"Opera House" analysis

Scottlee · 14-03-03, 14:29

Theatre industry stained as lone gun-woman’s Venice venture ends with a hammer to the base of the neck. Dusk has begun to settle on TR’s excursion into the Italian corner of world mobster ties. Baddies hoping to double up as oil rig sentries shall have already made their on-line catalogue orders for home delivered hard hats. Cargo planes shall be fully fueled and ready to perform ‘through and outs’. And restless crates will just swing baby yeah! Now can the last person to leave the building please remember to lock up and turn everything off? We don’t want that futuristic elevator that never makes any noise being left on do we? Neither do we really need the fallout next fall from an electric bill run up by a small rabbit warren of killer fans. No sir.

By far the most appropriate of Lara’s post-TR1 ‘realistic’ settings, The Opera House is a much loved and much copied (at least internally) banquet of on-stage pistol popping and back-stage circuit board remedying. It’s not strictly due to a poverty of ideas we end up back in this place both in the Living Quarters and the Streets of Rome. There’s something about the theatre that suits Lara to the most perfectly molded tee in the world. Put it this way, you could hardly imagine her mixing it with Popcorn-munchers in a cinema could you? If there was one scene missing from the Tomb Raider movie I wouldn’t have minded seeing, it was Lara socializing at a dinner party or some other highly populated gathering and failing miserably (albeit 90% deliberately)

The decision to pit the level in the fading evening is a good one, even if much of the argy-bargy takes place indoors. It just contrasts well with the endless sunlight that embraced Bartoli’s Hideout. The settling dusk also enables the cynics among us to put those floating wooden boards on the Opera House roof down to figments of our imagination conjured up by the near darkness around us. In the daytime I’m sure we’d quite clearly be able to see the thin metal rods that hold the damn things up. Despite the potential for death by falling, and also from the presence of spike traps, the total volunteers for sentry duty on the roof area would be appear to be quite high in thugsville. Exactly why that is I hesitate to speculate. I will though on just one more occasion attempt to initiate a discussion on the phenomenon of boxes that never stop swinging. What is it Bartoli is exporting in those damn boxes? Grandfather clocks?

More traps come close to killing Lara once she’s inside the theatre. It’s as if each one is connected to a pressure pad programmed to activate itself upon the detection of female feet. Mind you, at least the falling bag of potatoes is something new (or whatever it is that weighs the bag down). I’ve already had it up to my ear-hole with rolling boulders. Someone should create an even bigger rolling boulder that would exist to go around rolling over all the rolling boulders. That would make me happy. The new twist to the wretched things in TR2 is the way that each boulder seemingly has two smaller boulders by its side whenever it decides to go ‘a’ rolling. You tend to notice this more come the Tibetan levels. What I’m saying still very much applies here though. It’s as if the main boulder in each set now has a mummy boulder on one side and a baby boulder on the other, making up a kind of ‘boulder family’, so to speak. They breed!!

Not nearly as irritating is the somewhat bizarre structure of the Opera House itself, which I only bothered to actually stop and consider for the purpose of this thread. And like I’ve indicated in some my previous threads, if you don’t spot it during your first run through the game, you can’t criticize it nearly as much. Even so, the question of where everybody used to sit when they watched the Opera in this building is quite a difficult one to answer. There just aren’t any seats! (Gordon Taylor and his PFA committee would have a fit)

The Bartoli theatre company proudly presents……PINOCCHIO!

Date – December the 3rd, 1997
Cast –
Pinocchio – White shirted thug
Blue fairy – Lara Croft
Bad guy – Bartoli
Price list –
Standing (Top floor) : 30 Euros
Standing (All other floors) : 20 Euros
Seating : N/A#
Paddling pool at the front : 5 Euros

# - Members of the Seraph recovery committee should contact Mr Bartoli’s secretary, and a chair will be brought out to you on the night of the performance.

You know what? Looking back at what I’ve written above, I think I might just have miscast the white shirted thug. Still, never mind. He isn’t miscast in the level. That’s the main thing. Neither is the Duke Nukem wannabe who pops up near the end. This guy is just so cool it’s hard to imagine him appearing out of place anywhere in the entire game. I wish the designers had taken a risk and given him one or two other appearances in TR2. He can’t be interpreted as being killed off after the Opera House because of his re-appearance in Home Sweet Home, unless the second incarnation is meant to be his evil twin brother. (Pete Nukem?)

Anyway, dodging in and out of a stack of boxes to take on a platoon of thugs and dogs is great fun. Come to think of it, a lot of the shoot-outs in the Opera house are memorable. The puzzles and logistical problems are none too shabby too. I wouldn’t call the air vent section a puzzle, but working out the best way to get past the fans is certainly a logistical problem, as is lining up the two boxes that enable you to leave the area. Is there enough suckiness in this paragraph yet? No? Good, because I haven’t yet given mention to the fabulous secret hidden above the elevator, the interesting change of emphasis from keys to circuit boards, and last but not least, the broody music that hits you just after dropping into the water tunnels under the stage. It’s alllllllll pukka. All of it. There’s even a rare FMV awaiting for those people fortunate enough not to die of stage fright beforehand. (ho-ho). And if you’re one of those people having trouble getting past the stage at all, remember… Have faith Fabian, not gutrot. 10/10

Best part - The fans

Worst part - YOU DON'T GET ROLLING BOULDERS IN A DAMN THEATRE! SORT IT OUT CORE!

Secrets - 3/3 good ones. The best is the one above the elevator. I like the way you get a glimpse of it from the roof and then pretty much forget about it as the level goes on because you've got too much other stuff to contend with.

The one in the air vent is easy to find, but just about scores with me because of the potential danger you encounter when picking it up. (Once again the female feet pressure pads work their magic, as a previously dormant fan somehow turns itself on the moment you go near it)

The underwater secret is unimaginative, but has has a really cool little tunnel you have to swim through. In these pre-crawl days of TR, we are yet to be bored of slits and tiny spaces.

The 100th link I came across when I typed "Opera House" into the Google search engine

Predictably a non TR-based address, here's what emerged...

http://www.brama.com/shop/lvivoperabook/

It's utterly boring. Don't even click on the link. In fact I wish I'd never started this segment. The 100th link is always a load of ******. Perhaps if I went for 107 I would have more luck. 7 is my lucky number you see.

This level is most like....
A pig sty (that and the "Living Quarters"

Percentage chance that the 2012 Olympics will be given to Baghdad
0%

A picture of super Tomb Raider player Scott-Lee in action!! This being just moments after the great maestro discovered secret #3!

(Well actually it's not really me *sob* It's some other guy working at Gamerankings.com)

[ 14 March 2003, 15:52: Message edited by: Scottlee ]

tlr online · 14-03-03, 15:03

First class! Nice work Scottlee!

b1dc · 14-03-03, 16:45

Excellent as ever Scottlee

Bia_kms · 14-03-03, 22:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Scottlee:

Secrets - 3/3 good ones. The best is the one above the elevator. I like the way you get a glimpse of it from the roof and then pretty much forget about it as the level goes on because you've got too much other stuff to contend with.

Opera House is a great level... I was stuck here for a long time!

And I have a funny story to tell... It's about the first secret. The very first time I played I got that secret before entering the theater, it's true!!!! I didnt know that I could get it later, so I did a running jump and somehow (after thousands of times) I fell near the door where Lara doesnt loose health... then I walked and got the secret above the elevator (which I didnt know it was an elevator). So I entered the theater through that door and not the correct one!

Strange huh?!

caisenma · 14-03-03, 23:53

Gameplay wise, it's one of my alltime favourites.
The errors are particularly stupid, though. Definitely the crates, the boulders, and the layout of the inside.
Also, those doors on the side that lead to a tiny square room with nothing in.
And also - the room with the crumbling platforms ontop - what is it? Why is it empty? Why is it so tall?

Nice work, as ever.

GeorgeM · 15-03-03, 16:52

Yep, I doubt anyone could forget their first time through the Opera house! And you're right Scottlee, that secret above the elevator was quite a thrill when I finally found it. Mind you, I missed the 'easy' secret in the fans and ran around for hours searching for it.

I tried jumping down for that secret Bia, but never managed it. One of those things eh!

My favourite bit was getting onto the plane and leaving the damn place!

14-03-03, 14:29	#1
Scottlee Relic Hunter Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Leeds, England Posts: 7,507	Theatre industry stained as lone gun-woman’s Venice venture ends with a hammer to the base of the neck. Dusk has begun to settle on TR’s excursion into the Italian corner of world mobster ties. Baddies hoping to double up as oil rig sentries shall have already made their on-line catalogue orders for home delivered hard hats. Cargo planes shall be fully fueled and ready to perform ‘through and outs’. And restless crates will just swing baby yeah! Now can the last person to leave the building please remember to lock up and turn everything off? We don’t want that futuristic elevator that never makes any noise being left on do we? Neither do we really need the fallout next fall from an electric bill run up by a small rabbit warren of killer fans. No sir. By far the most appropriate of Lara’s post-TR1 ‘realistic’ settings, The Opera House is a much loved and much copied (at least internally) banquet of on-stage pistol popping and back-stage circuit board remedying. It’s not strictly due to a poverty of ideas we end up back in this place both in the Living Quarters and the Streets of Rome. There’s something about the theatre that suits Lara to the most perfectly molded tee in the world. Put it this way, you could hardly imagine her mixing it with Popcorn-munchers in a cinema could you? If there was one scene missing from the Tomb Raider movie I wouldn’t have minded seeing, it was Lara socializing at a dinner party or some other highly populated gathering and failing miserably (albeit 90% deliberately) The decision to pit the level in the fading evening is a good one, even if much of the argy-bargy takes place indoors. It just contrasts well with the endless sunlight that embraced Bartoli’s Hideout. The settling dusk also enables the cynics among us to put those floating wooden boards on the Opera House roof down to figments of our imagination conjured up by the near darkness around us. In the daytime I’m sure we’d quite clearly be able to see the thin metal rods that hold the damn things up. Despite the potential for death by falling, and also from the presence of spike traps, the total volunteers for sentry duty on the roof area would be appear to be quite high in thugsville. Exactly why that is I hesitate to speculate. I will though on just one more occasion attempt to initiate a discussion on the phenomenon of boxes that never stop swinging. What is it Bartoli is exporting in those damn boxes? Grandfather clocks? More traps come close to killing Lara once she’s inside the theatre. It’s as if each one is connected to a pressure pad programmed to activate itself upon the detection of female feet. Mind you, at least the falling bag of potatoes is something new (or whatever it is that weighs the bag down). I’ve already had it up to my ear-hole with rolling boulders. Someone should create an even bigger rolling boulder that would exist to go around rolling over all the rolling boulders. That would make me happy. The new twist to the wretched things in TR2 is the way that each boulder seemingly has two smaller boulders by its side whenever it decides to go ‘a’ rolling. You tend to notice this more come the Tibetan levels. What I’m saying still very much applies here though. It’s as if the main boulder in each set now has a mummy boulder on one side and a baby boulder on the other, making up a kind of ‘boulder family’, so to speak. They breed!! Not nearly as irritating is the somewhat bizarre structure of the Opera House itself, which I only bothered to actually stop and consider for the purpose of this thread. And like I’ve indicated in some my previous threads, if you don’t spot it during your first run through the game, you can’t criticize it nearly as much. Even so, the question of where everybody used to sit when they watched the Opera in this building is quite a difficult one to answer. There just aren’t any seats! (Gordon Taylor and his PFA committee would have a fit) The Bartoli theatre company proudly presents……PINOCCHIO! Date – December the 3rd, 1997 Cast – Pinocchio – White shirted thug Blue fairy – Lara Croft Bad guy – Bartoli Price list – Standing (Top floor) : 30 Euros Standing (All other floors) : 20 Euros Seating : N/A# Paddling pool at the front : 5 Euros # - Members of the Seraph recovery committee should contact Mr Bartoli’s secretary, and a chair will be brought out to you on the night of the performance. You know what? Looking back at what I’ve written above, I think I might just have miscast the white shirted thug. Still, never mind. He isn’t miscast in the level. That’s the main thing. Neither is the Duke Nukem wannabe who pops up near the end. This guy is just so cool it’s hard to imagine him appearing out of place anywhere in the entire game. I wish the designers had taken a risk and given him one or two other appearances in TR2. He can’t be interpreted as being killed off after the Opera House because of his re-appearance in Home Sweet Home, unless the second incarnation is meant to be his evil twin brother. (Pete Nukem?) Anyway, dodging in and out of a stack of boxes to take on a platoon of thugs and dogs is great fun. Come to think of it, a lot of the shoot-outs in the Opera house are memorable. The puzzles and logistical problems are none too shabby too. I wouldn’t call the air vent section a puzzle, but working out the best way to get past the fans is certainly a logistical problem, as is lining up the two boxes that enable you to leave the area. Is there enough suckiness in this paragraph yet? No? Good, because I haven’t yet given mention to the fabulous secret hidden above the elevator, the interesting change of emphasis from keys to circuit boards, and last but not least, the broody music that hits you just after dropping into the water tunnels under the stage. It’s alllllllll pukka. All of it. There’s even a rare FMV awaiting for those people fortunate enough not to die of stage fright beforehand. (ho-ho). And if you’re one of those people having trouble getting past the stage at all, remember… Have faith Fabian, not gutrot. 10/10 Best part - The fans Worst part - YOU DON'T GET ROLLING BOULDERS IN A DAMN THEATRE! SORT IT OUT CORE! Secrets - 3/3 good ones. The best is the one above the elevator. I like the way you get a glimpse of it from the roof and then pretty much forget about it as the level goes on because you've got too much other stuff to contend with. The one in the air vent is easy to find, but just about scores with me because of the potential danger you encounter when picking it up. (Once again the female feet pressure pads work their magic, as a previously dormant fan somehow turns itself on the moment you go near it) The underwater secret is unimaginative, but has has a really cool little tunnel you have to swim through. In these pre-crawl days of TR, we are yet to be bored of slits and tiny spaces. The 100th link I came across when I typed "Opera House" into the Google search engine Predictably a non TR-based address, here's what emerged... http://www.brama.com/shop/lvivoperabook/ It's utterly boring. Don't even click on the link. In fact I wish I'd never started this segment. The 100th link is always a load of ****. Perhaps if I went for 107 I would have more luck. 7 is my lucky number you see. This level is most like.... A pig sty (that and the "Living Quarters" Percentage chance that the 2012 Olympics will be given to Baghdad 0% A picture of super Tomb Raider player Scott-Lee in action!! This being just moments after the great maestro discovered secret #3!** (Well actually it's not really me sob It's some other guy working at Gamerankings.com) [ 14 March 2003, 15:52: Message edited by: Scottlee ]

14-03-03, 15:03	#2
tlr online Administrator Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 47,536	First class! Nice work Scottlee!

14-03-03, 16:45	#3
b1dc Explorer Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: UK Posts: 529	Excellent as ever Scottlee

14-03-03, 23:53	#5
caisenma Historian Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Leeeeeeeeeeeeds, UK Posts: 398	Gameplay wise, it's one of my alltime favourites. The errors are particularly stupid, though. Definitely the crates, the boulders, and the layout of the inside. Also, those doors on the side that lead to a tiny square room with nothing in. And also - the room with the crumbling platforms ontop - what is it? Why is it empty? Why is it so tall? Nice work, as ever.

15-03-03, 16:52	#6
GeorgeM Archaeologist Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 1,769	Yep, I doubt anyone could forget their first time through the Opera house! And you're right Scottlee, that secret above the elevator was quite a thrill when I finally found it. Mind you, I missed the 'easy' secret in the fans and ran around for hours searching for it. I tried jumping down for that secret Bia, but never managed it. One of those things eh! My favourite bit was getting onto the plane and leaving the damn place!