Temple of Osiris has a pretty run of the mill storyline, however. In it, Lara travels to Egypt and teams up with rival treasure hunter Carter Bell to discover the many treasures of the Egyptian tombs. But when Horus and Isis are brought into the midst by an evil god named Set, Lara and Carter must join forces with them to take down the evil god and banish him back to where he came from.
The story itself is, as we mentioned, pretty standard. In fact it’s so generic that it feels like something you’d see in a Saturday morning cartoon version of Tomb Raider rather than the more serious stuff found in the other games. It’s not necessarily bad, it’s just there. It’s unfortunate considering that both Guardian of Light and Temple of Osiris have cheesy throwaway plots and no efforts have been made to improve between games.
The temples and tombs you’ll explore look dilapidated and believably ancient. Ambient lighting flutters and behaves realistically whether it’s coming from lit torches on the walls or glowing and glistening ancient artefacts. In short – the game looks great and it has a great air or atmosphere to it that makes you want to go deeper and deeper into the tombs the more you play. There were some times where I questioned whether this game really had to be exclusive the newer generation of consoles since it doesn’t seem to be pushing them immensely but it still looks great regardless.
The voice work, on the other hand, is pretty stellar. Keeley Hawes returns to play Lara this time around as the story allegedly takes place in the old timeline – so those of you who enjoyed her dry and witty performance in Legend and Underworld will appreciate her return here too. The secondary characters, particularly Isis and Horus, sound great but the actors are definitely hamming it up. The soundtrack is great too – playing booming percussion to channel Indiana Jones during the adrenaline fuelled moments of the game while knowing just how and when to scale it back to calmer ambient pieces during exploratory segments of the game. It is admittedly slightly generic but it fits and complements the game so well it’s hard to fault.
In each mission you’ll have to get from beginning to end, navigating through various obstacles and puzzles on the way. You’ll be equipped with the typical equipment you’d expect to find in a Tomb Raider game like a grappling hook and an array of weaponry designed to take down endangered fauna with. These more “typical” load outs are exclusive to the human characters of Lara and Carter. Isis and Horus, on the other hand, are able to use their magic staff to affect certain items in the environment and even shield themselves from certain attacks.
And it’s character interaction that really separates Temple of Osiris from its contemporaries. There’s all kinds of combinations of abilities that can be used in the game to assist the player – Lara can grapple onto other players to reach areas much more easily than if she were to do things by herself. Isis can shield herself with a magical barrier, only to have Lara propel her like a human cannonball using her remote mines. Heck, the magical barrier can even be used as a stepping stone in some of the more difficult puzzle moments. It’s this interplay between the characters abilities that makes playing the game by yourself and with friends as equally fun as each other.
It wouldn’t be a Tomb Raider game without a wide arsenal of weapons to take down endangered animals with, and Temple of Osiris satisfies this trait in droves. Lara can play around with over twelve or so different weapons which can be used with the right directional stick to aim and fire. Players can also unlock amulets and rings which can be equipped on players to increase certain statistics, but usually at the cost of another. Such characteristics might imbue Lara’s bullets with flames, allowing her to solve certain puzzles much easier, but reduce her defence. It’s an admittedly simplistic system but it is something that’s easy to manage and play around with for the benefits but also not something you have to spend an immense time on to progress through the game.
Each level has a set of challenges too, and they’re not too hard but not too easy either, such as getting a certain score or defeating enemies a certain way. These challenges are designed in such a way that they encourage and enhance replayability a great deal and give you a great excuse to revisit levels previously completed, and perhaps even play them differently too depending on the challenge. Many of these challenges are tied into new equipment or weapons for Lara and her crew so it’s almost always a recommendation to complete them and they don’t feel tacked on unnecessarily.