A Great Way to Play Tomb Raider II

I find a great way to play TR II is to play two fan levels along with the official game. The two fan leves that happen during the TR II adventure both extend TR II and extends the adventure. The first fan level is actually titled Tomb Raider 2 Anniversary Demo where it is a remake of the first few levels of the original Tomb Raider II. While it is an interesting remake of the early levels of Tomb Raider II where it really shines is the extra level St. Marks Square.

The St Mark's Square level takes place after The Great Wall (first level) and just before the Venice level (second level). The Venice level in Tomb Raider II just starts Lara in an alleyway with a fence behind her and a slope indicating she must have slid down the slope in front of the fence. The fan level actually explains how she happen to just be standing in an alleyway with a tall fence behind her and it is a great introduction to the Venice for the second Tomb Raider game. 

Lara running alongside St Mark's Basilica 

St Mark's Basilica in real life

The fan level of St Marks Square (or Piazza San Marco) is where Lara has to solve some environmental puzzles and no shooting is involved as the area is full of normal everyday tourists just minding their own business. In this level Lara has to find a way into the official second level of Tomb Raider II 'Venice' by solving puzzles in St Marks Square in order to enter the gangland area of Venice.

Another reason why I think it was cool that the author of the level included St Mark's Square is that it is an iconic building in Venice and it is great to see Lara in her classic form exploring one of the most known venetian highlights. 

This level was also quite nostalgic for me as not only did I find myself reminiscing about playing the Tomb Raider II Venice level for the first time, but I also remembered my time visiting St Mark's Square when I was lucky enough to travel to Venice in 2019.  It was also interesting to compare this memorable fan level with Assassin's Creed II which allowed you to parkour around St Mark's Square!

Some videogame Venetian Music To Soak in the Atmosphere

Above: Nathan McCree's iconic Venice track featured in Tomb Raider II played alongside some nice fan remade footage of Venice.

Below: Youtuber Loomer created an interesting video where he travelled to Venice and compared some parts of Assassin's Creed II to the real Venice accompanied by some amazing music from when Jesper Kidd was the composer of the earlier Assassin Creed games.

Ah, the video above brings back many memories of Assassin's Creed before it changed genres and became a shadow of its former self. Also I think the music of Assassin's Creed dipped in quality when Jesper Kyd left - future composers did create some memorable tracks but I do not think their music had the same high quality consistency that Jesper Kyd did throughout his album soundtracks.

An Assassin's Creed Tangent

I realise this has turned into a bit of an Assassin's Creed tangent, but I miss the old days of Assassin's Creed. The new AC games have changed genre and it is basically a new IP now with the Assassin's Creed label slapped on. I enjoyed AC Origins (the first AC that changed drastically) but it never really felt like an Assassin's Creed game (but I enjoyed exploring Ptolemaic Egypt).

I used to buy every main Assassin's Creed that came out but now I am no longer interested in the series. The reasons I am no longer interested in Assassin's Creed include; it changed from an action stealth genre to a full Witcher-like RPG, it slowed down progress so that you have to level up and grind thus artificially lengthening the game (which just wastes my time) and Ubisoft became too money hungry by introducing a lot of pointless micro transactions like it was a free to play phone game. And also not to mention the option to play a male or female version of the essentially the same character contradicts how the Animus works in AC lore.

There was a time when I loved Ubisoft when they came out with amazingly creative games, e.g Beyond Good and Evil, Splinter Cell series, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, XII, the early Assassin's Creed games etc. It seems that they have just become too big a company and now become like Electronic Arts.

I wish Ubisoft could have just admitted that Assassin's Creed was over and every game since Origins is a new IP, but they keep the Assassin's Creed name attached because of brand recognition. If Assassin's Creed Origins had just been named something like The Ancient Egyptian Order: Origins it would probably not have sold as much - but hey at least it would be more honest!

I am similarly passionate about early Assassin's Creed and classic Tomb Raider equally so I had to say a little about my grievances.

Anyway, information about that second Tomb Raider Level is written below

Back to Tomb Raider!

While the first fan level takes place between Core Design's (the original developers) level one and level two of Tomb Raider II the next fan level I recommend whilst playing through Tomb Raider II takes place after defeating the boss of The Dragon's Lair and acts as a longer escape route before the final Cut Scene.  The level is entitled Escape From the Dragon's Lair and can be downloaded here

According to the author of the level they worked for Core Design and were involved with  Tomb Raider II. Also according to the authors documents they were disappointed with how the level ended and they took it upon themselves to use the Tomb Raider Level Editor to create the last section of the level as close to how they originally envisioned as possible. Below is the whole document that the author included in the download of Escape From the Dragon's Lair:

There may be other fan levels that happen during the events of the original Tomb Raider II, but these two are the only ones that I am aware of. and they made such an impact on me I though that they were good enough to included during a personal playthrough of Tomb Raider II. In a number of ways I wish that these two levels could be included in future official re-releases of Tomb Raider II.