Level reviews

"This is the sole release from the builder and while it never got fully realized out of its "demo" state, it's quite a misnomer considering you get two hefty levels plus a mandatory Lara's Home run with it. The author took a few key areas from the TR2 Venice levels and rebuilt them, remixing everything else to make it (so much) larger than the originals. The result is... boring, sorry. The maze-like canals were a nightmare to navigate, and there were a couple of questionable decisions such as a jump through a fireplace, which didn't seem right although dmdibl's walkthrough provides the details you need, plus some of the timed runs, especially the boat one, were annoying due to camera work. Either the fixed cameras would seem to be in place just to hinder the player, or the camera clues when throwing switches would take couldn't be cancelled with a tap to the look key (the alternative was to run blindly out of the tile hoping not to crash face first into a wall, as that otherwise would result in the same loss of time). At any rate, perhaps my mistake was tackling this on a single sitting. 90 minutes, 10 secrets. 08/25" - Treeble

"Aside of fresh content, it uses some old structures in a new layout so it feels familiar and cozy yet fresh in the same time. I like the boat works instead of being a decoy, that's TRNG for you. Water is a bit too saturated but you can get used to it. I also wish the manor had saving option since it's part of the plot not an optional tutorial (so if a player has power outage, he's gonna lose entire progress in this level). I find this game better than the majority of reviewers but it has some mid- and endgame softlocks so watch out when playing." - DJ Full

"This is quite a lengthy adventure for a demo release. It begins in a rather underwhelming Mansion environment which we've all mostly seen before (and this time you can't save, at least in this level) and then gets onto the more attractive sections and canals of Venice. These two levels are reminiscent of the original TR2 game (including the mine explosion sequence and the chandelier room). I could definitely have done with less backtracking and fixed camera angles in these parts, and much more ammo should have been provided (I was down to my last small medipack by the time I finished), but I liked the idea of positioning the boat, and the ensuing timed run was certainly an adrenaline rush. This demo could have used a bit more work to iron out the more frustrating aspects, but I still found it to be a worthwhile raid." - Ryan

"Well builded this Venice-type level, but I found some things I didn't like. In the first level you can't save the game; not many dangers here, but if you don't succeed with the very long timed run you'll need to return to the hedge maze a very long way and try again. The second level was really bad, I was running/swimming around more than half an hour through all the entire level finding always dead ends so finally I decided read carefully the walkthrough, and even so it was not funny for me to move from place to place very long distances only to find a key or pull a switch and move Lara again very long distances to places she already have visited. The last level is better in that sense, but still I found a water channel near the beginning where I never could go out (reload) and the ammo for the shotgun was totally insufficient (no another extra weapons I found); I almost got out of medipacks too. If you decide to play, I recommend download the walkthrough first." - Jose

"For a demo this is quite a sprawling adventure. There are two Venice levels (three if you count the brief introductory house level) to master, and my total time was just over two and three quarter hours. David Dibble has provided a humorous walkthrough laced with commentary, and I enjoyed reading it almost as much as playing the levels. By the way, we haven't seen or heard from David for more than three years, and I hope that all is well with him. These Venice levels look and feel much like what we saw in TR2, but there are substantial differences. As David caustically noted, we get ammo for weapons never found (because it's a demo, I suppose) and we get too few medipacks and more flares than necessary. Too bad the builder never followed through by giving us the complete game, but I had fun here. Of particular note is a timed boat ride at the end of the first level, where you have to park the boat in precisely the right spot so you can jump to it later after pulling the necessary switch from a remote location. The enemies take quite a lot of firepower to bring down, and aside from a modest supply of shells to go with your shotgun you're pretty much left to make do with your pistols. Definitely worth a look." - Phil

"If you like classic TR Venice this will probably be a great adventure to play for you, but in todays day and edge and to me personally it felt a bit of a superfluous raid. And that starts right away with an unnecessary revisit of Laras Home for 15 minutes at the beginning in which you cannot save and which aside maybe from the timed run and the three secrets is rather dull. It then gets into the ever confusing canals of Venice, in which riding the boat is indeed fun for a while, but the search for keys, the battling of the tough enemies and dogs all gets old fairly quickly. It is all nicely connected and well built but I was glad to get out of this part after 50 minutes with 2 more secrets collected. And then the last part of a little over 30 minutes is a run through even more rather bare rooms, looking for more keys and killing more bad guys and dogs. With another 6 secrets to find, of which I managed to get only 4 - and one pretty bad gameplay deadend if you jump into the water too soon at one place. It all Ends with a nice Explosion flipmap at the end, but the adventure did not come across as very explosive to me all in all - only one for the hardcore Venice fans out there, I would think." - MichaelP

"I played the first half of this game two years ago, and my memories have faded a bit, but I do remember the house level and how painful it was to not being able to save. Never do that again! The other two levels are more substantial and have some interesting ways of progression, but remain fairly simple and many areas seem to be copied from TR 2. There's too much backtracking in those levels, although the maps aren't that large as you might think at the respective start. What really disturbed were the many dead ends when you jump down in a canal or progress when you forgot an important item. Else than that, I have to appreciate the builder's work in recreating a TR 2 levelset with TR 4 with many objects, animations and sounds, though many areas look rather flat and the texturing mistakes are rather obvious, but in others the lighting is pretty much spot-on and the atmosphere is quite decent. I found nine secrets of which one didn't register, some of them are better hidden and some rather hard to miss. Overall, this is an interesting game, but the builder should have rather concentrated to build something of his own instead of simply recreating several areas already seen in the original game, and also work on several game-stopping issues. Spent 1:40 hours in here." - manarch2

"Cor blimey this was no walk in the park (hence the relatively small number of reviews)! The Last Adventure is set in Venice with a distinctly TR II feel to everything. Textures, objects & baddies all come from the TRII game (though this is based on the next-gen game engine so lighting is better controlled). Lighting and texturing are pretty solid, and the structure of the spaces is sound, with more than one location feeling very familiar!. In terms of gameplay it's pretty expansive. The areas are large and non linear exploration is quite possible. Just be careful how far you venture though because on at-least 2 occasions I dropped down into pool or an area where there was no obvious route back. My advise to anyone playing this is to save often, and backup your saves just incase this happens to you. Gameplay is a health mix of exploration and combat, but the puzzles never get more complicated than finding a key or throwing a lever. The most notable gameplay aspect is the medi-packs...or should I rather say the lack of them. Now Stig's tend to play most levels pistols only, and usually find themselves with a warm feeling of satisfaction at the end and a healthy medi-pack count! This time however I scraped through, health-bar flashing desperately scratching around every corner for a medi-pack (and finding none!). The armaments for the play through were equally bleak, picking up a shot-gun but finding little or no ammo for it, while seeming to pick up endless ammo for a grenade launcher I didn't have one! On a final note the croft manor sequence didn't really do much for me. The inability to save proved irritating and delayed me getting into what otherwise proved to be quite a nice challenge. All in all I netted 3 hours for The Last Adventure. Great work for a demo, but I think the author should consider making some revisions to make it a little bit more accessible by dropping in a few more medi-packs and loosing the lack of a save function in croft manor. Definitely recommended but not for the faint-hearted. Stiggy." - TheStig

"I really wanted to give this level 8 for gameplay but it's just not right. There are not enough medi-packs.(at least for me)It's possible to be only my problem though because I lost a lot of health hitting into walls with the boat. There's also some crashes from time to tome. The first level was fun, I love the TR3 mansion. No saving wasn't a big problem since the level was only like 15 minutes. The time run can be a little hard though. The second level is far better, I love Venice. But swimming into long underwater rooms can be kinda boring. The main puzzle was very fun. The third level is good too. There are some cool areas, especially the flooded library. With so much gunmen it was like playing TR2 again. And there was a medi-pack at the end but not even a single one before fighting the gunmen + dog!? Secrets were nicely hidden. The atmosphere was very classic-like and I loved it. There were enough camera hints and the sound wasn't bad. Textures could've been better, lighting is good. I'm looking forward to the full game." - misho98

"Demo, schlemo, this builder should look up the word demo as this felt like a full game to me. The house level did however put me right in a faul mood as there is no way to save the game. Listen Adam, if I want to play a game where there are no saved games slot I buy one. I choose to stick to TR just because of that feature, so do not fool around with that. Glad I got a savedgame at the start of the Venice level from a very friendly fellow player or else I would have binned this one straight away. Not sure if it was only at my end but the camera that shows Lara while playing was at a nasty angle, so much that it made me quite sick to my stomach. Then I had major problems with using the F5 and F6 buttons, sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't. So overall I didn't enjoy the level at all, what is a pity as I do like Venice and even the Library. Backtracking and dead ends are in abundance here, tightening up would be a great improvement. I sure hope this builder will continue as there is potential" - Gerty

"Somewhat of a misnomer this - it is actually Lara's first adventure, starting off as it does with a pretty well recreated traditional mansion training level, with the only new touch being a timed run from the maze to a cellar entrance by the outside assault course - that definitely wasn't in the original level. For reasons best known to himself, the builder has disabled the save facility on this first section, but you get it back when you reach Venice. Ah Venice, always a pleasure. This is largely based on the original TR2 Venice level, but with a few new twists. There's still plenty of leaping around on awnings, shooting henchmen and their dogs and some of the classic TR2 moments will be instantly familiar to aficionados, e.g. destroying the mines with the speedboat and the three chandelier puzzle room. There's just enough 'new' gameplay to keep things fresh, but it would have benefited from a bit of tightening up as there were quite a few dead ends and backtracking, which added up to a confusing game in parts. A very creditable debut level however." - Jay

"The first part of this level is a classic Lara's Mansion, with the addition of a timed run through the maze. Not a bad thing in itself, in fact, quite enjoyable but, and it's a massive, big, and thunderous 'but', you can't save! I don't know if this was a deliberate act by the builder but any level without saves will be severely avoided by many players and reviewers (including me on occasions) so the builder is shooting themselves in the foot. My advice - don't do it! The saves are back in the second part (good job too!). Pure, unashamed Venice and none the worse for it. Baddies, dogs, chandeliers, speedboats, mines, jumping around on the awnings, it's got the lot. The lightings a bit flat and the textures are repetitive and where was the weaponry for all the ammo I found? It's a fairy complex level and there are a few dead-ends (that's such a no-no) but all-in-all very pleasant romp." - Diz

"First of all, how come this level has only 2 reviews (well 3 now)? Anyway I thought this level was pretty good. There were some texture problems but nothing too bad. I didn't really like Lara's Home to be honest. It was pretty fun and the texturing was good but I thought it was more boring than Venice. Venice was really nice. The texturing was better and so was the gameplay. The builder made the game feel like Tomb Raider 3 for the Home and Tomb Raider 2 for Venice. Nothing really bad except for some little problems in Lara's home like you can't save and there was a line under the inventory items. A very nice levelset for a debut and recommended for a short raid. Looking forward to the full release." - afzalmiah

"Laras Home: The first level is the typical house level which one knows from many other Levels. Though one can see some texture mistakes, but this is not the problem. The problem is rather that one cannot save in this level. Though no opponents exist, but there is a time run. And so it is tiresome a little bit that one must go over and over again to the maze if one has not found the suitable door.
Venice: This level is substantially better. Venice looks good, apart from some texture mistakes and the tasks are relatively easy. The opponents are no problem, because Lara has at disposal the shotgun and, moreover, enough Medis. Maybe it would have been good if the level builder had inserted more camera hints, then one could find faster the respective lock for the keys. I have liked particularly the tasks which one had to do by the boat. The opponent on the high balcony was placed unfair, because one could not shoot him, but he can shoot Lara.
The lost Library: Well, apart from several texture mistakes the level looks quite good. A problem is, however, the Dead- Ends. More than once one can jump, for example, in a canal and then has no possibility to leave again this canal because one would have had to make before something else. One opponent was placed again so unfair that one could not kill him, however, he could shoot at Lara. The sound was good, indeed, the lighting was not always good, because in many rooms, for example, was a Sun absent.
Result: A lot of work waits for the level builder if the demo should become a reasonable level." - Scottie

"I love Venice levels, starting with TR2, so you would think that I'd be delighted with a TR4 remake that captures many aspects of the original: racing a speedboat through a mine channel with Lara bailing out at the last moment before the boat explodes; a timed race with a second boat to reach that exit; a replay of the three chandelier puzzle in an old hideout; level designs and texturing intended to provoke nostalgia. Instead I got the idea that "Demo" means the player is a guinea pig tester--and not a happy guinea pig. It's not clear what the title means. Level one is Lara's home. The main task is a timed run from the hedge maze across the front courtyard to a side gate and cellar. The author has locked out the ability to save. No save is guaranteed to start players out in a foul mood, even if this does end in twenty minutes. Then saving is allowed. The next two levels are inspired by TR2 Venice, and take hours to play. The first Venice level has a large map, so Lara does a lot of swimming to find doors that look alike (static camera shots aren't the best clues). The canals are shallow, with uneven bottoms, so Lara may have to splash on the surface, particularly because of overhead fixed cameras. The cameras prevent Lara from looking around, so she can be shot at without any idea where the assailant is located. This is irritating. Usually authors would want players to see what is going on, to let them anticipate. When Lara drives the first boat into mines, and bails out, there is an explosion that shakes the screen. Something has been altered in the architecture, but I had no idea what that was. (A camera shot here couldn't avoid being helpful, so the author skips it.) There are nasty places like having Lara jump a fire, when I think the idea was to have her catch fire and run for a waterhole. The texturing is sometimes mediocre. After Lara has traveled over the same awnings and done the same series of balcony jumps six times, finally she has the right key and she is able to do the speedboat timed run to the exit, as in TR2. The next level continues. Lara finds two keyholes. There is a key in a room protected by thugs. If Lara looks down there is a key in a canal. Good, things are moving briskly. Lara jumps down, gets the needed second key, and is trapped with no way to return. After searching everything three times I had to reload a previous savegame. The key in the water should be a guide to the correct route, so I spent the next twenty minutes worrying about it, distracted from current play. (That key is for later.) A lot of time was wasted in these two levels because of things like that. Consider this to be a good learning experience for the author, as good techniques have been tried here." - dmdibl