Reign of Chaos - China by Christoph Summerer (christoph)

Level 1- Rotten Underground Temple

Anyone who has seen Christoph's previous adventures would probably agree that he is one of the best builders of oriental levels around. What would be more natural than for him to contribute to this project by building levels taking place in China?

The Rotten Underground Temple continues along the same lines as the first level of Mexico and the two first of Venice. However, this time there seems to be one great difference: the atmosphere. When I first started this one I was almost wondering if I by mistake had bypassed the "spooky" level. The whole level was filled with a tranquil and almost peaceful atmosphere that not even the huge, venomous spiders and numerous traps could erase.

The level was enjoyable from beginning to end and I found myself becoming more and more immersed in the story as Lara went up and down rocky cliffs and chains, along rivers, past waterfalls, lava pools and trap gauntlets through the grounds of this mystic temple in her quest for the green Chaos Gem.

It wasn't necessarily the easiest of levels though, as it covered lots and lots of ground and some of the puzzles were rather intricate. One of the areas that had me wandering back and forth for a long, long time was the enormous waterfall cave with the pagoda in the middle. Lara had to go up and down and up and down these rocky passages and manoeuvre around by tricky jump sequences to reach sneakily hidden levers.

At some point there was also a puzzle where the main objective was to move an urn from the very bottom of a huge cave up to an ornate tile on top, by lowering and raising cages. This cost a lot of backtracking and was probably the heaviest task in the game, but the satisfaction in moving the urn onto its correct tile and seeing the golden door near the beginning of the level finally open was larger than life.

Level 2- China Garden Part I

So the disputed green Chaos Gem is now in Lara’s possession and she’s moving on towards more peaceful grounds. Several times through this level I just stopped and stared in awe, the scenery was beautiful beyond my wildest beliefs.

Impressive temple buildings adorned with Chinese dragons and symbols, green grass, azure waterfalls and pools and lanterns in all the colours of the rainbow makes this an experience unlike very few that I have ever gone through during my time as a custom level player. A few times I even had to pinch my arm, asking myself if what I just saw was a game or if it was for real.

The feeling of a colourful and harmonious world we'd all love to live in never lets go of you during this amazing journey. There are some devious traps, a timed run and some tricky jump sequences along the way as well, making sure you'll never feel too relaxed.

Another objective is to open the gates leading to the second part of the Garden and to do this there are several items that Lara needs to find, among them two pieces of a Yin and Yang symbol, a Roll, a Sun Stone and of course a Chinese Fan which looks perfect on the fan table together with the rest of the fans.

Level 3- China Garden Part II

In this second part of the tranquil China Garden level Lara must find her way to a village and once more a whole range of tasks is on the schedule in order for Lara to return a missing fan to its rightful fan table.

The scenery is naturally much the same as the previous part, but I daresay that this is even slightly more beautiful. It's also more challenging and contains some lengthy jump sequences and you'll need all the patience you can get because Lara will be going back and forth a lot in this part.

She is finally rewarded when she finds the Harbour Key and can set off into the sunset and towards her next location in a speed boat.

Conclusion

Prepare to be taken by storm: this is a journey that is so visually appealing you'd wish you could be the one wandering among the trees and Chinese buildings. The puzzles shift from normal to tricky and back again, but it's never so hard that it's unbearable. As mentioned before you WILL need all the patience you can gather. The levels are huge and complex and Lara must cover a lot of ground to get to the end. The first level is rather straight-forward, but the two parts of the Chinese garden can turn into some real tongue-twisters if you do not pay attention to every little detail. But then again, the scenery is so breathtakingly gorgeous that this alone makes spending some hours here more than worth it. Prepare for a visit to the Pearl of the Orient that will stick with you for a long, long time.

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