Level reviews

"I don’t think I played many old levels. This one is 17 years old. It took me around 30 minutes to finish. I really should have used my coins BEFORE exploring the snowmobile section. The city is nice, I like the amateur but wholesome voice acting. Music was a bit off-putting and the bell was more menacing than festive. Snowmobile is no match to TR2 one. But I got used to it pretty quickly. A nice experience and an interesting retrospective of my favorite category of levels." - MaxDeaconVR

"That was short, considering half of the time I spent obsessing about those mountains. Still a neat holiday level, with solid customization effort, and the final pickup ensures me I know what Christmas are truly about - coffee!" - DJ Full

"It's been a while since I've played the revised version, but there are some things I don't remember how they were which I'd presume were fixed/optimized. The sound balance for instance, some of the voice overs are inadubily low while other characters are too loud, some of the hills have stretched textures (plus one of the cameras show the "void" bottom below the town bridge), and generally speaking the whole snowmobile bit was hardly user friendly. Despite all of that, for its short length it still was a nice way to unwind after yet another worst day ever. 25 minutes, 4 secrets. 03/24" - Treeble

"Ive played the platinum edition as well and despite the snowmobile course as a different feature in this one, i actually prefer this one less and i generally find this one a bit less polished in the visual department as well. You play as alice who is a rich snobby girl who really needs to learn the meaning of christmas and your gameplay is searching around a gorgeous looking wintery town looking for objects, keys and switches, there is also a small trip to a sewer with a very good timed run and of course the snowmobile course is a good feature to do some more present finding and test out those driving skills across tricky jumps and ramps so there is good variety here but i only wish there was more puzzles or tasks to do in such a lovely snowy environment" - John

"Very nice level with pretty atmosphere, I enjoyed so much playing the game... At the beginning the game was smooth for me, I found solutions to puzzles pretty fast and continued further. Really challenging was for me snowy mountain part with snowmobile and seeking for the presents, where I was for a while stucked because one present was missing for me. Nevertheless I recommend the game!" - Lioness_86

"I played the Platinum version and really enjoyed both versions. The moral of the story is for a rather spoiled and vain girl to learn the meaning of Christmas. Initially she is late arriving to a shoe shop and just has to have that pair of shoes. Her attitude really stinks but, upon meeting Santa and collecting his missing gifts, he rewards her with something to help another person. The atmosphere was great and the textures plus the soundtrack were excellent. I did find a glitch whereby I disappeared through a roof near the end but that just added to the fun! I can't mark too many points for enemies etc. because there were none but the overall setting was extremely beautiful. Highly reccomended." - High Priestess

"Obviously this doesn't reach the quality of the superior Platinum Edition, but it's still a pleasant and lighthearted level with a charming message at heart, perfectly suited for the Christmas season. The pleasing looks of that version still remain and the snowmobile journey that was present in this level was apparently omitted from that level, although the timed run in the belfry still remains. The cutscenes are nicely used in a humanitarian manner, objects and secrets are used in charming ways and this is overall a sweet and placid little experience lasting around 28 minutes." - Ryan

"A very fun Xmas level (that holds a special place in my heart, since it's one of the first trle I encountered), you play as Jennifer as you explore the town to help the old man Santa. The atmosphere is very sweet, the puzzles are fun and some are challenging, the secrets are very entertaining to find, there's also a snow mobile part that is pretty fun. Overall it's a very good holiday-type of level, recommended." - SeniorBlitz

"I saw this level on the trle main page featured level section and wanted to rate it because, I remember it was so good. I had fun playing it. What definitely captured my attention was the architecture which was innovative and unique and goes in tone with the festive times. I know I'm reviewing this in June but I have to say it was one of the levels that stuck with me. The moral of the story was nice too. A solid recommendation!" - young Lara Croft

"This was a great game with an interesting storyline and with a snowmobile. Overall, this is one of my favorite TRLE games with lots of exploring to do and thinking to do. I wish the creators could've made a sequel to this game. I was curious what happens next. This is a fun game and I would like to see the creators make a sequel to this in the future." - Kyle

"I finally came to playing this older version (in summer - perfect timing, so to say). This is a lovely little level lasting about twenty minutes, and the story told here is simply great and the dialogues in-game were supporting it brilliantly. You actually start this level in a manor you get to see in the platinum edition, but in the new version it isn't Alice's one but another. In this older version, you don't explore an enhanced part of the town, but will have fun with a snowmobile and jumping around some snowy mountains, which feels at least as much fun, although the texturing suffers a bit as some of them, especially in the large pits, are heavily streched. All in all I had a few fun minutes in this level and found four rather easy secrets. Not as polished as the revised version, but still recommended as a nice X-massy level." - manarch2

"I played this level at Xmas 2010 and played it after the platinum edition. There was very little difference between the two but there were some like the home and there was a bike ride in the snowy hills. The home alice lives in is actually the secret place in the platinum edition. Also in the platinum edition alice's friend is actually alice in this game! Another thing is that alice is less annoying in this level. When you have to get santa's presents in the platinum edition you move to another part of the city but in this one you have to ride a bike around some snowy hills. The bike ride may sound fun but it's not. I hated it! Other than these changes it was the same as the platinum edition and it was still very fun! Recommended." - afzalmiah

"A short level , at around 30 minutes , mostly based on the interaction with a few personages and use of objects , sometimes it is very smart (the flybys triggered when coins are used) , with also a puzzle with crowbar lever and water current , a timed run up a tower , and an extended use of a snowmobile at the end, which was a bit confusing at my end. Even if the texturing is a bit repetitive at times and the snowy area lacks a bit of realism, the looks are quite clean and pleasing. The fact that there were not too many objects adds a lot to the gameplay fluency , without the areas being empty, that is a good plus to the level. On the whole , an original and aesthetical work of good quality." - eRIC

"This is one of those levels that really tries hard to please and delivers a message at the same time;so it seems churlish to point out that the latter part of the level (involving a hunt on the snowmobile for four presents) gets really rather tedious after a while and lacks the charm of the first part.Indeed,there is really only one gameplay highlight,and that is the timed run up a Hitchcockian Bell-tower;everything else is easy and harmless seasonal fun.Lighting,textures and atmosphere are everything you could require (although the Gorge has a few draw-distance problems)and the custom audio really helps to tell the story (which delvers a moral message that it's better to help people at Christmastime than watch Porn - although why you shouldn't get enjoyment from both is beyond me!) Anyway,it's generally a lot of fun and means well." - Orbit Dream

"For me it's Christmas in August yet again, and this time we're teaching some rather athletic bimbo the true meaning of Christmas, or so the story goes. It is carried nicely by the dialogues and cutscenes, and is engaging enough to follow through till the end. I found the gameplay a bit confusing, the part with the hunt for the presents not that inspired, but overall it was very manageable, and moments like the clever way to get back to town from the hills and the timed run in the bell tower certainly make up for the lackluster moments. The looks are a bit of a mix - on one hand most settings are beautifully done, the whole idea of the city in the mountains inviting on its own and the details with the fog, the hot-air balloon among other things added wonderful nuances, yet some things like the wallpaperish texturing and simplistic geometry of the gorges among other things could ruin the illusion at times. But obviously nowhere near enough to scare me away from finishing it, and when all is said and done, I would certainly recommend this further as an excellent small festive level to lighten up your mood. Found 4 secrets." - eTux

"Interesting level where you'll help to Santa to find some missed presents in a snowy place. There are new good features you can enjoy, with good animations, nice flybies, fantastic textured and a good architecture. It's difficult to mount the snowmobile, and I had problems to return to the village too looking for a way between the snowy hills, but eventually you'll get it. Not a long level but very well builded and entertaining." - Jose

"This is a fairly short (40 minutes for me, so less than that for most players) level that's broken down into two main parts. In the first part you explore a small wintry village and meet up with Santa and a couple of his reindeer. There's also a nifty timed run that gets you dizzy as you dash up a spiral staircase toward a lifted platform. The second part involves a jaunt in the snowy mountains on the snowmobile as you search for presents to load into a van. There's a nice humanitarian gesture at the end, perfect for the season. Charming and recommended." - Phil

"The first thing that came to my mind when I started this level was 'Poor Alice! Wearing this short shirt she will surely get a cystitis.' But nonetheless it is a nice looking outfit for a pretty looking girl. The atmosphere is quite good, texturing is a little flawy in the distance and the rooms in Alice's house are rather bare, even though the new objects used in the game are nice. After visiting part of the town and the sewer ending up ringing a bell that made Santa appear along with some reindeers, I finally found the snowmobile and trouble started. I could mount the mobile, but couldn't get off again. Thanks to PeterH in the forum who finally told me to use the 'jump' key (instead of the usual 'roll' key) to dismount, but that should have been mentioned in the readme. So eventually I could fill the 4 sacks into Santa's cart and save Christmas for the townspeople, give the boy a cup of coffee and finish the level." - Jerry

"This is a quick Christmas level that could be finished in around 30 minutes, yet its so beautifully built. You play here as a girl named Alice (great looking outfit made by WhiteTiger) who is yet to learn a valuable lesson about the meaning of Christmas. The level looks beautiful with the high-quality city and snow textures used, the many and various objects used such as stone benches, trees, windows, banisters, the beautiful Christmas tree and all sorts of architectural objects used on buildings, and the lighting which was clearly added carefully around street lamps and around the level to create a more detailed atmosphere. The dialogues were really funny and definitely contributed to showing off the story and give off the emotional side of the level (you seriously get touched!). Moreover, it was delightful to hear the voices of some of our favorite members here in the community (Well done!). Gameplay is not hard, with a one or two inventive tasks and a wild bike ride on the beautiful snowy mountains. I recommend this level even if Christmas had passed." - Shady Croft

"I don’t like customs without Lara but this adventure with Alice is quite good. There are nice cutscenes and flybys. I know it’s short level but the town is well built, so I didn’t give bad marks. Objects in this level are beautiful. There is one annoying bug. When you want to save game inventory turns black. One thing should be changed – in the mountains there are wallpaper textures . I had one problem in game. I’ve collected all Santa’s Lost Presents and I didn’t know what to do with them. Hopefully, I came back to city and finished the game. Title flyby is stunning! You can feel “lonely” just like Alice. Congratulations to the authors." - jawi

"It's a cold and snowy night Alice has picked for going out to buy shoes and with a skirt that short she could end up with chilblains in some extremely unfortunate places. This is a delightful Christmas morality tale - something to remind us what the spirit of Christmas is supposed to be about. (So, OK, I'm actually more of a pagan than anything else, but we can all do with a reminder about being kind to one another). It's a lovely little level to end the Advent season (although I was late playing it, but did at least get there before the end of December) and I think my favourite bit was the timed dash up some extremely rickety belfry steps to reach the magic bell." - Jay

"I would have liked this level so much more if most of the gameplay remained in the village which was so beautiful. However, much of my time was spent traversing a snowcape on a snowmobile. I found it funny to think about a spoiled little rich brat actually attempting to make such dangerous jumps. The gameplay was straightforward and easy, even a timed run. The story was neat and meaningful and the atmosphere in the village was gorgeous. I loved the objects and textures used there. A nice little way to celebrate the holidays." - Shandroid

"I really enjoyed this little level. The story is interesting and very apt for Christmas and the interaction with other characters was a great touch. I actually spent quite a while in this level because I was trying for ages to see if I could get the snowmobile into the town, and in the end I succeeded! I was glad to see that the author had already thought of this because if you try to cheat by driving through the door to the cafe the level goes back to the title screen. Nice little puzzle in the sewers involving currents and the bell tower was fantastic. Beautiful wooden stairs and also the buildings look good from the outside thanks to the new objects. The animating TV was also a nice touch although I agree with Val, what she was watching looks pretty interesting! ;) Great end to the advent calendar for this year." - TrueRaider

"Lara doesn't feature in this level from White Tiger. Instead we play as an apparently vacuous, air head type of girl who is spoilt by wealth and seemingly interested only in buying yet another pair of shoes to add to the myriad pairs she probably already owns. My suspicions that this character likely suffers from a profound lack of depth is confirmed when the game loads and she has Britney Spears on her TV. Evidently this girl's taste leaves a lot to be desired and this is further confirmed by the vile wallpaper covering the walls of what transpires to be a small home. Obviously she has spent so much on footwear that she can't afford a bigger place. Our first objective is to find a key, and this is not a difficult task. There are but two rooms to investigate here and the key is in plain view. Opening the door then, we exit past the semi-transparent lock that remains floating in the door space after the door is opened and enter into a much more tastefully decorated stair well. On we go, down a rather nice set of stairs to the only other door available, to the outside. I would presume that the builder has spared us the trouble of visiting any other rooms as these must be full of shoes. Out onto the streets then and the surrounding buildings look to be a rather grand affair. Looking up, and we see the gaudy decadence of what appear to be quite large crystal chandeliers serving as christmas street decorations. This must indeed be a well-heeled town. Back to shoes again. Oh yes. On we go then. As I move Alice, for that is the character's name, through these streets, it all begins to remind me of Meridian City and I like it. Unfortunately, there won't be any vampires around to shorten the life of the local superficiale, so it's on with the shoe hunt. But oh no! What is this? The shoe shop is closed. Disaster! What is a girl to do? After speaking to another 'character' who sounds suspiciously like Iman (How did she get here from New Orleans so quickly? I wonder), we are off on another task altogether. It appears we have to ring the bells high up in, well, a bell tower, in order to call santa to the town. Personally I think it's Quasimodo and that Iman is just a bit confused. She does sound awfully spaced out and thinks these bells are magical. Soon enough we find ourselves underground in what appears to be a sewer, which is itself more tastefully decorated than Alice's apartment. The Gothic styling here looks great, even for such a small section of the game, and though I feel sure to encounter some rats, soon enough we find ourselves out of the sewer and inside the bell tower, with not a rat in sight. Again, for such a simple section of the game, this too looks great and the climb up the rickety, wooden stairs to reach the timed platform we set in motion at the bottom is an enjoyable, if dizzying, affair. At the top we tug on a chord, the bells ring, and Quasi, er, I mean santa, magically appears outside. Someone else to have a bizarre chat with then. Off we go. After depositing the coin given to her by santa into the slot nearby and picking up and placing two further items, we enter an area outside this little town to find the joy of a skidoo. The objective here is to ride around the very bumpy, snow covered terrain in order to find santa's sacks. Going over three jumps then, this skidoo ride is great fun, and I rather don't want to get off to place the sacks onto the wooden barrow in this area. It's definitely not a sleigh because it has wheels. Nevertheless, I relent, get off the skidoo and place them. Nothing happens. OK, back onto the skidoo it is, and more fun! After ten minutes of just buzzing around on this thing, I realise I can only go back to santa to finish up the game. Upon returning we learn that Alice has saved christmas. Hooray! The coffee shop is open and there's a good looking guy who, like some dark sentinel, has been strangely hanging around, watching, all this time. Alice bravely goes to speak to him, and it quickly becomes apparent that this is in fact The Terminator and he's going to kill Alice any second. OK, it's not The Terminator, but Mike does sound very Schwarzenegger here as he abruptly tells her "I'll be back." Well, ok, no, he doesn't say that. He just tells her that "christmas is not for presents". Alice, now becoming a considerate soul, goes into the coffee shop, gets a coffee, takes it outside and inserts it into Mike's chest. So, if not the Terminator, he is evidently at least some kind of microwave, but I don't have time to wonder where the button is before the level has ended. Overall then, this is a reasonably enjoyable mini adventure with some nice texturing here and there, some ugly, and some quite uniform. Gameplay is more about things to do than puzzles to solve, making things very easy. Lighting is generally good and there is enough fun here for about half an hours play. Maybe 45 minutes." - Czar

"So here it is, the final level of the entire set we were blessed with this year from two Advent Calendars, and quite suitably it is one with a message to tell, which I thought was really quite well done through the inserted narrations as Lara - err sorry, Alice - interacts with people along the way, including Santa Claus. As a level it ends up being quite short at around half an hour and you get a few great objects to look at and the small city area and the bell tower are really well done. You briefly explore the sewers and make sure you use the coin and tokens first before going out on a ride with that snowmobile to help Santa collect his presents again. Very nice finale of a wonderful advent season! Merry Christmas!" - MichaelP

"A lovely ending to this years advent levels, and a very festive one at that. Here we see Alice as our main character. She is a rather snobby girl with nothing better to do than go shopping for herself at Christmas time,(by the way, what was she watching on TV? It looked rather naughty to me lol. When Alice strolls into town the shoe shop is closed and she meets some folk who explain the bell tower is broken, and without the bell ringing Santa can't be called into town. So Alice decides to change her selfish life style and help. After a short trip around town you will find the crowbar and; but be sure to do the coin search before entering the snow mobile area or you could get very confused as the lost pressies don't show up until after you use the telescopes. When Alice uses the coin she can then see the 4 lost presents in the snow hills and it's then you need to use the snow mobile to collect them. Back in town with the bell tower fixed and Santa's pressies safely on his sleigh, Alice warms the heart of a sweet young man in town, and learns a lesson or two about giving rather than receiving at Christmas time. There are some really nice rooms in this level and I particularly liked the bell tower and the town square. I also loved the sight of the balloon high in the sky; what a nice addition that was. The snow mobile ride was also fun and I gathered 4 secrets from the level. An excellent level with a nice message and a festive spirit. Have to say though, I really wanted to go into that shoe shop LOL" - Moonpooka

"The construction of the level has some interesting details. I liked the rickety wooden stairs, barely holding together, that went up and up to the bell tower, and enjoyed the timed run to the top. The use of the spyglass was good: drop in a token and look through them. And we get to see the reindeer again. The level version I played had some flaws; perhaps these have been corrected in a new release. We play as Alice, who dons the smallest dress in her wardrobe, with no coat, and decides (the shoe store being closed) that she is all set to explore the sewers and roar around on a snowmobile in subzero temperatures jumping 50-meter gorges. Here I found the game play odd. If you find a snowmobile, isn't it logical to think that Alice should drive it to some destination? Surely there must be a destination. Or, if not, then surely there are vital artifacts that Alice must find in the snowy mountainous terrain? I spent forty minutes hunting with the snowmobile before concluding there is nothing out there, except for a couple of optional secrets. The snowmobile is supposed to be used later on, after Santa shows up and gives Alice a coin. But there is no way for a player to know this, or to know that having Alice initially hop on the snowmobile is a waste of time. The version I played had a Santa who kept trying to get close to Alice or block her way, but the author indicated on the forum that this has been corrected. Also I never found a way to give the cup of coffee to the young hoodlum directly outside the shop. I learned on the forum that this ends the level. Alice stood in front of him or to the side, against him or one step back, and there was no way to give him the coffee cup, either by pressing Action (Ctrl), or by going into inventory and selecting the coffee cup. So I never saw the end where, presumably, he decides he likes Alice, after all. Given Alice's earlier questionable judgments, I have my doubts about any relationship forming here. Having read this review, you're warned not to use the snowmobile until Santa shows up, and that giving the cup of coffee is supposed to end the level. Normal game play will probably take less than half an hour, making this a cute and pleasant level for the holidays." - dmdibl

"Why are so good too short:( This level are amazing and very beauty for playing. Town are very nice made it and some traps good too. Running for time on wooden stair re very well made it. Hidden doors for sew are very well too. When i think hmm, there will not go, i have been:) Hidden little park, sew, santa claus, deers, people in town, jump area with snowboard, and big return to town with good idea and message. Very interesting is mountain area with trees, snow and snow and snow:) Bags are very well hidden, not too hard but okay. With 4 secrets finished this recommended level for Christmas time!!!" - Ivan