Eidos is famous for hiring sexy English models to portray Lara Croft and then send them over to various game conventions and promotional events.They have been doing this for over 10 years now and have just hired their newest model, 23 year old Alison Carroll. However these models are strictly for eye candy; they have never actually participated in any of the Tomb Raider game development. They have never been the voice of Lara Croft nor handled any of the motion capture for the character.

That is not the case for actress-model Melinda Cohen, who showed up at Penny Arcade Expo last weekend to promote the upcoming Replay Studios-Gamecock stealth action game Velvet Assassin. Cohen was there as a booth model but she is also handling the voice for the character of Violet Summer (in both English and German versions) in the game itself. She's also doing motion capture work for the character in the game. all of which puts her several steps ahead of any Lara Croft model. Velvet Assassin is currently scheduled for release late in 2008.

[Via Destructoid]