It's official--I'm stuck!

[barbarocious]

I'm playing TR2 near the end of the Temple of Xian. I've gotten past the spiked wall, fallen thru the trapdoor, grabbed the key and have ended up back in the starting room at the base of the falls. I've opened the underwater gate.
Problem is, when L swims underwater and makes the 2 rights to get into the VERY DARK room I can't find the lever that's supposedly behind the 2nd pillar. No more flares and the harpoon gun obviously doesn't give any light when used. Meanwhile, big mean fish kills me while I'm blindly swimming around, or I lose air.
I can't level jump or get all weapons because, again, I have no flares. HEEELLLLPP!!

[TheBoo]

Here are some choices:

1) Keep trying to pull the lever (Is it really dark around you while you are playing? Have you turned up your monitor brightness? The lever may be visible if you play in a really dark room).

2) Download a save game from Stella's site. (http://www.tombraiders.net/stella/savegame.html#tr2save)

3) Download the save game editor from Paul Walton's site. (http://www.letocetum.fsnet.co.uk/TRsgEditorFiles/TRsgEditor%206.0.1.75.zip) You will need an unzip program to install the editor. It's really neat. You can give yourself a little help or a lot of help, depending on how self-reliant you want to be.:) Just be sure to read the instructions in the zip file. If you don't have an unzip program, Winzip is available here. (http://www.winzip.com/ddchomea.htm) Download the evaluation version, it's free!:)

[V_Croft]

If my memory serves me right, that lever is a bit brighter... Keep searching. Oh, and do what The Boo suggested - turn up your monitor brightness.

BTW, If I'm not mistaken (again - lol :p) you still have way to go to finish the level... :D

[Dino]

Rather than changing the normal brightness on your monitor, try changing the gamma setting on your video card before starting the game.

With the normal gamma setting of 1 on my Nvidia Vanta video card, TR2 is way too dark in too many places.

By increasing the gamma setting to 2 or even 3, I didn't need flares except in totally black places.

At the beginning of the Temple of Xian level, I had 72 flares. I picked up 6 flares in the level, and used only 4, and had 74 flares at the end.

That fish that's killing you is nasty. Using the harpoon gun in such close quarters has always been difficult for me. And once you are in there with the fish, you cannot get out again until you find and operate that lever.

[Dino]

barbarocious:

You haven't mentioned what your Windows operating system or Video card are, so what follows are the steps I follow to change the gamma on my WinMe system with a Nvidia Vanta video card before starting a Tomb Raider game.

Right click on the desktop
Click Properties
On the "Display Properties" screen click Settings
Click Advanced
Click Vanta
Click Additional Properties
Slide the Gamma slider to the right

On my other computer with WinXP and a Nvidia Gforce2 video card, the steps are almost the same.

Right click on the desktop
Click Properties
On the "Display Properties" screen click Settings
Click Advanced
Click Color Correction
Slide Gamma slider to the right

When you quit the game, come back in here and click Restore Hardware Defaults to get everything back to normal.

Your steps should be similar if not the same for your Video card.

[Dino]

barbarocious:

You have a total of two posts, and have started two threads -- "It's official -- I'm stuck!" and "It's brain surgery...", both about the same problem of being in a dark place in the Temple of Xian level of TR2 with no flares and a nasty fish.

You need more light, or a way to get flares to make some light.

In your last private message to me you mentioned that you are on an old slow laptop, and from the files you mentioned, I would tend to assume you are on Windows 95. And being on a laptop, you probably have integrated graphics on the motherboard.

I have been looking over all of the tabs under the Display Properties Settings on my WinMe computer and ran across the following help message under Gamma on the Color Correction screen:

"... many 3D-accelerated games may appear too dark to play. Increasing the brightness and/or the gamma value equally across all channels makes these games appear brighter and more playable."

That statement applied to my situation with TR2. With the default gamma and brightness, I got up to the Wreck of the Maria Doria level where it was so dark as to be depressing. Even using many flares, I couldn't find my way around. After increasing the Gamma level, I didn't need any flares and the game went from depressing to thoroughly enjoyable.

On my Color Correction screen, I find that increasing the Brightness seems to do the same thing as increasing the Gamma, and you have said that you have already done the brightness thing.

From the readme.txt file on the TR2 disk the following:

"Tomb Raider II ... was not designed to run on laptops."

Whether that has any bearing on your problem, I don't know.

If you will reply to threads in the forum, you make available to others information about your troubles and may receive helpful replies from someone who really knows what they are talking about.

Also you increase your post count. The act of replying to your thread has changed me from Junior Member to Member, although I still claim the title of Honorary Senior Member, since I'm 71.

[barbarocious]

Thx to Dino, The Real Laura, and especially The Boo for helping me out of a stinky mess. I downloaded TRsgeditor and my life is beautiful. I'm happily doing backflips and avoiding rolling blades once again. Hey, is anyone out there perturbed as well by the fact that Laura has to kill tigers in her ventures?? Man, couldn't they have programmed poodles or giant flies or some other completely useless evil creature instead of the near extinct tiger??
Cheers!:D

[Dino]

You didn't need to kill the first two tigers in the Great Wall level, but we all should feel bad about killing the T-Rex couple. There aren't many of them left.

Is your game still too dark, or have you resolved that problem?

[V_Croft]

Excuse me, is there a T-Rex in TR2???

[Collin]

Originally posted by V_Croft
Excuse me, is there a T-Rex in TR2???
There are 2!!! :eek:

:D

They're in the first level (at the bottom of the gorge where you have to use the zipline). ;)

[TheBoo]

Originally posted by Collin

There are 2!!! :eek:

:D

They're in the first level (at the bottom of the gorge where you have to use the zipline). ;)

And in the bonus level (Nightmare in Vegas) there are two more!:eek:

[Solange]

Originally posted by V_Croft
Excuse me, is there a T-Rex in TR2???

Yes!

It's possible to miss them thou, I found them more or less by accident!