Lara's back
New Tomb Raider game unveiled
Core Design have dropped the veil of secrecy surrounding the next installment in their Tomb Raider series, releasing the first in-game screenshots along with a glimpse of what we can expect from the game. Due out on PC and PlayStation 2 towards the end of the year, Lara Croft Tomb Raider : The Angel Of Darkness (to give it its full, rather unwieldy name) will see a new, tougher look for Lara, more in keeping with the recent movie. There will also be less actual tomb raiding involved, with Lara abandoning her old calling after her experiences in The Last Revelation. Instead the game will begin with her former mentor Von Croy calling Lara to Paris, where she finds herself caught up in a gruesome murder case involving alchemy and ancient blood feuds. "Our vision is to take the player somewhere dark, a place they might not necessarily wish to go, but a place they will have to venture if they are to bring Lara back", Core's Adrian Smith revealed. "Lara will have some tough moral choices to make. It's no longer a clear-cut case of good versus evil - this is a more complex tale, which will ask more complex questions of the player. It will be a new experience for people who have played Tomb Raider in the past." Core are apparently trying to make a darker, more mature game to mirror the more adult audience that it will have to please, and the change of atmosphere and pacing should be welcome after the rather repetitive rut that the series got itself into over the last few years. The developers are also promising a less linear experience, with players able to choose their own path through the game and to interact with other characters. Naturally the graphics have been updated to take advantage of the latest hardware as well, with Lara herself sporting ten times as many polygons as in previous outings. As you can see from the screenshots, the results might not be spectacular but they are a vast improvement on the angular characters and blocky level design of previous Tomb Raiders. Could this be an exciting new direction for the Tomb Raider series, or is it just a (much needed) cosmetic face lift for Lara? With the game coming along nicely, we should know more soon hopefully... Related Feature - Tomb Raider : Angel Of Darkness screenshots
