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Old 06-11-2012, 08:44 PM   #1
Saya
 
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Tomb Raider Reboot

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In the past, Lara Croft didn't need protecting. She was a fearless daredevil, a crack shot in short shorts with enough attitude to scare off a pack of bloodthirsty gorillas.

But in the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, things will be different. She hasn't become that woman yet. And executive producer Ron Rosenberg says you'll want to keep her safe.

"When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character," Rosenberg told me at E3 last week when I asked if it was difficult to develop for a female protagonist.

"They're more like 'I want to protect her.' There's this sort of dynamic of 'I'm going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'"

So is she still the hero? I asked Rosenberg if we should expect to look at Lara a little bit differently than we have in the past.

"She's definitely the hero but— you're kind of like her helper," he said. "When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character."

The new Lara Croft isn't just less battle-hardened; she's less voluptuous. Gone are her ridiculous proportions and skimpy clothing. This Lara feels more human, more real. That's intentional, Rosenberg says.
"You start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character."

"The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear," he said. "She literally goes from zero to hero... we're sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again."

In the new Tomb Raider, Lara Croft will suffer. Her best friend will be kidnapped. She'll get taken prisoner by island scavengers. And then, Rosenberg says, those scavengers will try to **** her.

"She is literally turned into a cornered animal," Rosenberg said. "It's a huge step in her evolution: she's forced to either fight back or die."

It's some dark material, the type of content you might not expect from an action-adventure game like Tomb Raider. But Rosenberg isn't worried about alarming people too much. He says players will see right away that this is a darker, "more mature" version of Lara's story. He compared it to the origin story of a comic book like Spider-Man or Batman, saying he thinks it "has that feel to it."

"We're not trying to be over the top, shock people for shock's sake," he said. "We're trying to tell a great origin story."
http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want...rvy-lara-croft

Apparently, to make a woman human, you shove a friend of hers in the refrigerator and have island savages, I mean, scavengers, try to rrape her.

Its like they're saying men can't connect with female protagonists in video games. Nevermind Samus or Jade or Faith, you either have to want to fuck her or save her from rrape. Or both.

So when are they coming out with games where male leads are getting sexually assault to appeal to female fans, you know, so we can connect with them?

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Old 06-11-2012, 09:01 PM   #2
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Damn, and by seeing the E3 trailer I was getting excited that this Lara would actually be a good female lead. It looks like video games still just doesn't get it. Except for Samus. She's awesome.
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Old 06-11-2012, 09:10 PM   #3
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I know right? And I'm not a huge Tomb Raider fan but I noticed even with Tomb Raider Anniversary they made her less flirty and more conservative in attitude anyway.

This is bothering the shit out of me. Its like they expect white men (I could count on one hand the games I know of where there's a PoC protagonist) not to be able to play any character that doesn't fit their male power fantasy, and yet they're doing nothing to haul in other audiences.

And its just fucking lazy. I have my complaints about Bioware but they made me love a half demon guy, an elf assassin and a bird-like alien in a game I haven't even played yet. Its not rocket science.
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Old 06-12-2012, 07:23 AM   #4
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Say what you will about Bioware, their writers are very well read.

I'm not quite sure how they did it, but their games are usually the ones that keep me from wanting to be a heartless fucker unlike other games. They're good at making the characters into people you can believe in and care for.

PoC protagonists? I think I can think of maybe 3.

Mirror's Edge

Prototype

I think maybe one of the GTAs has one.
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Old 06-12-2012, 01:16 PM   #5
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Say what you will about Bioware, their writers are very well read.
Their writers are fucking sexist as shit. You don't think it's strange that the only gay option for women is a bisexual woman who belongs to a species known for being promiscuous? It reinforces that women who aren't heterosexual are just experimenting and places a different value on same sex relationships then heterosexual ones. That's to say nothing about placing female-female pairings in the game, but pulling male-male ones from release.

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I think maybe one of the GTAs has one.
San Andreas.
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Old 06-12-2012, 02:43 PM   #6
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I still think it's a step up. It's better to see a woman as a human being, even if she's a frail one that needs to be taken care of, than to glorify a sex symbol with absolutely no personality.
From the two sexist stereotypes today, I hate the one where a female character is a heroic figure simply because she's impossibly good at everything than the weak and empathic female that has to survive for you to complete the mission.
I prefer Mary to Alice. Silent Hill to Resident Evil.
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Old 06-12-2012, 02:54 PM   #7
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Their writers are fucking sexist as shit. You don't think it's strange that the only gay option for women is a bisexual woman who belongs to a species known for being promiscuous? It reinforces that women who aren't heterosexual are just experimenting and places a different value on same sex relationships then heterosexual ones. That's to say nothing about placing female-female pairings in the game, but pulling male-male ones from release.
Really? Because I'm sure as I played as a female I was able to bed that chick that told me I had mail.

Also, I had thought that the point of the game was that you could actually hook up with anyone as in it wasn't that everyone was bisexual, but that everyone simply had the option to pursue any relationship. Is this not the case? I really thought it was. I haven't tried but now I'm intrigued to try to play as a gay man.

While the blue people is totally one thing and I agree with you on that (that I did find to be kinda weird), it doesn't account for Traynor or even Michelle(sp) I think.
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Old 06-12-2012, 03:56 PM   #8
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Really? Because I'm sure as I played as a female I was able to bed that chick that told me I had mail.
You mean the chick who is the only female female option that has about 2 minutes of dialogue in the second game? Yeah. But let's be real: That's not a romance arc, that's a cop out.

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Also, I had thought that the point of the game was that you could actually hook up with anyone as in it wasn't that everyone was bisexual, but that everyone simply had the option to pursue any relationship. Is this not the case? I really thought it was. I haven't tried but now I'm intrigued to try to play as a gay man.
No. You can't even be a gay man until the third game. There are literally no male-male romance options until then, and there are only two female-female options: The experimental alien, and the 3 line mail chick.

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While the blue people is totally one thing and I agree with you on that (that I did find to be kinda weird), it doesn't account for Traynor or even Michelle(sp) I think.
I haven't played ME3.
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:04 PM   #9
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I still think it's a step up. It's better to see a woman as a human being, even if she's a frail one that needs to be taken care of, than to glorify a sex symbol with absolutely no personality.
From the two sexist stereotypes today, I hate the one where a female character is a heroic figure simply because she's impossibly good at everything than the weak and empathic female that has to survive for you to complete the mission.
I prefer Mary to Alice. Silent Hill to Resident Evil.
I don't think that's fair to Lara Croft. Listen to this and just TRY to tell me she doesn't have personality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vgTvSYfcs0
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:10 PM   #10
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I still think it's a step up. It's better to see a woman as a human being, even if she's a frail one that needs to be taken care of, than to glorify a sex symbol with absolutely no personality.
From the two sexist stereotypes today, I hate the one where a female character is a heroic figure simply because she's impossibly good at everything than the weak and empathic female that has to survive for you to complete the mission.
I prefer Mary to Alice. Silent Hill to Resident Evil.
But its not an either or situation. Like I said, she was made more conservative, in the original in the very beginning, orginally she's very flirty, but in Anniversary in the same scene she's suspicious and haughty. She's a lot more relatable in that regard and less Ms Confidence.

I haven't played too many Tomb Raider games, but Versus also pointed out to me that its not like she doesn't have a personality, she goes absolutely ballistic at the end of Legend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiFlk...eature=related

I'm not mad that she's no longer a hypersexual femme fatale, but sexual assault victim isn't the alternative, particularly when its a trope to kill off a female character (her friend makes a case for a woman in a refrigerator) and lately its become pretty popular to have the female protagonist a rrape victim, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo being the really big example, and it either becomes a rrape revenge tale or the Gary Sue (in this case the player) becomes her white knight.

And again, its super insulting that for white men to relate to a (white) woman character he has to feel she needs HIS protection. Like I said, Beyond Good And Evil didn't need to rrape Jade to make an excellent game. Okami didn't even have a human protagonist and it was still an extremely good critically acclaimed game.

And if they mean that you can only project yourself in a character of your own gender (but honestly I'd say Bioware and Elder Scroll games make it really hard to project yourself in a character you didn't create anyway), what about the women playing the game? Are they supposed to project themselves and experience virtual sexual assault? I know the answer is that they don't believe women play video games to begin with but again I think there's a reason women gravitate towards either casual games or games that at least try to keep their presence in mind, like JRPGs or Bioware games.

I also can't think of any games that had rrape in it with good taste. Duke Nukem Forever can burn in hell, Silent Hill 2 (counting the monsters rraped by Pyramid Head) was just surreal and symbolic, and most other ones I can think of is something that happens to side characters of screen that they later mention. The Path is the only one I can think of that did it to make a point about women and sexual assault.

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PoC protagonists? I think I can think of maybe 3.

Mirror's Edge

Prototype

I think maybe one of the GTAs has one.
I was a nerd and tried to think of a list on the bus ride home, and I could think of a few with east Asian characters, like Tenchu, but I think Mirror's Edge is the only one I can think of made by a Western developer. I got Assassin's Creed 1 and 2, Turok, Prototpye 2, Beyond Good And Evil, if you play certain genders/classes in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and if you want movie tie ins or celebrity games like 50 Cent's games or Mike Tyson's Knockout there's a few more.
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:18 PM   #11
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Aww sweetie why you gotta post while I'm typing XD
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:22 PM   #12
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But its not an either or situation.
It's also not an all or nothing situation.
What convinces me of the contrary now is seeing the older character was better and more developed, not that neither of them was clear of sexist implications.
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You fucking people [war veterans] are only a step below entitled rich kids, the only difference being you had to do and witness horrible things, instead of being given everything.
real classy
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:25 PM   #13
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I think I'm far more okay with sex symbol than sexual assault victim in need of a white knight. What's an ego trip to one gender is another's survival horror.
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:33 PM   #14
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Aww sweetie why you gotta post while I'm typing XD
Oh. Sorry. Lara is my home girl. I fucking love Tomb Raider games.
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Old 06-12-2012, 04:56 PM   #15
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Oh, according to Penny Arcade, its not actually a reboot, its a prequel to how she became so awesome! Also they have a video of her basically being tortured for entertainment purposes.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/edito...-lara-croft-to
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Old 06-12-2012, 05:28 PM   #16
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Not a prequel.

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Tomb Raider: Chronicles is set just days after the events of The Last Revelation. After the Temple of Horus had caved in, effectively entombing Lara, she is presumed dead. A memorial service is held, soon after which Winston Smith and Father Patrick Dunstan reveal that Werner von Croy is excavating the dilapidated temple in the hope of discovering her alive. Later at Croft Manor, three old associates of Lara's - Winston Smith, Father Patrick Dunstan and Charles Kane - reminisce some of her past adventures.
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The third adventure is set in Lara's childhood on Black Isle of Ireland. She's staying with Winston but overhears him and Father Patrick Dunstan conversing about strange paranormal happenings on the island. She stows away on the small boat Father Patrick drives to the island and encounters many strange beings such as the Hanging Corpse, Changelings, a monster intent on chasing and killing her, the Grim Reaper, ghosts and the Demon Verdilet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider_Chronicles
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Old 06-12-2012, 05:48 PM   #17
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You mean the chick who is the only female female option that has about 2 minutes of dialogue in the second game? Yeah. But let's be real: That's not a romance arc, that's a cop out.



No. You can't even be a gay man until the third game. There are literally no male-male romance options until then, and there are only two female-female options: The experimental alien, and the 3 line mail chick.



I haven't played ME3.
Well shit. I guess I was wrong. However... they're a damn sight better than a lot of other games. Batman Arkham City? Great game. Sad Catwoman.
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Old 06-12-2012, 07:19 PM   #18
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Well shit. I guess I was wrong. However... they're a damn sight better than a lot of other games. Batman Arkham City? Great game. Sad Catwoman.
True that. In Bioware's defense, they're good at not white washing games. And they do spin an alright yarn, sometimes.
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Old 06-13-2012, 01:45 AM   #19
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This is what good story telling in video games looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILesaBQ8kos&feature=youtube_gdata_player


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvYlPVHo84g&feature=youtube_gdata_player


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriaT32v2T0&feature=youtube_gdata_player


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNLB-xZMaVA&feature=youtube_gdata_player


And I think the only video game with a message of anti-war.
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Old 06-13-2012, 11:43 AM   #20
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http://penny-arcade.com/report/edito...-good-business

Some relevance.
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Old 06-13-2012, 07:02 PM   #21
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It annoys me that the writer tries to appeal to E3 to be more inclusive and less sexist because it's better for business, not because it's the right thing to do.
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Old 06-16-2012, 12:41 PM   #22
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Yes. It is. I find it annoying as well. Mostly because if it weren't so, they still would be just as sexist as ever.
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