Raid Rage: Deus Ex HR Devs Demo Tomb Raider Multi
Somewhat surprisingly (by which I mean completely unsurprisingly, given the era in which we live), Tomb Raider has multiplayer. Naturally, this has been a source of great outrage among even the least fly-harming-est of gamers, as it's a distinct disruption of The Natural Order. Granted, it does have two things working in its favor: 1) Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light added co-op multi to pretty great effect and 2) the mode's an entirely separate, presumably cybernetic leg of the game being attached by none other than Deus Ex: Human Revolution developer Eidos Montreal. Here, now, brown cow, is a video of some finely mustachioed men introducing it to the star of spy dramadey Chuck for some reason.
Huh. Hrrrm. Yeah, OK, it looks really deathmatch-y. I mean, I find the idea of a focus on environment traversal pretty promising, seeing as Lara's better known for looking and leaping than running and gunning. Beyond that, though, the bits Eidos Montreal actually demoed looked worrisomely standard after all their talk of doing something more. I mean, sure, there are traps and whatnot as well, but yippee. Giant, Zeus-tempting lightning wands will only keep people entertained for so long.
BUT WAIT, BOWS.
Admittedly, I've only seen a teensy portion of Tomb Raider's full hand of modes and options at this point, so I'm not writing it off just yet. But it's going to take something pretty special to convince me its multiplayer modes are worthwhile. Oh well, though. Single-player doesn't seem to have suffered for it, so at least there's that. But one day, I hope to live in a world where games like Dishonored - that is, those that confidently bound onto virtual shelves strutting their solo stuff - are the rule, not the exception. One day.