Game essentials: Lara Croft GO

This stylish, sophisticated puzzle game gets right to the heart of what you want from a Lara Croft game: a series of tombs containing dozens of devious challenges.

You might well get stuck from time to time, but you certainly won’t get lost. Each screen is set against a grid, like a three-dimensional board game. As you swipe to move Lara between spots, you’ll encounter some classic Tomb Raider ingredients: pressure plates to stand on, levers to pull and whirring saw blades to avoid.

There are plenty of live hazards, too, of course. The creatures you encounter move just after you do, so you’ll need to leave a gap to ensure they can’t reach you at the end of a turn. Giant spiders scuttle along a fixed path, forcing you to carefully time your advances.

Snakes lie in wait, coiled and ready to strike if you move into the square they’re currently facing. And then there are the salamanders, relentless pursuers that will follow the path Lara takes as soon as they’ve spotted her.

So you can’t just think about your next step. You really need to plan ahead, and work out where you – and just as importantly, the various other moving parts – are going to be in three, four or five turns’ time.

There’s a steady drip-feed of new ingredients, and often you’re given a simple example of how a new mechanic works before having to reuse and combine your new-found skills in different ways.

This kind of subtle but brilliant game design is everywhere. Lara Croft GO teaches players that movable pillars can become platforms, or used to crush snakes.

And that you can deliberately attract the attention of a salamander and guide it into the path of a buzzsaw, or an already weakened wall. Time it right, and you can even get enemies to take each other out.

It also pays to stop every now and then to take a wider view of the world. Lara might be the treasure hunter, but you need to be her spotter, seeking out urns tucked away in tiny nooks, peeking out from behind foliage or placed on ledges beyond our hero’s reach.

Luckily, as her omnipotent guide, you can retrieve them for her with a tap, and they’ll crack open to reveal gems or parts of an ancient relic. Grab every piece on a level and you’ll unlock a new outfit for Lara, most of which pay tribute to past adventures.

With bling in her backpack, no wonder she feels like showing off: when Lara pulls herself up to a ledge, she’ll sometimes launch into an impromptu handstand.

This is a game with the poise to match its hero’s graceful moves. Whether you think Ms. Croft is more of a glorified thief than an intrepid adventurer, you can’t deny that GO is a cultured, classy affair.

Lara Croft GO

Breathtaking Puzzle Adventure

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