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Review
Yeti’s! Terrorists! Stalactites! Man-eating leopards! Another unwelcome appearance from the Bay City Rolling Boulders! Danger just lurks at every corner, and it’s certainly snow joke for Lara! (hehe). Actually, speaking of jokes, I’ve just come up with some even worse ones when deliberating over what to put in this analysis. What did the second guy say to the first guy when the first guy asked him if he was ready to tackle the Catacombs of the Talion? Answer - “Not yeti”(hehe). Ok, here’s a better one. What food did Lara take with her during her excursion through the Catacombs of the Talion? Answer - “Spa-yeti bolognese”(hehe). Ok, I’m really gonna stop with that sh** now. Bandwidth as the invisible fossil fuel it is really deserves better than the way I’m treating it right now.
This is quite possibly the least well remembered TR2 level of the bunch. Only the die-hards seem to even remember its name. The setting hardly warrants the ‘catacombs’ tag, anyway. Perhaps it’s just me, but when I envisage catacombs in general, I think of tightly knitted mazes like the Caves of Kilwaya. I’m not quite sure what the word ‘Talion’ has to do with the price of dog food, either. Scenary-wise, we’re jumping back here into the luscious realm where the Tibeten Foothills first saw the light of day. The only difference is, the Talion Catacombs don’t have you seeing the light of day at all. The level’s festivities unfold inside this remarkably well lit series of inter-connected underground death-chambers. There shouldn’t be any light in the place, but strangely there’s almost enough to force you into wearing a pair of sunglasses as you play. Good old Tibet ; The land that gave the rest of the world.... fluorescent snow.
I’ve been a member of various TR forums for well over two years now, and I’ve heard the TR2 yeti’s described in all sorts of weird and wacky ways during that time. A guy on the old “www.tombraiders.com” site (now defunct), thought the pesky little beasts were polar bears! Another referred to them as “the snow monsters”. In real life this time, I once had a conversation with a guy who thought he had just spent the previous evening of his life shooting up a dozen ‘abominable snowmen’. Heaven forbid. I thought the abominable snowmAn was just a one off creature living out in the wild somewhere who no bugger has ever been able to get a decent picture of. I don’t remember it being famous for grunting and slobbering all day long, though, and living in an eternal state of shame from having half its family banged up in a Tibetan prison. Some people, eh?
I wanted to mention that miniature prison at some point, actually. I’ve got a few questions that maybe you lot can help me out with. Why would some yeti’s be locked up behind bars and not others? Who put those yeti’s behind bars? How did they put those yeti’s behind bars? How long have the yeti’s’s been there? Assuming they have have been there longer than a few days, how have those yeti’s managed to survive without food and water? Getting answers isn’t that important I suppose. The cut and thrust is that in order to progress from the scene where you encounter the Tibetan jail cells, releasing the yeti’s and then killing them when they charge at you is essential for the sake of making progress. You’d think Lara would be deserving of more gratitude from them after taking the bother to set them free. Instead however, the yeti’s race straight after Lara’s scent on being released like a group of terminally deranged Mr Blobby’s. The poor girl truly does get an extroadinarily raw deal. (Do they have yeti's in Gdansk? )
The selfish antics of these creatures gave me an idea for a mid-level FMV when it comes to The Catacombs of the Talion. Because 100% of TR yeti’s appear to be evil, I thought of having a cut-scene in there somewhere where Lara meets a ‘good’ yeti. I thought the two could take hold of each other’s hand and fly off together through a hole in the roof for a while. In the background, the song “Walking in the air” would be playing. Lara and the yeti would first fly over The Great Wall, then Venice, and finally the Offshore Rig. The FMV could even have a drunken thug-with-bat stood on the top of the latter, first noticing Lara and the yeti with a disbelieving stare, then glancing down at his bottle of whisky as if checking the label to see what the manufacturers put in the stuff. “We’re walking in the airrrrrrrrrr!”. Good stuff.
I’ve got to give the prison scene its dues, though. It really does creep you out when you first play it. The yeti’s are used in some extremely effective situations, most of them involving you slinking around in the darkness trying to figure out which their grunting is coming from. There is also a very good action part where Lara emerges in some shallow water after a deep swim, and then gets jumped upon by three yeti’s and one of those jellied eel things. It’s like the landing at Normandy. Most of the level, in fact, chooses to concentrate far more on tough shoot-out scenes instead of puzzles. One section has you blasting eleven snow leopards in the space of about two minutes. Terrorists arrive in twosomes, threesomes, and sometimes foursomes. The only disappointment in all this is that under no cirumstance does any terrorist pop onto the screen at the same time as a yeti. The previous level had considerably wetted our appetites for more glimpses of ‘enemies fighting enemies’, and they just don’t happen anymore. How funny would it have been to watch a yeti grapple with a terrorist?
For the first time since the Obelisk of Khamoon, TR gives us a two part level, this being the first part. I don’t think the designers deliberately set out to do this. I think The Catacombs of the Talion and The Ice Palace were probably meant to be the same entity early on in production. Then it most likely became slightly too long to fit onto the disk without a load-up break, so it was decided that the format we know and own today should be utlilized. You might have your own theories, but take a look at the level times the average player achieves. Playing in haste will probably net you a level time of about half an hour each for both The Talion Catacombs and the Ice Palace. This adds up to an hour. Now look at the two levels both before and after. The Barkhang Monestry takes me about an hour in fast-play, as does the Temple of Xian. See where I’m coming from? Anyway, I’m sure this debate doesn’t bother Lara. If levels 13 and 14 are too much for the old girl to do in one day, I’m sure she’s perfectly happy to camp out for the night halfway through. She can make a fire, and cook herself a nice warm meal. Roast yeti and chips?. Lovely. 8/10
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Scores
Best Part
The large room near the beginning where you backflip off a ladder that has spikes at the bottom. There's a nice combination of action and intrigue in this section
Worst Part
Groaning in disbelief as a rolling boulder somehow rolls perfectly down a narrow ropebridge all the way to the end.
Secrets
All three are very credible on this level. The pick of the bunch is the one where you pass a ladder on your 'blind side', so to speak
The 100th link I came across when I typed 'Catacombs of the Talion' into the Google search engine
http://members.fortunecity.com/croftraider/02-walk.htm
Well, this is handy I suppose if you're bored of Stella's point of view.
This level is most like..... - The Ice Palace, Caves, City of Khamoon.
Plugholes - Dark.
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