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Antarctica by LInsoDeTeh

alan 5 5 6 6
Boris 4 5 4 5
Dimpfelmoser 5 4 5 5
eTux 6 4 5 5
Gerty 4 4 5 5
Gonxii 5 5 6 6
Jay 6 6 6 5
Jose 6 6 7 7
Kristina 5 5 6 6
Magnus 4 4 5 5
MichaelP 6 6 8 7
Nomad 6 5 6 6
Orbit Dream 4 4 5 6
RaiderGirl 7 7 7 7
Ryan 5 5 6 6
Sash 4 4 5 6
Torry 4 4 5 5
Treeble 6 6 5 7
Whistle 6 7 7 6
 
release date: 08-Apr-2001
# of downloads: 70

average rating: 5.45
review count: 19
 
review this level

file size: 16.82 MB
file type: TR4
class: Cold/Snowy
 


author profile(s):
email(s):
linsodeteh@et-generation.com

Reviewer's comments
"Kind of a mixed bag. Snowy areas look bright and attractive, forming some kind of atmosphere. There are some cool features like dumping snow on spikes via a lever, the rotating room in Burial Chambers, and tiles that push you up. Sometimes the room suddenly changes when you pull levers, interesting. But it is more often dull than it is not. Some of the monkey bars seem to serve no purpose, and a timed run seems to be not resettable (to be frank that whole room confused me). The last area feels very pointless, you set in a key and the other key appears beneath you and you do this a few times in a row. It was probably an enjoyable level when it came out but nowadays it won't satisfy most of the players." - Nomad (19-Jul-2021)
"Two snowy/egyptian levels in a row. OK. For me the areas made with ice were the most 'pretty' for me. Some of them looked nice, with some waterfalls and crystal blue water. Gameplay is straightforward with some artifacts to look for, and some enemies along the way. Play it if you have some time to kill." - alan (03-Mar-2018)
"Egypt and Antarctica have merged and became a breeding ground for mummies and skeletons galore. I get the idea what the author was going for, but I still found the Egyptian objects and textures to be somewhat out of place, although there's a certain charm about the combination. Simple gameplay that's based around finding artefacts and using levers. Not great, but not terrible either." - Ryan (03-Sep-2017)
"This is a slightly surreal blend of snowy wastes and Egyptian textures. The gameplay is very straightforward and almost endearingly illogical insofar as floor switches and artefacts magically appear out of thin air from time to time. Mummies and skeletons are easily taken care of as the grenade gun is provided early on and you will need to blow up at least the earlier mummies as one of them leaves an essential artefact behind. I had a couple of odd instances with a thick fog obscuring my view, so had to resort to the walkthrough to find out what I was supposed to be doing and then do it by braille. No idea what caused that! So basically, it's no masterpiece but nor is it unpleasant. Slightly quirky." - Jay (01-Feb-2016)
"This was a rather easy and straightforward level. Witl lots of levers to pull and lots of artifacts to pick up. You never have the chance to get lost or stucked. Enemies were only mummies despite the fact you are in an artic surroundings. Took me twenty minutes." - Gonxii (05-Dec-2015)
"Antarctica? Eeeerrr... Nope. This is only another Egyptian level with some rooms disguished with white textures. At least the enemies are mummies, scarabs... and there are a lot of Egyptian rooms with Egyptian objects. There are some paper walls and bad applied textures, but the level is entertaining with a lot of flipmaps, appearing objects and nice tasks (except the long monkeyswings). No good the timed lever you can't reset, but the remaining gameplay had no difficulties for me. Enjoyable." - Jose (18-Jun-2015)
"'How uncool is it to have players do your job after the level's release?' I pondered as I wrote and compiled the scripts for the game following the instructions in the readme file. The answer obviously is 'Very', but my disappointments didn't end there. Very early into the level you discover that either Antarctica or Egypt have been terribly misplaced and what you're playing is a marriage of both concepts into one level. While odd, I guess the mix is not completely unimaginable if well done, but I felt it was hit and miss here for most part. Some sections of the game, especially in the beginning, are well textured and lit, but it seems the author got bored as he built on and it shows in form of absent or careless lighting, the odd texture problem here or there, terrifying blackness replacing the usual skylight among other things. But I guess it's unfair to hack away at the level as if there are no redeeming elements at all. Sure, levers and pickups appear out of thin air at times, some of those monkey swings are too long, but it features the rotating room from TR4's Burial Chambers level - a puzzle set up used far too rarely in the custom level dominion, and despite what the others say - the timed run for the door in the ice-water actually is resettable - you just have to step on the same tile as the timed lever is to initiate the run another time. The enemies consist of skeletons, mummies and scarabs, but none are too much of an issue - especially after finding the grenade gun early on. The level ends abruptly after having spent approximately 20 minutes here so I lacked a sense of closure, but since a fair amount of things didn't really make sense in the first place, that might be a minor gripe overall. It's a somewhat unusual level, so I'd recommend to give it a go, but don't expect too much from it." - eTux (28-Jun-2008)
"I ended up liking this level regardless of its faults,as it brazenly throws away much of the TR Gameplay rule-book: throw a lever and another lever materialises right next to you;use a key object and another key object is magically revealed to you;pick up a large Medi and spikes come zooming down,punishing you for being such a wuss.It also abuses the rules just as much with a cruel one-shot lever for a timed door,and a fixation with flipped rooms which verges on the pathological.The location is intriguing in concept but very poorly executed;another classic case of wish and attainment of wish(as my friend Mulf once pertinantly put it) coinciding only in God - the rest of us having to expend a little energy into achieving good-looking results. In this particular instance,the builder short-cutted the energy side of things and severely compromised the overall look of the adventure as a result.It certainly intrigues,as you long to know how this magical egyptian temple was able to manifest itself so near to the South Pole;there's a splendid rotating room to negotiate and the gameplay is generally very fluent.It all builds toward some inexorably approaching end point,but then just fizzles out when the builder clearly ran out of ideas before actually reaching a suitable Finale. Nonetheless,it's very much a product of its time (way back in the early Level Editing days)and is certainly worth a look." - Orbit Dream (18-Jan-2008)
"What a strange place in Antarctica. I mean, it's more like if some part of Egypt had been covered with snow instead. Anyway, you get this mix of some nice snowy areas with the odd sandy textures until you eventually enter an Egyptian chamber and get back into snow quite oftenly. This effect ruined the atmosphere as it's not gradual, it just changes completely after a closed door. The gameplay is pretty basic and very straightforward, I found a lasersight which never had any weapon to be attached to and I quite liked the rotating chamber ala TR4. The texturization is nice often enough, though, with the odd stretched/compressed texture and the lighting work is pretty good too, pity the snow/sand mix completely ruined the atmosphere. I also rather enjoyed the trading sequence in the end (I thought the author would set us off for four quick quests, but he didn't, fortunately). Also be careful for there's a timed door which can't be reset if you don't realize what the switch does in time (and had me stuck for a while until I checked the walkthrough). 20 minutes. 02/07" - Treeble (02-Feb-2007)
"This is a classic example of saving before pushing a lever or a switch as in this level there is a time run and you cannot reset it. There is also no loading screen so you will crash back to your desktop if you die or reload. For the rest it is a rather nice level even if it is made so long ago. It starts as an ice level but very shortly afterwards Lara is in an Egyptian Temple. And we all know the drill by now gather artifacts and kill the enemy. In this case skeletons and mummies and yuck beetles. 19-08-2003" - Gerty (28-Aug-2003)
"I was rather disappointed from this level. It started in ice and I thought good a 'white' level but a few steps further Lara entered an Egyptian temple and all the excitement was gone. I guess the classification of this level has to change to Egypt because although in the arctic everything reminds the tutorial level. We have to climb a couple of ladders monkey swing get two gems a knot a pillar and two portal guardians plus kill some mummies skeletons and get chased by beetles. The rest if push-lever-open-door. Be careful when you reach the big icy room with the camera breaking when you enter it has a timed door and you can't push the lever back and begin again. I had a laugh with the levers appearing after pushing a switch and the last puzzle was really ridiculous. You get the pillar and by placing it get another item place that and so on until you get the scroll from the waterfall and soon after end the level. Not one of my favourites." - Kristina (05-Aug-2003)
"More Mummies in the Arctic. This is actually a fairly ordinary Tutorial level with a few icy outside areas that seem a bit inappropriate in combination with the Egypt tombs and puzzles. There are many monkey swings that become rather tedious after a while the boxy rooms look a bit empty and I encountered a serious bug when a door failed to open (it did after a reload) but otherwise it's a mildly entertaining run through a linear course that won't have you tearing your hair out. After 30 minutes or so you can feel the adventure coming to an end but then you step into a room where you obviously need the portal guardian a gem a knot and a pillar yet getting them is so much easier than you would expect. A swarm of beetles provides some excitement while skeletons and mummies don't pose a threat as you won't go very far if you don't find the grenade launcher. And why is there no sky?" - Dimpfelmoser (07-Nov-2002)
"This was an ok level but a few things spoiled it for me. First and foremost every time you went to load a save game the level would crash to the desktop. Simply unacceptable. Secondly there is a switch for a timed door and if you miss the door there is NO WAY of resetting the switch. That means returning to an earlier save or if you are like me and only use one save slot starting the level again. This is just bad level design pure and simple. Lastly objects would simply just appear out of thin air as if by magic. At least the author could have incorporated that nose twitching sound that Samantha makes in the television show 'Bewitched'. Well that makes as much sense as magically appearing objects! Sorry folks but this could have been oh so much better." - Torry (01-Nov-2002)
"There are some interesting aspects to this icy level one of them being a rotating spike room slightly similar to the one in Last Revelation another a layered cascading waterfall where you will find one of the key pick ups you will need but in the end it lacked some substance that I look for in a level. I was also surprised when it finished because I thought there were still 3 large doors I needed to open but going back I found that they were merely textured as doors. You will come across some mummies skeletons and beetles in this 30 minutes level but the biggest threat is that there is a timed door that if missed cannot be re-opened because the button or lever can't be reset which is a bad design fault." - Sash (21-Jun-2002)
"This is a rather entertaining 40 minutes level which has it's visually stronger points in the few icy outside areas especially the waterfalls are beautifully done. Inside it is sort of standard Egyptian style but with a couple of rather smart ideas although the gameplay stays quite linear with fast progression and you hardly need to consider your next move. Good use made of the standard sounds and music and a few nice fog and lighting effects built in. I really liked the reminiscence of the TR TLR rotating room. A few minor design bugs are present but not overly disturbing (no sky fires floating in the air wrong push button animation) but I am not sure I liked the effect of 'push a button and a lever appears in the same room' - sort of far fetched. A few mummies and skeletons to blast away with the grenade gun and a few beetles that drained Lara's health. Worth a try when you like the cold and icy environments." - Michael (21-Jun-2002)
"A very depressing level! The first thing that comes to ask is what does an Egyptian temple do among the glacier! And the second is as Lara stands in the cold polar with her original dress! However you have to easily find some artifacts as even some arms and kill some skeleton and mummy in this temple surrounded by waterfall freeze and some simple traps to open a final door. There are a lot of graphic imperfections - the sky is not there (!) - and the only nice thing is the fountain in the temple. I have ended the level in about 40 minutes." - Boris (21-Jun-2002)
"This level takes you on a fun little journey through an Egyptian temple hidden deep in Antarctica. I thought the creator had some great ideas - the puzzles were fun but not hard there aren't too many enemies but enough to keep you on your toes and all the rooms were interesting. Great lighting was used throughout and there were also a few good camera fly-bys. It was annoying that the game crashed every time I died but thankfully that was only a few times. I found this to be very interesting and enjoyed playing it especially the elevators and the revolving room like in The Last Revelation." - RaiderGirl (21-Jun-2002)
"The best thing about this level was the beginning. The cold the snow... from here it just turns into an Egyptian level with a little snow in some places. The fog however was quite nice. I also liked the flipmaps that were used in the last room. Other than that an average level without anything new and without much snow." - Magnus (21-Jun-2002)
"Antarctica is rather an average level for hardness. The fact that it crashes every time you try to load or kill Lara is a pain. The graphics are good except for the waterfall where the sides are rather thin and transparent. One or two novel moves - lifts and the rolling room from Eidos levels. Traps easily overcome if you are cautious. Switches tend to be mostly levers which often suddenly appear after doing a move." - Whistle (21-Jun-2002)