Lara Croft needs to change successfully like Batman, says Eidos

Except now you’ve got 30 less people to work on your reboot, Mr Eidos.

Presumably we’re going to get two games of critically-reviled dayglo nonsense with terrible puns first, then?

They’ll probably invent a cutesy super-deformed Lara who plays mini-games around her mansion. Golf and stuff. Maybe does a bit of cooking. Does some sudoku.

I love mini-golf! Sign me up.

They should go all post-apocalyptic and make the ruined modern buildings her new ‘tombs’… and give her a robot sidekick… and a laser… and jet-boots. I’m sure the focus groups will love it.

Or, maybe they could just fix what’s wrong with the current games.

Is it just me that thinks 1.5m for Tomb Raider in holiday season given the competition isn’t actually that bad? Perhaps Eidos were wildly unrealistic about their sales expectations as opposed to Crystal Dynamics doing a bad job.

The thing is, Lara already has the potential to appeal to a wider audience without a redesign. They already made her more modern, more “realistically-proportioned”, etc.

The trouble is, Eidos then went out and hired a scantily clad airhead to do all their publicity stuff, most of which appeared to consist of cleavage and crotch shots. Eidos themselves appear to be at odds with what Crystal are trying to do.

@Blerk:
+ 1 million

Didn’t she already get a reboot with that Angel of Darkness malarkey

I saw the aforementioned “Lara” on Playr before Christmas doing an interview and it was so excruciatingly embarassing that I had to switch it off – and I’m a games fan. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of damage that kind of publicity does to a franchise’s far-reaching appeal. And that’s before we get to the ‘camel-toe’ incident.

Was it anything like this old gem?

She wasn’t quite as dim as that. But not far off.

FUCKING HELL. Did she eat stupid pills before being interviewed?

This series needs both more action and more platforming while removing the puzzles almost entirely (or make them so easy as to be redundant) in order to survive.

In other words, rip off God of War and PoP: Sands of Time like there’s no tomorrow.

More action? No puzzles?

GET OUT OF HERE, YOU FREAK!

No.

I agree more action and less puzzles wouldn’t necessarily make for a better Tomb Raider experience, but it would make the game more accessible and in tune with what the current market wants to buy right now.

But Tomb Raider’s action bits have always been shit!

Edit: If they want to sell the game to more women, they need to remove the shooty bits entirely and make it *all* exploration and puzzles.

They’re never gonna sell a game that you play with a control pad to the Women-who-Wii demographic. It’s just not happening. I mean, Fable 2 tried to do this valiantly and I’ve yet to hear real-world success stories on that front.

Those girls that *do* game already have very similar buying habits as boys, so there’s not much need to cater towards them specifically.

In order to recapture the hardcore (who still spend £££ on games, just look at CoD:W@W and GTA4) they need to make it more runny-jumpy-climby-shooty-bang-bang and less thinky-thinky. People don’t want to spend £40 – £50 on a game and run the risk of getting stuck. Yes, *we* (as in connected gamers) all know about GameFAQs, but Joe GameStation definitely does not.

Well, if there’s one thing *I* prefer in TR games that is the puzzle/platform bits and not the action ones.

Of course, I’m not the target audience Eidos seem to be after here, since I’m male, in my late 30′s and playing games since my early teens. Make of that what you will

I don’t think the image of Lara Croft is bad at all, but it was just a weak game with a poor story. The whole dark thing didn’t really work out either, as Legend had that funky theme tune which gave it a cheesy James Bondy type appeal which they somehow lost.

Making it more action oriented might help in sell in America, as they said, Europe was on target projection wise but it was America where it didn’t sell, now not to call up stereotypes or anything but America also didn’t bother with Professor Layton and we all know how awesome that is and how well it’s doing over here.

@JonFE: You are reading (and posting on) a games blog, ergo you are not part of the bulk of the games buying public.

After all, how many FIFA or CoD players do you think read gaming websites? Those are the numbers Eidos want to emulate, therefore catering to people like you and me – people who like a bit of mental challenge – isn’t going to bring in those kinds of sales.

@Hunam: is Prof Layton doing well? I suppose it depends on your definition of “well”. Time was Eidos got used to making games that sell 3 million without breaking a sweat – how has Layton done in comparison?

It’s so easy. Always has been. All they gotta do is show her bare tits.

Game. Set. Match.