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Review
It’s been a while, so we best reminisce first about what has gone before…
(Last time on channel 5’s ‘TR Analysis Boulevard’.....Dolph blackmailed Lara into spilling the beans over the charity money embezzlement, Bartoli told Natla their affair was getting too dangerous for comfort, and Colin the yeti hinted he may know more about the mysteriously damaged large medi-kit than he’s letting on. What will happen this week?)
A nicely varied sequal to the original, "Catacombs of the Talion 2 : Return of the Yeti" is split into three distinct sections. The first has Lara stumbling into a sadistic freak house populated by imprisoned yeti's (And I don't get the impression they're very happy about it), giant bells (Think of the film Batman and it's final scene in the church), and powerful springs disguised as thin wooden blocks. (Think........I don't know. Bugs Bunny at its most gloriously stupid?). The goal obviously being to work out how to open the two steel portcullis' present, Lara must work out the correct usages for the yeti cage, the bell, the springs, and even combine them. This is predominantly then a puzzle based section, punctured only at the epicentre by the neccessary execution of the local inmates.
We're given a clue as to what the bells are for in the very first scene after the resumption, where shooting one of them opens up the door to the freak house. Future bells are more difficult to locate, or at least to shoot. One requires the use of a spring. The other can be reached only after every other task in the room has been done. Their presence is a nice touch, and one that thankfully hasn't been used in too much excess. The springs in comparison have been dotted all over the place like fallen confetti at a wedding reception. Tonight Matthew I'm going to be Sonic the Hedgehog. The yeti's meanwhile, when freed, are going to rob us of potentially the best comedy moment in video game history, by proving to be completely immune to death by spring. One question......WHY?!?!!?!?
Sidenote 1 - The twelve level run between the Diving Area and Jungle (TR2 and 3) is the longest gap in the series where Lara keeps her gob shut.
The level's middle portion takes us back to the Catacombs, and straight away to yeti another ‘yeti in the dark’ stumbling block. ( ) This room thankfully avoids being a tireless repeat of the one from the previous level due to any number of reasons. However, it's the nearby sight of the Catacombs level that really interests me. The only pre-Ice Palace clue we got that this was going to be a two part level was the unused rope-bridge, and I wouldn't have thought many people remember that once the end-of-level-13 stats had popped up on their monitor.
When I first played TR3's Coastal Village level, I was convinced I had stumbled across another two parter before I had even finished part one. Let me focus your memories, ladies and gentlemen, to the two wooden bridges you notice above your head near the beginning. The closest to the ground of those bridges can actually be used if you take "Route 2" through the level, but the highest bridge is just scenery, or at least I learned later on that it was. When on my first ever run though the Coastal Village, though, I thought that bridge on the skyline would come back for the South Pacific's second section, whatever that was to be. My theory gained further weight (at least in my own mind) when I came across the part requiring you to collect three orange stones. I thought that because the cpu wouldn't let me get to the bottom of the waterfall without dying, I would enter that area a different way during the second level. By the way, technically speaking The Coastal Village and the Crash Site IS a two part level. You begin the latter stuck in the former. Thus, my original prediction was actually correct, just not in a fashion that does me credit.
Anyway, back to the Ice Palace, and time to move on to the level's final third. Everything here seems to be done two or three times bigger and brasher than it normally would be. It all starts off with a desperate sprint in the opposite direction of a room full of snowballs. Most of the world's children would have a whale of a time in a room like this, but for Lara’s delicate frame, any contact with even the smallest of snowball results in an instant fatality. The area beyond consists of two large abysses, both of which can only be bypassed if Lara makes use of some climbable walls, the type of which in real life wouldn't be very climbable at all.
Sidenote 2 - The trigger to end this level is activated through making a specific kill rather than moving to a certain point. What other TR levels can you think of which end in a similar end fashion to this? I can think of two without trying very hard. I’ll put them at the bottom of the post.
Finally we move onto the big showpiece event of the entire Tibetan section, a confrontation with a fearsome monster inside what I presume is the actual 'ice palace'. I don't really know how to describe the monster, other than to say it hits you very hard whilst all the time squawking like a mechanical parrot. I suppose it could be talking in a foreign language rather than just squawking incomprehensible gibberish, but I shouldn't imagine the words "Give us a kiss" are in there anywhere. I also get the impression this 'thing', whatever it is, doesn't have a very good sense of hearing. After all, it isn't Lara deafening the whole of Tibet when using that gong which brings it out of its slumber, rather the moment where by contrast she silently picks up the Talion artefect behind four walls of triple ice glazing. Maybe it relys on its sense of smell, and that in the excitement of finding the talion, Lara broke wind?
The strategy to killing it is much less complicated. Jump around randomnly and shoot whenever you can. It's that simple. Jump around by House of Pain would make an appropriate song to have on in the background during this fight. - "Pump it up, pack it in, let me begin (then slightly later on). Jump around! Jump up and up and get down! Jump! Jump! Jump!" etc. I also think Whigfield’s diabolical single Saturday night would work well, but this second selection on my behalf is purely instinctual, and I can’t actually explain why it might a good idea. Perhaps I just find something comical that nobody else does in the thought of killing that parrot creature to "de ne na na na!".
Before I wrap this scene up, I would just also like to say something about the little square cave the parrot thing comes out of hibernation from. Does anybody else find it odd that the only possessions it has in there is a health pack and an ammo clip? "I’ve left the Talion out there in the open for you, but if you want the health pack and the uzi clip, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME!!". 8/10. (9 if you couple it with the previous level)
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Scores
Best Part - I’m tempted to say the ending, but I think the beginning section in the Freak House would have been far more diffiult to design and implement.
Worst Part - Falling off that ropebridge sets you back by about half an hour of play.
Secrets - 3 jolly fine ones here. The end one is the best, as you really have to go off and work for it.
The 100th link I came across when typing “Ice Palace” into the google search engine
Like I can be arsed looking anymore. It's always a boring link
This level is most like - Catacombs of the Talion, Obelisk of Khamoon,
Potential answers to sidenote 2 - Tomb of Qualopec (I had another level in mind, but it’s slipped my memory)
Jammy Dodgers - Sticky.
(Note - A scene I mentioned during the "Catacombs of the Talion" analysis a while back was actually an Ice Palace scene. This was the part where Lara surfaces from a shallow area of water to be greeted by a group of yeti’s and some eels. Oops)
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