Level: TombRaider on Mars Author(s): Solar Angel total rating: 2.67 Gameplay & Puzzles Enemies, Objects & Secrets Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras Lighting & Textures bERT 2 1 3 3 CC 2 2 4 3 Ceamonks890 1 1 1 1 Cory 4 4 4 3 Dimpfelmoser 0 2 2 2 DJ Full 2 0 1 1 eTux 4 4 4 5 Gerty 3 2 3 3 Jose 1 1 1 1 Kristina 2 2 3 5 Leandro 3 4 5 4 Magnus 1 0 0 0 MichaelP 4 4 5 6 Orbit Dream 1 2 2 2 RaiderGirl 4 4 5 4 Ryan 2 2 2 2 Sash 4 5 5 6 Scottie 1 1 2 1 Torry 4 6 8 4 Treeble 1 1 0 0 uvavoo 3 3 4 4 category averages (21 reviews) 2.33 2.43 3.05 2.86 Reviewer's comments "One more time, another level where you can't reload a savegame if you don't exit the game and re-launch the game each time you wanna do it. The idea for the gameplay, look for a place to get a motorbike and finally can reach the crystal pillars is not bad, but the icy wraiths chasing Lara all the time ruined the game. Not enough medipacks for me, I was forced to use a savegame editor to can "finish" (not a finish trigger, but only an icy wall) this level. Rude architecture, you can easily reach the end of the world and even places you can't exit; a lot of missing textures, bad applied textures, ilegal slopes... Not a level worth to play for me." - Jose (04-Jan-2018) "This could have been really good; alas it was not to be. Dull environments, missing and stretched textures, crashing to the desktop after EVERY SINGLE DEATH, a maze... Need I say more? I do also wish that some builders thought of more player-friendly enemy placements (I don't know about you, but I think wraiths and sentry guns in a labyrinth is just cruel). I'd stay well away if I were you." - Ryan (17-Jan-2017) "Upon booting this early release up, I was immediately taken aback by the awfully repetitive and unappealing texturing of what is presumably the planet Mars in essence, with non-existent lighting effects and a flat atmosphere not really serving to help matters in the slightest. And trust me when I say that the overall presentation never really improves from those first few minutes you spend in a 'spaceship', as the generally empty-looking but incredibly spacious level design is unnecessarily confusing to navigate around, with cheaply-placed opponents making it rather easy to get killed(forcing me to use the flycheat, in order to get more of a move-on and avoid having to put up with the game constantly crashing to desktop every time I die or attempt to load a save.) So in conclusion, this is another poorly-designed debut level that simply cannot be recommended to anybody. So best avoided like the plague." - Ceamonks890 (25-Nov-2014) "The most annoying thing in this level is the wraiths. The further you advance in game, the more of them wakes up. You can't get rid of them, because there is no liquid water anywhere. Obviously, this is to resemble the real situation on Mars surface. Wraiths are probably some ghosts of extincted alien civilisation... But how to explain Car-Jack left by the aliens on the top of the radiating crystal? Have they been fixing some kind of a rocket here? So where are the remains? Where is the alien trash? Lara is about to find this all when she starts, but she doesn't find anything. Even the famous Martian Face the game is about is not included, not even drawn on any texture. And if we talk about textures... the crater walls are the most awfully painted thing I've recently seen. Missing textures, sharp, rude shapes, protruding in random directions, unaccordingly to any rule of physics... Lots of another textures appear and disappear throughout the level, and we can see the other rooms through the transparent crystals... The plain on the Martian surface is just flat, unicoloured, boring... Never seen worse floor in ANY game, no matter if it was Tomb Raider, Mario or Pac Man. SUMMARY: Total misplacement of everything. I think the level would be quite average if it wasn't one of the technically worst games available on trle.net, I think. Don't play it unless you are an entomologist, bio taxonomist or some kind of another scientist who loves doing research on bugs." - DJ Full (08-Oct-2010) "I would have the most full understanding if the Marsianer searched themselves a new planet. The Mars is so ugly which one gets depressions if one stays too long on this planet. I would also have nothing against it, if they lowered itself on the earth. But please without raze the earth to the ground befor. Now it puts to itself the question what Lara on this hopeless planet has lost. Arnold Schwarzenegger must already have been here, because after his total recall he has put thus a mysterous machine in action. Now humans can thereby also breathe on Mars. But more nicely he has also not thereby become. If the question still remains what Lara wants now up there. Since all the same where one looks, one can discover nothing nice. And if one has after long one search the entrance in a subterranean cave found, one hits of course immediately on SAS-Soldiers. And a few very clingy ghosts. Are this the Ghosts of Mars? And she finds one dozen motorcycles. With one of those one is able to drive in the hole area, inside and outside. But for what all that? And what is with the still closed doors? And why crasht one with every new load attempt on the desktop? And, nevertheless, the most important question is whether all that is generally important. And I can answer this last asking quite unambiguously with NO. The level is built and textured just miserably. Result: Only for the players who really play everything" - Scottie (29-May-2009) "After playing the level a while ago, i have finally got around to reveiwing it. I occured a bug in loading a save game where it crashed to the desktop if you were in game. Not much gameplay with some rather weird texturing to try to give the illusion that you are on mars. Not much else. If you want to see lara on another planet then play this level." - Cory (02-Mar-2008) "It's either a spaceship, or a space station. Whatever it is, Lara has to get out of it. This first exercise was interesting. Once outside, looking at that vast expanse it still gave the impression that perhaps we are in for a very unusual gameplaying experience. So off she dashes in the hope of finding something. She does. A kind of crystal space station and a very clever impression of that so-called 'face' on Mars. But only after endless running in all directions across this barren lonely landscape. We do meet the odd gunman, and you'd think they would be delighted to encounter another human being. But no, they seem to prefer their isolation. Even the other life forms, wraiths, don't want us around. We do find a motorbike, but all that did was allow us to go around in cirles faster. There's not much else to say about this level, except for a few oddities, like the revolver left on a crystal tower, and picking up ammo opens a door off in the distance. Oh yes, the level crashing, missing textures, no way to dowse the wraiths sucking your life away, and no end trigger, leaving us with the impression we're trapped. Or was all this a huge hologram in Lara's mansion? That way I could understand the gravity issue, i.e. we should have been able to float serenly above all this." - CC (12-Nov-2007) "Oh dear.What could have been a surreal atmosphere is completely spoilt by appallingly placed texures;enemies are poorly placed (wraiths and sentry guns in a labyrinth? You must be kidding!)and gameplay (aside from a decent jump sequence over translucent platforms)was both horrendous and dull,with the level crashing to the desktop every time Lara died. I presume I hit the finish trigger when Lara mounted the 2nd Bike,but to be perfectly honest...I don't really care." - Orbit Dream (10-Nov-2007) "I was intrigued by this level and wanted to see another builders interpretation of Mars. Sadly my intrigosity was misplaced as I was treated to a frustrating level. Same crashing problems as the other reviewers, same (lack of) gameplay, same hunt for the finish trigger. Now if you want to see what mars should really look like, I can highly recommend...... In conclusion, not really very good, not recommended." - uvavoo (20-Nov-2006) "A better title for this one would certainly be Crash to the desktop. Load a previous game you crash die and you crash get of the sidecar as soon as you exit the building with slope you crash. It starts off rather mysteriously and intriguing the first room even giving the impression of a Richard Lawther (the Astro-king) but oh boy you could not have been more wrong. Interesting as the Mars landscape may seem at first the gameplay really gets you down immediately most of the time being chased by wraiths at one point by 4...in a labyrinth. How fun NOT! And what Peter has put in his wads I don't know but only with this game my computer slowed down at several points loading the buffermemory time and time again (mostly when the wraiths were around). If you find a REAL finish trigger please e-mail me at bertrand_croft@yahoo.com and I will congratulate you for perseverance. Why you should play this level: when standing on the surface in a spot where you don't see most of the structures there's a definite feeling of breathtaking loneliness. You may want to give your partner a nice cuddle after that." - bERT (24-Jul-2003) "Huge rooms and I mean huge empty areas. This level is rather strange as you approach doors open there is also a lever and SAS guards plus an annoying sentry-gun. The setting is a bit red with textures missing and a couple of slopes you can get stuck to. Jumps in high columns and a not so difficult maze is the only things the player will see and drive the motorcycle probably to the unknown as I never found a way to finish the level. Not good at all." - Kristina (10-Dec-2002) "The author seemed to have put much effort into making this outta space experience as annoying as possible. Picture this at one stage you have to find your way through a monotonously textured maze while being chased by two elementals (that you can't get rid off) and you inevitably bump into a cleverly placed sentry gun that will burn you to a crisp. Is that all? No way to make it worse you get no loading screen. Honestly I would give minus points for gameplay if I could. There is an enjoyable jumping sequence over translucent pillars but everything else is really boring. Like running around for ages over the monochrome surface of Mars. What is the point of making the area so huge when you don't bother to design the borders properly. Textures are missing and applied in a fairly listless fashion. Take Kurt Cobains advice: 'You better Stay Away'" - Dimpfelmoser (18-Sep-2002) "Hmmm... well I actually didn't finish this level and I do prefer to stay away from it. It starts badly and keeps getting worse with transparent textures where they shouldn't be missing textures bad design giving a lot of illegal slopes and the worse is that you can give Lara big problems to her leg as she will run run run run run over always the same ugly red thing to eventually arrive somewhere. That was enough for me to DOZY and even flying it still took a lot of time to arrive somewhere. And guess what? The somewhere was a labyrinth. I immediately quit the game. I only wonder if I missed something even worse than this on this level? In short: stay away." - Treeble (11-Aug-2002) "When after a little climb up a glass structure you make it to the surface you can definitely see where you are meant to be the red planet there is even a replica of the face seen in pictures of Mars that you get to play in and see from above for the full effect. Gameplay though is a little hit and miss with the use of sometimes objects being picked up to trigger doors opening a bike ride to allow you access to a block jump another bike ride later that would crash the game out for me a large set of steel gates that I couldn't open and don't know if I was supposed to and most of this was done while frantically running away from a couple of sprites that were joined by a couple more later on that just never let up and had me sucking back medipack after medipack taking any enjoyment I could find in this level out of it." - Sash (21-Jun-2002) "Well this is the surface of the red planet created with 32 rooms. There are a few interesting greenish transparent textures and a rather cool top view of the area but other than that it seems to be only a lot of running around (or driving around on the motorbike later on) and killing a few SAS and avoiding a few wraiths as best as you can. I was unable to find a finish trigger and had a few unopened doors but it was just too tedious to keep looking." - Michael (21-Jun-2002) "This level was not a bad idea but lacked much in the execution. Once you exit the (presumably) spaceship you are greeted with a barren red landscape (hey it's Mars) but the surrounding rock and cliffs were deplorable with missing textures and panels. The level requires that you find the motorbike to access the main centre structure (but how an internal combustion engine runs in a Mars atmosphere is beyond me). Once there you find a detonator pack (but don't get a chance to use it) and finally scurry away on another motorbike. I did not see any point to this at all. The MOST annoying thing was that every time Lara died the editor crashed to the desktop. Hence the low scores." - Torry (21-Jun-2002) "When a read the name 'Tomb Raider on Mars' I had to immediately click to download. A martian adventure could be an excellent level... if done correctly. Unfortunately this didn't happen in this level. Bad puzzles (the type of walk and kill SAS guards) terrible textures (I still want to know what is that strange color in the mars field) and no lighting. It's just a nice name don't expect much..." - Leandro (21-Jun-2002) "This level started out with an interesting 'space craft' but only went downhill from there. You'll find an orange? and flat landscape surrounded by badly textured mountains that you need to climb in order to get to the motorcycle. This is a large room probably the largest I've ever seen so this will take quite some time. When you finally get to the area you need to climb down into to get the bike you'll be attacked by several elementals and there's nothing you can do but keep running the rest of the level constantly taking some damage. You'll find a few weapons and some ammo to use on the soldiers and one machine gun. The only thing I liked was the tall pillars stretching across the room where you had to start out at one side and get to the other." - RaiderGirl (21-Jun-2002) "Funny that after I played this level all I could think about was sprites. The sprites took away any fun I had also the crashing to desktop after dying is a bore after the umpf time." - Gerty (21-Jun-2002) "I assume this was meant to be a 'joke-level' because there's no lighting bad texturing and no gameplay (besides a drive on the motorcycle). On Mars Lara has to... well I have no idea what she has to do actually. Maybe find a spacesuit because she's not wearing one (not that it looks like she needs one). All in all a bad joke." - Magnus (21-Jun-2002) "Even if the title sounded interesting and gave hopes for a very interesting level the hopes fall down as rapidly as the interest for this level when you exit the spacecraft. Doesn't attract you much if the terrain of the Mars in this level is just plain color. The idea wasn't bad but the performance was. There are a lot worse levels out there than this but there're also much better ones so I wouldn't bother if I were you." - eTux (21-Jun-2002)