THE BIOLOGICAL LAB

TR3 Level by Feder

Walkthrough by Treeble

Notes:

You can do a forward roll while crouching by tapping the Sprint key.

The author has inserted save crystals in the game, but he doesn't limit your experience. If you'd rather be able to save anywhere at any time, you can launch the included tomb3_ConfigTool.exe file, select the "Misc" tab and disable the "PSX Saving" option. That way, crystals will behave like they did in the PC version instead.

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The level begins as Lara stands in a hexagonal room and a door mysteriously opens right in front of her... Proceed to the next area and check the garden just below the opening you came from, in one of the corners is a venomous plant and you can find a small medipack in the opposite side. Proceed through either opening to another patio area with a fountain, explore the lower corners in the back to find a venomous plant in each. On the left side, you'll find the SHOTGUN and shells. On the right sade, a metal block. Push it in all the way to reveal a crawlspace.

There's a laser trap inside, check the length of its track, it comes up very close to your current crawling position. You need to crawl backwards to descend into a pit when it's safe, so turn around and observe the red lighting from the laser, when it starts moving away, immediately crawl backwards. For the next part you need to jump over a slope and cross the crawlspace quickly. The switch in there opens a glass door near the beginning of the level, so reverse the process to return to the initial patio.

Dispatch two troopers roaming around the fountain and relieve their bodies of a small medipack and uzi clips. Go back through the left opening between the patios to find the open door, a save crystal bouncing inside. The camera angle shows a keycard in the walkway way up, but the ladder is out of order, so drop into the water and swim through the passage, sticking to the right hand wall to reach an underwater lever, which will lower the fountain up above, and a small medipack. Go back for air and, if you're feeling patient, you can explore the other opening: a strong current pushes you back but with perseverance you can get to a ledge with flares and desert eagle ammo.

Back out of the water and proceed to the fountain patio. Drop into the newly revealed opening and swim through the tunnel to find yourself on the other side of that fan, its current is now pushing you towards a spike wall in the back, so stay close to the wall to swerve into a side passage just in time, follow the tunnels and you emerge in a room mirroring the one with the keycard. Press the button ahead to open the glass door, don't go out but climb the ladder to the upper walkways instead.

You get the jump on a trooper inside the lab just ahead of you, take his shotgun shells. Walk out to the far side balcony for another save crystal, then proceed to the other side. The ceiling here is covered in vines, so grab up and swing all the way to the opposite balcony. Enter the side room to get that ACCESS CARD 1 we'd seen from below and go back to the balconies, to check the last one out. While there's nothing of interest on the balcony itself, if you look at the wall to the right you'll spot a crevice along the way, so do a running jump at an angle to grab the invisible crack right below the blue tiles. Shimmy all the way left and pull up into an alcove, then jump to the rooftop and claim SECRET #1: mp5 clips and a large medipack.

Safety drop and go into the opening under the roof, behind the save crystal. Unlock the door and enter a garden area, your happy stroll will be interrupted as the side doors open. Be especially careful with the flamethrower trooper coming from the left side, then deal with the other trooper and loot their bodies for a small medipack and grenades. Explore the rooms they came out of to find a switch in one, and a save crystal plus the UZIS hidden in fumes in the other one. Dispatch the venomous plant in the back of the garden and take the shotgun shells and mp5 clips from the ledges before entering the open door.

In the room with the pods, a komodo dragon attacks; stay clear to avoid its poisonous breath. You can shatter the glasses of the pods and step up to a large medipack from one of them. Another keycard lies within one of the tanks, go up the ramps on the opposite side of the room to find a switch. It extends two trapdoors just outside the gratings, but you can't get to them from here, so back down to the pod and step up on the one closest to the entrance to do a running jump and grab the trapdoor.

Hop around the support beams all the way to the back, getting some shotgun shells behind one of the pillars. Get uzi clips from the flooded tank, then drop into the dry one as close to the wall as possible to avoid a surprise lunge from the venomous plant below. When it's done for, take the ACCESS CARD 2 the dead soldier won't be needing anymore and use the vines to climb out of this tank. Cross the room and unlock the door with the keycard.

Kill two more komodo dragons in the next lab room and check the perimeter: in one corner is a save crystal, and in the exact opposite side is a button. Push it and a camera hint shows one of the pods sliding away, revealing a manhole immediately below. Get back there and drop in to fall into water. When the path comes to a junction, you could go left for a small medipack and uzi clips, but this will set a mutant crocodile after you. Quickly swim back and to the other path in the junction to get out of the water. Dispatch the crocodile, if necessary, and a komodo dragon that plops out of the wall when you approach the lamp.

When you step on second metallic floor bit in this corridor, stop and look up: you can pull up to an opening on the left wall, drop in and get the GRENADE LAUNCHER from the crawlspace, then back out the same way to proceed down the corridor. Pull the metal box once and use it as a stepping stone to get to the save crystal above, then drop back onto it and do a running jump to the walkway above the entrance. Loop around the walkway to a ladder, climb up to just one rung behind the frieze on the wall and backflip with a midair roll to grab the opposing ladder. At the top, you'll backflip onto a slope, so immediately bounce forward to land on a balcony.

Jump back over the railing and this time grab the edge of the slope. Shimmy all the way to the left, underneath a laser trap, and when it's safe to do so, pull up and backflip with a midair roll to grab a ledge behind you. Pull the switch there, then jump back to the slope edge and shimmy back to the right right so you can backflip onto the balcony again. Head down the stairs, retrieve some shotgun shells beneath the entrance and kill the two venomous plants ahead, being careful not to approach the nearby door. When you do so, a flamethrower trooper and a trooper emerge from the room with the pods. Dispatch them quickly, then grab the flares and uzi clips left behind and go back to the previous room with the plants.

Take notice of a ladder going up to two flame emitters on the opposite side of the room. Line up to it and slide backwards, so you can grab the end of the second slope and backflip with a roll to grab the ladder. At the top, boldly take that large medipack between the flames and wait until either of them die down so you can jump onto the slope above them to backflip and grab the upper ledge. Push the button and enter the next corridor, where a mutant attacks. Climb the ladder and jump over the pit to get the mp5 clips over the entrance before going up the next corridor until you come to a junction.

As doors block the other corridors, enter the room to the left. Lara takes note of five pressure gauges on the wall. Up the walkway, there's a receptacle to the right (the item we need is just inside that deadly toxic tank), and a button on the left side. It opens the opaque door in the corridor, so go back there and enter the botanical gardens area. Jump over the wooden ledge to the right for some uzi clips, then use the tree stump on the left to grab the flat part of the lower roof and crawl in the dark space for grenades.

Safety drop back down and go through the corridor to the second half of the garden, where you get the jump on two troopers. Take the small medipack and flares they leave behind and have a look around the area. In this massive area we'll find side paths to the five valves we're looking for. In the current floor, go right from the entrance to dispatch a venomous plant near the wall and find a switch on the other side of the crawlspace right next to it.

Keep circling around the room in a counterclockwise fashion and you'll get to a wooden ledge; you'll certainly notice the vines in the first huge alcove, but don't go up just yet, as just around that structure is another venomous plant protecting shotgun shells. With that in your backpack, retrace a bit and climb up those vines all the way to the top. Backflip to land on a walkway high up.

Kill the venomous plant behind the railing and climb up the ladder in the back. As you backflip to an upper walkway, a trooper opens fire. Kill him, take his desert eagle ammo, and activate valve 1/5 on the wall. Get the save crystal from the tree branch and work your way back to the bottom of the room safely. Go around the ladder and down the ramps to a lower, flooded level. Jump to the ledge across for another save crystal.

Dive into the underwater passage in the middle of the room and swim straight ahead for an underwater lever. It opens the left underwater cage, out of which a mutant crocodile comes out, lure it out so you can dispatch it from the safety of the ledge where the crystal once was, then go back and swim into the open cage. Pull up into the opening surrounded by plants and come to a button.

It's a rather tight timed swim to the opposite cage, so press the button, immediately sideflip left and swim straight ahead, but don't stop just beyond the gate as a moving spiked wall is coming in hot from your right, so swim all the way to the left end of the room and activate the underwater lever there to open a gate behind you. Roll and swim in before it's too late!

You arrive in a large flooded lab. Quickly surface and get out of water to deal with the resident mutant crocodile, then activate valve 2/5 on the long ledge. Swim through the opening to the side of the fan for mp5 clips and a save crystal, then fill up your lungs before swimming back through the opening across from the fan all the way back. The underwater lever reopens the entrance gate, so you can go back out and up to the first floor. Now let's go climb that ladder.

Follow the walkway around to a trooper in the middle and take his shotgun shells. Nearby, find a dead soldier behind railings and jump over them to claim his MP5 ASSAULT RIFLE. On the opposite side of this walkway, you could do a running jump for some grenades, but you'd need to safety drop and climb back up the ladder. Either way, go through the open gate in this floor to get to the walkways above the entrance of the botanical garden. Dispatch the roaming trooper.

Ignore the doorway to the right, it leads to a toxic pit for which we don't know the safe path yet... Instead, go up that ladder right in front of you, ignore the timed switch just as well, and hop over the gap to go through the opening back to the main botanical garden area. On this level, do a running jump at the very tip of the triangular ledge to get across and find two buttons in the opposite ledge, then go down the retracted trapdoors in the center and crawl into a pit.

We'll soon be leaving this room through this same crawlspace, so pull the nearby metal block underneath the crawlspace. Get that save crystal bouncing in the back and climb down the ladder to the bottom, where a mutant is guarding valve 3/5. Climb up the ladder and use that block to get to the crawlspace and up the trapdoors back to the topmost walkways. Approach the broken one in the middle and look up: you can monkey swing into that room straight across. As soon as you land, a flamethrower trooper shows up, so be quick or be dead. Take the TOXIC POOL MAP from the dead soldier, if you inspect it in your inventory you'll know the safe route in that room, so let's get back there. Safety drop to the lower walkway and go through the open doorway nearby.

Use the map to get across, but don't be in such a hurry: when you reach the second safe spot, look to the wall on the left side. Just behind that vertical pipe is a crawlspace. Line up a running jump to get there and crawl in to find SECRET #2. Backflip off the crawl space to another set off vines and climb up. Near the top, backflip in order to land on a flat spot beyond a slope; if you slide down, just grab the vines and try again from a higher spot. Get a save crystal and find desert eagle ammo and a small medipack in the suspended passage, then drop down on the other side and you're back at the entrance, where a mutant now expects you. Don't let it push you off the edge.

Now clear the toxic pool using the map in your inventory as guidance to find valve 4/5 in the far back, alongside a save crystal and two komodo dragons. One of the crawlspaces they drop from houses uzi clips. Retrace your steps safely over the toxic pool and back to the walkways. Climb the ladder and now let's negotiate that timed run.

Flick the switch, roll and perform running jumps over the extended trapdoors to the safe walkway on the other end before they retract. The button in there makes a third trapdoor retracts nearby, but let's take a short detour first. See that save crystal on the tree branch? Carefully jump there, walk to the end of that branch and jump straight up to grab a ledge above, through the leaves. That's SECRET #3 for you: jump to the very top of the tree, where the leaves are thick, and find your way to the ledges around the perimeter where you'll find a large medipack and two grenades.

From the grenades, safety drop to the walkway by the bottom of the ladder and run around that walkway. Get shotgun shells behind the railing, and go up that ladder in the far back through the retracted trapdoor to find valve 5/5. This would be a good time to save your game as a flamethrower trooper is right below you, so draw a powerful weapon and make short work of him before you're toast, then take his grenades as a reward. (You can patiently take him out from your current position: approach the railings and shoot once or twice, then hop back before he has a lock on you. Rinse and repeat.)

With all five valves activated, that toxic pool by the pressure gauges has been completely filtered, so get back there by safely climbing all the way down to the ground floor of the botanical gardens and return through the entrance. Take the doorway across from the still closed glass door and up the walkway to drop into the tank, where you can get the DESERT EAGLE as well as the RESTRICTED AREA KEY. Use it right above the tank and the glass door opens.

Get that save crystal and enter the ambush room. A spiked wall is moving towards you from the right, so quickly go to the vines on the left side and climb up a bit so you can heroically backflip over the trap. The locals aren't too impressed, however, as a flamethrower trooper and a trooper rush in to try and finish the job. Dispatch them and get their small medipack and uzi clips before running down the corridor leading to a rather ominous area.

The door right ahead is locked, so drop to the lower floor and find shotgun shells and a save crystal before diving into the water. Mind the laser traps and pull out on the other side, where a komodo dragon is probably already breathing down your neck. Grab that metal block and drag it underneath the broken ladder so you can pull up to the walkway above to get the REACTOR ACCESS KEY. Swim back and eliminate two mutants, then climb the ladder and cross the walkways to that locked door which you can now open.

As you step inside, Eckhardt himself shows up to try and stop you. Your goal is to flick that switch in the central pillar, but Eckhardt is protected by a force field which won't let you — or your bullets — get close enough, so let's find a way to get rid of him. Be especially careful whenever you hear him charging up shots, those can instantly kill you if you don't get out of the way.

From the starting position, look to the right and you'll notice a platform just past the railing. Jump and grab to it, then drop to a lower platform below. Slide and jump to the balcony with a save crystal. Inside, two flamethrower troopers protect valve 1/3. Back at the balcony, do a running jump to the platform on the opposite corner, to your right. Pull up, get a small medipack and then climb to the upper walkway. Jump to the next balcony with another save crystal, valve 2/3 is inside as well as two komodo dragons.

Return outside and proceed counterclockwise as you were. This time, stand jump to grab the slope ahead, pull up and immediately bounce to grab the upper walkway. Bounce off the slope in the corner to grab the monkeyswing above and swing to the other end. Do a long running jump to that tilted platform with a large medipack and safety drop to the balcony below with the save crystal. Valve 3/3 is within reach, just past the two mutants inside. Again, go out and head right so you can jump to a platform, climb up a hanging ladder and jump off the slope over the railings to the entrance of this area.

Go downstairs to the open door behind the save crystal and push the button to activate the reactor. The black alchemist is no more, so cross the walkway and finally flick that switch to retract a trapdoor at the bottom. Climb down the long ladder nearby, dive in and swim towards your next adventure...