LARA CROFT AND: THE MANIAC

Level by Gabriel Croft

Maniacal walkthrough by DJ Full

 

NO COMPASS. NO PROBLEM.

LEVEL 1: Silent Venice

INTRO       

Throw the jumpswitch, grab the medikit from behind the hole and jump in. Swim through the passage and resurface in the adjacent patio. Get the Golden Key from the grass and jump in the other pit to proceed through the underground passage and climb on the backstreet. Don’t mind the corridor yet unless You wanna backtrack too much. You can see a slot – get to it and use the Golden Key to open the nearby door. Go upstairs. And jump down to throw a lever. Go back to the last corridor. Pull the closest wall fragment completely out of the corridor (place it somewhere on the patio). This reveals another cube. Pull it to the outside as well. Now the best option is to pull the third block once in the same direction You’ve moved the first two. A switch is revealed – go around the central cubes (don’t mind them – there’s nothing You can find beneath them), pull that lever to open the grate behind You and get in the accessed vent. At the end, notice two rats in the upper part. There’s a trapdoor behind them. Open it and hop down. Jump into the water to pull the underwater switch. Backtrack to the slot place, get upstairs again and through the newly open door to behold the next one, opening at approach. Go through to find Yourself on the balcony.

TR2 REMAKE ZONE: TAKE 1

Hop on the neighbouring awning and jump through the shatter window. Collect a large medi from next to the second window and break the third glass to get on the following terrace. Climb down the ladder, get outside and hop in the water to find an underwater lever at the far end of the accessible part of the channel. Pulling it opens unlocks a place where the boat originally was in TR2. Swim there to realize it’s still there. Get on the dry to throw another switch. Gone back on the top of the ladder and to the place You found the last medi in, proceed through the new door, into something that can be called a small library. As You can assume, the closest window is shatterable. Destroy it, runjump on the awning, jump on the following one, on the final one and throw a switch on the roof. Jump into the water and swim through the raised gate to pull the lever and grab a medikit from behind it. Don’t mind the opening above You – it’s a longer way in and out of this place, so I didn’t describe it. Go back to the previous room and get in the dry corridor.

1ST HALF OF THE BROKEN MASK

Throw a switch at the end to raise the door and access the open space (on Your way there, a camera shows You a trapdoor – it’s the “way in and out” I told You about seconds ago, so You can ignore it. Jump into the channel, swim right and between the two houses, to find a hole below the right one. Get in to throw an UW switch. Swim out and follow the right wall to find and get on a dry piece of wooden bank, with a raised (with the last switch) door. Push the block through it and – thereby – reveal a hidden passage. Get the Yellow Key from it, swan dive over the moved block and swim through another channel right in front of you. At the end, on the right bank, You will find some uzi clips. Grab them and find a switch behind the bush. Pull it, swim back and left into the closest transverse channel, to see an open door on the far bank. Get through it, pick up another large medi and hop in the hole. Climb down the ladder, hop in the water and get behind the raising block. Resurface at the end of the corridor, in the concert hall. Push the lire on the nearest elevator and throw the corresponding underwater switch to raise it. Also, pull the side levers. The right one raises an elevator for You, the left one – for the pushable to place it on. Get out of the water and do it. Next, lower the platform the lire is standing on and push it across the place, to where the next lift is. Raise this one and the other two on this side. Get on the created bridge and push the instrument to the very end. Turn off its platform and, finally, move the lire onto the marked square to open the door and hop in the passage behind. Jump over the hole and find a tap trigger at the end of the corridor. Hop in the hole, get a small medi and SAVE before You safety drop, as You’ll lose half life doing so. Pull the block out of the right wall to reveal a place with three more blocks. Pull the right one for the Broken Mask under it. SAVE. Pull the left one for unmarked burning floor and death. LOAD. SAVE. Pull the left one for unmarked burning floor and death. LOAD and get out of here, climb the ladder and get back in the open space. 

2ND HALF OF THE BROKEN MASK

Follow the main channel to the place where You entered this area. The underwater switch for You to pull is right below the grate texture. Pull it and swim through the unexplored part of the channel, towards the big house standing on wooden pillars. Get some normal shells from among them and swim behind the far left pillar to find a hole leading to the next sunken passage. There’s an already raised (with the last lever) door, and a ramp to go up. Remember the Yellow Key? That’s it. Access the new dry location and, entered it, go left. Ignore the pool for now but climb the far right regal in the nearby library for a small medi. Getting on the middle bookcase allows You to jump on the cornice and throw a switch. Remember the ignored pool? Yep! A trapdoor opened in there. Hop through for the Blue Key. Get out and SAVE. It’s time to get rid of some maniacal minions. Go in the remaining corridor. Before You manage to paraphrase Qui-Gon Jin’s words to wonder who is the bigger maniac – the maniac or maniacs following him”, the mentioned maniacs attack and You have several seconds of life if You’re not fast enough to wipe them out and prove everyone You’re a maniac as well (I advise You to switch to manual targeting for higher fire ratio, and thereby, better efficiency). Crap… I used “thereby” twice. The maniacal maniac in black suit gives You a shotgun. Use the Blue Key in the nearby slot. Sh**, “nearby” also twice… Whatever. SAVE. Behind the door, another two enemies await You – hostile (and maniacal) dobermans. After You let them check if all dogs really go to heaven, proceed downstairs through my favourite location of the whole game. Stop in front of the ramp. Do You suspect rollingballs here? SAVE. Hehehe, just kidding. I also expected them, but they actually didn’t fall. But anyway, saving was a rather good idea. Go up the ramp and find the pit. Proceed through the place where BTB unexpectedly meets TR3 and climb out to the other side. See the 4 pillars? Ignore them, but don’t forget. Go behind the portal on Your right to hear some timed spikes. Where can they be? Climb one of the side regals (on the left or right of the entrance) and behold them: two rows, one of them with a spikeless pillar. This is not the right one. If You land there’ You won’t make it. So the right one is the left one… or more precisely, the right one is that left one … Difficult it seems to be, as well as those spikes… Seems we need a reference point, so look at the other side. There’s a heart pickup, can You see it? From now on, when I say “right”, I mean “on the same side of the room which is on the right side of the heart. Now, as everything is clarified, all You need is some conditions of reaction:

-          proper distance: the shelf You are standing on is made of 6 blocks – get on the middle-right one and stand in the right corner (that one close to the bookcase);

-          correct angle: face the first pillar of the left row

-          the right time to arrive: wait approximately till the last frame of spike retreating animation

Take a running start and pass the first two sets continuously (if You land too early or too late on one of the pillars, curve a corresponding jump to delay or make it shorter). Land on the last pillar and immediately save Lara by performing a standing jump. After You succeed, SAVE. Pick up the heart. Doh! What now?? Easy, Player. Now the only thing crucial to remember is not to behave like me (not to save on the same slot when You fall). Remain on the same square You picked the heart up from. If You don’t remember which one it was – it was the middle righ… no, the sides are changed now… the middle left one. Stand in the right corner, facing the last spikes You’ve avoided. Wait for the moment when they are at their full height and do the continuous running/jumping, curving left all the way to (and on) the top of the previous pillar, what will make you able to runjump and SAVE on the spikeless one. The rest is simple curved runjump to be done when timing the final spike set between You and the first shelf, and the time of start is right before the spikes appear. Simple… So simple I of course died there. Do it, SAVE when safe and descend back to the ground floor to place the Heart outside, behind the 4-pillared structure. The door next to You opens and lets You in the unplugged room. Yes, the camera tries to warn You of the water – someone has pulled the plug out indeed and the whole pool is a deadly sink trap, so don’t You even think of falling in. Platform across using the crates WITHOUT Bartoli’s mark – it also warns, but about burning floor… or wood. Stand on the white raisingblock, to raise another raisingblock and get on it as fast as You can to pull the switch. The water is still deadly, but the lever revealed something else. Remember the pillars? Yep! The door in the pit among them is no more closed! Platform across the water and get through that portal for the second piece of Broken Mask.

TR2 REMAKE ZONE: TAKE 2

You did it! Combine both pieces to behold the Theatre Mask. Gone back all the way to the TR2 REMAKE ZONE chapter part, You need to climb the ladder once more and return to the bin room the same way as you previously got there. This time go across the bridge, where You need to watch out for the dog instead of pulling a switch (one was here in the original TR). It means here ends the remake.

FINDING THE SLOT

Ignore the windows but choose the passage. At the very end, there is an approach-sensitive trapdoor throwing Lara in some corridor filled with rats. Get through, into the pump room and find the masked switch in the corner on the right of the entrance (IMO if anyone gets stuck in this level, it will happen here). The switch, seeming to be about to suck the water out of the neighbouring pool – actually just opens the door in that place, so after You pull this lever, go back to the upper corridor, shatter a window (no matter which one) and hop into the water to swim into the accessed gondola parking zone. Get out of the water, climb the ladder and go. On the large backyard, don’t turn anywhere (ont the right, there is a door, but it’s a decoy; on the left, there is a grate, but You can’t do anything with it yet nor grab the ledge above it). When You find two wooden doors, push the left one open (the right one is also a decoy). Several steps later, there is another one. Opening it lets You in the room with a veil. Get beyond it and twice crawl over the boxes. Behind the next veil, there is a pedestal, and You know what to place on it. Push the revealed door and go downstairs. Open another door lets You into the fight preparation area. Follow the right wall and You’re prepared to fight by collecting some more shells. Draw the shotgun. Time to go maniacal… Behind the crates lies the fight zone.

FIGHT ZONE

Enter and behold the boss. It requires at least 12 shells, and don’t waste more – they will be useful in a moment. Killed it, check the collapsed wall debris for some more shells and jump into the pool for a rocket and a small medi. Throw the UW lever on the far wall and exit the water in the only place You can. Push the door in the following cellar to be able to return on the bridge where You were fighting the boss. Notice one of the doors is now open. Go through it and, using the non-collapsed floor fragments, platform to the far left corner of the room. Probably the second boss have already given some signs of its presence during one or more of the jumps You’ve just performed, but if not, I’m warning You: there is a second boss down there! From the corner block, descend on some dry part to see it. Watch out – if You took my previous advice, You’ve got 12 shells left only, so You’d better not miss once, as doing so can result in unnecessary loss of time and health! When the boss dies, grab the Keycard from the bottom and take it to the previous fight zone, to open the remaining door. Get out of here… and into the theatre. Safety drop where safe to drop and get on the stage! Backstage follows - push the right door (the left one is a decoy), and another one in the next room (or both of them), on Your left, to watch the lines finishing this episode. You’re going to Tibet!

LEVEL 2: Himalayan Mountains

KEY 1

When the path splits in two, go ahead to reach the river. The water is deadly in this level, so You have to use the ice floats. There are two of them close enough for You to be able to jump on them, but only the right one is right. From there, You have two options:

-          intended way leads through the remaining ice floats on Your right, to the final one, with a key on it

-          a shortcut can be followed if one jumps left, on the following ice float, and then climbs the shore, which is all accessible; from there, one can reach the key within seconds

No matter of chosen way, You will catch some cold backtracking. Jump on the slope between the place You’re in and the next ice float. Hang and shimmy left as far as possible. Still hanging, SAVE. Release, reverse roll and get on the non-sloped side of the ice-float (if You try to pull up on the sloped side, a bug throws You back in the water and You’re dead). The rest of backtrack reverses the rest of intended path that led to the key.

KEY 2

Back on the bank, return to the point of path split and go left, up the snowy slope. When You hear a warning sound, hide behind the icy wall on the left to avoid some boulders. Continue up the slope and go right on the top, to find a cave. Kill 2 snow leopards there and pass a triangular crawlspace in the passage on Your right. When the path splits in two:

-          check the left option for one more lampart fight and some normal shells by the grate

-          throw a switch in the right corridor (opens the exit from the monastery part You will enter soon).

Go back in the cave and get in the far corner pit. Climb the blocks to reach the mentioned monastery chamber. Go across diagonally to fall into the next cave. Proceed to the pool room and remember: water kills! Jump to the switch on Your left. It raises a block on the other side. To get on it, You need to platform diagonally across the place and perform, twice slide/jump, grab, pull up and slide/jump once more. You have a ladder on Your right – grab it, climb up to backflip on the closest platform, and jump sideways (right) for a large medi. See the switch avove the next piece of floor? Runjump/grab the ledge/pull up to throw it (raises another block, right below the clearly visible jumpswitch. The place You need to throw it from can be seen as well – it’s the block hanging under the chain (the path leading there goes through a sloped piece of roof above the entrance and, further, through the top of the central set of blocks). Got there, SAVE before You take a running start and pull the lever, as doing so will cost You much health. Made it? Grab the Key 2 from the last raising block and go back to the monastery.

THE CORRIDORS OF PATIENCE

Place the keys in the remaining hole. That lets You in the second chamber. Pull up in the opening to slide down, SAVE and behold a trap: a set of rolling boulders accompanied by some timed spikes. The only problem in this one are dead bodies scattered here and there, and if You get blocked by any of them – You’ll become one of them. Start running just after the closest boulder retreats and jump over the former maniacs. HINT: there is no boulders neither behind the first, nor the second set of spikes, and I could do the continuous run to the latter gap. From that point (where I advise You to SAVE), a single sprint solves the rest. SAVE again just before entering the next corridor, and make haste – spiky walls are approaching! Hide in the opposite passage and… guess what? Yes – SAVE. The next trap is about to launch and it will do it as soon as You get in its range: it’s a very long set of swinging axes, but they can be easily timed – patience and calming down are key feelings here. Run towards the darkness to know where the plot brings You now – to England! Off we go…

LEVEL 3: Condyville

NOTE: I split hunt for the Yellow Key in three parts, because this is the fastest option.

A CROWBAR SHALL BE FOUND

Pull that metal something out of Your left. If You come closer to the revealed grate and press “Action”, lara will say “no”, what in this programming language means “crowbar”. On the nearest junction, shatter a bin for some flares (will be useful in this episode). Check the remaining passage to find another junction and go right for a crowbar. Go left and follow the right wall to find a crate on the right, in the open space. Shoot it, get flares and go back.

YELLOW KEY HUNT: PART 1 – TORCH

Get to the first grate to use the item. At the end of the passage following the room you’ve broken into, pull up in the crawlspace and drop to the other side, into the room full of litter. Open the storage on your left, also with a crowbar. So many crates placed in such flooded place can make You assume the water is deadly. Wrong! This time it’s safe. Thereby, so many crates placed in such flooded place may seem to be a nonsense to You – till the moment You platform to the other side of the storage, to find a torch and understand the purpose at once: Your task is to carry the torch out of here and light it somewhere else. Platform towards the entrance (water reflections help a lot to find the way) and return to the room of litter to open the remaining door. Find the switch at the end of the garages, drop the torch for a while and pull the lever, what opens an underwater trapdoor in the open space. To get there, push the next door open (take the torch with Yourself and watch out: on my PC, in some cases shooting in this area resulted in crashing the game – maybe it was my problem, not the game bug, but be warned anyway) and follow the left wall to find a small pit of water. Drop the torch next to it (NOT “into it”).

BLUE KEY HUNT

Hop in, swim to the end of the passage and get out to notice 4 pushable blocks in the wall. Actually, there is 5 of them, the 2nd one counting from the left covers another one behind it, and those two are the only correct ones You need to pull out of the wall (the rest are decoys). Get through the accessed passage. Shatter the grate at the end (here, shooting doesn’t kill the game), pass the crawlspace and drop to the other side. Follow the right wall for a large medi by the laundry machine (if You encounter any problems with picking it up – Duck You and this always solves such issues) and the uzis several steps further. Go back and follow the left wall until You pass by some shelves and find a high crawlspace. Get in. Heheh, a switch. Pull it to destroy the door at the bottom of the ramp in the last place. Proceed through it and follow the left wall to find a crowbar door. Break into the new corridor and time the flame to jump over the gap. Running jump over the next fire and slide down to jump off the slope and grab the monkey swing. Hanging like that, SAVE and time the remaining flames to get the Book. Back at the other end of the MS, drop to the floor and open another crowbar door. Sprint through the corridor and grab some flares from the top of left stairs. Through the last crowbar door in this part, return to the maze corridor and follow the right wall to find a high (but not as high as the previous one) crawlspace. Pull the lever at the other end. Timed run! Get out of here, reverse roll and run (sometimes sprint) diagonally through the maze to get through the door before it shuts. Find some more uzi bullets and place the Book in its slot at the end of the place. This opens another door in here and lets You activate a pushable door. Do it and find Yourself in the garden, from where the Blue Key is to be obtained. Pick it up and backtrack all the way to the main street of Condyville.

YELLOW KEY HUNT: PART 2 – LIGHTING THE TORCH

Light the torch with the fire between the nearest two houses. Leave it here. Get some flares from under the bin.

RED KEY HUNT

Apart from the two houses with a fire between them, there are two more buildings nearby, with a trapdoor between them. Find it and pull it open. Drop into the cellar and kill three creatures ambushing You from downstairs. One of them drops the Green Key. Don’t go downstairs yet, but proceed to the room being – looking from the active camera perspective – on the right of the screen. There, kill 2 more creatures (I once called them mouflions, because they look like a moufflon and a lion in the same body) and retrieve the Orange Key from them. Go downstairs and into the hole on Your right. Kill another mouflion and use both keys in the slots. Get through the open door to slide yet deeper. In the mine, find a cart and pull it away to discover the Red Key. Use the polerope to climb up and backflip with midroll where safe. Get on the blocks and pull the ceiling trapdoor to get outside again.

YELLOW KEY HUNT: PART 3 – GETTING UP IN THE WORLD

The place You’ve left the torch is right between You and the warehouse You found that item in. Get it back and take the fire back to the storage. Find some higher boxes on the right of the entrance. Jump on the top and hop on the transverse metal piece. A series of slopes to slide/jump is set in the dark. The first jump can be done without any curving (from the middle of the square), the second one has to be curved left, and after the next bounce You don’t need to curve at all. The fourth jump needs to be curved right. Reached two slopes inclined to each other, it’s a good option to SAVE while jumping back and forth. Still doing so, press Left. After several seconds You will land on the other slope. Bounce off this one, and off the following slopes, to land on a flat surface. Turn left (carefully – with a torch in her hand, Lara turns rapidly). Do two standing jumps over the gaps and step on the following block. There are another two on Your left – jump on them to reach the top. Turn left once again and locate a block by the ramp. Now get on this slope and SAVE before running down it. Take a look to decide where to hide after the rollingball starts to chase You. Survive it and SAVE. Watch out for the two side metal tiles – spikes activate there. Stand in front of the pedestal placed at the very end of the whole structure. Light it with Your torch. That opens the nearby door, so get the final – Yellow Key – from behind it, emergency dive to save time and go back outside.

THE MANIAC’S LAIR

Having all 3 keys, place them in their receptacles in one of the corners of the open space. The gate is open and You can pull the trapdoor behind it, on the grass. And, finally, safety drop to the Maniac’s Lair… On the junction, the path splits in three, but in fact there’s nothing complicated – the right passage contains the way out – a door behind the pool. To open it: pull the cube out of the middle passage onto a raisingblock located by the crates in the left passage. Meanwhile, grab a small medi somewhere close by, in the same room. Pull the lever to raise the cube and move this pushable onto another raisingblock. Switch the lever off to exchange raisingblocks and finally move the cube on the marked square. This grants You access to a corridor behind the exit mentioned in the first phrase of this chapter. Proceed through that passage to find an opening near its end, on Your left. Shatter a grate blocking the crawlspace and pull up to get through. In the room, use the crowbar on the door and open the pushable one behind it. You are in the Maniac’s garage. Watch out for the bin – I encountered some crashes shooting in this place as well. There is the next pushable behind the car. Go through it… wait… is this a “Saw” theme? Hahah, some dark atmosphere at last… nice.

ENDING

Read the legend and remember it, as it’s a password for the final clip. Get through the exit to leave the game. Now erase all the spaces from the legend and write the ready form in Your packing program without any capitals to access the ending movie… aha, I forgot… Turn CAPSLOCK off! This is it. You’ve just finished “Lara Croft and: The Maniac”.

USELESS APPENDIX:

How to bring a non-burning torch to the top of the storage. This is what I wrote when I thought this is what one is supposed to do ingame. Have fun.

Your task is to carry the torch up there, above the support beams. Platform towards the entrance (water reflections help a lot to find the way) and find some higher boxes next to it. Jump on the top (if it’s too dark for You, use the binoculars – that doesn’t require dropping the torch) and SAVE. Hop on the transverse metal piece. A series of slopes to slide/jump is set in the dark (use the binoculars again to see the closest one). The first jump can be done without any curving (from the middle of the square), the second one has to be curved left, and after the next bounce You don’t need to curve at all. The fourth jump needs to be curved right. Reached two slopes inclined to each other, it’s a good option to SAVE while jumping back and forth. Now You can’t see anything, so use the Force… or tell it to press Left, still keeping jumping back and forth. After several seconds You will hear Lara bounce off in another direction, then off yet another thing… and after several such bounces she will sound so You will know she isn’t bouncing anymore, so it has to be some flat surface she landed on. SAVE and turn left (carefully – with a torch in her hand, Lara turns rapidly). Use the binoculars if necessary… and it is indeed… Do two standing jumps over the gaps (SAVE every successful one), and step on the following block. There are another two on Your left – jump on them to reach the top. Turn left once again and take the next binocular look to locate a block on the left of the ramp. Now get on this slope and SAVE before running down it. Take yet another look to decide where to hide after the rollingball starts to chase You. Survive it and SAVE. Watch out for the two side metal tiles – spikes activate there. Stand on another marked square (raised a little bit) at the very end of the whole structure. Stand there to open the nearby door. In this place it appeared the door won’t open and the whole torch madness I performed in complete darkness was unnecessary.