Tomb Raider Classics Collection

Includes: Tomb Raider Anniversary Tomb Raider I Tomb Raider II Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Laracroft Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation Tomb Raider V: Chronicles Tomb Raider VI: The Angel of Darkness Tomb Raider VII: Legend Tomb Raider VIII: Underworld Following British archeologist Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider series of games, comics, movies, theme park rides and novels are a pop-culture phenomenon the world over. The development of Tomb Raider began in 1993 taking 3 years to complete. On November 15th, 1996, Tomb Raider was finally made available for public consumption. The developers were Core Design, who spent 18 months working on the game. One of the reasons for this extensive development period is that the Core Design team consisted of only 6 people. It was Toby Gard who, out of the team of 6, undertook the task of developing Lara. Originally, the lead character was set to be male, essentially no more than an Indiana Jones clone. It wasn't until Toby noticed many of his co-workers playing as female fighters from the game Virtual Fighter that he decided to alter the hero's sex and turn her into a heroine. At around this time, the entire team decided that puzzles and stealth would be a more appropriate approach to developing the game than the all too common action archetype. Lara was born under the name Laura Cruz and was intended to be a cold blooded militaristic South African anti-hero. However, over time, Laura became a warmer character and Core Design decided to make Laura a British character, in order to make her feel more familiar to the intended American audiences. The name Lara Croft was supposedly taken by picking a name out from a phone book that was closest to Laura Cruz, whilst retaining a sense of Western impact. Upon Tomb Raiders release, it was a critical and financial success, securing a place in video-game history and ensuring a lengthy franchise for Lara Croft and her adventures, which would far surpass Core Designs original goals.