On the penultimate level things just start to get more interesting from a puzzley point of view, but it’s a bit too late. This game is very much aimed as modern day mass market entertainment, not terribly taxing or long, something you can switch on and off quite easily. This isn’t a terrible thing but had they kept things a bit more puzzley then I think it would have been a better-rounded product.

DRAGON’S LAIR?
There are reaction-based sections of the game that I really didn’t like one bit. Resident Evil 4 did them well; they always felt relevant and never too annoying.

Here’s and example of one in TR Legend – you walk into a large room. In front of you the floor is made of large tiles. Some have fallen away leaving gaping holes – I thought “This will be fun – I’ll have to traverse the floor and it’ll be like a puzzle where certain tiles will fall away” – but just as I get near a cutscene takes over and Lara navigates the floor space by herself – only requesting the odd button press at specific moments. Very dull. At least Resi Evil changed the button sequences on each attempt, but here they ask you to press the same ones for each replay of these reaction-based events.

I think the big problem they made is that in most of these sequences Lara creates her own peril, so you feel less concerned for her safety (making it a chore instead, having to save her dumb neck rather than feeling like you are along on the ride). Only two really work well as they are direct consequences of the players actions – the one with the water creature and the other when you are in the crashed plane. If they use these reaction-based sections in future they really need to put more work into them.

HOLLYWOOD INFLUENCES
It feels like they wanted to make it play out more like a short TV movie. After completing the game it does all feel a bit like absorbing a 1 hour TV special. By that I don’t mean it had cheap production values, rather that the gaming sections were a bit like interludes to the story – which is in contrast to TR1 and 2 where back then the FMV sections were the interludes to the game. They probably wanted this game to re-ignite interest in the film franchise too, which no doubt affected how it has turned out (the inclusion of the support team chatting into your ear from back at base and so on).

GET BONUS!
By collecting items hidden throughout the levels you can unlock bonus concept art, 3D models to view (no zoom function sadly) as well as new outfits for Lara. Apparently by collecting everything you get to unlock a swimsuit outfit (woopidoo) but that will take you some time, as finding them all can be quite tricky. There is also a time attack mode to try out on each level, which is pretty tough and adds value to the product (as long as you want to go replay the game again that is).

IN CONCLUSION
Very nicely made relaunch to the game franchise, if a little short. Hopefully to be expanded in future sequels with more puzzles and improved combat.

This is a fairly crucial release for Eidos as the previous Tomb Raider games have been pretty poor in quality and lacking in gameplay innovation having stuck to the tried and tested formula of the original. Whilst this style of gameplay and character control worked in 1995 it quickly became boring and frustrating in the subsequent incarnations and reached its nadir in the quite frankly awful Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.

I’ve played (and completed) Tomb Raider I, II and III but with IV I just became bored of the same gameplay and Lara’s continued lack of responsiveness. Skipped V as a result and then lasted about 2 levels of Angel of Darkness before selecting “uninstall” and wondering why I’d even bothered.

However, with a new developer (Crystal Dynamics) in charge and the original designer/artist of Lara Croft (Toby Guard) involved for the first time since Tomb Raider I, Tomb Raider: Legend might be worth a look. If not, might this be the last Tomb Raider game we see?

Screenshots (xbox 360 version):