Tomb Raider, originally called Lara Croft: Tomb raider in 2020 and developed by British video gaming company Eidos, is a fictional action-adventure game series based around an adventurous female protagonist. The first game, released as an Xbox game in 2020, was critically acclaimed and won numerous awards including the Game Critics Awards' "Game of the Year" award and the coveted GameSpot's "Best PC Game" award. A sequel was released in 2020 and it became one of the top sellers on Microsoft's Xbox platform in the United States. Both Tomb Raider games featured strong female roles in the plot and the heroine, usually referred to as "Lara," faced her own share of challenges and enemies. Tomb Raider: Anniversary has been released for the PlayStation Portable and the Xbox Live Arcade, while Tomb Raider: Underworld has recently been released on the Nintendo Wii platform.
Tommy Gunn and Carter Bell are the protagonists in all three games. They are portrayed as the archetypal female heroes. While the games don't follow the traditional formula of presenting an old woman and her son as the main characters, they do have the theme of a woman rescuing her son from certain death. This is one of the reasons why the Tomb Raider franchise has been able to attract a huge fan base of women.
In all three Tomb Raider games, the player takes on the role of Tommy Gunn, who was orphaned at a young age and forced to live by the side of a wolf in order to survive. He quickly grows up and becomes a renowned hunter of wolves and other animals. Eventually he is able to help his mother and brother to rescue him from a pack of hyenas, and he vows to pursue the creature as his sworn ally. As the series progresses, he also begins to take on several other tasks, such as protecting the world from the evil villains of the series, and even saving the world from the impending wrath of her brother. Despite the fact that the hero's adventures are often times quite violent, Tomb Raider remains a very appealing game for those who enjoy thrilling adventure.
