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Tomb Raider 5: Chronicles -
Evaluation, Secrets, Cheats

A list of items to find, things to do, & places to go in game sequence.
Written by John T Burt, copyright 2001

Evaluation.

First of all, this installment of Tomb Raider was short. Both my wife and I finished it in half the time of Tomb Raider 4, maybe less. I think that is because there is a lot less area to explore. One level in an earlier installment, would often be as long as three levels in this game.

Most of it was also pretty easy. I didn't use any help at all in the first nine levels. I realize I am an expert player, but I didn't improve that much from TR4 to TR5. The only areas that were difficult were the VCI Headquarters areas. And they were just physically difficult (and annoying), not mentally challenging.

Overall, it was not as much fun as I expected. I guess the most telling point is that if this had been the first Tomb Raider I played, I might not have bought any more to play.

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Secrets and Special Features.

The secrets are hidden gold roses for Lara to pick up. I decided to call them roses instead of secrets because they don't have any secret information with them and there is no major reward for getting them. Some have pick ups with them, but nothing critical. If you get all the roses, there will be a Special Features entry on the New Game / Load Game screen after the closing credits. But you can also get the special features using the cheat code.

The full Special Features has four items; two story boards from this game, and artwork and a video from the next generation of Tomb Raider. If you use the cheat code to get them, you will get a different number depending on which level you use the code. Do it on level 13 to get all four.

In any case, collecting gold roses seems like a fine pass time for Lara to me and I enjoyed finding them. Having roses to pick up is one of the better changes the game designers made for this installment of Tomb Raider.

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Weapons.

Mostly, there are no major bosses to kill so you can use whatever weapon you want whenever you want. The walk throughs have specific instructions for each level that are reproduced here.

Rome: You will need the pistol with the laser sight in parts 1 and 2 to open some doors and to kill one monster. The shotgun works well on the rest of the monsters in part 2. Use whatever weapon you have whenever you please after that. You will not have them at the start the next area.

Submarine: Use the good weapons you find. There are no bosses to reserve ammo for.

Black Isle: No weapons.

VCI headquarters: Only the assault rifle. There is only enough ammo to use it in sniper mode unless you use the cheat code, which I did. It not only made things a tiny bit easier, it also made things a lot nicer and much more fun.

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Cheat Codes. - tested on the PlayStation 1

Jump to Level Starts
      All start at the main menu with the "NEW GAME" option highlighted.

VCI Headquarters Hold R1 and UP and press X
Black Isle Hold L2 and UP and press X
Submarine Hold L1 and UP and press X

Item Cheats
      All start on the inventory screen with the Timex-TMX option highlighted. After entering the code, when you return to the inventory, the items should be there. To see the special features, kill Lara and exit to the title.

Weapons, Ammo, Medkits, Special Features Hold L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + DOWN + CIRCLE and press TRIANGLE.
PAL version = L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 and press DOWN.
Medpacks and Flares Hold L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + UP + CIRCLE and press TRIANGLE.
PAL version = L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 and press UP.
All Items Hold L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + DOWN and press TRIANGLE

Quick Flare
      During play press SELECT and R1 at the same time.

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Saves.

At the end of the game you do NOT get a list of levels to replay as you did in TR1, TR2 and TR3. But it's not all that important. The areas are short and you can jump to the start of each with a cheat code. If I had to do it again I might archive saves at: just after the timed run in Colosseum, at the start of The Deep Sea Dive, at the start of Labyrinth and at the beginning of Escape With The Iris. If you have trouble with a secret in any of the VCI Headquarters levels, then archive a save at the beginning of those levels. I didn't do that and wished I had.

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SciFiOne. Content sharing and copyrights.12/10/03 - Information.