I liked the first Lara Croft Bow Warrior quite a bit: very legible action platforming, a surprisingly decent story about coming into your powers, tons of collection that managed to stay on the entertaining side instead of the annoying side. Rivers of blood and not enough tombs—it’s a AAA video game—and there were too many creepy impalements, but it was a game that I was happy to have played.

But, apparently, there was something about the first game that bothered the game’s designers: they’d put in an animal killing mechanic, they forced you to do it once early on in the game, but I guess I’m not the only person who didn’t kill any animals after that first one. So the designers made sure that, in the second Lara Croft Bow Warrior, you didn’t limit your slaughter to people who were shooting at you: you have to leave a trail of furry creatures spread across the snow in your wake, you have to chase down deer and wolves that are limping away after being shot, whimpering but still trying to escape.

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