Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Yes – you could be the proud owner of a videogame written upon by a real human female. Specifically, by Keeley Hawes – the agreeably posh voice of Lara Croft, face of ‘er out of Ashes to Ashes and of course, most famously of all, silent subject of the video for geriatric pop gibberish-spouters James’ She’s A Star. SHE IS A PRETTY LADY. She is also able to write her own name – three times, in fact, for that’s how many signed copies of Tomb Raider Underworld we have to give away. And it’s the game we’re really interested in, of course.
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Just about to run out the house to get to do my speech thing at Playful – clearly, I only actually wrote it this morning. Like, obv! – when I noticed the Tomb Raider: Underworld Demo has just gone live. I feel a bit sorry for it. In some ways, I share Walker’s sympathy for the game, thinking it a shame people are dismissing it through over familiarity. Admittedly, that’s not actually going to make it leap-frog spanglier, newer things to my “Actually playing it properly” pile. Anyway – get it from here and you’ll find some videos beneath the cut if you need a reminder of what Lara Croft looks like.
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Hooray! New Tomb Raider Underworld footage. In previous discussions of this game, I’ve made sophisticated and erudite arguments about why it’s folly to dismiss Tomb Raider as a franchise simply due to over-familiarity. This time I’m taking a more direct approach: If you don’t like the Tomb Raider games, you’re a fool, and you can’t come to my house for tea. And if you need any more convincing, below the jump is Lara kicking a tiger in the face.

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The last time Tomb Raider Underworld news came up, I found myself going off on my rant about how stupid people are for not being excited about a consistently excellent game series (apart from that one), that’s only getting better with each new release.

My frustrations haven’t waned. I’m seeing a couple of current mags writing previews of Underworld, saying it looks good, but they’re getting tired of the games now. Tired of an ever-improving, top-notch platforming series with a stupendous cast, excellent writing, and the best acrobatic fun available? Then you’re not a gamer! Bah! Anyway, in the trailer below, Underworld looks bloody excellent, and more than that, it’s picking up where Legend left off.

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She swims! She swims some more! She shoots sharks! And swims! I’ve yet to play the last two Tomb Raiders, so don’t know if the old shtick about drowning Lara still rings true, but she seems more aqualunged to my eye:

This video keeps getting pulled down from wherever it’s hosted – this is now the fourth version I’ve put up here. It must be because there’s a single frame of hardcore sex hidden in it or something. Otherwise it’d just be a publisher squealing “no, don’t look at our game that we want you to buy!”, and how could that ever happen?
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It’s a rather lovely story, the tale of Lara’s rescue. Tomb Raider, too infamous to maintain the reputation it deserved, span out of control. People, when reflecting on the series, will recall the first couple and begrudgingly admit that they were really good. But then they’ll say things tailed off, descending into generic sequels, eventually finishing in the hideous plane-full-orphans-crashing-into-train-full-of-puppies mess that was Angel of Darkness. But they’re wrong.

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