SCi (soon to be Eidos PLC) announced that Aaron Brown has stepped down as non-executive director of the company, just about four months after joining. Brown worked for investor Robert Tchenguiz and no reason was given for the resignation, nor does the company have any plans to replace him.

We weren't sure what this meant, so we picked up the bat phone and asked Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter what the dealio is. He told us it's "impossible to read anything into this." Explaining that Brown was Tchenguiz's rep on the board. Tchenguiz could have wanted him to do something else or perhaps Brown got another job. SCi has gone through several shake-ups lately after losing $177 million last year.

If the question were "What would Lara do," the answer would be simple: climb things, flip around, and shoot stuff. Oh, and activate switches. All while looking very pretty, of course. The question posed by Tomb Raider: Underworld's design team at Crystal Dynamics in this new trailer, however, is "What could Lara do?" As in, if she were a real, super-athletic, flesh-and-blood lady adventurer.

The answers turn out to be some things we've heard about before, like the fact that she can now pull herself up onto poles and balance-walk them. The real treat of this trailer is seeing the latest animation pass in action. While Lara has been completely motion-captured for the first time in this outing, there's still a lot of work that's gone into hand-tweaking her 2,000-odd animations. We think the results look pretty darn great – if just a little too quick for natural human movement – compared to her animation in earlier builds. What do you think?

As anticipated, PC Zone has headlined its 200th issue with a Deus Ex 3 preview, reports its online counterpart, CVG. The second sequel to the "Best PC Game of All Time" (according to a 2007 poll conducted by -- who else? -- PC Zone) will be a prequel set in 2027 and apparently has received the blessings of the original designers, Warren Spector and Harvey Smith, along with consultative help from the original writer, Sheldon Pacotti. Still, we should remind you that Deus Ex 3 is being developed by a largely untested team, in Eidos Montreal, and the studio has made some, um, changes:

• Combat won't be influenced by stats, just your FPS skills (or is that "skillz"?)
  
• Instead, stats will affect "a vast array of fully upgradeable and customizable weapons" (there will be more than one type of ammo); experience points can be attributed to weapons or augmentations
• 20 augmentations are promised; examples: "bungee jump tentacles" that fire from your back and anchor into walls (useful when jumping off buildings / faking your death); the ability to punch through walls ... and grab enemies on the other side!
• Stealth will be implemented into a new cover system
  
• Damage will be recovered by auto-healing (think: most FPSs these days -- even ones without so-called "augmentations")

The complete 10-page preview hits UK newsstands on October 9th. Scans are hitting the internet right about ... now!

Xbox 360 players planning to lace up in Lara Croft's skin-tight boots this November can look forward to a double helping of new content even after the final credits roll by. Eidos announced that it has inked a deal with Microsoft to release two additional chapters to Tomb Raider: Underworld, offering some six additional hours of raiding tombs, or at least what passes for tombs these days.

The first bit of DLC, ominously titled Beneath the Ashes, will debut this Christmas, adding a new area and enemies as well as a continuation of Underworld's story. The second, dubbed Lara's Shadow, promises "a new kind of playable character," leaving us wondering if Lara been drinking from the Phazon pool again? Eidos bills the new content as "exclusive" to Xbox Live Marketplace, though we'll at least try to feign surprise should similar content make its way to other platforms as well.

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails is Rebellion's sequel to the Killzone gang's Shellshock: Nam '67 (shucks, we must've missed that one). This second tour of doodie, brought to you by Eidos, is presented with this thumb-tingling pitch: "a brutal and twisted psychological first person shooter, coming to disturb your Christmas." (We prefer our holidays quite undisturbed, thank you.)

What we're dealing with appears to be a rehash of Jacob's Ladder, replacing the film's "The Ladder" drug (loosely based on BZ) with "Whiteknight" ("an enemy that ultimately has no side") -- oh, and scantly clad babe-soldiers. Or is that just one of the frightening hallucinations...? Dah-dah-dumb.

Inspiration seems to be cyclical in the games industry. Well, at least in the case of Tomb Raider Underworld. Many of the improvements we saw in the latest preview of the upcoming Lara Croft adventure seem to come directly from last year's Tomb Raider-inspired Uncharted. Considering the wide accolades Naughty Dog's title received, that's certainly not a bad thing.

There are a lot of elements which make us think back to Nathan Drake's quest for treasure. Perhaps it's the environment: the lush jungles of Thailand, with their deserted, decaying ruins reminding us of that other lush, ruin-filled jungle. But there are other similarities to note here, as well. Crystal Dynamics' creative director, Eric Lindstrom, told us that the team was trying to make Lara more human in regards to her abilities. She'll interact with the environment, by pushing foliage out of the way. She'll stumble when she makes large jumps. For the first time, Crystal Dynamics is working with motion capture, to make sure Lara feels a bit more believable.

We've heard this pitch before, no? Lara will be holding off ledges, and she'll look towards the direction of a place she can grab on to. We saw Lara jump from one pillar to another, but before jumping, she reached out her arm towards the next pillar to indicate the potential action. Then we saw her approach a narrow walkway, cautiously, lifting her arms for balance as she crossed. We watched her stumble a bit too, struggling to make her next jump.

Despite having her franchise rebooted a la Batman Begins, it saddens us to see acrobatic archeologist Lara Croft give in to her old, animal-killing habits. Sure, there's a modicum of guilty pleasure to be derived from watching her kick tigers in the face, but the above shark-slaying video simply lacks ... finesse. If watching the lithe leading lady go all Richard Dreyfuss on the wonders of the deep is something you find upsetting, we'd advise you to skip to the video after the break, where she runs around Mexico sticking poles in holes.

Oh, don't even start. Tomb Raider: Underworld is out on November 18th.

EA announced today that it will create mobile versions of financially beleaguered Eidos Interactive's franchises. EA now holds the licenses to "all existing mobile channels and devices" for Tomb Raider Underworld, Just Cause 2, California Games X and Minesweeper. EA has the option of doing mobile versions of most Eidos games for the next three years.

The Tomb Raider and Just Cause titles will be based off the upcoming sequels, while California Games X will be a "brand new version" of the '87 Commodore 64 game (hacky sack, y'all!). Of course, Minesweeper is the game which has been packaged with Windows since 1992.

We knew SCi Entertainment, parent company of Eidos, had financial issues, but we didn't realize those "issues" totaled a $177 million loss for the company in its fiscal year, ending June 30. The company has been in the midst of a major restructuring ever since it received a bailout investment of $107 million from Warner Bros earlier this year. The company also announced it plans to change its name to Eidos PLC.

The company states it will focus on higher quality games by giving more attention to key franchises: Hitman; Deus Ex; Championship Manager (?); and Lady Croft's series. Tomb Raider: Underworld will release this November, with Deus Ex 3 rumored to be fully unveiled soon.

Some of you have seen these before, now buried in a pile of damp, wrinkly magazines stacked next to the john. Others capitalized on the brief window of opportunity that afforded speedy clicksters a glimpse at Game Informer's "world exclusive" Batman: Arkham Asylum images before Warner Bros. had 'em yanked from (most) corners of the internet. Today, the rest of us can finally be in on the experience. So go ahead, browse the gallery below -- and by all means, take your time.

We fear the inevitable day when video games will be crafted by machines (besides the robot that adds $60 worth of "better" to Madden every 12 months, of course), but it will also have its share of upsides. For example, we'll no longer have to worry about hurting actual people's feelings when we say awful, curt, snide things about their labors of love.

Kane & Lynch dev IO Interactive recently spoke to Games Radar about what getting negative reviews feels like, and you'll never guess the one that "really" hurt: "Then GameSpot reviewed the game. And they didn't like it one bit. I'm not quite sure why, but I remember that review hit the team like a hammer."

A heap of heartache as a result of GameSpot's Kane & Lynch review? Wow, and we thought Eidos and Jeff Gerstmann would never find common ground!

Ever since Tomb Raider: Legend plumped up the character of Lara Croft -- narratively speaking -- and sent her gallivanting across the globe in a quest for vengeance and maternal closure, we've been dying to see what lies on the other side of the cliff the franchise reboot left us hanging from. According to a new behind-the-scenes video for Tomb Raider: Underworld, we can expect to encounter a god in need of a good pounding from Thor's hammer.

Though brief, the clip delves into the franchise's ever-sprawling mythology, as well as the research trips developer Crystal Dynamics underwent to capture the look and feel of Cambodia and Mexico. The informative voices you'll hear belong to creative director Eric Lindstrom and cinematics director Toby Gard -- the latter of which shouldn't be confused with the cinematic director, who barks orders through a megaphone whilst leaping from exploding helicopters.

We don't know much about Deus Ex 3 – we know it's coming; we know it's being developed by the unproven team at Eidos Montreal; and we know it will use Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider engine. If a pic snagged by GAFfer Endless is to be believed, next month's PC Zone magazine (its "200th issue spectacular"!) will have a lot more details. If the internet has taught us anything – besides the gullibility of its users – it's that one can reasonably expect magazines to end up in the hands of scan-happy forum-goers well in advance of their purported street dates, so hopefully we'll know if this is legit before October 9th.

We're so jealous of Lara Croft. Not for her frequent adventures, or her physical fitness, or her swanky pad, or even her loyal manservant -- with the lifestyle and wages of a professional video game blogger, all of those things become readily available. There's one aspect of her life we still manage to covet, however -- her international travels. Sure, we occasionally get to head to the west coast, or Germany, but in her latest title, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Ms. Croft manages to hit up Mexico, the Arctic Sea, and in the above video, the lush jungles of Thailand.

The sneak preview features some excellent shots of the second level of Underworld, not to mention a fantastic look at Lara's beautiful ... platforming animation. Considering the unlikelihood of the Thailand Video Game Expo ever existing, we regret to admit that it's probably the closest we'll ever come to The Land of Smiles.

The new flesh-and-blood Lara? Pretty. Cool. But it's the texture-and-polygon one in Tomb Raider: Underworld – the proper, next-gen sequel to the series-reviving Tomb Raider: Legend – that we're really excited about. This first full gameplay trailer for Underworld is a jaw-dropper, showcasing ruins in a new locale (Thailand) and offering quick glimpses of action in other parts of the world (and underworld).

We're pretty sure we see the first location from the game to be revealed – rain-drenched Mayan ruins – and a tease at a return of the nefarious bad-girl, Natla, from Tomb Raider: Anniversary in there. Also: giant spiders, giant octopus, and giant statues of Norse Gods, the mythology of which (Thor's hammer, in particular) factors heavily in the game's plot as Lara continues her quest to find Avalon.

To coincide with the video reveal of Tomb Raider: Underworld's Thai locale, Eidos has released a new batch of screens showcasing the level's sheer jungle-y, ruin-y, tiger-y splendor. Check them out in our updated gallery below.