Square Enix Concerts (Cast Your Vote)

Square Enix Members are being given the opportunity to vote for the songs that they want to hear during a SE music concert. The poll is extremly quick to do. Tomb Raider Legend is the only TR mentioned, however there's a comment box at the bottom of the poll where you can suggest other songs you want to hear. I suggested the original theme. Angel of Darkness would also sound quite impressive, as would The Last Revelation...Perhaps they could even play the latest theme from the upcoming game?

CLICK HERE to vote.

Square Enix Members Blog Post:

We're looking to incorporate more Square Enix music into our upcoming concert series. As a result we're looking to you, the fans, to help us decide which games you want to be included. This information will be going straight to the organisers to help plan our concerts in the coming years. 

The plan is to expand these concerts to include our western games too, which means Deus Ex, Hitman, Tomb Raider, etc. But only if you want them! So take a look at the poll we've set up and let us know. 

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Meagan Goes to Square Enix HQ in France

(Or Eidos France as I still like to call it)

Some of you might be aware that the next month is consisting of several private community showings of Tomb Raider. For those who don't, that means that Meagan Marie will be travelling to five different places in the next four weeks; France, Germany, Spain, London and New York. It also means that she will be visiting all of Eidos' companies and posting cool pictures of the interesting merchandise there.

Currently she is in France, and judging from the photos, wading waist-deep in Tomb Raider socks and being advise not to swim in them. The merchandise is pretty cool, those who have been fans of the series since the start may own some of what's below.

           

           

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Win an Specially Designed TR Themed XBOX360

One extremely lucky winner will be the owner of a special Tomb Raider (2012) themed XBOX360. Crystal Dynamics are holding a competition and the winner will be picked randomly from a list of people who answers correctly three questions about the series which the developers will publish through three social media sites.

The three sites in question are: Twitter, Facebook and their Podcast.
All questions are now online, and you can enter through their competition page, CLICK HERE

An image of the prize hasn't been posted yet, to my knowledge, but hopefully we'll get to see it at a later date.

The winner will be announced through the blog.


Good Luck to everyone participating! 

Meagan's note regarding the competition on Facebook:

Hello all!

Remember the exclusive Tomb Raider Xbox 360 we promised to give away via the next Crystal Habit Podcast?  Get ready for more details.

The Rules: To enter the competition, you’ll have to answer three Tomb Raider trivia questions. Each question will be revealed via a unique Tomb Raider social media outlet – Facebook, Twitter, and the Crystal Habit Podcast, respectively.

The Crystal Habit Podcast: Episode 3 – scheduled to go live this Thursday – will also provide a URL to the entry form where you will need to plug in each of the three answers. Submit the form, and you’re in the running!

Housekeeping: You must be 18 to enter the contest. Also, please be aware that the branded Xbox 360 will take 6-7 weeks to arrive on your doorstep. Why the delay? We’re not outfitting the console with custom graphics till the winner is announced to ensure it is compatible with the individual's territory.

Without further delay, here is the first of three questions:

Question 1: What was the name of the sunken ship Lara Croft explores in Tomb Raider II?
Make sure to check the official Tomb Raider Twitter feed (twitter.com/tombraider) tomorrow for the second of three questions.

Best of luck!

Meagan Marie 

I will be posting the answers for those who are interested, but only after the competition has ended.

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The Crystal Habit Podcast 3 (+ Notes)

Meagan Marie returns in the third Official Tomb Raider podcast, The Crystal Habit. This time she investigates the truth of working in QA, as well as offering advise for getting into the video game industry. Once again she is joined by Karl who answers six of the community's most popular questions involving TR games for WiiU and if a certain character *cough* Kurtis *cough* is going to be making a come back to the series.

CLICK HERE to go to the podcast at the Official TR Blog

Notes from the Take 5 6 section:

• No plans for WiiU regarding Tomb Raider (2012)
• If Crystal involves the WiiU for other projects, the focus will be making the game specifically for the console.
• No plans to remake the other earlier TR games. 
• Kurtis Trent and the Doppelganger will NOT appear in another Tomb Raider game...At least this one. 
• Crystal is working on both keyboard + mouse and controller setup for the PC.
• Crystal employs people from a variety of levels. If you're talented and interested, apply. 

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Competition - Win A Limited Edition Lara Croft Statue

Deadline: 23th September 2011 (23:59 PT)

As many of you may be aware, I am putting together a book called Level Up consisting of video game articles by people in the industry. This competition, I put together to join Level Up and Guns and Grapple. I know that many of you liked the new statue by Sideshow Collectibles. They have generously donated a limited edition version of the model (with the sketch) to one lucky winner. 

Sideshow Collectibles is famous for it's beautiful detailed statues, and the Lara Croft ones are no exception. A couple of months ago Sideshow and Square Enix announced a new Tomb Raider statue with stunning pictures of the upcoming model. The model is 19" tall and 10" wide and features Lara from the recent 2010 arcade game; Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. The statue will also come with the sketch of the figure by talented artist; Adam Hughes. The competition prize is not only the statue and the print, but it's also the chance to own a limited edition version, of which there will be only 750 in the world.

 CLICK HERE TO ENTER VIA SIDESHOW COLLECTIBLES

HOW TO ENTER

1. Go over to the Sideshow Collectibles Lara Croft competition landing page.
2. Enter in your details to be in with a chance.
3. Go on Twitter and mention both @collectsideshow AND @levelupbook 

NOTE: Both 2 and 3 need to be done to enter the competition. 

THE PRIZE: (From Sideshow website)

The model is the limited edition version (only 750 worldwide) which comes with a free sketch of the model by the original artist, Adam Hughes


Original Price of Model: $349.99

Materials: High Quality Polystone (Lara's body) and Fabric (Lara's clothes)

Limited Edition: 750 Worldwide

Size: 19" H (48.3cm ) x 10" W (25.4cm) x 15" L (38.1cm)

Product Weight: 15.00 lbs (5.9kg)

Estimated Shipping Weight: 16.00 lbs (6.8kg)

Box Size: 24" H (60.9cm) x 15" W (38.1cm) x 19" L (48.2cm)

The Full Model (without the artwork)

Close up of Lara

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Crystal Dynamics Wants Your Brains...

...Your juicy, juicy brains.

Later today Crystal will be helping out with a event in which journalists at Bitmob/Destructoid will be attempting to play the newly released Dead Island title in one sitting. The event will be streaming online at 7pm PST (so that's tomorrow at about 3am for everyone in the UK). I will put the link to the stream on Twitter when it starts. The event seems to be held at the Crystal building and several members of the TR team (including Karl and Meagan) will be there as well.

The event is due to last for about 20 hours approximately and there is also a free copy of the game to be won during the event.

Below is the full piece posted at Bitmob:

Remember staying up late playing games with your little brother and hoping Mom didn't hear The Legend of Zeldatheme coming through the walls? Bitmob and Destructoid have teamed up to bring back that magical time from our childhood and see what happens when a bunch of adults sit around playing video games for 20 hours straight.

We're livestreaming the Bitmob/Destructoid Dead Island All-Nighter starting Friday at 7 p.m. PST, and we'll play the game from start to finish even if it kills us. So, what can you expect?

• Sebastian Haley and Chloe Dykstra, as well as Destructoid's Tara Long and Max Scoville, start and finish Deep Silver's new Borderlands-meets-Left 4 Dead zombie co-op game, Dead Island. 
• The entire event streamed live, with free copies of Dead Island handed out to viewers throughout the night/day/night.
• 10+ backup players, including world-reknown cosplayer Linda Le and Crystal Dynamics Community Manager Meagan Marie.
• Long Vo, a lead artist from Udon Entertainment, will take requests and draw famous video-game characters in their zombified form.
• More (not "much more," just more). 

Should we probably have picked a shorter game? Sure, but at least now you can literally watch our descent into sleep-induced rage and idiocy. Check back tomorrow around 6:45 for links to the livestream.

Special thanks to Astro Gaming, Deep Silver, and Tomb Raider-makers Crystal Dynamics for helping set this all up.

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The Crystal Habit Newsletter 2 - (September 2011)

The second Crystal Habit newsletter has now been sent out. If, like me, you didn't receive it, then there's an online version that was published online by Square Enix earlier today. The newsletter is available in several languages: English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish. I did ask if the newsletter could be in Klingon but I think they're having slight trouble translating. In the mean time we have the five languages, with the English version is below: 

Click on the picture to increase the size

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FANART - Jordon Merchner (Prince of Persia Creator)

I love fanart, and this has led me to two discoveries. The first is the fact that Tomb Raider fans are amazing when it comes to drawings, there's a few photos on the forums I paused at for a while because they were so beautiful. And the second is because my drawings resemble some kind of monsterous creation combining stick figures with the characters from Zero Punctuation, I've come to a conclusion that this skill is not for me.

If you play Prince of Persia, you probably know who Jordon Merchner is and for those who don't he's the creator of the series. Recently he posted several sketches of Lara he drew, which was later reposted on the Official Tomb Raider Blog.

Source:  Official Tomb Raider Blog

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