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Alien Artefact 1-3: Venice/Jovia/Egypt by Ekim

alan 5 4 3 3
CC 6 4 3 3
Ceamonks890 3 3 3 3
Dimpfelmoser 4 4 4 3
Ejecta 3 2 1 2
eTux 5 4 4 4
Gerty 4 4 3 3
Jay 4 3 4 3
Jose 2 3 4 4
Kristina 5 4 5 5
Magnus 3 3 2 3
manarch2 3 3 3 4
Mehrbod 4 3 4 3
MichaelP 6 4 2 4
Orbit Dream 6 5 5 3
RaiderGirl 5 5 4 5
Ryan 3 3 4 4
Sash 6 6 4 6
Staticon 6 5 4 4
Treeble 6 5 5 3
 
release date: 11-Jan-2001
# of downloads: 81

average rating: 3.86
review count: 20
 
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file size: 24.70 MB
file type: TR4
class: Egypt
 


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Reviewer's comments
"A sloppily made and incoherent trilogy, its sole claim to fame ought to be its status as the first release in the TRLE universe comprising sequential levels, but this achievement has been dampened considerably by the fact that the script files were configured incorrectly, meaning that each part has to played like a standalone and one level can’t even be completed truly without the unattainable prerequisite items from the others. Perhaps some amount of technowizardry could be deployed here in order to string these maps together into one cohesive unit, but they’re not at all worth that kind of effort: Each environment has been constructed thoughtlessly, consisting of maddeningly large rooms decorated with unattractive repeating textures overflowing with empty space and furnished with the bare minimum of gameplay. Custom music was initially provided as mentioned by other reviewers but those particular files have since disappeared from the download package within the past two decades, leaving in their wake an aural void which serves to emphasise all of the other problems in this levelset. I will mention the proper implementation of glass flooring in the second level which really does come as a pleasant surprise considering the state of all else, and there are some rooms featuring slopework and a sequence involving poles set above fire pits which will momentarily stimulate the senses, but I struggle to note anything else praiseworthy here… and where the hell even is Jovia anyway?!" - Ejecta (05-Jan-2024)
"To my surprise, this debut was the first multiple-leveled ever realeased ( if I'm not mistaken ). Well, this didn't influence the game's atmosphere at all, means that some elements like stretched textures, too boxy and big rooms, lack of lighting, made the game a little boring and below average unfortunately. I wish I could see more out of this. Thank you!" - Mehrbod (10-Jan-2019)
"A series of three very short levels, with no definitive flow between them and as a consequence they have to be played separately. The textures are a bit sloppily applied and the rooms are unnecessarily large for the amount of gameplay they contain. There's a few ninja attacks and a fun slope jump sequence across burners in Egypt, but that doesn't really count for much. Not a whole lot to recommend." - Ryan (21-May-2018)
"Not very funny this three short levels with an odd gameplay. In venice the receptacle to open the door in the first room is too far, and not properly triggers (I think only one on a single tile) to automatically open the doors to the outside area. The level called "Jovia" is not so bad, but too much no lineal and the uzis I found near the end were totally unuseful. The Egyptian level has a nasty maze, and no hints to open one of the closed doors there, you'll need to explore it almost completely with no sense; boring! The texturization is usually bad, with many elongated and deformed textures, there are some musics to create atmosphere but the rooms are too huge and empty (as usual in that first TR4 levels) without interesting tasks. Where are the camera shots? Sorry but not recommended." - Jose (08-Nov-2017)
"Levelset consisting in 3 levels: I: EGYPT.- Boxy rooms, stretched textures but near the final room, it looked kinda dark and it was a bit OK. II: JOVIA.- The jumps in the sliding slopes were fun, also collecting the puzzle items. It uses textures from TR3 London section, but still with flat lighting and boxy rooms. III: VENICE.- It could be the worst one as it's short, the textures are stretched, still with boxy rooms, some lighting was used to darken certain areas and at the end you find the first piece of the ba cartouche, which is the one that was missing in the Egypt level. Also when Lara holds a flare while picking up an object, using it or pulling a lever, it will deactivate. In addition, I don't know what was the alien artefact. In summary, not a good levelset. It needs to improve its atmosphere." - alan (01-Aug-2017)
"This is a series of three very short levels, which pretty much show their age in terms of quality of building and the rudimentary nature of the gameplay. Far and away the best section is the Egypt one, which does at least have some attractive textures and a nice slide and bounce sequence involving climbing poles and fire burners. Otherwise, there's not really a lot here to tempt." - Jay (10-Feb-2015)
"While certainly a step up somewhat from the builder's initial debut, that still doesn't make this three-part levelset any more engaging from before, with a lot of the design elements feeling halfheartedly slapped together in the vain hope that something will stick and win potential players over. Well, I'm sorry to say this, but I'm afraid it fails to do so in any meaningful way, with plenty of uninspired blocky rooms, repetitive texturing, uneventful gameplay and thrown-in enemies/objects only setting to undermine what Ekim is attempting to achieve(with the implementation of the objects getting particularly nonsensical in the latter levels.) So overall, just another uninteresting release from the builder in question that should be avoided, unless you're a reviewer looking for something easy to talk about." - Ceamonks890 (02-Dec-2014)
"Venice: Just killing few enemies and finding few items. There were unmarked ladders and an extremely annoying search when shooting nearly a hundred vases to get a hand of orion. Texturing was very streched and it didn't look nice.
Jovia: The best-looking level, it also was a little longer and had more gameplay elements. Still it was not much fun, but textures were interesting.
Egypt: A very uninteresting start, with a long spiral corridor, the level afterwards turns into a maze and you find a cartouche piece, but not second so the level is over before you find the end trigger. Texturing was OK, one nice cutscene here, but again a not well marked ladder.
All in all a levelpack that should not have been released in its current state, the levels had no good gameplay and overall bad textures, atmosphere was mostly not good and enemies were not that various and the fights were not fun. I did not find the only secret in this level, but I am not going back and search for it, as these levels are no fun, sorry." - manarch2 (05-Mar-2011)
"Three separate levels that should have been connected since the last level can't be finished otherwise. Ah who cares anyway? It's not like it matters. The only level that was even remotely enjoyable was the third one and even that one was uninspired easy and short. Together these three levels only took fifteen minutes to finish. But as so often with levels like these that's a good thing. I don't think I would have been able to stand running around in huge badly textured rooms any longer." - Magnus (29-Jan-2004)
"I played these three levels separately and having played them I wasn't really interested in trying to figure out how to run them together. VENICE: A house and courtyard enclosed by high walls over which you can see the desert and you get to climb up later to finish the level. (Some Venice textures otherwise it's a desert level). The house is really one huge room with a balcony on which stand 50 vases to shoot and they yield ammo and a star. The star opens another small room with 2 vases that yield the two halves of the eyepiece. JOVIA: A sort of Base. Very badly textured in places and water that doesn't move. A huge ladder that takes you up two floors pull a pharaoh's statute-pick up a cartouche-and get out of the way of a falling spike boulder and two pillar jumping rooms the second one was longer and good fun all to get another eyepiece. EGYPT: Now we're talking. You start in a huge room with statues that you just know you have to move to get that door open. This took a while to figure out. The next room is rather nice looking with a pool and seated ram statues around it. You swim into a a tall room with more statues to move and mummys that won't leave you alone. This is quite unique. You must move the most appropriate statues so you can access the ladders backflip to poles and climb up to the reception committee upstairs. Onto a room with boulders suspended over squares you need to trigger to open the door. And finally to a very easy boulder/switches room. Naturally I couldn't use the cartouche in the last room because I lost it in Venice : -D." - CC (05-Aug-2003)
"Playing this level almost 2 years after its release convinced me that I am spoiled. To be honest I couldn't be bothered to get the url of Ekims homepage to look up what I needed to do to make this one playable game. So of course I was short of one half of the Cartouche in the end. Play it if you are bored. A shame that Ekim couldn't be bothered to make them playable as one and also cleaned it up a bit. 29-12-2002" - Gerty (29-Dec-2002)
"Though I liked this short 'series' better than Ekim's other levels it still seems like he was just playing around with the editor trying to figure out how it works. The levels are fairly short and most of the time gameplay consists of opening doors running though large rooms and shooting things. The levels never really grabbed me and I was glad to move on to something else. Looks like Ekim could make a real winner someday though." - RaiderGirl (27-Nov-2002)
"I reckon this threesome of small levels is meant to be played in a row since I found a piece of the cartouche in Venice that I was missing in Egypt but the author just tells you to rename each tom file to tut1.tom and convert. I guess you should rename the Egypt tom to tut1.tom then convert and rename the tut1.tr4 to settomb.tr4 but since Ekim didn't bother to tell you this I didn't bother to do so. Right you get the mummies in Egypt of course and otherwise it's just ninjas. There is a rather pointless jump sequence as you can skip half of it by simply pulling up to a block near the end; there are some statues to move and -don't you just know it- a tedious maze. However you can skip half of the maze cause you don't really need to find the lever as you can run/grab over the burning tile one story below. The Jovia level is a bit more contemporary as far as the design is concerned and you'll encounter some resistance so I guess this is the showdown and therefore this part should be played last. There is one backflip from a pole that I found mildly amusing but otherwise this triple feature left we somewhat bored." - Dimpfelmoser (24-Aug-2002)
"Although this game is 3 levels rolled into one each one is very short and added up to around 40 minutes of full game time. The first set in mainly two large rooms has you hunting down the first piece of a cartouche the second set in a three-storied building is the only level that has a secret and a few fun sloping block jumps and the third set in an Egyptian like area has one of the only real interesting maneuvers that had me setting myself alight quite a few times as well as some spiked boulder traps and the second half of the cartouche. I had to play these levels as separate entities from each other as I couldn't work out how to install them as a combined game which didn't seem to have any detrimental effect in the playing of it until the very end where I could not open a last gate without the first cartouche piece from the first level but going by Michael's time which corresponded roughly with mine for the third level it seems that may have been the end gate anyway." - Sash (21-Jun-2002)
"This as a big download not only because it is three levels in one but also because of some custom music included. The biggest problem is that the readme does not explain enough how to set up the sequence of the levels. With the help of the authors homepage you can figure it out though. Another issue is that you need a puzzle piece from the first level in the third but due to the loadscreen bug you cannot move from the second into the third level so I had a savegame at the end of level one and then after playing level 2 to check it out made the move directly from Level 1 to Level 3. So here is some critique about the levels in the order they are supposedly to be played: Level 1 - Venice: A few big rooms and a vase shooting frenzy and you are through after 5 minutes maximum. Important to play though to get the first half of the cartouche piece you will need in Egypt. Level 2 - Jovia: Again very big rooms with some stretched and missing textures. It does include one fun jumping sequence in a room with many badies but again very short - I got through in about 12 minutes. Level 3 - Egypt: This one has a nice puzzle as a combination of mummies pushable object climbable wall jump with turn in mid-air poles and fire. Also has a maze and a couple of other reasonably fun elements to play but again it is short and took me less than 10 minutes to complete (after I had figured out that I would need the cartouche piece from Venice). All in all a little bit too much hassle with downloading converting and copying of files for the levels you actually get to play then." - Michael (21-Jun-2002)
"This is a interesting game but until today I did not finish it because of a cartouche that we get in level 1 and need it just later in level 3. Also the level has stretched textures stopped water and very big rooms."- Treeble (21-Jun-2002)
"Venice: Short duration large empty rooms no real puzzle elements. Shooting all the Vases was the only enjoyable part. Jovia: Also short interestingly chosen (though not too well applied) textures still too many overly large rooms. An excellent surprise booby trap was the best part. Egypt: A little gem of an Egyptian level. A fun jumping challenge (which could be short-cut somewhat by unsporting TR players) a really good pole jumping challenge lots of quite well placed enemies and some good lighting and textures. The weak points are the short duration amusing ignorance of the guards in the final room and the fact that you need a save game from the Venice level to open the final door and complete the adventure. A definite learning curve on the part of the designer can be traced through these three little adventures. So how can I grade 3 separate levels of differing quality? Well I'll just have to average them all out which seems a little unfair. As they come as three separate files I would recommend that players download Egypt and leave the other two for a very rainy day. They would be presented with a fun and challenging little level." - Orbit Dream (21-Jun-2002)
"The main problem with these very short levels was that I couldn't get them as a sequel therefore I played each of them separately. One of them is five minutes with many vases to shoot and a hand to be found and an Eye to be able to jump to the second level. The other one is a little bigger but still the textures in all of them are badly placed another Eye two more hands and some slopes not difficult at all. Coming to the last part it seemed better than the previous two but still not good enough. One area with poles and fire around plus a maze and some spike balls that didn't go down when you were passing from their tiles. After sliding down to find some more spike balls and more levers as well I had to finish without finishing actually as I couldn't play them together so I was missing half of the cartouche. I can't say I enjoyed them." - Kristina (21-Jun-2002)
"As has been stated before this game consists of three very short levels neatly summed up by Michael. Also like Sash I was unable to get the three parts to work together so also played them as three separate levels. I must say that I enjoyed them. Sure there were stretched and missing textures the lighting was flat and even and the enemies scant and easy to beat but it did give me a pleasant Sunday afternoon Tomb Raiding without having to think too hard. Give it a go just for fun. I've seen worse." - Staticon (21-Jun-2002)
"Sadly you can't play these levels in an order so you have to play them separately. Each of the levels has something interesting and original in it but the good things are shaded by the bad things too much and we neither get a story or the alien artefact at the end (wherever it was). I don't know if I could add anything the other reviewers already hadn't but I'll say one more thing - it's not really worth it." - eTux (21-Jun-2002)