Level reviews

"Well…A for effort, as they say. An obfuscated beginning (a running jump dive towards a target you cannot clearly see is required to get you going), unnecessarily large rooms entailing huge amounts of backtracking, ineffective enemies popping in and out of existence, almost total absence of sound bar a handful of incompetently edited heavy metal tracks, and an overly complicated and unintuitive solution to an otherwise fine final puzzle featuring a TR4 bull. Sounds enticing? I thought so. Specific mention should be made of the uselessness of the Jeep (I expected to finally be able to run me over some zombies, but it has no effect on them) and the blatant misdirection of the readme (it encourages you to use your best weapon liberally at all times, yet there's barely any ammo to be found). Also, the flamethrower (or - flameblaster', as the game insists) is still a regular gun, just remeshed and using an explosion sprite for a gunflash, hence doesn't set your enemies on fire (boo). On - exit to title', the game sends you back to the beginning of the level, so you have to quit with Alt + F4. Mildly entertaining on occasion, mostly tedious, somewhat short of a masterpiece." - Mulf

"It's a nice attempt to (presumably) recreate a horror game, but the result didn't entirely work out in my opinion. It has to be said that I loved the custom weaponry, particularly the flamethrower, as well as the enemy placement (although some were courteous enough to leave Lara alone) and some of the arty camera angles. But, it is too dark in many places (just enough flares) and I got weary of criss- crossing the level looking for where to go next. The animations were also weird, although they didn't stop the game. Overall, this wasn't terrible, but there are more involving experiences out there." - Ryan

"Another quite dark level. The author thought about create black rooms to add a creepy atmosphere, but the only thing he could get was to create a very slow gameplay where the players are blind persons with very serious difficulties to advance and find the right paths. The best was the effort to create a good atmosphere with some cool musics, new enemies, explosions and more, but there are odd features like the zombies appearing in midair when you take a ride with the jeep. There are some fresh ideas, like the flybys in the final room where Lara can be toasted if she is not fast enough to avoid the fires (the control is not disabled in that flybys) but, as I said, the excessive darkness and very few flares comletely ruined the gameplay. Not recommended. Sorry." - Jose

"I couldn't find myself enjoying this level. The level design is bad, mainly big areas with a lot of running to do. Back and fourth between the big areas to find the right keys and that's it. The enemies had a nice different texture, resembling a zombie, but they had no sounds effects, except for the guardians. All the environment has poor lightening, actually requiring you to change your monitor settings in order to roam around the level (since you don't have enough flares at the beginning). In conclusion Origins of Evil 2 has really poor game play, atmosphere and lightning. If your in for that kind of game, go ahead. At least the last puzzle is not that bad (although the music is way to annoying)." - Zhyttya

"Glad it ended! The music at the end was so annoying and the constant loop was a bit to much.. I know it's a question of taste but the loop of only a section of one song its a bit to much. You can roam a lot without picking any keys and question your self where they are since hey are almost impossible to see! Just don't let people leave an area without picking a random key in a random place in a random dark room. And the secrets were actually easier than the key them self. Nice touch on the textures but that's that. The sound was annoying, the Hit Points from the enemies were a bit to random (flying birds 100x harder to kill than the rest). Not really recommended since it's only a lot of empty spaces with random keys that have nothing to do with the theme of the level in a really dark environment" - Leeth

"The highlight of this level for me was finding and using the flame thrower. When I finished I cheated to get unlimited ammo just so that I could run around blasting everything in sight. What a brilliant way to get rid of pent up frustration, Whoohoo! OK, the rest is a dark gloomy city, I think. Well, there's an armoury (in two places), a zoo, a hotel called Blooms, a church!, and another building/art gallery. Lara starts as if she has just landed on a helipad in this city. Don't know about anyone else's game, but my helicopter got stuck on the fence. Or perhaps it's still in flight and Lara just decided to hop off before it landed. Who knows! Anyway, immediately she discovers that this city is really a city of the dead, populated by zombies. A couple of soldiers are here, and do manage to kill some of them, but only at a distance. Once the soliders are near enough to the zombies they just run around in circles and Lara is left to find some way of getting rid of them herself. There's plenty of ammo lying around, in cupboards and hiding places. Some of these zombies have attained gigantic proportions, and one of them runs the hotel, so this guy is not to be trifled with. I like the idea of finding the jeep keys to drive it off another set of keys, and the series of fixed cameras as Lara runs up the stairs in the hotel. The zoo was disappointing. More zombies there, with some crows, gruesome looking lions that are harmless, and demented gorillas. Come to think of it, I don't recall having seen these gorillas in a TR4 custom level, unless my memory has deserted me. Why we have to explode our way into a church is bizarre. And speaking of bizarre, at some point, in one of the weapons stores, Lara's face changes, and she almost looks sinister. Was that intended? There is an intriguing puzzle almost near the end involving fire tiles and a bull. That was a rush, and ended in a blood bath, literally, that you wade through. The whole level is fairly straight forward and ends abruptly with Lara realising she is back at square one with more and more zombies. So this certainly is a nightmare scenario. It's a short level with a few pecularities." - CC

"I liked the game but the ending is quite abrupt. Lara makes her way through a city filled with mummies and when she thinks she has finally escaped only to find herself cornered by the mummies. Well 'A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do'. Our brave Lara unleashes hell in the form of rocket launcher on the whole city of zombies. I liked the comic ending at author's website and great password work at the end of level." - Anurag

"This level has an interesting feeling. It is also interesting that the living dead can be killed too. You don't have to finish off the gunmen but if only accidentally a single bullet hits them they will turn against Lara so it's practical shooting them down. The adventure plays in a dark district. We have a great fall in the zoo so sadly we have to use a medipack there but after that we don't need any again. At the end of the level we are always dropped back to its beginning but we can only exploring in an empty city. There are 3 secrets on the level where we can get some supplies interesting weapons but I used only the default pistols. The enemies are gunmen living dead and in addition giant bird-headed living dead too bats in the zoo monkeys crows and tigers. The added sounds are also interesting; they are not the TR-tunes we are used to. Try it out! :) You can find a Hungarian walkthrough (as we don't have English version) savegames and pictures here: http://www.freeweb.hu/treditor/12/origins_of_evil2_dead_revelations.htm " - Obig

"A short level at about 30 minutes and as warned by the author in the readme it is very very dark. You will explore a city square with plenty of 'monstrous' enemies (mummies big birds crows gorillas) and get a few custom weapons to play with. I liked the three secrets the choice of music the explosion and the gallery with the bull at the end has a nice little puzzle with the flames and cameras." - Michael

"Problem here is that you don't get thrown to your desktop every time Lara dies but you get thrown to the beginning of the level. You can't leave the level by the normal way you have to use the Alt F4 to quit. You start in what looks like a compound and although there are signs like Zoo Library and so on it for sure doesn't look like a city. Getting a Key and a Guardian Key and finally finding the keys to the jeep so you can drive that vehicle out off the way to get your hands on the last pair of Keys. Last thing you find is the Gem. I don't know if there was another way but I found luckily enough medipacks to run through the burners upstairs gulping medipacks as Lara was on fire and doing the last jump down Lara got eaten by what seems like very hungry zombies. Yuck. Enemies in here are a lot of zombies and some animals Funny thing was seeing two what looked like wolves folding their legs under them and seems to sleep instead of laying dead after being shot. Probably did an illegal jump to the pool in the zoo but it worked LOL. Found 2 secrets. 27-10-2004" - Gerty

"I am a little... divided on my opinions here. On the good side I found this level to be a funny nonsense fast action paced style of level with many (and I mean it) enemies to shoot or just outrun them. There was quite a decent number of different places to visit in this city of the dead including a small zoo a church and an art gallery. You even get to drive quite a nice Yellow Wrangler for a while! The heavy metal songs were also pretty much in harmony with the level itself. Now on the downside I thought the textures were a bit of a let down because there weren't really many varied textures to build up the environments but then again I think the author has reserved most of those textures tiles for the art pieces he would put in later; the additional audio was good as I mentioned but it seemed to be 'slaughtered' somehow making it start out of nothing and end at sudden and while we're on this point most objects (including baddies) had no or little sound effects and this kind of spoiled the entire thing for me. I really enjoyed playing this level but I felt potential for a LOT more. Bright up your monitor. To the maximum. 40 minutes 2 secrets. 11/04" - Treeble

"Where the first Origins of Evil gave me thrills with some tense enemy scenes this one left me a little nonplussed. There are plenty of zombies walking around this mini town but unlike their genetic predecessors (the mummies that they are retextured from) you can actual kill them with the pistols and you even get a handful of allies to help but they just got in the way so I got rid of them as well. You meet some gorillas tigers and crows as well in the zoo and some odd giant birds with what looks like aprons or cod pieces on in the hotel library and church but they could all be shot from safe positions very close as they were confined to their buildings and couldn't pass the thresholds of the doorways. Okay I don't mean to be negative about this one point how about the gameplay? Hmmm I'm gonna have to be negative about this also. There really isn't a lot to do but collect some keys and okay that's it well there is a meeting with a bull at the end where he does what bulls always do hit a wall tile and then some trigger tiles for you to run over but that's all the fat lady sung. Psst one more thing god I hope the author isn't listening the environment left a lot to be desired but keep that between you and me. To end I'll give you a positive the second of the three secrets was nicely placed.....but the other two were hard to miss geez I couldn't help myself maybe I'M the origin of evil!" - Sash

"Another attempt at a Resident-evil style of game and it isn't a bad effort. The overriding problem is the profound murk which pervades almost every square foot of the desolate town presented here; for the bulk of the game (until you're finally presented with more flares) it's damned difficult to see what's going on. Couple that with the general inadequacies of the enemies (zombies you can't kill except with the ultra-heavy ammo; tigers and gorillas that run around a lot but are completely harmless and those big beaky creatures that only seem to walk around in circles) and you have an adventure that irritates rather more than it entertains. Which is a shame as there are certainly plenty of entertaining moments to be had here. The Church was nicely done (and the way the Chandelier crashes to the floor to open the trapdoor was smart); the final confrontation with the Bull was well-conceived; and the 'search locate and use' Gameplay was rather absorbing especially as the overall playing area was fairly small and not too confusing. The choice of music was clearly a personal taste (the atmosphere would probably have benefited from a more subdued and moody score) but this level entertains nonetheless. Whatever you may think of the style of this adventure Mark has clearly found his building 'voice' and (provided he can polish up his final product a little more) his future endeavours should be worth waiting for!" - Orbit Dream

"Welcome to Zombieville. Once I'd visited Al's Weapon Store I had great fun rounding up all the zombies and blowing them up in groups of four. After that I got a bit lonely so I didn't bother disposing of the zombie lion from the zoo - well he wasn't doing me any harm and he looked quite depressed. This is a night-time city - there's no moon and street lighting isn't an option. Yes it does make it atmospheric but unless you give yourself lots and lots of flares you could get very irritated. There are some nice touches - the falling chandelier to open a passage in the floor and the trigger tiles in the art gallery that turn off the flames but the gameplay is very easy and linear so don't expect anything very challenging. I also experienced the savegame bug so it might be safer to play the game through in one go. Otherwise leave it a day or two and your savegames may work again - mine did." - Jay

"The author warns you about the darkness and you better believe him. This was annoyingly dark and the flares weren't enough for me. I don't like the game 'Resident Evil' so I didn't like this either. What I mean is that games/levels with pitch black areas and zombies aren't to my liking. There are big areas to cover not very interesting I might add and all Lara does is kill some gorillas birds and mummies you can kill with pistols something I liked. Also animals I failed to recognize that when they died stayed still a bug here. She has to find keys a gem a pyramid key and you drive a vehicle only to a few meters so you can get another key. I found two secrets and I am not sure if the third one was at the area with the gem or not but it was it didn't chime. Thirty five minutes spent in a not so enjoyable level for me." - Kristina