Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness:
Unfinished Training Area (continued)

Just before the next corner, there's a staircase on the right and an invisible block on the left. Go into stealth mode and watch the gendarme around the corner from just behind the building. When he heads down the street away from Lara, climb onto the invisible block and jump to grab the narrow ledge. Traverse around the corner...

...and pull up onto the ledge beside the doorway where the gendarme takes his smoke breaks (above). At this point the cop may notice Lara but as long as she doesn't drop to the ground, he can't do anything to her. Climb the drainpipe to the ledge above the doorway. Walk carefully to the end of the ledge.

Then jump across the street onto one of two invisible ledges, just below the "Rue Alphonse" sign. The approximate positions of these invisible ledges are shown in the screenshot above. One is to the right and slightly higher than the other. Either jump onto the lower ledge, near the corner of the building, or jump onto the higher one and climb down to the lower. Use Walk to keep Lara from falling off the edges, since you can't see them.

There's another drainpipe just beyond the invisible ledges. Drop down and climb up this pipe.

At the top of the pipe, traverse to the left along the narrow ledge. Pull up onto the small, square ledge above the lit window. (It's a bit of a long traverse. Perhaps the original idea was for Lara to get the strength upgrade in order to be able to make this climb.)

Take a look around. If you're familiar with the parts of this level that appear in the "real" game, you'll notice that the building across the grassy courtyard is where Lara finds the other crowbar and breaks down the shed door to get the M-V9. On the left side of that building is the gantry gate key, etc. If you fly around, you can see how it all fits together.

Dropping into the grassy courtyard triggers the cut scene leading into the Derelict Apartment Block level. It looks as though Lara was originally intended to approach it from this side.

For maximum pickups, try starting the level with the fly cheat enabled (or use one of the downloaded savegames linked on the first page). Open the door between the starting area and the alley where you find the Courtyard Key. Then save your game. Once that door is open, you can play without the cheat. Do the "real" areas first up to the point where you get the M-V9 in the shed. Don't bother getting the Gantry Gate Key since you won't be exiting that way. Instead, climb back down to the starting point and explore the unfinished area. Get all the items there and shoot the gendarme if you like. Then proceed to the grassy courtyard to finish the level.

ALTERNATE METHOD FOR ACCESSING SECRET AREA: You can also get to this area using a bug in the Parisian Ghetto level. Immediately after leaving the Serpent Rouge nightclub, when you step out onto the small balcony, save your game in a new slot, as you will need to reload from here to continue the game. But do not reload now or the bug won't work. Position Lara where she is the screenshot below. Then crouch and crawl forward and a little to the left.

For whatever strange reason, this causes the Parisian Backstreets level to load, only it's a different iteration of this level. All the items are still there, and the tutorial begins again. Play through to the end of the level the way you did before (except that you'll have all the guns and items you've obtained so far). When you climb down the last ladder, the level won't end, and you'll be in the courtyard area shown in the fourth screenshot on this page. Since you come in at what was supposed to be the end of the level, certain things won't be triggered unless you return to the beginning (the alley shown on the second page of this section) and proceed from there.

Unfortunately the level doesn't end when you play it this way, so you'll have to reload your last Parisian Ghetto or Serpent Rouge save to continue.

NOTE: I tested this in the PC game, but I don't know whether it works in the Macintosh or PS2 versions. Again, thanks to Mary F. for telling me about it.

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