Level reviews

"Well, at least the triggers seem to work? As far as a level itself this is just a bunch of rooms strung together as you zoom by from one to the next. Often big and empty, quite a few waferthin walls along the way, ant not particularly pretty to look at. The HUD combines both sprint and health bar into one, so pay close attention to that as more often than not you don't really see your health. The use of TRL audio tracks reminds me, again, that I'm long overdue for a replay of that trilogy. Otherwise, for completionists only. 20 minutes, 5 secrets. 04/23" - Treeble

"Roughly 16 minutes in an uninspired Angkor Wat setting with Young Lara. These types of levels might have their merits, but there's only so much you can do with gameplay, and to some extent, enemies. In this case though, the gameplay is rudimentary, extremely simple and unenjoyable with the repetitive use of boulder traps and dark bland corridors to run through. The useless secrets, looping music and unkillable enemies only add to the disappointment. Not recommended." - Ryan

"While the custom status bars and epic styled music from TR Legend may give off a slight hint of effort on the builder's part, that doesn't mean that this demo is any good overall. Texturing is consistently lacking throughout, lighting is far too dark in many instances, the numerous warthogs and limited objects present just feel added in to make the environments look less empty then they really are, and the general gameplay follows a lot of the same stale principles, as seemingly every other Young Lara level I've played thus far. So at the end of the day, not recommended." - Ceamonks890

"5 secrets, and some of them seem to contain nothing. Probably T Load has released this game before he placed most of the hidden items. Still, even if the 005 sound is not placed, I had a satisfaction when finding such secret place. We find a completely unnecessary way out from one of the areas, and I think I know what caused that. Obviously, the author has overdone removing linearity and backtrackng from the gameplay and as a result, we backtrack the longer way than it could have been without the "improvement". But all in all, I liked this level. Maybe the lighting was too dark in some corridors, but there were no items to look for, so applying the gloom was fair. Texturing is average, sometimes a texture is missing, but it doesn't matter in this game. Some Angkor Wat objects make the atmosphere better. And those warthogs... some people get annoyed by them, and I don't know why, as several jumps were enough for those wild boars not to disturb me at all. All the traps are either spikeballs, or flames. Ah, and the two sets of spikes. Nothing too difficult. SUMMARY: Rather monotonous game, but full of interesting secrets, what is its strongest advantage. So this level can be recommended for those who wanna improve their secret hunting skill." - DJ Full

"Not minding Ankor Wat again but this is a demo and not such a good one at that. Despite the impressive music, it is all about running around through some dark passages and no flares, and getting annoyed by those warthogs. This is not my way of fun. The textures are in places paper-thin and badly applied as well. The boulders are easily avoided and your main goal is getting a couple of gems. If any game needs exploring and some puzzles it is Ankor Wat, as young Lara can't do anything else." - Gerty

"Combine a 'demo' level (incomplete and extremely rough around the edges) with a 'young Lara' theme and you basically have a recipe for trouble. Darkness and unkillable enemies are bad enough,but bland texturing and very average (and sometimes non-sensicle) Gameplay make it more disapointing still. There are entertaining moments,however: monkeyswings that inexplicably end prematurely,succeeded by monkeyswings that go on too long;secrets that are actually essential pick-ups succeeded by secrets where the builder apparently forgot to place anything. It's undemanding and architecturally unambitious and wiles away 20 minutes well enough (in an often amusing manner,probably unenvisaged by the Builder) so I suppose that's reason enough to download it; but was there really enough there to warrant the 20MB size?" - Orbit Dream

"I don't expect a lot from a level these days if it's labeled 'demo' and this one frankly didn't change my opinion about that. Assuming the author keeps track of reviews, I can give a number of tips a-la beta testing, if there indeed will be a full version, as it needs a fair share of work to be called a decent level worth playing! Let's start with the gameplay - yes, it lasts for about 15 to 20 minutes to play through, but the duration will never really be that much of an issue as long as the puzzles and tasks offered have enough substance to justify the players spending their time in here! But mostly everything around here feels random, and at times - pointless. For example - the modified exe added pretty much nothing (wasn't keen on the visual changes the author made, but that may be simply a matter of taste) and I suppose it's fair to say the level can be played without it. As far as the exe still goes - the loading times seemed unusually long - using the XP patch as a base for other custom exes will solve this issue. But the same applies for other tasks - early on there was a wall you can climb and a monkey swing over deadly water that could be simply avoided by going along safe passages by the side, that seemed to be there just for the purpose of making these tasks completely unnecessary for progression. Same goes for a number of other tasks during the level - you have to go through perils to open certain doors and ways you never really need the access to anyway. The main tasks consist of gathering 3 gems named 'load' (could've been solved with some really basic scripting that is not much more complicated than giving the level a new name) and once you do and place them you soon slide into darkness that ends the level. On a positive note - the rollingball tasks are fairly thrilling, and some more traps, like the spikes are well placed in the level. By choosing to make this a young Lara level the author would have to keep a number of things in mind - if he adds enemies, like the traditional boars as in here - usually some means to battle them are nice, but since you can easily avoid them in here, that's not a big issue. Darkness is a no - no, considering Lara doesn't have flares. Also - puzzles are of greater importance than ever because of some of the limitations this format offers. As far as the looks and atmosphere goes - lots of room for improvement here as there are lots of beginner's mistakes, like wafer-thin walls, non-existent lighting, large underutilized rooms, stretched and missing textures and so on. I found 1 secret of the apparently 23 that the statistics told the level has, and it contained no rewards for finding it. As far as the title fly-by goes - it was pretty chaotic and sometimes went through walls, so a lot more time devoted to fine-tuning some of these details is needed (and if the author wants a more advanced challange - then he can try constructing the title fly-by within the playable level, as they're essentially the same games, the playable level has no cameras in it anyway - and this way the author could aid the potential players with a smaller download size (though that hardly seems to be an issue with anyone these days as far as I hear?)). If you're out to play any level ever released - play it, otherwise, it doesn't really have a lot of things that make it worthwhile, but the author has every opportunity to improve!" - eTux

"A 18 minutes young Lara level set in Angkor Vat with many imperfections in the setting. The game is about progressing from area to area , with sometimes a reentrance in a place already visited after finding one of the 3 blue gems you need to find. Several spike balls traps and wild boars boast a bit the gameplay. There is also a climb/jump room and one secret has a good location. In my opinion, the less good thing in this level are the new audio files, especially the one for the background ambience." - eRIC

"Young Lara in Angkor Wat - In all fairness the original TR4 levels were a bit boring, spiced up only by the race timer and the cutscenes showing us Lara's back history with Von Croy - Who was conspicuous by this absence in this level! As per the original Angkor Wat levels the gameplay involves a lot of climbing and swimming. There are also some rolling balls and flame traps to avoid which add a bit of excitement, as do the boars you have to out run as you have no pistols. More puzzles in the full version of this game would help liven it up. {Trying to figure out what to do next is half the fun of Tomb Raider! The other half is actually doing it, of course.} As Young Lara has no weapons she needs good puzzles. The textures suit the surroundings but more care needs to be applied to the placement of them as there are lots of stretched/compressed textures and there are also several paper thin walls. The lighting could be better as there are several dark corners and Young Lara has no flares. I do think the 'danger' music was used well. I also didn't recognise it - Was it a custom audio? This level does have good elements, the builder just needs to expand on them and the full version of this game will be an real adventure." - Kitkat

"A young Lara's level without any interest. A short and repetitive background music, simple architecture, always the same textures, some wild boars, some rolling balls, some spikes and no more, in one of the secret places I found nothing, paper walls, some blue gems to collect, no cameras, a few danger sounds and that's all folks!" - Jose

"As I had not played in an Angkor settin in a while I was looking forward to this, but it really only has Demo quality and an early demo at that. You spend 20 minutes running through the corridors with Young Lara and the textures are carelessly applied and in places even missing, there are quite a few thin walls and the dark corners are very annoying as you do not have any flares. A few boulders that are easy to avoid and a few warthogs that are just a minor nuisance spice things up while you collect a few gems. I found four secrets, but there may have been more." - MichaelP

"Hmmmm. Not entirely sure what to make of this one. After being (somewhat against my will) quite impressed by the whole song and dance with the automatic setting up of this level I was expecting something a bit special, even though I'm not a big young Lara fan. Now, there certainly were interesting elements but in general I felt a bit rushed - just dashing through various rooms pursued by boulders (which were easy to avoid) and piggies (which disappeared when I reloaded), picking up a few gems along the way. It could certainly be worked up into a worthwhile level, but I would want much more varied gameplay (which isn't always easy with young Lara) and given that flares aren't an option I could have done without all the dark areas that just made me feel I was missing things." - Jay

"In an Angkor Wat setting, young Lara is searching for gems by climbing and swimming around in large areas. There are some wild boars but with no guns you have to avoid them. There isn't much else to do or see here apart from a lot of paper thin walls that is, so indeed it's just a demo. I hope the full game will have good puzzles and some challenges." - Kristina