trle.net
Your host for all Tomb Raider Custom Levels ever released!

Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3137
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 132
TR1 - 60

72200 reviews (20.4/level)
3528 (99.7%) walkthroughs
442 Hall of Fame levels
1216 levels rated >= 8

TR Fan Site

 


TR Apocalypse 1 - Midnight Madness by Leveldesigner

DJ Full 5 2 4 6
dmdibl 4 3 4 3
eRIC 4 4 4 4
Gerty 3 2 2 3
Jay 3 4 4 4
Jerry 2 2 3 3
MichaelP 4 4 4 3
MpGrill 1 2 2 2
Orbit Dream 4 2 2 2
Oxy 7 3 7 5
rtrger 2 2 3 3
Ryan 3 3 4 2
Treeble 3 3 3 3
 
release date: 22-Feb-2009
# of downloads: 63

average rating: 3.27
review count: 13
 
review this level

file size: 21.40 MB
file type: TR4
class: nc
 


author profile(s):
email(s):
level-designer@hotmail.com

Reviewer's comments
"Part two never came to fruition, but even this one apparently has been released in a hurry. For whatever reason the title screen is tut1 instead, with the camera flying like crazy through the walls and stuff. Also, the provided tomb4.exe doesn't really work, but there's been no apparent loss in replacing it. The level starts in the middle of a pitch black fog, always fun, but fortunately it's contained so while it's generally dark it's quite manageable without the use of flares. A few jumps, a lot of keys, and some enemies later you'll reach the end. I have no idea whatever this was meant to be, I'm guessing a city of sorts but the massive mix of different texture sets (plus the BtB-Asia background audio) made it look like anything but. 20 minutes, 2 secrets. 06/22" - Treeble (19-Jun-2022)
"You might want to replace the tomb4.exe included in the download with the original one, as otherwise when you save the game will crash to the desktop. The gameplay is embryonic with not much to entertain or tax the brain, with a few simple jump tasks, levers to pull and items to find. Darkness is plastered on thoughtlessly (the opening area is pretty much pitch-black so you'd be forgiven in thinking the level had packed up) and the sounds are irritatingly mismatched. I can't recommend it in this state." - Ryan (13-Oct-2017)
"Unplayable from the download and the only way I could play it was to use the original TITLE.TR4 as well as the TOMB4 EXE and change the script from TUT1 to TITLE. Had to add flares as it was way too dark and hardly any flare pick-ups. What do I remember after walking around for hours on end? A maze, even if it didn't look like a maze, it still was one. Finding a lot of levers and keys (and I hope you have a good memory) finding again what door you opened. Textures were stretched, invisible blocks in front of doors and apart from some platform jumping there is not much to do. There are some enemies and be careful where you kill them as they mostly have something what you need." - Gerty (27-Nov-2013)
"The lighting was sometimes very dark, but I had enough flares and I must say that green sparkles fitted the dark blue ambience very well. Textures was of good quality and of wide variety, and even if stretched, they were not so badly applied, so they didn't disturbed me at all. It's very fine thing the author can make something creative even if he doesn't finish his work on something, like on these average textures. What is more, sometimes I was feeling rather good, chinese-masonic atmosphere, and lighting cooperating with texturing made this impression better, so I give an extra point here. Enemies, as I said, are buggy, and the objects are not so creative, but there is enough of them to build dense interaction environment. So 1 point for the objects and 1 more for the secrets and the enemies together, as IMO that last two subcategories don't deserve any point when rated separately. I found the gameplay good, as I like getting a key and suddenly emerge in a familiar place. That is beautiful, when feeling of being lost changes to feeling of being found in split second. Puzzles: average keys, slots and levers, but quite nicely looking and placed. And it was either fine thing with that "locked" door, or a kind of misplacement. I think it was rather the second option, but it doesn't matter as long as the result is fine - this puzzle differed from the other. Sounds are either customized and well applied, or not placed at all. And the ambient music may be tiring for a dozen minutes of listening. Cameras: there are three I remembered, but it's not enough for 2 points. Atmosphere... hey, I've already said that - it's very good. SUMMARY: Hey, I like this level! Full of non-existing sounds and non-attacking enemies, but having a really nice climate despite of all this unfinishment. Recommended, as a short break or as anything else being that short and fine!" - DJ Full (13-Nov-2010)
"This took me months to finally play because of odd author packaging. Every time I installed this game it would start to load and then crash. I made sure all original audio files from the level editor were installed. I added a save folder. I tried using different tomb4.exe files. The game would start to load and then crash. Finally I thought to look at the SCRIPT.DAT file. This doesn't check for a title.tr4, but instead looks for a tut1.tr4 (though it doesn't seem to ever use this file). Other builders often provide a tut1.tr4, so I had renamed mine tut1-o.tr4, thus the check for a tut1.tr4 failed. That author conceit ultimately cost me hours of work. The level itself is all about moving through an oppressive maze-like system with high vertical walls and deep shafts, many with stretched textures. Lighting is much too dark, so I gave Lara extra flares. This meant spending the game with flares burning out every few seconds, and Lara lighting new ones constantly. Everything is about finding keys and opening the next door. Sometimes Lara has to retrace steps, though I don't remember any camera shots helping. Enemies either run away from Lara, so she shoots them in the back, or else run in maddening circles around her so that Lara can't get a bead on them. No scenery, unless you enjoy back alleys, and some sounds missing. This is designed to make players feel like a rat in a maze." - dmdibl (18-May-2010)
"This level should have never been released, seriously. Well, one thing I liked in this one is finding a way to avoid a boulder. But that's all. Rest of the level is incredibly boring, go up and down for keys, pull switches, shimmying and such. Oh, and the exe file is screwed up. But instead of alt+f4 out of the game every time I just put the original tr4.exe to the folder, so it wasn't a big problem. Don't waste your time with it." - rtrger (29-Mar-2010)
"Best I can say about this level is that its download size is rather small. It was very buggy for me technically. First time I tried to save the game was freezing, I could only leave it by Alt + F4 and I couldn't restart it once again, as the exe didn't work any more. But my pc slowed down instead and I had to restart it. Second try, same trouble - freeze, slow down, restart of pc. Creating a save folder didn't help. Then I found out that the tomb4.exe had to be finished in the processes of the task manager, then I could restart the game again, and at least the savegame worked. But each time I saved - same procedure. I don't understand why a level is released when it doesn't work properly. This spoilt the fun for me and I admit I wouldn't have gone through all this if it wasn't for the sake of the review wishlist.
First thing that strikes the eye while playing is many stretched textures, a lot of sounds missing, a rather dark ambience, invisible blocks in front of some doors and last not least missing camera hints. Gameplay-wise it's looking for switches and some keys and shooting some guys (who were mostly not interested in doing Lara any harm but ran into a closed door instead and got stuck there). Nothing more to say about this work." - Jerry (17-Aug-2009)
"I could easily write an essay on the definition of the word 'Room' in lower-rated Custom levels and how it differs from that in your average Dictionary.This level provides an excellent practical example for those wishing to know;for,although there are only 9 rooms in this level,none bear any passing resemblance at all to 'rooms' as you or I would recognise them in the traditional sense.Instead,these are the sorts of rooms which exist purely for the exigencies of the contrived gameplay on offer.You have a 'slidy-ramp jumping room';a 'rolling-boulder room';a 'multiple door-opening room' and another 'slidy-ramp jumping room' (just for good measure) -almost none of which contain roofs,nor make any concession to bearing any resemblance to rooms which could actually exist. The resultant gameplay is as fun as can be expected (although far too much time was spent having to pull levers to open a multitude of nearby doors),with a rolling-boulder challenge being particularly novel;but no-where was there any sense of being in an actual place,with the lacklustre texturing and lighting doing nothing to aid this. You know the builder is starting to lose inspiration when a lever opens a door placed immediately next to it;and,indeed,the level ends shortly after at a completely arbitrary point with Lara having ultimately achieved absolutely nothing at all. Like so many other levels of its type,it whiles away a few vacant minutes (about 20,in my case);but you'd be hard-pressed to recommend it." - Orbit Dream (04-Apr-2009)
"The beginning of this level is very nice and promising. I liked the dark green atmosphere, pushable blocks, searching for keys and switches to proceed. Saving the game is little problem. When you save, game freezes so I suggest playing in window mode before saving (ALT plus Enter switches the game to window). This way you can easily save, terminate the game, reload and continue playing. Without that way I had to restart computer. Wad has also missing sounds. I didn't like to kill those poor guys who has run to the closed door (which is very good idea if they weren't enemies) and I had to shoot them in the back. :-( Also some guys didn't attack me and they were only running around like mad-mans. You had to kill them too, because that way you got the key. The blue areas in game were too dark. I liked the rolling-ball jump, took me some time to master it. Great work. Also jumping over door was funny. I never saw something like this before. :-) Rooms are square and empty, architecture too simple, climbing walls well designed. I liked the game-play (35 minutes) which is quite linear. I didn't get lost and have found one secret. :-)" - Oxy (20-Mar-2009)
"Midnight madness : a level that must be played at night , as it is very dark, and even so I could not see a thing around at the beginning without boosting the gamma a lot. Now this is not a bad first effort, we have seen dozens and dozens of other beginners efforts that were far worst. There is many keys and other artefacts to find and use, along with some switches, and I think that the falsely labyrintic room with all these doors to open was not that boring, and somewhat comical. And I liked the dive jump above one of the doors with an appropriate fixed camera. The rest of the level is more straightforward and simple , there is a sneaky spiked ball to avoid. If there is beginner mistakes in the looks , I find that the eclectic texturing works rather well and Lara looks 3D which is always a plus. The main technical flaw is the massive missing sounds, but as I was playing with the TR1 caves theme in background (a faulty installation from me probably) I found the rather silent"atmosphere" appropriate. Not a bad effort really, a level that was not unpleasant the time it lasted, and there is hints here that the author has potential for ideas , and as I said the author has worked on the lighting. 18 minutes." - eRIC (07-Mar-2009)
"Again a bad debut level with really boring gameplay.You have to collect a few keys,push some switches and open doors...and repeat this a few times and youre done! Its so dark and monotone and its no fun to search for the swithes and keys!" - MpGrill (28-Feb-2009)
"This is a short debut level - not much more than a demo really - that finds Lara in the land of a thousand doors, or at least that's what it feels like. It hasn't a great deal to recommend it really - minimal gameplay, mainly involving getting all those doors open, and shooting the occasional thug, which is pretty easy considering they keep running into doors (probably because there's more door than wall in some areas). It's also very dark in places and, if you do decide to download it, be prepared not to save much as it freezes every time you do. It's not entirely without promise, but I think the builder needs to go away and practise quite a bit before releasing another level and really, really give more thought to entertaining gameplay." - Jay (24-Feb-2009)
"The most intriguing feature of this debut demo level is probably how much a builder can squeeze into as little as 9 (nine!) rooms. It has a fairly darkish 20 minutes to offer, hunting for one switch and key after the next, with a little bit of backtracking thrown in and a handful of bad guys to shoot. There is also a single boulder trap to master, but little else to get your adrenalin pumping. With the provided exe my TR installation would freeze when saving, but the saving worked nonetheless, so reloading was possible. I am actually assuming though, that this game can easily be played with the standard tomb4.exe as well. What the builder primarily needs to work on, as he expands on this demo, are the correct placement of doors (ie between rooms and correctly rotated, not within rooms) and avoiding all the stretched and squashed textures. The manual helps a lot with the needed techniques to handle both of these things. And then of course a little more variety to the gameplay would not go amiss either. Bottomline, this is another one of these debut demos that should rather have been seen by a few beta testers only and not be released to the public at this stage." - MichaelP (22-Feb-2009)