Tips & Strategy Using the Moves Choosing & Using Weapons General Tips Cheat Codes

When you first start playing the game, take some time to learn and practice the moves. Test Lara's capabilities early on in relatively safe situations. Then you won't have to do as much repeating later on when more complex series of movements are needed. The training level, Lara's Home, is a good place to start, but you can also use the earlier levels.

Walk, don't run. Okay, maybe not always, but definitely along narrow ledges and high platforms. Lara will never walk off a ledge. Walking, sidestepping, pivoting and looking will also help set Lara up for jumps (see Set Up for Jumps, below).

Learn to judge distance. Similarly, you can save a lot of time if you know what Lara is capable of doing with each move. The game environment is built on polygons or blocks. All the terrain is divided into these squares, and each of Lara's moves covers a different amount of distance. Learn how far she can go with each move and you'll rarely misjudge a jump when it counts.

The more complex moves follow the same basic principles.

Set Up for Jumps. It takes a moment, but you'll never miss a jump if you do. To set up for a running jump, first walk Lara up to an edge and line her up facing the opposite edge (If necessary, use walk, sidestep, pivot and look from your Basic Moves.) Once she's lined up, hop back once (down arrow). Then press up arrow + Alt, and Lara will take two steps then jump. If you don't set up, Lara may step off the edge. So unless you're being chased or trying to beat a timed trap, don't take a long running start before a jump.

Set up standing jumps similarly. If Lara needs to jump and grab a ledge opposite, walk up to the edge before jumping. If she needs to land on a flat spot ahead, gauge the distance and step back if necessary before jumping.

Safety Drop instead of jumping from great heights. Lara will still take some damage, but not as much. Safety drop + draw weapons + roll is a handy combo move, since Lara drops then comes up ready for action. Lara can also hang and drop, release and grab a ledge or opening below.

Using Slopes. There are some angled surfaces that Lara can't climb. If she lands on these, she'll start to slide unless she jumps immediately. She can grab and hang at the end of a slope if she slides down backwards. Once hanging, she can drop to a surface below, shimmy left/right, or pull up and quickly backflip to a ledge behind her. She can also slide down facing forward and leap before she reaches the end to land or grab. When jumping from a slope, Lara will always take off perpendicular to the slope. (This is handy to know for places where multiple jumps from angled blocks are required.) In TR2, she can reverse in midair if necessary to change directions while sliding. For this use Alt + End. (See Combo Moves.)

Climbable Surfaces. In TR2, Lara can climb ladders, bookshelves and certain other vertical surfaces. Action (Ctrl) makes her hold onto the ladder. Arrow keys make her climb up, down, left and right. She can jump up and grab a ladder using Alt + Ctrl. And sometimes she'll need to do a fancy dismount to get from a ladder to a surface behind her or to jump to another ladder. (For tips, see Combo Moves.)

Two basic rules of thumb apply: Pick the right weapon for the job and conserve ammunition.

Early on in the game, you probably won't have much choice—pistols, maybe a shotgun. Later, you'll have a variety of weapons at your disposal so you'll need to set some priorities. You may be tempted to use your high-powered weapons as soon as you find them, but remember that the enemies in the higher levels are bigger and tougher.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what gun you use, but certain enemies can be taken out more easily with certain weapons. I've provided some general tips below and a few case-by-case recommendations in the walk-throughs for each level. You'll undoubtedly come up with your own methods.

Shooting fish (or whatever) in a barrel. In TR1, enemies can't climb. So critters on the ground can't reach you if you climb on a block or ledge. In both games critters in the water can't reach you on land, and vice versa. So get yourself to higher ground then use the pistols to finish them off. A few exceptions: Obviously if someone or something is shooting at you, pick a more powerful weapon. Also, humans can shoot at Lara when she's in the water, so in this case you'll have to come out to finish them off.

Using Lara as bait. If you suspect there are enemies below but they haven't come out yet, you can make Lara drop and hang to draw them out. Then pull up and take care of business. This works with water dwellers like crocodiles and barracudas too.

Handling Human Enemies. In TR1, there are times when the human adversaries won't die no matter how much you shoot at them. Pierre du Bon can't be killed until the end of Level 9 (Tomb of Tihocan), and Larson won't die until the end of Level 12 (Sanctuary of Scion). So when you meet these guys before then, save your good ammo. Shoot them with pistols until they run off or a cut scene ensues. In Level 13 (Natla's Mines), however, you'll need to dispatch some human foes quickly, so go ahead and use what you've got.

In TR2, all the human foes are beatable. I've found pistols or automatic pistols to be the weapon of choice except when fighting heavily armed or multiple attackers. In TR2's underwater levels, the scuba divers can be taken out in the water with the harpoon gun, but it's awfully hard to aim. Often it's better to get yourself to dry land as quickly as possible then use the pistols. Similarly, it's sometimes easier to outswim a shark than to try and harpoon it.

If you play this way, you'll end up having lots of extra harpoons by the time you finish the underwater levels. JoeCitt, one of the "regulars" on the alt.games.tombraider newsgroup, suggested a great use for these: shooting creatures on land from the water. (See the Ice Palace level walk-through.) Thanks, Joe!

Also in TR2, you'll have a chance to make a few friends—or at least avoid making enemies. In Level 12 (Barkhang Monastery), do not...I repeat, do not...shoot at the monks. If you do, they'll dog you through the entire level, making things much more difficult than they have to be. If you treat them with respect, they'll even help you fight off the cult goons.

Save your game frequently. If you're playing the PC version of the game, there's no reason not to save often. It'll save you a lot of retracing of steps, and can even save your life—for example, during a battle with a big enemy, if you're doing well, save during the fight so if you do get killed, you won't have to start from scratch. One caveat: Save in a new slot every so often, so if you mistakenly save a game where you're doing badly, you can go back to a fairly recent saved game to start over.

You can copy your savegames to separate files in your TR directory then reload them later if you want to. Consider labeling the folders with the levels the games come from so you can distinguish them easily later.

Conserve your med-packs. You'll probably need more later in the game, as the enemies get tougher and the traps get more dangerous. Don't bother cracking that med-pack if you're almost at the end of a level. Full health is restored before each new level. And don't use more than you need. Small med-packs bring back half of Lara's health; large kits restore full health.

Be creative with med-packs. You can use them during a fight if necessary. TR2 has in-game med-pack hot keys (8 for small and 9 for large). In both games, the escape button is like a time-out for healing. Med-packs can work like scuba gear if you get caught underwater and run out of air. This tactic is only for emergencies though, since drowning burns health pretty fast. Med-packs can also keep Lara alive if she catches fire.

Conserve your flares. In TR2, Lara gets flares to light her way. There are plenty to be found, but if you're running low, try these tricks. Save your game, explore a dark area using a flare then reload if you don't find anything interesting. Or, if you're desperate, use pistol fire to light your way or turn up the monitor brightness.

Disable that Windows button. One of the best things I've done for my TR1 game is to download and use Doswinkey, a utility that turns off that *&#*^@$ Windows key. If you play this or any other DOS-based game using the keyboard, I highly recommend it. Never again will you abort your game in the heat of battle.

      

Text and diagrams copyright © 1998 Stellalune. All rights reserved. To give me your feedback, send e-mail to stellalune@earthlink.net. Images of Lara Croft copyright © 1997 Eidos Interactive. All rights reserved. Accent graphics copyright © Laurie Farese. All rights reserved.