Tomb Raider - Out 05/03/2013 for X360/PS3/PC

[buba]

Why Joel, why? D:

[Sean]

Oh look it's the most misogynistic game ever made.

[buba]

Oh look it's the most misogynistic game ever made.

Pretty sure it was Hitman Absolution until yesterday.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Pretty sure it was Hitman Absolution until yesterday.

Nah, it's clearly Grand Theft Auto.

Having sex with hookers and killing them to get your money back? How twisted. This game would not compare to that.

[Sean]

So yeah, I don't know about anyone else but I really can't get behind the idea of this game. I really hate that putting Lara through so much torture hell is a selling point, and I think years of taking film theory have made me overtly aware of how shit like this plays out in the horror genre. Audiences of horror flicks tend to have a subconscious desire to see women suffer as much as possible, contrasted with men who are dispatched pretty quickly and early on. In my eyes this isn't simply just a "darker and edgier" variant of Lara Croft (note however that I've never played a single LC game in my life so I'm looking at this as its own game rather than as a comparison to previous titles); I actually don't see the difference between this and torture porn. I almost laughed when she stepped on that bear trap after the guy took the other girl hostage, like fucking honestly?

I know that it's really hard to make an argument for this when Croft had always been a sexualized character, but I think it's just about reached its height here. I actually hate this more than DmC right now.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'd say that it makes a lot of sense when this is made as her beginnings and she's learning how to survive in wilderness. It's basically them building a badass, and one would think that for someone like Lara Croft to go through the things she has in her previous adventures without batting too much of an eye over them that she's been throw a lot of it to be used to it.

Had it been the other way around, and this was made before all toe other Tomb Raider games, then I'd easily concede, but seeing her do all the badass things she's did in past titles I comes off differently than it would if it were your usual horror film.

Maybe that's just me.

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Conando]

I'm not all that interested in it either. Mainly for the whole pseudo-torture porn thing it seems have going on.

[Detective Shadzter]

I'm really excited for this game, and I've not played a Tomb Raider game since the first one on PlayStation. I won't really know what to make of the whole gruesome deaths thing until we get to see them, but I don't think they'll bother me too much because the gameplay itself looks amazing to me. I've had the game pre-ordered for a while now.

[turbojet]

So yeah, I don't know about anyone else but I really can't get behind the idea of this game. I really hate that putting Lara through so much torture hell is a selling point, and I think years of taking film theory have made me overtly aware of how shit like this plays out in the horror genre. Audiences of horror flicks tend to have a subconscious desire to see women suffer as much as possible, contrasted with men who are dispatched pretty quickly and early on. In my eyes this isn't simply just a "darker and edgier" variant of Lara Croft (note however that I've never played a single LC game in my life so I'm looking at this as its own game rather than as a comparison to previous titles); I actually don't see the difference between this and torture porn. I almost laughed when she stepped on that bear trap after the guy took the other girl hostage, like fucking honestly?

I know that it's really hard to make an argument for this when Croft had always been a sexualized character, but I think it's just about reached its height here. I actually hate this more than DmC right now.

At first, I thought you were joking with the misogynistic thing, but now....what?

We see Drake from Uncharted go through all sorts of hell just to reach some treasure. Hell, in one Uncharted, I have the option of letting a spiked ceiling crush Drake and Chloe. Batman can get eaten by a shark or Croc. Isaac from Dead Space can get killed in all manner of ways that make car accident victims look like they died naturally. The women in Resident Evil in can get brutally maimed. Now, we have a Lara Croft, who is not overtly sexualized for once, has realistic proportions, and is not a symbol of unattainable beauty, and someone calls it torture porn because she has the potential to get fucked up in the game just like every action hero protagonist in most, if not all, action games. I know torture porn, Sean, and I am not saying that I enjoy watching it. I watched the Saw series up to 5(which one of them, ironically, was called sexist because it had only guys killed while women were spared) and there is a vast difference between a woman striving through an arduous environment and overcoming said place than watching helpless woman get maimed while screaming all over the place. To infer that people subconsciously want the worst to happen to Lara because she is a female is taking leaps and bounds in logic because we can say that about every action game, horror-survival or not, ever made.

[Tornado]

Yeah. I've been pretty much rolling my eyes at it more and more with each tidbit of info they are releasing for the reasons Sean pointed out.

To infer that people subconsciously want the worst to happen to Lara because she is a female is taking leaps and bounds in logic because we can say that about every action game, horror-survival or not, ever made.

I'd only buy this if exactly that isn't what they were hyping up.

Edited June 2, 2012 by Tornado

[Jetronic]

E3 TRAILER - RELEASE DATE 5th of March 2013

[media=]

Holy shit that was the most gruesome thing I've ever seen from a Tomb Raider game....... I FECKING LOVE IT =D

You know...watching this makes me want to give Lara a big hug. Edited June 2, 2012 by Jetronic

[turbojet]

I'd only buy this if exactly that isn't what they were hyping up.

I think they are trying to do away with the perfect athletic female with a blank personality which is imprinted on by others because she has high sex appeal because she has the perfect body thus making her a tabula rosa. You know, the genre of women that the franchise created? I am no means interested in this game, but calling it misogynistic and reprimanding it as such would be undoing a lot damage.

[Sean]

"Lara suffers" is the entire driving point behind the development of this game. I don't know where people are getting the idea that Lara isn't sexualized at all here, because she is, and more than ever if you ask me. Fetishization of women doesn't just come from making them look sexy, and I only have to point to the entire "rape revenge" genre of films to show what I'm referring to. Why do you think the final girl in horror films is such a popular concept? She's the one whose plight is somehow what the male audience is expected to empathize with (because for some reason we would not be able to feel the same for a male character going through the exact same situation), and even though we do want her to suceeed we also want to see her go through hellish terror and suffering in order to achieve that. Kinda like how this game is being advertised. Hm.

My point is that "Lara suffers" is a marketable, misogynistic ploy that can pass off as a huge selling point. "Drake suffers" or "Batman suffers" does not.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

"Lara suffers" is the entire driving point behind the development of this game. I don't know where people are getting the idea that Lara isn't sexualized at all here, because she is, and more than ever if you ask me.

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Sean]

Double standard, huh? I really would love to see a video game where the entire selling point of it is to see the male lead character go through as much hell as Lara does here. Emphasis on "selling point," seeing that the presence of torture and humiliation does not mean the exact same thing as whether it's the focus or not. Because there are plenty of works out there where a character does, but it is not played up to be the driving force behind what makes the game so appealing to the masses.

And where the fuck are my horror movies with a "final dude" then?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Double standard, huh? I really would love to see a video game where the entire selling point of it is to see the male lead character go through as much hell as Lara does here.

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Stacy]

I bet they'll involve excessive amounts of moaning.

Edited June 2, 2012 by BW199148

[Carbo]

Hahaha.

Hahahahaha.

I sincerely doubt anyone here, or elsewhere finds it sexy that Lara sets herself on fire, bleeds, and goes through hell to be sexy

Exploitation fetishism.

[Stacy]

I fail to see what the problem is here?

I never played Tomb Raider because I am controlling a beautiful women with daggers for tits, I play Tomb Raider because I was controlling a strong independent woman that could some serious ass and give men a run of their money, now that attractive even inspiring.

Lara Coft was one of first strong gaming heroines who became a pop culture icon its sad that people just see her as a sex symbol and I have been playing Tomb Raider since I was 7.

Edited June 2, 2012 by BW199148

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Hahaha.

Hahahahaha.

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[turbojet]

"Lara suffers" is the entire driving point behind the development of this game. I don't know where people are getting the idea that Lara isn't sexualized at all here, because she is, and more than ever if you ask me. Fetishization of women doesn't just come from making them look sexy, and I only have to point to the entire "rape revenge" genre of films to show what I'm referring to. Why do you think the final girl in horror films is such a popular concept? She's the one whose plight is somehow what the male audience is expected to empathize with (because for some reason we would not be able to feel the same for a male character going through the exact same situation), and even though we do want her to suceeed we also want to see her go through hellish terror and suffering in order to achieve that. Kinda like how this game is being advertised. Hm.

My point is that "Lara suffers" is a marketable, misogynistic ploy that can pass off as a huge selling point. "Drake suffers" or "Batman suffers" does not.

[Pelly <3's U]

Uhh except for there's a lot more complexity to the deep sociological attitudes on gender and sexuilization more so than 'swap out a man for this and no one would find it sexist'

You're ignoring the fact that people inherently have culturally defined standards (and perhaps some biologically) to how they perceive men and women, and the differences in not only the perception but also how both are portrayed in their respective roles.

It seems to me your argument is as silly as saying "Well male superheroes are big muscle men in skin tight costumes, so I don't see why people complain that female superheroes are sexualized for the same thing"

Big ass elephant in the room.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Jason Brody, in the same exact situation as Lara Croft was in this setting, gets stranded on an island with his friends surrounded by crazy people. And yes, the selling point of the game is to get off this island alive. We watched that E3 conference and saw how Jason was tied to a boulder and kicked in a ravine. Yet no one shuddered as we watched this man struggle to breath. And we watched again as he fought out just to get captured by the same maniac again. Seriously?

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Detective Shadzter]

I can see what people are getting at with this sexual exploitation stuff, but I personally haven't felt this or thought about it with this game until I saw this debate. All I see is the developers trying to give Lara more character and portray a more realistic experience (even if the whining is annoying).

[Pelly <3's U]

Haha and also I read multiple comments in this topic about her "moaning", and how she's always been about the "moaning"

and then people are trying to say it's crazy to think that anyone mixes sex and violence as a selling point

hahaha fuuuuck

(because I'm sure that in every uncharted preview where they watched the guy litter profanities and carry around a big ass gun, people were really into discussing said characters moaning)