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I found this in a notepad file on the HD of my old Pentium 3 computer.

I posted this in one of the Tomb Raider forum back in February 2002!!

This is the full, actual post from back then, not one word has been changed!!

Ahhhh.... the good old, innocent days of Tomb Raider!!

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The following is the complete article taken from the March 2002 issue of the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine.

Not one word has been changed or omitted.

Contents posted herein Copyright 2002 by Ziff Davis Media Inc.

Screenshots from Tomb Raider Next Generation posted here are courtesy of www.ign.com. and MissLara2U

The Lara Croft Character and Tomb Raider are Trademark of Eidos Interactive and Core Design Ltd..

Copyright 1996 to 2002 by Eidos Interactive and Core Design Ltd.

All Rights Reserved.

thanks to Eidos Forum Moderators John Carter and Grey Mouser for giving us permission to post this thread

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TOMB RAIDER: THE NEXT GENERATION

If you had to pick the biggest video game franchise of the last decade, Tomb Raider would be a leading contender.

The size of Lara Croft as an asset is directly proportional to the prodigious size of her own primary assets. The Tomb Raider series has sold over 25 million copies worldwide to date on five platforms since its debut on the Sega's Saturn in 1996.

Lara's second outing remains the best-selling video game of all time in her native market, the U.K. And Sony still accepts that in a worldwide sense, the definitive PlayStation game in its crucial early years was Tomb Raider. Which is why it was somewhat disconcerting that the words "We wanted to finish at Tomb Raider II" greeted us as we tucked into tea and biscuits in the office of legendary Core Design Operations Director Adrian Smith.

We're in the shadow of Pride Park, ground of U.K. soccer team Derby County, where a small office block plays home to Core Design, the developer responsible for introducing tingling sensations to millions of prebulescent nether regions. OPM is the first magazine in the world to be allowed within its hallowed walls to see Lara reborn --literally-- on our favorite next-generation console. And Adrian is obviously feeling the need to get things off his chest.

"We always knew TRII would be the most successful game -- and it was. Tomb Raider III we changed significantly mechanically and I don't think it was the best game we produced. Technically, we pushed it a long way but we probably changed too much in response to consumers. It was too hard and too confusing, we put our hands up, we know that. Four was difficult because it was definitely the last game as far as we were concerned."

There's no doubt that after the success of the first two games, Core was under enormous pressure from publicly listed U.K. publisher Eidos to continue the franchise -- and swell its shareholders coffers accordingly. But the pressures of time culminated in increasing dissatisfaction from both Core and the general public itself.

FIVE GAMES: IS THREE TOO MANY?

"Five games in five years is a logistical nightmare -- and we'll never do it again," declares Adrian adamantly. But inevitably, with the arrival of the new platforms, the pressure was on once more. If nothing else, Sony would dearly love its latest console to receive the magic caress of Lara Croft just as PlayStation did five years ago.

"Put two and two together and you'll realize there was enormous pressure to do another game on the new consoles. But we didn't actually want to move the storyline further; Lara to all intents and purposes was dead... and hey, guess what, now she isn't it!! But we started thinking about Tomb Raider: Next Generation at the end of The Last Revelation, we began to come up with something very different."

The air of excitement at Core is palpable--and speaking as a journalist who met with somewhat listless teams working on the last two Tomb Raider games, the change is conspicuous. The opportunities the PS2 and the current generation PC platforms are being grabbed with both hands. But it's less the technology than a whole new story--and a side of Lara the gamer has never seen--which has inspired Adrian and his team.

"We didn't want to come out just with 'a better-looking Tomb Raider.' By virtue of the fact it's got Lara in it, and it's going to have Tomb Raider in the name, it's always going to be 'a better-looking Tomb Raider.' But that's a big problem with PS2: there have been too many 'good-looking sequels.' When we went from the old platforms to Playstation, we went from 2D to 3D and the whole game mechanic changed. There's no new directions we can take now -- gamers have all seen 3D games. We're very keen to make it different; but you have to be careful, because if we change it too much, it could backfire horrendously."

An older PS 2 audience means Core has the chance to be more gruesomely creative, allowing themselves to give Lara a dangerous edge. This game is grittier and darker than its predecessors. And at last Core has taken a Lara-scale leap from temples and tombs to more open, free-roaming enviroments. Adrian explains how Lara has moved on.

A LEGEND IN THE MAKING

Lara Croft has come a long way since her conception in the fertile mind of original Core artist Toby Gard way back in 1995.

Since her first public appearance at E3 in 1996, she has become one of the first video game characters to truly bereak out of the fetters of the video game business.

Worldwide, Lara Croft rapidly became a pop-culture icon. In fact, it's easy to forget how quickly it happened. It was in June 1997 that she appeared as cover star on influential U.K. style magazine The Face. In the same year, she supported U2 on the band's Popmart tour, appearing on giant video screens around the world, and the comic book Witchblade featured a special Lara crossover.

Shortly after the release of the second game in November 1997, Paramount lunged successfully for the movie rights and Lara's future as a megastar was assured.

Lara's character has developed physically through the series. When she was first conceived, she consisted of just 500 polygons. Tomb Raider II saw the arrival of the flowing pigtail, and, ahem, a more fully rounded figure. By the third outing in 1998, her repertoire of moves had been increased, but in the fourth game came fully skinned joints, a more detailed face and the most rounded chest of all.

So where now? Interestingly, the team feels she's reached her ideal "poly weight." Jerr O'Carroll, one of the animation teams, explains: "We've now gone from 500 to 5,000 polygons. We could easily make her out of 10,000 if we wanted to, but we don't. We actually want a silly pointy nose -- we want that feel."

Adrian Smith continues: "The original game set its own distinctive style, which arguably the later games lost. So we went back to those basics, asking Mark Donald, Lara's animator, to take her clothes off and remodel her. We looked at her for a long time, naked --so to speak-- without her shorts and green top because that image was so locked in our minds. The strange thing is that if you look at her backside in jeans, without her guns and her holsters on, the difference is amazing -- you discover she's actually got no bottom."

So that's what Core management does on a lazy afternoon. "It's pretty scary that a bunch of blokes like us are deciding what Lara's going to wear. We go through lots of women's mags, Don't we guys???"

REINVENTING LARA

"She's squeaky clean; in fact the background we invented for her was completely tongue in cheek -- we never thought it would stick. But it did, and it has come back to haunt us. We can't change that -- that's who Lara is, that's the character people relate to. Instead, we decided to put her in a position that was very alien to her and would change her behavior accordingly."

After much soul searching, the team decided that Lara should be framed for a crime she didn't apparently commit -- although you're never quite sure of her innocence... As the game opens, Lara is in a very compromising situation, and looking to an event in the future that has yet to come to pass. Before you know it, Lara is on the run -- from the police -- and her own fame.

"Because she's famous and everyone knows her face," Adrian explains, "the whole world has become her enemy. It's great for us, because the police are after her and whoever may or may not have framed her is after her; but she still isn't going to kill innocent people, so this gives us a new game mechanic instantly, avoiding being caught while finding out what's happening to her. She's in Paris, she hasn't got a gun; I've got to be stealthy, keep my head down; get to certain places, and talk to the right people." It's a testament to the passion the team feels for the character that all of them constantly slip into the first person when talking about her.

At the climax of the Last Revelation, Lara has endured a near-deathe experience, so she all but hangs up her gun and slips into something more comfortable than a pair of holsters, blood cramping-tight shorts and -- well, you know about that top.

But a phone call from a well-known Tomb Raider character (I'll leave you to figure it out) leads her to Paris to help hunt down a series of five paintings from the 14th Century by an artist known simply as the "Obscure Painter." From here, the story rapidly descends into the darker underbelly of Parisian lowlife. Lara, dressed in jeans and casual top, weaponless as the day she was born, gradually begins to piece together the events unfolding around her.

"People may end up categorizing the beginning as being like Metal Gear, but it's really more like a traditional Monkey-Island type adventure game; don't get caught, find out information, get to places, meet people, take one of a number of multiple routes to goals. We've never really done that in Tomb Raider. You'll be given clear direction, all the time you'll be pushed toward a certain key place."

The second section of the game sees Lara breaking into the Louvre. Adrian explains: "She's not going to be able to do that in jeans and a T-shirt. She's got to get tooled up, so she gets involved with the Underworld. It's turned nasty: Her face is in the papers and she has to get on the wrong side of the law to get the gear she needs."

Once inside, Tomb Raider fans need not fear that Core has abandoned the gameplay they loved. As she descends into the depths of the museum and caverns beneath it, dexterous leaps, switch flicking and mind-bending puzzles form the core of the game, traditional Raider style. And it's here that Lara meets Curtis Trent.

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Real locations in Paris were used to model many of the games' enviroments to make them feel extra gritty:

trng_4.jpg

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WHO WEARS THE PANTS?

Oh yes... Tomb Raider now has a second playable character, a goatee-bearded, suave but hardened adventurer. Curtis too is on the trail of five paintings, but for his own reasons. He is the last descendant of an ancient lineage, dedicated to the confinement of a monstrous 14th Century alchemist called Eckhardt, who escaped his captors during the second World War and is somehow involved the spot of bother that has engulfed our Zeppelin-chested heroine. Curtis, who had previously walked away from his historical legacy, has now dedicated his life to the recapture of this ancient evil.

Curtis is a more action-oriented character than Lara. He wields a throwing blade known internally as his "Frisbee," and has certain powers that can be brought into play. Core clearly has great things in store for the character: the company has even started development of a game in which he stars, temporarily on hold until the current title is completed.

The uniting of Lara and Curtis sees them leave Paris and dscend on the Strahow Complex in Plague for the third and final section. Without wanting to give too much away, this is the most gruesome location Lara has visited in her illustrious career. Eckhardt's followers have been creating hideous mutant hybrids in an attempt to resurrect an ancient race, the Nephilim, beings that according to legend are descendants of an unholy union between man and angel.

"Prague is a lot more action-oriented, featuring joint Curtis/Lara gameplay, both together," says Adrian. "The Strahow is a big medical institute and there's really scary **** happening deep down in the cellars. Curtis' strengths come to the fore, more brawn than brains."

Judging by the concept art and monstrous animations Core revealed to us, Tomb Raider inserts a large disemboweling hook into the horror genre. Bizarre baboon hybrids consume entrails from a dead body before scuttling into the ventilation system; and a hideous--and enormous--beetle-like creature holds a woman in its belly, controlling its every movement."

We've revealed just a fraction of the plot so as not to spoil the enjoyment of what is clearly set to be the most story-driven of the Tomb Raider outings. Indeed, you'll only uncover a fraction of the plot within the game itself. The team has clearly learned from past mistakes, as Adrian reveals.

ANOTHER FIVE GAMES

"The story behind Next Generation is probably the most complicated ever. And the consumer won't even understand it all after playing the game. What we said this time around was, 'Let's assume from day one we've got to do a second, third and fourth game.' Rather than write the first game only, we wrote the whole book; the games are like chapters. We have plots for five titles, all based around the themes introduced in this first game. We're going to open up lots of things... We love the funny man with a suitcase in Half-Life you could never get to. Likewise, we introduce lots of new characters along the way who may tell you stuff -- and you never see them again. At some point in a later game, what you've been told may turn out to be key information."

Just as you can watch 20 key episodes in The X-Files to follow the plot, so only a fraction of the new Lara Croft universe will need to be revealed to the gamer for him or her to enjoy the new Tomb Raider series. "The other reason for creating an epic story was because we'd always hoped that a lot of this information would become available to the player through other media. Maybe, and I say maybe because of infrastructure issues, you will be able to find out extra information about Curtis, or Eckhardt, or the Nephilim on one or more Web sites. There's been a lot of speculation that were going to release Tomb Raider games episodically online. For us, it's episodic because we write it as episodes; but we never perceived that you would download the second game online, for a number of reasons.

Number one, it just about fits onto a DVD, and number two, the infrastructure isn't there -- certainly in the U.K. We thought additional background information was the best way to use online to enhance the game experience and a more viable prospect with things as they stand. It's almost like reading a book at the same time as playing the game."

As well as broadening the scope and exploring the darker side of Lara, Core has also taken a fresh look at how the player can influence Lara's character development. This could have been as simeple as letting him or her dress her (or perhaps undress her?). But no, the team wanted to go further than that. A complex ability system has been introduced, which in simple terms allows Lara to improve her skills the more they are called upon.

"It might transpire that Lara can't hang off a ledge for long because she hasn't got the strength. But if she keeps doing it, her strength improves, and she'll be able to do it for longer in the future. You might become faster at running and able to get through a door before it closes and so on. You won't have to explore this aspect of the game, but if you don't, you only be able to play about 60 percent of what's there. The other 40 percent will be accessible after building up certain ability combinations, so you will be rewarded with more gameplay."

Planning and testing how the different ability combinations change the path players may take through the game in a free-roaming enviroment has proved a considerable challenge. In fact, technically, the sheer size of the Paris setting has given the team a massive headache.

"Originally, the game was going to consist of four locations, but it was just too much. We underestimated the level of details and the quantity of work. Our problems is that Lara can go anywhere: If she climbs a 10-story building, she's got to see Paris disappearing into the distance -- it's all got to be real. We've had to build scenery objects that are a mile back that you never get more than 10 streets close to. But we always knew that, when we said we decided to go this way. We wanted the beginning to be totally different, and it is!! It would have been so simple for us to have started the game with Lara standing in front of a temple."

GETTING TECHIE

You get the impression that despite the benefits, there's some regret in hindsight at the enormity of the task. Core has had to develop and refine itw world-building tools to be able to get a single team of artists and programmers working in tandem on the huge Parisian enviroment. The level is divided into zones within a massive reference file into which each artist can drop his or her buildings.

"If you tried to load the whole file at once, it would take around eight hours," says Adrian ruefully. This is in part due to the fact that the team has been at pains to maximize the number of polys in use no matter where Lara is. The vista from a rooftop overlooking Paris might use 200,000 polygons, but equally the interior of a pawnbroker's shop might also use 200,000.

A great deal of effort has gone into making the locations as realistic and atmospheric as possible. "We sent the team over to Paris to research the design. Within two days they got thrown out of the Louvre for taking photographs because [security] thought they were planning a robbery, and [they] nearly got beaten up by a pimp, because they were taking pictures in a seedy area and he thought they were working for the Police!" claims Adrian.

As far as we know, there are no members of the Core team currently scraping Lara's buxom form on the walls of a Parisian jail cell. What we do know is that the locations look stunning, both in concept art and in-game renderings. Players might find themselves crouched under the buttresses of the Louvre, clambering through a railway siding or inside a church converted into a nightclub. And in all cases, it's the lighting that makes Next Generation so compelling. Andy Wyatt, Tomb Raider's producer, loads a courtyard into the World Tool. In its raw textured form, it looks detailed but uninspiring.

"You can see how bad it looks unlit!! Now, let's add the light mapping, then the shadow mapping, and finally dynamic lights." Andy toggles switches and the scene comes to life. "The difference is dramatic. But as I'm sure you're aware, the problem with this is that we're drawing four textures. We also want a bit of interaction in there as well, so we're experimenting with putting moving masks on top of that. All that technology exists now.

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The darker, grittier look is something that will be evident throughout the new Tomb Raider series. Expect dirty-looking enviroments and even Silent Hill-style visual effects. The world Lara explores this time around is full of crazy features, machines and enviroments, but it's all presented in a much moodier fashion this time.

Check out the cool lighting in the following screenshot:

trng_2.jpg

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On PC, Core's primary development platform, the game will utilize all the features of NVIDIA GeForce 3 graphics cards. "Plus we have some of the cards that haven't been released yet," insists Adrian.

The team is currently, painstakingly, testing and adding in the graphical features on the PS2 version one by one to ensure the platform is capable of handling them.

"Light mapping is very 'expensive,;" explains Andy. What will definitely be in there is extensive fogging effects and the use of graphic noise ["We love that Silent Hill thing!"], especially in the darker scenes. "It gives it that grainy feel," explains Adrian. They're also experimenting with dynamic lighting effects: We're shown a demo where Lara has a flashlight beam emanating from next to her, um , chest. "Look -- it comes out of her bottom when she bends over," Adrian Crows.

CHARACTERS WITH CHARACTER

Moving aroung the Core Design studios, we get sneak previews of several of the in-game characters under development. "We do a character sheet for most of these guys, the main people who you'll meet," explains Jerr O'Carroll, one of the animation team.

He shows us a fabulous fat guy, whose gut bounces up and down convicingly as he moves. "Too many pies." The facial detail level is high, but within the constraints of the Tomb Raider look.

Eckhardt himself is a particularly dark character. He sports a wooden cyber-arm laden with bolts and metal strips, with almost a "steampunk" feel. "People have said he looks a bit like Jack Nicholson," claims Adrian. It's all in the eyebrows...

The speech animation and lip-synching will be improved in the new game, too. The animator first creates a small number of key facial shapes -- typically four, going up to seven or eight if the character has lots of speech and multiple emotions. Core has written a revolutionary utility that calculates the basic lip-synching automatically when the animator does the voice recording onto the character. It requires minor tweaking but saves a huge amount of time and effort.

Lara is blessed with a number of new animations and moves and as a result there will be some new controller assignments, but the team has ensured that the basic system is exactly the same, so the players won't need to learn new ways of doing old combinations. In fact, all the animators have joypads sitting on their desks -- they can check how the animation "feels" in response to the controller as they work. Curtis obviously has his own special moves, but shares the same controller assignments as Lara when he has similar moves.

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Lara will surely show off many new moves in her next adventure:

screen5.jpg

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So what is Lara's latest epic going to be called? No one as of yet is quite sure, but Adrian Smith is adamant about one thing: "We created a game called Tomb Raider. It isn't Lara Croft. In America, the research shows that the name Lara Croft is better recognized than Tomb Raider. And they always go on about how the movie has made that so. Of course the movie was going to promote Lara Croft more than Tomb Raider!! Lara is Angelina, and that's their asset, it's tangible. In the U.K. people know the game Tomb Raider and Lara Croft as one. We've gone through h*ell over the name, and we're still going through h*ell, but the working title, 'Tomb Raider The Lost Dominion', it will not be!! But don't worry, it will be 'Tomb Raider: Something'...

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Lara's next adventure is tentatively scheduled for release on December 3rd, 2002

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Have you ever notice that Lara is trigger happy???

Edited by J7Dadda
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