With the news that 2013's Tomb Raider reboot has now sold a whopping 8.5 million copies, it's only a matter of time before other ailing franchises take a leaf out of Lara Croft's sweaty, blood-spattered book.
With a further instalment of the formative Croft's adventures due to out later this year - bringing with it yet more casual slaughter, and a worrying deficit of survivor's guilt - expect an imminent onslaught of grim and gritty series reimaginings.
Here are three long-in-the-tooth franchises that would benefit from a Tomb Raider-style kickstart.
With a further instalment of the formative Croft's adventures due to out later this year - bringing with it yet more casual slaughter, and a worrying deficit of survivor's guilt - expect an imminent onslaught of grim and gritty series reimaginings.
Here are three long-in-the-tooth franchises that would benefit from a Tomb Raider-style kickstart.
PAC-MAN
Manfred Mannheim is a charity worker for the Pacifist Aid Committee - an organisation delivering medical and food supplies to war-torn countries.
Aboard the P.A.C's ship, the Fruit Rainbow, Manfred is joined
by the grizzled Captain "Blinky" Oikake, fellow humanitarian Lauren "Pinky" Machibuse, Kim "Inky" Agure - a journalist for The Altruistic Times - and his best friend Clyde Otoboke.
Unfortunately, as the ship enters the hostile waters of the small African nation that was to be their destination, a warship opens fire on the Fruit Rainbow, sinking it and taking everyone but Manfred down to the bottom.
As he clings to smouldering wreckage, Manfred mournfully calls out to his friends, before slipping into unconsciousness... He awakens days later at the centre of a makeshift labyrinth in a dusty shanty town, where he is forced to debase himself for the entertainment of the vicious warlords - mostly by doing loads of pointless running around and that.
Haunted by the damning ghosts of his drowned companions, the only way to keep the visions at bay is to consume vast quantities of the narcotics the war chiefs manufacture to fund their illegal civil war... What will it take for "Pacifist Manfred" to become the "Pac Man" we all know? Answer: massive heroin addiction and jaundice.
Manfred Mannheim is a charity worker for the Pacifist Aid Committee - an organisation delivering medical and food supplies to war-torn countries.
Aboard the P.A.C's ship, the Fruit Rainbow, Manfred is joined
by the grizzled Captain "Blinky" Oikake, fellow humanitarian Lauren "Pinky" Machibuse, Kim "Inky" Agure - a journalist for The Altruistic Times - and his best friend Clyde Otoboke.
Unfortunately, as the ship enters the hostile waters of the small African nation that was to be their destination, a warship opens fire on the Fruit Rainbow, sinking it and taking everyone but Manfred down to the bottom.
As he clings to smouldering wreckage, Manfred mournfully calls out to his friends, before slipping into unconsciousness... He awakens days later at the centre of a makeshift labyrinth in a dusty shanty town, where he is forced to debase himself for the entertainment of the vicious warlords - mostly by doing loads of pointless running around and that.
Haunted by the damning ghosts of his drowned companions, the only way to keep the visions at bay is to consume vast quantities of the narcotics the war chiefs manufacture to fund their illegal civil war... What will it take for "Pacifist Manfred" to become the "Pac Man" we all know? Answer: massive heroin addiction and jaundice.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
An ordinary hedgehog is dragged from his woodland home, and taken to the remote countryside laboratory of Dr Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. The emotionally damaged scientist is performing terrifying experiments on ordinary, innocent creatures - turning then into cybernetic war machines, with a view to selling his technology to the industrial-military complex.
When Sonic comes to in a cage, surrounded by more subjects of Robotnik's experimentation, he finds himself possessed with a near human-level intelligence, an irritatingly cocksure confidence, and an inability to sit still.
Meanwhile, Robotnik is shunned by his would-be buyers, and flies into a psychotic rage. When the incensed scientist returns to his laboratory, he begins torching his creations with a flame-thrower. Sonic barely escapes from his prison, but just manages to free what remains of Robotnik's victims - as the crazed scientist vows a deadly reprisal on his mammalian "son".
Now Sonic is running - running to save Robotnik's abominations, running to stay alive, running to get revenge, and running from the horror of all he has witnessed...
An ordinary hedgehog is dragged from his woodland home, and taken to the remote countryside laboratory of Dr Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. The emotionally damaged scientist is performing terrifying experiments on ordinary, innocent creatures - turning then into cybernetic war machines, with a view to selling his technology to the industrial-military complex.
When Sonic comes to in a cage, surrounded by more subjects of Robotnik's experimentation, he finds himself possessed with a near human-level intelligence, an irritatingly cocksure confidence, and an inability to sit still.
Meanwhile, Robotnik is shunned by his would-be buyers, and flies into a psychotic rage. When the incensed scientist returns to his laboratory, he begins torching his creations with a flame-thrower. Sonic barely escapes from his prison, but just manages to free what remains of Robotnik's victims - as the crazed scientist vows a deadly reprisal on his mammalian "son".
Now Sonic is running - running to save Robotnik's abominations, running to stay alive, running to get revenge, and running from the horror of all he has witnessed...
DUKE NUKEM
Both sequel to Duke's former adventures, and a prequel to a whole new franchise. The new Duke Nukem is be set in the aftermath of a horrifying alien invasion, with Duke struggling to cope with paralysing post-traumatic stress.
More profound still, Duke is also grappling with guilt over his past behaviour toward women, and struggling to understand what it all meant.
Wracked with existential shame, he embarks on a course of psychotherapy - playing out as first-person levels set within Duke's fragmented limbic system, he battles his own external locus of evaluation, ego and id... literally wrestling with his feelings of deep-rooted self-loathing, he gradually destroys the false identity he'd constructed around his true self.
Finally coming to terms with the damaged person he was, Duke finally accepts the person he knows deep down that he always has been: Duchess Nukem, feminist icon.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
Both sequel to Duke's former adventures, and a prequel to a whole new franchise. The new Duke Nukem is be set in the aftermath of a horrifying alien invasion, with Duke struggling to cope with paralysing post-traumatic stress.
More profound still, Duke is also grappling with guilt over his past behaviour toward women, and struggling to understand what it all meant.
Wracked with existential shame, he embarks on a course of psychotherapy - playing out as first-person levels set within Duke's fragmented limbic system, he battles his own external locus of evaluation, ego and id... literally wrestling with his feelings of deep-rooted self-loathing, he gradually destroys the false identity he'd constructed around his true self.
Finally coming to terms with the damaged person he was, Duke finally accepts the person he knows deep down that he always has been: Duchess Nukem, feminist icon.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
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