Level reviews

"A very problematic level riddled with bugs and dead ends, shame because otherwise it would be a pretty enjoyable game. Actually I have tried three other levels by the same author and all of them had the same problem. Feels like he didn't play test his levels enough or something. The dead end you trigger when you slide down the spiked area is not too bad (although the sequence is very annoying because the fixed camera angle makes things way harder than it should be for no reason at all). You realize immediately you have hit a dead end and just reload. But when I do things in the wrong order and find out I can't progress it is just bad. The switches also have some kind of a problem, they work after a short delay, but I have seen the same thing in other levels of its time so I am not sure if the problem was on the builder's end. As with the other levels I have played by this author, everything other than gameplay is very good, especially for its time. Great textures, solid and logical map design, also loved the atmospheric soundtrack here. As I said, shame it is a buggy mess." - Nomad

"Save some meds for the laser trap as their shutdown switch won't work. Also mind the jumpswitch over the spike slope, as the flame below it can lock you even more surely. Otherwise this is a very neat, on-topic lab level with good lighting and relaxing ambience, and made me actually look forward to the sequel." - DJ Full

"This is definitely a cut above most base type levels of its age, with its colourful textures (and Lara's outfit) and nice layout. The gameplay is decent enough to hold the attention for the time it lasts (under an hour), although you'd do well to keep the walkthrough to hand as some actions are far from intuitive. Definitely the best thing about this level is the atmosphere, helped in no small part by the background audio track." - Jay

"Not very challenging 30 minute base oriented raid that would've been way more entertaining if it wasn't for some bugs that made it ugly. I hate when the switches don't work and you have to step on the tile multiple times trying to trigger the even that's supposed to happen. Enemies were kinda unfairly placed, sometimes they got stuck in other objects and that makes them immortal but they can still kill you. The stairs in the room with the machines stopped working after the second visit - that was weird. Other than that there are lots of cool moments like the room with 4 ropes and the one where you have to climb up the chain in order to reach the upper floor. Another nice sequence is the one with slopes and spikes - challenging but fun. The visuals and the atmosphere are great, especially for a 2002 level. It's a good level definitely but it could've been way better with a little more work." - misho98

"This must have looked quite a treat on its release and still looks very attractive today. The surroundings are beautifully constructed, objects and custom weaponry are placed brilliantly and the atmosphere is top notch for its age. The gameplay, while enjoyable enough, is a bit buggy at times and I had trouble triggering a couple of timed doors correctly (even getting trapped inside an invisible block in one instance) making me wonder what the heck was going on. You might want to keep the walkthrough handy for this one. It's very much in Tijay's style: a treat to look at but with a few annoying quirks in the gameplay department." - Ryan

"From a visual perspective,this 2002 level still looks as fresh as a daisy! The texturing and lighting are impeccable and,combined with the new sounds,add up to one fascinating Base environment.Enemies are copiously placed,but the provided weapons are of the kick-ass(forgive the crude but highly appropriate Americanism)variety.The objects are interesting and superbly placed,and there are details in the map itself which are truly imaginative.The gameplay,on the other hand,is - how can I put this tactfully? - utter pants.There are so many places where you can get terminally stuck if you do things in an order different to the one envisaged by the builder;so many downright unfair,game- stopping moments (particularly a shootable section of ducting when all the other sections are solid);dodgily set triggers and unsatisfying gameplay progression,that the level can only really be recommended if you play with the walkthrough at your elbow. I suppose,when all is said and done,it's pretty representative of a Tijay level." - Orbit Dream

"Here's a workmanlke base level from the early years, moderately challenging in spots and fun to play without offering anything really fresh and new. About halfway through is a timed run involving not one, but two rope swings. I found that so blatantly unfair that I flew past it without hesitation or shame. Other than that, you'll find a raid lasting about an hour that is well lighted and more than sufficiently entertaining." - Phil

"One of the very good Base/Labs customs. Great textured rooms, very good music, fantastic sound of weapons. Traps aren't too difficult." - Andzia9

"Really dangerous this laboratory, full of traps and enemies (only dogs and guards). All classic elements from those kind of levels: lasers, poisonous pools, disks, fuses, crawling ducts, alarms... Sometimes you can miss something and find closed doors. In the long slide with the spike traps I missed the switch and I had to reload a savegame. Environment is good, with a lot of cool objects, and there's a realistic atmosphere too with a lot of cameras and a good background music, although many times cameras show you places you've not visited yet. Excelent lighting and textures." - Jose

"How the heck should a player hit on the idea that Lara can climb through a solid grate as if it was thin air? Also she can get stuck in a wrongly placed timed door when it closes down with Lara sticking in an invisible block. Rooms and corridors are a little vast for my taste, meaning you have to run around a lot. But the overall atmosphere in this base-like level was not bad, it is well textured and there are many objects used that were not so familiar in those older days of level building. Gameplay-wise it is mainly running around looking for some objects, avoiding some traps like spikes and fire tiles, shooting a couple of guards and doing a timed run over ropes." - Jerry

"A good Army base level , with excellent sounds , realistic lighting , and good looks which are at times different than the normal as you have here textures with German words written , and cool objects. Some good riddles along the course , but some could have been designed better to facilitate a pleasant progression, for example the player can arrive at the room with the ropes with the door closed because there was something hardly noticeable at the beginning of the level. Also going through a solid grating is a bit unrealistic. The switches are the kind which are buggy so beware of this. What I enjoyed the most in this level is the background audio loop , almost dreamlike , which gives a different touch to this kind of raid." - eRIC

"I'm a base/lab levels fan and that's why I chose this level. It's well done, I guess, but lacks some imagination. Plus, it's too short. The worst of it, though, is that after finding the desert eagle and the laser sight it is very easy (and I'd say perfectly logical too) to go immediately down the stairs and proceed from there to a "dead end street". That I can not consider good. The music and the echoing pistol sound are nice and quite ambiental and the placement of the guards is good enough as well. The level ends abruptly with Lara entering a dark corridor." - Jorge22

"What a fun level! Quite an original lab style level using textures mixed between tr5's base levels and tr3 TLA's sleeping with the fishes level. I really enjoyed the level I am a big fan of base/lab levels and this was not at all disappointing. The original bg tune really goes well with the level and the new sound for the pistols is really cool too. There are a fair few enemies only dobermans and the guards from tr5. You have to do stuff in a certain way and you have to make sure you get certain items before you get further on or you are buggered. There is a room with ropes and 3 doors 2 of which are closed if you didn't go in every room possible before you reach here you can get stuck I found this out by assuming you went down the slope here and got stuck at the bottom as the door was locked. But if you know what to do the game isn't too hard and is very fun to play. There are some good weapons a desert eagle and a retuxured shotgun which fires more rapidly and there are quite a few medis. The only bit which is a pain is a corridor with two lasers which you can't avoid and have to get past using a fair few medis so if you haven't stocked up that becomes a problem. Also a room with a few safe tiles and the rest which burn Lara to a crisp you need to teach the switch which requires some awkward jumps to succeed. All in all a very enjoyable level and would highly recommend it to everyone especially fans of base/lab levels. Play it now!" - Aims

"Although the overall picture of this level is good the gameplay isn't. The first timed run is very confusing as there are too many buttons to push or levers to pull before you really find out which does what. The second timed run was a completely mystery to me as was that lever before you went into the water. Finding 3 fuses and battling SAS soldiers and some dogs. 02-05-2004" - Gerty

"I like base levels and I liked this one. Some moves were very simple like shooting the duct (here's an arrow on the duct you can't miss) and moving boxes for pick-ups and shooting the fire extinguisher and the grate at the top of the chain to climb up. But other areas were so confusing for me at least. Like the room with ropes and the one further on with fire and spikes. It took me a long time to figure out what all the switches did especially the two timed ones. I had no choice but to dozy at one of them. I'd love to know how it could be done legally. I've reduced the score because of this. I totally missed the main fuse receptacle and I'm sure I did at least one move the wrong way round. There was one switch I had no idea what it did but whatever it was it didn't stop me finishing. I loved Lara's hair and outfit and the very feminine looking AK47. There was a weird aftersound when shooting but the background music was great and appropriate to the level. I also liked details like the computers pipes the plane you see under the floor and the wall textures. Enemies are well placed guards and dogs the doberman variety. Well worth the download but not for beginners." - CC

"Tijay tries to recreate the atmosphere of another classic game Half-Life. Of course you're halfway there already when you use the ambient background sound of that game but there's also little features where Tijay succeeds like with the electrified pools and the recreation of the test lab of the first part of Half-Life. Enemies are just adequate (guards and dogs). Gameplay is ok and needs some thinking (took me some time to notice one of the grated doors in the 4-swingrope room was timed because it was a darkened door bit annoying) or 20/20 vision eyesight (look around really good folks!). A thing that should be left untouched are the typical TR-secrets: the two here don't exactly can be counted as such (as is explained in the readme file but that's hardly an excuse) because you HAVE to get them to progress. All in all however an enjoyable lab level that you should try out. I will certainly start part two one of these days." - bERT

"It has again this special something. Lara's outfit is fantastic. Especially the tattoo above her butt. The background sound is a known one but very suitable for the labs. Spooky. Enemies are very well placed and as you initially have only your trusted guns you need to be smart about them. Later you get the AK-47 and Desert Eagle with extra boosted sounds. Textures are very well done and diverse. I liked the stealth fighter in the lab. I did manage the timed part pretty well and the jump sequences in some rooms were tricky but manageable. For me a top level I loved it. Very special and a little different but an idea well converted into a level - ingenious." - Navi

"Tijay made the first level I really enjoyed (New Company's Complex) and I must say I was a bit disappointed when I finished this one. It ended quite sudden too. After placing the blue fuse I was thinking there were a lot more areas to explore but there weren't any. The time it lasted (35min) was very hard though! There were a lot of running around this huge laboratory looking for those colored fuses. I've found two secrets which are inevitable if you want to finish the level though. The hardest part was the rope swinging room with the lasers below and talking about these I want to say that even though they looked cool I wouldn't have used the moving lasers in a level - it was simply to hard to get through those without dying! Well this level definitely is NOT for beginners but it's well worth the download of course for an average raider!" - Treeble

"Generally I don't like to concentrate on the drawbacks when reviewing a level but this here had four major flaws that ruined the game for me so I guess I have to point them out. 1) There are two occasions where you can and most likely will get stuck if the threads are anything to go by. 2) There is a very enigmatic timed run where flicking the switch doesn't open the door but dancing around a certain tile. I'm still not sure how I did it. 3) Right at the start you have to shoot a grate on the underside of an airduct but as the grate isn't marked and you need a bit of luck for it to shatter chances are that the gameplay comes to a grinding halt there and 4) finally a savegame bug prevented a door from opening and I had to go way back when. What else is there?! A really cool outfit for Lara a brilliantly textured base with new objects the compulsory SAS guards lasers code disks fuses magnetic cards and crawls and a rather unimaginative gameplay." - Dimpfelmoser

"I firstly just want to thank Kristina for pointing out the short timed run that I didn't realise existed and that had me thinking I was trapped in a section of the level never to end she also writes about it giving her a little grief so I don't feel so bad. This is a reasonably simple base like level well that is if you can spot a couple of nicely inconspicuous things to shoot and know about that timed run. Also with certain creators I usually have a preconception of what I expect from their new levels from past experiences and the short duration just over 30 minutes of this one from Tijay just took me by complete surprise so I reloaded to see if maybe I missed something but from what I can tell I hadn't though finding only 2 secrets I may have overlooked one or more of those. This looks nice has a very cool double rope timed run and a few good traps but for me it was just a tad insubstantial." - Sash

"This is a strange level for me to rate and review. On the one hand I was really very much intrigued by the impeccable (custom) texturing lighting ambience music and I loved the way Lara looks with new hairstyle and sunglasses. As it is typical for a Tijay level you get the Desert Eagle and AK-47 and of course special weapon sounds. On the other hand I spent 45 minutes in this Research Centre and found gameplay at times rather difficult and non-rewarding. Ok there are three fuses to find many levers a handful of dogs and a dozen of soldiers but the two secrets are really just areas you anyway have to pass one of the timed sequences got me stuck in the invisible door block when I just did not make it and I had to reload and it tool me a long time to figure out that shooting grates is a good idea if you want to progress. So for me there was quite a bit of frustration here but it is definitely a level you must have a look at." - Michael

"What can I say about this level that will make sense? The objects and textures and atmosphere were fantastic but the gameplay was lousy. For a start on a difficulty level of 10 this was a 29. Ridiculously difficult and there is no need for that. I considered on 3 or 4 occasions just quitting but I must have a stubborn streak because I persisted. Some of the 'shootable' objects would not shatter unless shot exactly in the right spot which made me think that possibly they were not meant to shatter (and when they finally did I was astounded) and as you needed to get through these things to proceed in the level I thought it was poorly done. Hey it may have been just me but I am only relating MY experiences here. Anyway due to the intense level of difficulty I have downgraded the 'gameplay' score as I do for ALL levels of this nature. For masochistic raiders give this a try. For all the rest of you stay clear of it." - Torry

"This level was a mixture of two extremes for me. Parts of it - pushing boxes to find a fuse searching through some shelves pushing buttons - were quite easy. However other parts were incredibly difficult to get through - hidden vents timed doors with rope swings sloped areas over deadly floors laser traps that you get damage from no matter what a slope with spiked areas you have to slide down areas you could get trapped in if you didn't do things in the right order - and made this just seem like too much work to me. He did a great job building the level though - the style reminds me of Recon Labs 3 and everything looks amazing. The toilets needed a good cleaning but it was great to see the craft under the floor in the research room and the area with the toxic pools was very well done. My favorite thing had to be the music - some of it was new and all of it fit in perfectly. Lara also had a great new outfit on and seemed to have a tattoo and a belly button ring. I found two secrets or secret areas? and enjoyed most of this level but I thought some of it was just too hard so I rated it down just a bit. This would be hard for beginners and I'm personally not into the really tough puzzles." - RaiderGirl

"This level wasn't very impressive. Sure there are some objects that haven't been used to death yet and Lara's outfit looks very different but the level isn't very fun. The main thing to do is to find some hidden pickups pull some levers and shoot a couple of grates (which I would never have thought of if it weren't for Michael's review). And of course kill some enemies. It all ends after less than 25 minutes but it would have been much more fun if it weren't for all the bugs. The most serious bug was the fact that it was possible to get stuck in one place if you did things in the wrong order. There are also some smaller bugs; the lasersight sticks to the wrong end of the Desert Eagle the flares turn blue when you throw them away a staircase that suddenly can be walked through and a door that is very hard to get to open. Actually most doors are hard to open since you often have to stay on the tile beneath the lever (or button) for a certain time before the door opens. There are also some texture-bugs like laser not being transparent and signs that say 'danger' when there isn't anything dangerous nearby. The texturing is overall good though. This is not a very impressive level but it's quite fun if you manage to avoid the bugs." - Magnus

"Starting with Lara's outfit which I liked very much nothing special but short hair and red pants just different I enjoyed this level. The textures are matching the lab environment and some items are very well hidden. I can't say that the puzzles are that much of a challenge nevertheless good searching is required here. Apart from switches and opening doors as usual the fuses and the disc from VCI are a few items of interest. I particularly liked the perfect way a room is hidden to find it you need good eyes as an arrow is your hint. You can't say that this level is difficult but a timed door about the middle of it gave me much trouble not because I wasn't able to get through in time but coming back and having to exit again unless I missed something it was a problem. There is a switch near by which apparently opens it again but having pressed that in the way in it seems to be blocked. I needed to step back sometimes near it so that I can hear the door open and sprint to exit. Is this intentional or a conflict? Another problem without a solution I am afraid this time is in the area with the many ropes. If you go down the slope with the spikes coming up without having completed some other things first you will be stuck down there without been able to open the door as it is opened by the switch above. Even though I did pull the switch before I went down the door didn't open so I had to go back to a previous savegame luckily I had one. As for enemies only SAS guards here and some dogs. There was a room I didn't have the chance to open I assume it contains a secret because of the goodies I saw behind the closed door to open it requires a card of some sort I never found. Probably missed it somewhere. It's not a very long level but it is worth a try." - Kristina

"In this level there is some sharp shooting! Namely with a phenomenal sound of weapons. The difficulties consist mainly on finding ways which are hidden too well otherwise puzzles are rather simple. Particularly with the search for a certain point (air shaft) the entrance is to be recognized hardly also not with 2nd pass through. A few exceptionally difficult jumps will cause refusal and frustration with beginners rather I found just this well. The objects were well chosen cameras always pointed where it goes on the sound strangely fits also a good atmosphere exists in the level. Unfortunately the right game enjoyment did not come through with me so because I had to look very long as for getting on at 2 places. Nevertheless is very recommendable the level for advanced players." - Xxenofex