Level reviews

"In the first level, you only collect a few pickups and may begin to wonder what the point of this game might be. The second level starts with a maze; then you run around a small town like a headless chicken, using any switch you come across without ever being given a single camera clue (at one point, you may hear a trapdoor opening somewhere, but that's the grand total of hints you get). Eventually you acquire a Church Key, but ha, ha - it doesn't fit in the only keyhole you've seen so far! On goes the search until you find a Portal Key as well, but ha, ha! - turns out you need not one, but two Church Keys! Except no, you don't: one will do. There's merely two keyholes. The entire church was built solely for the purpose of housing a crawlspace, in which you find a fuse (helpfully named - Open trap') which you need to open the trapdoor back at the beginning of Level 1. So, it's back through the maze! Fun!
It's only in the last five minutes or so that the game manages to pull itself together. You get to run over a few satanists (white ninjas) with the motorbike and finally enter the satanists' inner sanctum. A boss fight ensues, featuring more ninjas as well as rabid dogs and harpies, some of them popping into existence for the purpose. Your arsenal will be considerable at this point, so the assorted foes stand not much of a chance; but it's a bit of fun, a thing which has been sorely lacking for the rest of the game.
During my wanderings through the town I spotted a crucial, but unobtrusively marked ladder in a flash of inspiration, but I still had to use Fexinspect to confirm that there's only a single Church Key to retrieve. I suppose the builder realised at the eleventh hour that two keys in the same slot equals one, so he allowed to trigger the door with only one; but he left the second keyhole in regardless. - One less than engaging hour in a rough-and-ready environment with no grave design errors, but lots of dead space." - Mulf

"A smaller city in comparison to another level from 2004 I've played recently. This level is actually split into two halves, they don't differ much from one another but the second one had a maze which felt a bit like padding (granted, it took all of two minutes to learn the layout, but still). Lots of weapon and ammo pickups along the way are justified with a final showdown with so many enemies the engine can't even handle them on screen. Gameplay boils down to locating a few buttons and key items to proceed, with a small pushblock puzzle thrown in for good measure. Nothing to write home about, but good enough to keep you entertained after a long day. 30 minutes, 2 secrets. 03/21" - Treeble

"There are two levels here, both named City, and they look so much alike that you hardly when you've left one and entered the other. Altogether you get a raid of about 40 minutes, but for my money it's strictly one for beefing up the review count. The surroundings are crude, so there's little eye candy to relieve the monotony of performing one routine task after another as you progress. You get plenty of armament and ammunition, particularly if you find both secrets, but you really don't need it until the bloodbath at the very end. Anurag has provided a walkthrough that would have been more helpful in navigating the maze portion had he used compass directions instead of telling us to "go right, then left..." I've never really understood what flat lighting is, but I suspect this might be a good example of it, even though I was able to see everything around me quite clearly. There's a simple block puzzle to solve, a hunt for a wall ladder that's marked but not very clearly, a couple of crowbar doors and a motorbike ride near the end, so you get a good sampling of what Tomb Raider has to offer." - Phil

"The first level of this two level set doesn't have much going on aside from collecting items and opening a few doors. It picks up slightly in the second, though (aside from a tedious maze). Still plenty of doors to open, but there's a church to explore, plus a (rather overdone) shooter finale. Still nothing overwhelming gameplay-wise, but I liked the surroundings of that section." - Ryan

"Not very enjoyable this level. A nasty maze, many switches/buttons/levers to pull to open doors, a short ride with the bike in the second level and a lonely puzzle with moveable crates in both levels. The environments are nice to explore and well textured, a lot of pickups too, but except in the final room there are few enemies to shoot and nothing to do in many places. Even in the final room you can avoid all the fight by running to the dead soldier. No cameras to give hints when pulling the switches, few musics and no flybys (except the initial one) to create atmosphere. The two secrets I found were easy to find. Playable but not very entertaining for me." - Jose

"I scored this down one point from a potential 9 because I adore City levels but found this frustrating because for a long time I couldn't progress and was going around the second part of the city for ages until I consulted the walkthough and discovered the climbable brick ladder. There was an absolute wealth of ammo, much of it I didn't require (but that is never a bad thing). There was more ammo than enemies. I loathe mazes in all games but this one was fairly easy. If you like City levels you'll enjoy this but it can be a bit frustrating having to try out all the blue doors to see which are accessible with the use of the crowbar. It does seem vast but once, like me, you've been around looking for what to do next about a billion times you'll get to recognise where you are! Very good effort and enjoyable level. Thanks as always to the builders as a whole without whom we'd all be deprived of all these lovely environments." - High Priestess

"Lara needs a yellow plug to reach in the subsoil. On her search for it she finds a crowbar, two keys, weapons and ammunition, reaches in a church, breaks open a few doors and finds, finally, the object in request. Then it goes underground. Finally, after a journey by the motorcycle Lara reaches to the final space, must read there to a herd to Baddies and two flying skeletons the riot act. And the level is already after about 40 amusing minutes catches fire. The only what has disturbed me here something was the pitch-black sky. Otherwise this has look and find a lot of fun made. Above all also because the level is well built and texturiert. Particularly has liked to me the canalisation and the church. Lighting and sound were also right. And for the opponents all weapons and enough ammunition and Medipacks are found. Result: One should play this level anyway once" - Scottie

"With each level consisting of 25 rooms on average, the split into 2 levels seemed kind of unnecessary, as I'm sure one level could've housed all the stuff this adventure holds perfectly, so the efficiency craving part of me cried foul already when converting the levels, but it's an interesting game on the whole, so that was easy to look past. Not so easy to overlook was the complete lack of camera guidance throughout the game, which made gameplay in the village part mildly frustrating, as there was never really any hint as to what switches or levers did, and while that would've been half as bad if the doors opened logically (i.e. nearby)- the author's approach was haphazard and I was not amused when I had to check each of the half-dozen doors available in the area to see which might have opened. The gameplay doesn't offer much else to sink your teeth into, as it's mostly shooter in nature, but at least you're graciously supplied with weapons and ammunition, and the final massacre shortly before hitting the finish trigger was quite fun actually. The looks don't really stand out for anything in particular and it was easy to reach the end of the world on a number of occasions, which robs the believability, while other rooms felt very empty with no real use, but I suppose it could've been worse too, and the gloomy atmosphere is conveyed OK. Found 1 secret." - eTux

Don't be put off by the brevity of the first level; the gameplay doesn't kick in until the second, when it becomes a 'search for keys' adventure. It's reasonably well constructed for the most part, but special mention must be made of the Church, which is a little work of art and justifies the download on its own. The little adventure also builds to a hilarious action Finale, and provides 40 minutes or so of fun (and reasonably undemanding) exploring. - Orbit Dream

"When I converted the files I thought it must be a very small game when the levels have only 24 respectively 26 rooms but actually this is a rather large city. Good variety of textures well applied but the lights could be placed better not just in spots. There was a paper-thin carpet flowing in the air instead of lying on the ground but apart from that few obvious design mistakes. I never would have found the lever on the rooftop if I hadn't read it in another review. I was missing insert cameras when pulling levers. Camera work basically doesn't exist neither do new sounds. The gameplay suffers from a slowdown in the middle when you cross a maze to pick up a medipack a revolver shoot some bats and have a feeling you've been here before. For a first try this is well done for the second I recommend more excitement in the middle of the story plus using some cameras and music." - Rüdiger

"I liked this level a lot. A nicely done town (doesn't really look like a city) with cafe church houses fountain etc. Two parts to the level connected by a maze. It's mainly collecting ammo and medpacks and weapons for the final 2 minutes of action so when I came across an enemy I used pistols where possible to save the big guns. I liked the searching and the only place I got stuck (and everyone else by the look of it) was that climbable surface on the brick wall to get up onto the roof of a house to pull a lever. I liked the little dark attic room with pushable boxes. The last room has a lot of enemies to kill in one go. You'll know you are coming to it after a long crawlspace and a flyby. Start shooting from the crawlspace exit and things shouldn't be too bad. I used the shotgun and switched to the revolver. I didn't need the uzis or the grenade gun at all even for those flying skeletons. A very good level for a day when you're really not in the mood to tackle a blockbuster but just need to spend some time raiding. Very good Rutabaga and I hope you continue to build level for the future." - CC

"I guess the most impressive aspect for me with this two part level was how big it feels despite being constructed only within 50 rooms in total for both parts. You run around a lot for a lot of pickups find two keys and the all important plug (remember the receptacle is right at the start) and explore outside and inside of a few rather deserted houses. The maze was not fun (as usual) and only towards the end a few more interesting aspects appeared with a small block puzzle and a bike ride. The church was nicely constructed and I liked the white piano. Enemies are SAS and ninjas and then plenty of them at the final big battle. Two secrets along the way and about 40 minutes of raiding." - Michael

"I think this is going to be one of those levels that divides reviewers in the either liked or disliked categories. For me I really enjoyed the flow of this game because it moved at a quick pace through two levels revolving around a small city's buildings church and sewer. The reason it moved at a quick pace was because the gaming was of a basic nature with a handful of movable blocks keys to find and a bike ride to the end where after a large battle with ninjas dogs and a couple of brilliant flying harpy skeletons you end after 40 minutes. It would have been nice if there had been a little more effort put into the look of the city but in the end the look fit in with the kind of gameplay found and it all just seemed to work. I have to say though that I may be being a little nicer than I would normally be when it comes to this level but that's only because it's nearly 4 in the morning and as my mind is winding down to just a small whirr I needed something simple and comfortable to play." - Sash

"Copy the City.WAD into City2.WAD and start converting the two TOMs. And as the title already is saying Lara has to explore this little city and find two normal keys and one bike key. The city is made into two parts and rather straight forward. I kept going to the right in the city and even in the small maze in the next level and found everything I needed. Only complain I would have is the ladder one needs to find to the roofs as there is a lever way op there it is a brick textured wall and if you don't find it you can't finish the level. Finding all the weapons (the shotgun even twice) and also quite a lot of ammo I was wondering what still could come. I even didn't need the bike to progress and later had nasty battle on my hand (only if you used Lara's trusted guns) with quite a lot of ninja's and two flying skeletons. The minute you approach that dead soldier the level ends. All in all for a first level this one is not bad at all there is potential here. Found two secrets. 16-07-2004" - Gerty

"This is surely a first level by a new builder. It is fairly well crafted City environment. There is very little to do in the first level and the second has much more to do and a big action ending. A decent first attempt and we hope to see more. BTW: The mural in the church is a detail of 'The Wedding at Cana' by Veronese." - Duncan

"In a city like game Lara is searching for two keys and transfers between two short levels. This must be a first try since there are some beginner's mistakes such as thin walls and patched textures a little stretched at places but the gameplay isn't bad at all. There are some doors that don't look like it but in fact they can be opened with the crowbar. There is also a small maze in the second level that leads to the other side and wasn't easy at first to find my way. The enemies are SAS and ninjas with the motorcycle helping Lara make a jump near the end. I found two secrets and would encourage the author to continue building." - Kristina