We played Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris so you didn’t have to!
Or maybe so you’d WANT to?
Following directly in it’s footsteps, ‘Temple of Osiris’ continues the isometric platforming action of it’s predecessor: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Ditching the Meso-American setting for an Ancient Egyptian one, the playable roster of characters is doubled to four in this installment, albeit each Egyptian and archaeologist plays identical to their counterpart. So does the sequel make up for the frustrating late-game mechanics and occasionally frustrating camera angles of the original, but maintain the same great puzzle-solving and combat action?
Eh, sort of. Unfortunately, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris seems to only take what was annoying about the first game (poor platforming sequences, an ever-increasing importance placed on using your guns over using your brain) and only pushes them further. The challenge rooms, our favorite aspect of the first game, seem to take a backseat and moreover also seem to demand more than just 2 players to solve some of their more complicated trap rooms and puzzle sequences. I hesitate to call it a requirement per se, but strongly emphasizing the online matchmaking component (something to this game’s credit that the first title lacked at release and was only patched in later) in order to simply experience aspects of the game’s content is in a word: annoying.
These missteps are alleviated by a noticeably expanded loot system that rewards players not only for high-scores, but also for collecting gems (which award points) as a form of currency themselves. Temple of Osiris seems to place a much stronger focus on the equipment you adventure with, both in terms of balancing the benefits and penalties it provides but in simply working toward acquiring new shiny things to equip. It’s unfortunate that this is not quite enough to alleviate the short shrift that the excellent puzzle-solving of the first game’s early half continues to get.
