Special Moves

Lara has two extra movements that are intended more for the good look than for any useful purpose: the swan dive and the handstand. It takes three keys to carry out each of these movements.

They might be useful in very rare situations as the swan dive enables Lara to perform a jump with a steeper arc than normally and the handstand enables her to pull up on a ledge without taking up as much place as usual, which is useful if that block is also occupied by something nasty such as a fire or spikes.

The swan dive:

Press walk, jump and up at the same time. Lara will make a gorgeous dive and she won’t scream as she normally does if the distance to the water is very great.

If the drop distance is great and you press roll during the dive she’ll add one or more summersaults to the dive.

But be aware that Lara may break her neck if she performs this dive from a height that is greater than her own and hits solid ground. It’s safer to land in water.

The swan dive

The handstand:

If Lara hangs by her hands and there is enough space for her to stand upright on the ledge she’s hanging from you press walk and up (you already hold action). Then she will pull herself up in an acrobatic handstand.

This movement takes longer time than her usual way to get up on a ledge so don’t use it during a timed run – or on a breakable tile as it will fall apart before Lara has finished her acrobatics.

The handstand

TREP’ed movements:

Be aware that mac-users sadly can’t use TREP.

The patch enables the player to use two more movements when Lara is crawling. But they only work when TREP is used. Actually, TREP has given level builders the possibility to make many more movements, but then they must make the belonging animations well.

The reason I mention these two is because their animations were already made for Tomb Raider 4 and are available if the level builder uses the revised wads, but for some reason they were never activated.

Personally I always enable these movements. If the game crashes when I try to use them it means the level builder has deleted those animations (so far I have only experienced this once) and then I just disable the option again.

- In stead of carefully crawling backwards out of a crawlspace located high on a wall Lara is able to roll forwards out of it, but if the ceiling is low or the crawlspace is uneven Lara may not be able to do it even though she can crawl backwards out the usual way. Make her crawl to the edge and press jump and she will roll out. It’s a lot quicker than the careful method.

- Lara can perform a low roll inside the crawlspace or whenever she is crouching. But she must be crouching or nothing happens. To perfom the crouching roll first make Lara crouch by pressing draw weapon and then press dash. Lara makes a low roll, but opposite the usual roll she will not reverse her direction.

Health and healing:

When Lara holds her weapon(s) or is hurt the red health bar in the left side of the screen is visible. If it’s almost depleted it’ll be visible all the time and the remaining bit of red will flash. Guess what? When it’s depleted Lara dies.

But during the level (game) you’ll come across many medipacks to heal her again. The small medipacks replenish half the amount of health and the large medipacks replenish the whole amount of health. To use one enter the inventory and select a medipack to use.

Some enemies and darts are poisonous. If Lara is poisoned the read health bar will turn green and will slowly be depleted. But long before that happens you’ll get a warning that can’t be ignored: the screen billows in a dizzy way. The cure against poisoning is simple. Just use a medipack – the size doesn’t matter. The health bar will replenish and then turn red again.

Cheats:

There are some cheat codes (called compass cheats because they involve the compass) available to the desperate player who is completely stuck.

But there are no guaranties with these cheats. If your game crashes or you wind up in a situation where you enter a level that was not supposed to be the next in the level (game) or are missing objects you should have picked up in the level you just skipped that will be your own headache.

- One of them enables the player to get all weapons and unlimited amounts of ammunition, medipacks and flares. To use it you must have at least one small medipack left.

- The other enables the player to skip the current level and go to the next.

In both cases you have to make Lara face exactly north. Remember that the red compass needle always indicates the direction Lara is facing (it’s a Lara-compass rather than a magnetic compass).

The most efficient way is finding a ledge or wall Lara is able to climb onto or hang from. Because when she has been hanging from a ledge or a on wall her orientation will be precisely towards one of the corners of the earth.

If the only ledge, block or climbable wall available makes Lara face south you can use that too. Hang from it and either climb on top of it or land on the ground again. Then just press roll and nothing else. Now she’ll be facing exactly north.

Then press inventory and look at the compass. If Lara is correctly facing north the compass needle has become transparent like this:

Now you are ready for the cheats.

To get all weapons and unlimited ammunition, medipacks and flares rotate the menu with either left or right until you reach the small medipack. And while the small medipack is ready for selection you must press the four letter keys g-u-n-s together (perhaps you only need to press g-u-n for this to work). Often you can right away see that the number of small medipacks have changed to “unlimited”. But just to be sure the cheat works correctly leave the inventory, re-enter it and pick whatever you want to use.

The only standard things you don’t get this way is the lasersight and the crowbar. And if you are playing a level with the young Lara you only get unlimited medipacks as the young Lara is unarmed and doesn’t use flares.

To skip the level you are currently playing make Lara face north as described above. Enter the inventory and use left or right to reach the “load game” option. But don’t enter the Load Game menu itself.

With the “load game” option selected you press the four letter keys h-e-l-p together. Nothing will happen before you leave the inventory. But then the next level should load.

However, this cheat code is very risky. It simply selects the next level in the script and the script is not the only thing that determines what the next level is supposed to be – the finish trigger (the place where the current level is ended when Lara passes) overrides the script when gameplay is concerned.

So from my experience this cheat code often leads to a crash as many level builders make complex areas from where Lara can choose several routes and go back and forth between levels and this doesn’t work with a cheat code that just picks the next level mentioned in the script.

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