tomb-raider-legend posts

One of the co-creators of Eidos' Tomb Raider franchise, Toby Gard, has left the company's development team at Crystal Dynamics. According to Develop, Gard would not comment on why he has left the company, saying only that " I've started up my own consultancy business."

Gard was one of the main designers behind the original Tomb Raider at developer Core Design in 1995. He left Core after Tomb Raider's release to form Cofounding Factor, a development team that spent seven years creating a game, Galleon, that was finally released for the original Xbox in 2004 to poor reviews and sales. Eidos later brought Gard in as a consultant on Tomb Raider Legend and Gard ended up as the co-writer of the game's storyline along with other duties on the game. He also co-wrote and performed other duties on the next game in the series Tomb Raider Underworld. He was supposedly leading a group at Crystal Dynamics on a new project which most people believed would be the next Tomb Raider game.

Even with more and faster broadband Internet connections, it can still take some time in downloading a large full PC game from a server. A UK based company called AWOMO is trying to take a shortcut in that process by streaming game files to a PC and allowing people to start playing a game while the rest of the files are downloading.

The service has been in beta testing for a little while now and today the company announced that people who sign onto the beta will be able to download and play a free full version of Tomb Raider: Legend, the 2006 released action game from Eidos. The game is 7.2 GB in size but AWOMO claims people with a "mere" 8 Mbps connection will be able to start playing the game in 11 minutes.

Valve has yet to reveal their special Steam weekend sale yet but the game download service already has a couple of interesting deals that you can take a look at. First, anyone who pre-orders Eidos' upcoming action-adventure Tomb Raider Underworld via Steam will be able to download one of the previous games in the series, Tomb Raider Legend, for free immediately.

The second deal is that Valve has added their upcoming zombie co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead, to their Valve Complete Pack of games. We mentioned this in last week's Virtual Bargain Bin but at that time the collection did not include Left 4 Dead. The addition does not change the price of the Valve Complete Pack which means you will be getting a $45 game in Left 4 Dead and $55 for the other 22 games in the collection for a total of $100. Nice

Eidos has announced their participation as the latest publisher to support the Novint Falcon, a controller that claims to give gamers a greater advantage in three-dimensional video games by applying tactile control.

What sort of touch sensations will the Novint Falcon offer Eidos titles? "Simply imagine the feel of sandstone in your palms or the weight of a gun in your hand, and you've got the general idea," writes 1UP. Eidos plans support for Tomb Raider: Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, 25 to Life, Just Cause, BattleStations: Midway, and Kane and Lynch: Dead Men by the end of 2008.

In June, developer Valve announced future Novint Falcon support for The Orange Box, a collection containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Falcon will reportedly allow gamers to feel the weight of holding different objects with the gravity gun, the recoil of guns, and more.

For Robert Tonner, CEO of Tonner Doll Company, the chance to sculpt Lara Croft is the opportunity of a lifetime. "Lara Croft was an opportunity for me to enter a new realm," said Tonner. "As a sculptor, a chance to create an entirely new body is incredibly rewarding. Lara Croft allowed me to express, in the sculpt, both the strength and femininity for which she has become legendary."

Since her virtual debut in the original Tomb Raider game, Lara Croft has been known as a gaming icon. Tonner looked to capture that essence. "In creating Lara Croft as a [figurine], I wanted to capture her essence and spirit in all the detail," explained Tonner. "We worked closely with Eidos to ensure every facet of the figure is completely accurate."

Dubbed TONNER'S Lara Croft, the 17-inch posable, collectible figurine debuted earlier today at Wizard World Chicago. For more information, visit TonnerDirect.com.