Lara Croft on the AppStore!

Not quite Tomb Raider, but close enough.

WHOA! I never heard anything about this, but apparently Square-Enix has just released Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light on the appstore. Both an iPhone and iPad version (HD) will be available by tomorrow (Dec. 16), though New Zealanders already have it. I haven’t seen any vids yet, but supposedly the iOS version is a dual-stick shooter, which the platform does pretty well. Anyway, I’ll almost surely be getting this as soon as I can, along with a bunch of other releases coming on the morrow.

It’s pretty cool to have Lady Croft on my iDevices, but how about a port of Tomb Raider Underworld as well? Just asking…

UPDATE! I got me Lara Croft game installed on the iPad, and well oh, well! Aside from a pretty consistent crash during an early cutscene, the game controls, looks and plays quite smoothly and well. Actual animated cutscenes have been reduced to comic-style panels, but otherwise, this seems the real deal. If you’re an iGamer who’s hankering on having Lady Croft gracing your iPhone or iPad, this is it. I’ll try to post a vid and perhaps a review soon.

Woman Vs Wild: Tomb Raider Reboot Revealed in Game Informer

Survivor: Lara Croft Edition?

The January issue of Game Informer has landed the scoop on the next Tomb Raider, with a cover image of the all-new, rebooted but apparently pretty worse for wear (and slightly plain-looking) Lara Croft. Along with the cover spread, the mag will have 10 pages devoted to the upcoming game, so anyone interested in the latest info on TR, grab the issue if you can. The game’s described as a ‘journey like no other’ and tells gamers to ‘forget all you knew about Tomb Raider’… which is a freakin’ BUMMER since I actually really, really liked the last three (TR Legend, Anniversary and Underworld) games, which were, as I remember, already a reboot of the previous incarnation of the franchise already. Well, at least that Lara had her run for a good while… sigh.

Anyway, this new Tomb Raider will star a young and fresh Lara- supposedly without any of the usual trappings (her trademark dual pistols? Big boobs? Eh?) and will have the fledgeling heroine trying to survive both physical hardship and ‘mental trauma’ after she’s shipwrecked.
So what does this mean? Lara Snake Eater? Lara ala Bear Grylles? Will we have sessions where we have to keep Lara from shutting down and going into a fetal position from mental stress? Of course, there will be enemies as revealed in the more early snippets of this game, as the island Lara gets marooned on will not be totally deserted.

Even if I am really peeved at the previous Lara being put on the backburner, at least the new game’s still being developed by Crystal Dynamics, so perhaps there will be some form of continuity with the past (future) Lara- or better yet, maybe after this ‘reboot’ we can go back to our veteran Lara, and renew her catfights with Amanda Evert and find some new adventure after the long Natla arc. I hope. Anyway, as always, I’m guaranteed to get this Tomb Raider game, though I probably won’t ever finish it either. More as I get it then.

New Tomb Raider Game Coming sans Tomb Raider

Lara’s set to return in a whole different way.

The last time we saw the sexy Tomb Raiding Lara Croft, it was back in 2008’s Tomb Raider: Underworld. Sadly, that adventure supposedly didn’t make as much of an impact as Eidos wanted, and so we’ve been hearing rumors of Dark Knight-ish reboots ever since. After one fragment with a visual of a younger Lara, we’ve heard and seen precious little. Well, that’s set to change soon as the title of the next tomb-raiding foray has been revealed.

The thing is, apparently they’ve dropped the ‘Tomb Raider’ monicker, and now just going with simply Lara Croft. No skin off my teeth- the franchise has always been about the sexy adventuress, and her adventures have periodically gotten her into far bigger places than tombs.

Anyway, details on Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light are decidedly scarce- we don’t know what platform it’s headed for, other than it will be a Downloadable game. Will this be a totally new Lara, or will she be the same heroine from the past three TR games? Sadly the former is more likely, which is a shame since I quite loved the universe built then.
If this title is radically different from anything we’ve seen Lara do before, I just hope they don’t do silly stuff like making her over-emo, or talking in a gruff whisper, or making things all dark and sad and grim. Lara is all about empowered sex appeal, high-jumping adventures and the thrill of discovery. Oh, and also hot diving suits and big guns. Heh.

The game should make it’s first appearance next week at GDC. We’ll see then what this fuss is all about.

Images of New Lara Croft, Story and Game Details

The New Lara: More realistic, younger, trimmer but still pretty bad-ass.

Game site 4P Co-op broke out with a scoop on the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, with a few images and info on the next Lara Croft adventure. Since the apparent underperformance of Tomb Raider Underworld, a lot of changes underwent the developers (including laying off most of the team that did TRU) and Eidos came to a decision to give their heroine a makeover like Batman got in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Well, here are the first bits of info then. As you can see from the pic above, Lara’s cut down a bit, now looking more athletic and trim rather than the idealized sex symbol she had become as of late. The story of the new game will star a younger Lara who finds herself stuck on a mysterious island inhabited by some less-than-friendly natives. The new Raider looks to be a lot creepier, more visceral and have elements of both open world gaming and survival horror.

Now, I’m kinda pissed that we won’t be seeing anymore of the Lara we’ve seen since Tomb Raider Legend- I liked that Lara and that world- but what can we do? I do like what seems to be a more ‘realistic’ Lara in the concept image- perhaps it’s finally goodbye to the classic look we’ve so been used to when we hear Lara Croft?

This reboot seems interesting, but I’m sure that this big change won’t come easily. For now though, read the article here and mull over our new Croft to come.

Tomb Raider Underworld Updates, Having Your Own Private Lara

Like my new header? Nope, you won’t find that Lara render anywhere, and yep, it IS Lara Croft’s model from Tomb Raider Underworld. Now anyone can pretty much have Lara pose up a storm with a little imagination and a decent computer thanks to a pretty nifty program created by a poster named Dusan on the Tomb Raider Chronicles forums.
Called XNALara, the free program lets you play around with the actual in-game model of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider Underworld. The interface isn’t incredibly hard to figure out- you don’t need to be an ex-animator or a math wiz to make up some pretty cool poses in no time… just know what looks right and what looks…wrong. On that note, I have to say that I know what a lot of you are thinking, and let me say that if you’re gonna play around with Lara, keep it classy, okay? Hmmm. Riiiight.

Anyway, the latest revision of the program (which is only about two days old!) gives you not just Lara (in several outfits) but Jacqueline Natla and the Doppelganger as well. So expect a flood of CG art on Lara and the TRU ladies soon on sites and forums everywhere. Lara-Doppelganger lesbian kissing scenes, check!

On Tomb Raider Underworld in general though, despite some early bad press and the fact that Crystal Dynamics sacked thirty members of the development team due to the game not meeting expectations, TRU has apparently to date performed better than previous titles in the series- Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary.

So the result? Apparently Crystal Dynamics is now concentrating totally on the Lara Croft franchise, which means that we will definitely be seeing more Lara in the future. My hope is that despite the news of a supposed ‘reboot’ to the series, the next game will continue the saga of the current Lara. No more Dark Lara Returns or any of that crap.

The recently-released DLC, Beneath the Ashes, is nice but also proving to be woefully short. I think though that many gamers will be quite happy even with just the bunch of bikini outfits included in the download. Heh. Hopefully the next extra adventure DLC, Lara’s Shadow (out this March) will be longer. Lara’s Shadow puts you in command of the infamous Doppelganger, the evil-Lara twin that kicked so much ass (all of it Lara’s) in TRU. Can’t wait for that.

Anyway, if you wanna have Lara do a pictorial for you, check out the XNALara app here.

Tomb Raider Underworld DLC Details

As we’ve known since last year, the Xbox360 version of Tomb Raider Underworld will be receiving some more life in the form of DLC packs that will give a few more hours’ worth of gameplay and plot. The first DLC pack, entitled Beneath the Ashes, will have players returning to the ruins of Croft Manor. Lara discovers something more than just her burnt wardrobe in the rubble- specifically an entrance to a massive underground complex. Soon Lara is in a deadly quest to find a mysterious power source long hidden for decades.

Eidos has also released info on the second pack, entitled Lara’s Shadow. Here’s the text teaser released to whet gamers’ appetites…

“Play as a dark and deadly reflection of Lara Croft. Created as a sinister trick by Lara’s oldest foe, the Doppelganger possesses the strength, speed and raw power to put an end to the Croft lineage once and for all. Fulfill the mission and become the ultimate weapon of revenge. Will feature new gameplay mechanics to be unveiled very soon.”

Playing as the Doppelganger should be cool- I guess you play through the part where she blows up Croft Manor… I wonder if you get to shoot Alistair and kick Lara’s butt too?

Unfortunately, this still comes with a bit of controversy given the big backlash that gamers in general apparently gave TRU, resulting in sluggish sales of the Xbox360 version and the lay-off of a sizeable chunk of Crystal Dynamics’ staff that worked on Underworld. Well, I’ll see what this is about when it coms out.