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Level: Mess back home search
Author(s): Skender Buqaj
total rating:5.80 Gameplay &
Puzzles		 Enemies,
Objects &
Secrets		 Atmosphere,
Sound &
Cameras		 Lighting &
Textures
CC 6 5 7 5
Cory 5 6 7 4
David 6 6 7 9
Dimpfelmoser 5 4 7 6
Gerty 7 6 7 8
Kristina 4 4 3 3
MichaelP 6 6 8 5
Orbit Dream 3 3 5 4
RaiderGirl 6 6 7 6
Sash 5 6 6 7
Torry 7 6 8 6
Treeble 6 5 5 4
Wendee 5 5 8 7
Yoav 6 5 8 8
category averages
(14 reviews)		 5.50 5.21 6.64 5.86

Reviewer's comments

"The basic concept of this level is interesting enough,(work your way up to the highest point of a huge room in order to pull a lever and then do a high dive back down again)but boy,is it tedious! A huge,dark and boring maze;rooms that are generally 5 times larger than they need to be;copious amounts of backtracking;textures that are often stretched to breaking point. There is entertainment to be had (I particularly liked the camera angles which effectively showed off the central structure you needed to climb),but the player generally has to work a little too hard to find it." - Orbit Dream (28-May-2009)

"This is my 100th review if I have been counting correctly. This level was half an hour with some nice bits of gameplay but alas it has a maze (or two). There were never enough flares and in places like the maze you really need them. The mummies were used well but were never a real threat. I never used the revolver but the baddies were used well (perhaps one too many). The rooms could have been needlessly big but the gameplay was always nice and flowing. The texturing was this levels only major downfall. In places there were incredibly stetched textures and in the maze even though you couldn't see them, you could see small patterns that looked awful. If it was textured better and more flares were provided I would have rated higher but overall a nice level that I recommend." - Cory (29-Apr-2008)

"Well, it's not as messy as you'd have thought judging from the rather creative title, but I've gotta say that the textures do seem to have been applied in a rather messed up pattern, often stretched. Darkness also has its place here, and so does a maze towards the end. On your quest for the four Eye Pieces, you'll come across wafer thin walls and floors and some completely black areas. With all that being said, I liked the small city area, despite the main focus of the level being on the central multileveled shaft. You have to get to the top to open the exit doors on the bottom, and there's an ever ready quick way down nearby. 30 minutes. 08/07" - Treeble (12-Aug-2007)

“I thought this level was great fun. Perhaps I'm just in the mood for a quirky mix of textures and architecture even that black maze didn¹t bother me. Gameplay involved searching for ammo switches and eyepieces all very straight forward but I really liked the way you go about it. Through different rooms climbing swimming jumping sliding on top of pillars running along walkways with camera angles (just press look to gain control again) and a great dive from the top of a four-tiered structure into a pool below. There are numerous ninjas scorpions and mummys to deal with but somehow it all worked out nicely. I loved the little 'village' effect with little houses and a bit of thinking to get up to another switch.” – CC (06-Oct-2004)

“Another good looking level with big rooms. They are so big that in one of them there is a small city - well at least it looks like one. Too much running from room to room black maze two Eyes Pieces to find. This looks wonderful and is a fun level for sure.” – Yoav (23-May-2004)

“Here you can see that beauty is in the eye of the beholder as I liked very much what I saw in this level. From gameplay to the textures. Although a mishmash in my opinion it added a certain something to this level. The rooms you travel through are big and I mean BIG. Enemies some 10 scorpions about 17 ninjas (give or take a few) and mummies. You get right at the start the revolver and a bit further down the line the shotgun. I heard one secret chime (one half of the Eye of Horus) but it didn’t count as such. All in all you need 4 halves and pulling (I think) 2 levers to open up the last door. There are nice fixed cameras but don’t worry the ‘look’ key does work. There is a black maze you have to travel through twice as you need the other half of the Eye and the door is in the middle of the maze. I steered only on the right and it didn’t take me that long. I even played this with my lights on and the lamp is next to my screen. I liked the little city the best and I am not sure if I had to do something with the statues. 30-12-2002” – Gerty (06-Jan-2003)

“This was a level revolving around a huge central room that actually turned out to be quite fun. The object is to progress to the top of the room through a series of diversions which included a rustic village a dark maze and a simple maze to locate four halves of the all seeing ‘EYE’ to open the doors which are in plain sight and exit the level. The dark maze had me going and actually turned me right around so that I ended up coming out where I had started. Most frustrating lol. You also end up covering ground you have already seen before as the level drops you back to these already visited areas. All in all a good hour of fun.” – Torry (19-Sep-2002)

“I just had to download this level because of the interesting name and found a fun little level with an odd mix of rooms. Except for a maze that's so dark a flare couldn't even touch it it's a simple level that has you exploring to find multiple eye pieces while trying to stay away from the ninjas and mummies. Some of the rooms are a bit too big as there's really nothing to do in them but the little village area is just great and I enjoyed the rooms with many levels and the walkways with the difficult camera angles.” – RaiderGirl (25-Jul-2002)

“I assume this level got its not so flattering title from the weird combination of big rooms placed together such as a nearly pitch black maze a room with small pyramids and a whole small town crammed into one room not to mention some of the textures used. Set predominantly around one multi storied room with lots of walkways spanning the floors you have to go in search of 4 eye of Horus pieces so as to reach the top walkway in the main room where a lever will open the end doors. This is a nice 30 minutes level but not hard at all and there are an annoyingly large amount of ninjas as well as some useless mummies and easily taken out scorpions. I’m just glad there were no enemies in the maze or I may have jumped out of my skin but because of all the ninjas to that point I was on edge all the way through it anyway.” - Sash (21-Jun-2002)

“Only 37 rooms but during this half hour quest for two Horus eyes through rather huge areas with some sliding and crawling some shooting (scorpions ninjas mummies around) I did mainly enjoy the little village and the fact that the mazelike parts where rather simple to master. Some thin walls and floors around and rather repetitive texturing (sometimes missing completely) spoil it a bit too.” – Michael (21-Jun-2002)

“A strange title for a rather nice little level. Mess is all about biiiig rooms. Lara moves from one to another and I could only admire the texturing and construction of the locations. Very nice with some original colours and ideas I'd not seen before. The only problem is that the water has not been textured properly and cannot be seen and also does not exist from time to time when Lara drops in but suddenly she'll be underwater with a splash. We move from area to area with scorpions Ninjas and Zombies (I do get a little bored with these three cropping up over and over but I suppose that's the limitation of the available Wads) but there is a nice maze-like section to navigate Horus-eye segments to collect and rooms to admire all along the way. Ultimately though it is a little simplistic with few puzzles and nothing to really challenge. The area with the houses was tricky to work out how to open the exit gate but lateral thinking solved it. There's also a 'secret' type thing which puts Lara back to earlier in the Level which was a little frustrating. Overall a fun level well designed and thought out and with some lovely big rooms and textures.” - David (21-Jun-2002)

“You begin in a beautiful Egyptian room with only one option. After swimming and killing bad guys its back to the 1st room. Only it has undergone a change. The gamer solves puzzles (not difficult) with the ultimate goal of changing the configuration of the 1st room so you can solve more puzzles. And so on. This was an average level with nothing terribly wrong. The only major problem I encountered was a couple of portals that you should need eye pieces to open that you can walk right through. I wish the game-creator would have made more but smaller rooms that require many different skills of the gamer. My approximate time: 30 minutes.” – Wendee (21-Jun-2002)

“What a mess indeed. The textures are awful misplaced and mixed I have no idea how can someone mix city textures with Egyptian ones and I mean it is really bad. All the rooms are like that and huge empty. You will find Eyes as puzzles to open the usual doors and make your way to the upper level and a couple of levers. Many baddies and a few mummies. Everything is very easy even an attempt to hide a crawlspace behind some moveable statues failed and how not to if the lighting is lower than basic. I didn’t enjoy playing it at all.” – Kristina (21-Jun-2002)

“Although not everything in this level makes sense (you get the lasersight right near the end where it's completely useless) some of the walls and walkways are two dimensional and the water has no surface this level certainly holds some charm as you're never quite sure how the next room you step in will look like. There are two real downers and that is the annoyingly dark maze and the constant onslaught of Ninjas generally shooting you in the back. At the heart of this you'll find a huge room with a four leveled structure that you have to climb up and down to open the final gate. It's all fairly easy and the trickiest part is to maneuver Lara over the floating catwalks with a fixed camera angle from above. So if you want a bit of a challenge here don't switch back to OPV. You get long slides and frankly there comes the time when you have to climb back up again the mummies are more for decoration than to do any harm and since you have so many different environments crammed into 30 minutes of net gaming time the atmosphere remains somewhat rudimentary but I really liked the fly by that zoomed in on the shotgun and I enjoyed being able to sprint high over that pitchblack maze once you found the exit.” – Dimpfelmoser (21-Jun-2002)
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