kuroneko0509
Member
I could see the Katniss angle though. Kinda says something about her design in comparison.
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Polygon: From sex symbol to icon: How Crystal Dynamics saved Lara Croft
- Thread starter Tom Nook Sawyer
- Start date
I could see the Katniss angle though. Kinda says something about her design in comparison.
Iconic "looking" is not remotely what they're talking about in the article. The colours someone wears as a character matters so little these days. At least I hope.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Shame how Square Enix business decisions went on to doom her
Old Lara (character wise) was basically a less clumsy Indiana Jones.
It really didn't need that much depth, and that's part of what made her iconic.
Many iconic characters do not show that much depth (at least in their inception).
Indiana Jones, Darth Vader, are all pretty shallow archetypes that are massively iconic.
Bayonetta? Seriously? Haha what kind of crazy pills are you on. I refuse to believe this ha serious haha.
The new Lara is awesome and a great protagonist.
Hari Seldon
Member
Oh most definitely. Actually that is it exactly. Old Lara Croft was a female indiana jones. New Lara Croft is Katniss.
Haha, I don't even know how you can come to such a conclusion after the cluster fuck the first game was. I'll play the new one next year and hopefully it is an improvement, but from the videos I've seen it looks like more of the same.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
If I didn't already know the new Lara design, I wouldn't know that was Lara Croft. When I see a woman with khaki shorts, a handgun in each hand, and a bright single-color shirt, I think Lara Croft. Pants, gray shirt, a bow and arrow, and a handaxe does not scream Lara Croft - it looks like a character from The Laster of Us 2: The Lastening.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
You know people have cosplayed as new Lara croft as well right? As well as fanart. Ffs in the article they talk about how even men cosplay as new Lara all the time now.
Too bad they haven't been that capable at developing new Lara. Their stated intent was excellent, their execution, not so much.
TheSlySoul
Member
She is written better, but her character is just alright from what I played.
It's a shame because you really get no explanation on why she is on her journey.
She is no Katniss pretty much.
NeoRaider
Member
Exactly.
The article is specifically focusing on the reboot Tomb Raider games and claims those turned her into an icon.
I do, I have them all. I meant the reboot Lara.
And yeah it's still Lara Croft, but she looks nothing like most people remember her. She's popular but not because CD saved her.
Lara Croft (original) is such an iconic character that even if their games stop being made forever people will still remember her from her big 90 era.
This article is a series of huhs and whats. The word icon is used so poorly. Mirror's Edge complex characters; it had a story? It's worrying if this is the aspiration that writers are meant to aim for with female characters or characters in general as that really should be the main point, regardless of gender. I enjoyed the heck out of the reboot, first time since the PSX games I truly got into, but that story had major issues. A lot of it came from the clash of story and gameplay. I'm happy they choose the gameplay side but the juxtaposition never went away. I remember playing it with a female friend in the room and she tore the story/character arc apart - mostly jokingly to be a dick to me but the points were still valid and I wouldn't have wanted to have experienced that game from a story aspect only. There's definitely an article worth reading somewhere about the way Lara has evolved over the years but it is not this one.
Really looking forward to Rise when the actual release happens and hope this stupid grab by Microsoft doesn't hurt it too badly, but I'm going to enjoy it as another uncharted style game/Indiana inspired romp through exotic locations. I am hoping and willing to be surprised though. Tone back the mass murdering and replace with puzzles could benefit both story and gameplay variety greatly.
TLDR: Oh, Polygon and your guest opinion pieces.
Really looking forward to Rise when the actual release happens and hope this stupid grab by Microsoft doesn't hurt it too badly, but I'm going to enjoy it as another uncharted style game/Indiana inspired romp through exotic locations. I am hoping and willing to be surprised though. Tone back the mass murdering and replace with puzzles could benefit both story and gameplay variety greatly.
TLDR: Oh, Polygon and your guest opinion pieces.
Well, since we're always comparing the two series, is Nathan Drake an icon? Because the sales for their recent games are pretty comparable. And at the very least Lara has her 90s heyday and two pretty well-selling motion pictures.
Edit: I think people who believe Lara Croft a forgotten relic of the 90s and Nathan Drake is leaps and bounds beyond her in relevancy are way off base.
Finale Fireworker
Member
???
I don't even know how to respond to this. My friend, how can you possibly believe this? What is your definition of iconic? Because it must be very different from mine.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Sure. That's what happens when you put in a lot of money to make it happen, you get quality. I like reboot Lara cuz we finally have a female action lead that is bloodthirsty and does brutal kills as good as a Gears of War bro. She embraces the violence that typically too many people seem to think is only suited for men. I like the change although I wish CD would just stop with the whole Lara trying to deal with emotions and killing and just admit she's just PTSD. But the only thing the old school fans and even newer fans are wishing for is the reboot to have more exploration variety in tombs and solving puzzles. The Tomb Raider we have, gameplay wise, might as well be a different game. This is more of a re-imagining than a reboot. They put so much important on her character that they overlooked a lot of what made TR popular, and it wasn't the boobs no matter what marketing tried to tell you.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
It's iconic within a small group of people. The type that do fan art on the internet and cosplay at cons. Lara Croft is recognizable by the general public.
I'm pretty sure that the Tomb Raider reboot sold more then Bayonetta, Bayonetta 2 and Other M combined.
This is literally impossible when only a fraction of people have seen Bayonetta's design compared to the rebooted Lara Croft. Even if only one of every eight people who played the Tomb Raider reboot remembers what Lara Croft looks like in that incarnation, there would probably still be more people who recognize her then if literally every person who bought and played Bayonetta 2 remembered what Bayonetta looks like.
I hated the reboot. Hated the writing. Hated what they did to Lara.
I don't mind CD diving into her past, they already did it with the TR Legend trilogy. But even in those games she became a badass after one (1) traumatic experience in which nobody died. Her trying to find her mother sounded like a great excuse to have her travel the world searching for mystical shit, and by the time the games started she's already a badass.
TR2013 had her and her friends be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and pretty much everybody but her died a horrible death in front of her. She also killed hundreds of men and was put through all kinds of physical and mental trauma. How does that make Lara want to be an adventurer? How does someone who goes through that experience say "this is my call in life"? And, most importantly, why do we need to see this?
I don't mind CD diving into her past, they already did it with the TR Legend trilogy. But even in those games she became a badass after one (1) traumatic experience in which nobody died. Her trying to find her mother sounded like a great excuse to have her travel the world searching for mystical shit, and by the time the games started she's already a badass.
TR2013 had her and her friends be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and pretty much everybody but her died a horrible death in front of her. She also killed hundreds of men and was put through all kinds of physical and mental trauma. How does that make Lara want to be an adventurer? How does someone who goes through that experience say "this is my call in life"? And, most importantly, why do we need to see this?
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
Did you play TLOU? Because I'm wondering what the hell you're talking about when referencing that game.
NeoRaider
Member
But we are talking about ONE game here. Ok two if we count ROTTR game that not many ppl can play rn. Maybe it's wasn't a right time for this article, but imo. there's nothing wrong with it.
Lara Croft could have been dead now right? Like many other (female or non female) characters are. CD decided to do something about it and continue after all the struggle and problems with Legends and Underworld. And here we have Lara Croft again. Maybe some ppl prefer old Lara, i am not one of them. New Lara is strong, she is not weak character, she is just more real, more human and more relatable.
Agreed... wat?
I'm also wondering about his BioShock comment because Elizabeth is actually your combat support and never in need of protection
I don't really see the male power fantasy in there.
JB-the-Hunter
Member
I'm talking about the design of the characters here dude. When you look at them. Are you telling me that new Lara's design is even half as iconic as her design used to be? Lara Croft is way more iconic than Bayonetta over all, but it's mostly due to her past appearances. Lara's current design stripped away too many of the elements that made her instantly distinguishable.
gundamkyoukai
Member
NeoRaider
Member
What are these elements? And please don't mention slutty costumes.
I'm not saying the reboot shouldn't have happened. And of course it did well and sold well. Just pointing out that, even if the series died, Lara Croft will always be a popular character because of what it was. Simple as that, the reboot sold well and did bring Tomb Raider back as a game, but popularity wise IMO it did nothing for Lara Croft.
About the new Lara, I don't agree that she's more real because she has more struggles and she's not as badass as the old Lara, but that's another can of worms...
That's kind of why I qualified it with "people who play games."
Look, old Lara's design is more iconic and a large part of that is because it's more cartoony with sharp distinguishable details like the bright sky blue shirt. Part of making a more realistic Lara is inevitably going to be a loss of that type of easy recognition. But that doesn't mean new Lara is indistinguishable from a random NPC.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
Iconic has nothing to do with if something aesthetically pops out at you or not. Iconic refers to how well known something is. Just because current Lara looks more generic then 90's Lara doesn't mean what she looks like is any less iconic if 8.5 people bought her game and can recognize her still.
Old Lara is absolutely Iconic. People outside of gaming recognize that design, it transcended the medium. The new Lara design is only recognizable by gamers who are currently in the know, and easily mistakable for any other female character with a bow in other media. That's the distinction that a lot of people here are missing.
unknownhero
Member
this! x 1000
looks aside, old school lara was awesome. She explored and raided tombs for sport. She didn't do them because she was a daddy's girl. they weren't perfect in truth but still better then what we have now.
btw, anniversary handled the whole killing thing better. at least she was shaken by it longer than lara rambo.
tkscz
Member
I really hope you played Undertale, because that should live up to your expectations of what a system like this can be.
OT: I never really got into C.D's Tomb Raider just because the Lara here wasn't that interesting (IMO). You don't always have to explain why a character is who they are, sometimes you can infer why from their actions. From other Tomb Raider games, players can infer that she was an adventure, she learned at some point to be a marksmen, trained in acrobatics and keeps up her strength every day by what she is capable of doing. We didn't need her to have a sob, everything went wrong and I had to build myself up, story. There is nothing wrong with that, but from the Eidos games, we knew her father was an adventure, and sometimes, something as simple as inspiration can be enough for a character to want to become badass. "I want to grow up like dad and venture across the globe and I need to get strong to do that." There you go, a great reason why Lara trained, and no need for origins that have contradictions just to have said origin story. You can have a well written character, with the simplest of reasons.
Ellie in The Last of Us is definitely not what you are describing and is a far better written character than Lara in the reboot.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
Old Lara was Indiana Jones crossed with James Bond. New Lara is modern YA fiction.
Bu bu bu she had that hilarious line where she says: "I hate Tombs" hahaha. Get it? She did a thing like Indiana Jones. And she's the Tomb Raider and hates Tombs! Oh, don't you love her crazy situations she gets involved in...? like the time she had to murder 420 people and eat rats to survive, or when she was stabbed multiple times and moaned her way out of those caves to escape crazy cultists, or where she had to traverse a passage filled with blood and corpses where the crazy people did human sacrifices.
Those tombs aren't going to raid themselves.
She was and still is a sex symbol. In a lot of ways, TR 2013 reminded me a lot of Hostel, Saw and Drag Me to Hell; films that have their female leads and characters going through really bloody and horrid treatment throughout. Yes the old games had this too, but it felt a lot more graphic in TR 2013.
Those images (plus others I forgot about) present Lara facing death in graphic ways or show her in danger; that is a lot worse to me personally than what the older games were like.
Sex symbol or not, at least the old Tomb Raiders gave her agency in the world around her; she defended herself, was confident with the world around her, and took control of action. She even showed humanity in Legend, Anniversary and Underworld (games CD's developed); she was a person and a strong one.
With the new Tomb Raider, I have far less respect for her than the original version due to how badly they botch the story telling. Her world isn't interesting, her friends aren't enjoyable to watch, her interactions with them are bland and lack character, and everyone is a complete idiot.
I am hard on TR 2013's story, but that is because its a focus; if they focused on showing Lara's world and making that the star, I would appreciate Lara's struggle to survive more.
I am happy that RotTR is fixing some of the glaring issues with TR 2013 Story/Character wise.
Lara knows she is a killer, she wants to explore and she wants to find treasure; that's fine with me. And the fact the game and its story is cool with it makes me happy, as narrative dissonance will not happen with RotTR, which was a big issue with TR 2013.
Long story short, by making the game far more violent and brutally harming Lara in the reboot series, she is more sexualized then she has ever been. They just hide it with the marketing and press statements. But that is fine, as it seems RotTR isn't repeating the same narrative/character issues that TR 2013 had.
Those images (plus others I forgot about) present Lara facing death in graphic ways or show her in danger; that is a lot worse to me personally than what the older games were like.
Sex symbol or not, at least the old Tomb Raiders gave her agency in the world around her; she defended herself, was confident with the world around her, and took control of action. She even showed humanity in Legend, Anniversary and Underworld (games CD's developed); she was a person and a strong one.
With the new Tomb Raider, I have far less respect for her than the original version due to how badly they botch the story telling. Her world isn't interesting, her friends aren't enjoyable to watch, her interactions with them are bland and lack character, and everyone is a complete idiot.
I am hard on TR 2013's story, but that is because its a focus; if they focused on showing Lara's world and making that the star, I would appreciate Lara's struggle to survive more.
I am happy that RotTR is fixing some of the glaring issues with TR 2013 Story/Character wise.
Lara knows she is a killer, she wants to explore and she wants to find treasure; that's fine with me. And the fact the game and its story is cool with it makes me happy, as narrative dissonance will not happen with RotTR, which was a big issue with TR 2013.
Long story short, by making the game far more violent and brutally harming Lara in the reboot series, she is more sexualized then she has ever been. They just hide it with the marketing and press statements. But that is fine, as it seems RotTR isn't repeating the same narrative/character issues that TR 2013 had.
Giolon
Member
And that's why I far prefer the old TRL-TRA-TRU Lara to the current. I wish that Edge article about it was online.
Basketball
Member
BINGO
She was stong and iconic and was disowned by her parents for her lifestyle choices and made her own mark on the world without anyone elses approval. She did it because she loved it, she played for sport not because father did it first. Intelligent, elegent, sassy,bold, empowered, self-expression and femininity all things encompasses in Lara Croft of Old
not this whiny, bland character with daddy issues, hyper emotional yet murders everyone in her path moaning from every tumble, scratch and jump , optional tombs Tomb Raider we have today. Old Lara's greatness didn't come from just the fact she is a woman.
Glendemonium
Member
It was hard for me to call a cluster of polys sexy when her original character models face resembled a Ms. Potatohead... with the interchangeable eyes, nose, and lips.
If that means Lara is like Katniss, that modern Lara comparison works for me.
I guess people are forgetting that this version of Lara is supposed to be younger and less mature anyway?
This Lara seems to still be around in the Guardian of Light and Temple of Osiris games, as well apparently the mobile games. I think they even have the previous voice actress. Kind of odd how there's two different Lara's running around.
And non-videogame commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPymfGOLyEI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhoW5jjaNL4
New Lara might look better than the old one (but I still prefer Legend, Anniversary and Underworld incarnation - both in the stylized looks and confident personality), but she can't even touch the status and recognition old Lara had. Even if new Tomb Raider games sell better than the old ones, she's now just another video game character.
?
Old CGI Lara was ugly. She might look fine for TR1 and TR2, when CGI was still pretty simple looking, but when they kept her face untouched for TR4 she looked like a mutant when she was standing next to other characters that had natural human faces and proportions.
Old (both Core Design and previous Crystal Dynamics trilogy) Lara Croft was the Indiana Jones of gaming. She had wits and smarts and she loved what she was doing ("I only play for sport"). She had little character development in Core Design games, because those games were pretty bare-bone story wise - they had a gameplay first approach. But even there you have stories like TR4 where she learns she is responsible for opening the Pandora Box (releasing Seth on the world by removing Seth Amulet from his tomb) and it's her responsibility to stop the god no matter it takes. She also had a lot of character development in Crystal Dynamics trilogy while keeping her old personality (mommy issues aside).
The new Lara (TR2013, dunno about the new game), on the other hand, just constantly switches between being a badass Rambo that kills tons of people and a whiny girl.
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
It's not a fantasy when you take into account how many games Peach has been in, or how Samus still claims a spot in people's hearts. Bayonetta is definitely a stretch. But her recent game, arguably the best game of 2014, was the center of controversy for being overly sexiest. Croft was a fad that dropped completely off the map. And her reboot appearance is as bland as it gets.
I agree.
Besides, new Lara doesn't really have meaningful depth, just some shitty writing trying to force a character that was created in another era, and with a completely different goal in mind, to fit in with a more try hard, gritty storyline, which is why it ends up as such a mess.