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40 Fathoms: puzzles and platforming is front and center in this one along with swimming, very few enemies outside of avoiding sharks and barracuda. Quite linear once again, but overall a decent level. The puzzles are quite cool and one of the later ones had me guessing for a couple minutes. Game is ballsy and starts you in the deep dark ocean facing in the opposite direction to the Maria Doria, nice. I also like how the sharks follow you into the wreckage.
I remember this level starting off creepier and more tense than any so-called horror game, to me. Being pointed away from the direction of your destination, in those conditions? Indeed audacious. Today's gamers would drown a few times and call that a flaw, which is why games are bland as hell now, about as stirring as a bowl of cold porridge.
This game has more variety but sadly the triggers don't play them as much as they should. The deck used "caves" at the start, but it's brief (or can be interrupted by other brief cues and then its gone) and then outside of some short and infrequent cues (e.g enemy appears) the rest of the level is silent. Just a few more triggers here and there for the ambient music would have been nice. Would work wonders for the atmosphere.
It has been some time since I played Tomb Raider ii, so maybe I remember it wrong.
But as far as I do remember, the game shouldn't be silent. After the short cues are played, it should revert to the main music track of the level.
Are you still playing the PSX version? Maybe this is an emulation error.
Barkhang Monastry: another vast level that took an hour to beat (not including reloads) and very non-linear. Combat is kind of lame mostly involving the monks doing the dirty work for you, but nice exploration, puzzles and to a lesser extent platforming.
Catacombs of the Talion: Great. Classic tomb raiding. this level has it all. Decent platforming, puzzles, traps, swimming, exploration, good combat with yetis, leopards and dudes trailing in behind you. Secrets are starting to get a little more tricky, this will be the last level in which I found them all (though I did stop caring to be thorough). Nice and atmospheric too. Interestingly enough, now pickups are starting to appear slightly more frequently in the levels now that human enemies are taking a backseat.
Ice Palace: introduction of the jump pads and it's quite fun. Level loops back to the previous in an interesting way. More of the same goodness of the previous level, though perhaps declines in quality towards the end.
Temple of Xian: didn't really enjoy this as much as I thought I would as a result of the linearity + increase in difficulty in combination with quicksaving. I just ended up spamming it as one probably should due to the high risk of everything. Combat is mostly giant spiders, vultures (OMG what are they doing in this ancient cave, unrealistic what a shit game!) and tigers; combat takes a back seat to the endless traps and plentiful platforming, which are mostly all well done. The aesthetics & atmosphere are very nice. Classic challenging level but would be far more interesting with save crystals and a little less linearity.
Floating Islands: love it. Peak abstract old school madness. I'm tiring of the game by this point but it's largely a fine level, and great considering it's the last true level of the game. I'm spamming power weapons by this point and the grenade launcher and M16 fucking suck. Just use uzis/auto pistols/shotgun. You have to stand still to even use the M16 so it's only really good to take out the flying enemies. Grenade launcher isn't as powerful as it should be and Lara's auto-accuracy with it leaves something to be desired, but it's not as bad as the M16.
Throwing knife humans are a good enemy, glad we got some solid projectile-based enemies in the mix.
Dragon's Den: It's fine. Nothing special but does its job. As I was leaving the place I accidentally jumped into some floor fire and caught alight. I just ran for the exit using medpacks as I went. Lara went home on fire since you never put yourself out unless water. She must have had just enough medpacks to make it home to her shower (I had approxmately 10 of each).
Home Sweet Home: All the medkits are gone, glad she made it but my guns and ammo are gone too. Nice little bonus level to let you go ham with the shotgun. The End.
+gameplay variety - mostly good new mechanics (ladders are kind of lame as they're very frequent and climbing is slow), two great vehicle levels, vast diversity of level design styles, more guns (though some suck) and flares.
+more music diversity.
+Slight increase of graphical and artistic diversity - new costumes that make sense, more level themes, slight higher poly count in general. More FMVs and to a higher quality.
+combat is probably the best here, despite the endless humans, many of them hitscanners.
-Secret system and the implementation of approximately half the secrets leave a lot to be desired.
-Unlimited save anywhere is for fags and ruined the true potential of the game.
-One too many linear levels (4 of 17 are overly linear, let's say).
-Lack of items found/placed in the level design, instead dropped by humans is detrimental to exploration.
8/10. TR1 is better purely because of the save crystals, but that game has a certain roughness or primitive feeling to it that's not as present here (e.g sound design). TR2 also has a better finale (the final few levels).
Nice to see some ladies in the credits in some impressive roles - one of the two level designers, and one responsible for the cool script. Modern day chicks would never make something this cool.
When focusing on the main objectives, Tomb Raider II is about 15½ Hours in length. If you're a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 21½ Hours to obtain 100% completion.
Wreck of The Maria Doria
Venice
Catacombs of the Talion
Offshore Oil Rig
Tibetan Foothills
Floating Islands
Bartoli's Hideout
Opera House
Barkhang Monastery
Good:
The Deck
Ice Palace
Home Sweet Home
Temple of Xian
Great Wall
40 fathoms
Which one is the one where you start in an ocean and need to quickly find the entrance to a base(?)?
That's definitely not TR1, is it 2 or 3? Also, I don't remember if that's the first level, or just one of the levels.
Which one is the one where you start in an ocean and need to quickly find the entrance to a base(?)?
That's definitely not TR1, is it 2 or 3? Also, I don't remember if that's the first level, or just one of the levels.
The Deck is one of my favourite levels, I think just because of the sense of majesty it has. The bit where you walk out into the cavern and realise the ship's been split in half and twisted upside down is one of the only moments that recaptures the TR1 sense of isolation and having stumbled upon something incredible that's been long buried.
As a kid I also always thought the Maria Doria was meant to be Titanic-era. Knowing it's from the 1950s makes it somehow a thousand times less interesting.
Which one is the one where you start in an ocean and need to quickly find the entrance to a base(?)?
That's definitely not TR1, is it 2 or 3? Also, I don't remember if that's the first level, or just one of the levels.
Doesn't 40 Fathoms and Wreck of the Maria Doria do that better? That's when you first see the ship, first enter the ship, you don't know what's inside, and once you enter it's cramped, creepy and lonely.
Catacombs of the Talion/Ice Palace/Temple of Xian are probably quite notable here too.
I liked The Deck for sure but it had an annoying section or two and was actually quite linear-ish despite being a huge open cavern. Which is odd as I read somewhere recently someone bitching that this level in particular was too complex and overwhelming for them. Decline-enablers.
Which one is the one where you start in an ocean and need to quickly find the entrance to a base(?)?
That's definitely not TR1, is it 2 or 3? Also, I don't remember if that's the first level, or just one of the levels.
Doesn't 40 Fathoms and Wreck of the Maria Doria do that better? That's when you first see the ship, first enter the ship, you don't know what's inside, and once you enter it's cramped, creepy and lonely.
Catacombs of the Talion/Ice Palace/Temple of Xian are probably quite notable here too.
I liked The Deck for sure but it had an annoying section or two and was actually quite linear-ish despite being a huge open cavern. Which is odd as I read somewhere recently someone bitching that this level in particular was too complex and overwhelming for them. Decline-enablers.
The whole Maria Doria section is great but walking out onto The Deck gave me the same feeling as looking down the main tower room in St Francis Folly from TR1, where it's just pure spectacle and a feeling of "wow, nobody's been here in a long time". Atmosphere slightly ruined by the flamethrower guy waiting just below the starting area, obviously.
Can't quite remember if it becomes apparent prior to The Deck, but as a kid I think that's the level where I finally fully realised what had happened to the ship. Probably just me being dumb but I didn't even clock shit like the swimming pool being on the roof in (I think) Wreck of the Maria Doria, or the restaurant with the tables screwed to the ceiling, I thought it was just weird architecture. When I saw the chasm in The Deck it was like, "oh right, the frigging thing's been cleaved in half and twisted upside down".
I like the Tibet levels a lot but they always seemed to have quite a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere to me, with the yetis and jump pads and whatever that thing is at the end of Ice Palace.
Can't quite remember if it becomes apparent prior to The Deck, but as a kid I think that's the level where I finally fully realised what had happened to the ship. Probably just me being dumb but I didn't even clock shit like the swimming pool being on the roof in (I think) Wreck of the Maria Doria, or the restaurant with the tables screwed to the ceiling, I thought it was just weird architecture. When I saw the chasm in The Deck it was like, "oh right, the frigging thing's been cleaved in half and twisted upside down".
It's certainly classic stuff. don't listen to me I am probably just salty because my music was borked. "caves" played for like 15seconds before getting interrupted by another music trigger and then never came back the entire level.
Which PS1 classic to revisit next? Plenty missing too.
Nobody cares but I'm not quite over Lara yet, so you'll have to deal with my ranting some more:
Continuing where I left off with TR3.
Nevada: Pretty cool level. Great aethetics and music. The skybox reminds me of Half-Life (it's the same setting/location after all). Almost a classic-tier level. Great platforming and puzzle elements. NO bullshit death traps. The only let down is once again the combat. A stupid snake here and there, a few vultures, a small handful of unarmed dudes trying to fist fight you encountered one-by-one, no real threats. In TR1 you have already fought your share of bears, T-rex, packs of lions etc. TR2 has already thrown 50 hitscanners and many melee pack ambushes at you. This is super lame.
High Security Compound: Damn the use of color in this game is prestigious. Such a diverse color pallet, great colored lighting effects, an early 3D visual treat. Reuse/remix of the Maria Doria spooky music is quite genius. Sadly, the level is rather linear and banal, running around pressing buttons to release eco-terrorist hippies or whatever to do the fighting for you, and the number of BULLSHIT traps that come from nowhere is absurd. Instant death lasers you can barely see, underwater currents that drag you to your death with no chance of escape, barbed wire hidden in complete darkness at the bottom of a ladder. It also abuses the hell out of the crawling mechanic, so many crawlspaces slowing down things to a...crawl, only a couple of them actually being valid. I absolutely love the concept of this level, but the execution is quite shit. Fuck this level. Also it steals all your stuff (everything except save crystals) and you never get it back, dumbest shit ever.
Area 51: somewhat of an improvement. We've got some guns now, and combat is finally actually present like in the first two games, wow. It only took until level 7. It's unfortunately still quite linear, but combat, creative puzzles and many cool set pieces manage to hold your attention regardless. The end of the level where you enter the UFO and the inside space is 10x larger than the exterior (intentionally) is fucking badass, and the interior visuals are inspired. The alien vivisection scene is also solid. There's a couple bullshit death traps but it's much less shitty than the previous level. I got stuck for around ten minutes as a key item was dropped by an enemy but it was not visible AT ALL. I frobbed at the feet of the corpse out of TR2 habit first time around but didn't pick anything up. The pickup was dropped in the center of the corpse, which I only found when aimlessly trying to find where to go and thought I should try that again. BULLSHIT. Oddly enough, there is ZERO save crystals provided on this level aside from two secrets; one of which I never found entry to. It ate away at some of the save crystals I had managed to horde by this point (12) so perhaps it's a good thing, and I am happy to be reverting from the lame save state use of TR2, though I did wimp out and use one save state on this level as I went from 12 crystals to 7 pretty fast and so I shamefully cheated the system just a little. Overall this is a pretty decent level despite a few major flaws and the moderate linearity.
I am reluctant to continue the adventure, given the london levels etc are to come. The game really is one step forward and two back sadly.
They should have merged the best bits of high security compound and Area 51 into one level (basically, the former would just be cut outright lol) and also removed a shitty london/pacific islands level each, then made a sixth location to visit instead. Preferably something classic ancient tomb-focused. the game could have been much more epic.
Can't quite remember if it becomes apparent prior to The Deck, but as a kid I think that's the level where I finally fully realised what had happened to the ship. Probably just me being dumb but I didn't even clock shit like the swimming pool being on the roof in (I think) Wreck of the Maria Doria, or the restaurant with the tables screwed to the ceiling, I thought it was just weird architecture. When I saw the chasm in The Deck it was like, "oh right, the frigging thing's been cleaved in half and twisted upside down".
It's certainly classic stuff. don't listen to me I am probably just salty because my music was borked. "caves" played for like 15seconds before getting interrupted by another music trigger and then never came back the entire level.
Which PS1 classic to revisit next? Plenty missing too.
I actually went with Brahma Force. What a total hidden gem. Prestigious Japanese FPS mech game in 1996!
Inventory system:
Equippable modules, weapon upgrades, weapons all have multiple fire mode settings:
fully customizable HUD, controls etc:
Rather vertical, expansive, interactive, moderately exploration-based level design:
Fast-paced combat, super jumps (with cooldown), classic doom-style quick strafing, no z-axis auto-aim (unless using heat-seekers), wide variety of enemies, shield mechanic (manually use to defend against missiles etc, w/ cooldown or energy use).
Periodic electronic communications providing story context and gameplay hints in classic 90s style
Epic FMVs tell the story with a mature cyberpunk tone:
Just when I thought I'd seen it all, the 90s continue to deliver. This game even has door codes you have to listen to audio logs to discover.
The System Shock game no one has ever heard of. I'm on level 5 or so and having a total blast.
LoL now this is something I haven't heard of for a long time.You are playing on an emulator I suppose? Because I remember my friends were playing it on PS1.
How are the controls and such?
10x better than System Shock 1 lol, at least in user friendliness. Of course it's missing crouch states, leaning and cursor-based interactivity, but mostly no big deal since leaning broke SS combat anyway, and the game isn't trying to be 100% System Shock, it's a solid middle ground with Doom I'd say. The controls are basically Doom but with Z axis looking, jumping (hold for boosted jump), pressing pause brings up multiple menus for your RPG-lite systems/map/logs etc, and there is a cool shield. Otherwise it's Doom. I have zero complaints with the default bindings, just found it tactical to swap interact with shield to better suit thumb positioning on controller. The movement is also great, super fast and responsive, yet still gives the impression of controlling a mech.
FlyingJohn said:
I have actually never heard about this game before. And i recognize every other game in your screenshot.
Where did you even find out about this game?
Deep digging on the internet. The PS1 is the greatest console of all time by a longshot (only thing better is windows PC) because of it's vast incredible library of late 90s golden age game design, so I was certain there must be more gems to find. I didn't expect the game to be THIS impressive, however. I thought it would be akin to Alien Trilogy or Disruptor; certainly impressive experiences but not truly classic.
Another thing I didn't expect is significant target-leading combat. Some enemies, namely a floor four-legged robot are super fast and to reliably hit them you have to target-lead far ahead.
One of my two deaths was also self-inflicted. One of the weapons is a massive AoE bomb that you pretty much have to either super jump in the air to use to clear the blast zone, or aim up for more trajectory so it travels further. Epic. First time I used it I just shot it forward at normal view elevation expecting typical results and blew myself up lol.
So far my only real criticism is the seeming over-abundance of ammo and pickups, which can be pretty fatal. But we'll see. I'm only level 5 atm. The skybox is also a little obstructive to visibility of enemies on the maps that has one, but it's not a huge deal especially when there is radar. Another thing is the levels while open-ended, moderately interactive, extremely vertical at times, and generally well-designed are so far a little smaller overall than your average 90s FPS. Wait, no, just your average 90s game (e.g Tomb Raider). Again though, we'll see how things transpire.
Japanese FPS mech game in 1996!
