(8/30/99)
LONDON (AP) -- A judge has sided with the owners of the popular ``Tomb Raider'' computer game who are trying to keep the name of sexy heroine Lara Croft off the cover of Playboy magazine.
On Wednesday, High Court Judge Humphrey Lloyd granted an injunction brought by Core Design Ltd. and ordered that stickers be placed over the Lara Croft and ``Tomb Raider'' names on the cover of 20,000 copies of the August edition circulated in Britain.
Playboy connected the names to a nude layout of model Nell McAndrew, said by the magazine to be real-life incarnation of the Lara Croft character.
The judge had been told by George Hamer, attorney for Core Design Ltd., that Lara's ``squeaky-clean image'' would be ``tarnished for all time'' by any association with Playboy.
Designers at Core were unavailable for comment regarding the ``cheat codes'' programmed into their games to display the Lara Croft character naked, nor did they comment on various animated pornographic movies they created with their polygonal female creation.
Core Design, because of practical considerations, did not seek injunctions blanking out the photo feature on two inside pages.
The ruling does not apply to copies of the magazine circulated outside Britain.