The new Lara Croft is now upon us. She's less sexy and experiences things a little differently this time around. She's praised as a massive improvement, in large part due to her appearances. She's "sensible" now.
Smaller breasts, no short-shorts, no cleavage...but what makes the opposite of those not sensible? If a real woman can make the conscious decision to wear short-shorts and show some cleavage of her large bossoms, why can't game designers make the same without being hassled? And is the suggestion that having large breasts are some sort of negative or impossibility? There are lots of women with real large breasts...it is NOT a conscious decision, unless you get implants. There is a very serious contradiction here; feminists and white knights will rant all about a woman's right to dress however she wants, but then a virtual woman shows some cleavage and it 'detracts' from the game and "shows dat our industree needs tah grow up!!"
She was made hollywood attractive, and there's nothing wrong with that. Kratos doesn't have love handles, Drake doesn't have a lazy eye, and Master Chief isn't overweight; male characters get the same treatment without the batting of an eye. In face of that argument, people go on about how that isn't meant to be sexual. Whose fault is it really that it's not considered sexual when a male character is made attractive? Drake seduces 2 women on a Sunday, Kratos gets his jollies in every last one of his adventures, etc. Their looks are meant to have a relationship with their sexual potency. Just because it's a heterosexual male dominated industry in which THE VIEWER (not the designer) views the female characters as sexy and not the males, doesn't mean that there is any more or less sexuality to how they're designed. Even in the case where it serves as a means to be a macho mega-fantasy, that still leaves us with a sexualized character, stopped from being seen as attractive only by the viewer's own view.
Before we even had much of the game figured out, people were already praising the move to make her a smaller cup size and to cover up more of her nasty, nasty body. It makes me seriously question if the reception would have been anywhere near the same if the game was completely the same but with the old Lara Croft model. Are we really seeing a "progressive" version of Lara Croft or just calmed down versions of prudes, white knights, and insecure women?
Hey gang, It’s been a whirlwind few months here at the Larian castle, attending some of the biggest awards ceremonies in our industry, and we are absolutely humbled by the recognition we’ve received from our players and our peers.
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Because of the apparent sexism in the industry feminist are pushing for female characters to be portrayed in a more shall we say "positive" light, therefore developers need to be seen to be doing something to put an end to accusations that female characters are being overly sexualised and simply portrayed as eye candy for male gamers to gawk at.
I think until we have these issues of sexism and the misrepresentation of women sorted out in the real world, it's probably only going to get worse or better for games, depending on your thoughts on the matter of course.
I must say though, I don't like the idea of any form of creativity being hampered by petty arguments of misrepresentation, especial when the same could be said of the other side.
Eh, while I can't speak for other reviewers out there, I think Lara is far more attractive in this newest game - she's been developed to look lean, toned, and physically fit. I think the developers hit a nice balance of making an attractive female without somehow offending a large majority of feminists and "white knights". It's a tough feat to appease both sides of the argument, and I think Crystal Dynamics succeeded.
I believe this Lara looks better. Mainly because of what Dungeonboss said. Also, Lara in this games gets beat up and thrown around like a rag doll. Have you SEEN some of her death scenes? They don't hold back and that's a good thing. She gets roughed up and pushes her way through. Also, you should know that there are people out there that dislikes the new Lara because she DOESN'T have big breast and short shorts...
As far as big breast, short shorts, skimpy outfits, etc goes. It depends. If I'm supposed to take a female character seriously but she has big breast that looks disproportionate to her body then I just find it silly. Sometimes we see characters like this created to simply pander which is what people truly have a problem with. Also, trying too hard to make the character look sexy. However, there isn't anything " wrong " with big breast.
Why did you lump prudes with white knights and feminist? Those aren't synonymous with each other. I'm prudish but I've never taken offense to any game character design choices. Developers can do whatever they want with characters.
Here's what we know.
-- They found an actress to represent the new Lara Croft both physically and audibly.
-- They modeled the new Lara Croft after her proportions.
-- Old Lara Croft models were found to fit a CGI model designed prior to any person was used as a base model. None of the models found have the same proportions as the CGI model Lara and have been dressed up as best as possible to match the CGI Lara.
-- Old Lara Croft models were also not used as voice actors in the games. It was two different people. Most were even restricted from even speaking at press events while in costume.
-- When hiking, let alone exploring, it is never recommended that one wear short shorts or tight clothing that leaves legs or torso body parts exposed.
So, it seems to me what they did is make a more realistic Lara that is still beautiful and strong rather than basing it on a fairly unrealistic CGI mock-up from the 90s. They based it on a real woman, used her real voice, and had her act out the scenes in person.
Seems like a good change to me.
People will complain for the sake of complaining. This is the reality of the internet, unfortunately. I wish this wasn't the case and the people who complain to get the attention and to make them feel as though they are somehow self-important and/or "cool" by jumping on a bandwagon would be called out for what they are, but they rarely do.
I think that, if the gameplay is good and whatever drives you to play the game (whether it be story, challenge, whatever) does things well, then those hot button things will not be as much of an issue than you might think. In the case of TR, the controversy switched because of Lara looking like a "real woman" from her being overly sexual to what the trailer for the new game showed.
If you notice, they didn't have the overly sexual Lara to bitch about anymore, so they went with either "Lara isn't sexual enough" (which I would answer "make up your damn minds"), or "she's OOC because she's scared of some dude". For the latter, it's a reboot/prequel, for one, and two, that's a bit of an arrogant stance to take when you're talking about character development. I like characters to be three dimensional and not be the never vulnerable type. The one dimensional characters get boring quickly, and seeing Lara have her hands full and not knowing what to do shows that the developers know that gamers don't want boring, cookie-cutter characters.
But yeah, this is becoming the norm on the internet. TR is the latest case, but you're now seeing what I've been eluding to all over the place for a while now: people have found the medium to act as though they have some importance (don't worry: we all believe that we can make some difference even if our opinions are in the minority), and they express their views so clumsy that you wonder why they tried. Then you have trolls and bandwagon hoppers that should never get the attention they continuously get.