With the reboot of classic gaming icon Lara Croft booming back onto our consoles, here’s some interesting facts to help you get into the archaeological spirit.
Tomb Raider is one of the world’s leading successful gaming franchises.
Combining action, adventure and puzzles, the games made hours of enjoyable fun.
The games are third person shooters, and feature one of the most recognized icons – ever.
Who is Lara Croft?
Lara Croft is an English archaeologist.
She is depicted as heavily athletic with a great talent for climbing, gymnastics and swimming, which play a great role in the games.
Fluent in several languages, Lara is often depicted with a brown ponytail, with a sleeveless tank top, brown shorts, boots and socks.
Whilst undergoing many changes to her character’s costumes, Lara usually carries a small backpack and two pistols which she favors, even though she can use other weaponry.
The Tomb Raider Games
Six games were developed by Core Design, and were published by Eidos Interactive. These games were:
– Tomb Raider (1996)
– Tomb Raider II (1997)
– Tomb Raider III (1998)
– Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999)
– Tomb Raider Chronicles (2000) and
– Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (2003).
This production line ran from 1996 until 2009, but along the line Crystal Dynamics took hold of four of the most current games. These are:
– Tomb Raider: Legend (2006)
– Tomb Raider: Anniversary (2007)
– Tomb Raider: Underworld (2009)
Tomb Raider Reboot
In 2012, it was announced that a reboot of the series, with Square Enix on the side-lines would be created.
Simply entitled, Tomb Raider, it tells a new story, of how Lara turned into the feisty heroine she is today, and how she survived and honed her skills in the wilderness.
This was released in March 2013.
This is just one of her stories.
There have been many back-stories to Lara and her identity, but some facts remain the same.
Privileged daughter of the fictional Lord Richard Croft, Lara was orphaned in a plane crash which killed her parents.
The spin-off comics claim that her partner was also killed in the crash.
Some games say that is was just Lara’s mother who died in the crash, leaving Lord Croft to be killed later on.
In The Movies…
The films, which featured Angelina Jolie as the gun-toting, short wearing heroine, tell us that Lara’s mother died when Lara was young, and that her father was ultimately killed by the Illuminati.
The films were:
– Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and
– Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003).
In 2006, Lara Croft was inducted into the Walk of Game, and in the same year, The Guinness Book of World Records dubbed Lara Croft, “The Most Successful Human Virtual Game Heroine”.
Interestingly, the cheats that most people remember for the games was locking the butler in the freezer to complete a mission, and have Lara run around, completing missions, in the nude.
