| Reviewer's comments |
"This is another level where you only need to pull levers/jumpswitches to open doors; well, and blast a machine gun too. But this is a bit better than others 'cause the author placed many camera shots to show the doors you're opening. Even so the level is boring, 'cause the continuous backtracking and there are not puzzles or another entertaining tasks to accomplish. Correct texturization, flat lighting, enough ammo for the extra guns, no secrets to look for, well balanced enemies and few more. Enjoyable but not entertaining for me." - Jose (17-Dec-2017) |
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| "A rather boring level where there are a lot of
levers to pull, guards to shoot and doors to
open. Also a lot of empty rooms to run through.
Not fun." - Ryan (12-Dec-2016) |
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| "Huge empty rooms, lots of to-ing and fro-ing, throwing switches and shooting guards. I regret to say this is really just a twenty four minute exercise in tedium." - Jay (22-Jul-2016) |
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| "Unless you are a) Trying to increase your review count or b) Are pressured into playing it by a cunning German who clearly only wanted to see you suffer, I would recommend, for your own good, to not even think about clicking the download link. 25 minutes." - Cory (27-Jul-2013) |
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| "Escape of rather easy prison for Lara since dices departure it is armed. Then it is necessary to search levers and levers and to find the good door to cross, having killed some guards, very very easily. Decoration is rather poor, of big too empty room. Uniform textures are generally well enough applied. A game which is very quickly crossed." - Daffy (12-Aug-2009) |
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| "I don't really understand Italian but I think Lara was arrested for stealing the Iris because Von Croy reported the theft. This is a level where Lara basically finds levers and opens doors. Surprisingly she has her pistols and a crowbar at the beginning of the level (the author could've placed a special trigger in order to prevent her from using the pistols). There are some big rooms paper-thin walls a few stretched textures and boring textures. However the boring textures give a bleak atmosphere that fits perfectly in this level because it is a prison after all. I just can't see why this level is called 'The England Prison' because I don't see anything that would make this prison English (unless the author did some research on English prisons)." - Sakusha (17-Apr-2004) |
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| "I am sad to say this was boring. Also I would like to know what kind of prisons are there in England that allows you to have a crowbar and guns lol. Anyway jokes aside I think this was a nice idea but somehow didn't turn out to be good in action. Empty rooms everywhere I would have gone for some prisoners no bars and SAS only. You go from one switch to the other and from door to door. That's not my idea of fun." - Kristina (25-Aug-2003) |
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| "Die-hard raiders will find this pretty tame stuff. Nevertheless it is a great little level for those who are starting to download custom levels. It's not so much a prison looking level as a warehouse an empty warehouse at that. The level is very straightforward. You have to find switches that open doors to find more switches running and swimming around large areas and shooting prison guards." - CC (31-Mar-2003) |
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| "Not sure what to say about this one. The rooms are way too big and well it actually doesn't look like a prison but well let's skip that. Lara wearing a new catsuit (very nice by the way) simply has to find her way through this so called prison activating switches and flipping levers to open doors. You go backward and forward through the whole level searching for the newly open doors (even with the cameras it's hard to say which door just opened). If in the end there was a bike I would have added extra points but well there was none just a music which suggests it and a shootable barrier." - Treeble (30-Jan-2003) |
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| "Lara in prison with her guns and hey - a crowbar convenient laying on the floor. They tell me life in prison is no walk in the park well in this one it is no walk indeed. I never in a level used the dash key so much as in this one. You go from one lever to the next and from one open door - well you get the drift. Annoying is that the guards start shooting the minute Lara lays her hands on a door and one even walked through it before she completely opened it. Glad I found the way out of this prison. 02-10-2002" - Gerty (07-Oct-2002) |
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| "Really what can I add to Mulf's review other than to say that it's not all that bad. In fact I guess it's my favourite level from Fabio and we've seen worse. The atmosphere is very bleak but appropriately so since this is a prison and though getting out of it is not very dangerous nor tricky it is so tedious that when you eventually open the final gate and step out into the open space your relief that this level has come to an end is as close as you can get to the feeling of happiness one might experience when he has managed to escape from jail." - Dimpfelmoser (15-Sep-2002) |
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| "The game play in this level I found was exactly the same as this creator's other level Rome where you need to find a crowbar to open one of the first doors and from then on find levers to open them with a little gun play along the way. The look of the environment in this 30 minutes level happily is a little more interesting set inside a prison as is the progression although it isn't difficult by any means and there are a couple of nice camera angles thrown in just for good measure. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy this level but this definitely isn't for me as I like more mentally stimulating challenges." - Sash (21-Jun-2002) |
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| "Lara in a neat black catsuit starts off with an easy escape from her cell as she finds the crowbar to open the door and for some reason she could keep her beloved pistols and can rid of the two guards in front of her cell door easily. From then on it is really an exhausting run through many many huge repetitively textured rooms pulling one lever after another to open one door after another. I got through in about 20 minutes and the best thing are probably the sometimes good use of cameras and windows." - Michael (21-Jun-2002) |
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| "This was quite a straightforward little level that only took around 20 minutes to complete. Actually it was a little too simple as does not offer any challenges. The textures are nicely done and I did really like Lara's catsuit. Perhaps she should not have started out with any weapons (she was in prison after all)." - Torry (21-Jun-2002) |
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| "This level is short simple and requires very little thought. You start out in a prison cell but the crowbar is right next to you so there is no problem getting out. From then on all you have to do is open doors and pull switches sometimes killing a guard or two as you make your way to the final exit doors. For most players this would need a few more challenges added as there are no puzzles and even the one machine gun is easily taken care of. The textures are nothing exciting this is after all a prison though and therefore appropriate and there were a few areas added that were interesting including one underwater area. The rooms were so large that as I was playing I kept wishing I would find the motorcycle so I could do some joyriding. My favorite thing was the attractive little catsuit Lara was wearing and the use of cameras and dark shadows added some interest as well." - RaiderGirl (21-Jun-2002) |
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| "This makes tedium feel exciting." - Orbit Dream (21-Jun-2002) |
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| "This level's most outstanding feature from the perspective of an audience-oriented criticism is overwhelming tedium while from the authorial point of view it is marked by a very profound insipidity. Not to mention the most obvious manifestations of ineptitude; throughout the level the rooms show wafer-thin walls at just about every portal and your enemies keep running into closed doors firing merrily away at Lara while she performs her animation of opening these doors I would hold that the most serious flaw of this level is a really quite astonishing unimaginativeness. There is for example a sentry gun which conveniently turns its vulnerable back to you and therefore poses no threat to you at all; that is if you do not happen to be completely blind and have actually found the "hidden" crawlspace with the switch that opens a door to a room where you not only find the revolver but also ammo and lasersight. This is in fact what comes closest to being a 'puzzle'. If the 'puzzle element' the 'find the next switch' principle is at the heart of the TR series this level is the very parody of that principle: you open a door that leads to a switch that leads to a door that leads to a switch...Incidentally the jump switches among them are sticking awkwardly low in the walls while all the lever switches have been placed at an 45° angle; with the latter this level actually gains a point in originality; alas it remains the only one. Your main task however is running. The keys I've used most in this level are ALT and the dash key to overcome the vast empty spaces between the switches and their corresponding doors. The rooms are bleak and barren and to forge some interest in them a few pickups or the door you have to go through next are invariably placed at the point farthest away from where you enter them but primarily they are quite unnecessarily enormous and empty. As for textures the rooms usually have one for ceiling floor and walls respectively mostly taken from the Nevada levels of TR3 (in which the author could have studied how to use them properly) there is in fact a minimum of variation; although I wonder why anybody would cover their floors and stairs with computer circuits. There are some pickups you never need: flares medipacks most notably the crossbow; except the crowbar which comes in handy at the very start of the level because somebody forgot it in Lara's prison cell. Specific camera angles are used but they are either superfluous or annoying. In one or two instances dramatic music swells contrasting comically with the player's tranquilized tedium. If I abstain from giving the level an even lower rating this is due not to any positive achievements but rather to the author's 'negative capability': At no point in the level you are in doubt as to where to go next (which may be considered a disadvantage in more advanced levels but in this case would merely turn tremendous tedium into sheer annoyance); and the author was lucky enough to forget placing a SHATTER_1 object that releases locusts when triggered and usually can be found in similarly unimaginative levels that use the city wad. On the other hand the author was able to modify that wad; she/he has introduced a catsuit Lara model therefore a penalty for the author's failure to make the wad conform to the demands of the setting is thoroughly justified. By the way I didn't bother to translate the Italian storia (which comes with the level instead of a readme) but judging from the number of exclamation marks used it will explain away such boring questions as how the imprisoned Lara acquired her catsuit and how she talked the obviously not too bright guards into not taking away her guns and even procuring a crowbar for her; explain them in a way just as imaginative as the level itself." - Mulf (21-Jun-2002) |
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