High Speed Archaeology In Lara Croft Relic Run

I’m sure you can imagine the meeting in one of the conference rooms of Square Enix’ HQ, where a plucky executive pitched an incredibly obvious mash up between Lara Croft and Temple Run. That’s really about as deep as Lara Croft Relic Run could have ended up being, but it’s clear to see that Simutronics have been keen to push the game beyond simply being a derivative entry in a familiar genre.

The basic gameplay is simple enough to grasp though, with a tap on the screen sending Lara running ever into the distance. Swiping left, right, up and down lets you change lanes and jump over or slide under obstacles in a very responsive fashion, but as the scenery twists and turns ahead of you and forces you through different channels in order to survive, more elements quickly come into play.

Wall running is one of the trickier ones to spot and get right, as you have to spot the scuffed walls and the low hanging obstacle that means you have to swipe into the wall in order to run along it – unless you want to smash Lara’s head into a tree, that is. However, sometimes the randomly generated level will see Lara hanging from a vine and running along a cliff face with interactions at 90º to the usual, or hopping onto a quad bike and riding through the jungle.

There’s even a few moments of gunplay thrown in so that Lara gets to whip out her signature pistols and gun down some lizard men in the Cambodian jungle, with the camera locked behind her shoulder as she jogs along for a few moments and you frantically tap away at what it is that you want to shoot.

The guns also come out when engaged in a running battle with a particularly ornery T-rex – is there any other kind? – whose appearance is artfully woven into the regular gameplay. You’ll have to shoot it in the mouth to stop it from getting a tasty snack initially, but as you progress and unlock more powerful weapons that let you actually kill the T-rex rather than simply fend it off.

There is a fair amount of repetition inherent in the environments, as familiar blocks of scenery are randomly juggled in the background, giving you the same kinds of traps to deal with, but what’s more noticeable is the repetition of the cutscenes that transition from one segment to the next. Hopping onto the quad bike is always the same, as is the death defying leap that sees Lara ride it off a cliff, soar through the air, grab onto a vine and swing into the next running section.

Of course, that’s not to say that familiarity will let you gain endless success, and you will see Lara die time and time again with pleasingly sadistic ragdoll effects that go a little way to douse your annoyance at having failed. When she’s not busy dying – whether by accident or on purpose – her animations are really nicely done, managing to feel fluid while also reacting almost instantly to your inputs.

The whole point of all of this running through the jungle, and later the desert, is to track down the relics that somehow point to what sometime partner in archaeology, Carter Bell, was up to before he disappeared. It’s a simple mechanic of having you pick up clues as you run, with enough of them eventually giving you the opportunity to snatch the relic, if your reactions are quick enough.

Thankfully, your progress continues to a certain degree from one attempt to the next, so that you’ll be a few steps closer to getting a particular relic and the game will start to present more and more advanced scenery for you to navigate. The boss fights will also be easier to reach a second or third time or more.

Though the jungle setting is quite lovely, with bright and vibrant colours and plenty of foliage, collect 15 relics and you’ll be able to unlock the Desert Ruins location for a different visual flavour. It ups the ante quite noticeably and adds another few ideas, such as having to smash through a barricade by pulling the motorbike into a wheelie. A third Mountain Pass level will be added in the future, and promises to bring with it further new elements to the mix.

Of course, as a free to play game, you can also buy your way to these places with microtransactions, but they’re far from necessary to be able to enjoy the game and collecting coins to buy different guns or little boosts is fairly fast. Every six hours there’s also a little supply drop that contains consumables such as ankhs that let you retry a particular jump or obstacle at which you failed, so you don’t have to start over again. Sometimes you’ll also be able to revive Lara by watching a brief advert, doing your best to ignore its content and going on your merry way. By and large, the monetisation does very little to get in the way of simply playing the game.

It’s great to see that Relic Run has ended up being more than a simple reskin of games that have gone before, but rather tries to take those foundations and build upon them. By and large it’s very successful in doing so, and even sections and cutscenes do noticeably repeat, there’s still a lot of variation that keeps you on your toes and coming back for more as Lara crashes through the scenery, does battle with lizardmen and monsters and manages to track down tons and tons of artefacts without breaking her stride.