This month marks 30 years since Ms Croft first swan-dived into our lives with her unique blend of athletic prowess, archaeological expertise and giant knockers. More than 100 million Tomb Raider games have been sold since. We all remember the good times: the bold design and sheer playability of the original titles; the establishment of Lara as a 90s icon, embodying both lads’ mag culture and girl power; the way she made games cool, even appearing on the cover of the Face.
We’ve had blockbuster movies, big budget reboots, and shiny reissues. And who could forget the time we got to powerwash her house? But no one gets to 30 without a few skeletons in the closet – or in Lara’s case, butlers in the freezer.
So here’s a look at the darker parts of her past. Lara’s image has been used to hawk a multitude of products over the years, from cereal and soft drinks to reasonably priced Spanish hatchbacks. Low points include the 1999 promo for a German women’s magazine in which Lara tells us what she really, really wants isn’t the Dagger of Xian or the MacGuffin of Atlantis, but a big meringuey wedding dress.
See also the weird Dreamcast advert where Lara talks about the console as if it’s a jar of anti-ageing moisturiser. This led an entire generation of women to try reducing the appearance of fine lines by rubbing Sega hardware on their faces. Let’s hope the money was.
Back in 1996, no one predicted how successful this quiet game about a posh archaeologist made by a small team in Derby would be. But once publisher Eidos realised it was in possession of a goose that laid golden eggs, it launched an intensive battery farming operation. Core Design was forced to churn out a new Tomb Raider title every year.
Four games in, the developers had had enough. In 1999 they decided to bury Lara under a collapsing pyramid at the end of The Last Revelation. News of her demise was tucked away towards the end of the design document, the Core team having taken a punt that their publisher overlords wouldn’t bother reading that far.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
