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Review
This is very much the 'grand daddy' of the TR1 levels, just as The Temple of Xian and The Lost city of Tinnos are for the two games that follow. It isn't necessarily the best in the game (In fact it isn't, full stop), but it is the one that feels like the final mile, the one that looks like the dramatic final hurdle, and the one that unamimously has the most lava ; a tell tale sign if any in a game like this that the level we're playing is near the end.
Sidenote 1 - Here's a quiz. With what I've just said about the lava in mind, place the following TR elements in the order in which they're likely to appear in a game. The answers will come whenever I can be bothered printing them.
Part 1 -
a)Lava
b)Uzi's
c)Water
d)Desert
e)Pistols
Part 2-
a)Rusty key
b)Deep-deep-underground-special-hidden-143secrets.needed-key
c)Gold key
c)Set's armpits key
e)Silver key
Part 3-
a)Tiger
b)Plankton
c)Frogman
d)Mechanical Eiffel-Tower Robot (which used to be Willard)
e)Bear
Atlantis is basically one big egg hatchery with puzzles and stumbling blocks getting in the way of you seeing all the eggs. More often than not, these eggs explode dramatically just as Lara happens to walk into a room. It makes for some compellingly tense moments as you wonder just which of the cocoons will produce an offspring and which of them won't (at least before the place itself gets blown up). The best of these situations presents itself at the beginning of the level, where our Sigourney Weaver of the day has to take out five or six of the premature little blighters.
Grahpics wise there is the potential to be both fanatically critical or fanatically praiseful. A fan of the chosen design might lavish praise on the 'monster's belly' feel of the level, and all the claustropbic knock-on effects that come with it. A critic on the other hand might dis the occasional freeze-framing of the lava spills, and the fact that some areas of the floor look like a never-ending bowl of spaghetti. Me? I'm one of the former, at least in this case. I still think Qualopec sucks though.
The highlight of Atlantis is definitely the scene with Lara's body double. Ok, the idea has unashamedly been stolen from Total Recall, but I don't ever remember a decent big budget game based on the film. Best Lara gets to utilize the concept than no-one at all, right? Mind you, on second thoughts I do seem to recall (no pun intended)a fight in the game Prince of Persia that was similar. But as that was way back in the 90's and portrayed in 2D, it's hardly unwarranting of a remake. Anyway, even a big Arnie fan like me couldn't figure out what was going on in the TR version until I'd died at least twice! The creavitity hasn't ceased at the very concept of the crime scene, either. The labour of fooling the evil twin into the hole is another masterstoke, and beats the Persian prince hands down when it comes to actually killing off the double. This entire situation remains a one-off scenario in the history of TR, and I think that's a fact worth noting.
Another decent-ish stab at making the player think, comes with a room involving a boulder that somehow manages to float back to the top of its ramp whenever you leave the room and come back. Let's assume that Pierre's ghost hasn't morphed into a rock for a moment and consider some other alternatives. Atlantean magic? An invisible conveyor belt? A time warp outside in the corridor? Who knows?
Boulders also feature heavily near the end (or should I say the 'top'), when the player has the choice of two small paths to go down that lead to the same place. This is about the only non-linear part of Atlantis, so why not savour it/mention it? A similar booby would later pop up in The Temple Ruins
I could go on all day about some of the other rooms. Because of the level structure being the way it is though, most are stand-alone set pieces which give you little or no practical reason to remember tham by once you've passed them. That said, I think the timed run heptathlon would be being hard done by if it wasn't at least name-checked. This little thirty second gem has got everything ; swimming, jumping, sliding, and threats from both spikes and boulders. And I suppose you could add 'nostalgia' to that list as well, given how the run takes place in the level's only Natla's Mine type setting.
On the enemies front, humans are once again replaced by the more mythological enemies for this level. There's quite an army to deal with! Expertly designed shoot-out scenarios exist all over the level. There's the opening egg sequence of course (both below and above), the three monsters in the long corridor just prior to a secret, and an extremely nerve wracking room containing four eggs and five levers. The screeches and endless turn/shoot motions can tire you out a bit. However, this is the penultimate level in the game. You'd expect some difficulty, and even with what there is to keep you stuck on, Atlantis still comes nowhere near to posing the same difficulty level as the two other 'daddies' mentioned in this post. I did enjoy the sprint at the end however, proof is needs be that skill doesn't belong exclusively to either the puzzle or the action entity. Rather than finish with philosophy though, I'm going to polish off this particular wander down memory lane with a joke - What do you call a female action heroine in the middle of a volcano? Lava Croft. 8/10
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