Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Review

   Tomb Raiding in a Different Way

It was only four years ago that Crystal Dynamics completely transformed the Third-Person Action-Adventure formula we have all come to love through the various installments of Tomb Raider into an arcade-inspired experience with a fixed isometric perspective that relied heavily on its couch co-op nature with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. The latest entry in this Tomb Raider spin-off series, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, builds on the same fundamental elements of its predecessor, while also adding in four-player cooperative play for the first time ever in a game involving the iconic female video game protagonist. Despite the changes applied to its design, Temple of Osiris still feels like an authentic Tomb Raider experience with a whole lot of puzzle solving and shooting involved. However, it lacks the same level of polish as some of the main entries of the franchise, occasionally ruining what is a genuinely fun and cleverly crafted video game.

Because of Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris’ emphasis on great action with friends, it completely misses out on telling a story worthy of the Tomb Raider legacy. Now, I know Temple of Osiris is supposed to be an entirely separate entity of the 18-year-old franchise, but its plot doesn’t involve any kind of character development or interesting story telling throughout its six-hour-long campaign. The main villain, Seth, which is an Egyptian god based on real-life Egyptian mythology, isn’t menacing at all with its horrendous voice acting and weak powers. The same thing goes for all the other characters accompanying Lara on her journey through the Temple of Osiris; they simply aren’t interesting because they aren’t fleshed out enough.

It is such a missed opportunity as Temple of Osiris introduces three new playable characters to the Lara Croft universe with Carter Bell, a fellow treasure hunting enthusiast, and the Egyptian gods Isis and Horus that are both linked to Osiris himself, but are just not explored or detailed at all. Even Lara isn’t as interesting as she usually is, making Temple of Osiris’ cast of characters and underdeveloped plot forgettable very easily. I can’t forget to mention how unappealing the game can look visually as some of the character close-ups during cinematic-like sequences lack any detail whatsoever. It makes you wonder if the game wasn’t initially intended for the last gen systems as it lack the visuals polish of other games out of those consoles.

What Temple of Osiris does right, however, is offer the same satisfying core gameplay elements of a Tomb Raider experience, turned into an entire new perspective. It has a perfect balance of exploration, combat and puzzle-solving, which are all essential elements when creating a Tomb Raider game, or any Action-Adventure title for the fact of the matter. Solving Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris’ environmental enigmas isn’t the most difficult task you’ll encounter as they are quite straightforward with the constant relation to switches or environmental triggers, but they are brainy enough to leave a satisfying closing impression once you have successfully passed through them as they make excellent use of all the equipment that is at your characters’ disposal. Lighting up torches, grappling up to otherwise unattainable areas, jumping from one platform to another, bombing walls and using the Staff of Osiris to trigger additional trappings all add variety to the more passive element of Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris.

As for the shooting, although I found it to be awkward at first because the controls involve combining the direction of your Right Stick with the Right Trigger – somewhat like a Twin-Stick Shooter – I quickly got passed the initial strange factor and thought they worked very well in the end. There is a smart mechanic surrounding Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris’ gunplay as it implicates the uses of a meter to gauge the amount of ammo you can use through your secondary weapons, but, because of the abundance of ammo you’ll find throughout your journey through the Egyptian sanctuary, it makes the combat really easy as you can shoot your way through the repetitive enemy Skeleton, Scarab and Crocodile variants effortlessly. Customization also plays an important part in Temple of Osiris’ combat as you can have up to four different weapons equipped as well as rings and amulets that give special upgrades to your character like more weapon damage, a faster rate of fire, better loot or stronger effects when you reach the overdrive state, which enhances your overall strength once you have collected a certain amount of loot.

As you navigate through the Shrine of Osiris, which acts as the sort of main hub area that connects all the tombs in the Temple of Osiris, you’ll need to gather all the fragments of Osiris located in each one of those tombs to restore the Egyptian god’s power and vanquish Seth. Because of it, it makes Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris’ level structure non-linear, meaning you can tackle the tombs in any particular order, and is easily one of the most appreciated aspects on the entire game. In addition to its non-linearity, the tombs within the Temple of Osiris are all diversely designed and embrace a certain element each like darkness, fire, water and ice – to name a few – that make them feel vastly unique, even though it’s very strange to see that many vastly different areas within a same location. Thankfully, they all keep that ruin-like vibe and Egyptian architecture so that they don’t feel too out of place. Plus, there is always some sort of impressive scenario taking place in each tomb, whether it is a boss fight or a destructive and adrenaline-inducing set piece, which makes the levels ever so memorable.

Unfortunately, the looting aspect of Temple of Osiris isn’t as meaningful as its levels because the rewards are simply not as gratifying as they should be. Collecting the various gems scattered around the environments feels like a waste of time in the end because the only purpose they serve is to unlock chests that contain more rings and amulets. The worst part is that the chests you actually want to open – the ones containing rare loot – are nearly impossible to crack because they require an exorbitant amount of gems. Though this element is mostly present in to enhance the replayability beyond its in-level challenges, – which are, by the way, very difficult to complete – it’s another unbalanced element tossed into the game that could’ve been scrutinized a lot more.

The best thing about Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris has to be the way it implements its cooperative component. Whether you’re playing alone or with up to three other players locally or through an online lobby, every single puzzle will be modified to suit the amount of player that are currently in the game, meaning that there are four variant of each of the level’s puzzles – one for every added character – to play through. Although I constantly lost sight of my character and encountered occasional lag while playing with a four-man party, going through the tombs of the Temple of Osiris with friends is way more fun than experiencing them alone. The emphasis on teamwork is critical while playing in coop as players will have to coordinate strategies to get passed the puzzles, using the tomb raiders and Egyptian gods’ distinctive abilities efficiently.

Another great thing with Temple of Osiris’s cooperative play is that it’s drop-in/drop-out, meaning a player can instantly add or remove itself with just the simple press of a button through the main menu. Although it can be done freely and quite easily, the odd thing is that there is a short loading screen that pulls you out of the action whenever that happens, which is awfully off-putting for a game that was released on the current-gen systems. The same thing also happens whenever you die, leading to what feels like the longest ten-second-long loading screen of all-time that kills your entire momentum and can be immensely frustrating if you are struggling with a certain platforming section that instantly kills you whenever you fail. Another weird thing I encountered is that the game’s frame rate was dropping at multiple occasions during instances where nothing was actually happening. It was very random, surprising and quite puzzling since the game runs smoothly at all times, even when there are four players playing together.

VERDICT

Lara Croft and the Temple of Orisis is a flawed, yet extremely interesting alternate take on the whole tomb raiding experience. Minus its poorly-developed story and technical mishaps, it has all the right elements to create an engaging and legitimate game based around Lara Croft’s quintessential legacy with clever puzzles, varied shooting mechanics and tense set pieces. Furthermore, Temple of Osiris embraces its non-linear nature that delivers satisfying levels all-around, despite having some balancing issues with some of its rewards. Most importantly, it has one of the most well crafted cooperative elements I have seen in an Arcade-type game in a long time as it encourages you to play with other people to get the most out of the experience. Temple of Osiris may be a short experience, but it offers a ton more once you have cleared your way through the Egyptian temple the first time around.