The tomb raider returns in Lara Croft Go
A turn-based Tomb Raider game? Sounds crazy, but the Hitman Go formula totally works for this winning Lara Croft adventure.
At first blush you might mistake it for a port or remake of the original Tomb Raider. There's Lara in her signature blue tank-top and thigh holsters, making her way through jungles, caves and, of course, tombs.
But this isn't the run-and-gun action game you might be expecting. Instead, Lara Croft Go relies on the same turn-based mechanics as Hitman Go -- which, incidentally, recently made CNET's list of the best Android games. (It's also a longtime resident of the best iPad games list.)
In other words, Lara doesn't move through an open-world environment. Instead, she moves from square to square, not unlike in a board game. The goal of each level? Make the right moves, in the right order, to reach your destination.
To reveal much more would be to spoil the fun, but I will say Lara Croft Go consists of 40 increasingly challenging levels. And like its Hitman counterpart, it's perfectly suited to mobile devices. The graphics aren't super-detailed, but they're definitely pretty. The controls require nothing more than swipes and taps, so you're not fighting against awkward onscreen d-pads and buttons like in other Tomb Raider outings.
Indeed, at long last, we have a Lara Croft for the thinking man. Sure, our intrepid adventurer can still plummet to her demise or end up on the wrong end of a snake, but here you're not shooting your way out -- you're figuring it.
Lara Croft Go is available immediately for Android, iOS and Windows. All three versions are priced at $4.99 in the US, £3.99 in the UK and AU$6.49 in Australia.