Tomb Raider III Party

There are game industry parties and there are game industry parties. But there is only one Eidos Tomb Raider party - and when it happens, everyone wants in.

While the average gamer isn't able to appreciate schmoozing with some of the industry's biggest names over free beverages (for example: spring water), we're here to tell you about it. Last night's party, held at the cavernous Bimbo's night club in San Francisco, greeted the game industry and whisked it into its velvet-walled insides to boogie down. There was loud disco music, good cheer, bad dancing (we're known for being good at playing games - not for our dancing ability), and the occasional pickup.

The Tomb Raider III party was preceded by the afternoon announcement that Tomb Raider III (for the PlayStation) had gone gold. We got to take a look at the game as editors, game designers, big wigs, marketing folks, and publicity people let their hair down to have some fun. Eidos had four kiosks set up to allow partygoers to play the latest in the Lara Croft series, and players weren't giving up the controllers to anyone.

So who showed up? In the crowd we spied several GameSpotters out on the dance floor jumping around to the disco band, as well as other folks like Sony's vice president of third-party relations and research and development, Phil Harrison; Relic's founder, Alex Garden; and Ion Storm's John Romero. While there were no Lara Croft look-alikes running around, bad dancers and game folk seemed to have a festive time - all in honor of Tomb Raider's release.