Level reviews

"If you have a vision issue such as epilepsy, you should skip this one. There's some kind of glitch throughout the second half of this level that keeps making all the textures flicker in and out of existence at certain camera angles, which is not easy to deal with. The good news is that it makes it easier to figure out where to go in the maze areas, as you can see the objects you need to collect when the textures disappear. Besides mazes you get a few enemies to shoot at, although the torso guy and the centaurs seem incapable of being killed, which is a bit of a let down especially in the final encounter. On top of that, the winged enemies seem to be stuck and just kind of flap in one spot, ignoring Lara You also get some decent platforming that includes some boulders and falling rocks for you to deal with. There are also two timed runs tied to placing puzzle items, which means you only get one chance or you are stuck for good. The visuals have the stereotypical beginner attributes: several boxy rooms that are very wallpapered with flat lighting. No camera cues are used, which makes things difficult especially in the beginning because there are some red herring underwater switches thrown at you as you desperately search for air. The gameplay got close to being engaging, it just didn't quite get there. 19 minutes." - JesseG

"This is very buggy in places, and unfortunately it really doesn't come together well. It doesn't start off too badly, but then along come these new Atlantean creations to ruin everything. They're terribly hard to kill, and I found that of all the weapons I managed to locate, only the shotgun seemed to have any visible effect. Anything else and they just wouldn't die. The blackout glitch also manifests itself as you get further along and it was irritating as hell in the final room where you had to locate five switches while being accosted by mutants and falling rubble. It's obvious that the beta testing was rather lacking here, as I took pretty much no enjoyment from this whatsoever. At least I actually managed to finish it and encountered no crashes throughout." - Ryan

"This is a brilliant example on how leaving a single glitch can destroy a whole game which otherwise would be quite bearable. Here the whole level is placed in the bottom right corner of the map... should I say more? I know for a builder just starting his career some obvious solutions may be unknown and a problem like blinking geometry may appear as an impassable obstacle, but if the map is globally damaged, shouldn't it ring a bell prompting to ask for help on the forums before throwing the game into the aether? Unexpectedly, the vanishing textures help in one case where we are supposed to locate a golden idol in a labyrinth, and the pickups do not disappear. The best planned side of the level is enemies - purely Atlantean, often enveloped in action tracks and mostly nicely placed (maybe except these winged mummies over the lava). They attack in different combinations even including intermediate and final bossfight. But in case of such a challenging approach, why to weaken revolver power in the first place? I also liked the animated cogs. SUMMARY: Notable for some parts, but unfortunately too buggy to be enjoyed." - DJ Full

"If you are epileptic don't play this level.. Really don't! It will at least give you a really bad headache. I really prefer the old Atlantis to be honest.. And god the texture bug its really.. really annoying.. even if the wall hack is kinda useful in some parts.. I think the creator was in love with horizontal bars.. that's all the "mechanic" that is in this level, its always the same.. and i never saw enemies that bugged! And the first part when you dive its just... annoying.. Was "fun" but annoying, that's all i really have to say about this level. Wont recommend at all" - Leeth

"My current status after playing this level: headache. The buggy camera made the textures fade away constantly - which is why this deserves a 0 score on the third topic. This level is HORRIBLE for people who are epileptic. In the beginning you HAVE to use medipacks in order to survive the first room; there's too many enemies for one room, not to mention that they are all buggy. The atmosphere is horrible. Really NOT recommended at all." - Zhyttya

"Another level that perfectly shows how to not make it. It really reminds by on a birdmonster level or such. Overstreched and repetitive texturing, boring fights, too big rooms and long passages or mazes. I really can't find really good points in this level, sorry, not recommeded." - manarch2

"Despite the apparent lack of care as far as looks go, this level actually provides an enternaining gameplay up until the first maze. From that point on, the game is plagued with the rooms disappearing in most of the angles so you end up seeing where you have to go in the two small mazes (actually that was a good thing, lol), but it gets frustrating when you reach the final room, as it compromises the grand finale. I could never get to kill the two torsos, so I just out ran the two of them. All in all, it's not a bad level, but with more work it could have been a notable level. Also, some Peruvian objects felt out of place here (and it's the first time I hear an Evanescence song in the title flyby). 30 minutes, 1 secret. 11/08" - Treeble

"Not tested, that is obvious. Also clearly that this builder did try to make a level but didn't clearly understood what he (or she) was doing. The creatures that bothered Lara were in my game anyway very, very hard to kill and some I couldn't so in that respect I gave up (killing them). As they are also poisonous I had to add through TRsgEditor more medipacks as I was rather tired of dying. The"black out" you get is a bit of the pits although on the other hand you could"see through" the walls and figure out where to go next for the pick ups you need. Then at the end I had crashes with every lever I tried, so... this is for me NO gameplay to speak off. Textures are badly done, stretched, wallpaper effect; lightning is bright all over the place. The best were the big wooden wheels and even in that sequence I had a bug and had to place the wheel" - Gerty

"Unfortunately if this is the new Atlantis, then I want the old Atlantis back. I can't say I derived much pleasure out of this at all. In fact the most fun part was reading the storyline which explains that Lara left her house, hopped on her motorcycle, drove down to the river, swam across it and low and behold - there's another Pyramid. Amazing!! almost in her backyard. Who would have thought??...It's beyond me why the author would release something like this as it is almost unplayable in parts due to a mysterious blacking out of the horizon that plagues the second half of the level. The horror of the TR1 Atlantis textures at full brightness with no lighting applied is really hard to stomach, and the room design is super-boxy, and adorned with miles of wallpapered textures. Not to mention randomly scattered Peru objects from the BtoB_Peru wad with no credit to the creators (that's a no-no). If there is something positive to take away from this, it is that the level does have a few elements of cohesive gameplay, in the form of some swingpole puzzles, and an underwater lever puzzle. However more silly stuff abounds, when a Torso Guy gives his cute heart away to Lara when she pulls a lever (hehe, even the maladjusted Torso Guy loves Lara), and then its off to one of THOSE mazes that TR players love to hate. We all gotta start somewhere, but in this case it would have been better keeping it safely on the hard-drive and taking more time to develop ones skills instead of releasing something prematurely and bug-ridden. For what it's worth, I made it to the finish trigger." - EssGee

"This Atlantis level lasts 30 minutes and I was glad it was over. Not that it is all that bad, there are enjoyable swinging poles sequences, the back ground audio track and sounds are appropriate and the author knows at least to divide the walls in segments for the texturing. And I like the idea of a straightforward and dangerous raid in Atlantis. Well, the rooms were square, lighting inexistant, only one texture is used for the walls, and there was not enough ammos, but until the second part it was rather entertaining. After that, unfortunately, it turned out to be quite a pain for the eyes as you have to endure the disappearing of the setting in a big labyrinth and also in the final big room for a painful and boring finale with plenty of enemies. I did not take the pain to kill the centaurs or to pick up all those goodies. If the level had been cut of the final rooms, I would have certainly rated higher in the gameplay category. As it is, I can't recommand it." - eRIC

"Very odd level which quite consciously seems to be targeted to put you off from playing it at each stage. Whether it is the breathtaking start with a series of underwater levers to pull, the bug with the blackouts in several rooms, the enemies which are near impossible to kill, the inclusion of mazes - all non-fun TR gaming elements seemt be combined in this 20 minute adventure. A pity really, because some of the ideas are good and the room you jump around on poles was quite nice. The author should play some more levels out there to get a feel for what enjoyable gameplay might look like and make sure technical bugs are sorted out before the level release. I had no crashes in the final room and could end the level properly - with the Uzi secret in Lara's backpack." - MichaelP

"A level with atlantean enemies and textures and some objects from BtB08 wad. Simple architecture, simple gameplay pulling some switches, jumping some horizontal poles and moving some blocks. Atlantean enemies as centaurs or flying mummies are not hard to kill, but it was strange for me that revolver bullets didn't hurt them, only with pistols and shotgun I could kill it. There's a bad bug in many rooms so it turns all black when you move Lara in certain directions and you can see nothing except items and objects. All the rooms textured the same way and no much more to say about this short level." - Jose

"You could write a thesis about everything that's wrong here - but to keep it short and sweet - there are levels I don't recommend to play because they're just dull, uninspired and it would be a bore to go through them - and then there are levels like these, where I absolutely urge you to avoid it, so you wouldn't tear out all of your hair in the process. This is just the personification of player-unfriendly gaming. Comparatively to the rest of the level, it starts out innocently enough - an underwater room with 5 levers to activate before Lara is out of breath - I suspect the less patient will already drop out here and probably for their own benefit as it all goes downhill from here on, and one really has to wonder how the final product presented would pass anyone's critique as an OK level. Most of your guns (with maybe the exception of the shotgun) are useless or affect the enemies minimally. The medipacks are scarce till the final arena room, yet some enemies can poison Lara, while others take so much time and effort to kill, I just did my best to avoid them altogether and just move on in the level. The looks are pretty uninspired, the lighting practically non existent and at some point all the areas simply periodically black out (caused by the projects location in the lower right corner of the 2D map), which is a pretty disorientating experience, not aided at all by the constant earthquake at the very end of the level. I didn't experience any crashes and could finish the level after the final massacre, but it all just left a bad aftertaste in the end. I'd seriously recommend the author to go through the basics before pursuing any further projects, and when he is done, gather a few players to beta-test it, as it is in it's current state - there are very, very few redeeming qualities the level has to offer, and I'd urge players to avoid this if they want a fun raid." - eTux

"Why oh why do these Atlantean baddies have to be so ridiculously hard to kill? This is yet another debut level and shows a certain promise, which unfortunately hasn't been realised due to the bugs which ruin the whole thing. It starts out quite well - nothing spectacular, but pleasant enough - but the last few rooms suffer from a most unfortunate occurrence. I don't know what the official building term would be, but the scenery keeps disappearing, just leaving certain objects in an otherwise black void. It's incredibly disorientating and makes the gameplay almost unbearable. I really, really urge the builder to address this problem before releasing another level." - Jay

"Despite a few jumping and pole-swinging sequences at the beginning,this level is basically unplayable. It gets off to a rather poor start with an underwater lever-fest;moves on to a sequence of tunnels populated by flying creatures who are too big for the environment and who consequently flap around helplessly;proceeds to a pit with mutants which you can easily escape from without firing a shot in anger;and then comes the fun part...a collection of rooms and mazes which are almost totally obscured by blackouts. This is an occasional occurance in custom levels but in this case is absolutely chronic,as the blackouts profoundly interfere with your progress. Eventually (should you manage to navigate through a huge 'pushblock maze' while enduring blackouts all the while) you'll find yourself in a massive room with baddies,levers and a large closed door. Pulling any of the levers resulted in my game crashing to the desktop. I gave up at this point and,indeed,defy anyone to even get this far under the straightened circumstances. How any builder can actually believe that a level so completely bug-ridden is nevertheless somehow acceptable for public release is entirely beyond me.Textures are wallpaper'd everywhere,lighting is non-existent and half the download is taken up with pointless audio files.Best to leave it well alone,if I were you." - Orbit Dream