Level reviews

"A very dark level in which you you'll run out of flares for the purpose of adding some light yourself to the atmosphere. Not a very special game to praise... In addition to these, the game was so difficult to finish in general, due to the overuse of sentry guns. Thanks!" - Mehrbod

"Lara's outfit and the many new textures used in this level must have seemed like a real treat back when custom levels where released, considering that Egypt and the tutorial level were the norm back then. Even today they seemed quite fresh. Having said that, there's not a lot of entertainment or variation in the gameplay, which only has you shooting some guards and sentry guns, doing some jumping across columns, avoiding traps, negotiating a very tedious underwater maze and some long crawling. Not a bad effort for a debut, but with quite a few sections that might have been better left out." - Ryan

"There are many ways to complete this level. For example you can destroy the turrets after you find the crossbow with explosive ammo, and not near the end. There are many pick-ups scattered around. I hated that underwater maze, so I read the walkthrough and I didn't bother to collect the other goodies. When I thought I had pulled every lever I found and saw that the door to the end didn't open, I checked the walkthrough to see I had missed the jumpswitch in the room with the nitrous oxide feeder. There are many levers so be sure not to miss anyone. I found the textures and lighting to be quite good. But there is only one camera and no music. 35 minutes, 1 secret (necessary to progress)." - alan

"From reading the reviews one could be forgiven for getting the impression that this is a horrible level. However, as one who typically plays with walkthrough in hand, I tend not to notice questionable gameplay decisions on a builder's part to the extent that others who play without such aids might. For a debut level I found it to be a commendable effort, even though it's so dark that I ran out of flares much earlier than anticipated and had to conjure up a supply. The presence of the nitrous oxide feeder was a complete mystery, as there's no motorbike in sight. At first the surrounding platform was deadly from the time I entered the room, so I went back and followed Lizard Queen's walkthrough instructions religiously for the previous area where you jump from pillar to pillar to get across the room, and that solved the problem. Although there's no explanation given in the walkthrough, I assume that if you take the logical route across the pillar room (as I did the first time) you step on a trigger tile that prematurely turns on the flames (although there's no visual evidence of that). Anyway, this is an excellent illustration of my rationale for using walkthroughs. There are some good ideas here, and the level is definitely worth playing." - Phil

"All the new builders that are interested about making his/her first level must play this level first, so they know many things they must avoid when designing their levers. The gameplay was one of the worst I saw in all my life; the author always let you advance and advance more and more without the items you need or the tasks you must do; also there are not cameras (well, I saw one in the UW maze) so players know what they're triggering. In my case I missed the revolver in the underwater maze and I didn't want to return all the way back and waste my time exploring again that nasty maze, so I decide to abandone near the end. Where are the puzzles? Where are the flares for a very dark level? Only SASs to shoot, where are the other enemies? And the objects? Where are the musics? There's an effort with the texturization and the lights, but it's not enough for a level to be enjoyable. Not recommended." - Jose

"This must have seemed really innovative on its release, given how few levels at the time strayed far from the Tut1 style. Just something as simple as Lara's custom outfit must have felt exciting and the look of the level in general makes a welcome change. Having said that, the gameplay is nothing much to write home about, consisting of a lot of shooting and crawling through ducts, plus a confusing underwater maze, which is something no level needs. Not bad for a debut though." - Jay

"Interested by a recent review, I tried this level out before tackling the prequel the review addressed too. In my opinion, even with all those "hasn't aged well"'s and "considering the time"'s considered, this level is highly overrated for me. The gameplay consists of running and climbing through endlessly long passages, shooting a few enemes appearing out of thin air and finally tackling the two sentry guns from the start (also appearing out of thin air), the latter of which can be called the one and only puzzle or halfway interesting task in this level. The rest is flawed from start to finish: A secret you have to find in order to progress, unintended shortcuts, a mega-tedious underwater maze, add to this unmarked death tiles (especially in the start/finale room) and stuck moments if you haven't done things in the correct order or neglected important (and way too easy to miss) items and you have a perfect disaster, sorry to say so. At least the texturing and lighting were quite decent and certainly the highlight of this level. Unfortunately, there were a few paperthin walls, a fairly simply geometry mostly and no decorative items, but I can forgive that because the builder didn't want to create an Egyptian feel to this level, and there weren't other ways back in 2001. In short, I simply could've said amen to Ian's review and I would have been finished much earlier, anyway. It's one of the earliest levels out there, and maybe you'll enjoy it more than me, but from my point of view this level is a mess at least gameplaywise and thus not recommended. 25 minutes." - manarch2

"This debut level has not aged well.It was clearly an ambitous undertaking at the time,with custom textures,a custom outfit and a setting and ambience quite at odds (and commendably so)with the 'Egyptian Temples' in predominance at the time.Sadly,it suffers badly from the errors of Gameplay judgement that,as level builders,we all made to a greater or lesser degree in the early days;namely,don't presume that other players will do certain things in a certain way just because that's how you (the level designer) intended them to be done.In this case I was under the impression that I had performed all the tasks required,until I came upon a trapdoor that positively refused to open (and I replayed the level again up to that same point,just to make sure). I then consulted a walkthrough,which described various sequences that I had either not experienced,or had undertaken with an entirely different methodology (viz.the 'Monkey swing from the top of the heated platform' sequence,which I avoided by a simple running jump). Several areas could be shortcutted entirely (jumping onto the roof of a train,for example;instead of following a more complex intended course)while others (the underwater maze,in particular) were unavoidable yet tediously dull. Although the construction is generally fine(textures are occasionaly stretched) and the lighting is rather effective,the level also displays a rather quaint naivety; at one point early on you activate a lever heavily guarded by sentry guns,which opens a trapdoor to a small bare underground room containing a couple of soldiers.After shooting them and aquiring the resultant pick-ups,you wonder what on earth they were meant to be doing in a completely empty room which could only be unlocked by an illegal Intruder. In some respects this level has aquired something of the status of 'historical curiosity'. It's not a good level,irregardless of whatever criterion you use.However,it IS a good example of what was expected at the time;(a time when slightly tricky jumps were clearly deemed to be downright impossible as far as the level builder was concerned),before the advent of graphical and gameplay sophistication and increased player expertise.Play it (although not neccesarily to completion)for its curiosity value." - Orbit Dream

"I am glad I finished this very dark level. I didn't have enough flares and most of the time I had to search for a jump switch that was as high as Lara. There are some trapdoors to open an underwater maze that's awfully confusing don't get out until you see two scenes with a trapdoor and an underwater door opening. I say that because I got all the way to the upper level after getting hold of the nitro and the trapdoor was closed so I had to search around until I decided to go back into the maze. In my desperation I read the reviews for clues and I see that some mention a train I never found one and I refuse to play this again. The SAS were annoying as usually and make sure you find the revolver and laser-sight before you go behind the sentry guns." - Kristina

"There's a photo on the wall in one room of a dam across a river so is this a dam? It's certainly big enough with huge rooms. Pretty boring atmosphere but well textured. A lot of running around and swimming to find switches in an underwater maze. The fun part was blowing up machine guns and some jumping sequences. In the end you reach an underground train and there are two machine guns there but I couldn't figure out what to do that was where I stopped so was that the end? Lara picked up a canister for the bike but I didn't find a bike! So was there more intended is there a second part to come? A short and straight forward level just look everywhere for those switches." - CC

"I finished this level pretty quick and after reading the other reviews I saw that I missed a bit. Well that is the author's fault I would say. So one can take the short or the somewhat longer tour of this level. I couldn't go back and explore the piece I missed as by then I finished his second level and at the moment I am not inclined to put the level back in the LE. For so far it was an easy going level SAS men to shoot levers to pull jumping burning floor and I missed the train room. 29-04-2003" - Gerty

"The whole point of this 30 minute level seems to be to destroy two machine guns so that you can escape the base that Lara is stuck in. The door to freedom is behind them so you have to do the long way around which takes you through some long underwater tunnels and large rooms that have no function other than being traps to get across. Once you open all the doors and get the revolver and laser sight you drop down behind the machine guns and once they're destroyed you are free to leave. The train crash sight was really cool and had one secret which included the uzis plus I found the grenade launcher on top of the train cars. Overall a fun level but at the end I didn't really feel like I had accomplished anything." - RaiderGirl

"30 minutes my arse. Maybe if you do all the things in the right order don't miss a switch or crucial item and don't get lost in the underwater maze. The latter was when things went downhill for me. Shortly afterwards I dropped down behind the sentry guns but was short of the equipment to destroy them and after I stepped on a mine for the umpteenth time all I wanted was to get out of there alive as fast as possible. Usually I like my levels to be non linear but this time I could have used the occasional clue to what door had opened. A pity cause I really liked most parts of this well built base especially the areas that involved jumps and I think the underground train looked good. But there were just too many long climbs too many medi packs and I wish the author would refrain from letting sentry guns appear out of nowhere. Some rooms felt a bit empty the SAS guards became fairly predictable after a while and what was the Power Petrol for?" - Dimpfelmoser

"With a pretty even mixture of puzzles and combat this level played nicely but sadly it only lasted for around 35 minutes and ended oddly as the last pick up was the nitrous oxide and there was no bike to be found. Texturally being a custom level I expected more from the look and feel of the game but apart from a nicely done small section of a train Lara's camouflage outfit and a couple of cute snack machines the rest seemed quite standard. Gameplay was also pretty standard with a lot of climbing a large water maze and some slightly tricky fire jumps but my biggest disappointment was the non use of a large overhead air duct that just screamed to be explored." - Sash

"A fun level with some specialities such as great Lara outfit non-TR texturing which is sometimes however a little monotonous in the bigger square-like rooms a spectacular way of having Lara die a stunning train room and more. I did not like the enemy (SAS) and object (way to many medipacks) placement too much and unfortunately the gameplay while diverse with an underwater maze a bit of jumping a nicely done burning floor room is relatively short with just above 30 minutes." - Michael

"Extremely fine level. Had me going for some time. Good puzzles but not too difficult. Used the darkness to advantage. Thoroughly enjoyable." - Torry

"As levels become old they also become simpler than they were before. This surely was a must play level when it was released now it's getting old and very common in comparison to newer levels. The 30 minutes of this level is around finding a way out of a Company. To do this Lara will pull levers destroy sentry guns and soldiers and swim. Swim a lot. The unique thing that I did not like in the level was the damned underwater maze. Thankfully there was enough air but it was too confusing! The textures were well chosen and applied the lighting is good but surely the coolest thing to look at in this level in my opinion is the crashed train. No! Wait the best thing to look at is Lara's camouflage outfit ;)." - Treeble

"This level was probably more impressive when it was released (more than a year ago) but today it doesn't have anything in it that stands out. The gameplay is average with a large underwater labyrinth and the texturing is quite good. There are a lot of enemies but you get enough weapons to kill them without any trouble. I finished the level in less than fifteen minutes without ever picking up the Nitrous Oxide canister and without visiting the nicest-looking place in the level (the crashed train). Obviously you didn't have to go there which is a shame since the rest of the level-design is quite boring." - Magnus