It may no longer carry the “Tomb Raider” name in its title, but “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” is still very much a “Tomb Raider” game, although a very different one from what fans of the treasure-hunting archaeologist are used to. Square Enix has not only rebranded the series in name, but in presentation as well, shedding its trademark third-person viewpoint for an isometric fixed camera reminiscent of the dungeon crawler genre. It’s also the first time that a “Tomb Raider” game has been released as a digital download, but if this is the future of Lara Croft, then count me in, because while “The Guardian of Light” might be a little too easy for hardcore gamers, there’s more than enough content here to guarantee that you’ll be back for seconds.

The story is as follows: After accidentally unleashing the evil spirit Xolotl from a cursed artifact called the Mirror of Smoke, Lara must team up with a 2000-year-old Mayan warrior named Totec (the titular Guardian of Light) in order to imprison him in it once again. The combat system is slick and simple, with twin-stick controls that allow you to shoot and move in a fluid 360 degrees, while accessories like bombs, a grapple hook, and a golden spear keep the game feeling fresh as you explore each level to find shortcuts, hidden artifacts and relics that act as power-ups, and unique challenges that come with their own rewards. Though co-op mode is even more fun with the addition of Totec as a playable character, Square Enix really dropped the ball by failing to support online play. (An upcoming patch will fix that, but it should have been ready on Day One.) Still, while it may not be Lara Croft’s finest hour, between the replay value of co-op and the promise of additional content in the form of new maps and characters coming soon, it’s a bright start to the series’ latest chapter and a fitting finale to the Summer of Arcade.

There’s a new champion terrorizing the test realm as I write this, a champion that is far and away the creepiest thing in League of Legends. His name is Urgot, and he appears to be some sort of nightmare tank character with a swap ability DotA players should recognize from Vengeful Spirit.

His current ability list is as follows:
Acid Hunter - Urgot fires a missile toward the target that deals physical damage. Missile lock can be achieved by holding the cursor over a target afflicted by Noxian Corrosive Charge.

Terror Capacitor – Urgot charges up his terror capacitor to gain a shield that absorbs damage for 7 seconds. While the shield is active, Urgot’s attacks and missiles slow the target by 27 percent.

Noxian Corrosive Charge – Urgot launches a corrosive charge at a target location. Enemies hit by the charge have reduced armor and take magic damage over four seconds.

Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser – Urgot gains high magic resistance and armor (130 at level 3) for 5 seconds. His target is stunned for one second before swapping positions with Urgot. After the swap the target is slowed by 40 percent for 3 seconds.

This guy has a crazy ability list. I don’t like that Acid Hunter is physical damage, while both Terror Capacitor and Noxian Corrosive Charge scale with AP. That his shield is seven seconds long is definitely a good thing and the slow component should be interesting. His ultimate sounds like a blast. I loved Vengeful Spirit (a character from DotA with a long range swap skill) and I have feeling Urgot could be a lot of fun as a support/tank character. I’m guessing he’ll blow Galio out of the water.

I also like that he has a dramatically different look from the other characters in the game. Though the cartoon vibe can be cool, I like that this guy is just downright creepy. I’m looking forward to Riot’s official leak posts about him.

I didn’t have very high hopes for “Monday Night Combat” when Microsoft first announced this year’s Summer of Arcade line-up, nor was I immediately taken with it after playing a few rounds. (Though that likely had more to do with the fact that the tutorial isn’t very helpful in explaining how to play the game.) But while it’s certainly not the best-looking title of the bunch, “Monday Night Combat” eventually wins you over with its incredibly addictive gameplay. At its core, the game is a class-based, third-person shooter à la “Team Fortress 2,” but it also implements the tower defense genre into basic strategy, and is set in the middle of a “Smash TV”-like game show complete with a sex-neutral mascot named Bullseye who pops up throughout the course of matches to taunt the players. Better yet, when you shoot him, he drops coins, which is the lifeblood of the game. Coins can be spent on upgrading your Pro’s abilities, building and upgrading turrets, or even unlocking jump pads that allow you to reach higher areas on the map.

There are really only two game modes to choose from: Blitz and Overkill. The former tasks you and up to three other players with protecting your moneyball (a New Year’s Eve-sized piñata filled with coins) from an onslaught of enemy bots, while the latter is a 6-on-6 Deathmatch-style battle to see which team can breach and destroy the other team’s moneyball first. Though Blitz is a great place to start because it gives players a good opportunity to try out all six classes (Assault, Tank, Support, Assassin, Gunner and Sniper, each with their own unique weapons and abilities), Overkill is where you’re going to have the most fun. Not only must you figure out how to strike the perfect balance between upgrading your Pros and turrets, but you also have to decide what’s more important: killing enemies or escorting bots to the other team’s base. Only bots can take down the shield protecting the moneyball, but you need coins in order to purchase them. It’s a simplistic yet necessary give-and-take system that forces players to work as a team, and it’s one of the main reasons why “Monday Night Combat” succeeds as a great multiplayer game of the once-you-pop-you-just-can’t-stop variety.

Want more Summer of Arcade? Be sure to come back every Wednesday through August 18th for a first-hand look at Microsoft’s newest XBLA exclusives. Next week: Grab your tomb raiding gear and join Lara Croft in her search for the “Guardian of Light.”

Today’s patch brings a new champion in the form of Galio, the great blue gargoyle. Aside from the new champion, the game hasn’t changed a ton. A few characters received some significant attention, but things remained largely the same.

The most notable change in my mind is Soraka, who received a string of small nerfs that should amount to a significant difference in her staying power. Her mana heal now has a longer cooldown and heals slightly less mana, and her global heal got a 20 second cooldown increase at all levels. That could be enough to bring her off some ban lists in favor of other champions (please start banning Amumu, people).

Heimer’s turrets caught a little nerf – they no longer increase damage based on number of hits and the AP coefficient was reduced. They do have slightly higher base damage, but definitely nothing on the order of the old hit method.

Malzahar got some nice tweaks, bumping his movement speed, increasing the range of his ult and Malefic Visions, and reducing the cooldown on Malefic Visions (which already felt very short to me).

Ryze got a little bit of a rework as well, adding a passive cooldown reduction to his Overload skill. To compensate, Desperate Power now has a longer CD. Rune Prison now lasts longer at early ranks and deals damage in DoT form. It’s basically Morgana’s old Dark Binding, which is odd.

Vladimir’s Sanguine Pool got a small CD nerf but his Tides of Blood now costs less HP, Blitzcrank got some CD reductions, Nunu got a Consume buff, and Garen got his attack timer reset on Decisive Strike back. Other than those small changes, there’s not a whole lot to report in the way of champions.

For items, the newer items all got buffs. Wriggle’s Lantern now costs less, which is just what it needed. The Gunblade and Cutlass got damage buffs without a cost increase.

Lots of little paragraphs in here, which should give you an idea of how many small changes came in this patch. I’ll have a Galio impression list up later today. Spoiler Alert: he’s underwhelming.

At least I’m pretty sure he does. The “Champion Approaches” post is now live with an official skill list for the gargoyle of Durand. Here’s the official ability breakdown:

Resolute Smite: Galio fires a concussive blast from his eyes, slowing and dealing damage to enemies caught near the impact point.

Bulwark: Galio shields an ally Champion, increasing their Armor and Magic Resistance, and restoring Galio’s health each time that Champion suffers damage.

Righteous Gust: Galio claps his wings, unleashing a gust of concussive wind that damages enemies and leaves a directional draft in its wake that increases ally movement speed.

Idol of Durand (Ultimate): Galio assumes the form of a statue, taunting nearby enemies and storing concussive energy as they attack him. Galio then bursts from his statue shell, releasing the stored energy to damage surrounding foes.

Runic Skin (Passive): Galio converts 50% of his total Magic Resistance into Ability Power.

As I mentioned in the sneak peek thread, Idol of Durand is actually his ult, which makes him much less threatening. The Righteous Gust skill seems pretty cool, though – a bit like Janna’s tornado with some speed boost for you. I could see him playing very well on 3v3, where the fights happen just about as often as player ultimates are available and tend to be full on team fights.

According to a recent ByronicHero post, it looks like Riot will be rounding out the Alice in Wonderland theme that got started with Mad Hatter Shaco by adding an Annie in Wonderland. Check the official post below:

Greetings, summoners!

A most peculiar thing happened to me today. While I was sitting in my garden indulging in a bottle of Shiraz and having a look at my copy of Don Juan, I spied a white rabbit in a waistcoat inspecting his pocket watch. Pondering this, I came to the immediate (and admittedly justified) conclusion that I must have overindulged. My suspicions were totally confirmed when the rabbit proceeded to exclaim at how late he was for a most pressing appointment.

As my befuddled rodent friend scampered off, I devised that the only reasonable thing to do was to stay put. After all, everyone knows that following a questionable white bunny only results in falling into a deep hole or an excursion to an inner city goth club filled with hackers in leather pants. Instead I decided that the operate response would be to rouse myself from my contemplative, wine-related haze by splashing some cold water on my face. Upon doing so, I felt revived and ready to face the day… that is until I spotted the enormous bear grinning back at me through the bathroom looking glass.

The moral of the story is that things are not always what they seem. Sometimes white rabbits are white rabbits, but oftentimes they are also giant, burning teddy bears dressed up as rabbits. There’s really no way of knowing until you happen upon one in the mirror while you’re trying to wake yourself up.

There are really no two ways to interpret that. Tibbers is gonna look like the giant demon bunny from Donnie Darko and the pervert contingent might finally get their teenage Annie. It’s going to be an epic day when that one launches. Expect this to be legendary in cost.

With the “Castlevania” franchise at a crossroads of sorts, it might have seemed like a good idea to create a game that helped remind fans why they fell in love with the series in the first place, but “Harmony of Despair” doesn’t even do that right. Recycling old characters, enemies and bosses from past installments, it’s like a Greatest Hits collection without any hits. There are only six levels to play through, and no story bridging them together. Instead, you just select one of five playable vampire slayers (Soma Cruz, Alucard, Jonathan Morris, Shanoa and Charlotte Aulin) – each with their own unique weapons and abilities – and trudge through each level hacking away at baddies until you arrive at the final boss. This is easier said than done, however, as you’ll often spend 20 minutes travelling through the labyrinthine mansions, only to be killed cheaply in the boss fight and have to start from the very beginning all over again.

Additionally, the mansions have plenty of hidden areas and treasures to discover, but since each level is timed, there’s little room for exploration. (Though this wouldn’t be such a problem if your character didn’t move like he was walking through quicksand.) You’ll also have trouble navigating through the sprawling 2D maps using the 3x zoom feature, as you can only make out what you’re character is doing in one of them. Thank goodness for multiplayer, then, as it’s the only good original idea in the game. Though completing levels with a six-player party can be a little too easy at times, it still makes for a much more enjoyable experience. Fallen teammates can be revived using Water of Life items found in treasure chests, and while you wait to be brought back from the dead, you get to play as a skeleton. But good luck finding a party that actually stays together for more than one round, let alone long enough to make it past the lobby. Fans deserved a lot better than this, because the only Harmony of Despair you’re going to find here is the thousands of gamers uniting to complain about how bad this game is.

Want more Summer of Arcade? Be sure to come back every Wednesday through August 18th for a first-hand look at Microsoft’s newest XBLA exclusives. Next week: get ready for the most lethal sport of the future as a player on “Monday Night Combat.”

Just a quick note to let you know we’ll be back to daily coverage of LoL and other various gaming topics tomorrow. I got to spend a great weekend in NYC and visit a close friend and Halo buddy in Brooklyn but I’m back in NC tomorrow and set to get back in the swing of things.

This week I’ll be starting some careful analysis of the different matchmaking queues, hopefully talking to a statistician or two about some of the issues with matchmaking, and providing a thorough look at the state of Vladimir and Xin Zhao since the nerf. In case you missed it, I’m also going to start up a Fearless Gamer in-house game night, most likely on Mondays. Stay tuned for more info.

Back on the road today so another quick post as we fight through rain outside Philly. This is some good news, though. Riot has seen fit to pick up three more community skins for official distribution.

This is the kind of thing I love about Riot. The developer could easily put an end to custom skins, or at least send them underground. Instead they embrace the artistic community around the game, throw some RP at the guys making the skins, and give us more choices in game.

As for the skins, you can now get Groovy Zilean, Deep One Kassadin, and Frosted Ezreal in the game store. Zilean is my favorite of the three, but I might have to wait for a sale before I pick him up.

I’m on the road to NYC today so this post will be short (typing on a phone in the back of a car isn’t the easiest thing). It looks like Riot wants to offer clemency to those of us who picked up a leave or two due to technical issues surrounding the Season One launch. As such, leave counts have been reset to their end of pre-season values. Here’s the official word from Riot:

Summoners!

As many of you are aware, some of the criteria surrounding leaves have changed since the launch of Season One. Due to player confusion around what resulted in a leave, as well as to compensate those players who may have been a victim of technical difficulties, with the latest patch we reset all players’ leave totals back to the value they were at the launch of Season One. Just remember, now that we’re all on the same page, the gloves are off! So no more shenanigans! Happy hunting!