Hope you have no fear of high places or flying bats. This place is bizarre and looks next to impossible to negotiate. But of course, there is a way down. |
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Go down the rock tunnel. Safety drop to the beam below, then safety drop again to the floor. Go out the passge to the huge cathedral. This is insane! You can't see bottom from up here. It must be the equivalent to a 20-30 story building, to the bottom. And to make matters worse, there is no visible way to even begin the way down. No ladders, no ledges, no cables? Be careful for flying bats. Draw any gun. Wait for your gun to auto-aim, and fire. Be brave! Safety drop from the ledge. |
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Ahha... The face of the ledge is actually climbable rock. Slowly descend the rock face. Go down as far as Lara can go. You may have to hit the left joystick down, to convince Lara to climb down a reverse-incline. There's a very small ledge below. Drop to the ledge. SAVE GAME. Face right. Engage [walk]. There's a wooden beam you can jump to and then jump again to a cave inside the rock. Do a standing jump and then grab and pull up, if you miss the beam short. If you over-shoot, you die. |
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From the wooden beam, jump to the cave entrance. Inside the cave, safety-drop down 3 levels and Lara ends up inside a small brick-lined room. This is one of the main tomb entrances. SAVE GAME again. Walk out and have a look around. Use Lara's zoom camera now, and you can see the bottom. Look up as well... This place is huge! The connecting bridge to the other side has been destroyed. It's pretty far. Lara will need to execute a perfect run-jump to make it. Jump across. |
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Jumping over to this side was a big disappointment. All that was inside the room was med bandages. There's a grate leading down to a tunnel, but no way to open it? As you go to jump back across, I noticed a set of well-lit ledges below the tomb gate on the other side. A way to go down? Jump across back to the other gate. Jump over the rail on the left side by the wall. Lara lands on a rock ledge down below. Walk to the middle part. Only way down is by using the rock face. |
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Use Lara's camera to look around the rock face to make sure you're aligned with the wall cavity below. Safety drop over the ledge, then climb down the inverted rock face to the cavity and ledge below. SAVE GAME AGAIN! This next part is trickey. there's a solid ledge over to the right (facing the wall it would be to the left). Jump up. Climb the wall on the left, then shimy left, around the first corner, then around the second corner. Now climb down the inverted rock face and drop to the ledge. SAVE GAME. |
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SAVE GAME STRATEGY: You may notice that in this level, I am suggesting you SAVE GAME often! Unlike other Tomb Raider games before, this version will not penalize you for saving at mid-steps in a level. All you do is overwrite the same memory block as you progress through the level. It will save you time, especially when trying to repeat difficult high-risk maneuvers or pin-point jumping. |
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From the corner of the ledge, jump across to the wooden beam. Engage [walk] so you don't fall off, if you haven't done so already. Pull the lever on the wall. This activates a series of step ledges out from the wall. Before jumping to the ledges, have a look to see where you are going. You will eventually want to get to the bottom floor area. Lara can see something moving down there? |
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All jumps can be carried out with [walk] engaged. No run-jumps are needed. This means you can align Lara right to the edge of a platform before jumping to the right spot on the next platform, or to grab onto a platform side as straight as possible. Work down the steps in order. Before jumping down from the last step to the ground, you'll see the skeleton warrior stalking you from underneath. He cannot be killed unfortunately, but can be stunned and knocked unconscious, for a short while. |
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Once you are on the bottom floor, draw the MV-9 gun and hit the skeleton warrior 5-6 times, maybe even more. As soon as he falls, run over to the small crawlway and go in the chamber. Pull the lever inside. This will activate another set of 12 steps leading up to a hidden alcove, high up the wall. The last step and alcove are marked with yellow/orange lighting. Only one problem. The skeleton warrior is waiting right outside the alcove. Draw a weapon and crouch. Shoot through the door. |
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This will scare the warrior off for just a little while and you can crawl out and escape, before he pulls out his sword. Run to the right and around to the first platform. Pull up quickly to safety off the ground. Hopefully the warrior will still be stunned and looking for you at the crawlway (was in my case). This is a good thing. If he stays there, you won't need to fight him a second time. Now jump and climb the platforms in sequence. Some jumps may be a little shorter than others. Be careful. |
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On the last platform, glowing in orange light, face the wall, jump up and grab the ledge. Pull up and pull the lever inside the alcove. The grate trapdoor in the floor below, swings open. This is our way out. Here's Lara's view. Reverse your steps. Safety drop down to the first platform and follow your path back down to the floor. Be very careful not to over-jump any platform. Worse case would be to aim Lara for the wall. Let her bang her head when she jumps, dropping to the platform. No damage. |
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When you make it all the way down to the last platform by the floor, look for the skeleton warrior. Hopefully he's above ground somewhere looking for you. If you DON'T see him anywhere, he's gone down the trapdoor and is waiting for you in the tunnel. Jump down and run to the trap door. Safety drop down to the tunnel. If the warrior is still above you, he won't come down after you. Walk down the tunnel and go through the door on the right. Lots of goodies including a Vector 25 shotgun. |
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Go to [weapons] and equip the shotgun. Should the warrior be down the tunnel, 3 good shots with the shotgun will knock him over. The good news is Lara has tons of shotgun ammo! Go down the tunnel to the right. The game will pause and reload the next portion of the level. Through the door is a very ornate room with a beautiful ceramic glass floor that you can almost see through. Very cool! Walk through the next door and it automatically locks behind you. This is not good! SAVE GAME! |
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If you listen closely, Lara will hear an all-to-familiar sound.... Poison blow darts being shot across the room! The door at the other end of the room is locked. The only way to open it, is with the lever on the wall to the right. To make matters worse, when Lara pulls the lever, nasty spears eject in and out of the narrow arches between the hall sections. THEN... to add insult to injury, this has to be done on a timer. The door at the other end closes, within 15 sec of pulling the lever. |
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OK... This is it! Make sure Lara's health is at 100% and then pull the lever. Immediately run down the hall. Don't stop to second-guess the cycle of the spears. Run-jump as high as you can. Keep running. Run-jump the next set of spears. Keep running. Run-jump the last set of spears and run through the door. Hopefully you timed it right and made it through alive. If not, you have a SAVE GAME to try again until you get it right. Once through the door, regain your health and walk down the halls. LEVEL ENDS. |
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