Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3141
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 133
TR1 - 61
72376 reviews (20.4/level)
3532 (99.7%) walkthroughs
445 Hall of Fame levels
1221 levels rated >= 8
|
|
|
 |
|
| |
|
release date: |
01-Jan-2008 |
|
# of downloads: |
107 |
|
|
average rating: |
8.17 |
|
review count: |
24 |
|
|
|
review this level |
|
|
file size: |
47.90 MB |
|
file type: |
TR4 |
|
class: |
South America |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Reviewer's comments |
"Yeah I had a real fun time with this South American level. Starting off outside in a jungle type of area with huts and
buildings the action kicks off straight away with first tribesman and then Dinos to contend with as we explore the areas
finding switches to open a door etc. After we fall down a long tunnel to some water below things become a lot more
interesting as we are taken by a current to a whole new area with some lovely purple lighting effect on the water but we
can’t swim in a lot of it because of the strong currents so it’s time for climbing around the outer rocks and ledges to
progress and open up another watery cave area with a zip-line and 2 fun trap rooms. One trap room hiding a key and
the other one giving you accessibility to a higher area, these rooms involve deadly blades timed spikes, fire, attacking
skeletons and a tight timed run to a lowering block and it’s a welcome change to the mostly chilled platforming and
exploring up until that point just make sure you find the shotgun to knock those skeletons off the ledges. After some
more climbing around the rocks and a fun pole swing it’s back outside to explore and find new caves, buildings and their
rooftops and lovely looking lagoon areas as we find ourselves climbing and platforming around mostly, with a torch task
and some traps and enemies dotted around here and there to spice things up and add variety. One of my favourite areas
was the blue water room where you had to make your way around and then up above avoiding the water which if fell in
the current would take you to death, making your way around was quite fun with tricky jumps, pole swinging and
jumping off rotating water wheels. After the retrieval of a mask it’s time to find our way back to the beginning of the
level where new areas are now accessible leading to a previous locked off door which can be opened with the mask,
from here it’s a tricky but fun Swan dive down to a tiny pool where the level comes to a end.
Overall a very enjoyable raid, the traps and challenges were great, the environments and layout of areas were a joy to
explore here as well and with some good visuals and atmosphere I couldn’t ask for much more." - John (23-Nov-2023) |
|
| "(9) Gameplay & Puzzles: This is a medium-difficulty, action-packed adventure that took me about 1 hour. This is my first BTB2008 playthrough and I can't help but think the natives are wearing pajama pants... anyway, onto the review. The gameplay is heavily platforming focused, and some jumps may be tricky for newer players. I always wanted to press on further, never growing bored, and I particularly enjoyed the platforming in the waterwheel room. I enjoyed the rooftop exploration, and it's especially cool how you eventually return full-circle to the rooftops of the starting area. You really get a sense of accomplishment when this happens. I think my only issues with the gameplay are the lack of puzzles, and the fact that the player has to backtrack through a trap room (more on that in the next category). (8) Enemies, Objects & Secrets: Near the start of the game there is a tall room with jumping skeletons and it is interesting and well-executed. Nothing else really comes close to this, however; there are plenty of pajama pant natives and it just gets a bit dull killing them after awhile. The builder includes many traps across the adventure, and static object decor is attractive. There is a lever near the zipline that is too well-blended into the wall, which was frustrating. Also near the zipline is a spike/blade trap room. The player has to circumvent this trap room twice, in order to return to the upper waterfall area, and I do not like this. I think it would be much better if either A) these traps are deactivated for the player's 2nd visit or B) provide a shortcut to the upper area via a raising block, once the player has completed the necessary tasks. (7) Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras: The builder did a wonderful job with room connectivity, establishing a sense of place within the world, and having the player return full-circle to previously inaccessible areas. So, in a sense, the architecture is excellent. However, in another sense, the architecture has issues. There are so many inorganic cavern walls that just look like giant rectangles, and it detracts from the atmosphere. The sounds are OK but not memorable; I do think the level needed more distinct ambiences and/or music. Static camera hints are adequate, and there are some attractive flybys, however there are a few occurrences of annoying and unnecessary fixed cameras. (5) Lighting & Textures: I am sorry for my harsh words... There are so many misshapen textures and instances of jarring wallpapering. The lighting is attractive in some rooms, and over-the-top in other rooms. When I say over-the-top, I mean that sometimes the colored lighting is just too intense and it comes across as cartoonish and unconvincing. The colored lighting can also be very inconsistent in application. For example a large cave area will primarily have neutral lighting, but then there will be these super intense blue or green colored blobs and it just looks weird. I think that there needs to be more consistency of theme; all of these visual issues detract from the level's immersion. It's not a dark level in general, but there's plenty of small dark rooms. The builder only provides 1 flare pickup, so players may have visibility issues if they miss this pickup. Overall, the gameplay flow is exciting from start to finish, however aesthetic and immersion issues rubbed me the wrong way. Recommended for players who enjoy lots of agility-based tasks. 9/8/7/5." - nerdfury (16-Feb-2022) |
|
| "This Peru level has Lara exploring various huts and stone buildings around a nicely crafted river. The lighting is really good, I like the purple used in the river, my one minor complaint is that the last bridge area is too dark. Sadly this is yet another level that punishes you for missing the shotgun, this time you get multiple floors with skeletons chasing after you, and there's also a pushblock that you must move to escape but a skeleton may get stuck in it, which will brick your game. Aside from that, Lara will have some fun dodging gauntlets of traps, passing around a torch to ignite it, and jumping across rooftops. There's just a bit too much backtracking for my tastes, but that only had a minor impact on the adventure. A well constructed and immersive level, recommended. 56 minutes." - JesseG (03-Dec-2020) |
|
| "Do you know, I quite enjoyed this one. It's
mostly about fine-tuning your jumping skills,
but it works well in that way. Some nice
colourful lighting effects give it a unique
flair and I also enjoyed the trap sequences
with skeletons in tow. Nice flyby showing the
appearance of Lara's ultimate goal too.
Recommended." - Ryan (23-Feb-2017) |
|
| "This entry especially has a nice way of linking two village sections and an underground river, the connections are pretty well done here and this adds a lot to the atmosphere, as well as decently used fixed cams, flybys and audios. The lighting scheme is interesting, though not necessarily everywhere great - while there are good usages of colour in here, sometimes it tends to be fairly unrealistic. The texturing also could've needed a bit more attention in parts but generally the visuals are convincing enough. The gameplay is strongly trap- and platforming based, mostly doesn't contain new ideas but the progression up the river, jumps that have to be figured out and a few puzzles here and there, altogether designed in a very fluent way, make up for a good dose of entertainment. There's just one hardly believable shortcut where you can just jump up to grab an upper ledge instead of doing a pole jump sequence. The enemy placement is not very spectacular, perhaps except of the skeleton room - but in here you're best done by ignoring most of the undead ones instead of facing them, it's a rather dull task if you ask me. But overall I had a nice time here, 25 minutes to be exact, and found the only one secret (which seems to be placed as an afterthought)." - manarch2 (18-Mar-2016) |
|
| "There's a Madubu Gorge feeling to the hub for the first half
of this level, as you work your way up and around a river
(albeit not an especially deadly one), and there's also a
village theme that's somewhat fresh. The visuals are decent
enough, although there are texture flaws and I think things
verge on being a bit too colourful at times here, to the point
of unbelievability. The gameplay is pretty strong, although it
felt a little too switch-hunt based at a couple of early
points. The start gives a mistaken impression that this will
be a pretty simple entry, but it's probably one of the more
challenging ones, with places to search through on several
levels and various trap sequences. This is another strong
entry." - Mman (09-Nov-2012) |
|
| "The first BtB 08 level I played. This is a very good level, it looks beautiful and is great fun to play. The atmosphere is wonderful. Dangerous traps, beautiful water-areas and cozy villages surrounded by green nature. Some difficult jumps, but otherwise not too difficult. I'm sure Lara enjoyed herself as much as I did!" - Thorir (22-Sep-2008) |
|
| "I really had a very good time playing this Btb08 Peruvian level with a good map. Nothing confusing here, despite the fact I left some of the places unfinished. I was pretty confident I will return there later on, as the level as a solid aspect. This kind of gameplay where you can obviously notice the receptacles before you get the item and return later on is good.
The tasks are quite fun : I enjoyed a lot circumnavigating around the underground lake, the Catacomb room with ledges and skeletons (I've replayed this section without using the shotgun the second time and it was also quite fun reaching the top of the room dodging the skellies all the way up), the area with many traps, the magnificent lake with waterfalls (the coloured lighting in the water is superb! ). The jumps around the huts roofs was quite enjoyable too , as was also the whole section where you have to use the torch. A very good flyby with the use of the lighting conductor is well put in scene and the level ends like it began with Lara carried away by sinks in the water. If some textures would have been worthy to be rotated , the shaping of the blocks at the service of the gameplay is very well done. For me , In Cuzco was one of the more enjoyable BtB2008 levels !" - eRIC (01-Mar-2008) |
|
| "In Cuzco takes place for the first time in a big forest with waterfall, villages, and temples. Lara starts from the beginning in this big area and all looks so dispersive. The only thing one can do is to switch the lever, but you immediately have the impression to see that place again, and it will be right that way. The areas aren't with a lot of detail, but you can enjoy the beautiful way the level designer placed the light. Wonderful the use of theme for the underwater session, full of different color and with a good atmosphere for all the adventure. What I really don't like of this game were some session with jumps and skeleton, and its really strange but for the first time in this competition I didn't want to go on. Just frustrating, but not always, just sometimes. So also in this case I suggest this game but really there isn't anything new in it." - diamond (29-Feb-2008) |
|
| "I liked the linearity in this level, and even though it's always clear where you have to go, it's not always obvious how you get there. There's quite a lot of platforming involved and the torch sequence was neat. It's interesting how after a long trip you end up right back where you started. I missed the raptors and even a T-Rex, but the amount of skeletons makes up for unused baddies, fortunately there's enough shotgun ammo and always a ledge nearby. The level looks pretty generally, but there are quite a few squashed textures which could have used that extra fine tuning. All in all, a fun level that is likely to please all sorts of players. 50 minutes. 02/08" - Treeble (24-Feb-2008) |
|
| "Lara is on the way across different areas and to find a native village...The village lies very beautifully embedded in different water and rock areas. The climbing and jump missions, which there are plenty of provided a lot of fun. The intelligently invented torch puzzle and the ways over the roofs in the village I liked very much. However, I have also a few points of criticism: If I would like to describe the general impression I would say: More class than mass would have been better;) Because in the level very many areas were rather badly textured. There were many distorted and also squeezed textures and also places where the textures looked only wallpaper-like in line. I found also an illegal way, with a jump over the bevel upward in the area where the water wheel was placed. Also in the last area one could jump downward and stay alive... was the trapdoor then still closed, Lara was standing stupidly in the dark... a classical deadend. All in all, the level had however many interesting parts and it is relatively simple to play, thus a recommendation for everyone:)" - Eva (21-Feb-2008) |
|
| "Very enjoyable level. A few new twists, and generally a little challenging. A lot was done with a reletively small landscape. BTW, I love the new shotgun sound, whoever did that..." - Juno Jim (15-Feb-2008) |
|
| "This is very much an enjoyable level to play. It's a bit dark in the enclosed areas, but a pure delight in the outdoor sections. I almost felt at times as if I were there in person, exploring ancient Peru terrain and ruins. I got a little confused at the end, where a trap door opened in the roof of a hut, and it wasn't entirely clear to me which hut area I needed to return to. I floundered around a bit at this point before getting onto the right track again, but this was about the only glitch I encountered. No bugs to speak of, the gameplay is crisp and varied, you get skeletons galore if that's your thing, not to mention a nice assortment of natives. Although too much of anything can be less than a good thing, I'm almost sorry that I'm about to run out of these BtB Peru levels. This has been an extraordinary competition. Recommended." - Phil (11-Feb-2008) |
|
| "If you want to test your jumping skills, then this level is for you; if however, like me, you want a bit more from a level, like adventure feel and exploration, then you may feel disappointed and grow impatient playing 'In Cuzco'. This level in almost its entirety is consumed in having Lara trying to spot the right surface to jump to, and more often than not you may find yourself wondering if you are doing the right thing. It starts off with a rather stylized and not particularly inspired exterior setting, then you get to make your way with jumps around the perimeter of a pool (that's a nice sequence actually), and then you are trapped in a continuous struggle to make it through spikes, annoying skeletons and more jumps. All this, in a quite dull setting that sometimes remotely reminds of the Catacombs level from TR4 and other times the South Pacific village from TR3. Speaking of which - things become a bit better when you get to the village, the atmosphere becomes more solid and with more character; the action also gets more coherent although there's still the same pattern of locating switches that open doors that lead to more switches etc that was also prominent in the first part. It gets somehow more interesting towards the end, but that's just when the adventure is over. The reason why I gave this level a low rating for gameplay is not because I didn't like it, but because, like I said in the beginning, I like a level to have something more than just testing the player's ability to handle peculiar jumps; and imo this level is more of this and much less of a truly tomb-raiderish adventure." - Ravenwen (26-Jan-2008) |
|
| "Jumping, and more jumping. Don't get me wrong I do like jumping but here as well as in some other BtB levels, I would have liked flares and lots of them. The hunt is on for a crowbar and you'll find it, much later. The textures could have used a tad more attention and there are illegal slopes. Overall the gameplay I found was rather fluent, apart from the places I had to reload a couple of times to get my jumping or the timed runs right. In here you get to practice skeletons shooting, quite handy tough. The ending was rather abrupt, but all in all I had great fun." - Gerty (25-Jan-2008) |
|
| "A very solid level with precise jumps around the water perimeter near the start. This was, I think, easily, the most flowing and straightforward in terms of gameplay of the entries I have played to date. And it was one of the few that I did not have to rely on the forum to progress as things unfolded, one step at a time, perfectly. Lots of fun, relatively stress-free without all the wandering around one is apt to do in less defined levels. This was a joy to play and recommended for all Raiders." - Bene (23-Jan-2008) |
|
| "Another excellent level, fairly linear, with the crowbar that I missed and that I must to search for continue the adventure.
It is not especially difficult, but we must open our eyes, I really liked shoot the skeletons on the platform when they jumped from one platform to another. I really liked this level, and I recommand it to all players ." - Minox (22-Jan-2008) |
|
| "I liked this level a lot. Most of the play is pretty straightforward.
Near the beginning, after having made progress by rock jumping around the edge of water, one can look back through the cavern and see bold red and blue and tints highlighting that stretch of water into the dark distance. A good design touch--most builders just fade to black. Lara fights some skeletons and does a lot of jumping. The game starts with a crowbar door, so we expect to find the crowbar, and it is on a roof arch. It may seem unbelievable, but there are some players who would waste an hour trying to get Lara on the roof, backflipping off slopes and trying sharply curved forward jumps. They will try this at one end of the large area, and then at the other, trying to figure out how to get on the roof. This really bogged down the game for me, I mean for them. After all, most of the game play goes smoothly and quickly. A flyby hint, showing the crawlspace in the wall, with the camera panning along Lara's path over the roofs to the crowbar, would help these players immensely. Once this was solved, and after the waterwheel room, it was a nice touch to have the big doors open up to return Lara to the start, and have some back-and-forth action between these areas. And then back to the temple doors for the end. The idea for the ending may have seemed dramatic--black canyon, isolated fires down below--but in practice it was a letdown from what preceded it. This level was a welcome break after playing a dark, murky one. Good fun." - dmdibl (19-Jan-2008) |
|
| "With few reviews that showed a kind of OK reception of the level, I wasn't expecting a whole lot when I started playing it, and I think that kind of worked in favor of the level, as it turned out to be one of the most fun experiences I've had in this competition. Period. With the exception of a few moments where a nudge or two to get you in the right direction are needed, it's a fairly straightforward and simple experience all the way through, and guessing what your next move is should never be an issue, both - because of the level's simple-minded nature and because of the abundant use of camera clues. That, though, doesn't mean that there isn't any complexity to the level at all. You'll cover the various areas it has a number of times, and the use of traps, enemies, jumps and timed runs will have you reloading a number of times to get things done right. The course is very clever and I loved how everything unfolded step by step, and how pretty much no door or area was left uncovered when you reached the end. As far as the looks go - you can argue that the architecture could be better, that there are a number of texture problems, or that the psychadelic looks detract from the overall feeling of realism, but I found the areas to be very picturesque (especially the last fly-by revealing the mask showed the levels best aspects) and being a sucker for colourful lighting helped enjoying the level too! If I had any critique - then I thought that the ending was abrupt and anti-climatic, as I kind of expected a huge showdown after the extremely atmospheric final caves and the dramatic leap into the 1 tile pool, and that the story didn't make a whole lot of sense to me in the manner that I wasn't exactly sure what I accomplished in the 40+ minutes I spent here, no matter how fun they were? All that put aside - if you like your levels colourful, simple, yet still maintaining a decent challenge level - this one is for you. Found 1 secret." - eTux (18-Jan-2008) |
|
| "This is an enjoyable btb level including many wide and good looking cave and temple areas to explore. Gameplay is also inventive containing mainly rather similar kind of jumping tasks to clear but they truly are fun and not too hard either. The ending could have been tought out better because this game ends suddenly when you are expecting some kind of final highlight. Anyway I liked this game and it's good for beginners and also for more experienced raiders." - Samu (16-Jan-2008) |
|
| "I must say I was hoping for a South American city level to change a bit from all these BtB levels... Alas, it was not. But that's ok. Somehow, though, I didn't like this level much because it's crowded with jumps I couldn't figure out and a lot of back and fro as well. I know some will say that's what Tomb Raider's all about but I'm not so certain... More like Prince of Persia maybe and I dislike PoP. Plus, there was a bug, I think it was a bug, in a small room with a pole. Lara would always grab the pole too low and jumped straight onto the wall ahead. The option was to place Lara below the pole and then she'd grab the pole correctly but unfortunately that way she'd immediately jump back and that was that. So, I wouldn't have been able to proceed from there had it not been for some savegame help from the forums. Apart from that, the textures and the lighting seem correct but never thrilling. Enemies are just the natives. Play it so you can say you played all the BtB levels..." - Jorge22 (15-Jan-2008) |
|
| "Although architecture and textures are not very good, perhaps for the huge rooms, I liked this level 'cause it has good ideas and it's not easy you run lost around and around. When you begin, you need a mask to open the doors of a supposed temple, and you'll have to traverse big jungle areas and take a big work and danger fighting with many enemies to finally get the mask, but when you finally get it and open the doors,... Good use of the cameras and lights, sometimes you can get disoriented 'cause the huge areas but I've enjoyed this work." - Jose (09-Jan-2008) |
|
| "This is another of my favourite entries in the series (yes, I realise that it's beginning to sound as though they're all my favourites, but it IS a very good series). This is fairly linear so the confusion factor is low and although there are some highly enjoyable challenges that do take some achieving, it's all eminently do-able and I had a great deal of fun shotgunning skeletons off ledges. Unmissable." - Jay (08-Jan-2008) |
|
| "A level with gameplay that was exactly what I like - you never had to wonder around forever trying to figure out what to do next, it was always quite clear what needed to be done, but it required plenty of Lara's agility to get it done. Many jumps along a river, around corners, among the rooftops of the big huts and the rocky slopes that you pass along your way that after about an hour brings you right back to where you started, but this time with the trusted crowbar in your backpack which will help get you the mask end escape. The other things this level stands out for among the BtB Levels is the heavy use of skeletons which you get to shoot of ledges in a very atmospheric room and then there is a nice room to master to get to the torch. Nice waterfalls throughout, some good use of sinks and all in all a well rounded level to enjoy." - MichaelP (06-Jan-2008) |
|
|
|
