Tomb Raider at 10

The Tomb Raider role playing game (RPG), starring Lara Croft (with her big boobies.. LOL!) is now 10 years old. To commemorate this celebration, Eidos Interactive has released the Tomb Raider: Anniversary early this June. The game is the latest installment of Tomb Raider series and the remake of the original Lara Croft Tomb Raider game released in 1996.

Anyway, check out this interview made by Game Daily (www.gamdaily.com) staff to Toby Gard, the original creator of Lara Croft (again… the boobies) and the lead designer in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

What was your inspiration for creating Lara?
"The most important part of it was the old English lores, the exploration, the Antarctic. [We wanted] a game with modern-day explorers. Lara's like a female Indiana Jones in that way."

Why was it important for the character to be female?
"Well at the time, everybody was saying you know, you had to have a square-jawed, blue-eyed male. And most of the characters in video games who were females were bimbos or dominatrix women."

You left Core Design shortly after Tomb Raider was released? Why was that?
"Well, I wanted to go off and do my own work, but also, I was realizing that I had very little control over the design. Towards the end of the production, I didn't actually have very much control over the character and what they were doing."

Were there particular things about the way they wanted to make Lara that you didn't like?
"The main point was the sexiness of Lara. The whole point was that most of the women in video games at the time were bimbos or dominatrices, really terrible stereotypes. Lara was supposed to be someone who was strong, and sexy but only because of her power. So I didn't like that part."

Now Legend was kind of a rebooting of the Tomb Raider franchise, and that was when you returned to the series, right? Tell me about that experience.
"It was a very good experience because everybody had been very nervous about this game. So it was actually very good because they were very open to me explaining the reasons for who she was, why she does the things she does."

Legend came on the heels of Angel of Darkness. Did you feel pressure to make changes to the franchise since the previous game received such poor reception?
"The problem was that Lara was not doing what she was supposed to do. It's a really weird situation for the character. It's like taking Superman and putting him in a gardening game, making I dunno, Supergarden. So the problem was that Angel of Darkness put her in an urban place. So the real change was just putting her back where she belonged."

Why do we want to go buy Tomb Raider: Anniversary?
"The core of the game is really searching out mysteries. The key thing is, well our thing is about discovery, looking at different parts of history."

How do you think Lara will adapt to new generations of gamers?
"Well in the first game, literally I was thinking about someone who was really almost psychopathic, really dangerous. But her goals were modern. Tomb Raider is about exploring history, and history is always something that you see people interested in, or at least I hope would stay relevant. As long as we retain that myth and that uncovering then I think people will stay interested."

And as long as she continues to age well.
"Ha, ha. That's the great thing about [her] isn't it? You don't have to worry about that."

[credits: www.gamedaily.com]