Now, I dig Tomb Raider. But after Zero Punctuation’s brutal review of Underworld, I’m started to feel mighty uncomfortable about all the animals Ms Croft knocks off on her way to steal valuable stuff from dead people. In all seriousness, I actually apologised to the virtual panthers I shot up during my own review of Underworld. Because I’m a huge softie. And a cat owner. And maybe a little crazy after 10 straight hours of gameplay on deadline.

Enjoy the artwork, from the over-sexed to the over-manga’d. This image comes from Joe Jusko.

40 Various Styles Artworks of Lara Croft [The Design Inspiration]

The city is taking suggestions for names of two stretches of road, and one of the more popular ideas is Lara Croft Way. The city’s marketing director thinks it’s a great idea too. “Personally I would be in favour of something that projects something new and modern about the city so I quite like the Lara Croft idea,” said John Forkin, the director of Marketing Derby.

And that’s even considering other suggestions of a more robust tradition – Florence Nightingale Way and Rolls Royce Way, among them. Nightingale lived in the area, and Rolls Royce is a major employer.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go with Lara Croft here. In Europe, they go for recognition in naming their public construction. As opposed to the United States, where it seems most bridges, overpasses and stretches of highway are named for some transportation commissioner, retired general or state senator no one’s ever heard of.

Lara Croft is Lined Up for Derby Inner Ring Road Immortality [Derby Telegraph via Destructoid]

It’s hardly shocking that Eidos – bought out by sequelmeisters Square Enix of course – would be planning another Tomb Raider. Existing IP is a big chunk of a studio’s value as an acquisition target, and Eidos’ Ian Livingstone even said to expect a Lara Croft reboot a couple months ago. Still, this is someone else’s rumour and someone else’s photos. We’ve emailed Eidos PR if they want to take a swing at this rumour, first reported today by 4Player Co-Op.

In the shots (which you may see here) you can see a mounted Lara (on horseback, stupe) firing arrows at zombiefied creatures with gnarly, ouchy-looking appendages. The concepts for her foes are barely more than silhouettes, but they all look ugly and threatening, Lara herself has a look that backs off the overt sex appeal and makes her into a more athletic, ass-kicky fighter.

From the descriptions, this figures to be a reboot origin story similar to the kind of treatment Batman, James Bond and even the Hulk have gotten in cinema. Livingstone had hinted that would be the tack of this story. Here’s a transcription of some of the text on the screen, which appears to be from an internal website:

When a sudden storm destroys her research vessel, a young and inexperienced Lara Croft finds herself stranded on a mysterious and remote island hidden off the shores of Japan. Despite several signs of various inhabitants the island is oddly deserted, and an uneasy feeling settles in as strange sounds emerge from the shadows. With only her determination, inner strength, and resourcefulness to help her, Lara must overcome the challenges of a harsh and unforgiving journey that will take her across a vast island wilderness and deep into the claustrophobic and menacing underground tombs from the island’s past. As she struggles to prevail through brutal combat encounters and treacherous exploration, Lara will be pushed to her limits and forced to adapt to her situation in order to survive and escape from the lethal predators that stalk her every move. [...]

• Origin story. “This new Tomb Raider concept reboots the franchise by exploring the origins of Lara Croft’s transformation into a hardened adventurer as you unravel the story behind the island’s mysterious past.”

New weapons, new ways to use them, and a reworked combat system are also hinted at in the text. If anything else dribbles out about this leak, we’ll be sure to update it here.

Tomb Raider Reboot – The First Details? [4player Co-Op via Joystiq]

The Tomb Raider franchise is getting a cinematic reboot with Dan Lin, the movie’s producer, saying, “It is an origin story so it is a younger Lara Croft. It will have character-driven action.” This is the third film in the Tomb Raider movie series — the last one was in 2003.

A source tells The Sun (yes, yes, we know) that Jolie was originally keen to reprise her role as Lara Croft in the blockbuster film franchise, but now “feels robbed”. “Angie isn’t a fan of the Transformers films and believes Megan won’t do the Lara Croft character justice,” the source adds. “She’s also annoyed because she thinks Megan copies everything from her, from her tattoos to her style.” (But will she copy Jolie’s cool mom status?)

Back in January, a spokesperson for Megan Fox stated, “Megan is not involved in this movie.” So either Jolie is getting upset for no reason or The Sun is making up shit for no reason. Or maybe Megan Fox is actually involved in this movie.

Regardless, the really important question is what does Angelina Jolie’s father, actor Jon Voight, think? “They’re both very beautiful and they’re both kind of sexy girls.” Thanks, Jon!

Angelina Jolie is furious that Megan Fox has been tipped to take the lead role in Tomb Raider [The Sun]

We first heard stirrings of these new layoffs earlier this week, receiving several tips from people purporting to be former employees or friends of former employees. Now an Eidos spokesperson has confirmed the layoffs, citing the need to “focus resources” as the underlying reason behind them.

“We can confirm that Crystal Dynamics has made a reduction of approximately 25 people at the San Francisco studio. This decision is a reflection of the continued drive to focus resources at the studio. We would like to thank all of the employees affected by this difficult decision for their hard work during their time at Crystal and we wish them all the best in the future.”

This latest round of cuts follows rumours in January of another 30 or so employees cut loose from the developer following poor performance of the latest Tomb Raider title, Tomb Raider Underworld.

With no currently announced projects and the recent acquisition of parent company Eidos by Square Enix, one cannot help but worry about the future of the remaining Crystal Dynamics employees. Tomb Raider was a large part of the allure of Eidos to Square Enix, so we wouldn’t be surprised if they took Lara out of Crystal Dynamics’ hands in an attempt to revitalise the franchise once again.

I’m personally hoping that the developer sticks around long enough to deliver a new Gex title.

Speaking in an interview with About.com during the premier of Terminator Salvation, producer Dan Lim explains that the new Lara Croft film will be an origin story with a strong focus on character development, which is definitely a new direction for the film franchise.

“We’re rebooting Lara Croft… It’s a great origin story that we’re going to tell, a very character-oriented, I would say more realistic than the past Lara Croft movies… It’s not full-on action. I would say it’s like Terminator, it’s character-driven action. For me, the Lara Croft games and movies have gone a little too action-oriented. I wanted to have action, but with character.”

But who is going to play the new Lara? When questioned about the casting, with About.com’s Rebecca Murray specifically mentioning Angelina Jolie, Lin’s response was: “It is an origin story, so it is going to be a younger Lara Croft.”

So no casting news yet, but with a younger Lara Croft it seems like Angelina Jolie might be on the outs. She can still pull off pretty, but young might be a bit of a stretch. Perhaps they’ll pull a Spock and slip her in there by way of time paradox. Angelina Jolie is as good a reason for a time paradox as I can think of.

Dan Lin Interview – Terminator Salvation and Lara Croft [About.com via Tomb Raider Fanboy]
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Pwn or Die have come up with a good bar argument: The four faces on a hypothetical Mount Rushmore of video gaming. The four they’ve chosen are good, but are they the best choices?

As you can see in the pic, the selections are Master Chief, Mario, Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog. Lara is the only head scratcher to me, although she does represent the 1990s PC gaming boom pretty well.

If it were my call, and we were picking analogs to the US presidents up on the actual hill, I’d go with something like:

Pac-Man as George Washington: Washington was the father of the country. Pac-Man was the progenitor of video gaming.

Gordon Freeman as Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson is on Rushmore for representing the principles of U.S. democracy. Freeman as a symbol of Half-Life 2 and Valve, likewise represents a broad set of bedrock principles for good games – good story, strong level design, memorable characters, multiplayer (on PC anyway), multi-platform, long replay value, among many others.

Master Chief as Teddy Roosevelt: Roosevelt, the progressive, also is the most recent of the four faces. So is Master Chief, whose game likewise represents progress into a new era of gaming.

Mario as Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln saved the Republic. Mario, through Super Mario Bros. and the Nintendo Entertainment System, saved console gaming.

I agree Gordon may not be an iconic choice to non-gamers; maybe less so than Lara. But hey, it’s not like this actually exists somewhere. So who would you put up on yours?

Our Blog: Video Game Characters Mt. Rushmore: Who is on Yours? [Pwn or Die]

Tomb Raider publisher Eidos saw its sales jump a respectable 26% during the first half, thanks to solid sales of Tomb Raider: Underworld. To celebrate, we’ve uploaded a picture of Lara in a wetsuit.

While Eidos may feel that Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider franchise is in need of an overhaul and the company says Underworld’s performance hasn’t met expectations, sales were decent enough to reduce the publisher’s losses to just 1 million pounds ($1.43 million USD).

That’s potentially good news for Square Enix, currently doing its damnedest to snatch up the European publisher.

Good work, Lara! And good luck speargunning those sharks!

Last week, Lara Croft model Alison Carroll appeared at an mobile phone shop in London to promote Sony Ericsson phones — only one of which has anything to do with Tomb Raider. Um, yeah.

Guess they need to fill her contract until the character gets an overhaul.

Compared to previous Lara Croft models, poor Alison Carroll has had it rough with everything from NSFW publicity pics, creepy stalker pics and even archaeology questions.

But, look, she’s a good sport. Mobile Phone guns, ring, ring!!

PRETEND LARA CROFT EXTENDS PRETENDING CONTRACT INTO 2009 [UK:R]

Warner Brothers producer Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes) wants to do a “reboot” of the Tomb Raider film franchise, even though the last big screen Lara Croft outing was only about six years ago.

That, and the games aren’t exactly tearing up the sales chart.

So what gives? While the previous Tomb Raider flicks were made by Paramount, the film rights reverted back to publisher Eidos. Last December Time Warner increased its stake in Eidos to 19.92 percent. Included in that were Tomb Raider motion picture rights.

The project is still early in development, and Angelina Jolie does not appear to be involved. A new Lara Croft actress, director and writer are still not attached. The reboot is expected to revamp the character, the film franchise and the high kicks.

Warner Bros. Rebooting Tomb Raider [ComingSoon.net]