In a recent interview, Tomb Raider: Underworld’s Creative Director Eric Lindstrom was asked about what he thinks about last years PS3 hit Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, the game that has been compared to the Tomb Raider games on more than one occasion. Lindstrom chose to answer the question by calling Uncharted “a lot of fun” and “polished,” but said he doesn’t see the two games as being in the same genre.

“Uncharted and Tomb Raider aren’t the same genre. Uncharted focused on combat along a beautiful corridor, with some light exploration and puzzle solving along the way,” Lindstrom said. “The adventure that Tomb Raider: Underworld provides is about discovering amazing places, interacting with them in a wide variety of ways – climbing, solving large-scale puzzles, making sense of the world and using it dynamically to your advantage, fighting enemies natural and unnatural – and solving a great mystery about the ancient world.”

But even a blind man can see there are similarities in both games, and people involved with Underworld have been asked a similar question before. In January, Tomb Raider’s senior brand manager Kathryn Clements admitted the two games have similarities, but added that Underworld is not under pressure to out-do Drake’s Fortune.

The subject of the pushed back release date also came up briefly. Lindstrom called the delay to Holiday’08 a reflection of the development path and said that quality is their deadline.

Lindstrom also ruled out any possibility of a joint adventure between Drake and Lara: “Drake’s a nice guy, but Lara works alone. Also Drake’s an Everyman, but Lara is one-of-a-kind.” Ouch, I felt that slap from here..

[See also: Tomb Raider: Underworld gallery]
[See also: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune gallery]