The Hive

Finally!  FINALLY! 

I’m not saying Tomb Raider Gold was a waste of time.  It wasn’t.  But nevertheless, I’m glad it’s over.

Right, on to The Hive, which had the decency to be slightly more entertaining than the last level.  It’s also crammed to bursting point with Atlanteans and left me few chances to take pictures, so I’ve padded this post out with images of Lara doing awesome stuff.

 

Here we have – yes, you’ve guessed it – the start of the level.

 

A chess board and a plethora of boulders that really don’t understand the rules of the game.

 

No caption, I just thought it was a cool picture.

 

Lara attempts to duck and fails.  Keep trying, girl.

 

Again, no caption, just a cool picture.

 

A rare close-up of Lara’s angry shooting face.

 

Hahaha, stupid centaur.

 

Apparently killing Lara isn’t as important as laughing at whatever the hell is over there.

 

This Atlantean attempts to chew Lara’s angry shooting expression straight off her face.  Thank God for graphical limitations.

 

Although I was thankful it was static, it’s really not pleasant to round a corner and collide head-first with an Atlantean’s arse.

 

There were about sixteen Atlanteans in this room; luckily, not one of them had the ability to jump short heights and get to Lara’s slightly raised position.  Yeah, nice master race, Natla.

 

As eggs explode into golden confetti around her, Lara slides down to the exit.

 

:D :D :D :D :D

Tomb Raider II, here I come!

Atlantean Stronghold

I don’t know why I found Atlantean Stronghold so boring.  The level design was nice enough.  There were some fairly interesting buildings.  Still, I spent a good seven eighths of my time there wishing I wasn’t there, and hoping each doorway I ran through would trigger the end of the level.

 

So, we’re back to Atlantis, everybody’s favourite fleshy nightmare.

 

Atlantean construction materials still consist largely of glass and muscle tissue, it would appear.

 

One of the interesting buildings in the stronghold.  It looks like someone built a house in the style of a four-year-old’s drawing, and then knocked it on it’s side.

 

The same building extends though the ground into this room, which has those giant golden eggs Atlanteans like to develop in.

 

They’ll never be as scary as panther mummies.

 

Here are just three of the sixteen million levers featured in this level.  There are levers for everything here - opening doors, unleashing monsters - hell, there’s probably one for turning the whole place into a seventies-themed nightclub.

 

I mean, these underwater levers are as close to leopard-print as the game's graphical capabilities could get.

 

As I said, some levers unleashed Atlanteans, but it wasn’t like there were warning signs around the ones that did.

 

Here’s another picture of the building from earlier, but from a different angle.  I’m really running out of good screenshots.

 

Diving down this tunnel was the best five seconds of the whole affair.

 

Have they finally updated the horrifying decor?…no, it’s just the graphics card playing up.

 

I have never been so happy to see the final stats.

Although it’s highly unlikely, I nevertheless hope you enjoyed reading about this level more than I enjoyed playing it.  Only one more to go before I can begin my beloved Tomb Raider II…

Temple of the Cat

Well, my resolve was to have this whole level pack completed by the time the weekend was over.  It is now two days after that date and I have managed to finish the second level.  Still, it’s better than getting bored and giving up the blog for a year, eh?



We begin, in time-honoured tradition, at the start of the level.

The first area is some kind of zoo that showcases the Egyptian’s amazing barred fence that allows you to view the animals without being able to aim and shoot at them.  It’s like they knew Lara was coming.

Lara, seconds before her head is bitten off by a panther.

Here’s the title character of the piece, the Temple of the Cat.

The mummies take a moment out from trying to eat Lara to join her in running away from a boulder.

These are mummy prints.  Or potatoes.

The ‘Saphire’/’Gold’ key gets another makeover.  Is nothing sacred any more?!

Oh, really, another dark corridor?  Joy.

You can’t truly appreciate the bizarre glory of the walls of the temple in one screenshot, so here’s the animated version.

Continuing the Alice in Wonderland theme set by the last level, here’s Egypt’s answer to the Caterpillar.  Only, now he’s a dragon who doesn’t know how to use his giant cigar.

Just what every adventurer wants to see during her jaunt through Egypt; a wall of mummies.  There are four behind me as well.  That section certainly was a riot.

Looks like somebody got bored of texturing.

Considering Lara leaves the temple with nothing and doesn’t stop anybody from trying to take over the world, I’m forced to conclude that this giant cat statue was the reward for the last two levels.  Well, that was certainly worth all those mummies.

The end!  And it’s goodbye to Egypt until Tomb Raider IV.  Now we have to go back to Atlantis.  Uh…yay?

Return to Egypt

I must admit, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed when my third attempt to install Tomb Raider Gold was successful.  Having finally completed the first Tomb Raider game, I was just a little weary of running around Egypt and Atlantis and wanted to make my way to somewhere with a bit of sky.  However, for completion sake (and the fact that I have never actually played the levels in this game, apart from the start of the first one), I decided to give it a go.

The first level, Return to Egypt (the first part of the “Shadow of the Cat” portion of the game) has gone a big way to making it worth my while.  It was well designed, good-looking and challenging, and has made me impatient to play the rest of the levels.  So let’s get this review up and move on!



So, after killing Natla, Lara returns to Khamoon because she fancies taking one of those cat statues that she saw kicking around.

For whatever reason, Khamoon has flooded.  Also, the Sphinx seems to be winking at her, something it definitely wasn’t doing the first time Lara was here.

I remember admiring this statue for not coming alive and killing me.  Well, it still doesn’t, but it’s fairly independent in that respect.

How on earth did that panther get stuck up there?

Why does that one appear to have dropped a shotgun?

An amazing sight; the sky!  Unlike later Tomb Raiders, however, this “sky” is pretty obviously just a dark texture painted onto the ceiling.  It actually looks better in this screenshot that in the game.

Return to Egypt could just have easily been called “Too Many Crocodiles”.  I’m beginning to go off of them.

Behold, the world’s biggest and deadliest marble run.

This statue didn’t burst into life; it didn’t even bother to look my way.  Snooty cat.

Oh look, it’s our hellish old friend, the panther mummy.

The panther mummy falls through a trap door, and, like some Egyptian-themed Alice in Wonderland, Lara is enticed to go after it.  And there we have the end of the level. It took me a hell of a lot longer to play it than it did to write about it.  Never mind; on to the next chapter!