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

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Alright CSS, let me spell this particular point out for you. Sexualization does not exclusively refer to being turned on or literal sexual desire. We are referring to the not consciously sexual fetishization of exploitation of vulnerability that women are so easily prone to in media. It's the idea of a woman being in a constant vulnerable state that audience-goers buy into, not the violence itself.

Edited June 2, 2012 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[King Frosty]

So yeah.

Hyped for the game, hoping the story is good.

[turbojet]

So I decided to actually watch the link Sean posted which was about female video game characters and how Bayonetta is awesome. Moviebob, who makes points about how Bayonetta is not like Chun-Li, who is probably the best female fighter in the world, but prances like a five year old girl after every victory to make the audience(males) think that she is just a vulnerable girl, nor like Cammy, who is just as capable as Chun-Li, but an ice queen and tells the audience(males) that she isn't interested in anything. Bayonetta wants it, but thinks you can't deliver her desires. Not needs, because Bayonetta does not need it. She is doing you(the males) a favor. She is the quintessential bad bitch. She is a strong female and is intimidating in her sexuality. Now here is my point.

What does misogyny have to do with this reboot? Lara, in this setting, is straight out of college, starting out in a new adventure, and then shit happens. I don't see how the vulnerability in this setting would be any different if it was male or female. I am not seeing the misogyny because just what in the fuck do you expect from anybody in this scenario? Were you expecting a Bayonetta-like character from a woman, with a little bit more survival training than us if the anything they shown us means anything, that age who,from I assume,is going through something unprecedented? Is that why it is sexist? If that is your spiel, then you have an extremely high expectation of women and people, in general. I mean the ,"Gods be damned, bow down to thou women, they are untouchable" type. She is not vulnerable because she is a woman. She is vulnerable because, in a realistic sense, any of us would be if we were in her shoes in that setting. She is not "moaning" for our pleasure, she is moaning and grunting in pain because she had a piece of metal in her side and is not just walking the wound off as if it were nothing. I am not seeing any submissiveness or crying that is unnecessary for anyone in that situation. She is fighting back, stabbing wolves in faces, and wants to go back home. What makes it more impressive, this is her first adventure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnkoLGiF1K8She has exigency in her character. Her story is more akin to Oliver Green, Green Arrow. The developers are trying for the realistic approach and you guys are calling it sexist when there is none.

Edited June 3, 2012 by turbojet

[Carbo]

I need to keep a counter over how many times someone mistakes me for Sean.

Also no one said she had to be Bayonetta, and that was not my intent behind posting that video. The reason I posted that video was to demonstrate the effect of why people WOULD find it misogynist or oversexualized. There are better, more solid and impacting ways to depict a fresh character in her profession at her first adventure without making it out like she's being literally raped every 20 seconds. It just comes to prove you have literally no idea what we're even talking about here.

[turbojet]

Now this is pissing me off. I'm trying to see what exactly the sexism is about and going by your definitions, am trying to apply it to the reboot and everything you say is misogynistic in their advertising, I am not seeing it. And when I say why I am not seeing it, you pull the "it is there, you just don't see it" card. The fuck? You expect me to get anything out of what you are saying when you are being dismissive? I concede that advertising for most things involving a female protagonist tends to be sexist, but when I see what they are doing to the character, Lara Croft, who was everything that embodied misogyny in video games, and making it more presentable than it was before and that is sexist, it confounds me. I see a bitch ganking a wolf, capping motherfuckers despite being impaled in that trailer. You see misogyny.

[Carbo]

Clearly an evident sign that we've reached an impasse and that we'll have to agree to disagree.

Mind you this was an argument that not started off because of a character being exposed to scenarios with justifiable set pieces, but the fact that the developers were practically pushing it as a selling point in their marketing because that's practically all you see in the trailers. I suggest you chill out.

[Meow]

Avoiding the topic at hand because I'm the last person to ever jump into a discussion like that (for ahem, obvious reasons lolmydrawingshaharealol ) I've never played a Tomb Raider game before (GASP). I've never grown up as a Sony kid so that explains a good chunk of it.

However I am mildly intrigued by this game after the last trailer. It looks pretty...intense? I guess that would be a good word to use for it. I am slightly unsettled by some of the things I saw in the trailer but I think at the same time it could make for a different gaming experience. I tend not to play a lot of horror or survival games myself, but the end of the trailer looks like the game almost turns into an action-flick styled experience. So I might actually check it out. This is the first time I've really been interested in Tomb Raider either way.

[Nintendoga]

Game looks gory for a TR game, but I'm still interested. Lora goes through alot of shit though, so I guess they think it's to build character or something? I dunno.

[buba]

Game Informer gave some details about the game:

- Don't expect much of the old linear platforming formula. "We're now giving the player the opportunity to go into a space and choose their own path. Where we take you across the ledge of the B-52 bomber, that's a tutorial. Once you move away from the plane, everything is basically open, dynamic traversal where the player has the freedom to roam around a jump from location to location with ease..."

- You'll be able to air steer, direction control, speed her up/down during jumps

- The game has an XP system. You'll be able to use this for upgrading Lara's abilities. You'll also have to scavenge for materials to upgrade Lara's equipment

- The base camps will allow you to upgrade Lara's abilities, improve your equipment and fast travel to other base camps that you've visited on the island

- Early on you'll only have a few options to upgrade Lara, such as giving her the ability to carry additional arrows for her bow or increasing the speed that she's able to shoot the arrows. As you continue the system will open up and allow you to shape her abilities to your playstyle.

- The context-sensitive actions are one-off sequences. For example, the scene with Lara stabbing the wolf is only going to happen once in the game. They say that if you do it right the first time it'll have an impact.

- "There is linearity to the story - you have to go from point A to point B - but there's junctions in between where we want the player to feel like they're real explorers." These are described as non-linear hub spaces that you can come back to at different times of day.

[RidersDX]

I've never shown any real interest in this series, but when I saw this game shown last year I was immediately impressed, and have basically the same feelings seeing what we got to see this E3. I don't really have much else to say right now other then the gameplay looks fun and it looks like they're putting real care into the story from how much they seem to be focusing on it.

[Patticus]

Lara Croft will be the victim of attempted rape in new game

Players will want to "protect" an increasingly-battered Lara Croft in the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, its executive producer has said.

The series' young heroine will lose her best friend, be beaten, bruised, kidnapped, and finally be subjected to an attempted rape.

"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," executive producer Ron Rosenberg explained to Kotaku.

"When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character. 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.'"

The challenges facing Croft will allow her to appear more human, Rosenberg added.

"The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear. 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."

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

It's not the first time that developer Crystal Dynamics has explained how it wants players to notice Lara's youth and vulnerability. Art director Brian Horton revealed last year that the new Lara, by design, has "a little bit of that baby fat".

"We wanted to make a girl that was somewhat familiar, yet had a special quality about her - something in the way her eyes look and her expression in her face that makes you want to care for her."

"Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won't be about being revealing. It's a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way."

http://www.eurogamer...-to-protect-her

Why is it that when developers want to go serious, they reach straight for the big bucket 'o rape?

[Blue Blood]

*interest plummeting*

Seriously, fuck off. I was so hyped to begin with. Now it just sounds like something I don't want to play.

[Komodin]

... Suddenly, this game doesn't look so inviting now. I can't help but feel that the attempted rape will most likely be played for the primary sake of titillation, and that honestly disturbs me.

[Patticus]

Any attempted rape scene is going to be embarrassingly awful, and probably poorly done. If it makes the final game at all, it'll come across really badly.

"The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear.

Creepy. Very creepy.

[Marcello]

We've already seen that scene haven't we?

[Patticus]

We've already seen that scene haven't we?

There's been something strongly hinting at it but I doubt we've seen the full extent of it at all.

[Shaddix Leto Croft]

Lara Croft will attempt to be raped in new game

http://www.eurogamer...-to-protect-her

Why is it that when developers want to go serious, they reach straight for the big bucket 'o rape?

Hmm wasn't there a scene in the trailer where the guy was going towards Lara which looks like he was going to attempt to rape her before she killed him ?

It looks like this bit is going to the be the rape bit the way he was acting before Lara killed him *BOOMHEADSHOT*

This shows why it's a 18+ then but we'll probs avoid it much like how it was in the trailer with a quick time event ?

Edited June 13, 2012 by Shaddix

[Tornado]

Jesus Christ. Not even I thought they would have the balls to push it that far.

[Octarine]

"When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character. 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.'"

Y'know, it's probably not good when the first thing your description of your gritty action-adventure game reminds me of is Pac-Man 2.

[Patticus]

Does Tomb Raider's Lara Croft really have to be a survivor of a rape attempt?

Sexual assault is too often used by writers as lazy shorthand for showing women as vulnerable and their male attackers as evil

The Tomb Raider video game franchise, and its heroine Lara Croft, is 16 years, nine games, two films and at least one amusement park ride, old this year. Although Lara was originally best known for the remarkable size of her breasts – and that's still probably the first thing to spring to mind about her – she's grown into an interesting character, with plenty of adventures under her belt. And at the recent E3 conference developers Crystal Dynamics revealed a new, gritty version of Lara Croft's history – one that sees her bloodied, bruised, badly wounded, and forced to fight for her life against mercenaries, one of whom tries to rape her before she blows his head off.

The inclusion of the attempted rape scene raises some difficult questions. If the scene is playable, what exactly happens should the player fail? If it is not, why show it at all? Lara is already going through a lot – shipwreck, major injury, a friend's kidnapping, the threat of death – and adding sexual assault to the mix might just be over-egging the pudding.

Then there is the fact that rape is not a naturally occurring event like a rockfall, or a transformative one like a radioactive spider bite. In too much media, its use is a lazy shorthand that allows a writer to paint a bad guy as particularly bad, and a woman as particularly vulnerable (the genders are rarely reversed), without dealing with the consequences or meaning of such an act for any of the parties involved. That doesn't mean no storyteller or video game should ever tackle rape – of course they should, where a story demands it – but if the only reason to include sexual violence is to emphasise a woman's vulnerability or a man's evilness, then it's fair to question why a threat of murder is not enough.

The bigger question, in the case of Tomb Raider, is why the game's designers decided to make Lara Croft so vulnerable. In a recent interview with Kotaku, executive producer Ron Rosenberg said players want to protect Lara, and that the new game would break her down, put her through awful experiences, and make the players "root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character".

His statements take some unpacking, and for fans of the Tomb Raider series they're not encouraging. As a player, I don't remember having many problems projecting myself as Lara – and I don't particularly want an avatar in a game that needs protecting. Players aren't expected to want to protect Nathan Drake in Uncharted, or John Marsden in Red Dead Redemption, or Max Payne – so why Lara? Rosenberg seems to suggest it's because she's female – and it's hard to see that as anything other than a sexist approach, an assumption that men can't lose themselves in stories with female protagonists and/or that female gamers simply don't exist.

He also says she's forced to suffer such horrors that she "literally turns into a cornered animal". I hope it turns out that Lara's been a werewolf all this time – but I suspect he means that her character and spirit come under such attack that she's reduced to fight-or-flight responses. The Lara Croft of previous games has generally been intelligent, witty, resourceful and ingenious, as well as athletic, strong and skilful. Lara has always been a pragmatic survivalist with a keen sense of adventure; to decide that she needs to be tortured in order to be able to kill goes against what we know of her history and personality so far.

The idea that Lara – like Samus from Metroid – should have an origin story in which she is weak in order to explain her strength is difficult to swallow. Male characters are generally permitted to be strong without needing a back story in which they are broken – why should female characters be different? Why do we need to protect Lara through an awful ordeal for her strength to make sense? Judging by the comments on Kotaku and elsewhere, I'm not the only one who shares these concerns.

It is rare that strong women characters get to be protagonists in video games – and that's part of the problem. If there were a multitude of women whose stories were told well – flawed, brilliant, good, evil, strong, weak and everything in between – the mischaracterisation of one would not have such an impact. Lara Croft has never been without design problems (or presumably back pain), but to adjust her appearance while smashing her characterisation into smithereens would rather miss the point of all the criticism. I'm hoping, but not expecting, that this is a savage case of mis-marketing and that Crystal Dynamics has made a well-written, sensitively done story, that doesn't turn an iconic female character into a helpless wreck in the name of an edgy reboot. We'll have to wait and see.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/13/tomb-raider-lara-croft-rape-attempt?newsfeed=true

Does Crystal want you to rape Lara Croft?

Mic Wright is disgusted by the direction the Tomb Raider franchise is taking.

Masturbate over the daring female explorer, then drown her.

It’s fair to say the history of the Tomb Raider franchise has not always been pleasant. Lara Croft, the short-shorts-wearing heroine of the series is an heiress archaeologist with killer gun skills to match her smoking legs and ample assets.

But she’s been portrayed in the real world by a succession of Nuts models and sold to gamers as a tasty bit of totty to fap themselves silly over. And the drowing thing? There was a whole meme dedicated to gamers letting Lara expire underwater to sort out their own women-hating tendencies in a nice safe environment.

So why am I banging on about Tomb Raider now? It’s a cultural artefact that ceased to be interesting in about 2001 but the franchise owners have hit the bit button marked “reboot”, surely?

Well, no. Crystal Dynamics, makers of Tomb Raider, have decided to go for a shocking new twist. Poor old beaten and bruised Lara, despite being a seasoned kick-ass adventurer, will now have to go through an attempted rape so the gamer wants to “protect her”.

No, I am not making this up.

I’ve played a lot of Halo and I don’t remember Master Chief ever being anally raped to help us empathise with him more. Was Mario forced to give a Bowser a blowjob so we could understand his head-smashing rage better?

Sure, I’m being hyperbolic. Needlessly, some might argue, but you need to read the comments from the game’s producers. Their argument is that they are reversing the “sexualisation” of Lara and instead building a character who has to go from zero to hero.

That’s problematic. Very few male characters, if any, have to take that journey for players to empathise with them. And when the actual abuse and violence Lara is to face in the game is raised, it’s done very clunkily.

Ron Rosenberg, the game’s executive producer, told Kotaku: ”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. When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character.

“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.’

“The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear. 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.

“She is literally turned into a cornered animal. It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die.”

Read that again. She is “literally turned into a cornered animal”. From a sex object to drown and leer over to a character who is dehumanised by the violence imposed on her. Wow, Tomb Raider producers, you’ve really gone for nuance here.

How about some downloadable gestured controlled content where the player can actually become the attempted rapist? That’s edgy right? Sounds like the perfect obscene apotheosis. You heard it here first.

Rape is represented in fiction of all kinds, but too often it is used as the ultimate shock. This is the Hollyoaks school of narrative, though, where rape is dropped into a storyline as a quick way of increasing jeopardy rather than as something the story actually calls for.

The clumsy way Tomb Raider’s creators have handled this issue give the impression that they have neither thought about how a “real” Lara would feel nor of the significant and growing audience of women gamers.

We should not need to see Lara battered, bruised and fetishised to empathise with her. Mainstream gaming is infected with a sickness that focuses big products on pleasing a small section of the audience – the tits and explosions gang – and it is damaging the future of gaming.

Lara Croft should kick ass from the very start, not be made to earn it. And certainly not raped and beaten for the sick pleasure of the yellow underwear brigade.

And God help them if they ever do try to make the player the one raping Croft, which you can imagine them justifying with a line about “guilt moving you to great deeds”. Terrifyingly, I find the prospect relatively plausible.

http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/column/2551/crystal-wants-you-to-rape-lara-croft/

Going down well already, then.

[Emmett L. Brown]

"When people play Lara, they don't really project themselves into the character. 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.'"

Because no female will ever play this game. Ever.

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

Unless there's a part where she's magically transformed into a wolf or something, that's not what literally means!

[Patticus]

I'd like to see a Gears Of War prequel wherein Marcus Fenix, Dom, Baird, Cole et al get raped and abused all the time. That would definitely explain their collective strength in the original Gears trilogy.

I like to imagine that the hiring procedure for the attempted rapist went something like this...

[turbojet]

Well fuck this shit.

[Nintendoga]

Finally a game that appeals to me!

It's a dark idea, and while not ruining the game for me, might ruin a bit of the story and Lara's character for me if done really shitty

Edited June 13, 2012 by Nintendoga

[Sean]

=/

Hm, did I say before that I thought this was worse than DmC? I should rephrase that to be a little less vague.

I will never hate another video game as much as I hate this one.