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City of Ptah (Triad of Memphis) by tombraider_4ever

alan 4 4 4 4
Casual Raider 4 3 3 4
CC 4 3 3 3
Dimpfelmoser 4 4 5 5
Ejecta 3 3 4 4
eRIC 4 4 4 2
Gerty 4 4 5 4
Jay 5 5 6 5
Jose 3 4 5 3
Kristina 3 3 5 5
Mehrbod 3 4 2 3
MichaelP 6 5 5 6
Mulf 3 4 4 3
Orbit Dream 4 3 5 6
RaiderGirl 6 5 5 6
Ruediger 3 4 4 3
Ryan 4 4 4 3
Sash 5 5 4 5
Scott 4 3 3 1
Tombaholic 6 4 4 3
Torry 5 5 6 5
Treeble 4 4 3 3
 
release date: 11-Jan-2001
# of downloads: 80

average rating: 4.06
review count: 22
 
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file size: 13.81 MB
file type: TR4
class: Egypt
 


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Reviewer's comments
"With the immediate flyby rolling over the initial area you can already surmise that this level will unfortunately be rather mediocre. The builder has committed the all-too-common sin of creating small rooms which each have only one or even no purpose, to the effect that much of the elapsed time will be spent simply traveling from one area to the other. The lighting is sometimes effective but regularly oscillates from near-inscrutable gloom to slightly jarring brightness, and the geometry often feels haphazard and careless. There are a brief maze, a handful of rooms filled with lava and some traps to break the monotony, including a group of blades which slice endlessly through walls of impossibly smooth red, but these are rare moments of excitement in otherwise fairly dull gameplay. Not catastrophically bad, yet still not really worth the time or the effort." - Ejecta (05-Jan-2024)
"The uklogo.pak has been edited to read “Tomb Raider: The 4 Gods of Ancient Egypt”—obviously meant to be the title of a series beginning with City of Thoth, which takes the place of Tut1 in the level-select list. Since City of Ptah is of the Settomb type, and Triad of Memphis duly followed up with Karnak, it would appear that the builder was working his way through the standard wads. Next up would have been Coastal.
However, City of Thoth was never released to the public and must be regarded as a lost level, while Triad of Memphis came with the ‘demo’ tag attached and looks so much like a typical beginner’s effort that I didn’t hesitate to call it the builder’s debut in my review. (In fact it comes in second in the Level Index and must necessarily be a follow-up to Settomb if the ‘work your way through the standard wads’ rationale applies; but since the two available levels were apparently released mere days apart, it doesn’t matter much either way.) Thus, the level under consideration is the only one that made it to maturity.
Having played Triad of Memphis first, I found it difficult to conceive of an even more desultory attempt at building a TRLE level, which chronological precedence surely implied. Imagine, therefore, my surprise when I found that City of Ptah has a timed run; rollingball slopes; functional Seth blades; a ropeswing; and camera work. It even has lighting! Well, it has some lighting. Previous reviewers have been vocal regarding the circumstance that you have to squint your way through much of the level, which in this case is largely due to lack of contrast (rather than overuse shadowbulbs, as is usually the case), and of course to the arrival of the flare bug at an early stage. Conversely, as eRIC has pointed out, other spots are much too bright (where default lightbulbs were placed), and several rooms (especially the area behind the Eye door) have no lighting at all.
Gameplay is reasonably varied but unmemorable; or, to use MichaelP’s euphemism, ‘classic’ in character. All tasks, including the timed run which José found so troublesome for some reason, are easy to accomplish. There’s a maze again, but this time it’s not underwater and comparatively small; it is also located somewhere in the middle of the level and thus not made to serve as an ill-conceived finale. One unmarked climbable wall had me scratching my head for a while, while another climbable wall is marked, but in a place where the textures are stretched to such a degree that it’s barely recognisable as such. In a few places, textures are missing altogether. On the whole, the level isn’t textured too badly, but it’s obviously unfinished, certainly unpolished.
There is at least one situation in which you can miss a crucial pickup (the Timeless Sands), and I’m fairly sure there are one or two other situations which will leave you permanently stuck if you happen to prefer one way over the other. It doesn’t matter, on the other hand, whether you achieve the ostensible goal of your quest and pick up the Amulet of Horus, or whether you even notice it at all. Needless to say, although the builder appears to have been envisioning a series and devised his titles accordingly, no concept emerges within, much less across, these levels." - Mulf (27-Feb-2022)
"The title of this game stimulated me to play this debut as soon as I could, but as soon as I started playing, I lost my motivation. Dark atmosphere, problems with SFX, flare bug, lack of texturing, etc., somehow turned this adventure into one of the underrated games. I suppose the builder could have put more effort on finishing it. Thanks." - Mehrbod (10-Jan-2019)
"A short demo with nothing much to excite or tax the inexperienced player. It's not badly put together, but it is very dark in places and combined with the flare bug, manoeuvring through dark corridors becomes unnecessarily harder. The texturing is also sloppily applied in places and one under a ledge had me thinking that the ceiling was higher than it was, only to find that Lara bumped her head! There's a couple of artefacts to find, a couple of short timed runs and traps and it's all over in around 25 minutes." - Ryan (21-May-2018)
"As a demo there were a lot of things to fix. Just from the very beginning an ilegal slope where you need to reload is not a good sign, the extreme darkness in almost all rooms never was good for the gameplay, even more, the flare bug forced me to throw flares continuously and finally I had to use a savegame editor to add more flares. The first timed run is too tight, and I only could do it with a roll at the very end near the door. Many textures are very stretched, and another ones don't fit. I dropped in the pit with the rope but I couldn't find a way to go back up. Sometimes, if you take the wrong paths, the backtracking can be terrible, and if you miss an important item you'll get totally stucked and never finish the level. The climbable walls are not well marked, and at the end the level crashes. I know this comments are totally useless in 2017, but maybe they can take into account by possible new players." - Jose (08-Nov-2017)
"Level that uses textures from The Tomb of Seth. There are tasks to complete. I found some missing textures." - alan (31-Jul-2017)
"Not too bad for an older level. It's a brisk 30 minute romp through a fairly competently made settomb environment, with bats and dogs to kill, some boulder traps and blades to avoid. Easy gameplay, but not unpleasant. Its main failing for me was the extreme darkness in places combined with that dratted flare bug." - Jay (09-Feb-2015)
"Short level with rather easy gameplay. There is nice trap with blades. Textures are at times monotonous and twice there is bugged textures that are black/empty wall piece. Nothing special about this level but it's okay to play." - Casual Raider (24-Jul-2013)
"A straightforward raid in a Settomb environment where the first thing you notice is the poor lighting. It is quite dark and not surprisingly a few rooms are too bright too. The second thing that is noticed is missing textures here and there. The level starts rather well with a couple of short timed doors , a rope swing , a bit of shimmying , and alas lots of crawling at one point and the flares bug shows there. After avoiding some blades and collecting the Eye of Horus , some interesting although easy actions to perform, like avoiding spiked balls , a lava room with very easy jumps and a lava trench where you can do the back and fro jumping to progress. 25 minutes." - eRIC (12-Jan-2009)
"This probably was just a test level for the author, or he wasn't bothered to polish up properly before releasing it. Most of the rooms are boring, simply bland with repetitive textures and a reddish lighting - not enough to make a good atmosphere, I'll say. Gameplay is pretty straightforward through the carelessly built rooms and eventually you get to pick up the Amulet of Horus, such a valuable treasure, carelessly placed on a flat area of a steep slope. Oh, and let's not forget the unmarked climbable walls and tons of untextured areas. Like I said, if it had been polished up and received a better attention to the atmosphere, it could turn out to be a much better level. 20 minutes. 01/07" - Treeble (28-Jan-2007)
"The thing to prepare for in this Settomb cave level is the darkness. You'd guess it's settomb alone by the red rock walls. PC players have experienced the flare bug in this level. I don't know what the flare bug is as I use a mac. But what I did notice was that when Lara lit a flare there was no light around her but if she threw it away immediately the light came on around the flare. Is that the flare bug? Either way it's something to note before you start. I found this level very addictive even though it's quite plain looking. We have the usual mad dogs and bats we have to find eyepieces a pyramid key and the timeless sands (btw look behind you or you'll miss the timeless sands) but there are no human enemies here. There's a tough 'looking' maze that is really quite simple and a fair amount of 'going around corners' in different directions so I'd recommend saving a lot at each junction. This is a fairly good little level if you are in need of a TR fix." - CC (04-Oct-2004)
"I was intrigued by someone's remark this would be a dark level - and I like dark levels. However this Settomb-WAD adventure fails to develop the same atmosphere as the original Tomb of Seth. One flyby shows...nothing - and returns. Lara doesn't face real challenges either. The textures are badly applied sometimes stretched I even noticed a couple of missing ones. Shadows are hardly used most of the rooms simply have a generally low setting of reddish light. I wondered where the city of the title was." - Rdiger (22-Feb-2004)
"Normally I would be thrilled that at least we get plenty of flares in such a dark level. Well guess what I am not because after two minutes in the level the flare bug appeared. I will never understand why people build such dark levels you certainly can't hide the imperfection of it. Anyway kill some dogs and scorpions and find the Timeless Sands a guardian key and you're done. Two lava rooms and an easy maze is everything you will see. About twenty minutes search for another level to play." - Kristina (05-Aug-2003)
"Don't ask why I chose another dark level in one row to play but I needed a short sort of easy going game. The game was easy going in my opinion but so dark that I had another headache after this. I hate it when a flare bug is present it does spoil my fun big time. On the other hand it was over before I knew it so that was good. 08-05-2003" - Gerty (12-May-2003)
"If those 20 minute levels are too short for you I suggest that you pick one from each wad and then play them in a row with the script provided by the Level editor. You never know how those adventures might correspond. For instance I arranged for the Triad of Memphis to sequence neatly into Tamiri and to me it seemed as if they belong together cause I found some useless revolver ammo in the first installment and stumbled right over the weapon itself in the second. Trouble is with those short and easy adventures you tend to forget what they were all about as soon as you finish and I can't bring myself to make notes while playing. That would kill the illusion to some degree and I can't really admit to myself that I take the whole thing that serious. Alright things I remembered about this one here. Some rather unnecessary crawls a spiked boulder trap many slides a little maze and the settomb dogs that never cease to scare you. I think you can get stuck at one point where you have to choose between two openings. Maybe there is a way back but just to be on the safe side take the left doorway." - Dimpfelmoser (23-Aug-2002)
"What strikes you most about this cave set level is the constant darkness that consumes every square inch of space and things aren't helped along by the colour of the surroundings a dark reddy brown which makes it look even darker and unbelievably on top of that the flare bug was present. Because of the darkness I couldn't enjoy this 30 minutes level very much but maybe if there had been some interesting puzzles or even slightly difficult moves then I would have been able to overlook the lighting but as it is there weren't so I couldn't" - Sash (21-Jun-2002)
"About 30 minutes of real classical (and unfortunately very linear) tombraiding in a settomb WAD environment. Some dogs bats and scorpions to kill and a few pick-ups and puzzle pieces you almost cannot miss. But it kept my interest anyway (despite the flare bug) and serves well as a training level for a novice raider." - Michael (21-Jun-2002)
"A fairly standard level without overly difficult puzzles that will last just a tad over 30 minutes. There was really not that much excitement here I'm afraid." - Torry (21-Jun-2002)
"This very dark level takes place entirely underground and unfortunately the flare bug rears its head early on so be prepared to squint a lot. Textures and lighting are pretty monotonous and gameplay is straightforward with a few simple puzzles. Play time is about 35 minutes." - Tombaholic (21-Jun-2002)
"I have to tell just how annoyed I was with this level. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it very much if I were able to see everything. As it was I couldn't see a thing because of some sort of bug. I did enjoy the timed puzzle but everything else played typically straight forward." - Scott (21-Jun-2002)
"I didn't really expect to enjoy this level too much because of what everyone is saying about the darkness but I found myself having a good time as I played this. The puzzles are not difficult but they are fun and include timed doors boulder traps a small maze a blade trap slopes a few jumps over lava and a few crawlspaces that are usually fairly easy to find. There aren't too many enemies - just a few dogs scorpions and bats - and I found plenty of pickups. I had a good time in this 30 minutes level though so don't be put off by people saying it's too dark. Although there could be more flare pickups in most areas you can see well enough without them and you can always use the cheat to get more if necessary." - RaiderGirl (21-Jun-2002)
"Well I quite enjoyed this. It was very dark and lighting a flare proved to be impossible but it was fast moving and quite atmospheric in a subterranean kind of way. Nothing sophisticated but amusing nonetheless." - Orbit Dream (21-Jun-2002)