Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3141
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 133
TR1 - 61
72376 reviews (20.4/level)
3532 (99.7%) walkthroughs
445 Hall of Fame levels
1221 levels rated >= 8
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release date: |
17-Mar-2006 |
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# of downloads: |
97 |
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average rating: |
6.39 |
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review count: |
14 |
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review this level |
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file size: |
49.20 MB |
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file type: |
TR4 |
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class: |
Egypt |
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| Reviewer's comments |
"Despite an alarming number of entries in the level-select list and corresponding .TR4 files in the data folder, this game is essentially a Tut1 adventure, as such rather unusual, but not particularly long (it took me about an hour, but for reasons stated below, your mileage may vary). The first entry (“Kirche”) could be called a training level, though let’s face it, it’s really more of a test level that the builder didn’t want to go to waste. It has no finish trigger, so whatever you do here has no bearing on the game proper. This latter is itself divided into three parts, of which one is inhabited by the Belgae—I’m sorry, of which one (the Tut1 bit) comprises the bulk of the gameplay. The other two have been labelled ‘satellite levels’, and very appropriately too, as they consist of small, more or less self-contained areas that exist for one narrowly defined purpose (to acquire the Pharos items, one in each). On the face of it, these satellite levels could just as well have been incorporated into the main map. The reason they haven’t is either the builder’s convenience—one uses the Settomb assets, the other a custom wad and .TGA—, or (perhaps less likely) a strong determination on his part to have venomous scorpions in the Settomb bit. One of the .TR4 files is a dummy that merely serves the purpose of allowing extra entries in the level-select menu to separate the game proper from the training level. These ‘chapter headings’ can themselves be selected, but if you do so, you merely see two consecutive load screens before you return to the level-select screen (awkward). You can also select the satellite levels directly, though this is clearly not intended, even if it might not get you stuck.
Gameplay is affected by some questionable design choices, and it has a few issues of its own as well. To name names, excessive darkness in a mono-textural network of crawlspaces; built-in backtracking to the extent that you have to retrace your steps through much of the game, including half of said network of crawlspaces; more backtracking on top of it if you do things in other than optimal order; and, last not least, several possible stuck situations. Two of these are caused by one particular error in level design: if you don’t pick up either of two Hands early in the game, you need to go back up to the room in which you started. There’s an entire set of ladders seemingly built for this particular purpose, but you can’t reach any of them from the floor—Lara simply won’t grab (as mentioned by Treeble and Kristina, and contra Orbit Dream). It looks as though the builder simply never bothered to check. As always, the game would have benefited from beta-testing (it may not be apparent from her review, but I’m sure the builder would have received an earful from Gerty). The third possibility to get stuck, however, is clearly intended and may even have been the germ from which this game was developed. It could be called the ‘bad ending’ (you die), but if you then reload an earlier save to get to the good one, you’ll have to scour the entire level for the third or fourth time in order to find the Cartouche that you’ve missed.
The Settomb satellite begins in a small cave, which is boxy and horribly textured—everything is mirrored—and so doesn’t look much like a cave at all, while most of the rest is, like the various crawlspaces in this game, covered with a single texture. The custom satellite provides a shift in tone away from the otherwise sombre atmosphere by centring on what is effectively a circus arena, in which red ninjas perform acrobatics like a band of tumblers at a fairground (and hardly ever bother you if you keep on the periphery). It’s here that, for a highly contrived reason, you have to pry a Black Beetle off a wall with the crowbar—the Beetle itself is useless; the builder uses it as a proxy to trigger an unrelated event. If you didn’t bring the crowbar, you’re in for another backtrack, in addition to the built-in backtrack to the beginning of the level and back again that you’re forced to undertake in order to acquire it anyway. To top it off, the path that leads to crowbar is obfuscated by a misleading fixed camera which seems to indicate that a certain collapsed corridor is not the way to go, when in fact it is. When you eventually manage to pick up the crowbar, a camera shows a gate opening at the bottom of the hub room. This is meant to be a shortcut, but it merely allows you to climb a very long ladder to the third story of the central structure, which doesn’t actually save you a lot of time and feels rather more tedious than the path you took before. At least you get another shot at picking up the Cartouche along the way. The Cartouche, by the way, is seemingly protected by flame emitters. I duly played along and acted as though they were an efficient trap, not noticing that you can safely ignore them and simply go around the back. Serves me right for poking fun at Dimpf in a recent review for a similar failure.
Earlier reviews mention several other minor problems (far too many flybys interrupting gameplay at the Ninja Convention Centre, etc.). The game’s flirtations with frustration are serious, then, so I can’t with a clear conscience rate it any higher than I do, but despite all of the above, I enjoyed the time I spent with it. The specific tasks you’re asked to perform are not in themselves particularly demanding or inventive, and so by the end you may, like Phil, not feel like you’ve accomplished much of anything. Nevertheless, it’s an exploration-based game in the good sense: one that invites you to find your way around a well-constructed map rather than simply dropping you into a maze (which is why I adopted JesseG’s apt term ‘network’) or making you scan each sector of a very large map for some difficult-to-spot item or other (a task more appropriate for a robotic scanning device). I therefore can, albeit with strong reservations, recommend this level to players of the exploratory type who aren’t afraid to have their sense of orientation challenged." - Mulf (07-Mar-2022) |
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| "A set of interwoven Egyptian levels where you look for the Pharaoh's knot and pillar before reaching the silver Eye Of Horus. The levels are individually pretty small and probably could have just been built as a single level, but that doesn't matter much. You will explore a good balance of small chambers versus larger ones, although the larger ones are a bit on the empty side. Lighting has good use of color in some spots but it is too dark overall, thankfully you will find a lot of flares toward the beginning but it still makes the raid a bit more tedious than it could have been. Texturing is pretty good, just suffers from a bit of wallpapering in the tunnels and a few other areas. I really appreciated the use of cutscenes, some of them were overkill but most of them were helpful in letting you know what you should do next, and that is good because otherwise the level design could cause you to do a fair amount of backtracking if you miss something. I also liked the cutscene where Lara beats up a mummy, it felt therapeutic after doing to many raids where you could do nothing but suffer their presence. I wasn't a fan of the large amount of crawling required, and the crawlspace network was a bit confusing and had me going in circles at one point. I didn't get stuck during my raid but I believe it's possible if you miss the cartouche. That's really my only gameplay critique though, these levels play quite well overall. You get some boulders and flames to dodge (although you can simply walk behind the flames), some simple climbing and rope swinging, and an interesting cursed chamber that will start draining at your health when you take your prize. There are a number of ninjas and scorpions to shoot with limited ammo, which I was a bit nervous about but I had just enough ammo between the various weapons to defeat everything in my path. It's not an outstanding levelset but I would still recommend it as long as you don't mind the dark lighting. 38 minutes." - JesseG (30-Nov-2020) |
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| "You can either play through the additional
preceding training level and jump around
columns, push buttons and listen to music, or
go straight to the main adventure. This is far
too dark in many spots. I know that plenty of
flares are provided, but it becomes an
annoyance having flares constantly in hand when
you're trying to navigate these complex levels.
Insofar as I could see, the Egyptian textures
did look good though. You have to backtrack
between the three main levels of this
adventure, acquiring a Cartouche and two Pharos
artefacts to finally get your hands on the
Silver Eye. Enjoyable enough, but the darkness
was rather annoying." - Ryan (11-May-2017) |
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| "This is a strange little level. Other than being too dark, you shuttle around between identical-appearing levels doing lots of things, but when all is said and done after about 50 minutes there's no feeling of having really accomplished anything. I finished the level last evening and have already forgotten most of it. Harry Laudie has provided a walkthrough that kept me from becoming hopelessly confused, and I have no idea how he managed to keep up with the level changes. There's even a non-level change. The first level has no apparent change or finish trigger, so you must manually exit and start the second level from scratch. Everything takes place underground or in what feels to be a buried building of some sort, and while the surroundings are realistic enough they leave you with a bland feeling. I was glad to finish so I could move on to something else." - Phil (28-Feb-2017) |
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| "This is a solid Egyptian adventure with an additional training level on the side. I didn't really spend a whole lot of time in the Church, but noticed most of the objects had no collision. There are a few things I need to point out about the actual level itself, some of which detracted from my enjoyment: I couldn't backtrack for the Hand of Orion, so I had to start over. Thankfully that was just 5-10 minutes in, but still, that could have easily been solved if the slope was one click higher (maybe it was possible, but the mummy was getting on my nerves and I realized it would be simpler to restart). Then, the level is too dark for anyone's liking and in a vain effort to spare flares, I didn't realize I had to be sparing ammo instead. I only ran out of ammo when the baddies started to appear, and that was somewhat aggravating as there's not a single pistol ammo pickup in sight. I decided to just outrun all enemies, except the pesky red scorpions (which are poisonous here) to which I had to put my Uzis to use. Mind you, I still had ammo for the other weapons, but it felt so wrong using Uzis on... scorpions. Anyway. there is a lot of camera work here, including a nifty one where Lara knocks out a mummy, and the Silver Eye itself looks so much better than the original Gold version. I think the Cartouche is a missable pickup, though, so you might make it all the way to the end just to fail as you won't be able to disarm the trap to leave with the coveted artifact, but I'm not sure whether this is by design or accidental. Anyway, like I said, good fun, polished visuals albeit too dark most of the time. Tip: there are enough flares. 40 minutes, 1 secret. 09/14" - Treeble (28-Sep-2014) |
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| "What a little gem of a level ! This one hour Egyptian raid (preceded by a training level in a church you can select in the menu individually and you don't have to play if you do not want to) was so good for me. The level is made so professionally , I thought I was playing an official level with nothing tricky except maybe for the darkness but you get enough flares. I usually enjoy fast and fluent pace, but here I enjoyed the rather slow (yet fluent) progression given the atmospheric feel of the level. I enjoyed the very clever work in the cameras department and the excellent texturing. The lighting could have been worked more though. Not many enemies throughout but no more was needed I think. There is a bit of humour with Lara making a mummy"knocked out" for good. Good work in the music and sound department too in general. Great thanks to the author, I hope he will make more levels in the future." - eRIC (02-Nov-2008) |
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| "First of all - though this uses the custom exe, I didn't notice any significant changes that would make this unplayable with a regular exe - so Mac players - feel free to give this a go too. If you don't mind the provided training level, this is your average Egyptian level, inspired a bit by the Tutorial and Tomb of Seth settings - quite solidly done as such, but ruined greatly by over-reliance on darkness from the author's part. The fly-by's are nice - the one where Lara (off-screen) beats up a mummy is funny while the others - though not used to re-create similar scenarios are still well done, but I was getting mildly annoyed when in one of the satellite levels, apparently stepping on every other tile caused a fly-by to start. There aren't all that many enemies, but it's very easy to forget that your pistol's ammo is limited and you can end up being defenseless against the scorpions or ninjas. You can find a revolver and uzis as alternatives to your pistols, but despite finding some ammo, I never found the shotgun. I almost got stuck for good when I entered the Silver Eye room without having picked up the cartouche for which I had to backtrack at some point, but Lara slowly dying without the slightest hope to escape at that point was hint enough to search through previous areas. Overall - it's a pretty solid Egyptian adventure with a handful of neat ideas, and the only real drawback is the darkness, though I suppose there's room for improvement in other categories for the builder as well." - eTux (25-Sep-2007) |
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| "The first level is set in a church and is a training level of sorts. {It is a strange church though as it has a shooting gallery in its basement!} This level is independent of the others and contains no finish trigger - stay as long or as short as you want. The Silver Eye proper starts with an Egyptian level which is ridiculously dark. Lara is in complete blackness for a lot of it. Flares are provided, but still, that isn't fun. And it is a shame, because when you do get to a brighter room they are textured nicely in the now very familiar Egyptian textures and some interesting things are going on. {I liked the scene where a mummy sneaks up on Lara and ends up flat on its back!} There is also quite a nice use of cameras. Unfortunately it is possible to get to the end of the adventure and find you are missing a vital pick-up. However this does appear to be the builder's first level and as such it is a very good first level. I look forward to their second offering." - Kitkat (27-Jul-2007) |
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| "Although this level is dark it isn't aggravatingly so as more than enough flares are provided,and the shadowy corners and dark recesses help to create the atmosphere (and possibly prevent draw-distance problems in some of the larger chambers).Despite the fact that Gameplay relies on too much backtracking through long dark crawl-spaces,there isn't anywhere in this adventure that you can't return to should you find yourself without a key pick-up. These being apparently the two main criticisms of this adventure I therefore find it somewhat surprising and a little unfair that this set of levels has received a low overall rating.Try as I might I couldn't detect a single stretched,missing or compressed texture,wafer-thin wall or poorly placed door. In fact,for a first level,this is a fine achievement. It isn't ambitious in scope,and yet it strives on numerous occasions for an epic feel;whether through interesting use of fly-by's and sound effects (at one point,Lara appears to take on a Mummy in hand-to-hand combat and win)or a battle with well-placed Ninja's,or a few majestically-sized chambers. The Gameplay is interesting although a Walkthrough is needed to avoid confusion at times,as you can charge through 99% of the adventure only to find you need a Cartouche piece at the very end;a Cartouche which could be absolutely anywhere within this extensive labyrinth of rooms and passages,and which is quite easily missed. As a result,the chances are that you will be happily involved in this adventure for most of its length;and rather unhappily involved for the remainder. Nonetheless,it remains a much underrated work (and you even get a bonus training level thrown in!)and I hope the builder continues to create." - Orbit Dream (12-Feb-2007) |
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| "Sorry by the author but I don't like this kind of levels. First level is not connected with the rest, so you can spend many time looking for an exit wich doesn't exists; perhaps in the readme file the author says something about this, but I don't understand german languaje (excuse me). This egypt level is very very dark, and although you have enough flares, you'll play most of the level crawling through dark passages looking for items; puzzles don't exist. I've found many few enemies too and only one secret. The same old and well known textures for all levels make the game more monotonous. Good attemp, perhaps another players like this kind of levels but they're bored for me." - Jose (26-Jun-2006) |
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| "First time around I couldn't get it started and this time I even could hop from one level to the next without loading a new level. Only thing to do is to convert the TOM files and Bob's your uncle. The level starts, if you want, in a church (that is a training level) and getting the revolver and sight and some practice shooting you then reload to the game itself. The level is pretty dark at some places and although there are plenty of flares I rather have a bit more light, to be honest. In my opinion you loose a lot of how this underground place looks because of the darkness. Your goal is getting two Hands and a Cartouche before getting a Knot and the Pillar. When I was placing the Cartouche Lara started to loose her health and I hears spikes popping up, but never saw the damned things." - Gerty (04-Jun-2006) |
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| "I liked and enjoyed playing this game. There is a bit of a strange sequence to the levels though because to play one of them you have to choose it from the 'new game' screen and then to continue you need to quit that one, there is no finishing trigger and load the next one. Nevertheless I found them interesting and they all had a nice flow. The first is something like an introduction I guess where you get no binoculars and the pistols ammo is limited throughout the entire game, two things I didn't like. A problem I encounter in the next levels was that in the room with the mummy and ladders I couldn't use any of them to get back up, which is unforgivable in my book because I was missing a hand, so make sure you have both hands before dropping down. There are dark corridors/crawlspaces but the flares are plenty, the enemies are scorpions and ninjas. As puzzle items we get a cartouche, the hands mentioned above but the desired item is the Silver Eye we pick up near the end from a room with invisible spikes. I found one secret, I heard the sound but it didn't register." - Kristina (12-May-2006) |
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| "When you see that you have to convert 5 TOM files you might think you are up for a huge game, but it really play in under an hour of net gaming time.
Kirche (10 min.): Added as a stand-alone training level where you can hop around a nice looking church finding crossbow, revolver and ammo and a shooting range. No finish trigger here.
Unterirdische Hallen (45 minutes): Rather dark, but I guess suitable to the location, although it did get annyoing to spend most of the time running around with flare in hand. It is basically a Tut1 environment with fairly smooth progression, very few enemies in the short satellite levels you visit for a knot and a pillar and a few interesting jumps and moves are really the only highlight. Unfortunately there is also quite a bit of tedious crawling. The most remarkable element for me was some interesting work on flyby cameras, often with a bit of a cinematic ambition and the end with the Eye and the light effects and invisible spikes was well done." - MichaelP (23-Apr-2006) |
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| "Along with the actual 'Silver Eye' game the author has given the player a separate training level set in a massive church where you climb to the rafters and end in the basement where you find a target range. There is no finish trigger though so you have to start the next game from the menu screen. Now I wanted to really like this Egyptian game but from the outset you are just blinded by the darkness, this is no more evident than in the huge room where you have to advance higher and higher on walkways, and as in this room the flares just didn't seem to have much effect and you have to retrace the long steps from the start of the level to get back here later on I got a tad tired of not being able to see what I was doing. Once you do get out of these dark areas you are given some relief for a while and the game takes on a nice little turn with the player having to visit 2 small areas set in other levels to gather some items and then back again. Unfortunately the darkness of the beginning areas put me in a slightly frustrated frame of mind and then I started overlooking things and found myself just not taking the time to figure things out properly, frankly I just wanted it to over. So please take my score and my review with a certain grain of salt as it may be a little jaded. This game took me 50 minutes with no secrets found." - Sash (21-Mar-2006) |
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