Ok so of course the second my RSS feed told me there was a demo for the new Tomb Raider game I had to download it. So I set it to download last night, and had a go of it this morning.

Now I'm a tad disappointed it doesn't look as pretty as Legend, the level design is nice and all, but Lara doesn't match up to what she was in the previous game, plus the fact I'm sure her breasts have grown a few sizes as well.

It's got the same lovely Legend feel with the start screen, although, that means it won't have the same cute selection screen like the original did, where you could choose to use her passport, meaning start playing the game, but it still looks pretty.

Although as Charlotte pointed out to me if you watch the title screen for a while she will stretch and I warn you there is bouncing.

The Demo chucks you straight into the game, no cutscene or anything (bearing in mind it is a demo though) and it tells you where you are, the only thing that killed it for me when this happened was the blur. As you can see from the screenshot I took.

It really hurt my eyes first time I tried to focus on it, but I got used to it in the end. Now, one lovely aspect of this game is the loading screens, complete nostalgia to the original, if you've played it and the demo you should know what I mean, only thing I didn't like is you didn't get a loading screen before the game started. But that's good I suppose?

Once placed in the space you descend onto some lower area, where you are faced with wolves to kill (oh my a random encounter) once I killed these doggies it really made me realise how much Legend was not a Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider was always walking around and then suddenly you get attacked by some sort of animal. But Legend you only really had enemies when you were pretty much scripted to in the story, it was like: Cutscene of guys - kill guys - jump about lots - cutscene of some guys - kill them. (But yes I realise there were some animals in it too)

I must say I prefer Anniversary for the fact its surprise attacks, bar of course with bosses.

Ok so the second I had killed them, Charlotte from behind me yelled "Jump in the water, jump in the water" And yes Lara does get wet in a sense, and as Charlotte also pointed out her top gets darker once being in the water. But the water also gives Lara a rippled look, as in the part of her under the water, although there seems to be a bit of a glitch with it, and her face ripples too.

Even though I wouldn't call it so much of a next gen game, it gives a nice illusion of depth with the camera angles at times, as you can see from the picture.

Although with saying the depth is nice, Lara does seem rather small in comparison to a lot of the objects in the world.

All in all the demo is a nice piece of work, I found a few bugs and I hope they'll be straightened out, if not I hope a patch is released that will fix them. I find the controls a bit funny on the PC but that may be as I played Legend on the Xbox 360. I just hope the full game will give me the lovely feeling of nostalgia, and if the Croft manor is not like in the original game I will be an unhappy bunny.

And as an end note

I recommend people try the demo, I will certainly be buying the game on Friday, I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Ok well as some people may know I went to Lionhead a few weeks ago, for what they call work experience, I'd just call it testing, but it was a whole mix of things anyway. My sister booked us a place for work experience about a year ago, which may seem really shocking, but it is Lionhead one of the biggest and well known game companies in the UK.

Anyway, so it was the easter break so we'd travelled back home anyway, so it was less of a train journey to Guildford, we headed out on Sunday the 8th of April booked into our hotel (the YMCA) and then had a pop around Guildford which seemed like a lovely place, especially at the time of day we were there, as the YMCA weren't feeding us as it was easter sunday we decided to eat at TGI Fridays, and it was such a nice experience, the food was lovely (especially the breaded mozerella) and the amazing popcorn brownie sundae which was the best thing ever.

Ok so the next day was a bank holiday so we missed out on a day of testing :( so we decided to go shopping. Where our "replacement moo" popped up in a few places such as:

and

Amungst eating lovely dinners and breakfasts at the YMCA there was the amazingness of Lionhead. The first day we caught the bus there we got there really early, as did another guy which we presumed was also doing the testing as well.

While I was trying to work out if we would be able to catch buses home in time for dinner.

Charlotte was busy taking some pictures, here you can see Lionhead's studio.

From a little far away, but its in a lovely scenic area, right by tesco's which must be rather handy in the long run.

And also Luke, who was the guy testing at the same time as us.

As we entered the nice little building we were confronted with a real pretty reception desk, with accompanying concept art and various awards.

Anywho after a nice introduction to Lionhead from the lovely Claire, and also a nice guided tour we were left in the hands of the lead test - Nathan and the assistant lead - Kiernan, who are very lovely guys.

After the first few days we had been given some awesome free items, well firstly a nice sealed copy of Fable from Claire while being introduced, and then a wonderful poster the day after, which is going to be framed and put up in our new house in the summer.

After a week full of testing (well 4 days actually) we were so tired, the whole 10-6 get up of working lots was very strange to us, well university is pretty laid back in comparison, even little moo was tired.

Along with meeting the likes of Dene Carter, Alex...scripter guy :), the awesome Adam, John McCormack, seeing Mike the concept artists amazing work, and lots of other people with so many names I cannot remember O_o.

Yet we did not get to meet Peter Molyneux, myself and Charlotte were completely bummed at that, but there's always other times I'm sure.

But yes along with lovely free drinks and talking to some really interesting people I had an immense amount of fun at Lionhead, I will not mention about the three somethings that we had a play with, or the special something we got to see, or how amazing some things are. But it was great, I must say I would be honoured to be able to get a job in the next few years at Lionhead.

Plus they need more girlies :D.

But we didn't leave empty handed...or well with just the posters and games, we were also given a cute little certificate each, which actually wasn't signed by many people, but when we were so kindly given a lift by Claire back to the YMCA we asked if she could sign it, cos you can't forget Claire :) and she ended up getting it signed by a whole bunch of people :) and we were sneaky and also got her get one of our Fable inlays signed too. Thank you so much Claire, it's amazin!

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Lionhead, and I hope I will get to see the place again.

And I cannot wait for Fable 2!