The Dragon’s Lair

So it all comes down to this; The Dragon’s Lair.  The final stage in Lara’s pursuit of the Dagger of Xian, a quest that has led her to China, Venice, Tibet and even the darkest corners of the ocean floor.

And now she just has to murder a dragon and wrench the dagger out of its still-beating heart.  Should be simple enough.

The finale itself is pretty short.  It’s basically a chain of three rooms, in varying sizes, each containing a different type of enemy to ward off.  There’s not much room for the fancy acrobatics Lara’s relied on in recent levels, but there’s plenty of opportunity to get ammo’d up and kill some bad guys.

 

The start of the level and it’s a relief to see that, unlike last time, we’re not immediately thrust into battle with the big bad boss.

 

I have nothing to say about this image other than I thought it was pretty awesome.

 

After battling her way through the first room (spearmen), Lara finds herself in a dimly-lit area, facing the possibility of a painful death via…uh…being frowned at?  Seriously, that is the stance of a man that has pretty much given up with trying to stop her.

 

The first thing I thought when I saw this pick-up was that one of the cultists had laid an egg.  I need to stop playing Minecraft.

 

I wouldn’t get too complacent, the dragon behind this door certainly ain’t as friendly as the one on it.

 

Lara finds Marco Bartoli lying on a slab and celebrates with a head spin.

 

Angered by being shown up on the dance floor (and because he’s got a enchanted blade rammed into the ol’ ticker), Marco turns into a dragon and starts trying to cook and/or eat Lara.

 

It took a few thousands rounds from the Uzis before I finally gave up and used the easy-sneaky method from Stella’s walkthrough.  Hey, it isn’t cheating if Lara didn’t have to draw a flare and do a little dance for it.

 

At last!  The Dagger of the Xian of ours.  And hey, look, there’s a spare one still stuck in him in case we lose this one.

 

Plucking the dagger from out of the dragon’s underbelly causes the whole thing to melt, leaving a skeleton that is no doubt going to bamboozle some palaeontologists at a later stage.

 

The dagger successfully recovered, Lara makes a break for freedom.

The Dagger of Xian stowed safely away in her backpack, Lara makes a hasty exit from the temple, which is starting to fall down around her.

You really wouldn’t want to look down an alleyway and see this coming towards you.

Lara reaches the surface just as a massive explosion rocks the temple and throws her hurtling into the air.

Wheeeeeeeeee!  This is even better than spring-boards.

Lara falls to the ground and passes out, while the continuing explosion devastates the surrounding area.

After an involuntary nap, Lara wakes up and finds that she’s inadvertently blown up part of the Great Wall of China.  Hey-ho, there’s tons of it left.

Her work done, Lara heads for home.

Aaaand that’s the end of Tomb Raider II.  Nearly.

Floating Islands

Well done to Core Design for not opting for a more whimsical level name; Floating Islands is what it’s called and floating islands is what it is.  Well, that and floating enemies, floating temples and floating random pieces of neon-green jade - in fact, pretty much the only thing that isn’t acting like it’s been injected with industrial-strength helium is Lara herself.

Marco Bartoli has beaten Lara to the Dagger of Xian, and has attempted to utilize its dragon-transforming abilities by stabbing himself in the heart.  Refusing to give up just yet, Lara follows his body as Marco’s goons carry it away.

After all the thrills of the last level, starting out in Floating Islands seems strangely serene, probably because this is the first time in a while Lara has been able to stand still without incurring the wrath of various spike-laden implements.

 

Of course, all this serenity and peacefulness can’t last for long.  Floating Islands is the level that introduces the flying warriors, massive tanks of men that each wield a sword the size of small boat.  As if this wasn’t enough, they all seems to be sporting some kind of rocket-powered footwear (very ancient Chinese-y, I’m sure) and can take to the sky at will.  It’s fairly easy to kill them in the air, because they move rather slowly, but a couple of times I didn’t notice them flying about and got a rather unpleasant surprise when they decided to use Lara as a runway strip.

 

Believe me, you don’t want one of these bad boys on the ground with you.  Seriously, look at the size of that sword.

 

Once defeated, the warriors turn into statues and explode, which is a shame, because I wouldn’t have minded a pair of those flying boots.

 

Still, the flying warriors are like irritating little bats compared to their more numerous cousin, the spearmen.  What they lack in flying skills they make up for – and then some – in almost every other aspect.  They’re fast, strong and have a fondness for impaling Lara on their spears like she’s a marshmallow.

 

This is a pretty awesome site, when you come to it; a pretty little bridge in a picturesque setting that leads to a big temple that seems to be on fire.

 

Oh, hey, it’s a zip slide!  Haven’t seen one of those for a while.

 

One pleasant moment inside the temple is when this curtain lifts to reveal three spearmen.  Like they’re a prize or something.

 

I love this picture.  M16 versus Spears!

 

Fire: a perfectly viable building material.

 

Eventually, the level gets bored of acting like there’s any chance it wants you to escape alive and plunges you into a room filled to bursting point with spearmen and a new breed of Bartoli’s henchmen, who can throw cursors knives with deadly accuracy.

 

This happened far more frequently than I would want to admit.  Note how Knife-Throwing Guy looks kind of upset about it.

 

Lara takes a moment to salute one of the knife-throwers as he’s blown to smithereens by one of her grenades.

 

She indulges another guard in a spirited game of peek-a-boo between rounds.  Stop fraternizing with the enemy, Lara!

 

Pictured: overkill.

 

And that’s the end of Floating Island.  We’re nearing the journey’s end now – just two teeny little levels to go.

Temple of Xian

Spike-pits.  Sliding.  Spiders (Giant).  All this and then another hundred thousand buckets full of this can be found in the Temple of Xian, a level concerned with exploring the titular temple and its surrounding area.  The level picks up where its locational predecessor The Great Wall left off, randomly plunging Lara into lengthy gauntlets of spiked walls, rolling spikes, spikey swinging bags and anything else that could feasibly have a spike glued to it.

Any rare moment when Lara is not impaled on some macabre instrument of death can be spent admiring the surroundings, which are, for the most part, absolutely stunning; huge waterfalls, intricate murals and dragon-themed fixtures are just a few of the many delightful things you can glimpse as you run (or slide) screaming from a giant, spike-incrusted spider that would probably shoot spikes at you as well if it could get close enough.

Lara has finally opened the entrance to the Temple of Xian, within which lays the coveted Dagger of Xian.

Not content with the old “starting off in front of a dark corridor” trope, Temple of Xian goes one better and just plunges you straight into the dark corridor.  Which is in front of a light corridor.  We’re really pushing the paradigm here.

 

This is the door last glimpsed in The Great Wall.  Yes, it’s taken us thirteen levels to get through it.

 

This room is the polar opposite of that textureless room from Temple of the Cat.  Evidently they replaced that artist with a click-happy enthusiast.

 

There it is, at last!  The Dagger of Xian!  To think, at the start of the first level we were less than a mile from it, and now, finally, it’s within our reach…

 

Of course, nothing is that easy, and the previous owners of the artefact guarded it well against anybody silly enough to think they can just walk up and take it.  The floor surrounding the dagger gives way and Lara finds herself sliding down a waterfall (probably being chased by a boulder, I can’t remember).  To compensate, the game gave me an opportunity to execute one of those awesome-camera-angle swan-dives, so it’s not all bad.

 

After a brief bit of swimming about, Lara stumbles across the Temple of Xian.

 

Fed up with walls and blocks, Lara has found a tiger (who has the ability to apparate) to hug, but the tiger doesn’t seem so keen.  That’ll teach you for running away from those cute snowman boulders, Lara.

 

This image bypasses any erotic appeal and goes straight for terrifying.

Alternate caption: Hahaha, BOOBS.

 

I hope it’s clear to see what’s going on here.  Basically, Lara is kicking an eagle in the face.

 

Still riding high on the extra-credit awesome of the above picture, Lara pauses to take a dip in some highly-corrosive, highly-flammable red gunge and somehow leaves unscathed.

 

Then she just casually leaps into a spike pit without sustaining even the smallest scratch.  I suppose this new-found ability to cheat physics kind of makes up for the fact that this level is 90% sharp and pointy.

 

Inside the temple dwell a collection of life-size warrior statues (it could be a terracotta army, which I have just this minute learnt about(TR just keeps on teaching!)), some of which bare an striking resemblance to Sir Ian McKellen.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Okay, maybe Ian McKellen’s half-Chinese son.

 

I wasn’t joking about the amount of spikey traps in this level.  Even your bog-standard “death by crushing walls” had to be pimped up with some of those things.

 

Never have I wanted to descend down a dark pit more (well, since the last level).

 

“Sure, she’ll probably be die from blunt force trauma or being drowned in highly toxic acid, but neither of those deaths have to ability to perforate the body like we, the temple designers, apparently desire.”

 

Lara’s surroundings inspire her to burst into song.  “The tombs are alive…with the sound of multiple-opportunities-for-a-slow-and-painful-death…”

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a Tomb Raider musical?  I would happily volunteer my services as lyricist.

 

Another close call.  Actually, it wasn’t that close, she died.

 

This is the part of the level I was dreading; the entrance to the infamous “spider cave”.  Last time I played this level (aged 15) I had to have my mother sit next to me while I went through it, and so, this time, I waited for my husband to get home before I ventured inwards.  I called him into the room to stand guard while I took my first, tentative steps into the dark hole, only to dismiss him thirty seconds later when I realised that I wasn’t exactly quaking in terror.  Apparently, 15-year-old me was a bit of a wimp.

 

To be fair, giant spiders are pretty scary if you’re not expecting them to leap on you from out of nowhere.

 

*shudder* Why can’t they just explode, like the little ones?

 

This giant, glowing brain, suspended in the middle of the room, was in fact the nest from which these spiders were all coming from.  This time round, I think that freaked me out more than the spiders did.

 

This pose is less extreme yoga and more suicidal breakdancing. 

 

Finally, Lara manages to climb back up to where she started the level, only to find out that Marco has snatched up the dagger for himself and is now apparently staging his own musical performance.

“I believe in a thing called love…[something incredibly high and unintelligible]…”

 

Makes Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off that bat look pretty tame, huh?

 

No gig is complete without a spot of crowdsurfing.

Marco Bartoli plunges the Dagger of Xian into his chest, apparently killing himself.  His body falls backwards into the waiting arms of his minions, who carry him off down a(nother) dark corridor.

All the messed-up stuff Lara’s experienced and this she finds shocking?

 

Of course, Lara can’t be watching other people parade up and down dark corridors without having to get a piece of that action for herself.

 

Hmph.