Now, I dig Tomb Raider. But after Zero Punctuation's brutal review of Underworld, I'm started to feel mighty uncomfortable about all the animals Ms. Croft knocks off on her way to steal valuable stuff from dead people. In all seriousness, I actually apologized to the virtual panthers I shot up during my own review of Underworld. Because I'm a huge softie. And a cat owner. And maybe a little crazy after 10 straight hours of gameplay on deadline.

Enjoy the artwork, from the over-sexed to the over-manga'd. This image comes from Joe Jusko.

40 Various Styles Artworks of Lara Croft [The Design Inspiration]

Just in time for the PlayStation 3 version to become a £19.99 Platinum Hit in the UK, Eidos has announced that a patch to add trophy support to Tomb Raider: Underworld will be released on May28th. The announcement was delivered via the Eidos forums by community manager Keir Edmonds.

I am pleased to be able to announce that the PS3 Trophy Patch for Tomb Raider: Underworld has a confirmed worldwide release date of Thursday the 28th of May. Huzzah! Sorry for the delay and thank you very much to those who were able to wait patiently, it's really appreciated and I hope you get some great Raiding out of it.

Keir gets extra points for using the word "huzzah", a favorite on mine since my days as a renaissance fair frequenter.

PS3 Trophy Patch announcement [Eidos forums via 1UP]

In an interesting twist on Underworld's main story, Lara's Shadow gives us a chance to see what Miss Croft's cleverly crafted copy would do if she were in control of here own actions. From the launch trailer, it looks like it would do exactly what Lara was doing anyway, only much, much better.

Lara's Shadow is now available via Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft points.

The Lara Croft doppleganger first appeared during the main story of Tomb Raider: Underworld, created to best Lara at her own game. Of course the creature fails, but what if it didn't? Apparently we'd be playing a Prince of Persia game. The doppleganger is a melee fighting machine, running, jumping, and beating the hell out of everything in her path. It certainly looks a lot more entertaining than standard Tomb Raider fare, mainly because they've taken Lara's model, swapped abilities, and created a whole new way to play the game.

The Xbox 360-exclusive Lara's Shadow downloadable content is currently scheduled for a March 10th release.

While Eidos may feel that Lara Croft's Tomb Raider franchise is in need of an overhaul and the company says Underworld's performance hasn't met expectations, sales were decent enough to reduce the publisher's losses to just 1 million pounds ($1.43 million USD).

That's potentially good news for Square Enix, currently doing its damnedest to snatch up the European publisher.

Good work, Lara! And good luck speargunning those sharks!

Previously planned for a December launch, the two new downloadable levels from Eidos and Crystal Dynamics will give Tomb Raider: Underworld fans new areas to explore, new skin tight outfits and extra Achievements. What they won't provide is a sense of stability.

Eidos doesn't have new date for Lara's next mini-outing, but we'll operate under the assumption that the second batch, dubbed "Lara's Shadow," may not make its March 10th release date either. Just to keep from breaking down into tears again.

First announced back in October of last year and originally slated for a December release, Beneath the Ashes finds Lara returning to the ruins of Croft Manor to discover a massive series of caverns and crypts located underneath the rubble. While I am not sure what happens next, I am positive it doesn't involve Batman - but I want it to.

If adventuring isn't enough for you, the expansion DLC also comes with six new outfits and 125 achievement points. Not seeing a price on this in the press release though...just an indication that the codes for the pack will also be available at GameStop, which is nice for those of you who enjoy the whole going outside thing.

The second DLC pack, Lara's Shadow, will launch a month later on March 10th.

TOMB RAIDER: UNDERWORLD – BENEATH THE ASHES DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT FOR XBOX 360 SET FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 10

Redwood City, Calif. – Jan. 22, 2009 – Eidos Interactive Ltd, creator of some of the world’s leading videogame properties, today announced that Tomb Raider: Underworld™ – Beneath the Ashes, the first of two brand new downloadable levels in the continuing Tomb Raider™ adventures of Lara Croft™ will be available February 10. The second level, Tomb Raider: Underworld™ – Lara’s Shadow, will follow on March 10. Containing new gameplay levels and content for Tomb Raider: Underworld™, both packs will be available exclusively on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®.

Offering a new adventure specifically designed to extend the Tomb Raider: Underworld™ experience, Tomb Raider: Underworld™ – Beneath the Ashes sends Lara back to the remains of Croft Manor where she uncovers a massive series of never-before-seen caverns and age old crypts used to protect and hide a deadly source of power. The pack will also contain six new costumes and deliver an additional 125 achievement points.

Tomb Raider: Underworld™ seamlessly blends exploration, grand scale puzzle solving and combat, taking players on an archaeological journey to the ancient nether worlds of the Mediterranean, Thailand, Mexico, the Arctic Sea and more. As fearless adventurer Lara Croft, gamers uncover proof of the existence of the Norse underworld and the mythical Hammer of Thor, and embark on a perilous journey towards a forgotten power that, if unleashed, could lay waste to all of civilization. Lara’s latest adventure introduces scores of new capabilities and state-of-the-art gear, including an active sonar map, multi-purpose grapple and an all-terrain motorbike. With fresh moves that are more intuitive and realistic than ever before, players must master these in order to navigate through treacherous environments and defeat a range of hostile enemies.

Xbox LIVE is the largest social entertainment network on TV with more than 17 million members across 26 countries and nine languages. Xbox LIVE is seamlessly integrated throughout the entire console experience, making it easy for users to find the friends, games and entertainment they want from the moment they power on their Xbox 360 system. The online entertainment network offers hundreds of multiplayer games, downloadable games via Xbox LIVE Arcade, free and premium playable game demos, music videos, TV shows and movies, as well as new game levels, characters and vehicles for all their favorite retail games.

Tomb Raider: Underworld™ is rated “T” for Teen and is available now. The game was developed by Crystal Dynamics and is published by Eidos Interactive Ltd and co-published in North America by Eidos Inc. and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. For more information, visit the official site at http://www.tombraider.com.

A poster who says he is Eric Lindstrom, the creative director for the game, said that the downloadable content coming exclusively to the Xbox 360 was in fact a level removed from the original game.

"The content of DLC was absolutely not held back from Underworld for the purpose of selling later down the road."

"I needed to find a way to cut enough days from the schedule in a manner that would not rip a hole in the game that would take time to sew up."

"Even if I was told on that day that we would never ever make a downloabable level, I still would have had to cut it."

Lindstrom went on to say that he doesn't know if the deal will ever expire to allow Eidos to bring the content to the PS3 or Wii.

Another, anonymous, former Crystal Dynamics employee posting in the forums claims that the decision to cut the content was made specifically to use it later in DLC.

"Ask anyone who is part of it and if they are honest they will tell you around 40% of the DLC was meant to be in the game itself, originally. But it was decided later on to take out those parts because they were expecting most sales on the 360 and the DLC the way it looked at the time was looking to be a bit 'thin'. So we were asked to cut some parts out to be used in the DLC."

Other tidbits include the fact that Lindstrom says the team probably could have used more time to polish the game, but that he's still proud of it.

Lindstrom also went through a number of questioned asked of him in the growing thread, including talking about why some features were left out, where Croft may be headed and how previous games effected design decisions.

Early on in the thread Lindstrom says that the forum administrator can vouch for him, and while I could never find a comment doing so, the administrator was in there discussing the post with everyone else, so it seems likely this is legitimate.

Lindstrom on cut or missing features:

Replay level: "You all know (I hope) by now that the 360 works in such a way that you get something BETTER than level replay, you have Chapter Replay (via the autosaves) which gives you more options than just level replay. This was supposed to be how the PS3 and PC worked as well, and the reason they don't is just a mistake."

Replay cinematic: "This feature was always supposed to be in, but in the end it just couldn't happen, and here's why. All the cut scenes happen in-game, and the state of levels change." "We jammed everything onto the disc we could for the game itself and there was no room for movies. It was a sad day for me, but what else could we do?"

Cheats: "No cheats in Underworld because even cheats take development time, and it was clear in the final months that we needed to spend all out time on the up front game. We had some pretty cool things we could see, but couldn't afford even a half-day to put them in. I hesitate to say this because people will be jealous, but one of our animatorss put different models on Lara's rig and it was hilarious! He put the Med Sea shark on Lara's rig, so you could play the game in what looked like lara wearing a shark costume. He also made one that was tomatoes, a big one for a body and a small one each for lara's arms and legs. God, we wanted to put that on the disk, but couldn't."

Multiplayer:
"I've said Multiplayer has always come up and we do diligent work on how to do it properly for Tomb Raider, and this is true. It's just really hard, technically, creatively, and for Lara Croft. Maybe someday."

The last Lara overhaul (from Core):
"To be brutally honest, we didn't know anyone was as bonded to the original backstory as it turned out. That said, we probably would have made the changes anyway, and this is common. The Batman's backstory changes all the time, for instance."

"It was also believed that the braid would not behave properly with the new level of realism and outr physics and collision, I recall. Same on Underworld, and we had established the pony tail. I don't know if people will like or hate me for this, but I specifically made sure that the doppelganger had a braid as a nod to this debate among the fans. "

The next Lara overhaul:
"As for the female friendly makeover, huh...I don't know where that came from. I feel that even though Lara has attributes that appeal to males, the games doesn't pander to a male audience. Look at all the other games out there with female heroes, and look at their bustlines and what they are (barely) wearing. My Lead Designer Harley (a woman) agrees that Tomb Raider is not a gender specific game, and research shows that it appeals to female gamers very well."

Croft Manor:
"If I understand your question correctly, no, we never intended there to be a Croft Manor hub in Underworld. I knew from early on that the game was going to start with a flash forward of Croft Manor exploding, and that made the Croft Manor hub to complicated to deal with. But the reason we started talking about Lara having three manors back in Legend was for this eventuality."

Angel of Darkness:
"As to the AoD storyline, from what I heard, even Core Design only had a few notes as to where they were going to go with it, and we of course saw none of that. Obviously I can not say what storylines will pursued in the future, but in all honesty, when i was in charge of the Tomb Raider storyline, I wasn't interested in the AoD thread, personally. I didn't care for it when I played AoD, didn't really get it, and to pursue it I would have had to make up a bunch of stuff about what it all meant and what the Cheribum's were and all that. And it was all too mystical for me. I don't believe there is true magic in TR, just stuff that Atlantean tech can do that we don't yet understand...and I didn't get enough of what the real truth behind the myths of AoD was to interest me. There, I've said too much..."

Tomb Raider versus Uncharted:
"I think Underworld was a much better tomb raider experience than Uncharted, but Uncharted succeeded very well at what they were trying to do. The games were just very different with only a slight connection in their high concept."

If you want a chance to ask Lindstrom a question it sounds like he'll be present in the forums today as well.

Ask Eric and I'm one of the 30 who got fired by Eidos, ask away [BIG thanks to Phillip for all of the forum surfing and tip-off)

In The Times of London, Brent is quoted as modeling the Croft overhaul after the one the cinematic Batman went through — from yet another sequel to a new, more critically acclaimed, and profitable franchise.

“We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game," Brent said. "Look at how Batman changed succesfully, from the rather sad character of the Michael Keaton era to the noir style of The Dark Knight.”

The revision might make her a more female-friendly character, the Times speculates (it also calls her a "pneumatic archaelogist," I suppose in reference to her impossible dimensions.) Gloomy sales numbers for Tomb Raider: Underworld helped knock 30 percent off Eidos' share price this week. It's not expected to sell more than 2.5 million copies, whereas the previous game, Tomb Raider: Legend, sold 3 million. It indicates gamers might be getting tired of the character in her current state.

Lara Croft has appeared in eight games since her 1996 debut. If the comparison to a film character is apt, she's long overdue for an update. James Bond may be more than half a century old in film and novel, but each new Bond actor rejuvenates the franchise, and Casino Royale with Daniel Craig was a total makeover (its working title was even "Bond Begins," a nod to Batman.) A canonical do-over that minimizes the Lara Croft stereotypes and shortcomings may be just what the doctor ordered.

Lara Croft Faces Female-Friendly Makeover After Poor Sales in US Bring Profit Warning from Eidos [The Times of London, via Develop, thanks josh1122]

The cuts were made across the board, we're told, to eliminate redundancy and give the studio tighter focus moving forward.

Earlier this week, UK publisher Eidos said that sales of the latest Tomb Raider title were below forecasts because of the U.S. economy.

The company put full year revenue forecast at somewhere between £180m and £200m, but the 2008 revenue results will actually fall between £160m and £180m. Eidos said it might have to discuss debt repayments with its lenders.

According to the BBC, North American game retailers are already selling Tomb Raider: Underworld at a sizable discount — not a bad thing if you want to buy the game, but not so good for Eidos. The company had put full year revenue forecast at somewhere between £180m and £200m.

The 2008 revenue results will actually fall between £160m and £180m. Eidos said it might have to discuss debt repayments with its lenders.

According to Eidos: "In an difficult North American economy, we have seen retailers restricting inventory levels and...products priced discounted above our expectations." Eidos isn't the first company to complain about this stinky economy and certainly won't be the last.

Lara Croft battles sales downturn [BBC]

Apparently the massive, 198MB download has been sitting there for quite some time, but nobody bothered to let us know, so we were fully prepared to go into the new year without the stirring main theme from Troels Brun Folmann, or the bulk of the game's music from composer Colin O'Malley. Thankfully that isn't the case.

Well, assuming all of the folks who now know about the soundtrack finish up their downloads so we stop getting "Too many connections. Try again later" errors. Just give yourself a little time for the sharks to stop circling and the music shall be yours.

Tomb Raider Underworld Original Soundtrack Download [Tomb Raider Chronicles via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

But giving them away for free they are, seemingly as a promotion to light a fire under Xbox 360 owners to pick up the latest Tomb Raider. The official site does write that the two new skin tight outfits are "courtesy of publisher Eidos plc and Microsoft," a clever move to appeal to those who lust after Lara Croft.

If you don't yet have the game, you can still download the two new outfits for later use. Or, you can simply download the renders of both in 5120x2880 resolution and do whatever it is you would normally do with something like that. Creep.

In actual news, the official site updates us on the planned Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable chapters, Beneath The Ashes and Lara's Shadow, the release of which is "looking likely to be sometime in January."

WETSUIT COSTUME PACK HITS XBOX LIVE [Tomb Raider Underworld]

The winner is after the jump. Actually, I also put the second place winner as well. Due to a technical snafu (I APOLOGIZED DON'T BE ANGRY), we had to vote again. I'll need the first place winner and second place winner to send their home addresses to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom.

Creepy Tom Selleck 'stache came in first...

...followed closely by this beautiful hand-drawn entry. The first place winner will get a copy of Tomb Raider Underworld. The second place will get something — though I have no clue just yet. Feel bad for the double voting! Again, apologizes.

Turns out that some people playing through the Wii version find themselves in Thailand without a lever, a lever that, I assume, opens something that lets you continue through the game.

Eidos confirms that the bug exists and sends their apologies:

"We are aware of a bug which is present in the Nintendo Wii version of Tomb Raider: Underworld. We would like to stress that this is an extremely infrequent bug, however on the rare occasion that it occurs; it affects the presence of a lever in the Thailand level of the game and prevents progress beyond this level. Eidos sincerely apologies to anyone who has experienced this frustrating problem.

The quality of our games is paramount to us and the Nintendo Wii version of Tomb Raider: Underworld went through three separate QA testing departments prior to release. Regrettably anomalies such as this do occur occasionally in videogames despite the best efforts by publishers to avoid them. The good news is that it is not an unsolvable bug, so if you encounter it and it persists please visit www.eidosinteractive.co.uk/support/worldmap.html ."

What happens when you go to that website listed? You see a sea of support numbers to call. When you do I'd assume they tell you to revert to an earlier save or hit you up with one of their saves right past that point. Hmmmm, does anyone else smell a recall?

Now the on their third Tomb Raider game following the solid Legend and Anniversary releases, Crystal Dynamics takes Lara to greater depths than ever before in Tomb Raider: Underworld, and while we know our opinion of Lara as a virtual woman (rawr), for opinions on the game we turn to the assembled critics of the game industry to help us steer past the curves.

GameSpy
For fans, Underworld successfully brings things full-circle, delivering a fitting solution to the missing mom equation that has had Lara puzzled for the last two games. For those unfamiliar with Lara's past adventures, however, Underworld does little to describe the profound significance of its events in relation to the previous games. The result is that Underworld is weighted to benefit longtime fans and is fairly successful from a purely story-based standpoint, but this plot payoff is buried under layers of mechanical and technical issues that could keep all but the most devoted followers of Miss Croft from finishing her trilogy.

Eurogamer
Of course, Tomb Raider plots have always been about mythological gibberish, and for good reason. No one wants to see Lara embarking on an epic quest to find her car keys, or completing a difficult sequence of jumps, rope-swings, pole-slides and wall-climbs in order to reach the doorway to Argos. But I was hoping for a proper storyline, a narrative with real twists and an objective you actually want to achieve. What I got was a load of old bunkum and plot developments so tedious I'd forgotten them by the time the cut-scenes were finished.

TeamXbox
The extensive range motion-captured animations have been smoothly connected, so there’s a nice flow to Lara’s movement if you take her from a walk to a sprint; from a leap over a set of grinder rollers to a dive under a head-high set; or leaping from her fingertip hang at the edge of a stone shelf to a freeclimbing perch across the craggy face of a rocky buttress. Of course, the level design puts you in those predicaments constantly—though that aren’t too difficult to navigate successfully, you’ll have to work at finding the path that’ll take you from where you are to where you want to be.

Videogamer.com
Combat thankfully plays second fiddle to exploration. It's by no means bad, with Lara able to target and even focus shoot enemies in the head for instant kills, but she just doesn't seem at home doing somersaults while firing pistols. Also making a reappearance is the bike from Legend. Thankfully it handles far better here and is only used as a means to get from location to location rather than having levels dedicated to it. Later levels have an almost free-roaming feel to them, with Lara able to bike around the environment, leaving it behind when entering buildings. It's a nice touch and gives the game a great sense of scale.

PSM3 UK
Underworld lacks polish, but whenever you find a reason to hate it, you come across something that makes you instantly forgive its shortcomings. Like the sundial puzzle in Mexico (which takes nearly an hour to complete) that unlocks the entrance to Xiabalba, the Mayan underworld. Or scaling cliffs on the Thai coast as sunlight dances across the Indian Ocean below you. Or discovering an ancient, dusty tomb beneath Croft Manor. The game's full of surprises and memorable moments.

Kotaku
Tomb Raider: Underworld is a gorgeous game that doesn’t deviate from what we’ve come to expect from Lara Croft over the years. The puzzles are logical, the plot is not, and even though Lara’s boobs have gone down a couple of sizes over the years, she’s still got a backside you won’t mind watching as you scale walls over and over again in nothing but a bathing suit (take that, Nathan Drake!). The additions of swimming, motorcycle driving, and melee combat to gameplay manage to add something to Underworld without reinventing the wheel. But maybe that’s the game's biggest failing: it didn’t try to do anything revolutionary; it only tried to bring Lara Croft up to speed.

Not the best Lara Croft outing, but far from the worst.

GOOD LUCK FINALIST PEOPLE.

True to the original game’s roots, Underworld's gameplay is 75 percent platforming and puzzle-solving, 20 percent action and 5 percent cut scene. The old quicktime events where you had to wait for that magic button to pop up before you could order Lara to move out of harm’s way have been replaced by “situational adrenaline” moments where everything slows way down and you retain complete control of Lara – so if she dies, it’s totally your fault and not the game’s for tricking you into pressing the wrong button.

Hit the jump to find out how we weighed in on Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Loved

The Music: Good video game music doesn’t distract you from the action; the best video game music adds something to the atmosphere. With Lara running all over the world from Thailand and Mexico to mystical locations like Valhalla and Niflheim (the theme is Underworld – get it?),there’s a lot of atmosphere to account for. The score, supervised by British Academy Award-winner Troels Brun Folmann and composed by Colin O’Malley, features fragmented music that kicks in specific to events in the game and (usually) does not loop. This is really helpful during puzzle-solving chains when you’re not sure if you’ve done something right; a swelling crescendo of choral music is a pretty big hint that you’re on the right track. And during the action-packed scenes where Lara’s racing the clock, the music really gets your blood pumping in the best way.

The Water: A big gimmick in Underworld is swimming, so expect to be doing a lot of it. Fortunately, the swimming mechanics are fairly easy to master and the water looks damn great – even greater than Lara’s collection of skin tight wet suits. Usually, when a game touts its pretty water effects, it’s a bad sign that there’s nothing much to talk about. Not true for Underworld. There’s a lot of stuff to talk about; it’s just that you’ll be seeing so much of the water that it’s worth mentioning how gorgeous it is: an ocean shimmering in a Thailand sunset, raindrops glazing temple walls in Southern Mexico, and the glorious site of Lara Croft’s bare legs scissoring through the murky depths of the Arctic Sea (never mind that she’d freeze to death real life).

Thor’s Hammer: Underworld, like several other games released this year, has a preternatural obsession with (and weak understanding of) Norse mythology; which explains why you’d be looking for one of Thor’s gauntlets in Thailand. If you can ignore the sheer impossibility of Mayan temples being built around ancient statues of Thor (you did it for Aliens vs. Predator – you can do it again), the plot point of finding Thor’s entire ensemble so you can wield his hammer, Mjolnir, is actually pretty compelling. There’s other stuff in there that ret-cons wraps up plot points left hanging in Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary, but for first-timers and those that couldn’t be arsed with the last two games, the find-the-Thor-stuff is fairly compelling. A good rule of thumb for game designers is: if you’re going to include a huge plot point about mythical weapons, it’s good manners to let the player use said mythical weapons. It’s even better if said mythical weapons are freaking amazing, clearing entire corridors of bad guys in a single swing.

Hated

Twitchy Controls: It’s been 12 years, Lara, could you please learn to jump where I tell you to jump and not where you think you ought to jump?! I enjoy your blood-curdling screams as much as the next gamer forced to repeat an entire puzzle 11 times over, but when I mash the analog stick to the left, where the climbable ledge is, I expect you to jump LEFT, not forward into the acid pit. It’s weird when a character handles better underwater or on the back of a motorcycle than they do on their own two feet. The Tomb Raider control scheme has always been a bit of headache with the occasional suicidal leap from Lara, but in Underworld, where a single missed jump a) fails to kill you and b) means you have to backtrack through an entire level to repeat the puzzle, these headaches quickly become murderous rages.

Gameplay Extension: Underworld is pretty generous with checkpoints, but don’t be fooled by the apparent generosity of the developer; the checkpoint system is a diabolical plot to make a six hour game into a 10 hour game. Because many of the puzzles are non-linear (that is, you could complete any part of it at any time and still get the same result), you have to rely on the magical chime sound to tell you that you’ve reached a checkpoint (also, look for health packs, that’s a huge tipoff). You’ll only hear the chime when you hit the checkpoint the first time, but the checkpoint will be reactivated if you happen to go past it again.

So imagine this: You go all the way into an ancient temple to a burial chamber to do… something. Instead of teleporting you out when you’re done, you’ve got to go back through the temple – only you can’t go back the way you came because you blew shit up on the way in and now you have to climb over it. But – oops! – you fall from a ledge and wind up in the middle of the temple that still has the entrance blocked off. Well, it’d take another 20 minutes to work your way back to the burial chamber, so why not plunge off that cliff there and spawn back at the last checkpoint before you blew that jump? Ha! Fooled you, says the game. You don’t go back to the checkpoint before the jump, you go back to the last checkpoint in the room you fell into. Now a 20 minute backtrack has become a 25 minute backtrack because you’ve got to sit through the level loading screen while Lara respawns.

Bugs: I’m curious whether the 360 version will have as many hiccups as the PS3 version. There were no show-stoppers but the frame rate took a nose dive every time there was lightning (mind you Thor’s Hammer generates lighting, so this bug happened a lot towards the end), and there was an odd flicker on the screen every so often in the Southern Mexico level. Also, Lara clips through the environment an awful lot (which can be amusing when the ragdoll physics kick in during death). These aren’t big deals in bug land but for a game that seems so wonderfully polished in appearance and atmosphere, it’s kind of a slap in the face (albeit a hilarious one) when Lara falls from a ledge and lodges herself headfirst in the floor with her legs splayed and arms twitching.

Tomb Raider: Underworld might remind players of another pretty game on the PS3 — Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune features almost as many lush tropical locations, as much dynamic lighting, and the same amount of water effects as Underworld. To be fair, Tomb Raider established itself way before Nathan Drake was even a glimmer in Naughty Dog's eye, and how different do you really expect jungles to look? But as you play through Underworld and start to notice more than a few similarities (up to and including the camcorder narrations), you might start to wonder if you're really playing Uncharted: The Chick Version instead of Lara Croft's Super-Awesome Next-Gen Comeback.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is a gorgeous game that doesn’t deviate from what we’ve come to expect from Lara Croft over the years. The puzzles are logical, the plot is not, and even though Lara’s boobs have gone down a couple of sizes over the years, she’s still got a backside you won’t mind watching as you scale walls over and over again in nothing but a bathing suit (take that, Nathan Drake!). The additions of swimming, motorcycle driving, and melee combat to gameplay manage to add something to Underworld without reinventing the wheel. But maybe that’s the game's biggest failing: it didn’t try to do anything revolutionary; it only tried to bring Lara Croft up to speed.

Tomb Raider: Underworld was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Nixxes Software and published in North America by Eidos Interactive. It released on November 18, 2008 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii and DS, with the PS2 version delayed ‘til January 2009. Retails for $39.99 to $59.99 USD. Completed PS3 story mode, tested treasure hunt mode.

Best part? Watching Totilo trying to follow in her footsteps. Thanks goodness he doesn't have the same outfit.

Watch Lara Croft Model Flip Through Our Office [video]

[Facebook is] not for me. I’d be opening myself up too much. I don’t want to sound like a complete innocent — I’ve looked at things, of course. But it’s such spewing. If I look at it, I’ll be affected. It’s like dancing with the devil. But I have spent hours on FirstDibs.com, looking at furniture. And I like to play Scrabble. And poker. I discovered Wii this weekend. I’m a late bloomer.

Jennifer, baby! Glad to have you aboard as a gamer! Have we got a new AAA-release for you to try out!

Jennifer Aniston Discovers the Wii, Says She's a Late Bloomer [The Wiire]