Good news! I'm told the writing in ROTTR is an astronomical leap forward compared to the last game.
"So it's good then?"
Heck no. Did you play the last game?
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Polygon: From sex symbol to icon: How Crystal Dynamics saved Lara Croft
- Thread starter Tom Nook Sawyer
- Start date
Good news! I'm told the writing in ROTTR is an astronomical leap forward compared to the last game.
"So it's good then?"
Heck no. Did you play the last game?
gigantor21
Member
LMAO XD
I can't remember where I saw it now, but I remember one of the project leads talking excitedly about all the horrific kill animations/cinematics back when the reboot was being promoted. As cringey as the old Lara and the 90's/00's promotion was, I found that angle of it (along with the whole "you'll feel like you want to protect her" horseshit) no better.
Right? We got glimpses and leaks about how it was supposed to be a horror game way before it was properly showed, so maybe they were really going that route, but not only they don't do anything with it, they also contradict that with all the cut-scenes where she is just a scaredy cat coming to terms with her situation.
I wouldn't have a problem with that either, I'd probably love a game who had the balls to do something like that. Heck, if you really believe they were going for it, another read of the cutscenes could be that she is indeed a fucking psychopath and is just playing vulnerable among her friends to keep a weak facade while hiding her real nature, and fucking hell, that would be an amazing twist and complex characterization. But if that is the read we are going for then in no way we can say she is a positive portrayal of anything, so of course that isn't the case at all. It's Hilarious CD really believes they are writing some hero character you can look up to or something.
NeoRaider
Member
Sam is not in the game.
NullPointer
Member
Its possible you live in a cave, or missed the late 90s.
LUXURY
Member
I'm glad they're not trying to make the new Lara Croft entity out to be a sex symbol to be honest. I never felt the need for them to be dressing her up in bikinis and robes in the 90s. I like that they're taking the extra initiative to build her up as a beautiful, intelligent, strong minded female hero. Not that they didn't do that with the older games, but they also played into a niche back then which just doesn't fit with this new image of her.
Finale Fireworker
Member
Then there is some dissonance here, since many critics of TR2013 seem to think it's a bad game too. "Generic linear third-person shooter" is thrown around an awful lot.
The final days of preboot Lara might not have been great Tomb Raider games, but by the word of some fans, neither was TR2013.
And yet, here we are. Lara is mainstream again and RotTR is a major holiday release, after even TR2013 was a timid February drop.
The new property resonates with people in a really big way. New Lara is at the center of that.
JB-the-Hunter
Member
Lara went from sex symbol AND icon to NEITHER in my opinion. I don't care about the sex symbol part of it at all, but I'm really salty that they made her newer design so bland.
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
Icon? Seriously? Bayonetta and Samus, heck, even Peach for that matter, is more iconic now than Croft.
Impeccable
Member
I lived in a cave through the 90s.
Astral Dog
Member
Thats right, Lara Croft is one of gaming most popular and respected female characters, especially now with the two new games.
Oh, that's kind of lame.
Auto-Reply
Member
Not even close. Lara Croft was on non videogame related magazine covers, in music videos of popular bands and hollywood movies, people knew about her. People that never played a Tomb Raider game knew who Lara Croft was, or what she used to look like.
That era is gone, Tomb Raider is not Star Wars.
Finale Fireworker
Member
You live in a fantasy world if you think Bayonetta or Samus (RIP) is more iconic than Lara Croft is now.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Peach and Samus maybe but Bayonetta? No way.
Even Samus is a no go. She hasn't had a game in years and the last one had a far worse representation of being a well represented women then TR2013
NeoRaider
Member
Please stop. lol
Polygon is too close to videogames...to the a casual eye
This is an Icon:
This is a random videogame female:
This is a terrible comparison.
Astral Dog
Member
heck, Samus is arguably below Lara now.
SRTtoZ
Member
lol.
JB-the-Hunter
Member
I mean, it's the truth...
The Tomb Raider series is probably more lucrative than Bayonetta and Metroid nowadays, but the character of Lara Croft can't even touch Bayonetta and Samus. Are you kidding?
hahaha sarcasm ..right?
New Lara has not reached her old icon status until she also stars in a music video of a German Band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404oPn6tudE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404oPn6tudE
DR2K
Banned
Polygon is too close to videogames...to the a casual eye
This is an Icon:
This is a random videogame female:
They're both icons.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Yes the hell she can. Especially if we're talking about the horribly misogynistic portrayal of Samus in Metroid Other M. Or Bayonetta's lack of success with two entries.
I can't believe someone wrote that non ironically.
This is the currently most well known model of Lara Croft. While I think that the outfit is ridiculous, the colors make it more easily recognisable than the RoTR model.
This is my favorite design so far (the one in the top-down games, basically).
Not too ridiculous, but not trying to fill in some pathetic attempt at depth, that completely falls flat.
It's cartoony and colorful enough, but not as silly as some of the shit in, say, Tomb Raider 3 or 5.
I mean you look at the new model from the new Tomb Raider, and the main difference is she doesn't have shorts (which in a tropical setting aren't even that strange) but she's still the pretty girl with perfect l'Oreal hair and make up on, down in the tombs.
I don't see that many differences, aside from the fact that, as i said, the more colorful style of the one i quoted, fits my idea of Tomb Raider (which is about the wonder and discovery of beautiful remote places, not about trying to tell Apocalypse Now) much better.
TR2013 was a fun enough game in and out of itself, but as a long time Tomb Raider fan (the series that actually got me into gaming, in some ways) i really can't stand the direction they went with.
Reminds me of all those "gritty Mario" parodies that pop up a dime a dozen.
Lara Croft didn't need saving.
All they really did to her was make her graphics way more realistic, where before they'd been cartoonish and stylized, which was pretty cool. She looked more like Leela from Futurama.
Yeah but it was the best Uncharted.
All they really did to her was make her graphics way more realistic, where before they'd been cartoonish and stylized, which was pretty cool. She looked more like Leela from Futurama.
Yeah but it was the best Uncharted.
Everyone who still thinks lara is an icon probably doesn't even know about the reboot.
Her days as an icon are over since almost 3 console generations.
WrenchNinja
Member
Funny article. Though I doubt that was the intent.
Man people don't even know the console those character's games are in let alone the game characters themselves...
gundamkyoukai
Member
Lara is no where near as big of a icon as she used to be .
Also i like the old lara better who was a bad ass and did not have so much emotional baggage .
Also i like the old lara better who was a bad ass and did not have so much emotional baggage .
I just did a test. I'm not joking. I showed my mother who hasn't played a game in her life these two pictures.
"Who is this?"
"That's Lara Croft. I loved her Angelina Jolie movies."
"Do you know who this is?"
"Is that the girl from The Hunger Games?"
to be honest that's more because of Lara's legacy. Everyone knows her, but because of Core games. The reboot didn't do much to popularize Lara again. It's still way more popular than those characters yeah, but the average dude will think about the old design when you ask him who's Lara Croft.
EDIT: What Garlador said.
Sure...but you are insane if you think characters like Bayonetta and Samus are more iconic/well known etc that Lara Croft.
New Lara is a boring, plain Jane character. Her name can be Linda Wilson for all I care. She is definitely not iconic.
No. Princess Peach is a bad example. She is definitely the most recognizable female character in video games.
Demon Lizardman
Banned
I kind of miss the fantasy aspect the old games had. Yeah, there's a bit of fantasy in the newer games but the first level of the very first game had you fighting fucking dinosaurs. Then you're fighting weird eldritch creatures in Atlantis. Now we are just fighting crazy people and jackass mercenaries, at least but some more enemy variety.
Hari Seldon
Member
Peach definitely not, but as far as mainstream audiences are concerned, Lara is probably more well known than Samus by a significant margin.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
There is zero chance that more people know who Bayonetta is then know who Lara Croft is. Literally zero chance.
That percentage goes up a bit with Samus, but it's still really, really low.
JB-the-Hunter
Member
I'm not talking about the success of the games here, I'm talking about the characters and their iconography. How does Bayonetta manage to have so much art and cosplay while being such a niche series? Because her design is iconic. Samus's design has always been iconic and Other M's portrayal of her hasn't stopped that.
People don't know the NES, SNES, Gameboy Advance and Wii? People don't know about the PS3 and Xbox 360? C'mon now, they didn't suddenly become unknown characters because people didn't buy the Wii U.
I didn't say more poeple know Bayonetta than Lara Croft. I'm talking about each character's current design. Bayonetta's design is more iconic than modern Lara Croft.
NeoRaider
Member
It's still Lara Croft right? Do you know how many TR games CD actually did??