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Courel's Sands by AngelR

Ceamonks890 4 3 3 2
DJ Full 4 5 2 1
eRIC 3 6 5 2
eTux 2 3 2 2
Gerty 3 4 4 3
guss18 7 7 5 5
Jay 5 6 5 4
Jose 3 4 5 3
manarch2 4 4 3 3
MichaelP 6 7 4 4
Orbit Dream 3 5 2 2
Oxy 8 7 7 5
Phil 7 8 6 6
rtrger 6 4 5 3
Ryan 6 6 4 4
Treeble 5 5 5 4
 
release date: 29-Aug-2008
# of downloads: 112

average rating: 4.38
review count: 16
 
review this level

file size: 30.80 MB
file type: TR4
class: nc
 


author profile(s):
email(s):
angelr1988@hotmail.com

Reviewer's comments
"My journey through the levels from this author is hardly what you might call linear so while playing through this I had strong feelings of deja vu, even though the level is hardly striking as it is. It's boxy, it's bland, it's a bit on the dark side and most rooms seem to have been auto-textured. And yet, some of the setups (the tall room with the many breakaway floor tiles, the last secret over burning pillars which I've again ignored, the surprise boulder if you drop off a crawlspace on the unintented side) were all too familiar. 30 minutes, 2 secrets. 05/24" - Treeble (13-May-2024)
"The aesthetics aren't the most inspiring out there and the rooms are maybe unnecessarily huge, but the gameplay actually has quite a bit of a challenge to offer. One particular boulder trap had me reloading quite a bit, and there was a breakable tile sequence that proved quite puzzling too (despite the inevitable dead stop if you use them all). Enemies are also quite threatening at times, but enough cool custom weaponry is made available to dispose of them effectively, although a few more medipacks wouldn't have hurt. Not very attractive as far as as visuals go overall, but the gameplay isn't half bad either." - Ryan (01-Apr-2019)
"This must be one of the worst looking Egyptian levels I can recall, with no single grid division applied, no single lightbulb placed, and I wouldn't mind flat lighting that much if the ambience values weren't additionally adjusted to disturbingly dull values, to affect the entire level except water rooms which have reflection by default, and a small sunny canyon which is a tad more pleasant. There are some puzzle attempts and the combat element is well executed especially with unusual beetles. Despite of a very interesting title the game has no storyline and shows no point, though thanks to another Seth encounter and a proper to-the-jeep getaway at least we have a climax and a conclusion. As a standalone project, this little crude prologue doesn't defend itself, but I'm very curious how it could evolve into a grandscale epic of Part 2, so I play the continuum in order, and it might yet happen I will enjoy the anthology of this author as a whole." - DJ Full (22-Feb-2016)
"OK, so for a debut level, this is as by-the-numbers as you get for a first release, in terms of mistakes. Textures are repeated and stretched constantly, rooms are far too big and boxy, lighting can be a bit too dark and the gameplay presented here isn't anything truly remarkable overall. So, why didn't I complain about this level being rather boring, if it happens to have problems that would normally put many players off? Well, for all intents and purposes, the gameplay itself(as bland as it is), manages to keep at a nice steady pace if you know what you're doing and leads to some satisfying sections to get through(such as a breaktile challenge in order to reach a lever for progress or pulling switches while avoiding getting killed by Seth and his pet anubis dogs.) Also, the music, objects and enemies(as overused as they are by this point), still fit their surroundings and get the job done as well as they did in TR4(with a single track from TR1 helping to contribute to the excitement of attempting the breaktile challenge greatly.) In conclusion, while not among the worst debut levels I've ever played, the mistakes in lighting, texturing and level design here can be too much to bare and turn many players off trying this level out entirely. And I can't say I blame them for their choice. Unless you were ever curious to know how AngelR started out in his level building career, you're better off trying out his other releases over this." - Ceamonks890 (12-Apr-2014)
"Bearing in mind this is a debut level, this feels a lot better than one would think with all those streched textures, badly architectured rooms and overused enemies. The gameplay has its (small) moments, with some challenging, but somewhat predictable boulder traps, a longer breaktile challenge (where it's able to get totally stuck though) and a few easy jumps, but the level still is rather tedious to walk through, especially because of the ever repetitive areas and nearly every gameplay task being repeated several times in this level. I thought the three secrets were solidly hidden and the third one requires a rather difficult standing banana jump, which I found quite surprising as the difficulty in this level is rather medium to easy elsewhere. Even if the enemy placements were not done without thought, there were a few rather annoying moments, especially the "beetle passage", and many other invincible enemies annoying you. Overall not a totally bad first effort lasting 25 minutes for me, though with too many mistakes especially in terms of architecture and textures. It's nice to see the builder has evolved later." - manarch2 (31-Jul-2013)
"Presumably, everyone knows those baby-steps in the editor. This one is something like that, though I felt it a bit better. The nice ideas for gameplay is there, but the room designing is blocky, rather empty and the texturing is abruptly made. Overally, the game is quite simple, it's easy to get through the game. Spiky traps, deadly tiles and boulders (although it's just pushes our heroine forward) try to send Lara to grave, while she's trying to collect tablet pieces, flick switches, getting upwards with floating and falling stones (which was very nice, I needed many tries to get up and back) , kill enemies and such. A rather well-made part is when you have to kill birds, while a bull attacks you. I really liked that. The horizon is great at the outdoor place, but the lightning is basic. Running away from Seth is exciting. The final room is nicely done, I must praise the nice use of the draw distance, and no sign of using the Engine Patcher. Some scripting can be seen too, which is also nice. A promising first try." - rtrger (25-Jul-2010)
"This was one of those levels which really didn't do much for me.I tried hard to enjoy it;but the combination of uniformly huge and boxy rooms,wallpapered and massively stretched textures,overly dark lighting and repetetive 'run-and-shoot' gameplay eventually engendered a feeling of tedium,not helped by the complete absence of atmosphere. Although enemies are plentiful,they are predictably placed and dealing with them becomes a chore very rapidly.The one genuinely challenging sequence involving collapsible tiles is somewhat faulty as it requires the player to save in multiple slots,as half need to be kept 'solid' on the outward journey in order for the player to be able return across the room and hence go on to complete the adventure. Despite the varied amount of enemies and dazzling weaponry on offer to deal with them,I nevertheless found little here to become excited about." - Orbit Dream (01-May-2009)
"Not much visually but gameplay was not really bad. Enemies were demigods, harpys, bulls and beetles (ugh-I really hate those beetles). Choice of weapons was interesting and I enjoyed the collapsible tile room, one of those think before you leap type puzzles because you will have to find your way back. The teeth doors had no sound which did cause me to get sliced and diced. When will I learn...long hallway look for traps. I think this author shows promise but may need to take a little more time if they are going to continue to build levels." - guss18 (24-Oct-2008)
"I'm not sure why the average scores to date are so low. To be sure, there are lots of huge, nondescript and virtually empty areas throughout this level, so you certainly don't want to play it for the visual amenities. But on the other hand, you get nearly an hour's worth of gameplay, and some of it isn't all that easy. There's a breaktile room that I can almost guarantee you won't conquer on the first go, requiring a fallback savegame. The rest of it is pretty basic stuff, and it exudes that tell-tale flavor of a maiden voyage, but it's really not all that bad. Harry, who wrote the walkthrough, had the same opinion. And, best of all, the lighting is well done. Give it a try, you could do worse." - Phil (13-Oct-2008)
"This debut is a bit of a mixed bag. It is rather dark in many rooms and most rooms are simply too large, too empty and textured too much in a wallpaper way to create any little impression of atmosphere. But it still provides a good 30-40 minutes of fairly linear entertainment as you make your way from room to room, collecting occasional pickups (including some cool custom weaponry), avoid traps (lots of boulders) and I really thought that enemies were placed and used to their (devious) advantage quite well - with lots of beetles, bulls, harpies, demigods and more - often in challenging combinations. The room with the collapsible tiles is actually not that easy in comparison to the rest of the game. Good potential with this new builder - just needs to focus a bit more on architecure, room geometry and textures to make the gaming experience a little more believable. 3 secrets found." - MichaelP (02-Oct-2008)
"I played this game twice, first time I didn't have enough medi-packs, so I tried again with sparing them. Game-play is straight forward; you can't miss a thing if you have your eyes open. Enemies are worth to fight. In game is also many surprises with rolling-balls, jumping over spikes, running away from little beetles and sphinx, very good fight with harpys, challenge with falling-blocks (you can make it after few tries). You will see also red area with scorpions, Seth's place (very nice and mysterious done). Textures aren't very pretty though they are placed very good according to game-play. I liked this game very much." - Oxy (01-Oct-2008)
"As said in the other reviews it is a first level by this author and although there is some nice gameplay, I also am sure that this isn't tested or else the builder had to find out that there is a major game stopper in this game. In my download the EXE file was removed so no worries there. But the dreaded collapsible tiles, is another story. I would urge the builder to read the first part of the manual as textures are like wallpaper and the walls aren't divided by clicks. Oh well. you learn by making mistakes." - Gerty (28-Sep-2008)
"Why all the rooms so huge and empty? This causes the textures are stretched and elongated. Although there is a very simple architecture, only with big square rooms, from time to time there are some musics when the areas are dangerous and enemies are not bad at all. There are some traps but no puzzles and secrets are very easy to find. At least there are few switches to pull. A fast building always produce a bad level." - Jose (23-Sep-2008)
"I started this soon after its release, and then got stuck on a closed door, which kind of demoralized me to attempt this any further - and now after returning to it almost a month after its release I found that all I had missed was a lever in the room before the one I was stuck! How embarrassing! The point of this interlude being that I don't really remember a whole lot of the first 10 minutes of this 30 minute adventure, and nothing it offered when I finally finished it now didn't entice me to replay it to find out. You can commend the builder on adding the traps, secrets, jump sequences and enemies, but it hardly detracts that this is just your regular beginner's effort consisting of needlessly big, poorly textured and lit rooms and not particularly inspired gameplay. I kind of liked the floating collapsible platform room from a gameplay aspect, but the author had not calculated in the player's way back from the crucial switch, which requires you to keep extra savegames or plan your path there and back in detail, which of course is not fun. Could've been worse, but hardly something for the Hall of Fame." - eTux (21-Sep-2008)
"Maybe it will be quicker to say when it's not a debut level, because we seem to be getting a quite unprecedented number of them these days. This is quite solidly built and there's a reasonable attempt at gameplay. At first, this mainly involves a brisk canter through a lot of large, bland rooms with nothing to do but find pickups. As it progresses however, it becomes slightly more challenging with some quite fierce enemies and a rather nice collapsing tile run to perk things up. If you do decide to play this, don't use the custom exe file with the download or your screen will freeze every time you save. It works perfectly well with the original exe though. Oh, and you can't help but notice that this builder has a very serious boulder fixation. Not at all bad for a first attempt." - Jay (31-Aug-2008)
"For his/her first release , the author has known how to avoid a few of the beginner mistakes (no missing sounds except for the teeth doors and I won't complain of that for I hate this sound :] and not more than one thin wall), but alas not the others (big and square rooms with walls not segmented , wallpaper effect texturing , no lighting). But it is quite better than some of the early works released lately, at least it lasts 40 minutes and has something to offer , with a straightforward course that is a bit uneventful at the beginning with the odd innocent trap, but gets some excitement half way through the level with a threatening use of enemies, some jumps on pillars , and a big room with breakable tiles near the end to flip switches. Beware to let some of these tiles intact as you have to come back after flipping the switches :] You can except many different enemies here, the big scorpion was harmless , there is a good use of little beetles and of some other enemies but not of the demigods they can just be avoided, You get also a brief and a bit disappointing encounter with Seth. The first two secrets I've found were too easy but the third asked some effort from the player. I quite like the fancy weapons , especially the sound of the laser rifle." - eRIC (30-Aug-2008)