One of the greatest gaming experiences of my life involved two friends, three Game Boy Advances, and a slow afternoon burning through The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. Even though co-op has become en vogue since Nintendo’s strange experiment with connectivity, a follow-up to Link’s quirky multiplayer adventure has been woefully absent from the world — even though the number of DSes and Wiis in the wild would make a sequel much more feasible than its predecessor. After years of wishing and hoping, little did I know I’d be able to scratch my multiplayer-puzzle-dungeon-itch with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light — a downloadable Tomb Raider game of all things.
Lara Croft tends to have some of the most predictable adventures in gaming, but Guardian of Light adds some much-needed innovation to the series without changing its fundamental mechanics. Just like in any Tomb Raider title, you’ll play around with a number of powerful weapons and a grappling hook while leaping over dangerous pitfalls, though this time around the game is viewed from an isometric perspective zoomed atypically far from Lara herself. And while Guardian of Light doesn’t make multiplayer mandatory, the levels are specifically designed to take advantage of Lara and co-star Totec’s unique array of abilities. The single-player mode simply gives your chosen character all of the skills necessary to complete the game (and tailors some levels to make single-player success possible), but it lacks the fun of piecing together the solutions to puzzles with a friend.
