Level: The Base of Darkness Author(s): Bruno Klug total rating: 5.73 Gameplay & Puzzles Enemies, Objects & Secrets Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras Lighting & Textures alan 6 5 5 5 CC 7 5 6 4 Dimpfelmoser 6 3 6 4 eTux 5 5 4 4 Gerty 6 6 6 5 Jay 7 7 6 6 Jose 5 5 6 5 Kristina 6 7 7 7 MichaelP 7 7 5 4 Mulf 3 4 4 3 RaiderGirl 7 7 6 5 Sash 8 7 6 7 Tombaholic 7 5 7 4 Torry 8 7 7 8 Treeble 7 6 5 6 category averages (15 reviews) 6.33 5.73 5.73 5.13 Reviewer's comments "This level has what an average base/city level has: guards, sentry guns, a bike. But this is too dark in many places, but you will find several flares along the way. I couldn't finish the level due to a bug I found in the final room. The walkthrough said to shoot the south-east vase first, then go to the crawlspace to pick up the shotgun, then return to shoot the second vase and the gate would open. I did all that and nothing happened. The end was near anyway, so I quit. I think there were 2 or more areas that I couldn't visit because there were closed doors and a tile that doesn't break when you ride the bike over it. This took me 42 minutes to complete." - alan (04-Feb-2018) "Another City level of the ‘base’ type, and yes, it’s dark, so much so that in places the health bar disappears. If that happens, you’re doing it wrong. But then, there’s so much more here that went wrong: a buggy trapdoor is used (although a perfectly serviceable one is available, and used elsewhere); enemies, and in one case even a sentry gun, pop into existence in your back after you’ve cleared the area; there are leftovers from an earlier version like the non-functional Smashable Bike Floor or the randomly triggered fog bulb; other events are triggered in a random manner by intention; the map appears to have been cut down from a considerably larger version, and no attempt whatsoever has been made to mend the frayed seams, so there are invisible walls, and the end of the world is in your view at all times; overall construction is a mess, because rooms of different heights have been joined and stacked rooms are dodgy as well, resulting in severe glitches and also probably causing the bug that made Lara lose her grip on the monkeyswing in the so-called warehouse, which forced me to DOZY through the rest of the level. There are short fits of mediocre entertainment, but overall not much fun was being had." - Mulf (10-Jan-2018) "You certainly can't catch this out under the Trades Descriptions Act - yes, it's a base and oh yes, it's dark. As a level of this age supports the savegame editor, I supplied myself with unlimited flares, for which I make absolutely no apology. Yes, we can all flare round and reload, but how irritating is that? This has moments of pleasure - outwitting and blowing up sentry guns just never gets old - but overall it's a rather confusing and spread out level. If exploring bases and shooting guards is your cup of tea, I'd advise keeping the walkthrough handy as you'll almost certainly need it at some point." - Jay (07-Oct-2015) "This level is very long and complex. The rooms are too dark and I didn't find enough flares to light my way. Also it's too no-lineal, and even when there are many camera hints you'll need to re-visit the same places often in the outside area. The gameplay was very boring for me, go to a place, pull a lever, shoot some soldiers or bats, go to another place, pull another lever, shoot enemies again, and so on. At least I found enough guns and ammo. There are a lot of untextured walls where you reach the end of the world, several paper walls here and there, stretched textures in big wall panel surfaces and some minor defects. I only got fun destroying the machine guns and riding the bike near the end. Only recommended for pure shooters/explorers." - Jose (05-Jun-2015) "Here's someone who wasn't smart enough about doing their homework. The mere presence of the words base and darkness in the title of the level should be enough to repel most of the potential players. If that sounds harsh, consider the fact that this is the first review for the level in 7 years in it's 9 year existance and even then it's review #11. But while the darkness (and lack of flares) is certainly burdensome, it's certainly possible to get through with no major holdups. The only hickup I personally experienced was missing out completely on the crawlspace in the initial, Tutorial-level-reminiscent rooms, which turned out to hold the much needed valve pipe. The 5 secrets I found were rather hard to miss, and some, like for example the one in the aforementioned crawlspace even opened up doors to what one would normally consider standard gameplay (you can't embark on the quest to destroying the sentry guns without this particular secret). That also raises the point that the gameplay is generally rather confusing, and while it's fun when it does flow well, and you can't complain about the lack of cameras too much, some things like raising a block in one of the multi-storey warehouses or shooting baskets to open doors seemed rather random. All that said - this can be a rather enjoyable 40 minute retro raiding for a rainy afternoon, but will probably not appeal to most players." - eTux (24-Jun-2010) “Basically this level is made based on the tutorial level. Starting it you are in a base with the appropriate textures but it is the same as the tutorial. There are a few sentry guns and SAS guards around and a lot of door to open. I couldn’t open a trapdoor behind a building or the trapdoor to access the roof with the two sentry guns. I don’t know if I missed something important but judging from the other reviews I didn’t. We have some paper thin walls and the lighting isn’t very good as at some area outside it gets totally dark but bright a few steps further. Also the flyby at one point passes through walls. Not my kind of level but maybe yours. I got through in forty five minutes with five secrets.” – Kristina (05-Aug-2003) “A dark base level indeed but it wouldn't have been such a biggy if the blackness of the end of the world and disappearing textures weren't there also the joins could be seen and this also made for bad flybys. This looked very familiar and it hit me shortly into the level that this was the playable tutorial level of the editor with base textures. Well why not? Lots of SAS machine guns (fun to blow up) bats locusts (perhaps the author intended these to be a flock of bats!!) and best of all the scurrying rats. Main business of the night is pulling levers and it's back and forth through the site buildings. There's a reasonably easy but peculiar looking underwater maze type place. Still there were some really good indoor rooms i.e. the one where you have to run around ledges and make you're way to the top and exploding the helicopter well at least that took one of it's blades out of the window! The highlight for me was the bike jump the camera angle changes so you watch Lara from the front she disappears out of sight and you think oh oh she's a gonner but I kept the control button pressed and she appeared again in front of me ingenious. So not too bad after all.” – CC (24-May-2003) “This is a big level with a huge (and sometimes very buggy) map. It's not my favorite kind of level because you have a lot of places to explore and it gets really confusing in the plain darkness the level is set. The textures sometimes are very repetitive and they could have varied a little more. There's also a weird flipmap which activates a blue fog in the buildings area! Well download it at your own risk but be warned - it's quite dark in here! I found a bunch of secrets (3 I think) - they weren't secrets actually only pickups NOT hidden. About the bugs well the 20 tiles bug is exceeded (shown in the flyby) and the end of the world is quite accessible as already pointed out by the other reviewers.” – Treeble (19-May-2003) “Dark so playing at night is a must. I just don't like that as I know I will have a headache afterwards. And it is not a short one either. Being Lara you know you have some shooting to do and there is a lot of that in this level also one of the things that doesn't thrill me too many enemies. Still don't know what those locusts were doing apart from making Lara's life miserable. Apart from that the atmosphere I sort of liked. 07-05-2003” - Gerty (12-May-2003) “Looks like Lara has broken into another 'top secret military base' and is now under fire from a number of darkly dressed government agents. Does a girl’s day ever end? For the most part this is a straight forward level that will have you running around both inside and out pulling switches shooting soldiers destroying machine guns - just a typical day in a girl’s life. The motorcycle makes things interesting for a bit but everything else is routine.” – RaiderGirl (19-Feb-2003) “By the name you can probably tell this is going to be a shoot ‘em up and although I find these kinds of levels a little uninteresting this one had a certain quality that appealed to me. With a large main outdoor area with many buildings spread throughout the aim is to enter each but one to eventually locate the motorbike and make your getaway. Atmospherically this was a very gloomy level because of the use of dark lighting sometimes too annoyingly dark but it fit the essence of the game extremely well. There are a couple of things that I thought could have been improved the first 2 rooms before the outdoor area were just the first 2 rooms of the Tut1 WAD retextured which was a little unoriginal and each of the 6 secrets were placed in areas that were crucial to progression making them not secret but otherwise this was a cool 75 minutes adventure.” - Sash (21-Jun-2002) “Being sarcastic I could say that you get what the name of the level indicates. Very dark gloomy atmosphere due to the City WAD a loadful of enemies shooting at you automatic machine guns and the likes. These kind of levels are not a particular favourite of mine but if you like them you can try this one out. Unfortunately the action packed gameplay is heavily interfered by a number of texturing errors paper-thin walls and the fact that the ‘world’ ends in many places with darkness that you can run against.” - Michael (21-Jun-2002) “I do like these levels based on the city wads. This was a tough level. Got stuck on a number of occasions but if I had thought things through instead of rushing & shooting anything that moved…Loved the outside sequence but it ended sort of weird. Still was fun to play and that's the whole point isn’t it!” – Torry (21-Jun-2002) “Wow - this level is full of basic mistakes like thin walls bad lighting (just ridiculously dark in many spots) boxy rooms and major end-of-the-world issues. Still it manages to achieve something that made it fairly entertaining and I'm not sure I can quite put my finger on it. I guess it was something about the atmosphere and the progression of the gameplay that succeeded in engaging my interest for the hour or so it lasted. Give it a try if you’re a fan of gloomy levels with lots of shooting.” – Tombaholic (21-Jun-2002) “There are a great many flaws in this Level. A gameplay that mainly revolves around pushing levers too many SA guards for my liking and I do hate those locusts. What’s the point? For every swarm of locusts you have to place at least one small medi-pack. Or is there any way to minimalize the damage? The secrets are impossible to miss so they aren't really secrets you constantly bump into invisible barriers at the End of the World and the thin walls and pools of dark doesn't do much to make you feel at home. However I liked the lay out of the outside area and there are some rooms that have a nice feel to it but the best moment for me came when -after making an exit with the motorbike- you ride up that steep slope and have to jump across the gap the camera angle switches to a frontal view from the other side and bike and Lara vanish for a second and you see the red life line pop into existence in the upper left corner so you fear you haven't made it but then Lara rides happily over the cusp and all is well. Can you imagine the situation? Hard to explain really I guess you have to go there and see for yourself.” – Dimpfelmoser (21-Jun-2002)