Let me formally endorse this product for all fence sitting GAFers.
This is the real fucking deal. This game is imo one of the top titles of the year, and is one of the first times I've ever said to myself "wow, this arcade game is as good as any full fledged $60 game!" I liked the last few Tomb Raider titles despite their glaring flaws, but this one is not like those... it has few flaws at all.
Frankly I'm a little surprised it is $15. The game has tons of content. 15 levels, first time through maybe take a half hour each... and you'll be doing these levels over and over to collect all the items to expand your character and to do the speed runs. There's easily over 20 hours of content here if you throw in playing with your friends (and online is coming September 28th so I hear. That's the biggest flaw this game has right now so...).
This game is the ultimate speed runners wet dream my God. There's so many ways to rip seconds off your time. The controls are perfect. They're fluid, feel just tight enough to make traversing each map a joy. Tweaked to a fine shine.
Level design is so good. Early few levels are naturally easy, but eventually they build to a devious Prince of Persia-esque crescendo, collapsing bridges, expanding platforms, spikes out the fucking ass. When you beat some of these later on you're gonna be fistpumping the air all "jesus christ I am such a badass, someone suck my dick already because damn it I DESERVE IT."
And then you'll do it all again to get under those par times.
It's so polished. About the only forgettable thing is the story but who the fuck cares about that all game stories are terrible and the only redeemable thing about them is that they sometimes provide some neat visual motivator for you to continue on. Here, the story is about some...Aztec something blah I don't even fucking know. But basically it's an excuse to set off a flurry of never-ending traps while you gracefully swan dive out of the way at the last final second. Take the first level, which is really easy. It finishes with this climactic little race over a pool of spikes and then some ever forwarding walls you gotta climb, and the last few are too high so you gotta throw your spear and use it as leverage. Now the very last platform can't take your spears, so you gotta throw up your grapple hook to reach the thing. But I didn't see that hook point the first time, so I'm frantically tossing spears at the wall like "W-T-F" and I'm almost out of floor space (so basically I'm gonna fall into the spikes) and at the last possible second I throw out that grapple hook and it grabs hold, as I hang perilously over the spikes. That's the type of shit this game has in store for you.
We're not worthy for this shit. I'm not afraid to say it.
I'm not even done mentioning things. The visuals are pitch perfect for this game, very nice to look at the entire thing. Nice variety. The music is awesome. I mean basically it's all awesome.
10/10. ****/****
This game is as polished as a Nintendo title.
