Lara's Beach House
By John Lincoln

 

Two walkthrough versions are available for this level. Manymee has written a revised walkthrough version which can be found half-way down, so please scroll down.

 

Walkthrough by Robin Burgess [rjb]


[Abbrevs.: bec = because; betw = between; pfm = platform; .: = therefore; psg = passage;
CPS = crawlspace; HS = ‘hot stones’ or ‘hot squares’ (as in ‘burning’!!); BF = ‘bowl-flame’;
R&J = ‘run & jump’; SJ = ‘standing jump’; J&C = ‘jump & cling’ (eg ‘J&C lever’);
RJ&C = ‘run, jump & cling’; STP = sloping-topped pillar/block; BK = bookcase; SB = spiked ball;
WL = wall-ladder; bflp = backflip; smslt = somersault (so: ‘bflp-smslt’ also)

Start: 3 SMPs, 1 LMP, 3 flares to begin. [Author: Aim of the level: this is to find all 4 hidden pink serpent stones hidden in the house and it's grounds. Secrets: 3 (blue secret stones).] Game starts with Lara being swept along a channel by a current towards tropical area of beach. It seems that can only surface bec of current @ far left - no, can swim further, provided do it in ‘LH half’ of sea area. But then, having done so, can ‘paddle’ on surface to anywhere fwd of where current takes hold. Appropriate natty beachwear outfit, with pumps on feet. Pink sky. Cannot see anywhere near left to hoist out. Slow down swimming when current eases up. E separate beach alcove but nothing there, else RH beach or rocks fwd left - which all join up. Small bldgs, then large house @ rt. Nothing on small palm tree island; nothing on sea bed (all ‘apparently’: have missed things before!!); huge green metal lattice structure fwd centre & left - joins up along beach with rest.

Palm trees, baobabs, sand, water in many places. Large pool, ledges, wooden bridges etc beyond green lattice - no entry pt available yet. Cannot see any way onto higher rock pillars that surround LH side of area. No ‘goodies’ around edge of water, nor in it, nor ‘baddies’. Button @ far rt on wal will open ‘front door’ into house. At near rt E a gap betw 2 low bldgs with what seems to be the start of an assault course beyond. Can go onto LH wall of 2 low bldgs, to find it is shallow ramp down ‘inside’, to an inner, long courtyard to the rt of the ramp, next to the house wall.

RH low bldg also has a ramp ‘within’ & then another ramp up to some closed gates. The 3 ramps in total suggest a track for a vehicle, incl a jump across the gap betw the 1st two. Thro’ the gates looks like more of a ‘racetrack’ type course. The RH side of the dbl gate (only) has an invisible block in front of it. E a gap after a short distance along the ‘assault course’? leading into the inner courtyard. Within, given a remote camera view from behind - Lara runs further away from the camera. See E a pit @ one pt. In fact, if ‘walk’ Lara up to the pit, she has become v.small indeed. E HS @ the btm of the pit! E a ramp up @ RH side (for a vehicle travelling ‘away from camera’) & E a wooden box structure @ LH side of ramp so that a vehicle could jump the gap from the far side.

Cannot go any further that way on foot. E a gap @ RH side as go along ‘assault course’, where Lara ‘significantly looks’ across, where see one of the orange ‘wasps’ nests’ has fallen down. If shoot @ it, can break nest & find the 1st secret area (the secret sound comes as jump down into space, in fact), with a the 1st of 3 blue secret stones, but wasps (a’ la locusts!) are also released. When reach far corner, where assault course turns left, find that can go no further @ ground level, as blocks/walls become too high. The wasps’ nests are in a few places on the trees. If shoot one, find that wasps will come out from that/those too - so prob not so wise!!

Need to use the rope on the assault course to reach higher block section that follows - & from here on, cannot reach up from the ground. Can R&J to RH surrounding wall & go back & fwd, but not far. Cannot go to (& stand on) LH wall bec it slopes throughout (to prevent this). When climb ladder netting material, see E mnky swgs & several blocks ‘further on’. Long mnky swg, left & drop, onto STP, when must immed take further action. 2 (fairly simple) ‘bounces’ are needed before can reach a flat-topped block/pillar. (Not obvious what the other, shorter mnky swg is for.) A 3rd wasps’ nest that is hot doesn’t produce wasps, tho’. Betw the 2 sections of pillars, clearly E a vehicle track. For parts of it (slopes to stop too much ‘investigation’!) given only a remote camera view, incl when hidden by a wall, on occasion. E a long CSP @ one pt, that also seems to have no ‘reward’.

Down some steps @ left, beyond the 1st part of the course, can see indoor pool & further stairs, in a large room - a way into/out from the house? - thro’ a closed gate. Beyond next, high block section of course, shown view from above @ one pt of sloping walls, ramps, & that the inaccessible RH path/roadway is wide & flat there - for a vehicle too? At very end E another closed gate into a dark, vegetation area - see one torch/BF. Can climb netting @ start of 2nd part of course, but then must climb round to rt twice bec pillars are STP & E HS in betw. Can bflp-smslt to 2nd climbing netting & up to flat top on tall pillar. Can see then E several other STPs nearby. As go to lower block betw STPs, can cling & shimmy along to rt, when shown remote view from ‘behind’ Lara. Can event. reach aerial runway & slide to block where can shoot another wasps’ nest - but just wasps!?
Beginning to look as if whole assault course is merely for ‘exercise’!! Can see further ledges etc, but cannot reach any of them, & most seem to lead nowhere else. E a suggestion that one poss. place for a vehicle’s ‘garage’ is @ this end of the course, beyond the RH wall, thro’ some gates. So thus far, the only part of the course need to go to is the very beginning for the 1st secret. So, it’ll be a case of retrieving that after the initial swim, then going to the ‘front door’.

When go inside the house E psgs rt & left. To the left, come immed to a music room (piano, music system) with a closed door (openable?) @ the RH end & dbl doors that open on approach into what appears to be a library, @ the far left side. Fiercely burning candles(!) & a fire. The library has several stacks of BKs. By the far RH wall, looks as tho’ one section of BK may be a door. And E a (regular) closed door @ the far centre. But nothing else in here as yet, it seems.

To the rt, checked floor has a closed door in RH alcove, 2 fish tanks either side of carpet fwd (can see E floor above) & come to stairs up rt & left (more later) & blue doors ahead. Lara opens the doors into a psg that turns rt. This psg leads to an ante-room with 2 more blue doors, left & rt. Lara opens the LH doors into the gymnasium (more later) & the RH doors into a dining room. E a small kitchen off, with apparently nothing in it, a large dining table she can walk on, & a J&C lever in a LH alcove past a plant. The lever opens the door we have just seen in the library. As enter this room, given a remote camera shot from ahead & to the side that suggests that this is the pool room we saw, with flights of stairs, from the railinged steps down @ the LH side of the assault course part way along. E a floor above, a WLs @ the both sides, several candles & pfms above & notice that E 2 separate ‘below ground-level’ areas that can swim to where E unlit candles. As hoist out near ‘outside’ door, given remote camera view from behind, again. And E 2 unlit candles near that door.

Climbing up one of the WLs, we see that E a large HS area, with 2 lighted candles beyond, @ the ‘house’ side of the room. E some blocks @ the LH side of the room where can hoist up & go beyond the HS section. Ah. Not quite so easily. E a mnky swg section all over the ceiling here, but can drop to the HS if take incorrect route! (See what could be an electric fan cover/ventilator grille @ the oppos. end of the HS area from the blocks - saw one of these also in the pool that was @ the RH side of the area behind the vast green metal lattice structure out on the beach.) The steps up @ the oppos. end of the room from the HS area, appear to just go to an elevated pfm - given a remote camera shot when go there: suggesting some clue? - just a ‘diving pfm’ into the pool below?

Discover that the floor-level checked sq immed the far side of the blocks, next to HS is also a HS! - an unmarked one! Can R&J into the RH area beyond the HS (E a gap to the floor some distance below), but cannot go any further - nor can reach high central pillar that seems significant. Find that the 3rd HS sq away from the blocks, in the cnetre, is NOT HS. And the 4th, but not the 2nd! 5th & 6th also safe. Begins to look as tho’ the destination for the mnky swfg is not the central ‘back’ pillar, but the grille cover that just mentioned @ other end of HS area. Perhaps the safe floor sqs will indicate which are the safe mnky swg sqs. The 6th sq (but not the 5th) on the RH row (that nearest the central pillar) is also safe, as is the 7th (tho’ not the 7th in the middle row). The 8th RH sq is safe, but not the 9th. Going back - re-starting - find that the 1st 3 LH row sqs are safe, so route so far is LH:1, 2, 3, then middle: 3, 4, 5, 6, then RH: 6, 7, 8. To continue, the safe sqs are: middle 8 (but not 9), LH: 8, 9, 10 (but not 11), middle 10, 11, 12, 13 (but not LH 13, nor RH 13).

Looks as tho’ there might be a ‘window’ opening on top of that central pillar, but it’ll have to be as a route ‘back’ into this pool room from outside, as cannot see how to reach the pillar, still. Can also jump to the checked area from the middle 13 sq - so not an HS sq. Going back to the mnky swg, find that have to go fwd from the tallest block, onto the mnky swg section above middle: sq1, THEN ‘turn left’, to LH: sq 1. The route then follows the one traced out on the ground exactly, tho’ about halfway, it becomes diffct to see bec the slope starts ‘back up’ from the centre of the room - the middle is the lowest point. When reach the grille, see that E a ‘pink stone’ behind the grille - that remains closed. Clearly, one of the 4 pink stones we’re seeking is here, but we first need to find a way to open the grille before this one can be taken. Once done, will be able drop to the floor safely.

The gymnasium: several boxes, numbers, to R&J, crawl & CSPs, mnky swg (similar to where have just been - so as ‘practice’, perhaps), WL, etc. E a closed door in the far corner. Seein if door will open by following the sequence of numbers w/o touching the ground in between, but unless the final move from the final WL to the floor in front of the door has to be done w/o touching the sq in betw, then this doesn’t appear to be the case. Not on a timer, as the door didn’t open @ any stage.
[Abbrevs.: RBS = square that might(!?) be a ‘raiseable block’ square; p.o.v = point of view. ]

The stairs past the fish tanks, inside the front door, go up & round so that can see several other aspects/areas up the stairs. At the top centre is a window out onto the beach, @ the rt is a closed door(?), where the stairs continue up to the rt; @ the left, an open door leads into another room (come back to this); then in the very centre is a balustraded, carpeted area with gpas in each corner that drop down to the ground floor. One short psg off this leads back to the window, & the oppos. psg to a wall with a picture, where E a lever @ the left & a tall grey block @ the rt. Can see that E an alcove beyond the block, with a couple of ‘goodies’ to pick up. Can see that E a matching alcove @ the left, with a lion’s head within, with a ‘shootable’ tongue? Find can RJ&C to reach the LH alcove & shoot the ‘tongue’ with pistols, when it closes, but not sure what has happened as a result. Find that can R&J INTO the RH alcove, to pick up laser sight, rev.rnds & loaded revolver. (Clearly, if went to RH alcove 1st, could then shoot out ‘tongue’ with laser-sighted revolver.) Then later discover that can R&J directly into the LH alcove also.

Pulling the lever results in the grey block collapsing (showing that it’s an RBS), when an unlit torch is found! This suggests that certain candles? might be lit in order to open? certain doors/windows? - once we have gone to a fire eg, to light the torch. The room thro’ the open LH doorway appears to be a not-so-small bedroom, with a window out over the start of the assault course & a fire in the grate, from which we can light the torch. (A neat half-crouch to light the torch.) The room off the bedroom is an en-suite bathroom, with nothing apparently to pick up (like the earlier kitchen).

Up either set of ‘outside’ set of stairs brings us to the pfm/ledge/parapet around the ceiling of the room. Ah. And E in fact a glass ceiling to the rest of the room also that can walk on (but this is only apparent from ABOVE). At the ‘sea’ side of the LH side ledge come to a balcony overlooking the beach itself & an SMP to pick up. In the centre of the glass ceiling is a WL on a pillar leading up, but the trapdoor above is closed. The RH ‘sea’ side alcove has an unlit BF in it - to trigger something? Yes. When light it, a gate/grille as yet unseen is raised (unless it is the grille that matches the pool room’s grille in the ‘RH’ pool within the ‘green metal lattice’ area) & E a blue gem inside - .: a secret! Then when go to the RH balcony, suddenly (‘expansive’ music) the program takes over & we’re shown in quite a long flyby a vast amount of the grounds of the house, only some of which we’ve seen. Shown that the pillars outside the balcony might be ‘stepping stones’, shown something of the side vehicle? track next to the assault course, that E indeed an area past the ‘window’ by the ‘central pillar’ in the pool room, & that it is a whole area of pillars etc by itself.

Can climb up pillar to left of balcony, climb round to rt, then bflp off onto flat-topped pillar (‘distant’ music). Can see that E many pillars that could jump to (but leave all this, & where it leads - to the metal lattice structure? - until later). [Find that can R&J to the nearest pillar.] One thing that notice from flyby (taking screenshots & looking @ them in detail) is that E several blocks within the RH flatter area that thought might be for a vehicle. These blocks suggest that further investigation, before continuing here, might be profitable. Can only reach the part of the ‘vehicle’? track near these blocks by going as far on the assault course as just beyond the mnky swg; in other words, cannot reach this area from the beach alone. Need to go beyond the part where ‘straightfwd’ access ends. Find that if go to the blocks/pillars just past the mnky swg sectn, then can R&J to the rt, just before the CSP psg, so that just touch the top of the RH slope, then drop down onto the track(?).

This is just past the slope down from the ‘beach-accessible’ section, & when turn (rt) towards this slope, 2 ‘spiked discs’ coming rolling down. The RH one is first & if time it correctly, can run to the rt after that & before the LH one, to avoid them both. Alternatively, could prob run back left, past the 1st two low blocks, which stop the discs from going further. Find that can go a long way to the left, then, past all the low blocks - tho’ @ times given a remote camera view, so can be disorientatg. When past all the blocks, the ‘track’? turns left into a more open (yet still enclosed) area, & suddenly find E many spaces/sqs where spikes suddenly spring up. Each such sq is safe afterwards, but it suggests it would be unwise to RUN thro’ this area. (E still several occasions when remote camera shots, often from above, are used.) At the end of a long psg come to 2 closed gates, where can see a quadbike? beyond. The ‘diamond’ emblem on the gates suggests the finding of secrets and/or serpent stones might be necy to ‘unlock’ these gates? - cf the gate opened when we lit the BF in the RH alcove above the ‘glass’ ceiling. So perhaps the walled area IS a ‘track’. Cannot climb the pillar to the left of the track @ its end - note that this pt coincides with the very end of the assault course & the other closed gate (btm of p.1) that shows a ‘dark vegetation area’ beyond.
[Abbrevs.: MmC = mummified creature; GLS = green ‘lattice’ structure; BP = ‘basalt’ pillar. ]

(Nb. When return along the ‘track’ to near the beginning, see that the 2 spiked discs effectively block the exit [if the slope is such], which would suggest that we mustn’t trigger these discs until we have the vehicle - so this preamble on foot needs to stay away from the slopes - then there will need to be some careful driving to avoid them - consider the spikes that spring up, too! Lara can jump over the narrow, spiked part safely once they are still - like SBS. When stand on the blocks where started the jump over the sloping wall [can actually jump over from ‘earlier’ blocks] & look up, then can see the 2 spiked discs susp. above the slopes, hidden from most p.o.vs. Nb.2: if sprint along the ‘track’, then the spikes will intercept Lara? - cf a quadbike’s usual speed!)

Carefully checking what happens when we shoot out the ‘crystal’/tongue of the lion @ the LH side of the 1st floor room, if we return to the ground floor, we find that what we thought might have been a 2nd ‘front door’ was in fact a small secret room (in all senses). This door is now open & E a ‘treasure trove’ within: in the LH corner are 2 SMPs & some rev.rnds; in the RH corner are some flares & an LMP & in the centre (stepping on the sq gives the 2nd secret area sound) is a white container which Lara kneels to open (‘action’/ctrl), to find the 2nd secret stone. (In addition, we now also know that the 3rd is behind that pool gate opened by the BF being lit.)

(nb. The ‘blocks area’ that the flyby showed us on the roof of the house, beyond the pool room’s ‘central pillar’ looked v.like a maze! By taking some screenshots as the flyby ensued & then later looking at them may help us in the maze? If such it is.) Jumping up to the LH ‘laddered’ pillar, climb round to oppos.side, then bflp-smslt to pillar with brick patterned top (if high enough, smslt is not necy) [quiet, ‘distant’ & ‘wary’ music]. When R&J to the 1st of what seems to be a huge no. of black ‘basalt’ pillars, see that perhaps the whole area surrounding where Lara orig.swam in could be a vast area to ‘jump about on’! Can eaily R&J to the next obvious, longer pillar, @ the same height as the other 2 so far. As look towards house, see that @ the LH side E a lower pillar with a CSP (or may be a ‘full-sized’ gap - looks smaller bec of the distance) & a sandy-coloured ledge, & some object half hidden within. (A prone, ‘immobile’ skeletor or MmC waiting to ambush Lara?)

Can make a ‘long’ R&J along longer pillar, towards green ‘lattice’ structure (GLS) to just land on 2nd single sq basalt pillar [BP] (4th pillar in all). If R&J across to what IS a CSP area, find that the ‘object’ seen is a thin rock barrier, that prevents any further access - cannot shoot it out with pistols or revolver. A strategically placed chair on the balcony where the flyby began stops a R&J to the rt over the balustrade edge to land on the BPs there. No. In fact, a jump CAN be made to the sloping top of one BP, but discover that there seems to be nothing there at all, anywhere on the top of the BP outcrop. Note that can R&J back to the balcony FROM the outcrop v.easily, so this would be a possible ‘returning’ route - from the roof?: E a sandstone pillar that is attached higher up @ this pt - a connection to the ‘maze’ seen in the flyby?) A R&J diag to BP 5, then 2 RJ&Cs across the beach, parallel to the ‘front’ of the GLS, to BPs 6 & 7. Then can do a SJ to 2 adjoining longer BPs, that surround the sandy ‘alcove’ of beach that found near the beginning.

Towards the ‘sea’ area, to the left, E now a whole series of lower BPs which it seems are the next ‘target’. Can do an SJ to the 1st of these. Then a SJ to the next BP, lower still. Looking ahead, to the diag. series of pillars, suddenly realise that E an area of water that couldn’t reach before & see what looks like a trapdoor or hole in the far corner - p.o.v from 2nd lower BP. In fact, when R&J to a ‘half-topped’ BP to the rt, see that E another water area, quite small, further to the rt, that can only seem to reach by performing a SJ with cling, to pass by the BP that is above the gap & the sloping BP to the rt of the gap. When swim round to the rt, find the first of the 4 pink serpent stones in an alcove. When pick it up shown that a gate opens in a fairly narrow room, with stairs beyond the gate - in a place that don’t recognise. At the other side of the small water area, E another gate, this one closed, with a diamond symbol on it (DGS), as seen on other gates now.

The gate won’t open & cannot swim up to ‘next’ to it, bec an invis. block. Sugg. that this gate is an exit from somewhere TO this point, .: not intended to reach here yet!! Can hoist out of the water @ a convenient pfm/ledge & then jump to the STP that jumped over to gain entry to this pool, so that slide down into main ‘sea’ area. So will have to go all the way back to the house & climb the stairs to the balcony & do all the jumps again to reach this pt - which seems to confirm that reaching the small pool may indeed be a ‘last’ operation in this area. Ah. If go into the water of the larger pool, then the DGS opens, giving access to the smaller pool, to ‘escape’, & the gate slams down behind.
[Abbrevs.: PP = pressure pad/plate; SD = spiked disc; AR = aerial runway; CDS= cul de sac. ]

Discover when go into the larger pool’s water that the (orange) trapdoor @ the end remains closed as reach it. The next part of the jumps sequence on the BPs is more diffct (assuming not going into the small pool, nor into the water yet of the larger pool). E several BPs with sloping or partially sloping tops. Seems that cannot R&J diag. rt to the sq-topped BP (more or less in line from the 2nd low BP to the trapdoor, so have either to go to the RH BP where jumped into the small pool & then R&J from there or can jump to the STP nearest to the farther pillar, then curve rt in the air to land.

From the ‘sq’ BP can then do an SJ to the 1st ‘problematic’ BP (can easily slide off this if land in the wrong place) & then repeat to the 2nd ‘prob’ BP. Then it is an easy SJ to the longer BP. OR, can miss out the STPs by jumpg directly - from the RIGHT posn - from the 2nd low BP to the 1st ‘prob’ BP, then to the 2nd, then to the longer BP. (It appears the other STP might be a decoy.) [Can then run across the corners of the next several BPs that are joined diagonally (or laboriously do a series of SJs) & can then run rt along the ‘sea-ward’ BPS, to the very end (& negot. the couple of slopes). Then need to turn left & do an improbable RJ&C rt across the section of water where initially swum in to the bay, @ the beg. of the game.] Well, it seems as tho’ the [...] section just above is of no advantage. Also, the comment re. the DGS is incorrect. Only if Lara swims OVER the ‘trapdoor’, which is apparently a PP, not a trapdoor, does the DGS open - & it is on a timer: need to swim immed. from the PP to the DGS to pass thro’ before it drops down.

This suggests (as there seems to be nothing else ‘open’ anywhere) that the gate we see being opened when we pick up the serpent stone must now be accessible. We don’t recognise the view shown, but perhaps it is being shown from the other side. Need to hunt for this gate now. (Nb. Can also avoid the need for the long swim to the PP & back or BP jumping to reach it by performing the ‘SJ with cling’ - but not clear if the procedure would miss something out if did that alone, so the way fwd might then NOT be possible. In fact, cunningly, it may be that the room picture has been INVERTED! to make it diffct to recognise. So the checks are on the FLOOR! This also makes sense of the way out from this small pool, using the STP to go ‘back out’ to the main water area, as the next stop will be somewhere inside the house, presum. Now need to check all the closed gates.

Aha! Found a lever we missed earlier while looking in the swimming pool room for the gate. Beneath the central floor area, above the pool itself, in the water, E a ‘pull’ lever that opens the gate that leads out from the pool room to the balustraded flight of steps by the assault course. This gate is part way along the assault course, so don’t need to use the mnky swg section at all now? Further investigation leads to the discovery that the ‘ordinary’ library door is now open & that the gate we saw BEING opened is in the room that this door leads to. So we HADN’T seen the new room - which WAS shown the right way up, in fact. The new room has 3 spiked discs (SDs) running up & down the room, so it is a case of trying to reach the LH end of the room, where the gate opened, w/o being zapped. E 2 blocks/ledges @ either side of the entrance to the psg @ the LH end of the room & a slope up that conceals a small, non-dangerous pit in the centre.

(nb. The SDs seem to start only as Lara reaches the threshold of the room - that’s why they weren’t seen in the picture: they were hidden, like SBs, in the ceiling.) When reach the btm of the psg, see that it is a long, ascending slope - shown a remote camera view from the top - but that E further SDs in the ceiling of the psg! Immed. start up slope, E ‘danger’ music & the 1st SD falls!! E 3 SDs altogether & it seems that the way to pass them is to sprint up the slope, so that each SD falls BEHIND Lara. Unfort. this means that it is v.easy to sprint off the far end of the slope also, which proves to be at a great height above an area below - & Lara is zapped THAT way!

If slow down just the rt amount, can drop to a ledge just beyond the top of the slope, w/o falling over the edge. (The SDs have all fallen into the small pit @ the btm of the slope.) It seems that have come to the other side of the GLS. See water below, many tall pillars, a slope down to the rt if step off the ledge & a grating that can crouch down to shoot out, that leads to a CSP psg. The slope is a slide down, so need to go thro’ the CSP first. Thro’ the CSP psg, find a ledge @ the same level that couldn’t reach from below. When R&J to this, find that the pfm/ledge that have reached seems to be the LOWER end of an aerial runway (AR), which in turn suggests that the CSP psg is meant as an exit from the AR. Can also see from here that E 2 pools below (or one separated by a strip of grass) & that E a mnky swg - with several HS sqs amongst it - up at the roof level of the GLS. Can see @ least a couple of wooden-slat bridges also, over to the left.
The large area within the GLS IS split into 2 pools. The RH half of the area has a long pool, with a couple of openings (more in a moment) & @ the far end, can hoist up to an alcove where extended ‘positive’, ‘journey’ music begins. When hoist up to a psg just above, however, confronted by 3 pairs of blades, susp. from the ceiling, that are opening & closing. There seems to be a WL beyond the 3 blade pairs. The LH pool is not as long, & has a DGS in it. This is the one that we saw from the other side of the GLS, from the beach, & it is still closed. (It also has an invis. barrier in front of it when swim up to it.) So THIS DGS is not the one with the 3rd secret stone. (It is in the RH pool.) The LH pool has a few ‘islands’ of grass, but E nothing on these that can see.

In the far RH corner of the LH pool E a block that has an RBS next to it, as yet lying flat. When this is raised, should be able to reach a higher block to the rt, & thence a WL above that. In the RH pool, near the ‘front’ end (that near the SD slope), @ the LH side, E the alcove where the door has been raised, so can claim the 3rd secret stone in its secret area (sound just after Lara enters). At the extreme ‘near’ RH end in the pool is another opening, which leads to a tunnel & another closed DGS (also with an invis. block in front of it). So from the top of the SD psg, after collecting the 3rd secret stone, the next objective will be the psg @ the end of the RH pool with the 3 pairs of blades.

Passg the blades, the checked sq @ the end raises the DGS in the psg @ the other end of the RH pool. The Qn is how to reach it in time (as it is on a timer). Climbing the ladder, can bflp off @ the top of the ladder (can climb higher for no real advantage) to find an LMP on a wooden pathway. Various ways to try & reach the raised DGS in time: go back along the ‘blades psg’, then swim all the way, or better, use the LH side path. But neither is uick enough. Have to jump to the left of the ladder & go rt down to the pool, swim round to left, then rt, to enter the psg, when the DGS might still be open! If really quick, can actually pick up that LMP & still make it in time!

At first, it’s not clear why we’re in this tunnel, but then see E a lever in the roof near the 2nd gate. Pulling the lever results in the RBS we saw @ the far end of the LH pool being raised. The nearby gate now opens, so we can sim along the LH pool to below the RBS, & use several blocks, incl the RBS, to climb higher. To reach the start of the wooden bridge structure above, need to climb up the last section of WL, then move as far to the left as poss., then bflp onto the very edge - if do a bflp- smslt, then this is the very LH edge/beginning of the wooden walkway. Going fwd, then turning round, see that E spiked walls behind & HS symbols on the ledge that is there - best avoid, then!

Can go to the end of the 1st section of bridge w/o any problem & then need to R&J to the rt, across the gap, to the 2nd section of wooden bridge. When go to the start of what we soon learn is an unstable bridge, can see several blocks off to the rt, where E also the mnky swg, still high up, that we saw from below. Can also see the start of the AR & that directly ahead, there seems to be a path/gauntlet to run betw 2 spiked walls, to switch/lever? When reach the far end - the wooden bridge has collapsed behind but we are shown that E a rope there now - we find that E a receptor for the single serpent stone that we have collected. When we place this, E a ‘great danger’ music blast & we are shown that the trapdoor in the roof of the house, above the ‘translucent’ floor, has dropped open. Unfort.(!!) the 2 spiked walls are moving together. If we ignore this threat(!) Lara is deadified on the spikes & we see the 2 spiked walls exchange places, then move away entirely.

If, immed. have used the serpent stone, do a bflp-smslt, can then sprint along the pathway betw the spikes & if then stop sprinting just before the end of the path, can J&C easily to the rope (bec the rope is in front of Lara, if have sprinted down the middle of the path). (Once on the rope, could return to the path, if wished.) Need to turn 90 deg. left on the rope, & swing so as to land (can overshoot) on the sandy(?)-coloured pfm to the left of the blue slope. If misjudge (or delib. aim for the blue slope) can slide & cling to the btm of it & shimmy round to the left & hoist up to the pfm.
(An interstg pt here: if reload on the ‘sandy’ pfms, the spiked walls may still be a hazard!!)
2 RJ&Cs, then a R&J after a rt turn will bring Lara to the top of the AR. What is still not clear is what the mnky swg is for, bec cannot reach it. It could be that the aim is to give the adventurer an idea of what is in store with the other mnky swg in the pool room off the library, in case that hasn’t already been investigated yet, as the ‘pattern’ of the mnky swg here seems very similar to the pool room’s mnky swg. Going down the AR, reach the high pfm that investigated earlier, such that this is the only way, it seems to be able to return to the house. A R&J from the wide pfm reaches the LH end pfm for the CPS psg that leads rt back to the top of the slope where we met the 3 SDs. We return to the pfm where we started our investigation of this large GLS, @ the top of that slope - the grille needs to be shot out if that hasn’t already been done, of course.
At the btm of the slope it is a simple matter of timing to jump over the pit with the SDs & avoid the still-running SDs, to go rt thro’ the opening there & reach the safety of the library again. From there, can go str. thro’ the library, thro’ the music room/lounge also, past the front door, turn left, past the 2 aquariums & to the stairs - or, in fact, can take the alternative route (but it’s slightly longer) by going to the left in the music room, thro’ the newly opened door betw the music room/lounge & the gymnasium, & thro’ the latter to the stairs - so that can go up the 2 flights of stairs, to the ‘translucent ceiling’ & to the ladder that leads up thro’ the trapdoor.

The area we see above the trapdoor loks very like the area we saw in the flyby, the part that started when the ‘camera’ went thro’ the uppmost door in the pool room. The scene then went on to what looked very like a maze, seen from above, with the suggeston, .:, that the maze, if such it is, leads from the trapdoor, eventually to the door above the pool room. As load the game @ the v.1st part of the ‘maze’, can see a section of wall rising up, like an RBS section. Turning, can see that there might be another behind & to the rt. This suggests that parts of the walls may be lowered @ certain times/with the rt ‘trigger’. As jump up to the 1st block of the white psg, the sound of a cutting blade begins. The LH walls here are ‘just’ too high to hoist up to. Rnd the RH corner ahead, they are much higher - & E a horiz.cutting blade @ the 1st junctn round that corner.

The blade might be a useful ‘marker’. Can easily crawl under it, when shown sloping psg from ahead. Call this junctn a, where left/fwd, with the slope down has the blade & leads to a RH corner & rt goes back @ the same level, to another ‘poss. RBS wall’ (call these pRBS), where E a LH corner that comes immed. to a T-junctn. The T-junctn has a CDS to the rt, & the left path leads to a rt turn that goes down a slope @ the same angle as the sloping path from junctn a. E then several ‘chicanes’, R-L & L-R, until the psg turns back to the rt & leads up another slope, @ a similar angle to the previous slopes, & to a 2nd horiz. cutting blade, attached to the ‘same’ wall as the 1st. This blade seems to be set slightly lower down, but it may just be bec it’s at the crest of a slope that that seems to be the case. Cannot crawl underneath, it seems, w/o some damage, tho’.

Can see the black tops of further blocks ahead, here, & E 2 rt turns soon after the blade. If go to the further one, shown the black tops of long blocks @ the corner, & E a checked sq (a previous one was a PP) @ the end of a longer CDS. See also that E further psgs beyond the ‘lowest’ wall. The 1st of the 2 rt turns leads also to a longer CDS, parallel to the further psg, but E a cut-out @ the RH side that is clearly an RBS. It is, in fact, the first RBS wall section we saw, when first coming into this maze. Just past it, & turning rt, is the drop down to the ‘translucent ceiling’. So just have the psg past the 1st blade to investigate, & to discover the effect of the PP(?) The psg past the 1st blade merely leads to another CDS (so can effectively ignore this psg, it seems).

When go onto the PP (it IS one) find that an RBS that hadn’t noticed (@ the far LH end of the 1st RH psg past the 2nd blade, where the lowered RBS led back to the ‘start’), has been lowered, leadg to a whole further section of the maze. Can see 3 left turns ahead, & another (presum.) PP just past the 1st of these. The 1st left is a CDS alcove; @ the 3rd left, we are given an aerial view, showing several blocks, alcoves, CDSs, & also that E an LMP? in a yet further section of the maze, beyond another long wall (in this case, the one @ where we turn left). When we reach this LMP, it may be advantageous to leave this on the ground as a ‘marker’, too, at least while exploring.

This 3rd psg leads only to 3 difft CDSs, tho’ E a v.useful aerial view also, as leave the furthest of these, giving some idea of what might be to come. Can see part of a cutting blade & the ‘white’ - as opposed to the ‘sandy/cream’ of most of the walls - of a pRBS; tho’ whether we’ve seen these already, or not, is not clear. Along the ‘2nd left’ psg, then, come to a LH junctn b & can see another cutting blade (call these CB) just ahead of junctn b. Turning left, come to a T-junctn (shown a view of Lara from the rt) where left is another CDS & rt leads fwd to another PP(?), in a RH alcove.

Going back to junctn b (have 2 PPs to investig., now), given another aerial view as approach the CB, where this time, we can see alcoves/CDSs that have been in (3rd left psg). Also see that E many small alcoves making up this maze strusture, all backing on to each other. This time, as get v.close to CB, not able to see Lara’s p.o.v (unless use binocs - not helpful when negot. the CB). So this CB have to avoid with just the aerial view. Find can jump into the RH alcove, past the CB, then ‘out’ again past the tip of the blade, if careful. As the camera pans round, as Lara moves, see one or two of the tall pillars on the beach @ the front of the house across the roof tiles @ Lara’s left. In the final alcove/CDS, E another pRBS - this one looks fairly obvious, as a route thro’ to another section.
(This partic. CB’s blade misses small parts of the ground, so it’s easier to negot. for that reason, plus the alcove.) So one of the 2 PPs presum.will lower this RBS - perhaps the other will lower the 2nd one we saw, near the ‘entrance’. The 1st of the 2 unused PPs stops the 1st 2 CBs we’ve come across from cutting - tho’ if go on the very first sq of this maze, when returning to check/exploring, they will start again. The 2nd unused PP does indeed lower the RBS @ the end of the psg/series of alcoves past the ‘aerial view only’ CB. (Unfort., got too close to the CB that time to use said info!!)

Ahead from this latest lowered RBS, can see 2 rt turns & what looks like another pRBS by the 2nd rt turn. The 1st rt turn is an alcove/CDS, but @ the 2nd, shown a view from rt @ the far end of a str. psg, where E 2 LH opngs & a T-junctn @ the end. The 1st left turn is a CDS & the T-junctn (the 3rd ‘turn’) has a CDS @ each side, tho’ the LMP we saw is in the CDS @ rt (leave it for the moment). Ahead in the ‘2nd left’ psg, E another T-junctn, where left becomes a ‘complex junctn’, g, & rt leads to a small window, that cannot open, overlooks that high central pillar/block in the pool room & then E a psg to the left that runs past it, where the 1st left openg leads back to the complex junctn g. If go further on, as approach the left turn @ the end of the psg, another aerial view suggests that this too ‘turns back on itself’, to the rt. As go round the LH corners of the L-shaped block, can see that E another PP in a small alcove that cannot? as yet reach, beyond another wall. Ah, yes we can: the CB that we’ve been hearing is, in fact, across the entrance to this small alcove.

This CB is v.low to the ground, so should be able to jump over it. (All these psgs that lead away from this complex junctn g all come round again to join up, save the small ‘CB alcove’.) As suspected, the PP lowers the RBS that we saw @ the ‘2nd RH corner’ beyond the previous lowered RBS. E another CB immed.beyond this new RBS, just after another CDS to the rt. Find that a R&J over the earlier ‘alcove CB’ will work, then a SJ back out of the alcove. Past the next CBS - can R&J over it - @ the end of the psg beyond, come to 2 hoists up @ the left, to another brick-floored psg. (Still cannot reach the tops of any of the walls.)

A rt turn leads to another psg, with 3 left turns. The 1st left turn is a CDS (given another aerial view) & the 2nd turns round to the left, to a slightly larger area, to end @ a very obvious white pRBS. The 3rd turns left to another long psg, with a str. section, followed by 2 more left turns. As Lara goes along this, not able to have Lara’s view (except with binocs). Binocs show that E a PP in the first LH CDS & ahead is what looks like another (off?-)white pRBS. When go to the end of the psg, to the 2nd left turn & use the binocs to look round, see a further left turn & what looks like a 3rd pRBS. When go along the ‘end psg’, p.o.v returns to Lara & find that the 3rd pRBS is in a CDS.

Given the ‘normal’ view in the PP CDS also. Discover that the RBS that lowers is the one we’ve just seen in the ‘end psg’. (Neither of the other [poss.] 2 have moved.) Discover that as move off the lowered RBS here, that it rises again, preventing any access back to any of the earlier part of the maze. (Given an aerial view @ this point, & see that E another PP to Lara’s rt.) Discover also that the ‘larger alcove area’ ‘obvious’ RBS, reached via the 2nd left opening off a previous psg, is now lowered, so can use this to return to the previous part of the maze. Nb. If go round to the PP that lowered the ‘3rd’ RBS, then when return over the ‘obvious’ RBS, it rises again. In other words, cannot be on the section where the (as yet) untried PP is located WITH the ‘3rd’ RBS lowered also. (NOT treading on the sqs themselves - using diag. jumps across - doesn’t work otherwise, either!)

The PP in the ‘separated’ area causes the 2nd RBS we saw in the ‘3 RBS’ psgs to lower, the one @ the end of the long psg where Lara’s p.o.v was not given. When go round via the ‘obvious’ RBS & the long psg, to reach this, find that this RBS was concealing another psg/CDS with a PP @ the end. When tread on this PP, shown a scene of another RBS lowering (not sure where this is as yet), with the 2nd pink serpent stone just betyond it, in another alcove/CDS. (In addition, don’t recall another serpent stone receptor, either.) When made it all the way back to the beginning of the maze - will go thro’ the directions in a moment - found that rt @ the start, where thought we saw another RBS, next to the ‘start’, the RBS there was just rising. Was this a coincidence?: that the RBS was on a timer? & just happened to get there & try jumping to it AS it rose again, or is it necy to be very careful just HOW the jump is made to the RBS? From the ‘final’ PP: fwd, rt @ the end, across the RBS, fwd along long psg to RH turn @ end. Fwd & left, down to the lower level, rt, fwd & jump over the ‘stilled’ CB, fwd over 2 RBSs, turn left towards the ‘working’ CB shown aerial shot only). Use the LH alcove to go in & jump out over the CB. Turn left towards the T-junctn & turn rt, over the PP, then the RBS. Turn rt & immed. left over the ‘first’ RBS (i.e. the nearest to the ‘start’) to be lowered. Then turn rt again & see the lowered ‘backmost pRBS’ is down, @ the left.
BUT, as jump TO the RBS, it rises up & Lara cannot make it! The last part of the journey has to be done differently: after leaving the ‘working’ CB, & turning rt @ the end of the psg there, & passing the PP & the RBS, then turning rt & immed. left over the ‘first’ RBS, need to turn LEFT again here, then turn rt & rt again in front of the 1st CB we came across (that is ‘still’ @ the moment) & will find that the lowered RBS we saw @ the other end of the maze is straight ahead. When go onto it, we see that the 2nd serpent stone is just to the rt (on top of the lowered RBS section that we were trying unsuccessfully to jump onto). When pick it up, shown a scene of the gate, now opened, that is rt @ the end of the assault course (which we wouldn’t know about had we not explored earlier), that leads into the ‘dark vegetation area’. (Note the wasp nest just close by.)

From the RBS, need to jump diag.rt, then back down first a block, then the ladder up from the room below. [**(see just below)] The quickest way to the new location is probably via the door @ the far side of the pool room, reached from the library. (It seems that we may not be using that high central pillar in the pool room, after all.) From the ladder, need to go across to the stairs, then down to the ground floor, then past the front door again to the music room & thence the library, & turn rt out into the pool room. Then make way over to the outside gate (by swimming or using the stairs), then turn left @ the top of the stairs & go towards the assault course, then turn left @ the corner, so can go all the way to the opened gate @ the end of the last section of the assault course.

(Unfort., we can still hear the clashing blades of the CB ‘above’ somewhere - at least it seems to be one, only - it might have been a cacophony of 4 difft ones!) [**] Find that if go for the torch that we left on the ‘translucent floor’, that it might be beneficial in the area that we’re about to enter. We have only 15 flares & the area ahead is quite dark, so if we carry the torch where we can, ahead (it’ll take only slightly longer to bring it than if we came ‘straight here’) then that may be helpful. (If we find later that we need the torch up at ‘ground level’ [for we’ll be descending somewhat!!] then unfort., we’ll have to replay the following section.)

Going in to the dark vegetation area ahead, hear some rather strange cello? ‘danger’ music. At the left is an unlit BF - which the torch won’t light & @ the rt are some cobwebs. Can go str.thro’ these cobwebs, but if do so @ the RH side, will fall a long way. At the LH side here E a pole we need to slide down - so can throw the torch down to the pfm @ the btm of the pole, if careful. At the btm of the pole is a ladder down, so need to throw the torch down further. (If throw it against the oppos. wall, it will drop to the pfm @ the btm of this ladder.) If drop the torch a 3rd time - E another ladder down from here - might notice that it slides off the slope below, to fall yet further down! Below the slope, whose edge we can cling to, E a 3rd ladder, for the 4th section of the drop. We should catch up with the torch here, on level(ish) ground, at last, but we’ve come a long way down!

As go fwd from btm, E blast of ‘serious’ danger music & a giant spider quickly descends to v.close to where Lara is currently. (A ‘jump out of the seat moment’.) If let him near Lara, the spider has a poisonous bite/sting, tho’ can use 4 revolver rounds (seems a better move?!) to deadify him. Bec of the sloping part above the final ladder, could not climb all the way back up to the surface, so there must be another way!(?) E a couple of lighted BF down here, but the torch is useful extra lighting.

E an alcove fwd & rt, but there seems to be nothing there, & no place to hoist up, then E some more cobwebs & some more lighted BF in a much larger part of the cave. Fwd & rt E another such empty alcove, & another slightly higher @ the left. The cave ahead has a central pillar dividing the ‘entrance’ & as approach the LH side of this, shown that E another giant spider roaming about in that section! E a lighted BF ahead, & if throw the torch fwd also, there will be a bit of light whereby the 2nd spider might be tackled. (Can then use pistols, as the spider doesn’t come into the upper part of the cave.) Can see, when go down into the lower cave section - parts of the view are ‘remote’, so have to be careful with the 2nd spider - that the cave continues off to the left.

E another couple of empty alcoves, left & then rt, before come to another cobweb rt across the cave. It looks as tho’, using binocs from in front of this cobweb, that this is the main section of cave, now: E many cobwebs above, a poss. ‘web sac’, E blocks, gratings, ledges, several BFs, some lit, some not, button(s?) to press & can see a wooden bridge. If go fwd, Lara screams & shown a view from some distance further fwd, showing that this cave is much bigger than thought, that E slides down just beyond the cobweb & that E 2 more giant spiders to have to deal with. Good thing we didn’t use up all of those revolver rounds!! Quite easy for Lara to be bitten again (& again) & so to meet her doom, having been poisoned once more, with the attendant ‘varying’ screen!!
2 giant spiders (@ first?!) are on the ground & cannot see anywhere to climb/hoist up within the spiders’ cave. If manage to return to ‘above’ the cobwebs then the 2 spiders helpfully don’t pursue, but stay in their cave. Unhelpfully, @ the precise spot where you would want to ‘steady’ Lara to jump back up, the camera view given is from the far side of the cave & above & Lara is v.small! Can then shoot spiders with pistols, though it takes some time - save revolver rounds for the no doubt later ones!! E a spot just inside the ‘entrance’ where can jump diag. rt just past the cobweb, activ. the 2 spiders & then bflp straight back, in order to achieve this. (In fact, the spiders don’t go onto this sq itself at all - or any sq immed. past the cobweb - so could shoot from here [though cannot see at all, except with binocs, bec the central block & camera combination stop the view].)

See that E a block low enough to climb @ the far side of the cave (this part reminisc. of the TR2? spiders’ lair). (If know where this is, can outrun & jump the 2 spiders & hoist up. Tho’ wouldn’t want to fall to the ground!) Helpful BFs light as reach them (to confirm route, perhaps, rather than add much lighting. From the 1st block, R&J to the 2nd @ the back wall, then SJ to a 3rd (ledge) above the 1st & hoist up. A BF here shows a ladder - can notice the egg sac is v.close! & also that E a rope somewhere above & that the cave is v.high [we came down a long way!].)

Up the ‘web-like’ ladder, Lara looks down & left immed. & fastens her look that way (the wall button we saw earlier from below, tho’ don’t know what it is for, of course). E a wooden bridge above that cannot reach yet. It is extremely diffct to R&J to the RH triang. section of the top of the egg-sac bec of the ‘fastening look’, but it can be done. From there, a careful J&C can be made to the rope & then a turn rt & a swing all the way to the wooden bridge that was above, where can cling to the edge. Hoisting up, can go along the bridge, as it turns to the rt several times (when several BFS below light up) & reach the 3rd pink serpent stone. When pick this up, the door/gate for the 4th serpent stone that we’ve seen in the pool room opens, allowing access to it via the twisting mnky swg amongst the HS sqs. From the serpent stone pillar, can cling & drop to the sloping egg-sac & cling to the edge, then hoist & bflp (or smslt as well) to land on a ledge/pfm that leads to a ladder.

This very tall ladder leads to a closed trapdoor @ the top, so the button we didn’t go down to push could well be that which opens said trapdoor! With difficulty still, can sideflip left to another pfm, then go fwd & down the ladder that is @ the front of this latest pfm, to another pfm below. It is then a case of jumping across a small gap to the L-shaped ledge that incl. the button. As do the jump, however, another giant spider appears. If careful, can jump back to the previous pfm, & deal with it from there. Unfort., a weapon won’t lock onto the spider here easily (as it usu. stays just ‘behind’ a LH pillar) - need to keep jumping fwd & back to its pfm - being carefully not to be bitten, so jumping to the v.RH edge. (The pistols or whatever want to centre on any spiders below in preference, but even w/o them, they won’t readily ‘lock on’.) If jump back to the pfm where there was the ‘fixed gaze’ on the button/spider’s ledge earlier - from even the pfm directly to the left - may now be able to re-focus on the egg-sac’s stable triang. ledge if wanted. Presum. will want to do just that once have dealt with spider & pressed the button. When press the button, not shown what happens but the adjacent BF goes out, then immed. relights if go back from the button towards the most recently used ladder, confirming that that is the correct ‘next action’?

Find @ the top of the ladder that the trapdoor has been opened, & enter a small cave. (nb. In the spiders’ cave, if light a flare then it ‘works’ as usual, but if drop it it goes out immed. This is exactly the oppos. of the ‘flare bug’ that sometimes annoyingly crops up. Curious.) To the left of the hole is a block then a v.short ladder up, then a small CSP. (The ‘reverse flare bug’ is still extant.) The CSP soon leads to the other side of the strange rock formation that blocked the rock structure off to the rt of the balcony where started the black pillar jumps (halfway down). Lara can kick this out of the way from this side, but then cannot reach the balcony from this halfway pt, & has to descend first to the beach. It is then a case of going back inside the house & to the left to return to the pool room. Going to the left & climbing up to the blocks that have ‘tried out’ before, suddenly given a picture of the roof inside the GLS of the v.high mnky swg that was inside there - shown as if lying on the ground & looking up at it. This confirms that the mnky swg route in the pool room is the same as the route ‘shown’ on the (unattainable) roof of the GLS. (nb. A nice touch is that see one of the 2 rafts of spikes completing/continuing their ‘journey’ across the upper reaches of the GLS!) As pick up the 4th serpent stone, given a picture of the dbl gates that house the quadbike @ the end of the long RH side ‘path’ being raised. At the same time, see (in the shown view) that a high block that barred easy access to the area, just by the ‘vegetation’ gate that led down to the spiders, has now been lowered, suggesting that the long process of ‘spike-avoidance’ can be circumvented.
From the high area of the 4th serpent stone, can drop & cling to the ground (the skull sq is ‘safe’ there) & then reach the outer path by the same route, using the pool & the ‘back door’ as before. Can then go left & along the latter part of the assault course to reach the RBS that has been lowered, & so to the quadbike. (Energetic music as climb on board.) Need to dodge: the numerous spikes - keeping to the centre of the early part of 3-sq-wide part seems good; the blocks that are in the 2-sq wide section; the 2 SDs that drop down @ the start of the sloping part of the ‘path’/track; 2 slopes up next to the house, incl. one which incl. a gap that 1st saw v.early on. When come to the very start of the house-side part of the track, to turn left towads the dbl gates, across another gap, next to the beach, the gates open upon approach. ‘Alt’ is brake & ‘alt’ plus side cursor is ‘alight’, but cannot see a ‘reverse’! One other additional feature is that if choose to try the assault course area instead (no exit @ halfway pt?), hitting the wall on the way out disturbs some wasps!

Can only get on & off @ the LH side, but cannot pull it back in ‘reverse’ like the motor-bike. It also has headlights like the motor-bike. (Using the quadbike in the house, discover that the television in the lounge/music room [though not the upstairs one in the bedroom - both can be broken] contains a SMP!) So this would be an alternative way to reaching the beach & thence the start of the slope towards the dbl gates, avoiding several of the pitfalls - though the rt-angle turns in the pool room up the stairs are quite tricky, & in order to get into the ‘track’ need to go ‘through’ a tree with wasps, so need to outrun these in the quadbike up & down part of the assault course. (nb. See a pair of ‘eyes’ @ the back of the quadbike!) Need a run up round the LH corner on the quadbike to clear the gap betw the 2 parts of the slopes that are either side of the assault course start.

See thro’ the gates a remarkable series of slopes for the quadbike, with some leaps too. In certain places given a high, aerial view, from an angle, of parts of the track. Can go around much of the track on foot, tho’ not steep slopes. When drive the quadbike around, turning rt @ beginning, can then follow series of ramps, with some tight turns & a few jumps, until reach a slope v.near the entrance of the track, when as jump finally back thro’ the gates, the program ends, with a short flyby of the sunset beach again, thro’ the gates.

 

 

Lara's Beach House

Level by John Lincoln
Walkthrough by Robin Burgess [rjb] and revised by Manymee (with Robin's knowledge and permission)


Start: 3 small medi packs, 1 large medi pack, 3 flares to begin. [Author: Aim of the level: this is to find all 4 hidden pink serpent stones hidden in the house and its grounds. Secrets: 3 (blue secret stones).] Two doors have not been opened in this walkthrough!

Outside

The Game starts with Lara being swept along a channel by a current towards a tropical area of beach. It seems that you can only surface because of the current at far left - no, you can swim further, provided you do it in the ‘LEFT HAND half’ of the sea area. But then, having done so, you can swim on the surface to anywhere forward of where the current takes hold. Lara wears an appropriate natty beachwear outfit, with pumps on feet. Pink sky. You cannot see anywhere near left to hoist out. Slow down swimming when the current eases up. There is a separate beach alcove but nothing there, else right hand beach or rocks forward left - which all join up. There are small buildings, then a large house to the right. Nothing on the small palm tree island; nothing on the sea bed (all ‘apparently’: I have missed things before!!); a huge green metal lattice structure forward centre & left which joins up along the beach with the rest.

Palm trees, baobabs, sand, and water in many places. There is a large pool, ledges, wooden bridges etc beyond the green lattice – but no entry point available yet. You cannot see any way onto higher rock pillars that surround the left hand side of area. No ‘goodies’ around the edge of water, nor in it, nor ‘baddies’. The Button at the far right on wall will open the front door into the house. At the right side of the house is a gap between two low buildings with what seems to be the start of an assault course beyond. You can go onto the LEFT HAND wall of 2 low buildings, to find it is a shallow ramp down ‘inside’, to an inner, long courtyard to the right of the ramp, next to the house wall.

The low building at the right also has a ramp ‘within’ & then another ramp up to some closed gates. The 3 ramps in total suggest a track for a vehicle, including a jump across the gap between the 1st two. Through the gates you’ll see more of a ‘racetrack’ type course. The right hand side of the double gate (only) has an invisible block in front of it. Within, you are given a remote camera view from behind - Lara runs further away from the camera. You’ll see there is a pit at one point. In fact, if you ‘walk’ Lara up to the pit, she has become very small indeed. There is a HOT STONE at the bottom of the pit! There is a ramp up at the RIGHT HAND side (for a vehicle travelling ‘away from camera’) & there is a wooden box structure at LEFT HAND side of ramp so that a vehicle could jump the gap from the far side.

You cannot go any further that way on foot. There is a gap at the RIGHT HAND side as you go along the assault course, where Lara significantly looks across, where you’ll see one of the orange wasp’s nests has fallen down. If you shoot at it, you can break the nest & find the 1st secret area (the secret sound comes as you jump down into space, in fact), with the 1st of 3 blue secret stones, but wasps (à la locusts!) are also released. When you reach the far corner, where the assault course turns left, you find that you can go no further at ground level, as the blocks/walls become too high. The wasps’ nests are in a few places on the trees. If you shoot one, you’ll find that wasps will come out from those too - so probably not so wise!!

You need to use the rope on the assault course to reach the higher block section that follows - & from here on, you cannot reach up from the ground. You can RUN+JUMP to the RIGHT HAND surrounding wall & go back & forward, but not far. You cannot go to (& stand on) the LEFT HAND wall because it slopes throughout (to prevent this). When you climb the ladder netting material, you see some monkey swings & several blocks further on. Long monkey swing, left & drop, onto SLOPING-TOPPED PILLAR, when you must immediately take further action. 2 (fairly simple) ‘bounces’ are needed before you can reach a flat-topped block/pillar. (Not obvious what the other, shorter monkey swing is for.) A 3rd wasps’ nest that is shot doesn’t produce wasps, though. Between the 2 sections of pillars, clearly there is a vehicle track. For parts of it (slopes to stop too much ‘investigation’!) you’re given only a remote camera view, including when it’s hidden by a wall, on occasion. There is a long crawlspace at one point that also seems to have no ‘reward’.

Down some steps at the left, beyond the 1st part of the course, you can see an indoor pool & further stairs, in a large room - a way into/out from the house? - Through a closed gate. Beyond the next, there is a high block section of course, you are shown the view from above at one point of sloping walls, ramps, & that the inaccessible RIGHT HAND path/roadway is wide & flat there - for a vehicle too? At the very end there is another closed gate into a dark, vegetation area - you’ll see one torch/BOWL-FLAME. You can climb the netting at the start of the 2nd part of the course, but then you must climb round to the right twice because the pillars are SLOPING-TOPPED PILLARS & there are HOT STONES in between. You can back flip-somersault to the 2nd climbing netting & up to the flat top on the tall pillar. You can see then there are several other SLOPING-TOPPED PILLARS nearby. As you go to the lower block between the SLOPING-TOPPED PILLARS you can cling & shimmy along to right, when you are shown remote view from ‘behind’ Lara. You can eventually reach the aerial runway & slide to block where you can shoot another wasps’ nest - but just wasps!?

Beginning to look as if the whole assault course is merely for ‘exercise’!! You can see further ledges etc, but cannot reach any of them, & most seem to lead nowhere else. There is a suggestion that one poss. place for a vehicle’s ‘garage’ is at this end of the course, beyond the RIGHT HAND wall, through some gates. So thus far, the only part of the course you need to go to is the very beginning for the 1st secret. So, it’ll be a case of retrieving that after the initial swim, then going to the ‘front door’.

In the House

When you go inside the house there are passages right & left. To the left, you come immediately to a music room (piano, music system) with a closed door (openable?) At the RIGHT HAND end there is a door & straight ahead double doors that open on approach into what appears to be a library, at the far left side. Fiercely burning candles (!) & a fire. The library has several stacks of Bookcases. And there is a (regular) closed door at the far centre. But nothing else in here as yet, it seems.
To the right, the checked floor has a closed door in the RIGHT HAND alcove. This room contains a secret. There are 2 fish tanks either side of carpet forward (can see there is floor above) & you come to stairs up right & left (more later) & blue doors ahead. Lara opens the doors into a passage that turns right.

This passage leads to an ante-room with 2 more blue doors, left & right. Lara opens the LEFT HAND doors into the gymnasium (more later) & the RIGHT HAND doors into a dining room. There is a small kitchen off, with apparently nothing in it, a large dining table she can walk on, & a JUMPSWITCH in a LEFT HAND alcove past a plant. The JUMPSWITCH opens the door we have just seen in the library. As you enter this room, you are given a remote camera shot from ahead & to the side that suggests that this is the pool room we saw, with flights of stairs, from the railinged steps down at the LEFT HAND side of the assault course part way along. There is a floor above, 2 WALL-Ladders at the sides, several candles & platforms above & notice that there are 2 separate ‘below ground-level’ areas that you can swim to where there are unlit candles. As you hoist out near the ‘outside’ door, you are given remote camera view from behind, again. And there are 2 unlit candles near that door.

The Pool Room

Climbing up one of the WALL-Ladders, we see that there is a large HOT STONE area, with 2 lighted candles beyond, at the ‘house’ side of the room. There are some blocks at the LEFT HAND side of the room where you can hoist up & go beyond the HOT STONE section. Ah. Not quite so easily. There is a monkey swing section all over the ceiling here, but you can drop to the HOT STONE if you take an incorrect route! The steps up at the opposite end of the room from the HOT STONE area, appear to just go to an elevated platform- given a remote camera shot when go there: suggesting some clue? - Just a ‘diving platform’ into the pool below?
(See a door with a Diamond symbol at the opposite end of the HOT STONE area from the blocks, there is a red gem behind it, saw one of these also in the pool that was at the RIGHT HAND side of the area behind the vast green metal lattice structure out on the beach.)

Clearly, one of the 4 pink stones we’re seeking is here, but we first need to find a way to open the door with a Diamond symbol before this one can be taken. (Here’s the route across the roof.)

You discover that the floor-level checked square immediately at the far side of the blocks, next to the HOT STONE is also a HOT STONE! - An unmarked one! You can RUN into the RIGHT HAND area beyond the HOT STONE (there is a gap to the floor some distance below), but cannot go any further - nor can you reach the high central pillar that seems significant. Find that the 3rd HOT STONE square away from the blocks, in the centre, is NOT a HOT STONE. And the 4th, but not the 2nd! 5th & 6th also safe. Begins to look as though the destination for the monkey swing is not the central ‘back’ pillar, but the door with a Diamond symbol that I just mentioned at the other end of HOT STONE area. Perhaps the safe floor squares will indicate which the safe monkey swing squares are. The 6th square (but not the 5th) on the RIGHT HAND row (that nearest the central pillar) is also safe, as is the 7th (though not the 7th in the middle row). The 8th RIGHT HAND square is safe, but not the 9th. Going back - re-starting - you’ll find that the 1st 3 LEFT HAND row squares are safe, so route so far is LEFT HAND:1, 2, 3, then middle: 3, 4, 5, 6, then RIGHT HAND: 6, 7, 8. To continue, the safe squares are: middle 8 (but not 9), LEFT HAND: 8, 9, 10 (but not 11), middle 10, 11, 12, 13 (but not LEFT HAND 13, nor RIGHT HAND 13).

Looks as though there might be a ‘window’ opening on top of that central pillar, but it’ll have to be as a route ‘back’ into this pool room from outside, as you cannot see how to reach the pillar, still. You can also jump to the checked area from the middle 13 square - so it’s not a HOT STONE square.

Going back to the monkey swing, you’ll find that you have to go forward from the tallest block, onto the monkey swing section above middle: square 1, THEN ‘turn left’, to LEFT HAND: square 1. The route then follows the one traced out on the ground exactly, though about halfway, it becomes difficult to see because the slope starts ‘back up’ from the centre of the room - the middle is the lowest point.

Once done, you will be able drop to the floor safely.

The Gymnasium

There are Several boxes, numbers, to RUN+JUMP, crawl-ladder & crawlspaces, monkey swing (similar to where have just been - so as ‘practice’, perhaps), WALL-LADDER, etc. there is a closed door in the far corner, which will need to be opened from elsewhere.

Main Hall

The stairs past the fish tanks, inside the front door, go up & round so that you can see several other aspects/areas up the stairs. At the top centre is a window out onto the beach. At the right is a closed door (openable?), where the stairs continue up to the right; at the left, an open door leads into another room (come back to this); then in the very centre is a balustraded, carpeted area with gaps in each corner that drop down to the ground floor. One short passage off this leads back to the window & the opposite passage to a wall with a picture, where there is a lever at the left & a tall grey block at the right. You can see that there is an alcove beyond the block, with a couple of ‘goodies’ to pick up. You’ll find that you can RUN+JUMP INTO the RIGHT HAND alcove, to pick up laser sight, revolver rounds & loaded revolver. You can also see that there is a matching alcove at the left, with a lion’s head within, with a ‘shootable’ tongue. You’ll find you can RUN+JUMP+CLING to reach the LEFT HAND alcove or shoot the ‘tongue’ with laser-sighted revolver. (This opens the door to the secret room back at the fish tanks.)

Pulling the lever results in the grey block collapsing (showing that it’s a RAISEABLE), when an unlit torch is found! This suggests that certain candles or lamps might be lit in order to open certain doors/windows - Once we have gone to a fire e.g., to light the torch. The room through the open LEFT HAND doorway appears to be a not-so-small bedroom, with a window out over the start of the assault course & a fire in the grate, from which we can light the torch. The room off the bedroom is an en-suite bathroom, with nothing apparently to pick up (like the earlier kitchen).

Top Stairs

Up either set of the ‘outside’ set of stairs brings us to the platform/ledge/parapet around the ceiling of the room. Ah. And there is in fact a glass ceiling to the rest of the room also that you can walk on (but this is only apparent from ABOVE). At the ‘sea’ side of the LEFT HAND side ledge you come to a balcony overlooking the beach itself & a SMALL MEDI PACK to pick up. In the centre of the glass ceiling is a WALL-LADDER on a pillar leading up, but the trapdoor above is closed. The RIGHT HAND ‘sea’ side alcove has an unlit BOWL-FLAME in it - to trigger something? Yes. When you light it, a door with a Diamond symbol as yet unseen is raised (unless it is the door that matches the pool room’s door in the ‘RIGHT HAND’ pool within the ‘green metal lattice’ area) & there is a blue gem inside - . A secret! Then when you go to the RIGHT HAND balcony, suddenly (‘expansive’ music) the program takes over & we’re shown in quite a long flyby a vast amount of the grounds of the house, only some of which we’ve seen. Shown that the pillars outside the balcony might be ‘stepping stones’, shown something of the side vehicle track next to the assault course, that there is indeed an area past the ‘window’ by the ‘central pillar’ in the pool room, & that it is a whole area of pillars etc by itself.

(Exploring the Race Track)

(Edit: I suggest you don’t explore the racing track on foot since it might trigger events which make it impossible to drive the quad later. See further down. M)

You can climb up the pillar to the left of the balcony; climb round to the right, then back flip off onto the flat-topped pillar (‘distant’ music). You can see that there are many pillars that could you jump to (but leave all this, & where it leads - to the metal lattice structure? - until later). [Find that you can RUN+JUMP to the nearest pillar.] One thing that you notice from flyby (taking screenshots & looking at them in detail) is that there is several blocks within the RIGHT HAND flatter area that thought might be for a vehicle. These blocks suggest that further investigation, before continuing here, might be profitable. You can only reach the part of the vehicle track near these blocks by going as far on the assault course as just beyond the monkey swing; in other words, you cannot reach this area from the beach alone. You’ll need to go beyond the part where ‘straightforward’ access ends. You’ll find that if you go to the blocks/pillars just past the monkey swing section, you then can RUN+JUMP to the right, just before the crawlspace passage, so that you just touch the top of the RIGHT HAND slope, then drop down onto the track.

This is just past the slope down from the ‘beach-accessible’ section, & when you turn (right) towards this slope, 2 ‘spiked discs’ coming rolling down. The right hand one is first & if you time it correctly, you can run to the right after that & before the LEFT HAND one, to avoid them both. Alternatively, you could probably run back left, past the 1st two low blocks, which stop the discs from going further. You can go a long way to the left, then, past all the low blocks - though at times you are given a remote camera view, so it can be disorientating. When you are past all the blocks, the track turns left into a more open (yet still enclosed) area, & suddenly you find there are many spaces/squares where spikes suddenly spring up. Each such square is safe afterwards, but it suggests it would be unwise to RUN through this area. (There are still several occasions when remote camera shots, often from above, are used.) At the end of a long passage you come to 2 closed gates, where you can see a quad bike beyond. The ‘diamond’ emblem on the gates suggests the finding of secrets and/or serpent stones might be necessary to ‘unlock’ these gates. – Like the gate opened when we lit the Bowl-Flame in the RIGHT HAND alcove above the ‘glass’ ceiling. You cannot climb the pillar to the left of the track at its end - note that this point coincides with the very end of the assault course & the other closed gate (bottom of p.1) that shows a ‘dark vegetation area’ beyond.

(Nb. When you return along the ‘track’ to near the beginning, see that the 2 spiked discs effectively block the exit [if the slope is such], which would suggest that we mustn’t trigger these discs until we have the vehicle - so this preamble on foot needs to stay away from the slopes - then there will need to be some careful driving to avoid them - consider the spikes that spring up, too! Lara can jump over the narrow, spiked part safely once they are still - like SPIKED BALLS. When you stand on the blocks where the jump started over the sloping wall [you can actually jump over from ‘earlier’ blocks & look up, then you can see the 2 spiked discs suspended. above the slopes, hidden from most p.o.vs. With the quad you can probably outrun the spikes.

The Secret Room

Carefully checking what happens when we shoot out the ‘crystal’/tongue of the lion at the LEFT HAND side of the 1st floor room, if we return to the ground floor, we find that what we thought might have been a 2nd ‘front door’ was in fact a small secret room (in all senses). This door is now open & there is a ‘treasure trove’ within: in the LEFT HAND corner are 2 small medi packs & some revolver rounds; in the RIGHT HAND corner are some flares & an large medi pack & in the centre (stepping on the square gives the 2nd secret area sound) is a white container which Lara kneels to open (‘action’/ctrl), to find the 2nd secret stone. (In addition, we now also know that the 3rd is behind that pool gate opened by the bowl-flame being lit.)

More about the balcony view

(Nb. The ‘blocks area’ that the flyby showed us on the roof of the house, beyond the pool room’s ‘central pillar’ looked very much like a maze! By taking some screenshots as the flyby ensued & then later looking at them may help us in the maze? If such it is.) Jumping up to the LEFT HAND ‘laddered’ pillar, you can climb round to the opposite side, then back flip-somersault to the pillar with the brick patterned top (if you are high enough, somersault is not necessary) [quiet, ‘distant’ & ‘wary’ music]. When you RUN+JUMP to the 1st of what seems to be a huge no. of black ‘basalt’ pillars, you’ll see that perhaps the whole area surrounding where Lara originally swam in could be a vast area to ‘jump about on’! You can easily RUN+JUMP to the next obvious, longer pillar, at the same height as the other 2 so far. As you look towards the house, you’ll see that at the LEFT HAND side there is a lower pillar with a crawlspace (or maybe a ‘full-sized’ gap - looks smaller because of the distance) & a sandy-coloured ledge, & a barrier half hidden within. This can only be opened from the other side.

Out on the Basalt Pillars

You can make a ‘long’ RUN+JUMP along the longer pillar, towards the Green Lattice Structure to just land on a 2nd single square basalt pillar (4th pillar in all). If you RUN+JUMP across to what IS a crawlspace area, a strategically placed chair on the balcony where the flyby began stops a RUN+JUMP to the right over the balustrade edge to land on the Basalt Pillars there. No. In fact, a jump CAN be made to the sloping top of one Basalt Pillar, but you discover that there seems to be nothing there at all, anywhere on the top of the Basalt Pillar outcrop. Note that you can RUN+JUMP back to the balcony. FROM the outcrop very easily, so this would be a possible ‘returning’ route - from the roof? There is a sandstone pillar that is attached higher up At this point - a connection to the ‘maze’ seen in the flyby?) A RUN+JUMP diagonally to Basalt Pillar 5, then 2 Run+JUMP+CLINGs across the beach, parallel to the ‘front’ of the Green Lattice Structure, to Basalt Pillars 6 & 7. Then you can do a STANDING JUMP to 2 adjoining longer Basalt Pillars that surround the sandy ‘alcove’ of beach that found near the beginning.

Towards the ‘sea’ area, to the left, there is now a whole series of lower Basalt Pillars which it seems are the next ‘target’. You can do a STANDING JUMP to the 1st of these. Then a STANDING JUMP to the next Basalt Pillar, lower still. Looking ahead, to the diagonal series of pillars you suddenly realise that there is an area of water that couldn’t reach before & see what looks like a trapdoor or hole in the far corner - p.o.v from 2nd lower Basalt Pillar. In fact, when you RUN+JUMP to a ‘half-topped’ Basalt Pillar to the right, see that there is another water area, quite small, further to the right that you can only seem to reach by performing a STANDING JUMP with grab, to pass by the Basalt Pillar that is above the gap & the sloping Basalt Pillar to the right of the gap. When you swim round to the right, you’ll find the first of the 4 pink serpent stones in an alcove. When you pick it up you are shown that a gate opens in a fairly narrow room, with stairs beyond the gate - in a place that you don’t recognise. At the other side of the small water area, there is another door with a Diamond symbol, this one closed.

The door won’t open & you cannot swim up to ‘next’ to it, because of an invisible box. Block. Suggestion. That this gate is an exit from somewhere TO this point, not intended to reach here yet!! You can hoist out of the water at a convenient platform/ledge & then jump to the SLOPING-TOPPED PILLAR that you jumped over to gain entry to this pool, so that you slide down into main ‘sea’ area. So you will have to go all the way back to the house & climb the stairs to the balcony & do all the jumps again to reach this point - which seems to confirm that reaching the small pool may indeed be a ‘last’ operation in this area. Ah. If you go into the water of the larger pool, then the DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL opens, giving access to the smaller pool, to ‘escape’, & the gate slams down behind.

Discover when you go into the larger pool’s water that the (orange) trapdoor at the end remains closed as you reach it. The next part of the jumps sequence on the Big Pillars is more difficult (assuming not going into the small pool, nor into the water yet of the larger pool). There are several Big Pillars with sloping or partially sloping tops. Seems that you cannot RUN+JUMP diagonally. right to the square-topped Big Pillar (more or less in line from the 2nd low Big Pillar to the trapdoor, so you have either to go to the RIGHT HAND Big Pillar where you jumped into the small pool & then RUN+JUMP from there or you can jump to the SLOPING-TOPPED PILLAR nearest to the farther pillar, then curve right in the air to land.

From the ‘square’ Big Pillar you can then do a STANDING JUMP to the 1st ‘problematic’ Big Pillar (you can easily slide off this if you land in the wrong place) & then repeat to the 2nd ‘probable’ Big Pillar. Then it is an easy STANDING JUMP to the longer Big Pillar. OR, you and miss out the SLOPING-TOPPED Pillars by jumping directly - from the RIGHT position - from the 2nd low Big Pillar to the 1st ‘probable’ Big Pillar, then to the 2nd, then to the longer Big Pillar. (It appears the other SLOPING-TOPPED PILLAR might be a decoy.) [You can then run across the corners of the next several Big Pillars that are joined diagonally (or laboriously do a series of STANDING Jumps) & can then run right along the ‘sea-ward’ Big Pillars, to the very end (& negotiate the couple of slopes). Then you need to turn left & do an improbable RUN+JUMP+CLING right across the section of water where you initially swum in to the bay, at the beginning of the game.] Well, it seems as though the [...] section just above is of no advantage. Also, the comment re. The DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL is incorrect. Only if Lara swims OVER the ‘trapdoor’, which is apparently a Pressure Pad, not a trapdoor, does the DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL open - & it is on a timer: you need to swim immediately From the Pressure Pad to the DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL to pass through before it drops down.

This suggests (as there seems to be nothing else ‘open’ anywhere) that the gate we see being opened when we picked up the serpent stone must now be accessible. We don’t recognise the view shown, but perhaps it is being shown from the other side. You need to hunt for this gate now.
(Nb. You can also avoid the need for the long swim to the Pressure Pad & back or Big Pillar jumping to reach it by performing the ‘STANDING JUMP with cling’ - but not clear if the procedure would miss something out if you did that alone, so the way forward might then NOT be possible. In fact, cunningly, it may be that the room picture has been INVERTED! To make it difficult to recognise. So the checks are on the FLOOR! This also makes sense of the way out from this small pool, using the SLOPING-TOPPED PILLAR to go ‘back out’ to the main water area, as the next stop will be somewhere inside the house, presumably.)

Now you need to check all the closed gates.

The Pool Room Again

Aha! Found a lever we missed earlier while looking in the swimming pool room for the gate. Beneath the central floor area, above the pool itself, in the water, there is a ‘pull’ lever that opens the gate that leads out from the pool room to the balustraded flight of steps by the assault course. This gate is part way along the assault course, so there’s no need to use the monkey swing section at all now?

Spike Room

Further investigation leads to the discovery that the ‘ordinary’ library door is now open & that the gate we saw BEING opened is in the room that this door leads to. So we HADN’T seen the new room - which WAS shown the right way up, in fact. The new room has 3 spiked discs (Spike Disks) running up & down the room, so it is a case of trying to reach the LEFT HAND end of the room, where the gate opened, w/o being zapped. There are 2 blocks/ledges at either side of the entrance to the passage At the LEFT HAND end of the room & a slope up that conceals a small, non-dangerous pit in the centre.

(nb. The Spike Disks seem to start only as Lara reaches the threshold of the room - that’s why they weren’t seen in the picture: they were hidden, like SPIKED Balls, in the ceiling.) When you reach the bottom of the passage, you see that it is a long, ascending slope - shown a remote camera view from the top - but that there are further Spike Disks in the ceiling of the passage! Immediately Start up slope, there is ‘danger’ music & the 1st Spike Disc falls!! There are 3 Spike Disks altogether & it seems that the way to pass them is to sprint up the slope, so that each Spike Disk falls BEHIND Lara. Unfortunately this means that it is very easy to sprint off the far end of the slope also, which proves to be at a great height above an area below - & Lara is zapped THAT way!

 

The Huge Greenhouse with Pools

If you slow down just the right amount, you can drop to a ledge just beyond the top of the slope, w/o falling over the edge. (The Spike Disks have all fallen into the small pit at the bottom of the slope.) It seems that you have come to the other side of the Green Lattice Structure. You’ll see water below, many tall pillars, a slope down to the right if step off the ledge & a grating that you can crouch down to shoot out, which leads to a crawlspace passage. The slope is a slide down, so go through the crawlspace first. Through the crawlspace passage, you’ll find a ledge at the same level that you couldn’t reach from below. When you RUN+JUMP to this, you’ll find that the platform/ledge that you have reached seems to be the LOWER end of a zip line, which in turn suggests that the crawlspace passage is meant as an exit from the Aerial Runway. You can also see from here that there are 2 pools below (or one separated by a strip of grass) & that there is a monkey swing - with several HOT STONE squares amongst it - up at the roof level of the Green Lattice Structure. You can see at least a couple of wooden-slat bridges also, over to the left.

The large area within the Green Lattice Structure is split into 2 pools. The RIGHT HAND half of the area has a long pool, with a couple of openings (more in a moment) & at the far end, you can hoist up to an alcove where extended ‘positive’, ‘journey’ music begins. When you hoist up to a passage just above, however, you are confronted by 3 pairs of blades, suspended from the ceiling, which are opening & closing. There seems to be a WALL-LADDER beyond the 3 blade pairs. The LEFT HAND pool is not as long, & has a DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL in it. This is the one that we saw from the other side of the Green Lattice Structure, from the beach, & it is still closed. (It also has an invisible barrier in front of it when swim up to it.) So THIS DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL is not the one with the 3rd secret stone. (It is in the RIGHT HAND pool.) The LEFT HAND pool has a few ‘islands’ of grass, but there is nothing on these that can see.

In the far RIGHT HAND corner of the LEFT HAND pool there is a block that has a RAISEABLE next to it, as yet lying flat. When this is raised, you should be able to reach a higher block to the right, & thence a WALL-LADDER above that. In the RIGHT HAND pool, near the ‘front’ end (that near the Spike Disk slope), at the LEFT HAND side, there is the alcove where the door has been raised, so you can claim the 3rd secret stone in its secret area (sound just after Lara enters). At the extreme ‘near’ RIGHT HAND end in the pool is another opening, which leads to a tunnel & another closed DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL (also with an invisible. block in front of it). So from the top of the Spike Disk passage, after collecting the 3rd secret stone, the next objective will be the passage at the end of the RIGHT HAND pool with the 3 pairs of blades.

Passing the blades, the checked square at the end raises the DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL in the passage at the other end of the RIGHT HAND pool. The Question is how to reach it in time (as it is on a timer). Climbing the ladder, you can Back flip off at the top of the ladder (you can climb higher for no real advantage) to find an LMP on a wooden pathway. There are various ways to try & reach the raised DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL in time: you can go back along the ‘blades passage’, then swim all the way or better, use the LEFT HAND side path. But neither is quick enough. You have to jump to the left of the ladder & go right down to the pool, swim round to left, then right, to enter the passage, when the DOOR WITH A DIAMOND SYMBOL might still be open! If you are really quick, you can actually pick up that LMP & still make it in time!

At first, it’s not clear why we’re in this tunnel, but then you see there is a lever in the roof near the 2nd gate. Pulling the lever results in the RAISEABLE we saw at the far end of the LEFT HAND pool being raised. The nearby gate now opens, so we can swim along the LEFT HAND pool to below the RAISEABLE, & use several blocks, including the RAISEABLE, to climb higher. To reach the start of the wooden bridge structure above, you need to climb up the last section of WALL-LADDER, then move as far to the left as poss., and then Backflip onto the very edge - if you do a Back flip- somersault, then this is the very LEFT HAND edge/beginning of the wooden walkway. Going forward, then turning round, you’ll see that there are spiked walls behind & HOT STONE symbols on the ledge that is there - best avoid, then!

You can go to the end of the 1st section of bridge w/o any problem & then you’ll need to RUN+JUMP to the right, across the gap, to the 2nd section of wooden bridge. When you go to the start of what we soon learn is an unstable bridge, you can see several blocks off to the right, where there is also the monkey swing, still high up, which we saw from below. You can also see the start of the zip line & that directly ahead, there seems to be a path/gauntlet to run between 2 spiked walls, to a switch. When you reach the far end - the wooden bridge has collapsed behind but we are shown that there is a rope there now - we find that there is a receptor for the single serpent stone that we have collected. Save your game. When we place this, there is a ‘great danger’ music blast & we are shown that the trapdoor in the roof of the house, above the ‘translucent’ floor, has dropped open. Unfortunately. (!!) the 2 spiked walls are moving together. If we ignore this threat (!) Lara is deadified on the spikes & we see the 2 spiked walls exchange places, and then move away entirely.

If, immediately, when you have used the serpent stone, you do a Back flip-somersault, then sprint along the pathway between the spikes & if you then stop sprinting just before the end of the path, you can JUMP+CLING easily to the rope (because the rope is in front of Lara, if you have sprinted down the middle of the path). (Once on the rope, you could return to the path, if you wished.) You need to turn 90 deg. left on the rope & swing so as to land (you can overshoot) on the sandy (?)-coloured platform to the left of the blue slope. If you’re mis-tuning the jump (or deliberately aim for the blue slope) you can slide & cling to the bottom of it & shimmy round to the left & hoist up to the platform.

(An interesting point here: if you reload on the ‘sandy’ platforms, the spiked walls may still be a hazard!!)

2 Run+JUMP+CLINGs, then a RUN+JUMP after a right turn will bring Lara to the top of the zip line.

What is still not clear is what the monkey swing is for, because you cannot reach it. It could be that the aim is to give the adventurer an idea of what is in store with the other monkey swing in the pool room off the library, in case that hasn’t already been investigated yet, as the ‘pattern’ of the monkey swing here seems very similar to the pool room’s monkey swing.

Going down the zip line, you reach the high platform you investigated earlier, such that this is the only way it seems to be able to return to the house. A RUN+JUMP from the wide platform reaches the LEFT HAND end platform for the crawlspace passage that leads right back to the top of the slope where we met the 3 Spike Disks. We return to the platform where we started our investigation of this large Green Lattice Structure, at the top of that slope - the grille needs to be shot out if that hasn’t already been done, of course.

At the bottom of the slope it is a simple matter of timing to jump over the pit with the Spike Disks & avoid the still-running Spike Disks, to go right through the opening there & reach the safety of the library again. From there, you can go straight through the library, through the music room/lounge also, past the front door, turn left, past the 2 aquariums & to the stairs - or, in fact, can take the alternative route (but it’s slightly longer) by going to the left in the music room, through the newly opened door between the music room/lounge & the gymnasium, & through the latter to the stairs - so that you can go up the 2 flights of stairs, to the ‘translucent ceiling’ & to the ladder that leads up through the trapdoor.

The Roof Maze

The area we see above the trapdoor looks very like the area we saw in the flyby, the part that started when the ‘camera’ went through the up most door in the pool room. The scene then went on to what looked very like a maze, seen from above, with the suggestion, that the maze, if such it is, leads from the trapdoor, eventually to the door above the pool room. As you load the game at the v.1st part of the ‘maze’, you can see a section of wall rising up, like a RAISEABLE section. Turning you can see that there might be another behind & to the right. This suggests that parts of the walls may be lowered at certain times/with the right ‘trigger’. As you jump up to the 1st block of the white passage, the sound of a cutting blade begins. The LEFT HAND walls here are ‘just’ too high to hoist up to. Round the RIGHT HAND corner ahead, they are much higher - & there is a horizontal cutting blade at the 1st junction round that corner.

The blade might be a useful ‘marker’. You can easily crawl under it, when you are shown the sloping passage from ahead. Call this junction A, where left/forward, with the slope down has the blade & leads to a RIGHT HAND corner & right goes back.

At the same level, to another ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’ where there is a LEFT HAND corner that comes immediately to a T-junction. The T-junction has a Cul-de-Sac to the right, & the left path leads to a right turn that goes down a slope.

At the same angle as the sloping path from junction A there are then several ‘chicanes’, R-L & L-R, until the passage turns back to the right & leads up another slope, At a similar angle to the previous slopes, & to a 2nd horizontal. There is another Cutting blade, attached to the ‘same’ wall as the 1st. This blade seems to be set slightly lower down, but it may just be because it’s at the crest of a slope that that seems to be the case. Cannot crawl underneath, it seems, w/o some damage, though.

You can see the black tops of further blocks ahead, here, & there are 2 right turns soon after the blade. If you go to the further one, you are shown the black tops of long blocks at the corner, & there is a checked square (a previous one was a Pressure Pad) at the end of a longer Cul-de-Sac.

You’ll see also that there are further passages beyond the ‘lowest’ wall. The 1st of the 2 right turns leads also to a longer Cul-de-Sac; parallel to the further passage, but there is a cut-out At the RIGHT HAND side that is clearly a RAISEABLE. It is, in fact, the first RAISEABLE wall section we saw, when first coming into this maze. Just past it, & turning right, is the drop down to the ‘translucent ceiling’. So just have the passage past the 1st blade to investigate, & to discover the effect of the Pressure Pad (?) The passage past the 1st blade merely leads to another Cul-de-Sac (so can effectively ignore this passage, it seems).

When go onto the Pressure Pad (it IS one) find that a RAISEABLE that you hadn’t noticed (At the far LEFT HAND end of the 1st RIGHT HAND passage past the 2nd blade, where the lowered RAISEABLE led back to the ‘start’), has been lowered, leading to....

A whole further section of the maze. You can see 3 left turns ahead, & another (presumably) Pressure Pad just past the 1st of these. The 1st left is a Cul-de-Sac alcove; at the 3rd left, we are given an aerial view, showing several blocks, alcoves, Cul-de-Sacs, & also that there is an LMP in a yet further section of the maze, beyond another long wall (in this case, the one at where we turn left). When we reach this LMP, it may be advantageous to leave this on the ground as a ‘marker’, too, at least while exploring.

This 3rd passage leads only to 3 different Cul-de-Sacs, though there is a v.useful aerial view also, as you leave the furthest of these, giving some idea of what might be to come. You Can see part of a cutting blade & the ‘white’ - as opposed to the ‘sandy/cream’ of most of the walls - of a ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’; though whether we’ve seen these already, or not, is not clear.

Along the ‘2nd left’ passage, then, come to a LEFT HAND junction b & can see another cutting blade just ahead of junction b. Turning left, come to a T-junction (shown a view of Lara from the right) where left is another Cul-de-Sac & right leads forward to another Pressure Pad, in a RIGHT HAND alcove.

Going back to junction b (have 2 Pressure Pads to investigate., now), you are given another aerial view as you approach the Cutting Blade, where this time, we can see alcoves/Cul-de-Sacs that you have been in (3rd left passage).

Also see that there are many small alcoves making up this maze structure, all backing on to each other. This time, as you get v.close to the Cutting Blade, you are not able to see Lara’s p.o.v (unless you use the binoculars - not helpful when you negotiate the Cutting Blade).
So this Cutting Blade you have to avoid with just the aerial view. You’ll find you can jump into the RIGHT HAND alcove, past the Cutting Blade, then ‘out’ again past the tip of the blade, if you are careful. As the camera pans round, as Lara moves, you’ll see one or two of the tall pillars on the beach at the front of the house across the roof tiles. At Lara’s left in the final alcove/Cul-de-Sac, there is another ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’ - this one looks fairly obvious, as a route through to another section.

(This particular Cutting Blade misses small parts of the ground, so it’s easier to negotiate. For that reason, plus the alcove.) So one of the 2 Pressure Pads presumably will lower this RAISEABLE - perhaps the other will lower the 2nd one we saw, near the ‘entrance’. The 1st of the 2 unused Pressure Pads stops the 1st 2 Cutting Blades we’ve come across from cutting - though if you go on the very first square of this maze, when returning to check/exploring, they will start again. The 2nd unused Pressure Pad does indeed lower the RAISEABLE at the end of the passage/series of alcoves past the ‘aerial view only’ Cutting Blade. (Unfortunately, I got too close to the Cutting Blade that time to use said info!!)

Ahead from this latest lowered RAISEABLE, you can see 2 right turns & what looks like another ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’ by the 2nd right turn. The 1st right turn is an alcove/Cul-de-Sac...

But at the 2nd, you are shown a view from right at the far end of a straight passage, where there are 2 LEFT HAND openings & a T-junction at the end. The 1st left turn is a Cul-de-Sac & the T-junction (the 3rd ‘turn’) has a Cul-de-Sac at each side, though the LMP we saw is in the Cul-de-Sac at right (leave it for the moment).

Ahead in the ‘2nd left’ passage, there is another T-junction, where left becomes a ‘complex junction’, g, & right leads to a small window, that cannot open, overlooks that high central pillar/block in the pool room & then there is a passage to the left that runs past it, where the 1st left opening leads back to the complex junction g. If go further on, as approach the left turn at the end of the passage, another aerial view suggests that this too ‘turns back on itself’, to the right. As you go round the LEFT HAND corners of the L-shaped block, you can see that there is another Pressure Pad in a small alcove that you cannot, As yet, reach, beyond another wall. Ah, yes we can: the Cutting Blade that we’ve been hearing is, in fact, across the entrance to this small alcove.

This Cutting Blade is v. low to the ground, so you should be able to jump over it. (All these passages that lead away from this complex junction g all come round again to join up, save the small ‘Cutting Blade alcove’.) As suspected, the Pressure Pad lowers the RAISEABLE that we saw at the ‘2nd RIGHT HAND corner’ beyond the previous lowered RAISEABLE. There is another Cutting Blade immediately beyond this new RAISEABLE, just after another Cul-de-Sac to the right.

You’ll Find that a RUN+JUMP over the earlier ‘alcove Cutting Blade’ will work, then a STANDING JUMP back out of the alcove. Past the next Cutting Blade - can RUN+JUMP over it - At the end of the passage beyond, you come to 2 hoists up at the left, to another brick-floored passage. (Still cannot reach the tops of any of the walls.)

A right turn leads to another passage, with 3 left turns. The 1st left turn is a Cul-de-Sac (given another aerial view) & the 2nd turns round to the left, to a slightly larger area, to end at a very obvious white ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’. The 3rd turns left to another long passage, with a straight section, followed by 2 more left turns. As Lara goes along this, you are not able to have Lara’s view (except with binoculars). Binoculars show that there is a Pressure Pad in the first LEFT HAND Cul-de-Sac & ahead is what looks like another (off?-) white ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’. When you go to the end of the passage, to the 2nd left turn & use the binoculars to look round, see a further left turn & what looks like a 3rd ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’. When you go along the ‘end passage’, p.o.v returns to Lara & you’ll find that the 3rd ‘poss. RAISEABLE wall’ is in a Cul-de-Sac.

You are given the ‘normal’ view in the Pressure Pad Cul-de-Sac also. You’ll discover that the RAISEABLE that lowers is the one we’ve just seen in the ‘end passage’. (Neither of the other [poss.] 2 have moved.) You Discover that as you move off the lowered RAISEABLE here that it rises again, preventing any access back to any of the earlier part of the maze. (You are given an aerial view at this point, & see that there is another Pressure Pad to Lara’s right.) you’ll Discover also that the ‘larger alcove area’ ‘obvious’ RAISEABLE, reached via the 2nd left opening off a previous passage, is now lowered, so you can use this to return to the previous part of the maze.

Nb. If you go round to the Pressure Pad that lowered the ‘3rd’ RAISEABLE, then when you return over the ‘obvious’ RAISEABLE, it rises again. In other words, you cannot be on the section where the (as yet) untried Pressure Pad is located WITH the ‘3rd’ RAISEABLE lowered also. (NOT treading on the squares themselves - using diagonal jumps across - doesn’t work otherwise, either!)

The Pressure Pad in the ‘separated’ area causes the 2nd RAISEABLE we saw in the ‘3 RAISEABLE’ passages to lower, the one at the end of the long passage where Lara’s p.o.v was not given. When you go round via the ‘obvious’ RAISEABLE & the long passage to reach this, you’ll find that this RAISEABLE was concealing another passage/Cul-de-Sac with a Pressure Pad at the end. When you tread on this Pressure Pad, you are shown a scene of another RAISEABLE lowering (not sure where this is as yet), with the 2nd pink serpent stone just beyond it, in another alcove/Cul-de-Sac. (In addition, I don’t recall another serpent stone receptor, either.)

The way back:

From the ‘final’ Pressure Pad: forward, right at the end, across the RAISEABLE, forward along long passage to RIGHT HAND turn at end. Fwd & left, down to the lower level, right, forward & jump over the ‘stilled’ Cutting Blade, forward over 2 RAISEABLES, turn left towards the ‘working’ Cutting Blade shown aerial shot only).

After leaving the ‘working’ Cutting Blade, & turning right at the end of the passage there, & passing the Pressure Pad & the RAISEABLE, then turning right & immediately left over the ‘first’ RAISEABLE, you need to turn LEFT again here, then turn right & right again in front of the 1st Cutting Blade we came across (that is ‘still’ at the moment) & you will find that the lowered RAISEABLE we saw at the other end of the maze is straight ahead. When you go onto it, we see that the 2nd serpent stone is just to the right (on top of the lowered RAISEABLE section that we were trying unsuccessfully to jump onto). When you pick it up, you are shown a scene of the gate, now opened, that is right at the end of the assault course (which we wouldn’t know about had we not explored earlier), that leads into the ‘dark vegetation area’. (Note the wasp nest just close by.)

The Snake Pit

From the RAISEABLE, you need to jump diagonally right and then back down first a block, then the ladder up from the room below. [** (see just below)] The quickest way to the new location is probably via the door at the far side of the pool room, reached from the library. (It seems that we may not be using that high central pillar in the pool room, after all.) From the ladder, you need to go across to the stairs, then down to the ground floor, then past the front door again to the music room & thence the library, & turn right out into the pool room. Then make way over to the outside gate (by swimming or using the stairs), then turn left at the top of the stairs & go towards the assault course, then turn left at the corner, so you can go all the way to the opened gate at the end of the last section of the assault course.

(Unfortunately. we can still hear the clashing blades of the Cutting Blade ‘above’ somewhere - at least it seems to be one, only - it might have been a cacophony of 4 different ones!) [**] You’ll Find that if you go for the torch that we left on the ‘translucent floor’, that it might be beneficial in the area that we’re about to enter. We have only 15 flares & the area ahead is quite dark, so if we carry the torch where we can, ahead (it’ll take only slightly longer to bring it than if we came ‘straight here’) then that may be helpful. (If we find later that we need the torch up at ‘ground level’ [for we’ll be descending somewhat!!] then unfortunately. we’ll have to replay the following section.)

Going in to the dark vegetation area ahead, you’ll hear some rather strange cello? ‘Danger’ music. At the left is an unlit BOWL-FLAME - which the torch won’t light & at the right are some cobwebs. Can go straight through these cobwebs, but if you do so at the RIGHT HAND side, you will fall a long way. At the LEFT HAND side here there is a pole we need to slide down - so can throw the torch down to the platform at the bottom of the pole, if careful. At the bottom of the pole is a ladder down, so you need to throw the torch down further. (If you throw it against the opposite. wall, it will drop to the platform at the bottom of this ladder.) If you drop the torch a 3rd time - there is another ladder down from here - you might notice that it slides off the slope below, to fall yet further down! Below the slope, whose edge we can cling to, there is a 3rd ladder, for the 4th section of the drop. We should catch up with the torch here, on level(ish) ground, at last, but we’ve come a long way down!

As you go forward from the bottom, there is a blast of ‘serious’ danger music & a giant spider quickly descends to v.close to where Lara is currently. (A ‘jump out of the seat moment’.) If you let him near Lara, the spider has a poisonous bite/sting, though you can use 4 revolver rounds (seems a better move?!) to deadify him. Because of the sloping part above the final ladder, you could not climb all the way back up to the surface, so there must be another way!(?) there are a couple of lighted BOWL-FLAME down here, but the torch is useful extra lighting.

There is an alcove forward & right, but there seems to be nothing there, & no place to hoist up, then there are some more cobwebs & some more lighted BOWL-FLAMES in a much larger part of the cave. Forward & right there is another such empty alcove, & another slightly higher at the left. The cave ahead has a central pillar dividing the ‘entrance’ & as you approach the LEFT HAND side of this; you are shown that there is another giant spider roaming about in that section! There is a lighted BOWL-FLAME ahead, & if you throw the torch forward also, there will be a bit of light whereby the 2nd spider might be tackled. (You can then use pistols, as the spider doesn’t come into the upper part of the cave.) You can see when you go down into the lower cave section - parts of the view are ‘remote’, so you have to be careful with the 2nd spider - which the cave continues off to the left.

There are another couple of empty alcoves, left & then right, before you come to another cobweb right across the cave. It looks as though, using binoculars from in front of this cobweb, that this is the main section of cave, now: there are many cobwebs above, a poss. ‘web sac’, there are blocks, gratings, ledges, several BOWL-FLAMES, some lit, some not, button(s?) to press & can see a wooden bridge. If you go forward, Lara screams & you are shown a view from some distance further forward, showing that this cave is much bigger than you thought, that there are slides down just beyond the cobweb & that there are 2 more giant spiders you have to deal with. Good thing we didn’t use up all of those revolver rounds!! Quite easy for Lara to be bitten again (& again) & so to meet her doom, having been poisoned once more, with the attendant ‘varying’ screen!!

2 giant spiders (At first?!) are on the ground & you cannot see anywhere to climb/hoist up within the spiders’ cave. If you manage to return to ‘above’ the cobwebs then the 2 spiders helpfully don’t pursue, but stay in their cave. Unhelpfully, at the precise spot where you would want to ‘steady’ Lara to jump back up, the camera view given is from the far side of the cave & above & Lara is v. small! You can then shoot spiders with pistols, though it takes some time - save revolver rounds for the no doubt later ones!! There is a spot just inside the ‘entrance’ where you can jump diagonally right just past the cobweb, activate the 2 spiders & then back flip straight back, in order to achieve this. (In fact, the spiders don’t go onto this square itself at all - or any square immediately past the cobweb - so could shoot from here [though you cannot see at all, except with binoculars, because the central block & camera combination stop the view].)

You’ll see that there is a block low enough to climb at the far side of the cave (this part reminiscent of the TR2? spiders’ lair). (If you know where this is, can outrun & jump the 2 spiders & hoist up. Though’ you wouldn’t want to fall to the ground!) Helpful BOWL-FLAMES light as you reach them (to confirm route, perhaps, rather than add much lighting. From the 1st block, RUN+JUMP to the 2nd At the back wall, then STANDING JUMP to a 3rd (ledge) above the 1st & hoist up. A BOWL-FLAME here shows a ladder - You’ll notice the egg sac is v.close! & also that there is a rope somewhere above & that the cave is v.high [we came down a long way!].)

Up the ‘web-like’ ladder, Lara looks down & left immediately. & fastens her look that way (the wall button we saw earlier from below, though don’t know what it is for, of course). There is a wooden bridge above that you cannot reach yet. It is extremely difficult to RUN+JUMP to the RIGHT HAND triangle section of the top of the egg-sac because of the ‘fastening look’, but it can be done. From there, a careful JUMP+CLING can be made to the rope & then a turn right & a swing all the way to the wooden bridge that was above, where you can cling to the edge. Hoisting up, you can go along the bridge, as it turns to the right several times (when several BOWL-FLAMES below light up) & reach the 3rd pink serpent stone. When you pick this up, the door/gate for the 4th serpent stone that we’ve seen in the pool room opens, allowing access to it via the twisting monkey swing amongst the HOT STONE squares. From the serpent stone pillar, you can cling & drop to the sloping egg-sac & cling to the edge, then hoist & Backflip (or somersault as well) to land on a ledge/platform that leads to a ladder.

This very tall ladder leads to a closed trapdoor at the top, so the button we didn’t go down to push could well be that which opens said trapdoor! With difficulty still, you can side flip left to another platform, and then go forward & down the ladder that is at the front of this latest platform, to another platform below. It is then a case of jumping across a small gap to the L-shaped ledge that includes the button. As you do the jump, however, another giant spider appears. If you are careful, you can jump back to the previous platform, & deal with it from there. Unfortunately., a weapon won’t lock onto the spider here easily (as it usually stays just ‘behind’ a LEFT HAND pillar) - you need to keep jumping forward & back to its platform- being careful not to be bitten, so jumping to the v.RIGHT HAND edge. (The pistols or whatever you want to centre on any spiders below in preference, but even w/o them, they won’t readily ‘lock on’.) If you jump back to the platform where there was the ‘fixed gaze’ on the button/spider’s ledge earlier - from even the platform directly to the left - you may now be able to re-focus on the egg-sac’s stable triangle ledge if you wanted. Presumably you will want to do just that once you have dealt with the spider & pressed the button. When you press the button, you are not shown what happens but the adjacent BOWL-FLAME goes out, then immediately relights if you go back from the button towards the most recently used ladder, confirming that that is the correct ‘next action’?

You’ll find at the top of the ladder that the trapdoor has been opened, & enter a small cave. (nb. In the spiders’ cave, if you light a flare then it ‘works’ as usual, but if you drop it goes out immediately. This is exactly the opposite of the ‘flare bug’ that sometimes annoyingly crops up. Curious.) To the left of the hole is a block then a v.short ladder up, then a small crawlspace. (The ‘reverse flare bug’ is still extant.) The crawlspace soon leads to the other side of the strange rock formation that blocked the rock structure off to the right of the balcony where the black pillar jumps (halfway down) started. Lara can kick this out of the way from this side, but then cannot reach the balcony from this halfway pt, & has to descend first to the beach. It is then a case of going back inside the house & to the left to return to the pool room. Going to the left & climbing up to the blocks that you have ‘tried out’ before, you are suddenly given a picture of the roof inside the Green Lattice Structure of the v.high monkey swing that was inside there - shown as if lying on the ground & looking up at it. This confirms that the monkey swing route in the pool room is the same as the route ‘shown’ on the (unattainable) roof of the Green Lattice Structure. (nb. A nice touch is that you see one of the 2 rafts of spikes completing/continuing their ‘journey’ across the upper reaches of the Green Lattice Structure!)

The Quad Bike

As you pick up the 4th serpent stone, you are given a picture of the double gates that house the quad bike at the end of the long RIGHT HAND side ‘path’ being raised. At the same time, you see (in the shown view) that a high block that barred easy access to the area, just by the ‘vegetation’ gate that led down to the spiders, has now been lowered, suggesting that the long process of ‘spike-avoidance’ can be circumvented.

From the high area of the 4th serpent stone, you can drop & cling to the ground (the skull square is ‘safe’ there) & then reach the outer path by the same route, using the pool & the ‘back door’ as before. You Can then go left & along the latter part of the assault course to reach the RAISEABLE that has been lowered, & so to the quad bike. (Energetic music as you climb on board.) You’ll Need to dodge the numerous spikes - keeping to the centre of the early part of 3-square-wide part seems good; the blocks that are in the 2-square wide section; the 2 Spike Disks that drop down at the start of the sloping part of the ‘path’/track; 2 slopes up next to the house, including one which includes a gap that 1st you saw v.early on.

When you come to the very start of the house-side part of the track, turn left towards the double gates, across another gap, next to the beach, the gates open upon approach. ‘Alt’ is brake & ‘alt’ plus side cursor is ‘alight’, but cannot see a ‘reverse’! One other additional feature is that if choose to try the assault course area instead (no exit at halfway point?), hitting the wall on the way out disturbs some wasps!

Can only get on & off At the LEFT HAND side, but cannot pull it back in ‘reverse’ like the motor-bike. It also has headlights like the motor-bike. (Using the quad bike in the house, discover that the television in the lounge/music room [though not the upstairs one in the bedroom - both can be broken] contains a SMALL MEDI PACK!) So this would be an alternative way to reaching the beach & thence the start of the slope towards the double gates, avoiding several of the pitfalls - though the right-angle turns in the pool room up the stairs are quite tricky, & in order to get into the ‘track’ you need to go ‘through’ a tree with wasps, so you’ll need to outrun these in the quad bike up & down part of the assault course. (nb. See a pair of ‘eyes’ at the back of the quad bike!) You’ll need a run up round the LEFT HAND corner on the quad bike to clear the gap between the 2 parts of the slopes that are either side of the assault course start.

You’ll see through the gates a remarkable series of slopes for the quad bike, with some leaps too. In certain places you are given a high, aerial view, from an angle, of parts of the track. You can go around much of the track on foot, though not steep slopes. When you drive the quad bike around, turning right at beginning, you can then follow series of ramps, with some tight turns & a few jumps, until you reach a slope v.near the entrance of the track, when as you jump finally back through the gates, the program ends, with a short flyby of the sunset beach again, through the gates.