Some people will tell you that Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a game about Lara Croft and her new partner Totec (a reanimated “Guardian of Light”) running through tombs and temples filled with a series of deadly traps while killing hundreds of demons and hostile animals.

These people would be lying to you.

Lara Croft’s latest adventure is about sitting on a couch with a friend and yelling, laughing, and sharing sighs of relief as you just barely escape a gargantuan rolling spiked ball (or whatever ridiculous horrors the game throws at you).

While it abandons the Tomb Raider moniker, Guardian of Light is more observant of the Core values of the series than the recent AAA releases. Early Tomb Raider games were built on three major principles: Difficult puzzles, impractical-but-deadly traps, and a focus on exploration in locations that were fantastical (if not logical). Guardian of Light wholeheartedly embraces these values and throws story to the wind.

Because Guardian of Light’s story is cheesy and implausible at best, it’s given the freedom to set up over-the-top situations that would feel out of place otherwise. I’ll avoid spoiling any of the game’s moments but, once you’ve played through Guardian of Light, you’ll be referencing some of the sequences in conversation with your co-op buddy for weeks to come.

Although Guardian of Light is forgiving, it isn’t easy. Lara and Totec will both die many times, but getting your friend back in the game is as simple as a button tap. If one happens to fall out of reach into a spike pit or off a cliff, they’ll be automatically respawned within a few seconds. An actual “death” in the game is when both players wipe at the same time. Even then, the game checkpoints very often, and you’ll never find yourself frustrated.

Co-op puzzle solving is a great experience; each one is so ingenious in its design that every solution will come to you through a logical realization (like in Portal) before you resort to random attacks at the puzzle in an attempt to stumble upon the seemingly illogical solution. The dialogue that will happen between your co-op partner and yourself isn’t restricted to high-energy situations, either. Puzzle solving will have you suggesting tactics, directing (or being directed), and copious amounts of high fives after the fact.

Guardian of Light gave us five-and-a-half hours on our first playthrough, and it seemed to end just as it started to rehash contents (such as boss and level reskins). If you’re the obsessive/compulsive type, there are collectibles and different challenges in each level that result in new weapons or costumes, as well as score and time goals to beat.

While Guardian of Light’s faults are few and far in between, there are some little issues that crop up throughout the game. The biggest issue I had was that the game made checkpoints too often. The euphoria that rushed in after surviving a particularly deadly gauntlet was muted by the checkpoints made at each quarter of the sequence. I think there could be a bit more risk involved in Guardian of Light that would both heighten the stress during the climactic scenes and allow for a greater sense of accomplishment once complete.

Lara’s latest adventure is a steal for $15; you owe it to yourself (and your co-op partner) to play this one through as soon as possible.

The first thing to mention is the characters: In Assassin’s Creed II, Ezio (the player character) grows and meets many characters, some of which we became very attached to. A missed QuickTime event prompt caused Ezio to decline a hug from a very let-down Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s interesting that we felt terrible about that for the rest of the evening, yet we didn’t care about stabbing some minstrel that was in our way.

As developed as the characters are, Assassin’s Creed II’s best character is Renaissance Italy. The world is so strong and believable that one feels right inside a condensed version of Venice or Florence. Even if Assassin’s Creed II doesn’t have the graphics of Uncharted 2, we still had a wow moment the first time we climbed a tower and saw how huge the city was. Free running over the rooftops is a blast; especially if you have guards trailing you.

When free running, we would sometimes expect a platform where there was none, and we would have a long fall from the rooftops. My fiancée plays games a lot and never feels motion sickness or any such experience but, when she falls off the roofs in ACII, she feels like she’s on a roller coaster.

Another thing we really liked besides the world was how dissimilar in pace and structure ACII was to ACI. The first outing in the series places the player in an assembly line of killing; the objectives became tedious and repetitive soon into the game. Assassin’s Creed II has a huge amount of variation to keep things fresh. Side quests, armor and weapon upgrades, collectibles, cryptic messages to decode, assassin’s tombs (all-platforming sections), and refurbishing Ezio’s uncle’s villa kept us busy when we needed a break from knife-facing. The problem was deciding when to take a break.

Due to the open-world nature of Assassin’s Creed II, it’s difficult to assign turns and decide what  the next move will be. It’s not a strike against the design or execution by any means, it’s simply that a game with so many directions to go doesn’t lend itself to a group playthrough.

Assassin’s Creed II is a solid game and I would recommend it to couples for controller-passing playthroughs. If you do play it, I would advise you play it during the day because you may miss some of the complex storyline if you happen to fall asleep while your significant other is still playing.

I played through all of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves with my fiancée Ashley, and we had a blast. Uncharted 2 was also the first competitive online multiplayer game that has ever caught her attention, so if you’re the only online multiplayer gamer in the relationship, this game may be your gateway drug.

As you all probably know, playing through single player games as a couple can be tricky. Having to take turns, and deciding when or where to pass the controller, usually takes away from the experience but, in Uncharted 2, it worked out perfectly.

Uncharted 2 is divided up into two major gameplay types: platforming and combat. Lucky for us, Ashley much prefers the platforming, and I like the combat and platforming equally. Going through the first half of the game, we were working in complete sync: Gunshot? Controller passed. Combat music over? Controller passed. Neither of us felt that the other was getting a larger share of play time until the second half of the game. Avoiding spoilers, the game becomes quite action-oriented, and platforming takes a serious back seat (read: the trunk). Even if the Designated Platformer in your relationship has nothing to do in the second half of the game, they won’t be overly upset because the presentation in Uncharted 2 is absolutely amazing.

Uncharted 2 is graphically beautiful. We hadn’t had such a big “wow” factor since we first upgraded to this console generation. The environments are gorgeous; sometimes you’ll be climbing up a mountain and take half a minute just to look at the expansive horizon that Naughty Dog created. On the topic of production values: the soundtrack, script, and voice acting are just as great as the graphics, and the game has an impressive lead. Nathan Drake is funny, charming and, unlike most game characters, believably human.

It’s very possible for players to generally feel a sort of kinship with Drake, because he is not the untouchable superhero that most game characters are made out to be. Nathan Drake gets beaten up so much throughout the progress of the game, it could have been retitled Uncharted 2: Nathan Drake Has a Series of Bad Days. We can relate to Drake; it makes him so much more human knowing he might just lose. We also liked how Drake would often jeer at enemies and shout PG-13 profanities when grenades would land near him, which were good for a laugh in tense situations.

Uncharted 2 has a great (online) multiplayer mode that we both agree is 1) lots of fun 2) boils down to grenade kills and punching people in the face. Although most of the weapons made it into the multiplayer mode, the game can be played fairly effectively via melee combat or 1-shot sneak kills. It may not please the hardcore crowd, but the multiplayer is definitely fun.

Both multiplayer and single player  modes have a “cash” incentive that allow you to purchase concept art, behind the scenes movies, game tweaks, multiplayer bonuses, and player reskins for both modes. The cash incentive is great, since there are some pretty awesome top-level skins for both multiplayer and single player.

Uncharted 2 is not without flaws, and the lack of local co-op is a huge one. Throughout most of single player, you’re paired with an AI ally who will assist you up ladders, help solve puzzles, or engage in combat. The game would have been great had it featured jump in/out split-screen co-op for single player. Ashley and I had a great time playing through Resident Evil 5, frantically yelling at each other to watch a door or pass an herb or ohmygodlookouttheresachainsawguybehindyou. Having this kind of experience in the world of Uncharted would have been beyond amazing.

Outside of the lack of local multiplayer, other qualms we’ve had with Uncharted 2 are largely around its length. Uncharted 2’s single player campaign falls a bit on the short side, clocking in at about 10-11 hours for us. Most games we prefer to be over and done with in about 15 hours, but the fact we’re taking issue with the length is a testament to how fun the game is and how well everything was presented.

As far as controller-passing single player games go, Uncharted 2 is probably the best we’ve experienced, despite the lack of local multiplayer. We would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a fantastic PS3 game to play solo or with their significant other.