Tomb Raider Underworld, the third and next episode in Lara Croft's tale of tomb raiding has been seen in the tame. Yes, like the Spice Girls, Crystal Dynamics' lady-bouncing, era-defining, platform jumping maverick booby beauty is off again.

The news has been revealed in a dead-tree exclusive which states, "Lara's adventure takes place after the events of Tomb Raider Legend. Her adventure will be a thrill ride for anyone new to the franchise. The emphasis is on bringing Lara's world to life, a lush, vast interactive world that reacts and remembers. It's pure woman versus wild.

"In the level where Lara explores Southern Mexico, she leaves footprints in the mud, but it's raining so they wash away. The bodies she leaves behind in combat encounters will stay, however, as will the debris from any destruction she causes."

Crystal Dynamics' Eric Lindstrom is quoted as saying, "We developed a hybrid lighting model that combines dynamic lights with carefully created light maps to make our world look stunning in ways that none of the available methods could achieve alone."

There will, of course, also be mo-cap "to bring a more natural fluidity to her movements, with proper weight and secondary motion". Who told Lindstrom that anybody in their right mind wanted proper weight or anything approaching reality in Lara? The 'secondary motion comment', however, has made some of the less worldly SPOnGers redden... around the face.

We have to wait for some unstated time in 2008 for release... of the game! It will be on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC (well, Windows).

Cheers to Tomb Raider Chronicles for this.