Weapons

When you press draw weapon Lara will draw the weapon(s) you last chose for her in the inventory (or with the hot keys, look up “hot keys) – this setting will last until you choose a new weapon. When you press draw weapon a second time she will holster this/these weapon(s).

To make Lara shoot press action. As long as you hold it she will keep firing. The pistols have unlimited ammunition. If you are using other weapons the ammunition is limited and if Lara runs out of ammunition while shooting she will automatically switch to her pistols. Be aware that the different weapons have different qualities such as the amount of damage they cause in enemies and the time between each shot.

Some enemies are completely or partially invulnerable, but this is something you must discover the hard way. I only intend to introduce Lara’s actions (and some valuable tricks).

When Lara deals with an enemy, she will automatically aim at it (provided automatic targeting is selected in the options menu). That makes it a lot easier to hit it. But only a few enemies are actually driven backwards by the shooting, so even though you shoot like crazy at say, a baddie, he will still rush towards Lara. When all enemies are dead Lara will regain her neutral weapons stance with her weapon(s) held against her chest.

If there is more than one enemy you can switch from aiming at one to the other by pressing look. Imagine a baddie armed with both guns and a sword jumps out at Lara at the same time as two small scorpions crawl out from under a rock. The baddie is considerably more dangerous than the scorpions so it might be wise to kill him first. If Lara aims at one of the scorpions because it appeared first tapping look will switch her aim to the next enemy. Keep tapping look till Lara aims at the baddie.

But be aware that if Lara is moving around to avoid getting hurt her aims constantly changes to the nearest enemy.

The weapons are not usable when Lara is swimming. If she has her weapons drawn when she lands in water deep enough for swimming she will automatically holster them. But if she stands in the water she is able to draw her guns.

Lara is fortunately able to hit enemies living in water, so if she is attacked by a shark or a crocodile while swimming around quickly find a place where she can stand or pull herself onto the ground, draw weapons and shoot it.

Lara is also able to shoot objects such as vases and some gratings apart and thus get access to either other pick-ups or new areas. But she does not automatically aim at them. To hit a still object you must turn Lara in the right direction and shoot.

Sometimes she must also crouch or jump while shooting to hit the object. It takes only a single shot to break an object (if it really is shatterable) so don’t waste precious ammunition on it, but choose the pistols for this task.

Other times the shatterable object is completely out of reach with a normal aim. Then arm Lara with a weapon equipped with the lasersight to get a better aim. Look up “lasersight” to learn how to use it.

Weaponry:

Initially Lara only has her pistols (and unlimited ammunition for them). The other weapons must be picked up during the game for her to use them. And you will only be able to use them once you find the weapons themselves - ammunition is just ammunition. If you find the same kind of weapon twice the second one will count as a pack of ammunition.

The available weapons are:

Pistols – the initial weapon with unlimited ammunition

 

Shotgun – a powerful weapon with long intervals between each shot. This weapon is able to throw mummies and skeletons to the ground. They will however get to their feet again, but if you manage to throw a skeleton out over a ledge or into water it will disappear.

The shotgun uses two kind of ammunition:

- Shotgun Normal Ammo
- Shotgun Widespread Ammo – very unprecise at great distance, but just as efficient as the normal ammo at close range.

Uzi’s – the quickest firing weapon.

Revolver – also a powerful weapon.

This and the crossbow can be equipped with a lasersight for very precise shots at objects or enemies. This feature is often used in puzzles or to disable skeletons – if you smash the skeleton’s head the skeleton is rendered harmless and just runs around like crazy. It looks very funny, so try it. The use of the lasersight is described below.

Crossbow – a great weapon for many purposes. As mentioned above it can be equipped with a lasersight.

The crossbow uses three different kinds of ammunition:

- Crossbow Normal Ammo – good for precision shooting in combination with the lasersight.
- Crossbow Poison Ammo – it takes a bit fewer of those arrows than of the ordinary arrows to kill an enemy, but is otherwise nothing special.
- Crossbow Explosive Ammo – very useful against mummies and skeletons, which are blown apart with just one arrow. So are most other enemies. But the explosive arrows are also able to shatter several breakable objects at a time if they are placed close. Just be aware of the small risk that pick-ups contained in the breakable objects, carried by the enemies or in the vicinity may also be lost in the explosion.

Grenade gun – this is a very powerful, but in no way precise weapon. The fired grenades are hurled towards the enemy, but since it takes some moments for them to explode it happens from time to time that the enemy has already moved past the damage zone before the explosion occurs. Furthermore the grenades have only a small range and fall quickly to the ground and the grenade gun is therefore almost useless against enemies placed at higher points (the height of Lara and above) than Lara.

Ironically the grenades have no effect on Lara herself. This includes the grenades fired by some of the enemies. But be aware that patches for the TRLE are about to change this so don’t bet Lara’s life on it. That said the grenade gun does have some interesting features.

The grenade gun uses three different kinds of ammunition:

- Grenadegun Normal Ammo – an explosive kind of grenades, which blows most enemies up including skeletons and mummies. Just be aware of the small risk that pick-ups contained in the breakable objects, carried by the enemies or in the vicinity may also be lost in the explosion.

- Grenadegun Super Ammo – a very explosive kind of grenades. The explosions are very widespread and are usually the better weapon against the big scorpions that it takes a lot of ammunition to kill. Again be aware of the small risk that pick-ups contained in the breakable objects, carried by the enemies or in the vicinity may also be lost in the explosion.

- Grenadegun Flash Ammo – a very underestimated kind of grenades, which makes the whole screen flash and blinds human enemies. Baddies (ninja-looking types in either black or white clothes) are only defenceless for a few moments while the troops (friendly Egyptian soldiers) and the SAS (a black clad and not so friendly kind of soldier) are permanently blinded and helpless – leaving it up to you if you want to leave them alone or kill them in cold blood. This is the only kind of ammunition you don’t have to be precise with: all human enemies in the vicinity are blinded.

Lasersight – can be combined with the revolver or the crossbow. It can also be removed from the chosen weapon and combined with the other if you change your mind or strategy or just run out of ammunition.

To combine either the revolver or the crossbow with the lasersight you press inventory to enter the inventory. Then you use left or right to rotate the menu until you reach either the lasersight or the weapon you want to combine with it. Under the object are now two options: “equip” or “combine”. Here you use up and down to switch between the options. Choose “combine” – and a list of all objects that can be combined (relevant or not) will appear. Again you use left and right to rotate through it until you find the other object you want to combine. Press either action or enter and the lasersight and the weapon are combined.

The “combine” option is now replaced with a “separate” option. If you later want to move the lasersight to the other weapon you just enter the inventory, select the weapon combined with the lasersight and choose “separate”. And the lasersight is again available for combination as described above.

The lasersight is only available once Lara has picked it up somewhere in the level. And no matter how many lasersights you find on your way there’s only one in the inventory.

When you use a weapon you have combined with the lasersight by pressing draw weapon the chosen weapon will work as it always has: Lara aims at enemies and otherwise stands in her neutral weapons stance. To see through the lasersight you must press and hold the look key. This gives you the view like the one below (notice the little red laser dot in the centre of the picture):

The arrows control the direction of the scope. TRLE has a very illogical up/down setting: to look upwards you press down and to look downwards you must press up.

You can zoom in and out too. To zoom in you press crawl and to zoom out you press dash. As long as you hold look you keep seeing through the lasersight. And you can easily fire your weapon by pressing action just as usual.

Be aware that the left-right and up-down range is limited as a consequence of Lara’s limitations in agility.

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