[Infernal Mass]

Here's an interview with Toby Gard from May...

How exactly did Lara and Gard's relationship go sour?
It's a sunny Monday morning and Toby Gard is explaining how the evil corporation sexed-up his sister and prostituted her around the world. First they made her wear skimpy clothes, he says. Then they gave her breast enlargements. Next, they forced her to become cheap titillation for teenage boys. "It was total violation," he says, thinly.

After Gard couldn't stand it anymore, after he said he was through with the corporation, after he'd resigned, they then went and sold her to Hollywood. The whole thing was ugly. Angelina Jolie was involved.

"Lara was based on elements of Indiana Jones, Tank Girl and, people always say, my sister," says Gard. "Maybe subconsciously she was my sister. Anyway, she was supposed to be this strong woman, this upper-class adventurer. The rules at the time were: if you're going to make a game, make sure the main character is male and make sure he's American, otherwise it won't sell in America. Those were the rules coming down from the marketing men. So I thought, 'Ah, I know how to fix this. I'll make the bad guys all American and the lead character female and as British as I can make her.'' (For a while, Lara was Laura Cruise, until that was deemed insufficiently British. The introductory pamphlet that came with the original game explains that Lara is the daughter of one Lord Henshingly Croft. Her birthday, incidentally, is 14 February.)

Gard continues. "She wasn't a tits-out-for-the-lads type of character in any way. Quite the opposite, in fact. I thought that what was interesting about her was she was this unattainable, austere, dangerous sort of person."

"I had problems when they started putting lower-cut clothes on her and sometimes taking her clothes off completely," says Gard. "It's really weird when you see a character of yours doing these things. You can't believe it. You think 'She can't do that!' I've spent my life drawing pictures of things and they're mine, you know?" And here he speaks with emphasis. "They belong to me."

Gard didn't like what Core was doing, but he couldn't do anything about it. Core owned Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, he either could continue working on something he didn't agree with, or leave. You now know his decision. Regardless, after 6 games and 2 theatrical films, Tomb Raider is still going.

"We take Tomb Raider for granted now," says Margaret Robertson, games editor at Edge magazine, the video-games bible. "But," she adds, "you've got to remember that when Toby Gard suggested making a game about a female archaeologist in hotpants, that was profoundly bizarre. In terms of innovation and not looking over your shoulder to see what everyone else is doing, there's not really anyone like Toby."

i read there's another interview he did that took place recently but i can't find it anywhere..this is the latest one before it was announced that he would be working on the new TR.