Now, it may not be fair to label Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light a “reboot” as Crystal Dynamics is clearly making the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade release as a Tomb Raider game with clear boundaries between it and the “pillar” releases. Guardian of Light is set outside of the series chronology, an independent side story. It also plays differently from every other Tomb Raider game, a top-down, sometimes cooperative adventure that adds a second player, the Mayan warrior and spear expert Totec.

The side story is a straightforward one, involving an ancient and powerful artefact, the Mirror of Smoke. Given that this artefact is both ancient and powerful, Lara isn’t the only character on the hunt for this thing, which happens to have an evil spirit contained within – but not for long.

We also probably wouldn’t call Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light a twin-stick shooter, even though it uses the familiar dual-analogue movement and aiming seen in many XBLA and PSN games. But the combat, simple in its Diablo-like point and shoot action, looks fluid and fun. Move with the left, aim with the right, pull the right trigger to fire, both for Lara, equipped with dual pistols, and for Totec, normally armed with spears, but capable of picking up a machine gun when necessary.

Guardian of Light’s most appealing feature is its puzzle-solving and platform traversal, much of which requires cooperative planning and execution. For instance, Totec can throw spears at walls, which Lara can use as improvised platforms to get to higher elevation. Lara can also aid Totec in his bottomless pit avoidance, using her grappling hook. She can fire the grappling hook at an object, letting Totec use the hookline as a tightrope. She can also fire the grappling hook at Totec himself, giving her Mayan buddy a repelling line to climb up walls too high to scale otherwise.

Perhaps the most interesting use of Totec and Lara’s cooperative platforming mechanic was during a puzzle filled with instant-kill spikes. In the centre of one of the game’s tombs near the base of a set of stairs was a tall pillar with spikes jutting out, a much-needed puzzle piece atop it. This particular puzzle required that Totec stand on a pressure plate, deactivating the spikes. After throwing a spear into the pillar, it was clear that Lara wasn’t high enough to reach the rim of the pillar’s top. The solution? Totec had to walk back up the stairs, elevating himself, then throw additional spears at the pillar, creating a makeshift ladder for Lara to climb.

Some of the other coop action involved one player pulling a lever or rolling a ball while the other fended off a swarm of massive spiders. Players will also need to keep an eye on their partner’s health helping to revive their fallen teammate when fatigued.

Crystal Dynamics teased some competitive aspects in the form of loot collection and a straightforward contest for high scores. Developers at GDC also briefly touched on a player progression system, but wouldn’t provide specifics about how that system worked.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light also features a single-player only mode. There’s no option for an AI-controlled coop buddy, so solo players will play a version of Lara with beefier platforming abilities.

While Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light may not be a full-fledged “pillar” entry in the Tomb Raider series, it’s perhaps the most refreshing, most enticing take on the character in a long time. That it evoked fond memories of pick and play games like Diablo and the console-only Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games may have had something to do with that, but the smart puzzle mechanics and arcadey gameplay have already ensured that Crystal Dynamics’ side-story spin-off is one of summer’s most interesting downloadable games.

Instead, the game is called “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light”. Strange to forgo such a recognised brand, but then, it’s a downloadable game, not a full retail title. And in the words of Crystal Dynamic’s Darrell Gallagher, it’s “something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting”. Add in the fact the name isn’t as relevant as it once was, and maybe dropping the “Tomb Raider” thing isn’t the worst idea of the week.

It’ll be out later this year, and there’s no other information at this stage, with the game due to be shown off for the first time at GDC next week.

Given that Crystal Dynamics hasn’t done much of anything other than Tomb Raider since 2005, and given that Eidos/Square Enix have telegraphed a “reboot” of the Lara Croft franchise, sounds like it’s a good bet that’s your prestigious AAA franchise. Unless they’re referring to Legacy of Kain, of course.

The ad listing mentions multiplayer maps, which indicates competitive online, not just cooperative campaign support.

Next Tomb Raider has Multiplayer? [CinemaBlend via Joystiq]

Right now, Gard (pictured) says, the m.o. is to fire a bunch of people at the end of a project, but keep around a core team for future work on the IP. “[A]nd it’s not really working out the way it should be,” Gard said.

It seems like the industry wants to move to a more Hollywood model by bringing in experts for shorter periods of time and then leveraging their outsourcing, but also building small teams for projects.

But they haven’t actually fully embraced that yet and I’m just wondering whether or not there’s a way people will actually start doing that. The industry is still very stuck in its ways of building their internal teams.

Gard’s consulting business—ding ding ding—could exploit that short-term need for experts, which is one reason he left Crystal Dynamics. Another, according to his remarks, is that he’d taken Tomb Raider about as far as he could, and he wasn’t working much with Lara Croft anymore.

It’s always difficult doing that but you can get stuck doing the same thing over and over, The only real way that I can really effect Lara Croft is to be in charge of a project. More and more as I was working at Crystal, especially on Underworld where I was just doing cinematic work, the reality is the control of the characters is in the hands of the creative directors and the publisher.

Gard: Time was right to leave Tomb Raider [GamesIndustry.Biz via GamerReports]

We first heard stirrings of these new layoffs earlier this week, receiving several tips from people purporting to be former employees or friends of former employees. Now an Eidos spokesperson has confirmed the layoffs, citing the need to “focus resources” as the underlying reason behind them.

“We can confirm that Crystal Dynamics has made a reduction of approximately 25 people at the San Francisco studio. This decision is a reflection of the continued drive to focus resources at the studio. We would like to thank all of the employees affected by this difficult decision for their hard work during their time at Crystal and we wish them all the best in the future.”

This latest round of cuts follows rumours in January of another 30 or so employees cut loose from the developer following poor performance of the latest Tomb Raider title, Tomb Raider Underworld.

With no currently announced projects and the recent acquisition of parent company Eidos by Square Enix, one cannot help but worry about the future of the remaining Crystal Dynamics employees. Tomb Raider was a large part of the allure of Eidos to Square Enix, so we wouldn’t be surprised if they took Lara out of Crystal Dynamics’ hands in an attempt to revitalise the franchise once again.

I’m personally hoping that the developer sticks around long enough to deliver a new Gex title.

Hit the jump to find out how we weighed in on Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Loved

The Music: Good video game music doesn’t distract you from the action; the best video game music adds something to the atmosphere. With Lara running all over the world from Thailand and Mexico to mystical locations like Valhalla and Niflheim (the theme is Undereworld – get it?),there’s a lot of atmosphere to account for. The score, supervised by British Academy Award-winner Troels Brun Folmann and composed by Colin O’Malley, features fragmental music that kicks in specific to events in the game and (usually) does not loop. This is really helpful during puzzle-solving chains when you’re not sure if you’ve done something right; a swelling crescendo of choral music is a pretty big hint that you’re on the right track. And during the action-packed scenes where Lara’s racing the clock, the music really gets your blood pumping in the best way.

The Water: A big gimmick in Underworld is swimming, so expect to be doing a lot of it. Fortunately, the swimming mechanics are fairly easy to master and the water looks damn great – even greater than Lara’s collection of skin tight wet suits. Usually, when a game touts its pretty water effects, it’s a bad sign that there’s nothing much to talk about. Not true for Underworld. There’s a lot of stuff to talk about; it’s just that you’ll be seeing so much of the water that it’s worth mentioning how gorgeous it is: an ocean shimmering in a Thailand sunset, raindrops glazing temple walls in Southern Mexico, and the glorious site of Lara Croft’s bare legs scissoring through the murky depths of the Arctic Sea (never mind that she’d freeze to death real life).

Thor’s Hammer: Underworld, like several other games released this year, has a preternatural obsession with (and weak understanding of) Norse mythology; which explains why you’d be looking for one of Thor’s gauntlets in Thailand. If you can ignore the sheer impossibility of Mayan temples being built around ancient statues of Thor (you did it for Aliens vs. Predator – you can do it again), the plot point of finding Thor’s entire ensemble so you can wield his hammer, Mjolnir, is actually pretty compelling. There’s other stuff in there that ret-cons wraps up plot points left hanging in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but for first-timers and those that couldn’t be arsed with the last two games, the find-the-Thor-stuff is fairly compelling. A good rule of thumb for game designers is: if you’re going to include a huge plot point about mythical weapons, it’s good manners to let the player use said mythical weapons. It’s even better if said mythical weapons are freaking amazing, clearing entire corridors of bad guys in a single swing.

Hated

Twitchy Controls: It’s been 12 years, Lara, could you please learn to jump where I tell you to jump and not where you think you ought to jump?! I enjoy your blood-curdling screams as much as the next gamer forced to repeat an entire puzzle 11 times over, but when I mash the analogue stick to the left, where the climbable ledge is, I expect you to jump LEFT, not forward into the acid pit. It’s weird when a character handles better underwater or on the back of a motorcycle than they do on their own two feet. The Tomb Raider control scheme has always been a bit of headache with the occasional suicidal leap from Lara, but in Underworld, where a single missed jump a) fails to kill you and b) means you have to backtrack through an entire level to repeat the puzzle, these headaches quickly become murderous rages.

Gameplay Extension: Underworld is pretty generous with checkpoints, but don’t be fooled by the apparent generosity of the developer; the checkpoint system is a diabolical plot to make a six hour game into a 10 hour game. Because many of the puzzles are non-linear (that is, you could complete any part of it at any time and still get the same result), you have to rely on the magical chime sound to tell you that you’ve reached a checkpoint (also, look for health packs, that’s a huge tipoff). You’ll only hear the chime when you hit the checkpoint the first time, but the checkpoint will be reactivated if you happen to go past it again.

So imagine this: You go all the way into an ancient temple to a burial chamber to do… something. Instead of teleporting you out when you’re done, you’ve got to go back through the temple – only you can’t go back the way you came because you blew shit up on the way in and now you have to climb over it. But – oops! – you fall from a ledge and wind up in the middle of the temple that still has the entrance blocked off. Well, it’d take another 20 minutes to work your way back to the burial chamber, so why not plunge off that cliff there and spawn back at the last checkpoint before you blew that jump? Ha! Fooled you, says the game. You don’t go back to the checkpoint before the jump, you go back to the last checkpoint in the room you fell into. Now a 20 minute backtrack has become a 25 minute backtrack because you’ve got to sit through the level loading screen while Lara respawns.

Bugs: I’m curious whether the 360 version will have as many hiccups as the PS3 version. There were no show-stoppers but the frame rate took a nose dive every time there was lightning (mind you Thor’s Hammer generates lighting, so this bug happened a lot towards the end), and there was an odd flicker on the screen every so often in the Southern Mexico level. Also, Lara clips through the environment an awful lot (which can be amusing when the ragdoll physics kick in during death). These aren’t big deals in bug land but for a game that seems so wonderfully polished in appearance and atmosphere, it’s kind of a slap in the face (albeit a hilarious one) when Lara falls from a ledge and lodges herself headfirst in the floor with her legs splayed and arms twitching.

Tomb Raider: Underworld might remind players of another pretty game on the PS3 — Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune features almost as many lush tropical locations, as much dynamic lighting, and the same amount of water effects as Underworld. To be fair, Tomb Raider established itself way before Nathan Drake was even a glimmer in Naughty Dog’s eye, and how different do you really expect jungles to look? But as you play through Underworld and start to notice more than a few similarities (up to and including the camcorder narrations), you might start to wonder if you’re really playing Uncharted: The Chick Version instead of Lara Croft’s Super-Awesome Next-Gen Comeback.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is a gorgeous game that doesn’t deviate from what we’ve come to expect from Lara Croft over the years. The puzzles are logical, the plot is not, and even though Lara’s boobs have gone down a couple of sizes over the years, she’s still got a backside you won’t mind watching as you scale walls over and over again in nothing but a bathing suit (take that, Nathan Drake!). The additions of swimming, motorcycle driving, and melee combat to gameplay manage to add something to Underworld without reinventing the wheel. But maybe that’s the game’s biggest failing: it didn’t try to do anything revolutionary; it only tried to bring Lara Croft up to speed.

Tomb Raider: Underworld was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes Software and published in North America by Eidos Interactive. It released on November 18, 2008 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii and DS, with the PS2 version delayed ‘t
il January 2009. Completed PS3 story mode, tested treasure hunt mode.

Just a heads up the video does reveal a major plot point so if you don’t want to know anything about the story then you might want to skip this one.

The demo started by delivering new depth to the series, plunging a scuba diving Lara Croft deep into the ocean to recover an ancient artifact. Lara swam smoothly, using a harpoon gun to take out circling sharks as she solved a puzzle that opened a door to an ancient temple.

Once inside and on semi-dry land, Lara crawled, jumped, and shimmied her way around a giant octopus (or kraken, if you prefer), bringing the roof down on its head in order to progress before the demo ended. While I didn’t get to control her myself, the gameplay and mechanics seem in place, but what about the look of the game? As the demo ended, a man behind me stood up and offered his opinion.

“You got her arse perfect”. The assembled crowd shifted uncomfortably.

“And the dimples beneath her…” Thankfully he stopped before I tackled him to the ground. Lara Croft does strange things to a man.

ESRB Game Ratings