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Level: Jade Empress back home search
Author(s): Trdan69
total rating:1.23 Gameplay &
Puzzles		 Enemies,
Objects &
Secrets		 Atmosphere,
Sound &
Cameras		 Lighting &
Textures
Blue43 2 2 2 1
Boris 1 1 1 2
Catherin 1 1 1 1
CC 1 1 1 2
Dimpfelmoser 2 1 3 2
DJ Full 0 0 0 2
Ganon93 3 2 2 1
Gerty 1 2 1 2
Kristina 1 1 2 2
Lady Lara 1 1 1 3
Magnus 0 0 0 0
MichaelP 1 2 1 3
Orbit Dream 1 1 0 1
RaiderGirl 2 2 1 2
Sakusha 2 1 1 1
Sash 0 0 0 0
Scottie 1 1 0 0
Tombaholic 1 1 1 1
Torry 2 2 4 4
Treeble 0 1 0 0
category averages
(20 reviews)		 1.15 1.15 1.10 1.50

Reviewer's comments

"By looking for levels without a walk-through I found this one. Lara drives around on a bike between huge boxy rooms, picks up some armor pieces and shoots or runs over gunmen. Some of those guys were on the ground dead already, probably killed by monotone, wallpapered and stretched textures. The lighting is pretty flat for the most part. There is no finish trigger so it is best to end the level by driving into one of the pools where the bike explodes and the level crashes to the desktop." - Blue43 (11-Oct-2010)

"Pure boredom. If I can compare the size of this level to another one, I think this level is bigger than "Test level" by B. Howaito. The main objective is to speed through the series of huge rooms and oversized corridors, occasionally grabbing some items and killing some SASes. We can swim through some absurdally huge, ridiculously empty pools. In the end we can see - probably as a reward for patience - TWO pools full of nothing. At the end of the level there is a pitch black rectangle on the wall in the place where the final corridor should be beginning. SUMMARY: The only one game where I found mounting Nitrous Oxide Feeder more interesting than using it while driving." - DJ Full (11-Oct-2010)

"The only positive thing in this level is the motorcycle. And because one still finds the special petrol, one can go even faster through this disaster. This level has everything what a level should not have. Paper-thin walls, wallpaper textures, gigantic rooms, absolutely empty rooms, starting-up SAS-Soldiers, constantly the same lighting, missing ceiling textures, missing Finish-Trigger and crashes to the desktop if one wants to load a save. Three parts of an armament lie on the way, thus one can overlook them by no means. I needed 10 Minutes, because I have looked in every corner and jumped in every waterhole. Result: Really only for player, who play everything" - Scottie (01-Jun-2009)

"Nothing but a bunch of 20x20 (sometimes even bigger) empty rooms, with the occasional baddies popping out of thin air and empty ponds. At least there's a bike and a nitro feed to rush through the rooms (and even so it takes you five minutes to explore all corners of the map!). I only found three pieces of the armor, if there were meant to be five. 5 minutes. 08/07" - Treeble (21-Aug-2007)

"I know,I'm being lazy.This one took me 8 minutes and I was forewarned as to its brevity by reading the Walkthrough which the Author kindly provided.It took him one short sentance to comprehensively describe where to go and what to do.After which he added,somewhat meekly,"Sorry but my finish trigger isn’t working".I think that about sums up the level of his dedication toward this particlar effort. By a happy accident I had retained an old audio file from a previous level,which enabled me to race through this adventure (it's a bike-riding level,after all) to a techno version of Ultravox' "Dancing;with tears in my eyes",which suited the action rather well.Unfortunately,you won't enjoy the benefit of the same soundtrack. So I'd leave it alone,if I were you." - Orbit Dream (09-Mar-2007)

"Huge empty rooms with stretched textured, wafer thin walls, a bike ride and actually nothing to do. Guards appear and you find amor. The greenish touch of the level is nice." - Tinka (26-Oct-2005)

“In this level Lara needs to find a motorcycle a nitrous oxide canister a gauntlet a greave and a breast plate. Since the author didn't put all the armor then I suppose that there is a sequel to this. Gameplay mainly consists of killing twelve SAS soldiers and avoiding pools of water (you don't need to explore them for they contain absolutely nothing) that become hazards while Lara is using the motorcycle. The textures are stretched the rooms are big and empty the lighting is usually at R 128 G 128 B 128 or higher I have detected two untextured walls there is no load screen (the author sent .dat files that he made himself. So we cannot fix them unless he gives the player .txt files) I haven't found a finishing trigger music triggers and camera triggers are nonexistent. However I guess that the two untextured mark the end of the level. The level deserves its title because some of the textures make me think of jade and Lara is supposed to get a part of the empress' armour (I guess the author wanted to show that women were allowed to go in battle too). Unfortunately I don't see how this level can represent her palace because it's boxy.” – Sakusha (16-Nov-2004)

“I chose this because of the name without even looking at the score or the other reviews. I thought it was going to be an oriental perhaps Barkhang type level. Well there are oriental type textures and statues. The rooms are HUGE and suffer the wallpaper effect and stretched textures. I ran left and kept running left picking up bits of armour and breaking barriers until I found a bike (Oh I tripped over the nitrous oxide at the very start). So keeping left again I drove over a few guards and came back to the start. I didn't find an end trigger. So that's it. Just for a little excitement you could dozy up the walls of one of the huge swimming pools and see an interesting arrangement of jagged spikes up there. I think this belongs in the 'joke' category. You could stare at the screen intently while Lara is driving the bike around for about five minutes and hypnotise yourself into believing this is the best thing that ever happened to you in your life.” – CC (25-Jan-2004)

“I confess I decided to play a bunch of short levels in order to eventually get a silver award. At the rate I play the big levels (and don't complete them) I need all the help I can get. This is a short level with huge rooms and a motorcycle. It is fun running over the first few enemies but it gets boring at about the fifth one. Huge pools are fun to swim in for about 30 seconds and there are a few pick-ups. One room kept alternating bw fully lit and pitch black as I moved around - don't know if that was intentional. Some nice tiles on the ceiling though.” – Lady Lara (16-Dec-2003)

“All the rooms in this level are huge with stretched textures. There are many pools to be found with nothing inside and pieces of the armor. The SAS appear suddenly and there is also a bike ride. I didn’t find a finishing trigger.” – Kristina (14-Sep-2003)

“Made almost two years ago and a first. It shows. Big rooms and there is even a bike to ride. Enemies appear out of thin air no loading screen and no finishing trigger. 12-08-2003” – Gerty (15-Aug-2003)

“I reckon there are three things that can be learned from Trdan. First; if your level consist of huge empty rooms with nothing to do in them be at least considerate enough to provide a powerful motorbike so that you can rush through them in ten minutes. Second; if you provide no loading screen (maybe there is one with the authors script yet as that didn't work with me I had to fall back on the one that comes with the LE) make sure the gameplay is so harmless that you don't die a single time. Third; if your finishing trigger is not working be kind enough to say so in the read me.” – Dimpfelmoser (10-Oct-2002)

“Well there’s 10 minutes of my life I’ll never get back! This is I would have to say one of the most inane levels I have come across and therefore had no choice but to rate it with all zeroes. Here’s the story find some nitro unnecessary and a revolver also unnecessary then hop on a bike and start riding through large square empty red and green coloured rooms some of which have pools huge pools sometimes that have no use and don’t even hold a small medipack to find then run down some SAS guys pick up 3 pieces of armour I guess the knight didn’t need all 5 then you come to a room with a black wall where a doorway should be and no end trigger that’s it! Don’t bother!” – Sash (21-Jun-2002)

“Everything here is BIG! Especially the disappointment of this less then 10 minutes worth of riding the bike through huge rooms. The 'jade floor' textures were kind of nice though.” – Michael (21-Jun-2002)

“A level consisting of huge rooms a motorbike and some SAS to run over with no end trigger and to my mind no point either.” – Torry (21-Jun-2002)

“There is not much to say on this level! 10 game minutes there is Lara a strengthened motorcycle a pair of enemies 3 and not 5 pieces of armor to find (?) rooms and empty enormous swimming pools! At least the author has been able to put a pair of ramps to jump with the motorcycle!” – Boris (21-Jun-2002)

“The title of this level had me anticipating a Chinese adventure and while the author uses textures borrowed from the classic TR2 China levels this is anything but an adventure. The level consists of a series of GARGANTUAN nearly empty rooms which make a mini-marathon just in the crossing. Oh but there's a motorbike (with nitro booster) so now Lara can RIDE through the GIGANTIC empty rooms. Some rooms contain ENORMOUS empty pools of water. Some SAS materialize out of thin air apparently so Lara has something to run over while traversing the rooms. Now there is a little more to do - there are 3 pieces of armor to pick up. Then after a few short minutes you reach a doorway where the author has forgotten a connection to the next room and it's over. Ironically you're happy the author made this mistake because it saves you wasting any more time. Highly recommended for insomniacs and nobody else.” – Tombaholic (21-Jun-2002)

“No there's not much to do here but it was fun riding over all the guards with the motorcycle and it was nice to see the textures from Tomb Raider II. There were so many big rooms I'm just glad the bike was there or I'd still be running. If you're looking for a serious level though look elsewhere.” – RaiderGirl (21-Jun-2002)

“There are two ways to make a level that will get downloaded many times: Either you make a really good level or you make a really bad level. It’s true just look at the number of reviews some of the worst levels have; they’ve got a lot. Many more than they actually deserve but people are curios and want to see why the levels has got such low scores. I’m one of those people. I’ve downloaded many of the worst levels only to see how bad a level can get and this level is one of the worst I’ve ever played. There’s no need to download this level; if you’ve ever created a large room in the Level Editor you know how the level looks. Big rooms and a lot of pools which are of no use. There’s also a motorcycle and because of that you can finish the level after less than two minutes. If it hadn’t been there the level would probably had taken five minutes to finish just because of the big rooms. There’s no gameplay (if you don’t count riding the motorcycle through large rooms ‘gameplay’ so the level really doesn’t hold anything of interest for anyone. According to the readme-file this is only the first in a series of levels but since I’m writing this review eight months after the level was released I doubt we will ever see a ‘Jade Empress 2’. Or maybe the author is actually putting some work into his next level? Let’s hope so because this isn’t even something I would want my worst enemies to play. Really.” – Magnus (21-Jun-2002)

“The author of this level attempted to create a China level but failed. It's more like a... ...err... ...gargantuan cartons connected together (some are filled with water). And in those cartons Lara has to drive around in a motorbike smashing some SAS guards that appear out of hyperspace. There are also some Horus armor pieces that you don't need to pick up. And to finish the level you have to press ALT+F4 or exit through the Pause menu because there's no finish trigger. Just a black wall. The texturing is bad. Very bad. The walls aren't divided into texture segments so the textures are a bit stretched. Well 'a bit' is understated. They are so stretched that they look like brush strokes. However one of the underwater room's texturing makes it look like the inside of a computer which make it look better than the other rooms. The lightning is also bad; the level is far too bright. If there were sky in the level then it would be realistic but there's just a black ceiling. There are also wafer-thin walls at the room connections. That makes the level look even more like connected cartons. And the gigantic pools are empty. No medipacks or ammo. No levers. Nothing. Just water. One of the rooms has the upper left corner bug (when a room is in the upper left corner of the map and everything dissapears when you reach the upper or left wall in that room). Only play this level if you like driving the motorbike without getting interrupted.” – Ganon93 (21-Jun-2002)
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