Level reviews

"A cute little level taking Lara through four different settings from the comfort of her home. I like the outfit switch on the fly, but otherwise this was a fairly simple and straightforward run. I suspect the different settings might have limited it from truly shining into any one given area, but still a good choice for a short session. 15 minutes. 01/25" - Treeble

"Four short interconnected levels with varying scenarios from previous Tomb Raider games that interconnect. Tasks are relatively simple but figuring out what to do is not gained at first glance so there is some trial and error involved. The outfit changes were nice as she entered each of the four rooms. I quite enjoyed this 25 minute adventure." - Torry

"It was a nice idea to combine different settings from other TR games, but there wasn't too much to do in terms of gameplay, apart of puzzles with movable blocks, switches and a swimming exercise. I don't know why Lara always caught fire in the icy room, if she wasn't that close to the flame. I think the author knew about this and that's why he placed a little pool and some big medipacks. The outfits change depending on which room you're visiting and that's also nice. There's a nice set of textures used but sometimes rooms looked a bit flat and boxy. Lara has no guns to kill the annoying guard in the TR3-like room, but luckily there's a floor tile that restores her health. It's a good short level but I don't think other players would play it if they're seeking for something more adventurous." - alan

"An interesting approach for a One Room Challenge. The idea of presenting many memories of Lara was catchy and the way Lara's outfit changes between rooms was a nice touch. However, the level doesn't have the fitting atmosphere for most of its rooms. I found the Egyptian room really over-texturized and I am sure that it could be better designed. The puzzle with the boxes in the other room was good, while the icy room with the flame throwing camel (what??) became frustrating because Lara would easily catch fire due to being close to the fire source. Finally the Maria Doria room was pretty well designed and I was disappointed that it didn't last long like the other rooms. Conclusion: So Many Memories by MBog has an interesting story which intrigues you to play his level. Although some rooms were carefully designed, some others failed to do so. It is a nice way to spend some minutes of your evening." - TRTheoP

"The idea is a good one and there are some novelties to admire, but (isn't there always a but?) the way it is presented could use a lot of work. Textures, animation of Lara and atmosphere. I had such a hard time doing that pushing puzzle as that guy kept killing my Lara while she was pushing. Apparently I made it but I am NOT doing that again. As said the concept is good, visiting 4 areas but that is all." - Gerty

"A showcase level with different mini worlds that show the automatic change of outfit for Lara. More gamplay than in the author's other levels, but i can't say i enjoyed the gameplay which seems contrieved ; what i like a lot though was the audio at the beginning. Worth a look." - eRIC

"This level had real potential to be turned into something great, it really did. However, I was left underwhelming. I liked the imminent costume changes that happened based on the areas Lara visited, with accompanying nostalgic textures. The gameplay was rather plodding though, with a single boulder trap, a simple block puzzle and a fire trap to avoid (this latter one proved harder than I thought, possibly due to the dodgy collision). Nice concept, rushed execution." - Ryan

"In yet another classic case of a great concept being tarnished by generally poor execution(which seems to be a tragic constant for the builder in question), we find ourselves exploring Lara's 'quote-on-quote' memories for random jeweled Egyptian artifacts, 'cause reasons. And while the real-time outfit change between areas is pretty cool to see in action(alongside some handy custom animations that help to reduce loss in Lara's speed whilst swimming or performing a swan dive in the middle of a jog), that is nowhere near enough to justify the noticeable lack in quality within every other game design aspect here. One could assume being able to explore through literal memories in a game, would open up a lot of room for creativity in level design(with a great sense of surrealness to it all). But unfortunately, the builder didn't even try pushing the boundaries, ultimately leading to a series of vacant, blocky rooms(with a completely soulless and rushed feeling to it all). So in conclusion(like all of MBog's other levels), this concept has potential. But until he takes the proper time off to improve and learn, his ideas will never be fully realized and will always be nothing more than a glint in his eye at the end of the day. Not recommended." - Ceamonks890

"I liked the concept and also I was surprised seeing how Lara changed the outfit in every area, but I found not fun when playing. In the egyptian level you can drop in the corridor with the receptacle and there's no way out (reload); in the area 51, I got boring doing all the same movements with the crates many times; in the tibetan area I got burned many times when moving the box (I don't know if it was intended), and in the ship area swim searching for an UW lever was not too funny, and also found missing textures here. Not worked lights, poor sounds, empty rooms without objects, no enemies to shoot... Many things to fix to be a good level." - Jose

"The base concept here is pretty nice, with you playing through four areas themed after places in the series (and a fifth home hub), but the architecture is mostly cubes; the closest it gets to looking nice is the ship section, and even that has crack and a blatant texture gap that could be fixed with no effort at all (let alone in a level as simple as this). Most areas are pure unchanged ambience but the Nevada and Ship parts do have some basic lighting. Three of the four areas involve block pushing. You have no guns, which could have led to something creative, but instead just means you spend one segment getting shot at by a gunman with nothing you can do about it; there are at least some medikits placed in the other areas, but that's about the nicest thing I can say about such design. One area is also buggy and I had to restart the level due to not being able to pull out one block onto another (at least it was at the start). One nice touch is that Lara's outfit shifts, but even the trigger placement there is such that you can mess it up really easily (I also notice that the outfits happen to be slightly skimpier than normal, because I guess details like that take precedence over fixing basic texture issues). Not a good level, and the author has released enough that they should know better, but at least it's mercifully short and simple." - Mman

"Four confident TR-settings and various outfits define the concept of this game with not really inspired gameplay (almost block-puzzles) in a not convincing environment. Lightning urgently would need improvement, texturing seems unfinished and monotonous. Not really to be recommended." - Christian

"Gameplay & Puzzles: A few not bad block puzzles and some swimming to do. Not really much but not nothing. Enemies, Objects & Secrets: Liked the enemy and the outfit changes are very good, there are not many other objects and no secrets. Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras: The atmosphere is created by the change of place and nostalgia but the rooms are simple in the design. The sounds are okay and the cameras are missing. Lighting & Textures: The textures are very simple. No mistakes as such but they look boring. The lighting is bland. Total: 3/10, a short and not very good level." - Rambo

"First I have to say that I did not finished this level, I played two other ORC previously and this one is the worst. Gamplay seems to be quite basic, and I did not find the spirit to finish it, let me explain why: I did finish the egypt part, it was quite boring with two pushblocks and with some jumpswitchs. When I found the "load" object I went to the second part, the Nevada one, I realized that Lara has no weapon and we have a shooting enemy...Can someone explain me WHY? I tried to make the DOZY cheat, and it worked, then I wad able to shoot that guy and make some exploration... But guess what? The builder put no weapon in the game because the enemy can't be shoot without making the game crash... Then I decided it was enough for me. If the builder doest not want us to cheat, then he should block the flycheat. What to say more? I tried to explore a bit the other area before to leave the game. I found a part of antartica, where Lara did burn when pulling a block I still don't understand. The underwater setting was quite boring too, find a switch in a big underwater cave: no thanks. Textures are ugly, even if the builder seems to have divised the walls in some parts to avoid stretched textures, the textures still 1996-1998 textures... I know this is a choice, ok, but then apply them in a smart way, not like wallpaper, and add some lights/shadows/suns/change the rgb of the room...There are no objects except useful objects, no plants no decoration etc.. I did like the track playing during the game, the gameplay, the textures, secrets and the rest of the level was no good at all. The builder should try to avoid big cube as rooms, it's easy to deal with this aspect if you have some ideas of areas to make. I'm saying this, because my last level was quite cubic too, I had no idea how I wanted to make my big cave, so did something to simple, too cubic. Try not to make the same mistakes for your next level." - Lara_Fox_Croft

"Perhaps it's fortuitous that I chose this level to play level right after having played Home Sweet Home 2. The two are similar in several respects. Both appear to be maiden releases. However, this one isn't, which may explain the lower scores to date. Both have textures that are relatively crude. Home Sweet Home 2 has a reason for this, being a TR2 level. Indeed, for some reason Memories looks very much like a TR2 level as well. But the resemblance ceases when gameplay is considered. Home Sweet Home 2 is an unabashed shooter. There's nothing to do or solve other than blast your way through the competition in a completely linear path to the finish trigger. But Memories, in my opinion, has considerably more meat to it. You have four divergent paths, which presumably (I didn't try) can be taken in any order to find an artifact in each area. All four artifacts must be located and placed to complete the level. There are some tricky jumps to conquer and puzzles to solve in the process. To start the Egypt area, for example, you need to jump off the slope rather than simply slide down. If you don't, you stumble upon reaching the floor and cannot recover in time to avoid the descending spike ball. Moving blocks around in the base area to reveal awkwardly placed floor switches is a mental exercise which must be performed under pressure, as you're being shot at the entire time. In fact, three of the four areas involve a pushblock puzzle of some kind. I see some improvement here over the builder's earlier levels, and to me this justifies my higher scores." - Phil

"I struggled to score this one, as it is indeed a bit of a concept level, and for me that concept worked rather well. The four areas and the related Lara outfit change is quite a unique novelty (hence my 7 score in the "objects" category), the tasks are few and obvious but still varied enough to be entertaining (even if maybe a bit too much pushing of blocks) and the setting is functional, albeit not overly inspired or special. So, in short, I did really enjoy the short ride (20 mins) and think it is definitely worth a look." - MichaelP

"There are two creative pushables in this level, one with the appearing block and another with a line of levers. Everything else what has been applied here is strictly mediocre and the author only thought about very crucial basics. We collect four keys and the level ends. Also there are some potential spots where you can get stuck forever. I read the author had this level in better state but trimmed it because of crashing. Why not to just ask people for a working solution instead? SUMMARY: The concept is good but lacks effort so it's just optional. Hopefully the upcoming full-scale project of MBog will be better." - DJ Full

"For me this was better than what I initially thought, given the low ratings. I was very impressed with the swapping of Lara's costume, I never figured out how to do it myself. And the custom soundtrack which was a remix of the classic TR tune. You get 4 small areas to explore, each with an artefact to use later. These are Egypt, Antarctic, 40 Fathoms, and Base. I notice the 'push block' puzzle type of puzzle is repeated throughout, but in different ways, in Egypt, you use the blocks to get access to wall levers, in Antarctica, they have to be put on top of one and other to get the artefact, in the base, they have to moved to reveal floor levers. The 40 fathoms room is least inspiring with just an underwater lever and rope swing. A few annoyances though, the first being in Antarctica where Lara sets on fire even though she's not touching fire, and in the base where a guy is firing on her but she has no way of fighting back, I ran out of medipacks and used dozy. The texturing is mostly ok, a little repetitive and the odd texture error, but ok. No camera's to mention, and one or two sound effects were messed up, e.g. the swim animation,. All in all, some progress has been made, and it is worth downloading but improvements must be made. Just under 30 minutes it took me." - sonnyd83

"You know, this could have been really enjoyable; it's certainly a good idea for a level, with Lara visiting some old haunts, all from the comfort (or not) of her mansion by the looks of it. Certainly, she's become amazingly adept at switching outfits, but her swimming style has become utterly bizarre (and more than a little irritating). It's all rather bodged together and largely lacking in atmosphere, nor is the gameplay particularly engrossing, mainly involving pushing around lots of boxes to find an artefact in each of the four areas, place them and end the game after about 30 minutes. Bit of a wasted opportunity, I feel." - Jay

"Ok first of all. This entry is made to bring back the memories, and I'm really suprised how it comes out specialy in One room challenge. Gameplay is more classic but not bad at all. (I know there is a bug when you miss the trigger for swapping Lara's outfit back to the first one the game destroys the savegame) but you can avoid this. Lighting and textures are classic and atmosphere is nostalgic. The one enemy shouldn't be here as you don't have any weapons (i know that they are removed because of the crashing) but i spend almost all my medipacks on this one :(. Other than that it's a sweet game and I enjoyed it :)" - Mrshina

"This is thankfully a step upwards regarding the latest levels by the builder, but he's still far from a decent game. First of all, I liked the various outfit changes for the respective settings and overall the concept of the four challenges in four classic TR settings is good. There is a serious bug if you get into a certain setting and head out before finding the artifact as the game might not save and reload anymore though. The gameplay is fairly restricted to block puzzles (three of four challenges include those), of which the Egypt one is rather decent, the base one is rather tedious though with repetitive tasks in it and the Antarctica one can be a bit annoying as Lara often catches fire while pushing. The fourth challenge has you search for an lever in a large underwater section, oh well. The one enemy is rather effectively used, I'm not sure I really liked the idea of the health tile here but it's okay. There are some technically spiced up things like exploding pillars and the mentioned outfit changes which are nicely set up. The atmosphere did not work well for me, the rooms are very simplistic in their construction and and bare of competently used lighting and ambience, the sounds are not very well used - it's a mystery why 135 MB of audio are needed in here although the effect is not really large. The textures are at least cleanly applied, but there's nothing special to say about them and the placement is rather monotonous. Not really among the quality of the other levels of this year's contest but, keeping the bug in mind, playable and a little bit nostalgic. 15 minutes." - manarch2

"I enjoyed the high-concept of this level (really,four completely different mini-levels presented within a whole);which (although not completely original) was creative;and I loved the appropriate costume changes.Everything else was decidedly slapdash,I regret to say.Textures (although necessarily and enjoyably varied) were cursorily applied;lighting was often absent;the lone enemy was supremely irritating;and the swimming animation,superfluous.I could have been more forgiving if the gameplay had been anything other than predictable lever-activating,or uninteresting block moving,challenges.The Maria Doria 'level' was the most enjoyable (containing,as it did,a 'hunt for the underwater lever' challenge,and a rope-swing sequence - all within the space of its two minutes);while the other three mostly came across as chores. Looking on the bright side,though: you get four more mini-adventures in MBogs typically 'down and dirty' style.For some people,that may be enough." - Orbit Dream

"Okay, I guess I can keep this nice and short. Um, first, I can't say this is a direct improvement over this author's previous levels and the only thing I really enjoyed out of this entire level was the costume changes. Everything else consisted of running around...a lot. Yeah, there were a few block puzzles here and there, but I wouldn't even call them puzzles. Just moving a box from here to there isn't exciting if I don't feel like I truly accomplished something. Enemies were sparse...one enemy to be exact and since Lara is without her pistols, it gets annoying rather quickly. Luckily, I found out what I was supposed to do before the one enemy could waste my all my medikits. There was little to no atmosphere but I will give points for the scenery changes. That was nice but it would've been nicer if the background music changed along with the scenes. Like, mountain-side sounds when visiting the cold and icy regions of whatever snowy mountain she visited. The first song was fine but after that, you're left with nothing but complacent background nosies and that isn't fun. Lara's sounds seem non-existent and moments like her swimming started to annoy me with the constant chirping sound that played (when right sound isn't played). Textures seem to just be sprayed all over the place with nothing standing out in particular except for the TR2 40Fathoms textures in the cave-like area. Overall, I can't say I fully enjoyed this level but I do hope that this and other reviews will help this author improve." - Larabiker301