GENOVA PRINCIPE

Level by Francesco Zecchinelli (FZ)

Walkthrough by Phil Lambeth

Lara starts in a train station. Everyone else has apparently left for the evening, so she's on her own. Take a stroll about the spacious surroundings. After a while you'll discover that there are night watchmen on duty, four SAS to be exact. One you'll alert near the SW corner, in front of one of the "Genova P. Principe" signs. After killing him, run east along the tracks and you'll hear approaching footsteps. Locate the stairs going down into an underground area and shoot the second SAS you'll find there. Note the closed door in the east alcove and go back up into the station, as there's nothing else to do here for the moment.

Continue the long run toward the east end of the station (noting the graffiti on the third pillar from the end, where the author's initials have been spray painted in red and presumably his picture is posted right above that), then make a horseshoe turn to the left and start running back up the central tracks. You'll encounter two more SAS, and when you've punched their tickets you should be free of human harassment for a while. Keep running forward until you reach the train, vault up onto the ledge to your right and pull up onto the top of the train. As you run toward the front of the train, jumping over the sections as you reach their junctures, you'll spook a couple of bats that need to be killed. At some point before you reach the front end of the train, stop and turn to your right and pull up onto the cement canopy, which will alert a third bat. Then hop back down to the top of the train and take a running jump and grab to the slightly higher concrete canopy on the south side.

Pull up, turn to your right and run to the west end. Be careful not to go too far and fall back down to the station floor. Stand in the SW corner, facing the south wall. Take a running jump and grab the crack that's hidden in the darkness. Shimmy to the right as far as you can go and pull up into a bricked area. Draw your pistols and kill another bat, then step forward and pick up the small medi-pack. Throw the floor lever in the alcove to your left, and a cut scene shows the door opening in the east alcove back in the underground area.

Light a flare and vault up onto the ledge in the NW corner. Step forward past some rubble to your left and turn right into the concrete passage. Turn right again once inside and pick up the flares in the alcove ahead. Hop back and turn left to face a dark, closed-off passage. Run inside and draw your pistols. For some reason there's a confused SAS in there, guarding absolutely nothing, so put him out of his misery and add to your kill count. Run inside to the end, flush out and shoot the bat, which drops some flares. There seems to be nothing else to do in here, so exit this area, return to the place where you pulled up and safety drop down to the station floor.

You can explore the track passages in the west wall, where the camera angle becomes fixed the instant you enter, but there are no apparent pickups in any of them. (If there were, you'd have to grope about blindly to find them.) Instead, return to the steps leading to the underground area and go inside the east doorway.

Head down the wide hallway and turn left at the bend. Shoot the SAS in the next room and pick up the small medi-pack he leaves behind. Continue down the stairs and emerge through either opening into another huge underground train yard. You can spend a lot of time looking around, losing camera control when you near the south end or enter the tunnels at the north end. However, your only productive activity is to locate the hole just off the tracks near the NW corner. Drop down into a lower tunnel and use the crawl space to access a new area to the west. Run across, past the columns and the huge dirt mound on your left, and step down into the next area with a closed door in the alcove to the left. Turn right and go through the doorway into a new room.

Turn left just inside the entrance and run alongside the south wall until you reach the SW corner. Turn left into the passageway and locate the steps at the end. Wind your way a long distance up the steps until you reach a couple of blocks to climb, then continue up the steps until you reach a ramp leading down to a barrier. Shoot it for fun, then continue around to the end of the passage for a large medi-pack. You can hardly be blamed for feeling cheated by having come such a long way for such a meager reward. But don't despair; there's more. First shoot the bat, then reverse roll and return to the ramp. To your right is an opening, so pull yourself inside and step forward to the other end.

Take a running jump across to the dark alcove on the other side, then push the floor lever to your right. A cut scene shows the door downstairs opening to give you access to the motorbike. Jump across to the previous alcove (if you drop down instead, you'll be returned to the previously-explored area near the beginning of this level) and go all the way downstairs. When you get back to the dark, rubble-strewn area, turn right and run back along the south wall as you did before. Turn right at the end and go through the open doorway to the motorbike. Get on and drive it straight ahead (skirting the concrete barrier directly in your path), and over the huge mound of rubbish into a new area you couldn't access on foot. Dismount and say sayonara to the motorbike, as you don't really need it any more.

Go into the next room to the north, the one with the pinkish brick motif. Wind your way around the train to the other side of the room, where you'll face three openings to the west, two of which are blocked by barriers. The barriers are there for a good reason, so don't bother shooting them. Before proceeding, however, climb onto the filing cabinets near the north wall and drop down into the enclosure on the other side for a small medi-pack. (There's another small medi-pack on the south side of the train, also surrounded by file cabinets.)

Now climb into the middle west opening and note the pattern of light gray and dark gray tiles on the floor below. There's also another small medi-pack ahead and to your left, but you can forget about getting that one. What you're about to navigate is a flaming floor tile puzzle, and since there's no water in sight you want to be careful not to step on one of the tiles that will ignite in flames the instant you do so. Your objective is a jump switch on the other side of the room, and the safe path there is as follows: Run off the edge onto the tile just below you, then the next two adjacent dark tiles (diagonally ahead and to your right) are safe. Note the dead or wounded soldier to your right when you reach the third tile, but don't attempt to give aid or try to find any pickups under his body. Turn to your left so you're facing west. The next four tiles ahead are safe. When you reach the fourth one, turn all the way to your left, and the next two tiles south are safe. Then move to the adjacent tile to the SW and the final tile to the NW, and you're standing beneath the jump switch. Activate it to open the door directly behind you in the east alcove.

Return to the other side, using the same route in reverse, then hop down onto the concrete floor and run through the open east doorway. Turn left (there's nothing productive in the darkness ahead) and run along the tracks. Turn right at the end and run across another set of tracks, then turn left where you appear to be blocked by a mound of rubble. However, you can get across by jumping up to the top on the far right side. Do so and slide down to the other side as you lose camera control again.

Turn left when you reach the wall, and draw your pistols to shoot the SAS who comes around from the other side of the train to investigate. Note the closed door to the north, then turn left at the point where you saw the SAS and go to the west wall next to the train. Pull up and then run down the path next to the train, and you'll emerge over the area that you ran through briefly as described in the previous paragraph. Turn right and walk out to the north end, then take a running jump and grab to the other side. You can pull up into the alcove, but there's no need to. Simply shimmy to the left until you can pull up into the next alcove.

Turn around and take a running jump over to the south side. Lara will slide upon landing, so grab the edge and shimmy to the right until you can pull up. After shooting the bat, jump back across to the north side, turn left and run to the other end. Hop back off the edge, grab and shimmy to the left until you reach another alcove. You probably hear the footsteps of another SAS by this time, so shoot him from here if you can; otherwise, turn around and jump across to the free-standing structure on the south side. Slide, grab, shimmy to the right and pull up. Take a final running jump back across to the north side and grab the crack. Shimmy to the left until you reach the alcove in the NW corner.

Pull up and enter the dark corridor. In the next room is a floor lever. Throw it for a cut scene showing the door opening near the train where you shot the SAS earlier. Exit this area and safety drop to the tracks below. Shoot the bat and run back down the tracks to the east, shoot the SAS on the way if you didn't get him from above earlier, turn right at the end and go over the second set of tracks, left and over the rubble, around the train to the left and through the open north doorway. Slide down the slope to end the level.