OnLive Review: Frustrating Controls Get in the Way of A Good Game
Onlive Review
Overall the game worked flawlessly on the Onlive system. Controller and keyboard controls worked well. This appears to be the PC version of he game as you can see a mouse cursor at the loading screen if you are using the Onlive console. It quickly disappears during the menu load though. Overall the controls were responsive and all of the menus systems worked fine with the controller.
Game Review
Lara Croft and the Guarian of Light is in so many ways a departure from the Tomb Raider series and also a throwback to what made the original games so good. Always the greatest strength of the Tom Raider games was their puzzle and exploring mechanic and this game does it extremely well. Puzzles for the most part are fund and involve just enough brain teasing to get your gears rolling without making you want to throw the controller across the room.
This game is not the 3rd person adventure game we have seen for the past decade. It is instead an isometric fix camera angle game. because of this the environments are absolutely gorgeous. Of course you do get into some of the frustrations that an isometric game offers. With the fixed camera angle there are often times obstructions or enemies just off screen that you have difficulty hitting. This is most apparent in the final boss battle in which I found myself constantly shooting in the generally direction off screen of where the boss was.
I also had several frustrating moments with the controls. While most of the time they worked, the isometric view style and the compass directions of your control pad just don't line up. More than a few times I found myself jumping to my death because my character assumed or did not assume correctly where I really wanted to go.
This game looks like it would really be fun as a multiplayer game and unfortunately I did not have a chance to play it as such. There is not a lot of story happening and the cut scenes show two characters at times. I am curious if I lost any sort of in game banter playing as a solitary character.
Overall a fund little archade game that can scratch your Lara Croft Itch.
