Perusing Pixels: The River Ganges

Sunday 3 March 2013

The River Ganges

The imagine of the levitating, mutilated corpses of fellow explorers Randy and Rory still fresh in her mind, Lara Croft leaves the thoroughly-explored temple ruins, still without the Infada artefact that she’s searching for. Running into mad camper Tony, last seen running into the woods and cackling, Lara sees that’s he’s had a bit more luck than her; imbedded into his chest is the Infada stone. A battle between the pair ensues, which, thanks to Tony’s new supernatural powers, ends with Lara almost being crushed by a pillar and watching helplessly as Tony rides his raft down the river and out of sight. Picking herself up, she makes to go after him on foot before spotting a better option: a quad bike.

Ah, The River Ganges. Surging rivers, roaring waterfalls, luscious greenery and exotic creatures; all this and more can be briefly glimpsed at as you hurtle past on a four-wheeler. I’m warning you now, this level is short. It took me longer to write that little synopsis up there than it did to complete it, and I’m not exactly a speed-runner. I kind of wish I’d gone after the secrets just for something to do.

So, onto the review. Don’t scroll down to fast because you may miss it:

A much nicer opening than the previous level; not a snake in sight and the awesome-looking quad bike parked plainly in view.

Cons: No mounted gun. Pros: Doesn’t look like this.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!……

……eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…oh crap…REVERSE REVERSE REVERSE RE-

Never mind, Lara can always hijack an eagle and take on that Infada-thieving madman from above. Not that the eagle looks too happy about its sudden promotion.

“At least she’s not kicking me in the face…”

The quad bike/annoyed bird path eventually ends when the river gives way to a small waterfall.

Tony’s raft lies broken at the bottom of the falls, but the man himself has disappeared, along with Lara’s artefact.

There’s only one way he could have gone. Lara heads after him…

…WHAT?!

Twenty minutes and a secret?

I thought I’d somehow managed to skip a huge chunk of the level, so I looked it up, and no, it turns out there are two ways to get to the end, and I’d inadvertently picked the (marginally) easier route. So I started again, opting to go right instead of left this time:

Lara is soon confronted by a locked door, forcing her to get off her bike and actually do some work.

There’s a lot of monkeys this side of the level, but most of them go to their best efforts to avoid a fight, from hiding behind bushes to out-and-out surrendering…

Not that it does them any good. This is Lara Croft we’re talking about.

Lara finds the two keys needed to unlock the gate fairly easily, and is able to continue on her journey.

It’s not long before we’re back at the broken raft waterfall…

And we’re done (again)! This time, in a more respectable thirty minutes (albeit with no secrets, but I think we can all accept that I’m not a secret-getting person).