Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

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Lara's dead; long live Lara

If you're a fan of the series, the thought of 26 new screenshots will no doubt set your pulse racing..

Although a cynic might argue that anything resembling gameplay has long since been squeezed out of the Tomb Raider formula, the prospect of a game where our luscious heroine is actually dead does have a perverse attraction.. (A perverse attraction? How is that any different to a normal Tomb Raider game? -Ed) Shut up! You're spoiling the willing suspension of disbelief! (You're fired -Ed) But anyway, in an effort to inject a little originality into the series, creators Core Design have killed our vivacious leading lady and the game begins at her funeral, with a bunch of her friends remembering her life. And it unfolds from there as the group relates tales of her incredible heroism and in true "The Young Indiana Jones" style you play them out. Questions ought to be asked about what happens if you die during one of these recollections, but we reckon that it'd be suitably amusing if one of the other funeral attendees gave the storyteller a kick and told them to "tell it properly". Still, it should be good for some mindless platform action if nothing else, although these screenshots do suggest a more "covert" approach may be needed in some circumstances. The game will obviously be released on pretty much every format under the sun, and at the moment we have shots from the PSX and Dreamcast versions. Enjoy.