After all these years, Lara Croft is still as hot as ever! See Lara shoot, see Lara jump, see Lara bounce…

Yup, the game is out. Grab a copy now!

Guess who is the new Lara Croft model, yes it’s Karima Adebibe!

The international face of action hero Lara Croft has today been revealed as an unknown 20 year old model from Bethnal Green, London. Karima Adebibe, is set to be catapulted into the world of superstardom after being cast from thousands of hopefuls in an international search to fill the shoes of one of Hollywoods’ biggest stars.

Karima, a self confessed tomboy and Top Shop sales assistant, will need all her reserves of energy for the adventures that lie ahead in one of entertainment’s most challenging acting and modelling roles.

Starting immediately she will embark on a gruelling training programme which includes an SAS survival, combat and semi automatic weapon firing course in Eastern Europe and a crash course in world archaeology, deportment, elocution and etiquette lessons in order to portray Lady Lara Croft, the 11th generation Countess, archaeologist and action hero.

Once completely trained in the ways of video gaming’s leading lady, Karima will be lining up a host of international modelling assignments, starring in TV commercials, appearing on chat shows and is set to be travelling the globe for the next two years.

“This is an incredible opportunity for me and one which I plan to grasp with both hands” said Karima. “It’s a huge challenge to follow in the footsteps of people like Nell McAndrew and Angelina Jolie, but life is all about challenges and this is perhaps the biggest one for a model and actress.”

“Karima has all the assets needed to accurately portray the world’s favourite female action hero” said Matt Gorman, Brand Controller for Tomb Raider. “Lara Croft Tomb Raider Legend sees Lara at the very height of her powers this makes Karima the 7th and most important Lara Croft yet.”

Already tipped as ‘the blockbuster video game for 2006′ this will be the seventh game of English publisher Eidos’ hit series and sees Lara Croft return to her tombraiding roots. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Tomb Raider is one of the best selling videogames of all time. Lara Croft has transcended games, entertainment and technology into action figures, comic books, adventure novels, and two major motion pictures.

Karima follows in the footsteps of previous Lara Croft stars, Lucy Clarkson, Rhona Mitra, Nell McAndrew, Vanessa Demouy, Lara Weller and of course Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies. - TombRaiderChronicles.com

Here are the two TV Commercials (Japan) on the upcoming Blue Dragon for XBox 360. Mr. Sakaguchi is praising Mr. Toriyama’s cool artwork in the beginning of the video.

Can’t think of any good reasons to get an XBox 360? Check this out!!

Blue Dragon is a RPG being developed by Mist Walker for the Xbox 360 video game console. The release of this game is expected to have a great impact for Microsoft’s video game console in Japan, because this will be one of the first traditional Japanese RPG to come to Microsoft’s system (since RPGs are the most popular video game genre in Japan and Microsoft’s first game console, the Xbox, failed in the Japanese market due to the lack of traditional Japanese RPGs). On top of this, the game is being developed by the creators of Chrono Trigger, an extremely successful RPG, which makes it one of the most anctipated games of 2006. The game is featuring art from Akira Toriyama, who is the father of the Dragon Ball series and the art designer of Japan’s most popular video game series, Dragon Quest. Game music is being composed by Nobuo Uematsu, a well known Japanese music composer who wrote nearly all the music for the popular Final Fantasy video game series.

“Blue Dragon revolves around a group of adventurers from whom have inexplicably sprung gigantic, monstrous, tangible shadows. That may be hard to wrap your head around without actually seeing it in action, but just imagine a big bluish monster rising up behind each character, and you’ll be on the right track. The main character, a spunky kid named Shu, will journey along with his companions to discover where exactly these shadows came from and how the group can be rid of them–if it turns out that they actually want to lose the shadows at all, considering they’re pretty useful in a fight. ” - Gamespot

Here’s a 3:30 minutes footage on Blue Dragon. Enjoy the preview!
Visit Blue Dragon’s Official Japanese Web Site

Mistwalker (Japanese: ミストウォーカー) is a Japanese video game development studio started by Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of the popular Final Fantasy series) in 2004. The logo and name were trademarked in 2001. Mistwalker outsources coding duties to other companies (including Artoon, and Feel Plus), preferring to focus primarily on the design portion of game development.

Sakaguchi is the president of new studio, and Kensuke Tanaka, the creator of the PlayOnline system, is the vice president.

In August 2004, it was announced that Mistwalker had begun work on three new RPG games. One of them is a strategic RPG for the Nintendo DS titled ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat. The other two titles, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, are confirmed to be exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 videogame console.

While Mistwalker’s Xbox 360 titles had been publically detailed soon after their announcement in 2004, no public details were released regarding their previously announced Nintendo DS title until October 2005 when it was reported that the game would be called ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat and would feature pre-rendered graphics. - wikipedia.org

Official Website for Mist Walker