Level reviews

"What even is this? This feels like a test level gone wrong, and quite literally so. There are so many objects crammed into this small space that the engine fails to render them properly, so before you know it you'll hear the "bzzzt!" sound the spinning robot machine from the London levels makes when it kills you. You can get permanently stuck if you try jumping on top of the ticket booths. All doors suffer from a weird room connection glitch that makes them look like untextured spots. Again, I have no idea what this even was, but on the plus side it was short (thanks goodness). 10 minutes, 3 secrets. 03/20" - Treeble

"Even though I haven't played as many custom levels as some, there are times when I think I've seen it all, and it's rare these days that a level leaves me baffled. Actually, I may indeed have seen it all, as a few seconds into this game I remembered having had a go at it years ago. It's quite distinctive, you see. Though not in a good way. So much so in fact that it went straight in the bin back then; but this time I persevered. If only your spirit hadn't been broken by that booby-trapped switch, Orbit Dream! you, too, would have reached the finish trigger mere seconds thereafter. Not that it would have made any difference. I have no doubt that the author considered himself mighty clever for squeezing quite an amount of gameplay into such a tightly circumscribed area, but the result is like that of a committee of Extraterrestrials attempting to demonstrate what little they know of the ways of the humans by replicating their behaviour. It's all there: enemies, traps, puzzles, secrets; and it's all put together in very economical and entirely mechanical fashion, as if the builder saw only code and function where players want to see a world. So, the assessments of various reviewers notwithstanding, I hold that the level does make senseâ€"however irritating or even infuriating it may beâ€", albeit only in an entirely abstract way. It makes no sense at all from any kind of aesthetic point of view, though. Which may be the reason why for all its absurdities, it's no fun at all." - Mulf

"Did I miss the point here? You start in a room made of an incoherent mess of textures. You then pick up a few tokens, pick up a load of unnecessary supplies, avoid an electrical machine, get shot at by that irritating Sophia while moving a block and the level ends with a cut scene taken straight from TR3. I had some annoying glitches, not least Lara jumping up and down when drawing her guns. Best avoided. Didn't bother with the home level." - Ryan

"Not much to do in this level at all apart from find 6 really easy to find secrets and ride on a bike and spawn Sophia when I played it I thought I'd have a bit of fun on the qaudbike and somehow managed to kill Sophia whilst I was on the vehicle also there is a Lara's home level with a bit of exploration and 2 really easy to find secrets and spawn Sophia yet again this level can get really boring at times not reccomended" - lokky99101

"Well, what else can really be said about this release that hasn't already been said by other reviewers at this point? Confusing(and at times unfair)gameplay, sloppy texturing, nonsensical object/enemy choices, bland lighting, flat atmosphere, uninspired level design... this levelset has it all and more combined into one small package, with the included Croft Manor level map not fairing much better. So in the end, better off skipping this one altogether." - Ceamonks890

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It's definitely unfortunate when the best thing you can find to say about a level is 'it's short'. I'm not the biggest fan of TR3 levels at the best of times and this is far from the best of times. It's certainly a brave experiment to try and mesh jungle and London textures and I applaud the builder's attempt to try something different, but, for me at least, it just doesn't work." - Jay

"This level shows what happens if white men conquer jungles.
1. They will put doors between trees, to make the exploration of the forest easier.
2. They will place checkout gates for visitors to pay for a ticket to the forest.
3. For visitors not to tire so much, thru-forest corridors will be provided.
4. A boss of an evil corporation will finally buy it all, to kill anyone driving the bike where not permitted.
Only in real life she won't be alone, but surrounded with dozens of hitmen. I don't see any of them in this level, so it's probably a fantasy/surreal.
And now seriously: I like the number and variety of secrets in this little world, but I don't like them being useless. Moreover, the last (6th) secret is a pain to get, and it takes more than half of the playtime to do so, with constant counting on luck, because an evil yellow wire-flailing machine circles around Lara like if ripped directly from Joel Veitch's nightmare, and Sophia is simply triggered too close from the bank, so her forcefield keeps pushing Lara away, straight onto underwater spikes (I think the author might have not been aware about this AI, and/or - possibly - Sophia's resistance to bullets). The only way to obtain that troubling secret involves parking a bike in a certain spot and using this vehicle for game engine to ignore the enemy shockwave.
From the main tasks of the level, I see Jordan wanted to create a smart chain of reason-effect events - there's a multi-coin puzzle, a sequence of switches and two pushables - so really a shame those haven't been finessed and wrapped in the environment as good as they could. Anyway, this short adventure indicates the author knows how to put TR gameplay together - what, regardless from its initial quality, shows symptomes of future improvement. 4 3 4 4
Several words about the Lara's Home addition, as no reviewer seems to have found it included. And it really is, so I rate both levels and pull out an average. The manor addition is more expanded than the actual jungle one - however it's much easier - and fortunately, because You can't save in this type of a level. It has no finish trigger at the end of the plot, and if You don't use the bike in this case as well, You'll get slaughtered by Sophia again. Simply get on the veh as soon as You can after placing the key, and run over her. I found it more challenging than frustrating. And I can see the sections of the house - in almost complete set btw - maintain right proportions, and the only thing which is wrong with them is their oversizement. Ah, and there are also two secrets to find. And two switches are decoys, so watch our for them not to burn You. 4 3 3 3" - DJ Full

"This short level has a strange layout and is covered in wild mix of sometimes blinking in and out TR3 textures. There is not much to do, other than picking up items and placing them, a bit of block pushing and evading a crazy silent electric machine that will get you every time since it is going through solid walls and always turns up where you least expect it. It even got me sometimes when on top of the push block. That was extremely annoying, In the end I was not really sure what this level was all about. If you skip this one, you won't miss a thing." - Blue43

"I don't get it. There are objects from TR3, but they aren't applied in a way that makes sense. Lara collects a lot of secrets and pickups every few meters, but since she doesn't have weapons to go with her accumulated ammo it doesn't help much. A TR3 electric machine runs around through solid objects. Lara finds a ticket and eventually a place to put it, then moves a block to escape Sophia. Lara goes through a waterfall but if she pushes a button here she burns. She shoots a snake. Shooting the snake made sense. The level ends. At 10-15 minutes, too long." - dmdibl

"Sorry but that was about 15 minutes of my life I never get back. Don't know but there were quite some glitches in my download. Not so bad that I was stuck forever. I quit in the same place as Ian did and to be honest, I had enough." - Gerty

"This is a short tr3 level with few rooms, but still enough tasks to do and many secrets to discover to be a level so short. Architecture and environment is very poor and simple, and texturization is not worked. Some coins to pick up and place in the cabins and some buttons to push is all the gameplay I found. Also you need to face some dangers like the moving machine, the spiked pool, the Sophia's fire bolts near the end or the last button trap. I found nothing interesting or funny in the gameplay, except reload and reload when Lara died. Not a level for my taste." - Jose

"I think the builder has passed several borders now with this level, which must be one of the most senseless additions to the list up till now. Just when I thought his works pick up slightly with his recent release he comes with a release that surely is one of the worst TR 3 levels I have played till now. Sure, some objects are worth a look as the motorbike, the TR 4 reminiscent buttons and the door objects, but the gameplay is - believe me - very, very annoying with an nerving electricity machine and Sophia chasing you in the second half of the level and damaging you heavily when pushing a (even unmarked) block, a strange way to bypass some objects, unmarked non-deadly spikes, sloppy placed secrets and worst of all a deactivated health bar so that you have to take medipacks by chance if you think your health is down now. Also texturing is very repetitive and streched, lighting too dark throughout and everything was not a bit realistic. The medipack on top of the counter is accessible though using the ladder so a minimum of five secrets can be found in the eight minutes of play. Not recommended - maybe Orbit Dream was not fully right with his Cain statement and the builder in fact is Cain himself? The games have much in common..." - manarch2

"Ok, I will let this one enter the TR custom level history book as a quirky oddity of sorts. The mix of London and Jungle objects used here is so out of place that it is almost already funny again. Still, the adventure as such is not very coherent and obviously not tested or polished up to be properly playable. It is thankfully very brief though, at about 10 minutes max and if you are an eager player you may want to go get those 6 secrets, of which I ended up with 5, but not even fully sure where all these were. As already stated in my review for this authors next level, I hope he soon finds something more meaningful to spend his time with, as these brief and quickly thrown out levels do not benefit anybody and increasingly are just wasting people's time." - MichaelP

"You'd have to go a long way in the custom level world in order to experience anything quite as utterly dreadful and inept as this.I have no idea if it's actually possible to reach a Finish Trigger,but decided that the sequence where Lara presses a button and gets fried for her pains was as good a place to quit as any. There's little to be gained from a reviewer's perspective in actually spending time describing this level's inexhaustible shortcomings;much less a player even contemplating giving this one a go. Come back,Cain;all is forgiven!" - Orbit Dream

"OK here we have the craziest combination of Aldwych and Jungle levels I've ever seen - oh wait this is the only combination of the two I've ever seen! You start by falling a great depth and losing some life, why? Tasks here include pushable block, door opening, pushing switches. The next main task is to collect several coins and place them in ticket machines, opening a door, obviously it's not going to be that easy so be prepared to be chased by a cleaning machine - take care not to pick up the train ticket whilst it's close behind you. There's a tiger here to take care of here. I'm unsure how to describe textures, the correct ones are used, and they're sort of ok, but the waterfall isn't moving, and a few little squeezed ones on some steps, but generally could be worse. Some objects are completely black, and I can drive the motorbike through objects. Motorbikes are nice to have but aren't really needed. There's a cupboard door here and pushable buttons are Egyptian. You can't climb on top of a block to get a medipack. Lighting is not too bad, it's not too colourful or bright like last time so generally acceptable quality. More fun and we have to make a jump across the very still spike filled waters, and here we find Lara's nemesis, Sophia. I'm actually impressed for once! She has the correct sounds and is firing at Lara. In fact, the sound isn't bad at all, everything seems in order, jungle environmental sound plays in the background, no silly laughing this time. I'm not sure if I have to fight Sophia, as there's a pushable block with a deadly switch, and snake behind it, yes I think we do. Ok, that didn't work, so pushed a block onto a square and a cupboard door opened, revealing the exit and finish. Will we be due for an Egyptian adventure next, only time will tell! I'm afraid I can't describe this level, except that it looks like many different TR elements have been thrown into a food mixer and this is the result. It's quite short too, should've been longer. I guess the gameplay is not too bad - it is fairly obvious what to do. There is a unique style associated with this builder, I do think this level is a little better in some ways than the previous one. Net gameplay 10 minutes." - sonnyd83