LARA CROFT AND THE KNIGHTS OF TERAFOSIA

BONUS LEVEL: THE CRASH

Level by Pascal Ducey

Authorized walkthrough by Phil Lambeth

Click here for Video walkthrough by JoeTheCrazyGamer

Lara begins by sliding down a steep shaft amidst a disorienting earthquake and explosions, somehow setting herself aflame during her descent (gulp a phial if necessary), and she winds up splashing down in a pool of water. During your fall you may get a fleeting glimpse of some interesting clues, such as a ladder off to your right, and this may tempt you to restart to see if there's anything you can do up here before taking a swim. Don't waste valuable time doing this, as you'll be coming back here later.

Look for the CROSSBOW between the airplane wreckage and the west opening, then swim through the opening for some uzi ammo and crossbow arrows in the next room. Continue swimming to the north and surface for air. Wade forward up the stairs and vault up onto the courtyard floor. Run toward the artifact you see lying on the ground, but as soon as the camera angle changes and you hear a burst of action music, reverse roll and run back to the water. Four pesky little dinosaurs (called compsognathus, for all you cognoscenti) come charging out, and if they get their little teeth in you they'll poison you to death in short order. However, they won't follow you into the water, so from there you can kill them at your leisure with your pistols. When you're done, go back and pick up the LASER SIGHT and combine it with your crossbow.

As long as you're here, look around a bit. To the east is a grated opening, and to the left of that is a closed gate requiring a key. Near the other end of the east wall is a moveable block that at present can neither be pushed not pulled. Over in the west wall is another gate requiring a key. Go behind the sloped blocks to the north and look for some uzi ammo, then return to the water. Use the walkway to go behind the east pillar. Look up and you'll see a jump switch on the south face. Activating it requires perfect placement on your part. I got best results by backing Lara against the south wall, sidestepping to the left as far as I could, and then turning Lara to the left about 45 degrees. It'll likely take a number of tries before Lara finally grabs the jump switch. When she does, the grate in the opening near the SW corner opens.

Swim across to the other side, pull up and pick up the Phial of Recovery, and enter the west opening to face a lava room with sloped pillars. Stand facing the first pillar against the south wall and take a running jump to it. Jump off the slope to the next pillar, then jump off it as well to a third pillar. Slide down a bit and jump forward to grab a crack in the next pillar. Shimmy to the left and around the corner, drop down into the alcove and step back to pick up the crossbow arrows. Step forward, jump up to grab the crack, and shimmy to your right around two corners until you reach the ladder.

From the right side of the ladder (to give yourself as much height as possible), back flip to the pillar behind you and jump off with a sharp curve to the left so you can grab the ladder in the facing pillar. Climb to the top and pull up into the next room. A raptor and a compsognathus are waiting for you, so draw your pistols and run to your right to take advantage of the raised platform against the west wall. The compsognathus is so dumb that it'll just run around in front of you as you kill it, but the raptor is liable to seek cover behind the east pillar (where there's another opening in the floor, by the way), forcing you to go forward to draw it out. When order has been restored, pick up the UZIS and some uzi ammo in the NW corner and vault back up onto the platform to throw the wall switch there. You hear the sound of a door opening while a cut scene shows the pushable block down in the courtyard. However, the grate to your left remains closed.

Reverse roll and locate that second hole in the floor behind the east pillar. Safety drop to the entrance of the lava room and go outside. Run across the courtyard and push the block two times into the next room. You hear the ominous sound of the grate slamming shut behind you, and the intermittent shaking sensation you feel is not calculated to soothe your frayed nerves. Face the north slope, arm yourself with the crossbow (combined with the laser sight, remember), hop back twice and take one step back, and save your game. Take a running jump over the slope, turn to your right and quickly shoot all of the dino heads through the slot before the boulder crashes down from the passage to your right and crashes through the delicate flooring to send you to your doom.

Assuming you're fast enough, the grate will close to block the boulder's descent. Turn to your right, jump over the slope and push the crate forward into the next room. (If for some reason the crate refuses to budge, it’s possible that you may have left a single dino head unshot. If not, there’s nothing else you can do but try again from your previous save.) Go inside and run to the NW corner. Pull out the crate there to reveal a passage. Go inside and throw the wall switch to lift the grate to your right (and another grate in the previous room). Go outside into the courtyard. No, no, that's not right. Turn around and go back into the room you just left. Go to the SE corner and find the opening leading to a steep ramp. Run up the ramp, turn to your right at the end and pull up onto two successive ledges. Hop down at the end onto a ledge near the spot where you began this level. Take an angled standing jump and grab NNW to the ladder. Climb up to the top and pull up. Turn around and face SSW. There's a crack in the pillar you're facing, with an alcove to the left that's hidden in the darkness.

Take a running jump with a hard curve to the right (using a flare if necessary to see better), and eventually you'll land inside the alcove. An alternative way of getting there is by facing west and angling Lara slightly to the left, then take a standing jump to the slope below, jump off and grab the crack, and shimmy around to the right until you can pull up into the alcove. Once inside, pick up the SOLAR KEY and either step forward or hop back to slide down into the water. You've been here before, so swim through the west opening, turn right and return to the courtyard. Stand in front of the west double gates and insert the Solar Key in the receptacle to open them. Run down the ramp and pick up the uzi ammo at the bottom. Draw your pistols and kill two fuzzy-backed crocodiles that come up to greet you.

Step forward and inspect this new area. The first thing you notice is a raptor seemingly frozen in suspended animation in an alcove to your right. As you continue looking around you'll see three more just like it. One of them is near the SW corner, where you can pick up a Phial of Recovery before the action really starts to get intense (as you how somehow sense it must). In the opposite NW corner is a jump switch. Activating it opens a double gate elsewhere near an infuriated raptor, but the frozen raptors close by are unaffected. Run across the room past the caged artifact and head up the ramp against the east wall.

As you turn the corner to the left you see the double gates you opened as well as two caged raptors. Throw the wall switch next to one of the raptor cages and watch the cut scene as the cage doors open and the two raptors trot down the ramp to summon their buddies down below, which are now animated. Before they can return and engage you in six-on-one combat, go to the west wall (note the corner tile) and hang from the edge over the jump switch you activated earlier. The raptors will all congregate underneath you and engage in a furious battle, and two of them will eventually kill the other four. Now that the odds are much more favorable, pull up, draw your pistols and go forth to kill the remaining pair that are headed up the ramp to meet you. When they're dead, go into the upper level cages and pick up the REVOLVER in one and some revolver ammo and a Phial of Life in the other.

Run down the ramp and you'll find that cage surrounding the artifact has been lowered. Take the KEY OF DARKNESS from the pedestal and go back up the ramp as pleasant theme music plays. A block has been raised in the NW corner, giving you access to the monkey bars in the ceiling. Climb up, jump and grab the ceiling, and monkey swing south past the two wall torches. Drop down when you reach the south wall, and head into the east passage. Try out your new revolver on the raptor that comes to the attack, then proceed along the passage until you reach an opening to your right. If you continue up the passage you'll come to a closed grate that needs to be lifted in order for you to progress. The key lies in that small room to your right (now to your left as you go back down the ramp).

The first thing you notice as you enter the small room is a designer tile in the center. As you stand on it and look to your right and your left, you see pushable pieces with dino heads. Now go to the block on your left and push it into the NE corner, revealing another designer tile. Reverse roll and pull back the adjacent block once, revealing a third designer tile and a third dino head pushable piece in the SE alcove. Your task is to place the pieces on the three tiles. But do you remember how many of your Internet passwords are case sensitive? Well, these tiles are dino head push piece sensitive. Each piece must be placed on its proper tile. Fortunately, the pieces are small enough that you can squeeze around them to face in any desired direction.

Push and pull the right hand brown dino head into the entrance passage where it's out of the way. Now, pull the green head and place it where the brown one was. Push back the crate into the alcove in front of the door. Go back and pull the first crate to reveal the alcove behind it. You can see a wall switch here. Throw that switch, and you hear the small door behind opening. Push one more time the first crate into the alcove and pull the second crate twice. Enter the second alcove for the only secret in this level and pick up uzi ammo, revolver ammo and a phial of life. For the last time now, push the second crate into the alcove. Now, you can push the brown head on the left on its tile close to it, pull back the second brown head from the hallway, and place it on the second tile in front of the second crate, and finally push the green head on the third tile in the middle of the room. Each time a dino head is placed on its proper tile, you hear Lara saying “Aha!” The grate at the top of the ramp is now open, so run up there and enter a familiar room.

Go behind the east pillar and safety drop through the hole to the lava room below. Return to the courtyard, where you're met by a couple of pteranodons. After killing them, go to the closed double gates in the NE corner and insert the Key of Darkness in the adjacent keyhole. Run past the open gates and allow Lara to slide down the slope into a darkened area. A flyby ends with the revelation that you're not alone down here. As soon as camera control is restored, start running forward and take the first left, then a right as you encounter a series of fixed cameras, then another right that brings you to a bridge crossing a lava pit.

Cross the bridge and turn left, then left again, then right, then finally left, and continue running forward until you reach a slope and slide down into oblivion. A surrealistic flyby leads you to the conclusion that all this has only been a bad dream, and sure enough, the scene changes to the helicopter hovering over the courtyard waiting to whisk Lara away to her next adventure.