Lara Croft, The Bit Girl

How long Tomb Raider will be able to preserve its unique qualities remains to be seen. Eidos CEO Mike McGarvey acknowledges that there's tremendous pressure to bring multiplayer and Internet play to the Tomb Raider franchise. The designers at Core aren't convinced that they should go that route. ""We know from the success of Tomb Raider that the combination of dif- ferent elements--exploration, puzzles and combat--works really well as it stands,'' says Adrian Smith. ""The interaction is between the player and Lara; it's a very personal ex- perience. Having seven or eight Laras running around on screen would detract from the whole atmosphere of the game.''

Eidos is now the house that Lara built; sales of Tomb Raider helped turn a 1996 pretax loss of $2.6 million into a $14.5 million profit. So the company is proceeding aggressively in its efforts to leverage her appeal into other areas. The action figure is already in stores, and you can order jackets at the Web site (www.tombraider.com). The single performed by Rhona Mitra, who serves as Lara's flesh- and-flesh incarnation at trade shows, has been postponed so it won't interfere with the movie deal that Eidos hopes to finalize by the end of the year. The designers--and most fans--hope that it will be a computer-animated movie, but McGarvey says it will probably be live action. For now, fans will have to content themselves with the ad blitz on MTV, ESPN and the syndicated show ""Xena: Warrior Princess.'' The tag line? ""Lara's Back. Where the Boys Are.''

© 1997