Tomb Raider Custom Levels

[Blín D'ñero]

Eek! Climbable wall outside the ladder texture! I hate that, it's a bad habit by some builders.

Just like: some shootable vases, other ones look identical but do not shatter.

[Blín D'ñero]

However "epic" this game seems to be, at the same time it somewhat suffers "overdone" disease.
You'll notice that you will get to the key if you first go this way. But halfway that path it turns out there is a path you have to go first. And halfway that one, you are presented with a new challenge, in order to open a path to find a way before you can manage to get to the previous way before... eh... can you still follow? I'm at chapter 4; it already loaded 3 sub-levels inbetween. Because of general disbalance it won't get a 10 from me. But i can't go lower than a 9 because it's soo good......

[Blín D'ñero]

It's been 8 months and i've been totally out of it; i'll have to restart Legacy of the Gods completely, another time.

Let me try some new ones first.

BigFoot - Harmony Around A Red Star - The Hidden Lair
Starts totally wrong. A red creature with a tail is not Lara is not Tomb Raider.
Next!

Daffy - Escape In The Pacific
refuses to run on my computer (Win 7 x64). Crashed my PC each of 4 attempts.
(It contains "Tomb_NextGeneration.dll" but there's not even a widescreen option in setup... messy)

Next!
Drakan - The Lair Of Hydras. I thought finally this one would be good. No: you're disallowed to jump to the other space for no reason. Right in the beginning, after the steam-lift. Crap.
Next!

Francesco Venco - Prometheus Legacy
Refuses to run on my computer (Win 7 x64). Crashed my PC, again a "Tomb_NextGeneration" product within 15 minutes. There seems to be something wrong with them these days. Next!

Marcos Mensa's Readme is the first to give a suggestion:
"IMPORTANT: If your monitor is widescreen, please select correct configuration (tr4.exe setup)"

Well, you have to create a setup.exe in the first place (the default one contains a wrong path). And then... it turns out my 2560 x 1600 is too much, because reducing game resolution to 1920 x 1200 is enough to get it started.
But then... The Eggs starts with the insect Curtis. What a mistake.
Next!

First Daffy and Francesco their retry.

Daffy - Escape In The Pacific now runs, (non-widescreen though)
(and that is after creating a setup.exe, info that is lacking from the readme).
The level looks poor, and does not seem to support widescreen, so... why bother.

Trying Francesco's then.
First create a setup.exe...
Ahh, and that crashes the PC, once again.


One more attempt then.
Masha - Crazy Town

No: PC freeze; hard reboot needed.

I'm done for today with these custom levels.

I think tomorrow i'll restart Legacy of the Gods instead.

[Blín D'ñero]

Masha - Crazy Town does start at a lower resolution 1280 x 768...
But the main menu [NEW GAME - LOAD GAME - OPTIONS - EXIT] does not work. That is: it works on guessing (counting) the options based on the sounds, visually it doesn't work at all. The ingame menu does work.
The game looks horrible at this low resolution.
The End. Next!

Mugs - Bone Palace DOES start, at 1920 x 1200 (without even a specific "widescreen" checkbox in setup menu). Nothing wrong. Okay, i'll play that.

After quitting once, it refuses to start again. Rubbish then.
I suspect it's that "next gen" engine crap.

---

From the "Taras - She" readme:

II Installation
This game is playable directly from the unzipped download. Do not move any files, simply unzip, click and play.

No it's not. The same freezing crap.

Another reboot, and finally i get the game starting. Looks very poor in the intro with flickering trees sliding over the green terrain below on earth. Inside this flying "aeroplane" each of the passengers is either Werner, or the guy from the dig site in TR3, or a woman with huge boobs. The (what we are forced to believe is an -) aeroplane itself has an extremely wide corridor of at least 6 meters between the two rows of seats. Also the toilet room is enormous, and Lara picks up a giant plaster. Luckily between two Werners i find a door to jump outside and die.
Quit.
(by the way, the crap got a very high rating (9.44 ) from trle.net. Probably friends supporting each other, no other way i can imagine. Ofter in the last 1½ years i got the impression).

[Blín D'ñero]

Finally: Quality.
Teme - Reflections of Eternity.

And... it's beautiful. It's gorgeous.
And great fun to play.

That's custom level Tomb Raider!

[Blín D'ñero]

[UPDATE: THIS IS A AMD/ATI CROSSFIRE ISSUE WITH CATALYST 12.11 BETA]
Not good about that engine:

• Save/load menu does not work correctly. Often the game juist freezes. You have to hit Esc a few times. Same with the quickload/-save.
• when diving under water, ugly overexposure-bleeching on the colors.
• When pulling a lever, you cannot skip the video (that shows the impact of the lever), with Camera. The only way to know if you successfully roll during the video is by hearing it.
• 2650 x 1600 is not supported ("Failed to setup DirectX") although it is in the setup-options to choose from.
• When i quit game, then after 10 seconds start the game again, the whole PC freezes. Ctrl+Alt+Del no worky, only a hard reboot.
  Next time i did a check: and there seemed no game-related processes or services still running after quitting.
  I even waited for more than an hour, then restarted the game. Again: total freeze of PC, hard reboot needed!
• After playing a while, going Main Menu > Start New Game, gives a black screen and complete freeze of the PC. Hard reboot needed.
  Why do they use that shit engine.
• Finally, New Game. Intro cannot be skipped. After the intro, black screen and PC restarts.
• In setup.exe i lowered game resolution to 1600x1200, then started the game. Complete freeze of PC. Hard reboot needed!
• In setup.exe i upped game resolution to 1920x1200, then the game launched (that is, the unskippable intro). This time i didn't touch the keyboard during the intro, and finally the game started normally.

Something that's also weird i think: before pulling the lever in the room with the half-high block and the row of burner-tiles (one with a pillar), and after i moved the half-high block onto the first tile, i saved.
Then i pulled the lever and saw that all burners started burning. After reloading that save (which brings me back before pulling the lever!), they were still burning!!! But they're not supposed to burn until that lever is pulled.. After some 20 seconds they extinguish luckily. This issue is always reproduceable.

[Blín D'ñero]

[UPDATE: THIS IS A AMD/ATI CROSSFIRE ISSUE WITH CATALYST 12.11 BETA]
Next day: i boot up the PC, and after a few minutes i try to launch the game. IT FREEZES THE PC!
After reboot, it starts.
The load menu takes 10 repeated hits on Enter or Esc before it works.

Also annoying is the tick-tick sound on Lara's boots, I play with headphones and the ticking sound is directly brain-penetrating. Who invented that should be punished. Correction: who uses it, should be punished. I cannot remove it, it's not amongst the audio files, it's in the engine data.

Once you combine the rope and the hammer they form "Building Tools", there is no way to undo it, which is untombraiderish. All elements are always seperable, why not this time? Not that it matters though.

===

Jeezz! Took a while, before Lara finally started doing something with the pile of wood.. She has to be standing almost full face against the stone wall... I wasted more than an hour searching what to do.

On the positive side, very positive: this game is a marvel. A beauty all around, the puzzles are very nice, music is perfect... it's one of those games that are just greater than most.

[Blín D'ñero]

[UPDATE: THIS IS A AMD/ATI CROSSFIRE ISSUE WITH CATALYST 12.11 BETA]

And again the next day: i boot up the PC, and after say 15 minutes i try to launch the game. IT FREEZES THE PC!
After reboot, the same happens.
I run setup, and start the game. Same thing happens, complete freeze.
Reboot.
Same thing happens.
Reboot.
Same thing happens.
I copy the whole directory to C:\, launch setup and lower the resolution to 1680 x 1050.
Game launches immediately.
Exit, run setup and up the resolution to 1920 x 1200.
I start the game, and complete freeze of PC again.

Goddammit freakin shit engine.

I reboot, delete the C:\ version and run my original setup, reduce resolution to 1680 x 1050. Start the game, and complete freeze of PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GARBAGE!.

Reboot, up the resolution to 1920 x 1200, and XP Compatibility mode: same freeze.
Reboot the PC. This time it starts.
It's roulette.

[Blín D'ñero]

[UPDATE: THIS IS A AMD/ATI CROSSFIRE ISSUE WITH CATALYST 12.11 BETA]
And again the next day: i boot up the PC, and after say 30 minutes i try to launch the game. IT FREEZES THE PC!
After reboot, the same happens: it freezes the PC.
After reboot, the same happens: it freezes the PC.
After reboot, the same happens it freezes the PC.
After reboot, it spontaneously restarts the PC.
After reboot, it finally launches.

[Blín D'ñero]

[UPDATE: THIS IS A AMD/ATI CROSSFIRE ISSUE WITH CATALYST 12.11 BETA]
And again the next day: i boot up the PC, and after say 10 minutes i try to launch the game. IT FREEZES THE PC!
Maybe they forgot to make their solo-running "Next Gen" engine Windows 7 x64 compatible?
The classical Tomb Raider custom Level engine runs without issues here, i can tell you / them that!
Did i already say that i am not very fond of this "Next Gen" engine?

===
After reboot, the same happens: it freezes the PC.
After reboot, the same happens: it freezes the PC.
After reboot, the same happens: it freezes the PC.
And just like yesterday: after reboot, it spontaneously restarts the PC. Hopefully after this ordeal it will finally start?
And yes: just like yesterday, after 5 reboots it decides to run.