You've got plans to rob a nobleman's mansion tonight, plans which are thrown into disarray when a large earthquake damages your neighbourhood and opens a deep crevasse in the ground nearby. Abandoning the mansion heist idea, you decide to investigate this subterranean mystery.

The best part of the mission is the city section before you descend into the pit. There are several locations to visit before embarking on the mission proper, containing a substantial fraction of the total loot. The city streets are well lit and well protected by guards, so it is quite difficult, but it's fair. With care and observation you can circumvent the guards and grab the gold completely undetected.

Unfortunately the rift itself is isn't anywhere near as nice. It's far more linear, and in several locations you are presented with an unavoidable bottleneck consisting of a brightly lit room crawling with enemies. There's nothing that can be done except sprint through it, alerting everyone. For those of us who like ghosting, this feels like being given the middle-finger salute on both hands and kills all interest in the rest of the mission.

Many of the locations down there look fantastic: the haunted mines and the ruined temple being the standouts. Particularly for such an early mission, it's quite an achievement to have got it looking so good. One can overlook the occasional distorted and streaky texture and bits of Z-fighting. It's a shame that the gameplay, from the spider cave onwards, is so unfair and annoying. If the rest of the mission had been crushingly difficult but scrupulously fair, like the initial city section, this map could have been a real classic.