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Review
Definition of Willard - Insane Scottish scientist found in Core Design’s Tomb Raider 3 : Adventures of Lara Croft. Not to be confused with Robbie’s "Wellard", the dog from Eastenders.
Lara and Willard enjoy the briefest of reconcillations before the formers runs off and the latter gives uncharacteristically lethargic chase. Somewhere in the middle of all that a bowl of Heinz soup goes flying, too. But this is the world of Tomb Raider. Collateral damage is per se. As for the "Brundle fly" reference, I find it hard to imagine Lara ever kicked back in front of the telly to watch a horror B-movie. Thelma and Louise, maybe. Silence of the Lambs, maybe. The Fly? No. Not unless Bryce had it on when Lara walked in one time to poke fun of his haircut.
Rx-Tech Mines demands you to ride a mine cart. It's certainly fun to ride, but it sure is treacherous to control. Passengers can bang their heads against overhanging pipes, take a wrong turning into an ice wall, or simply veer too much to the left or the right and end up de-railed. Surely the abusing of blind donkeys is a much safer mode of underground transportation for mine workers? Anyway, from a gamer's perspective the mine cart moments, though very much trial and error, are exciting and tense. The background orchestra have resisted adding some of those five second musical atmosphere-enhancers that so plague much of the pre-PS2 Lara era. This omission greatly adds to the tension.
The ex-human mutants are dotted all over this level, hissing gas at anything that gets in the way of their pitiful slobbering and grunting. Out to end their misery (in addition to Lara) are a small band of men wearing protective clothing and carrying flame throwers. I don’t know about you guys, but there is something about them that just makes me take a grenade launcher to their asses every time I see them.
(We can't go on together, through these RX Tech Mines)
(And we can't build our dreams, on suspicious minds)
Later on in the proceedings we stumble across a much more functional type of mutant; I wouldn’t know what to call them. They're large, tall, imposing, fast-moving, and completely impervious to my cries of "Eh come on! Let me pass! I'm not here for you, I only want Willard!" I imagine Ripley had the same problem in Aliens, at least in the scenes that got rightfully left on the cutting room floor.
My favourite segment of the level is when Lara gets to grope around in the dark on her hands and knees to retrieve some optional pick-ups. This can be frightfully disconcerting when you consider a mutant or two may be creeping around directly above your head, possibly even able to see you through the gaps in the grating.
Other brief comments for specific rooms? Large digging machinary corridors - unoriginal but stylish. The dive to get the crowbar - Frustrating and unspiried. In fact, pretty much every task that involves water tends to bug me when I'm playing the Antarctica levels. Having to keep an eye on the light blue breath bar should be enough challenge, in my opinion. No need for the purple bar. Introducing one at this stage in the series just makes a mockery of our previous excursions to the snow-dominated regions of Tibet and Lima. Having said that, the new sprint option in this game was something I definitely did want, and that meant forever bearing the spectre of Lara only learning to sprint aged 30. I think this cries out for a spoof...
(The year is 2018)
Fred the game designer - Let's make Tomb Raider 12 the best one yet! After all, Lara turns 50 this year if you still accept her official birth-date as being Feb 14th, 1968. In honour of the milestone we'd better up the ante and give the fans something new.
Bob the game designer - Well I actually had some ideas about that. Just like we did when she turned 30 for TR3, I thought we could mark Lara's 50th by giving her some cool new moves; extra fast sprint, monkey swinging using her feet, double back-flip, triple somersault, Matrix-style bullet dodging, invisible skin mode to improve the stealth, quadruple mid-air gymnasium pivot, backwards multi-angle leg twisting rotating upper spin-kick. Oh, and 'The face slap'.
Fred the game designer - Yeah, that'll do. She's a lucky devil, though. All I got for my 50th was a Black and Decker drill and a pair of slippers.
Back to the text now, and I'll conclude this not very in-depth level analysis (Will you kids ever realise I'm just a fraud who clogs up his posts with pictures and spoofs?) by announcing my supreme appreciation of the Rx-Tech Mines. It contains a worthy new vehicle, an original level-map design, and doesn't try too hard to go OTT in the knowledge of it being the penultimate full length level. 9/10.
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