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People keep saying this particular level, the Opera House, was pretty scary, or that the whole game has a pretty threatening atmosphere. I actually agree. You're conceptually in Venice here, but it's not really Venice. The sky is black. The windows are black. Actually, the windows seem to be painted on, which means this isn't Venice at all. It is some dark, fake, ultraviolent scary place that is largely inexplicable. The ambient sounds are frightening. The opera house is apparently abandoned, and doesn't really resemble any opera house that you've ever seen, except in nightmares. Also, in this old engine, there is a sort of fog-of-war effect where everything beyond your visual range just fades to black. This was especially nasty in some of the underwater levels, where you have to swim long distances (the levels are rather big for such an old game), and the water around you faded to black - you couldn't see the surface.
There is also often this feeling that you're all alone - there are no NPCs, which you would expect in a city like Venice, there are only pretty brutal enemies. They are thugs, but they seem totally mindless. They attack you without any sign of alertness, they are like mindless killers. Not many of them, though, so for a lot of the game, you *are* all alone in places that aren't what they seem. Pretty deadly traps, too, and nasty death animations. Lots of diving involved, too, so there is always the fear of drowning in those dark, watery areas. There is also inexplicable stuff like breakaway floors that just float in the middle of nowhere, a whole level where you travel through a sunken ship (and the ceiling is the floor), and a lot more of this sort of stuff. Just weird. I found it quite stunning back then, and still do. Just hit upon this video walkthrough of the Opera House on 'tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BR7zQlrWlY&NR=1 I already posted the famous multi-trap gauntlet from the same game (Great Wall level) elsewhere. Here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_dP53CPuk0 By the way, I never knew the great wall had T-Rexes. T-Rexes stomping towards you out of the darkness of some gigantic dark cave, wanting to kill you. Tromp, tromp, tromp! I thought there were only little spiders there!! I want my money back! These pants were expensive! The darkness... And this is "The Deck", one of the sunken ship levels... and again, it looks not really like a sunken ship. More like large parts of a ship in some incredible cave. The fog of war thing is pretty visible here. Hey, that guy has a flame thrower... burn, Lara, burn. Crumple, whimper, suffer, die. She dies in pretty horrible ways - no simple falling over yelling. There must be a dozen or more death animations. You actually hear bones breaking when she falls, you watch her suffocate while drowning, and a number of other unpleasant things. Not here, luckily. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2md6GHyrK_w&feature=related The whole game is pretty great, it involves this rather moody, at times downright weird level design, the often seemingly fragile surroundings that strangely contrast with the gloomy feel, quite a lot of shooting for a TR game, vehicles (boat and snowmobile), ominous monks that turn on you with their kung-fu crap should you be stupid enough to hurt them, and a really rather large dragon. The challenge mainly comes from the fear of falling, and fear of drowning. Plus the traps, and the enemies. The main thing about this game is the oppressive atmosphere, though. The lighting is primitive in a way that creates an almost eerie effect. Plus the ubiquitous darkness. There is even a sort of void level, The Floating Islands. You have to jump across screaming green blocks floating in blackness to get from one floating temple to another, while some statues come to life and attack you. Yeah, right. Why are there floating cages in China? What were they smoking? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj8AEjjS9g8 The game ends (if you found the secret level, which is reached by beating the "end" level on a timer) by Lara shooting the player for watching her in the shower. "Don't you think you've seen enough?" *BLAM* A protagonist who shoots the player, breaking the magical bond of immersion because she wants to take a shower. Yeah. What's not to love? One more thought about the level names. There is stuff like "40 Fathoms". Hmm, that sounds like a lot of water... and if you know diving in TR, with the constant fear of drowning, and the sheer darkness, and the pretty nasty sight of your in-game avatar suffocating and struggling against the inevitable because YOU messed up again, player! A game chock full of weirdness. And dying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzMwk-TsY58 with how you describe the atmosphere. That's pretty much how it felt to me. I don't agree that it's a good game though ;-)
if they have the same artists as they did for painkiller, i'm sure the looks will be top-notch. now, if they only hire at least 1 level designer...
Nice abstract design! http://i.imgur.com/yuVe2.png
I'm using Chrome as well and no problems. Latest flash etc?
It's a single-screen platformer where the level gets modified as you progress through it (no screen change), lasting about 5 minutes to play through. Some neat little ideas, but the controls are a bit naff. Direct2Drive.com is in their 4th week of their month long gaming sale-a-bonanza, and this week looks pretty good. Mass Effect 1 + 2 bundle for $35, Aion for $25 (any good, Jago?), Fallout 3 for $15, etc.
Nice little sweep of games. Anyone know if Sacred 2 or Divinity 2 are worth their sale price? Or Civ 4 Complete Collection for $10? Fuck, whatever, I'll probably get em anyway. sacred 2 is fun for mindless killing. there's a story, but you really don't need to pay attention to enjoy the game.
there are a lot of ways to develop each class, so there's a lot of replayability. Worked for me, pretty good fun, I evicted the fuck out of that bitch.
Minus a million points for the bit where you have to hit the globes in order, covering the whole length of the level only to have pressed them in the wrong order. Also, there is not way of telling what the correct order is. I didn't like it much either. In retrospect i realized your worst case (if you're clever about which order you attempt to hit the globes) is to have to make the trip down and back up 3 times (if you keep guessing wrong) but still, i agree that that was a bit too tedious.
http://www.nitrome.com/games/rustyard/
http://www.nitrome.com/games/finalninjazero/ http://www.casualcollective.com/#games/The_Space_Game http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/511754 http://armorgames.com/play/1871/totem-destroyer http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/n-game.html http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html http://www.foddy.net/Evacuation.html http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/bloxorz http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/boom_bot_2 http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/civiballs_2 http://www.blitzgamer.com/play/strategy/10000486/crush-the-castle-2.html http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/cursor10/ http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/deanimator http://www.flasharcadegamessite.com/23351-Entangled-Game.html http://www.feedthehead.net/ http://www.playauditorium.com/ http://armorgames.com/play/2675/phage-wars http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/maverick http://armorgames.com/play/2153/aether http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/ http://fantasticcontraption.com/ http://www.eyezmaze.com/eyezblog_en/blog/2005/09/grow_cube.html Some of these have already been posted here. Awesome pay what you want offer:
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/The-Humble-Indie-Bundle Zwiffle: Aion is great for the first 26-27 levels, until it turns into a grindfest of an epic proportions, which gets progressively worse with each level. NCSoft also has non-existing "customer support" whose sole reason for being there seems to be to insult the remaining paying customers.
to be precise, you can't pay less than $0.01. Or negative amounts of money, for that matter.
Of course, that also means you NEED an account at one of their pay thingies, which are mostly evil or very US centric (or is theresome way to let amazon.de handle the transaction?). What am I gonna doooooo!?
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