Menus and Keys

You work your way through the menus with up or down to reach a menu line, action or enter to select it and inventory or escape to abandon the menu.

The Title menu:

When you start the game the first menu you will meet contains four choices:

- New Game – starts the new level (game).

- Load Game – takes you to the Load Game menu if you have saved at some points during a previous gameplay.

- Options – takes you to the Options menu where you can alter some of the settings as you please.

- Exit – closes TRLE.

The Select Level menu:

If there is more that one level (game) to choose from you will enter this menu when you select the new game option in the first menu. Choose the level (game) you wish to play. If not the only new game available will start right away.

The Load Game menu:

In this menu you find up to fifteen saved game points. Each line displays some information about the saved game point:

- The save number: very useful if you have saved several times during a level. If you use Pathfinder or similar to erase all save game points in the TRLE folder the game will start over again from one in the number assignment the next time you save a game point.

- The name of the level in which you saved.

- The time you had played the game from start to save game point. This piece of information is sometimes misleading as the TRLE only registers the time it has taken you to get successfully from game start to game save point A to game save point B to game save point C. That you maybe kept getting Lara killed between game save point B and C and had to reload game save point B ten times or more and thus spend two unsuccessful hours is not registered anywhere.

The Options menu:

This menu contains five choices:

- Control configuration – where you decide what keys you want to use for what action.

- Music Volume – you move the volume bar with left and right and immediately hear the effect at the title music.

- SFX Volume – you move the volume bar with left and right. This bar affects the sound effects (footsteps, shots, grunts and so on) in the game. As an example you will hear the sound of Lara’s breath while you adjust the SFX Volume. Just notice that the sound of Lara’s breath is never heard in the game itself.

- Sound Quality –you choose between low, medium and high sound quality. Since the game engine is from 2000 most computers today are powerful enough to use high sound quality.

- Targeting – a somewhat special feature. You choose between automatic and manual targeting. When Lara draws her guns in the vicinity of an enemy she will automatically aim at the enemy if the targeting is set to automatic. If the targeting is set to manual she awaits your pressing look before she aims.

The Control Configuration menu:

This menu allows you to change the different game control keys as you please. It contains the following points:

Control method: - keyboard or joystick (and the option to reset the controls)

Up---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Up
Down---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Down
Left-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Left
Right----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right
Duck---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .
Dash---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /
Walk------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shift
Jump------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alt
Action-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ctrl (control)
Draw Weapon------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Space
Use Flare----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,
Look------------------------------------------------------------ Pad0 (0 at the numeric keyboard)
Roll-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End
Inventory---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Esc (escape)
Step Left------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Del (delete)
Step Right--------------------------------------------------------------------- PgDn (page down)

To change the keys go to the relevant line using up and down and activate it by pressing enter. Now the previous setting to the right will be replaced with the text “waiting” and you just have to press your new choice of key.

I use a Danish keyboard, which means that the default keys are spread all over it and very impractical to use. It’s my advice that you experiment with the settings in game until you find the key setting that works better for you.

The Paused menu:

If you press p (this key can’t be altered) during the game you access the Paused menu. You get three choices:

- Statistics – takes you to the Statistics menu.

- Options – takes you to the Options menu.

- Exit to title – takes you back to the title and gives you the option to end your game without having to kill poor Lara.

The Statistics menu:

This menu is purely an overview over your game statistics. You cannot select anything. It shows you six points:

- The name of the level you are currently playing.

- Time Taken – the time it has taken you to get from the start of the game up and until now. Again the time measuring is misleading as I explained under the Load Game menu.

- Distance Travelled – this feature measures the distance Lara travels in the levels and only the distance travelled during the gameplay. If one level takes place at her home in England and she in the next is supposed to have travelled to Africa (which must be a travel at several thousand kilometres) the distance registered is still only the metres and kilometres Lara has been moving around in the levels.

- Ammo Used – the number of shots fired (hitting or not hitting the target) during the entire level (game).

- Health Packs Used – the number of health packs used during the entire level (game). The size of the health packs does not matter – both a large and a small medipack counts as one used health pack. This feature is sometimes used as a competition parameter when Tomb Raider players challenge each other to see who is the better player.

- Secrets Found – the number of secrets you have found during the entire level (game). This is perhaps the better reason to use this menu. Secrets are specially hidden objects or places in the levels. They have no significance for the gameplay and the completion of the level (game), but offer extra challenges to the player and usually also rewards such as extra items, sometimes earlier than the player would otherwise acquire the items.

Secrets have become something special among level builders and sometimes you can access a bonus level if you have found a certain number of secrets. In Tomb Raider 4 there were 70 secrets and the number still appears in the secrets statistics even though the level (game) you play only contains, say, four secrets. So you only have to keep an eye on the first number in this line – that is if you care about finding the secrets.

The Inventory menu:

This menu is an integrated part of the gameplay. It gives access to the things Lara carries in her backpack and the option to save your present situation as a game point or to load a previously saved game point.

To enter the inventory you press inventory. This menu is made as a horizontal menu and you use left or right to rotate it. It’s a circular menu and if you use left or right long enough you will return to the menu point you first met when you entered the inventory. To exit the inventory you press inventory again. If you choose to use an object or equip a weapon the inventory closes automatically.

If you choose to save game or load game you go to the Save Game menu or the Load Game menu. Both menus are alike (look up “the Load Game menu”). You are free to select what game point you want to load or overwrite depending on what you are currently doing.

It’s a very good idea to place the new game save in a fresh game point or overwrite a much older one. The reason is that saving in the same game point several times in a row may cause bugs or chrashes in the game if you later load that game point and may evetually force you to start the level (game) all over.

And in case you have chosen a wrong path or forgotten to do or pick up something you need to get further and are now unable to go back it’s good to have a whole series of saved game points to pick from.

In the left side of the screen below the menu points is a compass. It doesn’t work as a normal compass, though. Instead of always pointing to the north the red needle always points in the direction Lara is facing. But it’s a feature used a lot in walkthroughs for the levels (games). So if a walkthrough says that you should run towards north-east you just have to turn Lara around until a visit in the inventory and a look at the compass shows you that the red needle points towards north-east.

The compass is also used in the cheat codes in the game (look up “cheats”).

When you begin a level (game) the inventory only contains the most necessary items:

- The pistols with the unlimited ammunition
- The binoculars
- 3 flares
- 3 small medipacks
- 1 large medipack

As Lara picks up and uses objects the contents of the inventory changes.

It also changes when a weapon and its ammunition can be grouped together. If you find ammunition for one of the weapons, but don’t have the weapon itself yet, the different kinds of ammunition will be listed individually in the inventory. As soon as you pick up the weapon the kinds of ammunition will be changed to sub-items.

When you open the inventory and rotate to a weapon with more than one kind of ammunition (look up “weapons”) you’ll be presented with two options: “equip” and “choose ammo”. Use up and down to reach the desired option and press action to select it. If you select “choose ammo” you’ll see the kinds of ammunition this weapon uses and the remaining number of shots of each kind. Again you use up and down to move from option to option and action to select one. You may also see the option “combine”, look up “lasersight” for more on this.

For more on special functions, look up “binoculars”, “inserting an object” and “special objects”.

Hot keys:

To save some time the game is also equipped with a set of hot keys, which allows the player to select weapons, load or save without having to enter the inventory. The quick keys setting can’t be altered.

1 – selects the pistols
2 – selects the shotgun
3 – selects the uzi's
4 – selects the revolver
5 – selects the grenade gun
6 – selects the crossbow

When one of these keys is pressed Lara draws the relevant weapon(s) if she has picked it up during the game. Otherwise nothing will happen. Now it’s the chosen weapon and you can holster draw it with draw weapon. It’s selected as it is with the ammunition previously chosen and the lasersight attached or not if previously combined or separated.

9 – uses a large medipack
0 – uses a small medipack

F5 – opens the Save Game menu
F6 – opens the Load Game menu

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