Levels listed...
TEN - 12
TR5 - 33
TR4 - 3203
TR3 - 184
TR2 - 142
TR1 - 73
74603 reviews (20.5/level)
3633 (99.6%) walkthroughs
467 Hall of Fame levels
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release date: |
01-May-2022 |
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# of downloads: |
507 |
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average rating: |
6.80 |
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review count: |
10 |
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review this level |
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file size: |
121.00 MB |
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file type: |
TR4 |
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class: |
City |
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| Reviewer's comments |
"The level takes place in London, after Aldwych, and has Lara end up in Sophia Leigh’s office, so it positions itself as an alternative “Lud’s Gate”. It bears no resemblance to that TR3 level, however, except in the general sense that it is designed in the TR3 London style. The level looks darkish, not necessarily because of the lighting but because of the inherently sombre texture set and the night sky. The map is littered with props from TR3, not one of which has had its object tint adjusted, so they all either glow in the dark or, in some rare cases, appear inexplicably dark when they should be quite bright, e. g. a wall-mounted lamp in the train station, which is accompanied by a placed light and obviously meant to be the source of that light. The texturing is serviceable, an improvement over the builder’s debut (judging by my review of it), but it’s not quite there just yet. Some parts of the map look rather roughly sketched, e. g. the three-tiered gallery of the ‘museum’.
In a number of places the builder experimented with diagonal walls, which, it has to be said, do not necessarily improve the architecture just because they’re there. Similarly, some crawlspaces clearly only exist because the builder wanted to see his new toys in action (Krystian’s crawlspace moves), but in the end I don’t think he went over the top with them to an extent that would justify a call for him to be renamed LittleCrawlSpace, as MichaelP suggests. What’s important is that these newly implemented moves all work fine, and even in a more intuitive way than the readme lets on. Pressing CTRL + Arrow Up does the trick in any given situation, so there’s no need to memorise obscure key combinations. One or the other of these animations could use some finetuning, though (a circumstance of which the builder is aware).
It’s true though that crawlspaces, shimmies and monkeyswings are among the level’s favoured modes of transportation, and this obviously makes for slow going, though unlike Golden Dragon’s Castle of Training with its 30-minute pushable puzzle, the level is not graced with a zen-like quality because of it. After all, you also get to ride a zipline and flipmap-powered elevators (including one that goes awry), do a bit of climbing and jumping, avoid the odd trap (specifically a sentry gun), and even do a timed run. The builder apparently did not, or not necessarily, expect players to disable the sentry gun by blowing it up and so placed a Weapon Code Key in its vicinity, which creates a redundancy that might be welcomed by some (namely those who recklessly spent all their Desert Eagle ammo, and JesseG). Of course, you could also do it the unsophisticated way and sprint past, presumably more than once, simply taking the hits (MichaelP).
The proceedings are punctuated every now and then by enemy attacks, the most health-draining of which come from gun-toting workers, presumably employees of SLINC, while the zombies are essentially slowly moving obstacles like the mummies they’re based on. The zombies all clustered at the start, lending the level initially the aspect of yet another zombie apocalypse, but once you leave the ground level, you don’t encounter any more of them until they come back for a small reprise near the end (in order to inconvenience you during the timed run). There’s also another, more rarely seen kind of zombie, the nudists from TR3G with holes in their torsos, who are more active but still mostly harmless, as they barely ever manage to land a punch.
Initially the map looks larger and more complex than it actually turns out to be. The gameplay is fairly well structured, so once you’ve familiarised yourself with the lay of the land, you can usually form an educated guess about what to do and where to go (though one shimmy crack eluded me for a while, and the timed run should obviously have been indicated as such in some way). The FMV that comes with the game caused a nasty screen freeze at my end, so if you’ve had trouble with FMVs before, I suggest you exit the game when Lara is about to enter Sophia Leigh’s office (you’ll recognise the place) and watch the FMV in an external video player. There’s no need to go back to the level after that, as that is how the game ends." - Mulf (12-Oct-2024) |
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| "I really liked Lara’s ability to get into half sized crawl spaces and the dark, creepy,
zombie ridden streets were undoubtedly atmospheric. Overall, I rather enjoyed myself
despite finding all the backtracking frustrating. I always think this type of city level
requires a player to be in the mood to appreciate the genre, but if you feel you might be
then you could certainly do worse than give this a try." - Jay (14-Sep-2024) |
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| "Maybe this builder should change his nickname from "Big MedPack" to "Little Crawlspace", as
clearly he does have an obsession with those. I am not the greatest fan of the generally
fairly dark City type setting and assets anyway, and here on top the gameplay is designed
for maximum slowness, as you spend a lot of time crawling, shimmying and monkey swinging
around - and often you also have to repeat trips several times as you are being sent around
the place, which felt increasingly annoying. I got caught at the start by not realizing the
ability to actually step into and out of knee high crawlspaces, but that one is obviously on
me for not checking out the readme before. Further along in the game the crawlspace
obsession turns into a "way-too-many-doors-to-open-frenzy" and a (nice) timed run that you
will not realize as such without consulting the walkthrough. The sentry gun room could
generally just be ignored by running through it and the 1 secret is (you guessed it) to be
found in a crawlspace. Overall, this is actually a very solidly built level of a little
under an hour, but somehow it failed to really engage me as a player and I was just glad
when it was over." - MichaelP (08-Feb-2024) |
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| "The map is small but the progress is deliberately far and deliberately slow, and not even rewarded with the level looks. Not really recommended..." - DJ Full (21-Aug-2022) |
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| "A brave attempt at a sort of TR3 re-
imagining, but unfortunately this wasn't
as enjoyable as it should have been.
There's nothing terribly wrong with it as
such, just that it rather underwhelms
throughout. The environments are well
constructed (the darkish city streets
reminded me of "Autumn Creek") and the
textures used are very nice, but I did
spot a couple of thin walls around and the
constant darkness is a bit overbearing,
while the gameplay never really takes off,
mainly consisting of backtracking from
building to building and street to street
and it only picks up slightly towards the
end with a neat timed run and exploration
of a multi-levelled room. The new
crawlspace move was a bit overused too,
despite being novel. Enemy attacks were
quite engaging though and there wasn't an
overdose of ammo around either. Not bad,
but sadly not too exciting either." - Ryan (04-Jun-2022) |
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| "I started on a written walk before discovering that the builder had provided his own in the
level download. Yes, it does make sense to pay attention to the readmes. Anyway, after
finishing the level and reading the reviews along with the builder's walk, it became clear
that there are unintended ways of progression that can lead to some major confusion. I
followed Doggett TV's video walk, which seemed to lay everything out in quite logical
fashion, so I'm at a loss to explain the Gun Clearance card that you pick up very near the
end. The builder says it's meant to disable the sentry gun, but that could be done much
earlier by the conventional means of shooting the explosive canister via the desert eagle
and laser sight that are both made available before you get to the sentry gun. Anyway, the
hour-long level can be divided into roughly two equal parts. The first segment in the city
streets was for me something to be endured rather than enjoyed with its near total and
unrelenting darkness. If this had been a "real" TR3 level I could have found solace in the
built-in gamma adjustment feature, but that's not possible in a TR4 level. Anyway, once you
get inside the building complex the lighting becomes much more player friendly, and I had a
good time with the concluding sequences that included a well-constructed timed run." - Phil (01-Jun-2022) |
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| "It's a nice short level that feels "standard", but is enjoyable. There were too many mummy-like enemies for my tastes, and yes, too much of that new crawlspace move. I've reached at least one area from which you couldn't get back (that bottom-most chasm between the buildings). I had to delete the FMVs to workaround crashes. But it generally had a good atmosphere, and the game play was interesting enough. Good to pass some time, and a promising start." - tuxraider (28-May-2022) |
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| "This seems to be a sequel of sorts to Lud's Gate from TR3, which takes Lara through several city buildings, inside and out. A couble of functional issues may be distracting, such as the odd transparent tables, and missing camera cues for some of the switches. I wasn't a fan of all the crawlspaces either – sure, it's a nice way to showcase those fancy new crawling maneuvers implemented, but there is still a bit too much of that. There is also more backtracking than I would have liked. Other than that there isn't much to speak about the gameplay, it is mostly climbing about from area to area while running away from mummies and shooting dogs. There is a timed run with a sentry gun to spice things up (thank goodness the gun clearance card was available, as I had missed the lasersight!) Visuals are a mixed bag but are pretty good overall – in particular I liked the way the lighting was done, it's nice and colorful, although there are a few lighting "cracks" due to the geometry. The architecture is varied and gives a nice city vibe. The textures are the weakest visual point as they tend to get stretched or squished in many places, and also come off as wallpapered, especially in tight areas such as crawlspaces. 1 hour 3 minutes." - JesseG (24-May-2022) |
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| "This was an interesting TR 3 reimagine with some included FMVs, but builder was perhaps a bit over ambitious with this one and in total this didn't really click with me. Too much to and fro, too much crawling (even with those fancy new moves that didn't feel entirely necessary), too much usage of levers and keys, too many doors to open and - once more - no real puzzles or creative traps; at least the machine gun was a nice touch and I liked how the flipmaps are used in this one. The environments weren't exactly pleasant for the eye as well and texturing, lighting and architecture (thin walls!) need some more work. At least the mentioned flybys as well as cameras and also sounds don't fail to support the rather fine horror elements in this game. Found all three secrets in 35 minutes." - manarch2 (08-May-2022) |
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| "Hmm... Something went wrong, because I did find the shower key, but I couldn't go back from
there to use it (that was supposed to help me get a laser sight, or am I wrong? Well, at
least the laser sight didn't seem to be needed). The end was also puzzling, as after that
FMV talk with Sophia, it all just stops there, no *the end* as in the video walkthrough -
again, I had to check it to be sure that's how it was. And what about that timed run without
any sort of indication that it was a timed run, plus one can use the lever - and forget
about it - long before the timed run actually takes place? Ok, now that I filed my
complaints, I'd like to say that I liked the level regarding the lighting and the general
atmosphere, the architecture, the unexpected new moves, the placement of the baddies (most
of them are just poor undead, not really their fault), and the unusual use of flip maps. I
suppose this level could have been more polished in terms of gameplay design, but I actually
enjoyed it." - Jorge22 (04-May-2022) |
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