Level reviews

"Ok first things first what is going on with Lara's hair in this second level set? she looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards! Lol. This level set fulfils my wish of not making progression too basic and simple constantly like the previous one but goes too far the other way with some tasks: I mean that ridiculous un-targeted shooting task at the top of the trees was just pure evil! but luckily aspects like that are few and far between. We have a welcome change of environment in this set as we switch into jungle and cave areas to begin with before moving onto underground libraries and church looking areas with an add on in different enemies such as bears, birds, crocodiles and even gremlins and dinosaurs! Finally some more traps are added with falling debris and swinging axes, spikes and even some slightly out of place blue laser traps lol. Other gameplay includes a pushable objects task and a fire torch task but that's about it when it comes to expanding away from the mostly "search, find and use item" heaviness. For the ending we get to go back outside for some fun platforming with slopes, a fixed camera and a zip-line! Just make sure you land in the right place otherwise you'll have to reload. Overall this level set offers a definite improvement from the previous level set when it comes to both gameplay and varied environment but with this one there are just texture and object choices that don't make sense, look odd or clash and I don't think I've ever seen so many plants and trees growing in underground caves before? but hey it makes for nice looking areas at least! and now onto the final level set which I hope continues its pattern of improvement." - John

"The next three levels are actually a noticeable improvement over the beginning sections. There are still no thinking puzzles or extraordinary gameplay tasks, but there's a bit more of a variation this time and the overall lighting, texturing and general setting is a quantum leap from this builder's earlier efforts. Since you start these three levels from scratch and the weaponry you accumulated earlier on isn't carried over, you do have to search for other weapons but it'll not be long before you earn enough to defend yourself. Looking forward to trying out the concluding parts now." - Ryan

"Another three short levels as in the previous release. Even when there are not good puzzles, the game is good 'cause it's difficult to get stucked, and you'll find always what to do or where to go; there is plenty of action too with all kind of human and animal enemies, and also enough extra guns ammo and medipacks. There are a couple of errors in the design where you can get stucked forever; one of them in the library and another one if you use the zipline to the very end in the last level. I liked the architecture, the texturizacion and the well ornated rooms with all kind of objects and vegetation, but I missed some more cameras, flybys and musics. Too short to be three levels but an entertaining adventure worth to download and play. Recommended to all those which don't like complications when playing." - Jose

"This trio is as different as night and day from the first batch, and a vast improvement in my opinion. Everything about it is improved, from the rich detail of the surroundings to the crisp gameplay to the effective use of cameras (including the fixed variety, which I normally detest). It's still overly charitable to call this a multi-level release, because you get about 45 minutes of gameplay in the first level here (The Cave) and some 15 minutes apiece in the other two (Sanctuary and Mountain Escape). Nevertheless, I had a quite satisfying gaming experience here and look forward to playing the concluding levels in the series. Play them if you haven't already. Recommended." - Phil

"Continuing with this Caribbean Disaster series we are still in the jungle and lots of things to do to try and escape. Part 4, The Cave: The next part in the series starts with Lara emerging in a watery cave, and it's looking pretty good. Seems a lot of people have died and been buried around this place as there are a lot of tombstones and storage crates. I liked the climbing and kicking the wall. The most notable thing in all three of these levels is the darkness, and this adds to the shock factor when we do come across the resident animals and natives. This first small dark cave leads to a gaping hole we have to drop down through, to a larger cave with what looks like the remains of a temple. Here too we meet the first creature, the bear. You know your there when you have to climb up into a higher part of the cave. I'd recommend the player just climb up and stand there to watch the bear come forward as he rears up and roars. This was quite good to watch, and it also makes it easier to kill him as you can drop back down the gap and shoot him by jumping up and down. Falling debris follows and a swinging axe which looked odd hanging from the cave roof. An oversized crow flies in, and Lara starts looking for a skull key, combination parts, canopic jars, gems for snake receptacles, and shooting a star! Lara discovers a waterfall, slides down, and enters a very convincing jungle area populated by dinosaurs, small compis and raptors. Here she finds and uses my favourite artifact, the thistle. There's a drop into an extremely dark cave to meet the TRex. Thankfully it's easy to deal with this character and his compi friends if you don't step off the crates. This all got really surreal for me at this stage. It was one thing coming across tombstones along the way. But now we have ornamental levers, angel statues, bright coffins, nice ornamental trees and some blasted, almost golden looking tree stumps. That and the unsual tasks and actions just didn't fit the jungle theme, and it all became a little too weird. Part 5, Sanctuary: Although we are still in a jungle/cave setting at the start, the environment is changing now as we move into more of a large temple settup. There are tasks to be done here that would normally be in another type of level, but somehow they seem to fit here. These tasks are finding a switch to move a coffin, finding a torch and burning a wooden floor, searching for keys in a flooded cathedral type room with stained glass windows (in the jungle!?), finding scrolls in a library, and dealing with the resident dead knight, passing lovely blue lasers, placing gems in snake receptacles, killing guards and claiming their swipe cards, and more thistles to find. Although it was good fun, again it just seemed to be very strange. Part 6, Mountain Escape. Is exactly that. An escape route through the mountains, past the guards of this jungle base, and a zipline ride to find a switch (be careful and drop off the line onto the ledge where the hanging greenery is, otherwise you end up the sea and stuck forever). There is some nice climbing and jumping to be done here. One place has a fixed camera that makes things a bit awkward, but it's not so bad. All this unusualness has me wondering what's coming in the next part. So that's what I'm about to find out now . . ." - CC

"Much, much better than the three first levels. It remains in the shooter category, but the author has thrown in some puzzles and research which improves the gameplay a lot. There is also a lot of variety, be it in textures or enemies. Even too much, perhaps. The mix of different texture styles sometimes gives an impression of 'patchwork', preventing the atmosphere to really develop and the variety of enemies is... well... weird and sometimes requires a good suspension of disbelief (a brown bear in the Caribbean?). There are also a couple of design glitches which makes me wonder whether those levels were tested. This being said, it's a nice set of levels. Fun to play and quite entertaining." - Sutekh

"I have to say SilentViper has made a good example of his level building skills in here. There were some good things and bad things in here. I'll start with the good things here first: Lara's outfit in the Sanctuary level was good and I also thought that the realistic weapons were a nice touch. The weapons had realistic gunsounds too. I also liked the imps and lasers in the Sanctuary level. Another thing that I liked was that the robed guy and a Russian guy were talking to each other (what is the connection with them). There are also enemies from different games such as the Russian guards from TRC the small dinosaurs T-Rex tribesmen rattlesnakes and raptors from TR3. The bear from TR1 was also present too. The raptors were retextured to look like adult versions of the small dinos. We also had some new enemies as well like the cloaked men with red-eyes toucans and retextured SAS. I liked the design used in the Sanctuary and Mountain Escape levels too. Now the bad things: The collapsible floors and the debris from the ceiling had weird sounds the imps sounded like someone throwing up (LOL) one of the Russian guys had grunting sounds when he shot the gunsounds sounded like construction nails falling another russian guy used Lara's jumping voice when he jumped the outfit in levels 4 and 6 had the ponytail that was weird and the Colt M4A1 would have looked more realistic. Also the pistols in levels 5-6 had the skin of the uzis. The textures in some places were applied like wallpaper too. Anyway this were nice levels with a good flow to them and I hope that Christian will release the next of the Caribbean Disaster series sometime in the future." - Relic Hunter

"Christian's early levels were all rather shaky 'shoot-em ups' but he has now progressed quite successfully...to technically accomplished 'shoot-em ups'. If you're ever stuck for too long in a Silent Viper level it's not because of an elusive switch or a complex puzzle; it's simply because you haven't killed enough aggressive opponents yet. And such is the beauty of this sort of adventure; you can make stonkingly fast progress simply by going in with all guns blazing. And of course that is a weakness as well; as that sort of gameplay is simply not for everybody. But you can hardly complain of a lack of entertainment here as the pace is pretty furious from beginning to end with decently crafted areas and a nice variety of rather novel enemies (although T-Rex's always seem to die too easily). The texturing gets a little too eclectic towards the end and there is a serious problem with overstaying your time on a zipline near the end (which prevents a vital final door from opening) but this is good fast-paced entertainment all the same. Parts 1 - 3 were better though." - Orbit Dream

"It has been a long time since I last played a level from Christian but I do recall his style - action. Even though these levels are not shoot them up like some of his other levels they had enough action to keep you busy. Another remarkable point of Silent Viper's levels is the custom weaponry he includes - all of them are great and gives the player a change from the usual weapons. Extra background sound were used very well here even if they didn't have a great quality and one of them brought me back memories from the most classic game ever - Super Metroid. But according to the readme the files come from Capcom but then in life 'nothing is created everything is copied'... The Cave (30 minutes) was a rather weird level. Some textures didn't fit the environment very well such as the metallic textures between the tree and rocks. Even though I thought the new sounds for the guns were great I can't ignore the fact that most baddies had weird sounds and also the traps - the crumbling ceiling mumbled! That's not the player's fault since Christian provided the levels as converted files but as a builder myself I know how annoying can bugs be - especially when you TRY to get rid of them. A pretty simple level. There was a small room here with hundreds of plants and also dinos. It was hard to see them so I just kept jumping around and shooting while appreciating the slowdown so many objects caused to my computer. Oh well... Sanctury (30 minutes) had a very better atmosphere in comparison to the first level of this set. Some rooms kept me stuck for a while but with a lil' help from the forum buds I could proceed and finish this one. I didn't mention it above but now I will - where the heck did Lara buy those completely anti-slippery boots? She can stand on waterfalls! Amazing isn't it? Also now the ponytail is gone (I wonder how she lost it from the first level to the second?) and the sound bugs are present AGAIN. The new shotgun has a mummy sound and some other weirdos around. The finish trigger for this level was placed in a strange room I mean - I spotted it just after realizing there was nothing else to do so I wonder if it was really needed to get those thistles before arriving to this room? Oh by the way I just found this room while making the handstand useful (you could climb over that open door with it if you didn't handstand you'd fall right after). Mountain Escape (12 minutes) the shortest one. To start off - the ponytail miraculously is back! I wonder what kind of black magic Lara used to make her hair come back! While playing this one I kinda felt the author rushed this one to release the whole level set - a shame. The gorgeous outside areas suddenly fail when you take the zipline to the end falling down to the lake (or sea whatever it was) and you can touch the end of the world. And that's all - you can't go back unless you reload. AND what were those marble tiles doing here in the middle of the jungle? The end was also rather confusing - why did Lara have to get through these levels anyway? She came empty handed and went home with nothing else but the new weaponry. All in all if you like Silent Viper's level editing style obviously you're going to enjoy this level set although I've played better levels from this author." - Treeble

"Though they're not dark these three jungle levels still manage to be creepy with the use of eerie background music skeletons lying around everywhere hidden corners and crawlspaces and of course you never know what might jump out at you like soldiers natives knights dinosaurs compys snakes the demon babies from Chronicles and even a T-Rex. There aren't any hard puzzles just some easier ones that are solved to collect objects needed to progress further in the levels: keys thistles gems and coin pieces open doors along the way. Lasers spikes and other deadly traps add to the spooky feeling of the levels and the best part of playing these is looking at the well built surroundings." - RaiderGirl

"As usual Christian has Lara with new hair outfit and weapons and the enemies retextured and many. Soldiers dinos little creatures all around. His favourite setting must be the jungle as almost if not all his levels have a jungle theme. Also the thistles are again used here along with key cards and plain keys. Always a nice break from the Egyptian and base levels although the base element is present as well. A set of fun levels to play." - Kristina

"Lara with her new haircut (strangely I had her ponytail appearing later in the game?) and a couple of fancy new weapons (a shotgun about as large as herself) continues her exploration in the Caribbean. The Cave (7/8/8/8, 40 min., 1 secret): There are still a couple of large and square rooms but overall this setting is quite convincing with good choice of textures and a few sneakily hidden items. The kick animation for the secret (a rose) is cool and there is good use of objects throughout (sometimes almost a little overdone). I shot the star using the shotgun with manual targeting (not sure if I missed the lasersight somewhere). You need to find a coin, two Golden Birds, two keys, a thistle and a jewel along the way and are treated to a movable block puzzle and of course a whole variety of enemies (counted around 30) including many dinos, baddies and other animals. Sanctuary (7/8/7/8, 20 min., 1 secret): Those little white guys at the start were a nice touch. I thought that this Sanctuary was quite strange and the 'technical elements' did not fit in at all, althought the lasers did look cool. Another coin, scroll, jewel, key card, key and two thistles to find - all rather obvious - and a burning floor puzzle is also included. Mountain Escape (6/7/9/7), 10 min.): A quick finale in a rather well built little mountain area. A few baddies to kill, a bit of climbing and jumping around and a zip line, which you need to let go of soon enough or you will be swimming around in the Caribbean sea until you starve to death. All in all this is more solid than Levels 1-3 of the series and provides for some good fun for the 70 minutes it lasts." - Michael

"I really enjoyed the first level of these 3 levels but each subsequent one seemed to lose steam until you come to the last and it is just a 7 minute jaunt to the end. The first set in caves and jungles had a lot of atmosphere with really nice use of a mix of enemies from natives and guards to raptors and a scary T-Rex in this one you get a movable block puzzle and a shooting puzzle apart from a lot of killing in the second you come across some creepy little white monsters and hooded black ghouls I think these come from 'All Hallows Eve' and again there is a bit of shooting as you burn a floor and find a couple of thistles (make sure you have the fixed level or you can't access one) and last and definitely least you are back in the jungle where you take a quick trip on a zipline and kill a few guards to end that's it. Like the first set of three the environment is the star of the show and everything else is just there to fill up the space." - Sash

"This is more a jungle level and there are in places so many plants that it is hard to run through them. Needing coins thistles keys and a card or else you won't go far. Looking back for me there was a feeling of a level not finished as I saw the sub couldn't swim there because of the current. Then there is at the end a zip line I used and I went too far as I ended up in a pool and there is no way out. There is also an area with some purple light way up what is there? There are different sort of enemies as tribesman soldiers with different outfits a T-Rex other dinosaurs also those tiny ones and I really feel sorry to shoot them. A first are those nasty white little creatures from TRC eeeeewwww. And there the trouble for me started as my screen on the PC and the Mac went black. Solved by using a saved game. Don't ask what happened as I still don't understand. Luckily I could go on and finding other artifacts and some climbing and jumping to do I could finish the level. After playing this and some others of Christian I noticed that he has a thing for weapons as I found 3 of the big guns he must like a lot in this level. Having played all Christians levels this one is far the best and still I have a feeling that it lacks in my opinion a certain something. 14-05-2003" - Gerty

"The first thing I want to say is - do not squander any health in this level you will need every last bit. Pickups may include quite a lot of fancy weaponry but medipacks are in short supply. This is a jungle setting split into three separate sections the transition between them being rather strange. In fact the beginning of part two was rather glitchy as my screen went black and froze three times in different areas. If you experience the same thing please do persevere as the problem resolves itself quite quickly and this is a most enjoyable level despite a bug or two. The enemies seem most appropriate for the setting and one persistent and deadly T Rex will certainly keep you on your toes. Fascinating to see two of those tiny white creatures (homunculi? mannikins? - whatever) from Black Isle. I can't recall having seen them in any other custom level. I spent an hour and a half running round this attractive level found two secrets and had a jolly good time. 16-05-2003" - Jay

"So finally the promise that Christian has hinted but not quite realized is beginning to show itself. These levels are far and away his best work to date and I thorougly enjoyed playing them. Now he is still not the perfectionist that Pascal or Rene B are. There are still some thin walls and the fixed camera in the last segement was more of a distraction thatn an enhancement to gameplay. The greatest improvement is that he has moved past the huge boxy rooms that defined his earlier levels. And where rooms were large they were quite well designed with a more realistic feel. The jungle atmosphere is nicely done here too. Enemies do play a large part including cannibals dinos black-hooded assassins (very creepy!)and various other armed bad guys. My favorite though were the "demon babies" from the TRC Ireland levels - especially since they can be dispatched with the weapon of your choice - but it's certainly the first time I've seen these in a custom level. Overall a very entertaining work and a big step forward in quality for the author. I look forward to seeing his next endeavor." - Tombaholic