Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris E3 Thoughts

I’ll be honest with you, I was really surprised to see this game announced at E3. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light came out almost four years ago and was very fun from what I played. Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix seems to be really pushing the Tomb Raider license. To be fair, this is probably the best time to do so considering how popular and strong the IP is.

The biggest change I saw was the inclusion of the two extra characters to finally have four player co-op.  From what it looked like, they seem to be generic characters but I’m hoping to see some four player puzzles scattered across the game. Thanks to Pocket-lint, it seems that there will be some dynamic puzzle solving based on how many players are in the game. I’m very interested to see how this works out and how creative these dynamic puzzles could be.

The game also appears to be taking place in Egypt and will have enemies and bosses based off of that mythos. In fact, it appears that there is a new version of Totec that could change the way puzzles are solved. The enhanced graphics to the game really make animations and particles pop and the four player inclusion appears to make the game more chaotic.

The game is said to be coming out soon, which makes me want to play through Guardian of Light now.

 

5 Genres I want to see in More Twin Stick Games

As games evolve each year, we see most of the innovation in new games melding genres together. The RPG genre has been melded into just about every genre known to man so I won’t be mentioning it in this article. I should also mention that the term genre in all video games is fairly vague so I will try my best to explain what parts of the genre I would love to see in twin stick shooters.

 

Platformer

As you saw from last weeks post, I played Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Before playing this game, I never really thought how one of my favorite genres of my childhood could fit with the twin stick genre. Now, I can see exactly how jumping around in a top down perspective can work as well as the chaos of twin stick games.  I can imagine the level designs of Super Mario 3D Land/World but with hundred of enemies hindering your progress as you make your attempt to jump across platforms and maneuver across narrow passages.

Puzzle

The puzzle genre would fit perfectly with the top down perspective seen in twin stick games.  Puzzles would help the pacing in these fast paced action games similar to how the Devil May Cry and the God of War series uses them to pace their games.  Sometimes its nice to slow down the action and think about how you will go about a specific problem.  Think about a twin stick game having dungeons or even a Smash TV like setting with puzzle specific rooms.

Beat-em Up/Hack’n’Slash

Games like Double Dragon and, again, Devil May Cry have similar action pacing to twin stick games but is geared towards melee combat. The camera in twin stick games aren’t necessarily geared towards Beat-em Ups but I think it could work. Having it similar to Hotline Miami and making enemies more vulnerable to melee or ranged combat could add a bunch of new challenges to the genre.

MMO

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Exploring a giant world with friends, collecting loot and raiding dungeons would be a blast in a twin stick game. Would the shear amount of bullets hold up in a twin stick game? I sure hope so.

 

Tower Defense

Think about the Sanctum series but top down. The tower defense genre is already top down and contains an obscene amount of enemies. Having players worry about their towers and their player adds to the chaos of the genre.

Any genre’s you’d like to see melded with the Twin Stick Shooter genre?

 

 

 

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: Preview

The Tomb Raider series was never the most well received franchise but players hold many fond memories of the sexy polygonal explorer.  It wasn’t until I played the 2013 reboot that a finally learned to appreciate Lara Croft and her action and puzzle solving franchise. Before the reboot, Lara Croft was given a spin off title that gained great reviews and praised for its new co-op experience and gameplay.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (GOL) is a twin stick shooter with puzzle and platforming elements.  After being forced to find a magical mirror for some goons, an evil spirit named Xolotl is reborn as well as the warrior of light, Totec.  Your goal is to stop the fiend from bringing chaos to the world. As an arcade style shooter, don’t expect a dramatic story like the reboot.  What you should expect are some great gameplay mechanics and a great adventure.

My short time with the game, I was grappling on hooks, jumping on spears, shooting undead warriors and solving puzzles.  I always felt that puzzle elements in a top down shooter could work great considering most of the Zelda series have the same perspective.  Overall, the first couple of puzzles in GOL are relatively interesting and they provide optional puzzle rooms to gain new collectibles and upgrades. GOL proves that platforming in an isometric view can work really well. This is mainly due to the tight controls Crystal Dynamics has created.

GOL uses the Tomb Raider: Underworld engine which looks great with this arcade game when in motion. During the in-game cutscenes, you can see its limitations but the opening 2D cutscene looked fantastic. The music and sound is also very good but the voice acting besides Lara Croft, doesn’t fit the mayan warrior and the Xolotl.  I could obviously complain about their ability to speak English but an accent would have been nice.

I’m hoping to play more of the game in the future because it was very fun and holds true to the Tomb Raider series. Even with the new camera perspective and gunplay, the game still feels like a Tomb Raider game and I hope to see Crystal Dynamics bring this style of game back.