Yeah well what do you think of the screenshots in this post, they don’t look more than a little like Lara Croft do they? Yeah Jillian Michaels, or rather the people behind her new game “Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure” probably had no idea this is generally what Lara Croft wears when she’s out ‘adventuring’. “Jillian Michaels Fitness Adventure” is coming Exclusively to Kinect this Fall. We’ve got the full press release below… now if we could just shake the feeling we’ve seen all this before… hey.. now a Lara Croft fitness game.. that sounds pretty cool!

Best-selling author and Co-Host of ‘The Doctors’ brings you on an interactive journey in this unique, fully customizable experience.

Majesco Entertainment Company, an innovative provider of video games for the mass market, and Microprose announced today that Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Adventure is coming exclusively to Kinect™ for Xbox 360® later this fall. Renowned health and wellness expert Jillian Michaels makes her Kinect for Xbox 360 debut after selling more than one million units across her franchise.

Get ready to use your entire body this time as players join Jillian on an interactive adventure, which of course is also filled with Jillian’s trademark intensity! Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Adventure, the latest iteration of the Jillian Michaels franchise, takes your fitness routine beyond a basic workout and turns it into a real adventure through a mission-based, thrill-seeking journey set in a lush jungle temple environment. The high-energy and fully customizable motion-based experience offers a results-oriented personal training experience that you can expect from teaming up with Jillian to achieve your fitness goals.

Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Adventure features include:

* Multiple Exercise Modes: Fitness Adventure Mode – featuring Parkour-style action (a free-style mix of proactive and reactive running, jumping and climbing) set in an exciting jungle temple environment; Circuit Training – 10 exercise circuits hand-selected by Jillian herself available in three difficulty modes, giving you complete freedom to customize your session; and Individual Fitness Training – offering exercises of varying difficulty allowing you to work out at your own pace .

* Use Your Own Equipment: Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Adventure has training programs that can easily integrate various types of fitness gear you may already have at home. Or you can use the game’s complete regimen of training exercises that use your own body weight to get you back into shape…the choice is yours!

* Social Integration: Check out your own and your friends’ performance in the online leaderboards. Keep up the great work because Jillian will be monitoring the boards and the best performers will be honored on Jillian’s Facebook page.

* Stats: The game provides statistics to track your progress, including a calendar that shows you what days you have worked out from the moment you started playing the game to present day. It also displays the breakdown of calories burned, number of exercises/circuits completed, and time spent exercising. These can be viewed on a daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly basis.

Developed by N-Space and produced by Microprose, Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Adventure on Kinect for Xbox 360 is expected to launch this November.

Ladies, the first lady of gaming – Lara Croft – is back! The first full length teaser trailer for the new “Tomb Raider” game! As Lara Croft first spoke I thought “oh no, she doesn’t sound like Lara”, by the end of the trailer I didn’t care and she sounded just like Lara. Check out the trailer for the new “Tomb Raider” game below and let us know what you think. This has been high on our list of must have purchases since the artwork released back in December last year. What do you think of the new younger Lara? I was a bit confused about her seemingly having an ipod / iphone… guess it’s set now and she’s younger, that’s a little odd, I was hoping for some back story when Lara was younger, playing with her walkman and rockin legwarmers.

Other recent coverage:
New Tomb Raider game and The Descent. Similarities.

Just a quick post of a random observation today. We love female game characters as you’re no doubt aware and one of our favorites is of course Lara Croft. The new “Tomb Raider” game is high on our list of wants. We’re also lesbian geeks who love movies, so this leap wasn’t hard to get to given the recent concepts and screenshots that have been released.

Anyone else think the new young Lara Croft is just Juno from the Descent films? Climbing pick – CHECK!, bedraggled female hero – CHECK!, Blood spattered clothing on said hero – CHECK! … Wonder if the new Tomb Raider will feature monsters in a dank cave system… oh.. wait…

Images below!

Well we say “butched up” in the sense of the Hollywood butch, shaggy hair and looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge (Yes I’m looking at you Frankie Alan and Shane McCutcheon). Game Informer have the new Lara Croft as the cover of their January issue (which we’ve included below). The reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise will take us back to when Lara was young and less experienced. Through the game we’ll see how Lara became the strong willed woman many of us have grown to love.

What do you think of the new Lara? Personally I’ll take Lara Croft butch, lesbian, bi, gay, straight and in any packaging. I think it will be interesting to see how the inexperienced Lara learns to survive after a traumatic event.

Oh and I should add there is some odd coincidence here as our talented “Lesbian Tryst” artiste Amanda recently did us a new Lara named “Lara Cropped” for a new piece we’re doing. More about that shortly.

Addendum:
Here’s the official word folks.

Square Enix Ltd. is excited today to announce TOMB RAIDER®, the new game from Redwood City based studio Crystal Dynamics.

Here begins the first adventure for a young and inexperienced Lara Croft in a story which charts the journey of an ordinary woman who finds out just how far she must go in order to stay alive.

“Forget everything you know about TOMB RAIDER, we are exploring things that have never been done before in this game,” said Darrell Gallagher, Head of Studio, Crystal Dynamics. “This is an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other.”

Now who’s excited?

You may recall we covered a rumored new Tomb Raider / Lara Croft back around early September. Back then the leak came via “PC Gamer” and suggested the next Tomb Raider game would feature a young Lara Croft and would be set in Japan, on a Japanese island. The game was said to examine Lara Croft’s roots, featuring a young and less experienced adventurer. Now thanks to a LinkdIn profile and various rumors it seems we now know the next Tomb Raider title will be titled: “Tomb Raider: Ascension” and it will release in 2011. Previous rumors suggested the title would be “Tomb Raider: Downfall”, so this is quite the opposite.

As a huge Lara Croft fan, I cannot wait!

Next months Game Informer magazine will allegedly cover the game, with the following image also being leaked online. The image shows a shipwreck, which ties in with the idea of a young Lara Croft being stranded on a Japanese island.

Original coverage here.

Time for a little tomb raiding, only without the tombs. Gay Girls Who Game take a look at Lara’s new title, the XBLA / PSN / Windows game “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light”. These two gals are huge fans of the Tomb Raider games, so it’s no surprise they would be expecting this to be good. There’s lesbian connection chat, a Helena Peabody L Word rating and some symphonic Laraaaaa’s thrown in for good measure.

To see the review skip to around 15mins 50secs in.

If we are to believe print mag PC Gamer, that long rumored Tomb Raider game featuring a young Lara Croft will be set in Japan. In the magazine it states “Set on a Japanese island, the idea is to have one, cohesive level with multiple ways around the puzzles. We’ll also be exploring Lara’s origins, so she’ll be younger and inexperienced in the ways of raiding tombs.” Sounds pretty cool, but here’s hoping they expand a little on this young Lara Croft storyline and it isn’t just some silly game that feels more like an expansion. Wasn’t there a rumor last year of a movie featuring a young Lara Croft? Whatever the case, more Lara has gotta be a good thing right? Personally I don’t get this need in gaming now to always try and change things, another Lara story with regular Lara Croft would be just as good surely? And personally I think she’s at her best when she’s raiding tombs. Fingers crossed this comes to fruition, whatever form it takes.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is looking more interesting all the time, not only is it Lara Croft (always good), but now it’s looking like it’s part shooter, part puzzler, part upgradable level muncher. It’s also going to feature a whole wealth of weaponry, not that Lara needs that, but hey, might as well throw in flamethrowers, SMG’s and all manner of other weapons. Anyone else think this is similar to Hunter the Reckoning and Zombie Apocalypse.

Lara Croft fans, the first official trailer for upcoming Lara Croft title “Lara Croft: Guardian of Light” has been released and you can check it out below. You’re probably aware Lara Croft has had a bit of a third person Diablo-esque makeover, and now you get to see it in action (are her shorts actually even shorter?!). It’s nice to see Lara back headlining a game, and I guess it is nice to see a new approach, but I would still prefer Lara doing what she does best, in the way I’m used to. Lara Croft: Guardian of Light will release as DLC this summer.

Ever wondered what a female Assassin’s Creed assassin would look like? How about a male Lara Croft or a female Mario, or female Kratos from God of War, or rather Goddess of War. Wonder no more, David Stonecipher over at The Examiner has the lowdown with images of those along with a male Samus Aran, female Master Chief, female Sephiroth and female Link.They’re all really cool actually and it kind of highlights just how many characters could easily be female, but are generally male. That’s a whole other discussion we could have, but instead we’re just going to point you over to David’s images for you to enjoy. Anyone else think female Kratos looks a bit like Jack – Subject Zero – from Mass Effect 2?

Game Character Gender Swap – Via The Examiner.