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Alison Carroll Is The New Lara Croft.

Paparazzi are pretty creepy right. What with the whole Britney Spears going mental and Princess Diana getting killed or whatever. I used to think that if I was a celeb I’d quite enjoy getting my followed everywhere all day; would totally make me feel good that someone was getting paid to follow me.

I think a lot of the time celebrities want the pap’s to follow them - from media portrayal you get the sense that a lot of people in the public lime light are attention seekers. And I still believe all that is true but having seen video’s of people like Madonna, Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears being literally hounded I kinda think it’s all a bit weird now.

ANYWAY. How do I tie this in with Lara Croft? Well, like this, because I’ve been meaning to write a post about the new “Lara Croft” for ages. Alison Carroll, a south-London born gymnast has taken on the role of being the “real” Lara Croft in time for the release of new game Underworld (which genuinely looks ok). This means she get’s to make awesome promo videos like this to create hype:

Mmmm-ahem… Anyway crazy geeks have managed to locate her, stay in the hotel room opposite her, and take pictures of her through their door’s peeping hole.

Tomb Stalker (rolls eyes).

Too much? Hell yes.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune Genuinely Does Look This Good!

Uncharted is one of those games that gripped me. It never exactly did anything that I couldn’t get in an experience elsewhere but what it did do was glue together all the good ideas from Gears Of War and Tomb Raider. Hence why I’m about to play through the game for the third-time in about a week.

The story follows Nathan Drake who is the fictional descendant of Sir Francis Drake. The games story catches you right from the start with the way it presents the plot. It’s movie-like in it’s presentation and while sadly it does steal a lot of Hollywood cliche’s it also does a chief job of integrating the plot into the game. Like in Metal Gear Solid 4 the camera will occasionally just flip out of a cut-scene and put you in charge of the protagonist. And you’ll sit there dumbfounded by the fact you’re essentially controlling a cut-scene. The graphics are that good in the early levels you’ll have to slap yourself to believe what you’re seeing.

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune is essentially half-platformer as you traverse across landscapes and buildings Tomb Raider-style and half third-person shooter. It has a Gears Of War-esque cover system and the game will require you snapping yourself behind walls at every opportunity because literally two-or-three shots will kill you in this game.

The game employs a medals system (which is now linked to Playstation Trophies) to make up for the campaign’s somewhat short length. There are 61 hidden treasures to find and certain submissions to complete as you play through (50 kills without dying for example).

The beauty of Uncharted lies in it’s overlookable presence. You see, there are many people that see a new IP like Uncharted, here it’s basic gameplay is just a reworking of stuff that’s been done before and they decide to skip the game. The fact is though that Uncharted is a wonderful game — what it lacks in originality it makes up for in polish ten times over.

9/10.