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Review
Fearless loner strides into foreboding, overblown, and abhorrently malevolent institute for the adventurer-gone-crazy, yet still comes out the other side with her chest area in two pieces. Eerie sounds and morbidly fractitious, half-baked afterthoughts of death litter stony terrain inside chambers of variable size and threat populous. Our path has been swallowed up inside the deep Indian undergrowth by a combination of evils too incomprehensible for the sunny outdoors. It could be referred to as the ‘level that’s too just ruddy hard and long to be given second billing’, but let’s be fair and call it the Temple Ruins.
There are enough booby traps in here for a director to make Cube 3 and 4 back to back, enough palatable darkness to make you want to sing “I believe in a thing called a flashlight”, and more disputable relationships than an episode of Neighbours (Big, nasty monsters living side by side with cute adorable monkeys?). Yes, I’m talking about you Toadie and your totally believable feat of pulling both Dione and Sindi in the same goddamn calander year!
New, never seen before monsters include poisonous snakes, piranha fish, and some weird looking eight armed freaks carrying scimitar swords, the latter of which you might remember from “Attack of the Giant Octopus Man 2 : Return of the Giant Octopus Man”, available from all nerdy video shops and cheap car boot sales. The snakes are interesting enemies for Lara because they introduce to the series the concept of being condemned to carrying a flashing yellow health bar around (remedied only within the time limit by sacrificing a health pack). Credit where credit is due. This is an innovative idea, even if the sight of a snake too lazy or incapable of moving away from the one spot is a little hard to believe. I personally have been in the same room as a few snakes before (under supervision), and believe me, the little buggers chase you everywhere given half a chance. They don’t sit in the same spot looking gormless and trying their utmost to get a sun tan.
By contrast the piranha fish in this game will relentlessly chase you all over the shop as if their lives depend on it. They’re immortal, too. They won’t die. You can shoot them, stab them, hit them, batter them (ho-ho), kick them, eat them, but they will never get hurt. They’re like those annoying kids in the school playground, who when playing a game of ‘cops and robbers’ will always deny they’ve ever been shot, instead choosing to spout rubbish like “No, you missed me”, before sneaking off around the corner and single-handedly awarding their own cheating asses an undeserved reprieve.
Sidenote 1 - The incredible world of Lara Croft
See if you can digest these facts in what they call an ‘acceptant’ manner…
1)The darts in the Temple Ruins fly just as fast through the water as they do in the air.
2)Lara can pull a certain type of lever in the water, yet not out of it, so to speak.
3)Debris always leaves the ceiling in the corresponding position of the room Lara is standing in down on the floor.
4)Water can turn into quicksand faster than you can say “Go, go, gadget, solidifying machine”.
5)Doors and gates open with exactly the same creaking noise all over the world.
The Octopus men are tough cookies, and can only be dealt damage to from the back or during a rare moment at the front when they don’t have their swords held up intertwined with one another (Rumour has it that even six years after the game came out, Core still haven’t given Sinbad his Scimitar collection back). When you first encounter the beasts they’re frozen in stone, but it isn’t long before they become mobile and start tiptoeing towards you like the Pink Panther with a grudge. One point, though. Why bother to tiptoe when you’re still making the same racket you probably would if you were walking normally? A good addition to the foe’s gallery on the whole, but devilishly hard to kill given how early it is in the adventure.
The last of the Octopus men attack you in a room where two mysterious bodies are strung up in mid-air. We presume they are those of Randy and Rory, who according to the mumbling, blonde haired, bag of nerves outside the temple entrance, were two explorers who went inside but never came out. Judging by the way they appear to have been completely gutted out, it’s not hard to see why. The last time I saw a dead body like this was when the big guy with the cannon gun died on Predator.
Most of the puzzles and progression problems have been done before. We get the usual assortment of spikes, darts, and rolling boulders, plus a second appearance from the quicksand. Not all the stumbling blocks are unoriginal however. The invisible ledge room is a minor stroke of genius, and praise also to the ‘blocks getting in each other’s way’ puzzle. Some other situations don’t stand up so well. I loathe the dark room full of traps you can’t actually see hitting you, and one particular boulder that knocks you down in the corridor is just ridiculous. You feel like shouting “Aw, referee!!!”
However, we our getting our money’s worth due to the sheer size of the place. Second levels in Tomb Raider games by number 3 had come a long way since the Temple of Vilcabamba. First Venice and now this. A daring inclusion into what traditionally out of five is meant to be a steady opening section that barely makes the player break sweat. The Temple Ruins is a good challenge for long time players, a death trap for newbies, and a harsh lesson in who rules the jungle for those lickle, wickle munkeys. 8/10
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