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Review
Mariiiiiiiiiiiia, you've got to see herrrr
- Blondie
The Wreck of the Maria Doria is a rather odd mixture of styles, ranging from the public toilet feel of the restroom, to the grand Captain Birdseye decorum of the ballrooms. Largely though, the place looks so good we hardly notice it’s the wrong way up. And as a result, words like “The wreck of” are slightly misleading. There are a even a row of classic saloon style doors near the beginning that look like they’ve been poached from one of Eastwood’s westerns. (If you don’t where I mean, think of where Secret #1 lies). Of course, there are also eyesores. I’m still not sure to this day what that huge wooden boat is supposed to represent. It looks nothing more than a pointless alternative for a ledge if you ask me, and isn’t too dissimilar from the miniature version we saw in Natla’s mines. Why didn’t the designers just employ the use of a hollow block, like the kind used near the beginning of the Tomb of Tihocan level? That big and clumsy looking wooden thing on the Maria Doria looks like it was thrown together on Blue Peter. I can just imagine Lara doing the show….”All it takes kids is a bit of sticky back plaster to hold it together, and the dagger of Xian to do the chiseling. I did have one that I made earlier, but then I shot it to sh.it with my grenade launcher”.
Another strange mystery (and I could have mentioned this in 40 Fathoms), is the existence of the Maria Doria’s selective force field, the one which lets humans get onto the ship but not a single drop of water. I mean, the ship has been sunk, right? It’s lying at the bottom of the ocean, right? So why have nine tenths of the ship remained immune to being flooded? If there's no water on the damn thing then how did it sink in the first place? When Bill Paxton took his flotilla of hi-tech diving pods down to the HMS Titanic, everywhere had been flooded. I’d imagine this would be the same for most ghost ships discovered at the bottom of the ocean. The magical Maria Doria though not only successfully fights off the ocean, but also manages to keep every one of its twenty million rooms in perfect light. Hey presto! You know, I don’t think Lara has to use a flare until halfway through the Living Quarter level. Incredible stuff. It’s amazing just how far Scottish Power can go these days in order to reach their customer base. Mind you, in the case of Grandpa Bartoli, you’d have thought they would have cut him off after not paying his bill for so long. Lucky Lara.
It isn’t all good news for her, though. Bartoli’s seemingly never-ending supply of nightclub bouncer clones have made it onto the ship, even if I do find their innumerable presence here a bit strange in the context of the game. I would have thought a level like this would have been the perfect opportunity to rest some of the human enemies and bring in a mysterious underwater Atlantean-type threat. Makes sense doesn’t it? But oh no. He’s not one for variety is our Marco. I swear Lara could be involved in an episode up on the moon in TR2, and she’d still find the thug and his dog jumping out at her from behind the nearest moon buggy.
There is one slightly interesting new foe though. It attacks Lara right at the end of the level, and comes in the form of a strange, yellow coloured eel thing that seems to have its arse moulded into the local rock piles. I don’t know whether or not this is biologically possible in real life, but as we’re playing Tomb Raider here I suppose it doesn’t matter. I imagine it must be quite a boring life being tied to an underwater rock all the time for the sole purpose of growling and snapping at anyone who happens to be swimming past. Still, such is the way nature deals the cards out. Incidentally, I doubt this creature will ever be included in one of the movies, but if it was, imagine the dilemma it would pose the budgeting department. On the one hand they could spend millions creating a CGI generated ‘rock eel’, utilizing the very latest in effects wizardry. And on the other, they could try and save a bit of money and employ Katy Hill to sit behind the rock with a snorkel on, the idea being she could stick her arm through a yellow painted sock with two coat buttons stuck to the front of it. Sorry, I don’t know why all these Blue Peter references are creeping in today. Forgive me.
Whilst most of the individual puzzles in this level are first rate, I do slightly tire sometimes of the “3 keys to open 1 door” affairs. Surely there could have been a more original way for us to bypass the fires in the grills? That said, it’s difficult to get past this huge room without suppressing a great sigh of proud satisfaction. The little jobs you have to do in order to get the circuit breakers are most excellent. I particularly like the positioning of breaker#3 in the restroom. Very clever. I must also give mention to the sheer size of what the designers have put together here. Even at top speed, I struggled recently to get through this level in under an hour. For some reason, I always think the level is over when I get those three circuit breakers tucked safely away in my backpack, even on repeated plays. The dark and dingy water section at the end though adds on about another fifteen minutes.
Despite the fact I now can’t get that annoying Blue Peter tune out of head, I’m going to hand out a rare 10/10 for this trip down memory lane. The complexity of the level design and the uniquely foreboding atmosphere are the biggest reasons for this, mainly because both have often felt lacking since the RX Tech mines. Am I right in thinking there’s a faint beat of a heart in the background noises of this level? If I am then that just makes it better. If you haven’t played this old classic in a while then why not do so? I’ll bet you a circuit breaker you’ll find it very hard to finish without using a health pack. Hell, even if you fail, the experience is itself is worth it just for the amusing and rare sight of seeing a frogman grace a ballroom.
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Scores
Best part
Leading a motley school of unfriendly fish on a merry-go-round tour of that pile of rocks, kind of in the spirit of Rocky Balboa running away from all those kids.
Worst part
Argggggggggghhhhhhhhh *Thump* - "Damn, only a centimetre left of my previously full health bar. And look, to make matters worse, here come two thugs"
Secrets
All of them are first rate in this level. #1 is quite difficult given that two shotgun dudes pop out of nowhere in order to make it awkward for you. #3 does you an even worse turn, leading you into what could only be described as an underwater death trap. (I'm still having therapy to cope with how long this took me to do in HC mode)
The 100th link I came across when I typed 'Wreck of the Maria Doria' into the google search engine
click here for it
I swear that's what came up!
This level is most like....
The rest of TR2 aside, this feels a little bit similar to TRC's submarine escapades, but not by much.
Bonnie the dog - Probably dead by now (hehe)
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