Graphically the models for the characters even in the cut scenes look like they are from 1996 which is the time period the game takes place in.
Lots of frame rate chug when moving camera around, everything seems quite jerky. Graphics do not impress at all.
Story.
Jacqueline Natla is a rich company head, natla industries. Asks lara to find the scion of Atlantis for her, which Lara has been looking for prior with no luck, but natla has a new lead.So off to peru and much mucking around inside Qualopecs tomb we get part one of the scion. Only Natla has sent Larsson to get it from us as she doubts Lara would return it to her. SO double crossed Lara goes to Natla's office and finds out that Pierre Du Point has been tasked to get the next bit in St Franics's folly, which i presume is in Greece. So it's off after the second part of the scion.
After getting all the way through to the scion Pierre makes his move and takes it from Lara. His happiness is short lived as the statues from outside come to life and trample him to death. Leaving Lara to face them and defeat them using their own turn to stone powers agaisnt them.
Once defeated Lara places to two parts of the scion together and receives a vision showing three atlanteans arguing about the fate of one of them who has done something bad.
Now we are off to egypt? why, did i miss something? did the vision tell her to come here, i don't know maybe they should have subtitles or make the voice acting a little clearer. Anyway on to egypt. endless tomb raiding and last part of scion is ours.
Outside we put it together and get another vision of arguing atlanteans. One is held prisoner by the others, a woman she looks at us for the first time and we see that it's Natla. She is an immortal atlantean looking to get the scion back after its power was taken from her in the past because she was naughty.
Natla turns up in the present and takes the scion and leaves her henchmen to kill us, doesn't she watch movies. If you want the hero dead do it yourself.
Lara narrowlay escapes and in a cut scene we should have been playing since it was in engine she bikes it onto natla's boat and stows away.
On to Natla's mines on the lost island.
We meet larson and he stops our progress by disabling machinery. He thinks that Lara won't shoot him for it. He's wrong and Lara turns killer then immediately looks like she's going to regret it. Some real emotion here.
Lara finally catches up with natla who had plugged the scion back into it's base on atlantis and is using it to brew up a horde of nasty beasties. Natla offers Lara a chance at immortality and to rule by her side in the new world order, apparently she needs two others to assist her in controlling the power of the scion. Only Qualopec and Tihocan didn't see eye to eye with her on the whole insanity thing. So Natla presumes the Lara having come this far must want to power. Even though Lara looks tempted for a second she remembers how she felt when she killed Larson and the blood that is on her hands already. She decides to rebel and shoots the scion sending it spinning, Natla makes a grab for her and they both fall. Lara uses her grapple and manages to land on a platfrom while natla plunges into the lava.
Lara is just getting her breath back when one of the creatures Natlas is making hatches and tries to stomp her.
gameplay
quick tutorial on jumping grappling hook and climing around.
climb to top of doors and get our guide killed by wolves when we open the door.
checkpoints every few metres so far
shooting spikes from the walls.
bats get some shooting done
found a secret relic, jumping climbing puzzle.
bears and wolves to shoot
collapsing rope bridges
poles to swing on.
well that's peru done, no relics i thought i was picking them up oh they are artefacts.
died once silly, so no iron achivement.
city of vilacamba
climbing on vertical columns is introduced.
a.i. sucks just shot two wolves as they ran into walls.
underwater puzzles against time as your air runs out.
found village key and shotgun ammo.
moving crates about to get up to higher areas for artefact in village.
now seem to be in temple.
big puzzle to open huge doors.
ist lock in place. 2nd lock in place door open.
lara can perch on top of columns.
done. all artefacts no relics, what the hell do i have to do to find these relics?
Lost Valley
Huge open area with cogs to find to get the water puzzle done. Tomb raider doing what it does best. making you think hard about where you have to go and what you have to do.
ooohh moving pole jumps, poles on cogs.
this is a huge area. found two cogs and got them onto the right areas. now trying to find the third.
Found the valley with the t-rex.
damn it quicktime events. I hate these.
raptors are a pain in the ass.
Boss fight with t-rex, pain in the ass until you learn what you have to do and the tutorial in the game isn't clear, to save frustration you have to enrage the beast until it has a flash around it's head of rage, then it will charge, you have to move in a direction and press b, but also keep a lock on, which the game neglects to tell you. Once you do this a target appears and you have to time two converging targets to get a good shot, once you do this the beast stumbles around and bashes it's head off the wall or some neatly placed spikes for massive damage.
Easy once you know how, it's just that the game isn't saying.
get the third cog and back to the waterfalls.
yay last cog in and the falls are dammed.now we can get behind them to the exit.
found a relic at last.
Tomb of Qaulopec.
Woo, nice big medallion Qualopec has.
indiana jones style rolling ball traps.
taller moveable platforms are introduced here.
the ball trap has locked three doors, and we have to explore to find two levers to open them again. one needs us to knock the gong down and get the switch.
doors open yahoo. WE get the scion and run out of the tomb before it collapses.
Larsson stops us and we have a quicktime event fight.
Greece St Francis Folly.
big room lots of pillars and introduces wall running with the grip line.
Puzzles involving shooting the stars on a wall picture in reference to certain lights on other similar pictures around the room.
Once past the first room we are into a huge tower inside a room with four keys to be obtained it seems. it's time to go key hunting.
ahhh after strugglign to find a way accross a gap i realise that i can grapple onto rings and pull out sliding platforms from the walls. thanks for letting me know game.
Lot's of mucking about here trying to find what to do. puzzles invloving rising gates with holes above, somewhat obscure, needed walkthrough.
Finally got into one of the key rooms. had to put three statues in slots, but had to break up blocks of sandstone to find the iron statues inside two blocks.
Got to a bit with a huge rolling ball trap, twice now i have been left with a blank screen and forced to reload my game, having to go back a fair bit the first time, glitches ahoy could hear lara moving just not see where she was. managed to get thorough that, the atlas ball was harder to dodge than i thought, and the way to an artefact was actually where you had to go for once.
Onto poseiden, and his section is actually quite beautiful, like an out of control roman bathhouse.
puzzles with fish mouths that are blocked and unblocked to let water level rise and fall.
Now the swords of damocles and aren't they fun, lots of opening and closing sword traps, damn i hate these.
well that's day ones play. 24/7/08 apparently six hours play time.
Day 2 25/7/08
Got through the swords and found my way around the room, trickier platform puzzling here.
Hard but you feel good when you beat it.
The coliseum
Rats for enemies, even more annoyingly crap than bats.
One simple little platform puzzle and we are out into the arena and there are Big apes to deal with. oh and panthers too.
Some box and grapple puzzling to get the balcony key of the coliseum.
Once out on the balcony there are some death defying leaps to the end of the coliseum level.
midas' palace
Note the grammatical error in the games spelling of this level.
Big statue of midas in a nice area with open ceiling to the outside world, wonder why no one has seen it before now if it's so open, and why didn't lara just come in here and avoid all the other traps and puzzles?
Raised platforms in a room which sink, making the puzzles harder by making it a race against time, as if it wasn't hard enough with the sometimes glitchy jumping.
Day 3 3/8/08
More puzzle jumping rooms, getting more precise and tricky. Have to find three lead bars and turn them into gold using midas' statues hand which turns anything to gold that stands on it including lara, would have been a great moment if we hadn't see it all those years ago in the original.
Each bar opens up a new area off midas's statue to explore.
Wow fire, as if we didn't have enough problems.
if you fall in the water here you get chased by a crocodile.
Day 4 5/8/08
Some tricky puzzling here though once i managed to find the switch hidden underwater it all clicked really quickly. Relying on having the puzzle solution hidden away is a dirty trick.
Anyway got the last bar and back to midas to finish the level.
Tomb of Tihocan
Long underwater stretches and some rat infested puzzles.
Huge open area with two level water switches, alligators and lots of puzzling.
two boxes which seem to need to be on two pressure plates a floating box and ones that are weighted.
Big glitch the floating box once i had freed it and then let the water back out sank through the ground, but i could still pull it in the concrete.
It's a bit rough here, bottom of pit you have a glitchy jump that only works one in ten attempts. You go through the floor a lot in one area near the door.
Finally managed to get through this almost game breakingly frustrating repetitive damn puzzle. ALmost gave up here the game was so broken.
Anyway through a series of fast flowing water areas and out into a large greek building underground. Underwater tunnel leads to door opening switch and then onto boss battles.
Day 5 6/8/08
Finally managed to complete the two horse creature boss fight, hard work to learn the moves. Hit them until they get angry and stampede you, when you get the finished move on them they stand looking gormless for a bit, stunned i suppose. you have to grapple their shield away from them and then use their shields to return their stone beam back on them, once turned to stone is the only time they are vulnerable. and you can shoot and shatter them.
Egypt Temple of Khamoon.
Some new baddies cougars, pumas or something like that and mummy type creatures with big cat heads that shoot fire.
looks like another hub area and i have to find four egyptian symbol artefacts.
Introduces times poles, shoot a button and the pole to jump on shoots out for a limited time.
Have to go all the way around the square hub to find a switch to open the first door.
Area with huge statues holding tables, these come close together when a switch is pressed allowing a previously impossible jump to be made.
Large area with cat statue and crocodiles leads to a large shaft like jumping puzzle with some moving platforms. Opens door back out at cat statue to progress.
Yet more and more puzzle rooms, and i haven't even found one of the keys yet? Beginning to get a little bit bored here with yet more and more jumping puzzles, call me jaded but I am starting to groan when I see a new huge area rather than relish the challenge.
Now I am back in the room with the statues and tables, only this time i have to jump on the platforms above their head rather than the tables they have in their hands. Recycling of areas, does this game need that it's getting past it's welcome already.
wrestling with glitchy jumping off rope mechanic to grab scarab puzzle.
Into a room with four pillars and rotating blocks at the bottom, you have to move the roatating blocks so that pictures match the combination of heiroglypics found in little rooms off the main room.
And it's over, the bit i thought was a hub wasn't phew, I was thinking of giving up if there was going to be much more of this.
Obelisk of Khamoon
Oh ok it was a hub. Found the first of the objects, they are all on the obelisk which is a needle shaped pillar in a shaft. Looks like a big long jumping puzzle, yahoo?
Oh joy swiftly closing crushing traps to make the game more fun.
Collapsible handholds and height dropping swing poles introduced. Also arrows firing blocking jumps unless you choose the right path.
whirling blades too great.
This is a huge area with many jumpping puzzle rooms and some hard ones at that.
Day 6 7/8/08
An area where the handholds were out of reach stumped me for a long time, had to go to walkthrough. Found out that you have to use the grapple and swing out and then swing back to use the momentum to jump higher, not obvious at all.
Eventually switched all the switches to drop pillars in place to get at all the aretfacts and a gate opens leading you back to that now well used statues with tables in their hands room. And quickly back to the hub room to open the door.
Sanctuary of the scion.
Now a puzzle with the rotating picture symbols again.mucked around with it, it was like some kind of rubic cube matching symbols when the thing you turned also turned other symbols the wrong way. Got it through trial and error to be honest.
Into the sphinx area, i remember this from the first game. Huge intimidating and i just want it over now.
Big mummified birds that shoot fire now.
Clamber around the sphinx for a bit and i pull a switch and open a door. In here is another shaft like area. Only this time there is something new, a switch brings down a needle, but there are light shafts bouncing off it. Hmm looks like i need to place things so that the light hits the correct points.
Landing lara on pillars drags them down and they then lock into place lifting needles and extending a bridge.
pulling the switch now makes a pyramid shape of light beams and opens the door.
yay the ankh key which i didn't know i needed.
who is it that litters these hitherto unexplored tombs with guns and ammo?
Onto the second shaft with pyramid lights, same again easier this time with the concept worked out. Second ankh key. what do you know it crashed froze solid when i got back into the large sphinx area.
fucking thing sent me back to the start of the sphinx, about an hour back fuck.
Here we go again it's only masochism and grim determination that's making me do these two puzzle rooms again, that and they are fresh in my mind.
OK second time it didn't crash opened the door to the sphinx with the two ankh keys.
rolling a ball down a big hill squashing rats.
into another huge chamber flooded, looks like another water raising and lowering puzzle.
Typical no clear objective, just lots of switches and now scarab beetles to turn by shooting at them to the right pattern. convenient map nearby.
Completely hidden entrance inside one of the impressive looking statues of egyptian gods.
More teasing I can see the last piece behind a gate now. Have to insert each part of the scion into the door frame.
Much climbing on pillars.
and finally we get the scion and out of the tomb thank god.
Lost Island Natla's mines
Day 7 8/8/08
At least this looks a little different, modern machines and mine workings.
But no this is a hub room and i have to find 3 fuses
After getting the three fuses and some damn tricky room puzzles.
Shooting out the glass of the control window was not at all obvious.
We meet larson who stops us by taking one of the fuses out. bang he's dead we get fuse back.
Introduces lava, which looks painful.
Fight the other two unnamed bosses. One is a sick killer and he gets his comeuppence when he kills the other guy to get the kill for himself and is shot in his moment of triumph by his friend as he dies.
Big atlantean door with little poles that sink to open it up.
Lost Island the great pyramid
Wow this looks great, grand design lava flowing behind the walls, organic polyps hatching monsters. All very scary and impressive. Lots of shooting here, introduces shooting at targets to stick out grapple hooks which go back in after time. very hard.
Day 8 9/8/08
The shaft here that you climb is very very hard, screaming at lara hard as sometimes she seems to like to go the wrong way when you jump just to spite you. Also the monsters that spawn on every landing are hard not due to difficulty but bad camera and the lock on system which insists on locking on to the targets rather than the monsters.
Anyway got up there at last.
Nice puzzle room where a copy of yourself but skinned does your moves exactly in a mirror image of the room, the trick is to get her to jump into a hole that you open with a push of a switch.
Quick and simple room puzzle and that's the end of the level.
Lost Island Final conflict
Legless big beastie is a bit of a pushover compared to the rest, you have to anger him and get the headhot, then he rolls about or gets his claws stuck, when his claws are stuck you an shoot his hand, then after enough damage his hand gets mangled. Next time you get him to fall off the edge of the platform he can't grab on, you shoot his grasping remaining hand and he falls in simple.
Some short puzzles.
Two rooms with jumping puzzles and a locked set of three doors. Always three with this game.
Now onto the final battle with Natla. Again she is an easier boss than the first two or is it that i am getting better at the game. Once Natla is killed it's final cut scene and game over.
Finished game 9/8/08 on hard.
Took 19:22 according to in game clock.
185 achievement points.
No comments:
Post a Comment