Tomb Raider: Unfinished Business

LEVEL 2: TEMPLE OF THE CAT

• Kills: 42
• Items: 63 (including Uzis and 7 keys)
• Secrets: 4

Use the switch to open the trapdoor. Drop down and retrieve the 2 sets of magnum clips from the alcoves. Proceed up the ramp to the openings on the right. Inside are three cages with a mummy and 2 small med-packs inside. The switch opens all three doors. When you pick up the med-packs the mummy awakens. When it is dead, flip the switch back to its up position to open the gold door near the bottom of the ramp. Another mummy lurks inside. Kill it and enter the hallway. This is SECRET #1. Go to the top of the passageway but watch your back-2 panthers attack from behind when you reach the goodies. When they're dead, pick up 4 sets of magnum clips.

Go back up the first ramp to the desert above. 2 mummies are lurking about. Jump on the blocks to kill them from safety. (If you jump up on the pyramid, you may run into a panther as well.) There are shotgun shells on the low block near the rock outcropping and 2 more boxes of shells in a hollow area at one corner of the path up from below. Off to the left of the buildings is an area with several boulders perched above. Take care not to get flattened while retrieving the 3 boxes of shells.

Go around to the right side of the pyramid, where you'll see a movable carved stone block and some paw prints heading down a path. Move the block and find some shotgun shells underneath. Then follow the path to a small pool. Jump in, pull the underwater lever, and quickly climb out to kill the crocodile you just released. Pull the lever again to enter the doorway from which the crocodile came. The door is timed to close in a few moments, so swim quickly. Retrieve an ORNATE KEY from the bottom and return to the pyramid.

Climb up to the first tier of the pyramid and kill a panther (if you didn't earlier). Another panther emerges when you reach the fourth tier. At the top, near the fence, are a small med-pack and shells. (If you jump up on the pedestal near the cat statue, you get a great wide-angle view of the place.) The two corner blocks below the pedestal move. Pull the left block out to the side, then push it out of the way so you can pull the other block out. Behind the second block is an opening. Safety drop down into a room where you'll find a large med-pack. The switch opens the nearby door. In the next room is another ORNATE KEY. Climb up and out, taking some shotgun shells from one of the window openings before dropping down to the ground.

Cross over the pyramid to the opposite corner, above the pool where you killed the crocodile. Use the two keys to open the big doors. Inside the door to the left is a switch that turns on the light; WAIT TO USE IT. First, go to the right, guns drawn. You'll meet a panther on the way. (If you have trouble with the darkness, try turning your monitor brightness up.) Continue until you come to a lighted area with a large med-pack. This is SECRET #2. Turning the lights on closes this door and it doesn't open again.

Now, if you like, go back and switch on the light, or just proceed to the next lighted room. The trapdoor in the floor is opened with a switch in an alcove just beyond the entrance to the room. Safety drop down onto a block above a floor full of openings. Below is a catwalk (literally) and a pool. You can shoot the prowling panther from above if you like. Follow the passageway, taking care not to fall through the holes, until you come to a pair of switches. Flip the left one, then the right one, then drop down into the water below and swim through the doors you just opened. (These are timed to close after a little while, but once you get your bearings, there's plenty of time to get through. If you don't make it through in time, you can climb back up to the switches through one of the openings in the ceiling near the wall.)

A pair of crocodiles await in the next underwater room. There's a small opening in the ceiling just past the large doors. Climb out here to shoot them and pick up 2 small med-packs and an ORNATE KEY. Continue underwater to the next room. Pick up 2 sets of magnum clips from underwater alcoves, then climb out of the pool at one of the corners. This room has many tiers with running cat motifs decorating them.

Pick up another ORNATE KEY on the low step with the cat face. Kill the panther that charges. There are magnum clips underneath the movable block on the second tier. And a third ORNATE KEY is on another step above. It comes with another panther. KEYS 4 and 5 are on stone steps on either side of the barred arched window. 2 more panthers guard these, one above each. You should be able to shoot them from below.

Use the 5 keys in the locks on the top level. This opens the door in the room to the left of the locks. Enter and drop down onto a flat block, then drop down again. Jump over the spikes to the alcoves for a small med-pack and shells. Take a running jump from the flat area in the middle to the opening at the top of the short ramp. A switch in the passageway behind opens the gold door in the room above. Climb back up and enter this room.

An opening in the floor leads to a large underwater area. Turn so you face the door you just came in. Jump into the water and swim to the right. Pick up the Uzi clips and climb out of the hole. Shoot the crocodile if you can, or just try and avoid it. Go into the water again and this time, swim through the opening straight ahead (under the entrance in the room above). Keeping the outer wall (with the decorative border) on your left, swim more or less clockwise around the perimeter of the room. Pick up some more Uzi clips. Return to the opening for air if you need to. Retrace the same clockwise path until you come to a lever on the left wall. Pull this to open the next gold door in the room above. Return there and enter.

This room has pressure pads decorated with pharaoh faces on the floor. Step on both and the doors open. There are 2 mummies beyond, which much be dispatched. When the coast is clear, enter. Flip the 2 switches to move the boulder blocking the next doorway and open the other corner door back in the large room where you found the keys. A crocodile lurks beyond, so ready that shotgun. When it's dead, pick up a small med-pack, shells and magnum clips. Climb up and follow the passage to an opening above the pool room where you can drop down.

Climb to the corner room to the left of the barred window. Pick up the UZIS from the pedestal. Note the 8 mummies in the alcoves along the ramp. These animate when you reach various points in the room, so take your time exploring, keep your ears open for their telltale groaning, and you won't have to fight more than two at once. You can pick up the goodies from beside the ramps before or after killing the mummies. In all, 4 sets of Uzi clips and a small med-pack.

Head down the ramp to the sandy area and take the left path. Pick up the large med-pack in the back left corner, and 2 mummies awaken. You can stay up on the area where the med-pack was or jump up on one of the blocks on each side of the opening to the sandy area to kill them. 2 more mummies awaken when you pick up the Uzi clips in the opposite corner. Another 2 mummies animate when you approach the switch on the other side of the sandy area. The seventh mummy awakens when you flip the switch. This opens the gold door near the platform where you found the Uzis.

Go through the gold door and up the stairs, but watch your back: this is when the eighth mummy wakes up. At the top of the stairs, stand at the left corner. Take two steps back and do a standing jump to the flat block below. Drop to the next lower block, then take another standing jump to the ledge across the gap. Take a diagonal running jump to the right to sail over the spikes to land in the flat area beyond. Enter the room beyond for SECRET #3, Uzi clips and a large med-pack. The ramp leads back to the top, but watch out for the boulders. Avoid the first by rolling and running back out of the tunnel. Avoid the second by running up the ramp into an alcove on the left. Take the next left into a hallway where a panther attacks. When it's dead, pick up the shells and small med-pack in the alcoves on the left. The bars are now open so you can jump and grab one of the steps to get back where you began.

Do the same procedure on the right side of the stairs: jump down, drop to the block below, jump across the gap. Jump diagonally to the left, then jump to the block with the Uzi clips. Turn and jump up to grab the crevice above the block. Traverse to the left and pull up. Climb up to the cat statue and go behind it. The switch here opens the gold door in the room at the foot of the stairs and extends a bridge back to the top of the stairs.

A panther awaits in the room you just opened, so ready those guns before entering. Note the gold trapdoors on either side of this room. For now, take the passageway at the back right corner. You'll meet a crocodile on the way. Where the passage opens into a room with palm trees, there's a small med-pack in an alcove to the right. Continue to a room with a pool. Picking up the large med-pack causes another crocodile to appear. A third croc lurks in the pool. Kill it and use the underwater lever to open the two gold trapdoors back in the first palm-tree room. Return there and climb up into the room above.

Stepping on the pharaoh face at the center opens the trap door. There are a small med-pack and shells on the floor in the room below. The next door opens when you approach. The room beyond contains 6 switches; each pair opens one of the 3 doors. The door in the center has skulls above it. Open this door, but don't go in; it's a trap.

[NOTE: If you're after the thrill of accomplishment, it is possible to get through this room. Here's how: Enter and climb to the second from the highest step. Then position Lara at the back left corner of that step facing down the steps. Backflip to the top step, and the stairs turn into a slide. The 2 mummies also animate. Press and hold Jump and Left, and Lara will slide and jump to land on the block on the left. Kill the mummy on this side, backing into the corner to keep from being knocked off the ledge. Kill the second mummy from the safety of this ledge. Take a running jump back to the doorway to exit. Note that killing these 2 mummies doesn't alter the total kills, since the 2 mummies you would encounter on the blue balcony around the huge cat statue later on do not appear.

There are also some changes in the terrain there after killing these 2 mummies in the trap room: On the blue balcony level, Lara can go right into the room near the steps going up, without having to circle all the way around, and the cat statue's tongue will already be extended. (Special thanks to Theresa Jenne for tips on surviving this trap and Ivans Chou for clarifying the terrain changes that occur further on in the level and the total kills count. Visit Ivans's Tomb Raiders Traveler's Guide site (http://trinity.westhost.com/tomb/) for further tips and tricks you can use in these levels.]

Now, stand near the doorway below the skull motifs. Stepping into the doorway opens a fourth door at the far left of the switch area. It's timed, so back into the doorway between the switches, then run/jump to get through the far door before it closes.

Behind the timed door is a series of rooms with movable blocks. It's a rather complex series of maneuvers to arrange the blocks in order to get into each of the three rooms beyond the first. Each of the movable blocks is referred to by a letter. The various stages of the arranging are numbered 1-8. I've tried to make the description useful without the diagram, but having a visual aid certainly does help.

(1) When you enter the door, there's a movable block (A) directly in front of you. Push it forward once, then go around the side of it and push it again (2). Next to the first block is another movable block (B). Pull it once, then go around to the other side and push it into the doorway (3). In order to unblock the doorway so you can get out later, you'll need to move the first block (A) into the corner on the opposite side of the switch by pulling it once, going around it and pushing it once. Now, you can pull the other block (B) out of the doorway and push it into the corner next to the first block (4). Moving the second block opens up another room, which also has a moveable block in it (C), (4). Face the block so there are open squares on either side. Pull it once into the middle of the room, then go around to the right side and push it once (5). This opens up a passageway with another block (D) in it (5). Pull this block 3 times, then go around to the opposite side and push it against the wall (6). Now move the previous block (C) against the opposite wall, by pulling it once to position it in front of the other block (D), then going behind it and pushing it again (7). This opens up enough space to move the next block (E), which is in the room beyond (7). Pull this block once to get it out of the corner, then go around to the side and pull it 4 times to bring it through the doorway into the second room. Go around to the left and push it against the wall next to the other block (C), (8). There is one more block (F) in the opening to the final room (8). Pull this block out twice in order to get into the doorway behind it. This is SECRET #4: small and large med-packs, shotgun shells and Uzi clips.

Return to the room with the 6 switches. Depending on your strategy, choose one or the other door under the cat motifs. For all the kills, choose the right door. For 2 fewer kills, the left. If you enter via the right door, 2 mummies attack-one in the anteroom and another just inside the large room beyond. If you enter via the left door, you don't meet these two. A third mummy (or first, if you haven't encountered the others) sneaks up from behind when you go up the steps at the rear of the cat-sphinx. If you want to, get up on one of the blocks to kill each mummy from safety.

Push the movable block at the rear of the cat-sphinx. Pick up the small med-pack. Enter the small room and climb on the block with the cat face. Reverse and grab the gold ledge above. Pull up, reverse again and take a running jump to the gold ledge opposite. From here, take another running jump to the blue ledge across from the cat-sphinx.

Head to the right and go all the way around the perimeter of the room, killing 2 mummies as you meet them. Enter the room at the corner, then proceed into the next room. (Again, the mummies won't appear if you've killed the two in the trap room earlier, and you won't have to go all the way around the balcony to get to the corner room.) Climb the steps, drop down to the bottom of the next room and pick up some Uzi clips. Then climb to the small opening at the top. From here, you'll get a nice clear shot at that panther on guard in the cat-sphinx's mouth.

Take a running jump to the gold block, then jump to the gold walkway. Go to the end, take a running jump to the alcove on the right, then another to the pillar with the small med-pack on top. From there, take a running jump to the carved stone walkway, go to the end of it and run and jump to grab the top of the next pillar. Jump straight up to grab the opening above, pull up, and ready weapons to kill the mummy that approaches from the far right side of the room over the walkway.

When it's dead, follow the walkway over which it came. Climb on top of the higher carved stone pillar (not the platform where the cat statue is). From the pillar, take a running jump to the flat area in front of the cat's eye. Pull up and take a step or two forward to draw out the mummy lurking beyond. If you're low on health, or just want to play it safe, you can carefully hop back onto the flat spot in front of the eye and kill the mummy from there. Go to the back of the head and pull the switch to extend the cat's tongue. (Again, if you've killed the 2 mummies in the trap room earlier, the tongue will already be extended.) Slide backwards down the nose and grab the end. Drop to the tongue. (Kill that panther now if you didn't earlier.) Enter the mouth, minding the gap in the floor, and pull the switch to open the gold door opposite. Cross the tongue bridge, go to the edge and jump toward the cat statue to end the level.