Level: Gold Armor Author(s): Zooltar total rating: 6.00 Gameplay & Puzzles Enemies, Objects & Secrets Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras Lighting & Textures Dimpfelmoser 4 7 6 7 eRIC 7 7 6 8 Gerty 4 6 4 4 Jay 7 6 7 7 Jose 4 6 5 5 Kristina 4 5 6 6 Leandro 6 7 7 6 Magnus 7 7 7 8 MichaelP 6 6 7 7 Nomad 5 5 7 7 Orbit Dream 3 5 8 5 Phil 6 6 6 6 RaiderGirl 6 6 7 6 Ryan 4 5 6 6 Sash 5 6 6 6 Treeble 5 5 5 5 Wendee 8 10 9 8 Xxenofex 5 7 4 4 category averages (18 reviews) 5.33 6.22 6.28 6.17 Reviewer's comments "Very early on you get more armament and ammo than you'll ever need, but no flares anywhere, and since the first part of the level is so dark I gave myself unlimited flares at the very beginning. This 20-minute exercise basically amounts to jumping a couple of large gaps on the motorcycle and taking out sentry guns. There are quite a few SAS to kill. Contrary to Harry Laudie's walkthrough, there's a normal finish trigger. It's rated about where it should be." - Phil (12-Jul-2018) "I remember having started this level at least one one occasion and ditching it almost immediately. Even today I felt tempted to the same: the very first thing you notice (after the lenghty initial fly-through camera sequence) is that the level is far too dark. You also learn rather quickly that there are hidden crawlspaces in dark spots, but with that basic knowledge you have pretty much everything you need to beat this level. You need four keys, all of them in the initial areas - which might be misleading as you only need three to get past the initial area. There are about a dozen or so sentry guns but all easily dispatchable and the author provides you a generous ammount of weaponry - but absolutely no flares. The author also decided to use the boss battle theme as the looping background track, which gets old very quickly. Not a bad level in itself, but it really was not my cup of tea. 30 minutes. 12/2017" - Treeble (04-Dec-2017) "During an interminable opening flyby, you get a rather daunting view of the massed ranks of guards and sentry guns out to get Lara. Mercifully, after a brief bit of exploring, copious amounts of guns and ammo are provided. It's very much a shooter, although there is a little bike riding too, but I must say I always find blowing up sentry guns to be positively cathartic so I rather enjoyed myself. It's only about 30 minutes of gameplay and, provided you don't mind the outside areas being more or less pitch black you might have fun too. I think the outside areas were rather attractive but, as the builder chose to make them so dark, it was a little hard to judge." - Jay (03-Nov-2017) "This was a most troublesome adventure. Sorry but I don't care if the point was to challenge the player, if a level is very dark and no flares are given the player will get frustrated and I wasn't any different. I had no fun shooting for light every couple of inches to see where I am crawling to, on top of that I realized a key was missing in the end and I had to do it all over again. This point of no return is another major fault - it is very critical that the player has all the items he or she needs or pulls every necessary level etc. if there is a point of no return and a lot of authors make the same mistake. Besides these problems, the design was mediocre - the streets were designed okay and held some atmosphere, the canals looked very realistic and were fun to swim in as well. On contrast I found the last section bland, cold and a little anticlimactic, not sure if the author got bored with the level or not. It is a very suitable level for medipack problems since the turrets are blasting left and right, though it seemed it is possible to finish the game without using any medipacks once you learn their locations. One last thing, it was irritating that the music played the whole level. On summary not a bad level (especially for a debut) but there are a lot of better ones out there." - Nomad (24-Oct-2017) "A brief but hair-raising jaunt through a Venice/city hybrid environment. First and foremost, this level is aggravatingly dark. Not just atmospherically dark, irritatingly dark. I would loved to have been able to see those Venice textures better as they looked well placed. Although there is enough ammo and weapons (more than enough, in my opinion), I could definitely have done with some more flares to explore this dark city. I did enjoy destroying the sentry guns as well as the later motorbike rides, but the darkness and the annoying action music dampened my experience. At least Lara manages to reach the armour at the end, so mission accomplished, I suppose." - Ryan (14-May-2017) "Be sure to explore carefully all areas before continue or you'll be stucked forever and have to reload (if you kept savegames, of course) if you miss a guardian key before doing the jumps with the bike. The first part of the level is extremely dark, and there are not enough flares to do the tasks: destroy many sentry guns and some soldiers. The background music is not appropriate. The second part, after the first jump over the water channel is a bit better (at least there is some light here), but not interesting (pull a lever, kill some soldiers and blast some sentry guns in a huge storage room). A final ride with more sentry guns shooting you and Lara finally will reach the building with the armour. There are enough guns and ammo (excessive) but don't waste medipacks or you'll not get it." - Jose (10-Jun-2016) “My God I'm glad that's finished! The first time I played it I got as far as the final House but didn't have the 4th Guardian Key and couldn't backtrack; the 2nd time I played it I couldn't get past the machinegun/motorbike gauntlet due to lack of health; the third time success. Did this level deserve to be played three times? No. In fact it didn't really deserve to be played once! Although the construction was pretty good the all-pervasive darkness prevented any real enjoyment and made the hunt for the four guardian keys pretty miserable. The two motorbike jumps were fun (as Motorbike jumps always are) but two enjoyable sequences in an otherwise large expanse of frustration do not a good level make. Sorry.” – Orbit Dream (22-Dec-2003) “Forty five minutes spent mostly on searching for four guardian keys in the dark. I mean in the very dark. Everywhere you turn you see sentry guns and SAS guards plus water. All the weapons are available from the start and the bike which is needed to jump across the water a couple of times. By placing the fourth key you enter the house and get to see a long flyby about the armor the camera keeps turning around it. There is another flyby at the start quite long that shows the whole level except the house. That’s it nothing more a little boring I have to admit.” – Kristina (26-Jul-2003) “As the title implies you're after the five pieces of armor and I was starting to think I had missed all of them after a while but they were in the very last room. The level itself is very strange and starts out in a small section of a city that is nearly pitch black with soldiers and machine guns set up everywhere. After finding four Guardian's Keys (3 of which are before the first motorcycle jump) you enter the side of a building only to find yourself outside again and on the path that leads to a large house. As soon as you get to the pieces of armor the level is suddenly over. I have quite a few complaints about this level most of which were solved by cheating. As I said the majority of the level was pitch black and I found NO flares plus there are many guards and machine guns and I found NO health packs so I finally activated the fly cheat to get some of each. The level has some good points though as I did enjoy the search for the Guardian's keys destroying the machine guns the jumps on the bike and the house and fountains at the end of the level.” – RaiderGirl (24-Nov-2002) “Pfew I made it. The only thing in this level I liked are the sneaking up to the sentry guns and blow them to high heaven. For the rest too dark too much SAS men coming at Lara at the same time and that bloody jump with the bike hate vehicles and then the nerve racking music. Glad I had the Trsave editor to supply me with some medpack or else I couldn’t write this review. Not my cup of tea! 04-08-2002” – Gerty (11-Aug-2002) “This starts with a wonderful lengthy flyby of the dark small Venetian like town with many men and automatic weapons soon to be encountered but what you think may be a large and dangerous meeting between these things actually turns out to be pretty tame especially with the help of the huge amount of ammo and weapons found in a nearby armory. In this 30 minutes level you need to find 4 guardian keys to help get you to and then enter a mansion where the armor breastplate is on show. One bad design flaw in this level makes it impossible after making the second jump across the water to legally go back and retrieve the fourth guardian key if you have missed it but otherwise this was a cute level with a certain fun element even though there were no puzzles whatsoever and really not that much battle action.” – Sash (21-Jun-2002) “This 40 minutes adventure could have been a great level as there is really a lot of skill to be seen by this author but at least for me it is all wasted by too much darkness and lack of actual puzzle elements. What you get is many sentry guns to shoot a few SAS to battle four guardian keys to pick up one lever to pull the nitro to find so that you can make the two bike jumps over the canal (that bit was fun!) and a long flyby of almost 2 minutes at the start and again at the end when you reach the infamous Gold Armor in the house.” – Michael (21-Jun-2002) “It's a level with interesting architecture but terrible lighting. This level is incredibly dark (you can't see anything not even Lara!) and if there's a kind of level that I hate then it is a dark level.” – Leandro (21-Jun-2002) “This is a linear level that takes place in the city of the dead. The only thing dead about the city is Lara if you are not careful. Thinking out your moves before you attempt them is key to not trying something 20 times! (Is that jump too long? Did you miss something earlier?) Enemies are automatic machine guns bad guys and not enough flares! The cameras atmosphere are appropriate and not obtrusive. I enjoy the background music however wish it would have changed instead of repeating. I graded down on lighting because I really dislike dark levels. Overall fun and exciting with lots of surprises. Approximate time 45 minutes.” – Wendee (21-Jun-2002) “Lara has to find the golden armor (thereby the name) and finish the level (without actually picking up the armor). Now you may think: Wait it can’t be that easy can it? And of course it isn’t. In Lara’s way there’s a lot of SAS-men and SAS-turrets. The SAS-men are no match; Lara just has to run over them with the motorbike. The SAS-turrets however requires some thinking (or medipacks) to get past. The thing that annoyed me the most about this level (besides the music-loop) was that both enemies and SAS-turrets (sometimes) appear out of thin air. This could easily have been avoided and would have made the level more realistic. I couldn’t find any medipacks so be careful to not waste the ones you have (you’ll need them trust me) and don’t use the pistols against the enemies since there’s no way that you can run out of ammunition on the other weapons.” – Magnus (21-Jun-2002) “Pitch-black and a lot of shooting: Definitely not my world. The objects in the last part of the 35-minutes level were also quite good the textures. Sound and camera trips were not existing except for both cameras at the beginning and at the end. Not a kind of level I play gladly.” – Xxenofex (21-Jun-2002) “This good city level with some Venice textures has a very good rhythm. It begins by a long fly-by showing some of the trials Lara will encounter: SAS and a dozen automatic machine guns are waiting for her. What will be your tactics to get through? There is only one place where you can find weapons and ammos: at the beginning in a room where there are 35 pickups. Don't loose your time picking up them all because the revolver ammos and the laser sight are quite sufficient! But there is no medipacks so be careful and move quickly! Your mission is to find the Gold Armor of course. On the way you will search for the nitro and 4 guardians keys; and to not be stuck you should better have 3 of these keys before jumping with the motorcycle for the first time above the water and make savegames! If you can find the key pickups soon the level is rather short. There are only two things that I didn’t like in this level of exploration/action: Firstly as I said you can really be stuck if you have forgotten something. Secondly it is the same music from the beginning until the end and I don't like it so I played this level without no sound. Even without sound I had fun in playing this level so why not you?” – eRIC (21-Jun-2002) “Sentry Guns Galore! We suspect it right from the opening sequence and when we crash into the weaponry we know for sure: There's gonna be some serious shooting. In the cozy atmosphere of a canal and some warehouses (with nearby fountain) we have an entertaining variation of the old run-over-guards-with-your-motorbike-theme complete with bullets left right and centre. Getting the last six sentry guns to explode was so much fun that I crawled all the way back to finish them off though I was already safely out of shooting range. Sadly enough the level ends when you think now the real action is just around the corner as I never had a chance to use my shotgun crossbow uzis or grenade launcher. But hey there's too much violence in this world anyway. Peace & Love.” – Dimpfelmoser (21-Jun-2002)