A few more details, and some impressions, have surfaced regarding the recently announced Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, the two player action/puzzle-solving co-op title being released for PSN, XBLA, and PC. While this latest entry in the Lara Croft franchise shifts the viewpoint from third-person to isometric, the same game play elements, i.e., running around shooting animals and T-Rexes, and solving puzzles to find treasure, still seem to be in place. What's more, the addition of co-op has created the possibility for some slightly different challenges for players to overcome, and initial impressions from GDC seem favorable.
Guardian of Light's most appealing feature is its puzzle-solving and platform traversal, much of which requires cooperative planning and execution. For instance, Totec can throw spears at walls, which Lara can use as improvised platforms to get to higher elevation. Lara can also aid Totec in his bottomless pit avoidance, using her grappling hook. She can fire the grappling hook at an object, letting Totec use the hookline as a tightrope. She can also fire the grappling hook at Totec himself, giving her Mayan buddy a repelling line to climb up walls too high to scale otherwise.
Kotaku's preview goes on to describe a few more co-op puzzles that they were shown, such as an instance where one player activates a switch while the other fends off hordes of enemies, and a brief mention of there being some form of player progression system, though the devs weren't saying anymore than that. What's really interesting is that Totec, Lara's spear chucking buddy in the game, is only available in co-op. Apparently, players that play the game solo won't have an AI buddy, and will instead have control a "version of Lara with beefier platforming abilities." Based on that, it sounds like co-op is definitely the way to go to enjoy the full experience of this title.
Finally, Joystiq.com revealed that the game's price tag will be $15 when it becomes available this summer. For approximately six hours of game play with the potential of some fun replay value, that doesn't sound too bad, but what do you think? What's a "fair" price point for a downloadable title like this?