Level reviews

"This is one of those levels that would benefit if all the unnecessary padding was cut down to size. I mean, VCI levels do appeal to me to some extent, but this one just went on for too long, with a lot of crawling around ventilation ducts in search of a handful of levers or keycards to proceed, and then when you find them you go to the opposite wing in the facility to find the next open door, rinse and repeat. I actually groaned when I had to climb the arched wall for the third time. Anyway, while gameplay is borderline boring, if you like the visual aesthetics of VCI levels you'll feel quite at home here, but most of the objects had problems such as lack of collision or even visible missing polygons. In my case, having converted the original tom file myself because I'm that kind of guy, instead of beeps the monitors made buzzing sounds from scarabs, which made it funny at first but then progressively annoying every time I moved past them... Bottomline is, if you're keen on playing this, stick to the walkthrough to ensure you'll reach the end. 55 minutes. 06/20" - Treeble

"The atmosphere of this VCI style base is pretty good, but the gameplay consists of entirely too much boring repetition. After crawling through what seemed like several miles of ducts, I can only hope Lara has an endless supply of wetsuits as she must have well worn out the knees of the one she was wearing. Unless you are a real die-hard fan of this genre I'd give it a miss if I were you. Certainly this builder has produced far superior levels so I wouldn't judge his work by this." - Jay

"I'm not the biggest fan of base levels, but I do think that there are better and more enjoyable options than this out there. The construction isn't actually bad at all, but the gameplay far outstays its welcome with all of the backtracking that reaches new, unseen heights of tedium. Added to this ridiculous amounts of crawling through ducts, repetitive and unimaginative guard attacks, barely any camera clues and a possible bug with two trapdoors near the end and this becomes a nightmare in a few minutes flat. There are the occasional inspired moments with the crashed elevator and the tile puzzle, but nowhere near enough to overcome all of the aforementioned gameplay sins. I can't give this one a recommendation, sorry." - Ryan

"This builder had nearly a score of releases during the early years of the level editor, many of them boasting some creditable review scores, and then he dropped abruptly out of sight. I wouldn't rank this one as one of his best, as it had entirely too much confusing backtracking for my taste. Still, it's competently and logically put together, and the lighting is so good that the absence of flare pickups mattered not at all. It's a typical base level with lots of areas to explore and ducts to crawl through. The enemies are guards who tend to appear in bunches. After picking up something you're frequently obliged to travel a long distance back to some earlier area to use it. That became tiresome very quickly. Were it not for Harry Laudie's walkthrough I would probably have called it quits long before finishing. My game clock registered more than an hour at the end, but much of that time was consumed in backtracking. Not a bad raid, but not one to write home about." - Phil

"As usual in this kind of levels, the classic tasks going through ducts, shooting guards, deactivating lasers, shooting grates, etc. There are some defects like the many objects with no colision, or the wrong animations when "pressing" buttons, but nothing important. The architecture and environments are well worked, also there are some musics and few cameras to create atmosphere, but the gameplay is one of the worst I saw in all my life, finding always dead ends and forced always to re-visit the same places several times only to press a button or pull a switch. Example: found a ceiling trapdoor and a couple of ducts, followed one of them a long way to find a closed door, go back all the way to the trapdoor and followed the other duct a long way to find a button and see a camera showing the previous closed door opening, went a long way back to the trapdoor, another long way back to the open door only to find a ladder and another closed door at the end, so I had to go all the long way back to the trapdoor and to the main room to search for something to open that last door and take again the long way back there. Later I found some ducts where I had to shoot up to 8 grates and pull 8 switches (always crawling, very tedious) only to open a door. Many times there are not cameras when you use a button or a switch to trigger something in a very distant room... Even the walkthrough is bad, 'cause sometimes the author leads you to a place when you can do nothing and forces you to go back later. The single point in the gameplay section is only for a couple of puzzles I found. Not recommended in any way." - Jose

"I liked this level. But then I like base/lab levels anyway. We see the familiar VCI textures, a lot of white/greyish rooms. Lara wears a grey catsuit that blends so well with these textures at times she's almost invisible except for her long ponytail. And this place is so well protected that there's a guard at every corner, and they often show up in groups. Now, according to the readme, this is the year 2030. Terrorists have kidnapped a person with an amazing brain!, who created an amazing stone! And when he died(!) they started researching his brain! Ok... so things haven't changed much in Lara's future, except she is now older (but still looks young) and can now run through cupboards and shelves! So there are no major surprises for the player. I could peek behind one cupboard to see that there were medpacks in there, but couldn't get at them. As usual, in this type of level, there are plenty of buttons on walls, keys, discs and cards to find, doors to open, vents to crawl in, shooting grates... you know the drill. Excellent sounds and music. We do find the iris floating in mid-air, but my Lara could not grab it. The hardest task to perform here is hopping onto safe tiles on an otherwise electrified floor and jumping to grab a ladder. The clue is cleverly placed so we have to look through the bars of a door to see it. For me, this level was very bright. Those whitish/greyish textures making it even more so. If the idea was to convey a clinical effect, it failed in that sense. But overall it was a well laid out level. It's just a pity that there wasn't more interesting puzzles along the way. Puzzles, as opposed to guessing which door opened. You know, something that would actually make you use the power of your mind!" - CC

"Another base level, and quite a nice looking and set out one, with all the usual accoutrements, you know the list, shooting countless SAS, finding cards and discs, pushing buttons, and crawling endlessly through ductwork. This last thing got a bit tedious and I was always happy to find myself on my feet again but there is even a bigger annoyance to be found and that is the fact that you got next to no clue camera-wise as to what doors are triggered so it is a bit of a searchfest and as this isn't small level by any means this is a major irritation. After nearly 75 minutes if you haven't put a hit out on Piotr you should find the end trigger with one secret, the revolver, tucked away neatly in your backpack." - Sash

"Confusing very confusing. It's a lab and you need to find a key a card and two disks. I don't like to be welcomed by a SAS committee right at the start especially when I have zero time to search for a powerful gun. If I could I would rename this level to 'The power of the crawlspaces' as there are so many my head was spinning. The cameras are almost non existent so the player has to search all the areas again and again to find one single door or path that is cleared and might miss it if not careful enough. Watch out for trapdoors on the ceiling or tiles with cracks. Some of the guards were stuck inside objects. Lara was passing through others that had no collision and I spotted quite a few areas with a thin wall part. The level ended for me after an hour and a half with one secret and many SAS guards around again." - Kristina

"This is the last level Piotr made and also the last I had to play. Another base level with loads of SAS soldiers. But then by now I know what to expect in a game made by Piotr. No camera work whatsoever which makes raiding very tiresome and a lot of crawling through ducts way to tedious. There are buttons to push and trapdoors to open. Finding disks and cards and a key so you can progress. 09-02-2003" - Gerty

"This is a well built and very realistic looking base/lab environment that almost becomes a shooter with all the guards scattered about. There are a number of buttons to push cards and discs to collect and some lasers to shut off to advance in the level. Overall it was enjoyable and had nice effects like the blown up elevator but the level was just too large and confusing. The gameplay area should have been smaller or the author should have added some camera work and maybe a map to remember where certain areas were. It looks like Lara's after the Iris maybe it was just me but I couldn't pick it up off of the platform by the floating alien so had to leave it behind." - RaiderGirl

"Set in a base/lab with an awful costume to start with the main gameplay is to find keys and cards and do a lot of crawling through vents and stuff and I mean a lot! The textures and objects were very good and well placed but a lot of the objects you could walk through. There were a lot of SAS guys to begin with but after about 5 minutes into the level there is no more enemies throughout. Some of the lighting was very good and there are variations of colour which is always nice to see visually this level is very good in terms of gameplay it isn't - you spend most of your time pulling levers and finding and inserting keys and cards into their slots and you didn't always know what that had opened as not much camera work was used there was few traps with lava and a death square room but that wasn't enough. Also I encountered a very annoying bug sound which drove me up the wall lol and 1 secret and to be honest I was glad to finish the level because it took me ages to complete with the tedious gameplay but the level is still worth the look to see the new features and texturing and lighting effects." - John

"In this level there are 43 SAS guards so I'll recommend it to all action fans. Visually it's a typical tech level with lots of switches and doors some code cards and discs. And lots of crawling spaces; at least one third of the game Lara was on her knees. That slowed the flow of the game as well as the missing cameras did. There are just a few in this level so you have to run (and crawl) around a lot to find out which door opened after pressing a button. Several times I was confused and disoriented. The sound was good as well as texturing and lighting were well fitting in here." - Sheevah

"Considering the fact that it was a VCI-Level and that I do not particularly like this constant shooting I found the Level quite good. The atmosphere was suitable not too bright not too dark. The textures were well fitted. With the objects it was bad a little bit because one could walk trough most of them I did not like this at all. Sound was well selected I liked those best. I found the search for the guardian discs very cumbersome particularly because one always had to crawl. This also was virtually the most single puzzle in the Level. But for that it was made well. Opponents were many: a high amount of SAS I have not counted them but Sheevah's information of 40 will probably be right. Recommendable for the people who gladly shoot and who gladly crawl on the knees through air shafts." - Xxenofex

"It has been such a long time since we got an old fashioned Base/Lab level like this The Power from Mind seems almost anachronistic now. You get everything you dread with this genre. Long boring crawls tons of SAS guards many buttons and doors no hints as to what door has opened countless rooms that don't have a purpose except to hold a pair of Uzi clips. Shooting out the grates was fun though but even that gets a bit tedious after a while. Gameplay wise this is very similar to the author's previous levels; the difference being that this takes ages and is rather big with 250 rooms or so. Unfortunately there is not much to do to make this endless search for access cards and code disks halfway enjoyable. The setting is reasonably done in fact if there had been a little less brightness the atmosphere would have been great. I liked the hint you get regarding the safe tiles in the room with the deadly floor; but then again if Doc hadn't pointed this out in the forum I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have worked that out for myself. I guess the big battles with the guards are supposed to provide the excitement here but since Ian told us that you can kill the guards safely from the distance the endless killing becomes a dull and time consuming ordeal. There are a few good moments here and the construction of the laboratory is not half bad but on the whole this infiltration experience fails to entertain." - Dimpfelmoser

"I wonder if that 'Power from Mind' is Piotr's power to come up with yet another vast base environment for us to run through or the power the player needs to endure this rather tedious adventure. It is actually not all that bad an with a few nice ideas like the crashed elevator door but for me it was simply too confusing and frustrating to find my way and it is really just more of the same as we have seen so many of this type of level. There are about 40 SAS soldiers to kill in the 1:15 hours you spend here (if you know the paths to follow) and I found one secret (the revolver) after an endless crawl. Wondered why green and yellow laser barriers are deadly (shouldn't those be red) and found two office cards a lift key and three discs. There is a number of serious problems with object collision and see-through cupboards and lots of crawling through air ducts. Watch out for two very well hidden ceiling trapdoors. There are definitely way too few cameras for the many buttons and switches you press. Still the overall setting texturing and lighting is quite convincing and I liked the final blue room." - Michael