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Review
Core’s interpretation of what goes on beneath the Nevada Desert isn’t exactly realistic, but as a Tomb Raider level it is, at worst, a drastic improvement over the previous one. There’s atmosphere, suspense, a feeling of adventure, dramatic moments, tough enemies, and a whole bundle of traps and pitfalls. It’s a decent example of how you can take Lara out of a dingy pot-hole yet at the same time still throw up something that stays close to the series’ original direction. Oh, and there are aliens and laser beams knocking around. That has to count for something.
The laser beams are a suitable starting point in our discussion; actually, as they pretty much get in your way from start to finish. There are green ones, which if tripped set off the alarm systems, red ones, which kill you instantly, and amber ones, which are there to warn you that the green ones are about to turn red…(I really have no idea where that joke was meant to go). I’m not convinced of the need for a military base to have different colored laser defenses, though. It’s almost as if the control room administrator has thought “Well, if an intruder touches a beam in room 1, I’ll rig it so it kills them. If they avoid that one however, then as a reward, I’ll only put green ones in room 2. Mind you, I can’t be too nice over this. I’d better go back to putting red ones in place when it comes to the design of Room 3. Now then, what I should put in Room 4? Oh I know! Dogs”. The dogs aren’t particularly interesting, by the way, so I’m not going to talk about them. The dolphins though, well’s that another matter. I know I’ve done this one before in another analysis, but just you can’t beat the old ones, eh?
(Lara enters the room)
Lara: Psst, what do they keep you guys here for?
Dolphin #1: Eeek, Eeek, Eeek, Eeek-Eeek. Eeeeee, Eeek. Eeek-Eeek.
Lara: For research into the benefits of genetically altering brain patterns within the aqua marine food chain?? Are you kidding me???
Dolphin #1: Nope.
The dolphins, if that’s what you want to call them, don’t attack you or do anything remotely interesting. They’re as docile as the monkeys from the first level. The aliens are even more boring, in that they’re dead. They also look as cheaply put together as the ones from the film version of Stephen King’s Tommyknockers. E.T was more frightening for crying out loud. The alien spaceship is quite something. As you look at it from the outside it’s this tiny 6 foot x 6 foot single pilot mini-ship, like the ones on Independence Day, but then when you go inside it miraculously becomes the Starship Enterprise, complete with multiple floors and enough room on each one to build indoor tennis courts. From the outside it doesn’t even look big enough to fit Spock’s ears.
Highlight of the level is definitely the escape from the rocket ship flames. This has to be one of the all-time classic TR moments, one of those instances you find yourself going “Woaaah! Right on!” The concept would later be repeated equally successfully in the Rennes’ Pawnshop section of AOD. If launching a space shuttle only takes the push of a button, though, why in films do you always see fifty thousand technicians all lined up on consoles appearing to be doing something integral to the success of the launch? What are they all doing? Another point I want to raise is the location of the launch button. “Oh I know. Being the smart architect I am, I think I’ll position in it a place where nine times out of ten the guy doing the launching will get toasted”.
A new way of dying in this level is by electrocution. There’s a long thin thing that looks like an abandoned monorail track, and Lara must jump and monkey-swing over it in several different locations within the same rectangular shaped corridor. Suspenseful stuff, especially when you throw in some moving laser beams, trapdoors that open when you stand on them (and sometimes when you don’t, bizarrely), and the odd stray mercenary. The moving lasers beams, if not much else in here, would return in Tomb Raider Chronicles a couple of years down the line.
One of the many things I noticed when I was playing both this and the previous level, “High Security compound”, is the way a lot of dead ends that would usually be walls, are now security doors that Lara never opens. You know what I’m talking about; I mean those doors with a hand imprint by the side of them that only the guards can open because only their hand palms will be registered on the security database. I think this is a weak system, because in real life any intruder with time to stand by one of those security doors and weigh up the imprint box will almost surely of either have killed a guard nearby or at the very least rendered him unconscious. Thus, he/she could then theoretically drag that guard over to the door and force his hand onto the imprint. Anyone who has seen the film Demolition Man would agree with me. In that picture, prisoner Wesley Snipes plucks out a dead warden’s eye (Gross I know!) and uses it to breeze past a security door that uses eye retina patterns as its authorization check.
A computer using anything physical as a means of checking someone’s identity is dangerous. Speaking into an intercom is the best way to go if you don’t think keys and pass-cards are safe enough, and nothing that involves the repeating of a simple password, either. Such knowledge can be beaten out of the people who have it. I was hinting more at the concept of simple ‘voice recognition’, and if you’re really smart, making the signature voices ones not usually used by the owner. That way, if an intruder puts a knife at your throat and orders you to speak into the intercom, you can just do it in your normal voice. The door won’t open, and you can then tell your assailant that you have just quite categorically proven to him you don’t have clearance to whatever is beyond the door. Brilliant. Ok, Net, if I can’t work for Crystal Dynamics as Art Designer, can I at least work for the Area 51 security team?
The introduction paragraph can pretty much double up as a conclusion here, but if I had to say anything more I would just state that although I didn’t enjoy Area 51 on my first run through, I have enjoyed it more and more as I’ve gone back to it. It’s a grower. It has tons of notable curiosities, a varied map structure, and plenty of action and traps. Despite the rather tame finale it’s mostly good stuff. Just one more thing however, after Lara has got the artifact she wanted, how does she escape? - 8/10
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