Level reviews

"How curious, the "moving target range" has been recycled into a BtB-Egypt entry, and much to my surprise, it was also built by this author — I don't know if anyone who had played this level beforehand had made that connection (I only really remember the bit because I wrote the walkthrough and figured it was better to supply a video aid for that specific segment). There are also a couple of things I have no idea how they even work, such as the 1/4 trigger tiles and the tricky laser trap which was annoying, yes, but not overly difficult. The zodiac puzzles might have been harder, but manarch2 was dangling the keys to the kingdom right in front of me so fortunately I didn't need to fry the few brain cells I still have left. All in all, quite a unique setting and nice intro and outro cutscenes. 40 minutes, 3 secrets. 05/25" - Treeble

"Could be legendary if it didn't combine ultra clever with rather stupid so you don't know what to expect. Fortunately the main plot has only one place where it goes totally random so I'll let it slip. Recommended with extra caution..." - DJ Full

"Very unique and imaginative level. But this was another proof that these two qualities does not necessarily make a custom level enjoyable. My main problem with it are the puzzles and the confusing hints the author gave. First of all I didn't know one quarter of a tile could have a different function from the rest of its parts engine-wise and that is on me I guess. But even so the hints are problematic, especially in the last zodiac puzzle and I'll try to explain. The arrows point to some astrological signs, which made me try to step on, and then jump on the said tiles without touching the ground hoping that would be the solution. It didn't work, then I thought there must be an order that must be followed. I look on the ground, and there is an arrow on another zodiac drawing pointing at some part of it, and two signs are brighter than others and I get migthy confused. And then I notice the well- hidden lever, this time the arrows change pointing to different signs. I can't know if I have to take the original hints into consideration. Do I have to step on 3 tiles or 6? The solution turns out to be very simple but considering the previous hardcore puzzles I couldn't help but overthink. And as I said what about the red herring type clues on the zodiac drawing on the ground? There are just too many parameters that can possibly be the solution, and for me this is bad puzzle design. The mine room is not much different, if you look at the tiles closely you will see the safe symbol changes not only its position in the tile, but it is sometimes tilted sideways. Why make it turn sideways on some tiles, give an extra parameter to ponder about and confuse the player more than was needed? Anyway I mainly had issues with these two rooms. I think the other puzzles had more clear hints, even though I got annoyed at how tight the jumps etc. were to complete them. Other good aspects of the level: the area has a pretty good design, the existence of a plot and mystery is always a plus, pretty cool atmosphere, and a couple of puzzles are very well done. I don't like to give low score to a level that was obviously much thought over, but I think it wasn't very fair to the player." - Nomad

"This level is incredibly creative, both in a gameplay and environmental manner. The beginning and ending cut scenes of Lara being abducted and rescued respectively nicely set the scene for the entire game, and the puzzles are nothing less than innovative. However, I felt it overstepped the line slightly (I'm referring to the criss cross laser room and the quarter slope tile room which just required too much precision) which accounts for my slightly lower score in the first category. However, those aside, I really enjoyed it." - Ryan

"Extraordinary level. Visually immaculate, with a lot of new objects, perfect texturization and great cutscenes. Simply impressive. There are some clever puzzles too, but, as usual, I can't give a 5 or higher in the gameplay section if I'm not able to finish a level by myself. This time I could finish, thanks to a savegame I downloaded from the walkthrough link, but the jumps in the room with the horizontal lasers were too hard for me. That was the only default I found in this fantastic level." - Jose

"A great level! The first thing you can notice is the originality, starting from the story, to textures and used objects. The starting flyby shows a snowy winter place and suddenly Lara captured by an alien ship, the place where she's going to front the entire level. Speaking grahically, I've nothing to complain, everything is accurated, several rooms in Area 51 style, personalized by the author. Let's start from the gameplay: surely a more than good one where the player meets quite difficult stuff: for example in a room you've to pick up the revolver & lasersight, to pull a switch making move some targets to shoot as quickly as possible or the timed tile where Lara stands is going to lower (really like in Coastal Ruins of TR4) - it isn't over yet - you have also to shoot them at the right moment or you'll not be safe anymore... not impossible, but concentration is needed. An other difficult part consists of jumping on the correct part of some slopes, textured with 4 different colours: it's quite hard because the player has to understand both how to front these slopes (there aren't safe tiles letting you reflect - maybe a little too hard how this was created) and because there's a timed switch to pull not showing what it triggers... of course I love some kind of challenges, but here there's no help at least! Finally after a half level one of the hardest parts ever: to make accurate jumps in a room full of crossed lasers: as I read in other reviews, things are exaggerated from the moment in which the first jump is the hardest as you have to jump around a 4 clic high space.. so if you are too near, you'll die before ending the jump.. and if you're far, you'll land on them still dying. This challenge can be solved by trying several times, thanks to the luck and not to the logic.. and this is an aspect I can't stand very much! Let's speak about enigms.. the best realized aspect for me.. several kinds: to find lots of cards in the development of the level and after having fronted some hard challenge, to find very hidden switches or irrecognizable pushable objects disguising in the static object style.. same concept for a "disguised" grate to shoot.. or those enigms where you've to understand you've to jump not only on slopes, but even on detailed parts of them.. and finally the 2 zodiac enigms.. beh I recognize I'm not expert too, but making a quick reasearch on google, I studied the symbols and so I was able to solve them. I've nothing to complain about enigms.. they're simply original, fantastic! 4 secrets, hidden very well with a double difficulty: to find the hidden area and to find the switch or the card to open the doors hiding the secrets. Excellent! The only disappointing thing is the lack of enemies: not more than 10 guards: 1) it's only one kind of enemy; 2) in an alien ship it would have been more logic to find aliens and I remember they were used in some Alien levels in Area 51 style. Great variety of objects, excellent atmosphere, good music and excellent the starting flyby and the final one where Lara, after pressing a number code, can teletransport herself back in the snowy place of the starting flyby. Excellent textures considering that they're applied on static objects in the same way of pushable ones, making everything mysterious; excellent lights too. Globally a masterpiece, a nearly perfect level, without considering enemies or anything about the gameplay.. but it doesn't matter. 8: gameplay 10:enigms 7:enemies 10: object-secrets the remaing things: 10" - Steven Svorticher

"I waited for the walkthrough to become available before tackling this one. However, knowing what to do doesn't necessarily enable you to do it. A few of the tasks in this level presented real obstacles, notably that area where you had to slide precisely to activate a green light again and again to open a door, and the laser gauntlet that required precision jumps. And the builder obviously has an affinity for the zodiac, and since I do not, I shamelessly used the hints in manarch2's walkthrough to solve those puzzles. I spent about an hour here, and the alien atmosphere was eerily reminiscent of Uvavoo's Planet of the Ancients series. We haven't seen such a convincing alien setting in quite a while, hence my top score in the atmosphere category. The cut scenes at the beginning and end perfectly framed the story line, and I enjoyed this innovative level from start to finish. High recommendations." - Phil

"This could be hall of fame stuff, if puzzles were solvable. An author has to assure, that his chain of thoughts is comprehensible. This kind of communication didn't succeed. There's great potential; A nice cutscene at the beginning shows Lara being beamed up to a spaceship, her goal is to make her way to end this abduction. An initial puzzle consisting of some pushing to enter a central area indicates, that there's coming up something demanding. Cryptical puzzles without sensful hints should be avoided by this creative builder in future works. Apart from this, a great visual and atmospheric work is done there. The visual effects are absolutly outstanding. If the author will consider the perspective of the player in future, he will be on the way to be a great one. Not recommended for beginners!!" - Christian

"I guess I had the benefit of manarch's walktrhough support which kept my frustration with some of the aspects of this level to a minimum. And hence I was able to really enjoy the creativity and originality that it has to offer. Embedded in between a nice starting and ending cut scene, you explore an alien spaceship and after a bit of a slow start with some object pushing, the quest to find cards, CDs and diamonds has great variety and great use of some custom objects. Once you know what to do the laser trap room, the slope jumps, the timed shooting, the pad jumps and also the zodiac puzzles are great fun and not too hard to accomplish with a little patience. But indeed, you do need a very keen eye to spot subtle hints and some of them are really quite obscure and only a little more obvious once you know the solution. There are four nice secrets to find and only the occasional guard to kill along the way. A great adventure for the more seasoned raiders out there." - MichaelP

"Alright, let me give a lecture about how Lara's jumps work. Just as Lara is taking off, she actually moves along the floor in the direction she is about to jump in, before she takes off. This is only for a split second, but it is enough to kill Lara if say, a wire trap happens to be next to her. Why do I talk about this? Because the author decided to put in one of the worst traps I've ever experienced, a room cluttered with interweaving wires that kill you when you touch them. Lara is just not suited for this kind of trap. It's not hard in the "this will require some skill on my part" sense, it's hard in the "maybe I'll make it this time if I shift two pixels to the left" sense. You have to clear this trap not once, but twice, going from one end back to the other. To top it off, the ceiling above the entrance to the room is very low. Okay, that rant is finished...the rest of the gameplay has some interesting puzzles, including solving some zodiac diagrams and jumping off the correct parts of slopes to clear the way. There are some very nice custom objects, but some of the inventory items are unlabeled or upside down (such as the code number item) and some invisible barriers kill the player's trust in the author as to what jumps are doable. The camera sequences are done well and provide a nice intro and outro. The story is that Lara went for a walk on a winter's day when she's sucked up into an alien saucer. Then the aliens decide to ignore her as she makes her escape. But as for sound, the pushable block sound has a rather irritating tick at the end of it - and yes, you will be hearing it often. The texturing and lighting are great - but don't be fooled by those marked tiles in the first room. Besides my rantings at the start (and I didn't even go into the one-time-only revolver targeting room), this is a nice alien raid and I would still recommend it for those with patience. Finished in an hour." - SSJ6Wolf

"It is not a difficult game, if we forget the outrageous laser room, the absence of cameras showing what door was opened by a particular switch or game action, and some unfathomable puzzles that make one ask oneself: "who would have imagined THIS?" Special honor mention for the beginning and ending scenes (Lara being abducted and returned to Earth, too lovely for words), for the colourful environments and for the general plastic creativity of the author." - Josey

"I seem to be the only one to have trouble with this, looking at the scores of previous reviewers. This is brilliant, starting with a marvelous opening cutscene of Lara being abducted by an alien craft. The lighting effects and the technology in the interior of the spacecraft is superb, among the best I have ever seen. But I just could not grasp what the author was thinking in the constructed puzzles. I spent days on four red tiles where a flame lights when Lara steps on one of them, before finally reading the forum and discovering that the solution had no connection to things Lara had been trying. Next Lara had to jump on the green quadrant of slopes to turn a light green--or so I thought. After days of failure I read the forum and discovered that Lara had to jump to the red quadrant. The first three pillars had red and green aligned vertically on a slope, so Lara must have touched red and slid onto green, ditto for the second pillar, and for the third pillar Lara jumped high onto green and slid onto red. So I mistakenly thought green was the trigger, as that apparently worked for the first three pillars. For the fourth pillar green was on the right side, and red on the left, so I simply could not understand why all of Lara's jumps never turned the light green on the last pillar. Next Lara got to a zodiac puzzle, which requires searching the Internet to decipher symbols, since I am not really into horoscopes or zodiac. I could not believe that Lara had to jump through a laser trap. By this time I would do almost anything to avoid playing this level. I waited for the helpful walkthrough from Manarch2, and it turns out that Lara does, indeed, have to jump through an unpleasant laser trap. And not only is there a cryptic zodiac puzzle, but there is a second one! It must be me, since other reviewers love this, but I found this to be a dazzling showcase for the author's talent, coupled with truly cringe-inducing play. So the majority odds are that other players will continue to enjoy this immensely." - dmdibl

"I haven't played any other levels of Michele before, but I think he must be very talented as the technical achievements in this level are absolutely fantastic. Never before I have seen the use of quarter tiles for triggers used twice in this level, and the puzzles in this level are incredibly fun to solve if maybe the level is a little too obscure for its own good. More than often you have to "think around the corner" to solve some of the puzzles, especially the slope puzzle with the green lights turning on, as I and most of the other players didn't get that hint with the red point. Also, some object usage is maybe a little too obscure, as the movable chair in the controll room that can be easily missed, and the shootable pedestal in the puzzle room near the start where an actually unnecessary compass is placed only to confuse. But of course there are a lot of fun tasks to do, such as the laser trap room that is incredibly hard to do since of required perfect jumping, the two zodiac puzzles, one requiring quite a bit of extra knowledge (no- one dared to use the Internet therefore, am I right?). The overall texturing might be a bit too eclectic and surreal and I think the lighting could have been much better, but the overall ambience didn't suffer from that as the alien setting was quite convincing, both the starting and final cutscenes as lovely as they can get. Maybe the sound usage could be a bit better as the orignial tracks used here don't fit that well in this level. The four secrets are a great extra challenge and at some of them you have to think quite a lot; especially at the fourth one as you need a lot of spatial imagination therefore. Net gaming time was at about 45 minutes but without a walkthrough the real time is of course much higher. Highly recommended." - manarch2

"A thoroughly enjoyable level set aboard a space ship. In my opinion space levels are far too few and far between. Lara is out one day enjoying a walk when she is beamed aboard a UFO. Lara has to find a way to escape. She has to find code cards with clear the way to 4 CDs which ultimately lead to escape. The puzzle were very challenging and some were unique so that the solutions were seldom obvious. Without help from the forum some players may throw in the towel. I was frustrated in some parts but am definitely happy to have finished it. This level is probably not suitable for inexperienced players. A very enjoyable but difficult level." - Mister-B

"Very interesting level with great design and atmosphere inside an alien (or not so alien) spaceship. Despite the occasional soldiers, it's mainly based in rather clever puzzles, astrological puzzles among others, and a few almost impossible moments, such as the room with the slopes and the deadly water and the even more impossible room with several lasers. One really must not give up! In the end, we understand it is somehow an elegy to a friend named Marco. So, here go my respects together with a statement of how interesting it was to play this level (and the somewhat lower rating for gameplay depends merely on the most tough moments having been a bit overdone in my opinion) as well as my hopes of seeing equally well designed games by Mikki in the future." - Jorge22

"Space levels are few and this one is enjoyable. First the builder has created some wonderful objects. It's remarkable. About gameplay it's a bit confused from time to time ( i think about the first area, the room with slope and green/white lights and the 3 targets room . I liked especially the laser room. Recommended." - Glouglouton

"Original, atmospheric and challenging... Excellent level!. Good Job!." - requiemsoul

"There's a great opening sequence to this level, with Lara walking down a snowy street and suddenly getting beamed aboard a flying saucer. It definitely sets the scene for something a little different. The alien atmosphere is very nicely evoked with some wonderful objects and textures and the gameplay is inventive and occasionally quite challenging. There are a few enemies for Lara to deal with, but mainly the action consists of solving excellent puzzles and some nice (and unusual) agility tests, particularly the room where you need to slide and bounce over a series of red tiles - that took me a few attempts. I also particularly enjoyed the target practice puzzle and highly recommend this level to anyone who really likes to engage their brain whilst raiding." - Jay

"I can say this is a unique level, at least i handnt never seen something like this, at first it was kind of interesting, the thing that bored me a little bit was the fact that lara had to walk around miles with identical rooms, so you sometimes could get lost in too bright rooms, that i dont know where are they from ,but with all those colors in a moment i thought i was in a discotheque, what i really hate about the sounds is the soundtrack that is exacly the same from thelastrevelation levels, so i think in this level doesnt fit. Recommended." - Mary