240°

Tomb Raider Continues to Prove That Sex Sells in Gaming

"The team at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix have worked hard to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise and to present Lara Croft in a new light, beyond what the character was in the past. In the past the character was a kickass wonderchick with huge breasts and oozing with sex appeal. " | Explosion.com

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explosion.com
Kur04052d ago

I really don't think this is the case. You can say "sex sells" for MGS too 'cause Snake is wearing a skin-tight suit. Who's to say women don't buy the games to see Snake's butt? We know this isn't true because people buy MGS because the games are very good. This new Tomb Raider is surprisingly good even though it takes a lot from Uncharted and Arkham City. People are buying it because it looks good and Lara looks believable.

KangarooSam4052d ago ShowReplies(3)
Christopher4051d ago (Edited 4051d ago )

Horrible logic is horrible.

Essentially the author ascertains that because she is good looking, it must mean that the only reason male gamers are buying it. No proof needed to back this up, just a blatant stereotype of every single male gamer who has bought the game.

Thanks, but I bought it because it's a TPS with exploration and the gameplay looked fun. I was happy to have bought it, but replacing Lara with a male lead wouldn't have sullied me from purchasing. After all, I own and have completed every single Uncharted game on the PS3 as well.

Though, I do think putting a male lead in the exact story would see the trope of the Damsel in Distress being vastly renewed and the game would have received a ton of criticism for that alone as opposed to proving that a Damsel can be in distress while a strong female lead can be the one to do the butt kicking.

smikey11234052d ago

The arguments behind this is so very flawed it is almost ironic. To start off, you claim she is "under dressed for battle". Well this isn't a war game, so battle isn't what the character set off to engage in. Also you compare her to male characters in the same genre and say she is comparatively dressed. Then there should be no problem. Showing up in a bullet proof vest and tactical helmet to scale walls would be pretty absurd. Also this statement reeks of sexism itself being that because she is female she must dress a certain way or else she is being portrayed as an object of sexual desire. Then you go on to say that males buy it because they are males and she is attractive. More sexism, but that also takes away from the fact that this could possibly be a good game. It isn't like it is getting good reviews or anything..... oh wait. Poor argument used to bait and get hits. Sadly I bought in because I was curious.

OC_MurphysLaw4052d ago

@smikey1123. Bravo... after reading your post you did two things: 1) Saved me from having to say what you already said. 2) Saved me from clicking to this site and read the utter garbage arguments.

I have played this reboot... I find little sexy about the new Lara Croft. I just find a new compelling lead character for a long time franchise going in a new direction.

JAMurida4052d ago

To add to what you said, if the person who wrote this article played the game, he/she would know that they were just going to look at ruins, not expecting to have to get into battle. Last time I checked, I don't need armor and guns to look at ruins.

And yes, that's all these articles are to me as well is baiting for hits. I wish N4G had a way to filter out opinion articles.

+ Bubbs

digitaleraser4051d ago

"Poor argument used to bait and get hits."

This. Easiest way to get an instant 200 degrees on N4G? Write a title with the word "sex" in it.

LessThan2Tflops4052d ago

TR sells because it's a damn good game

KangarooSam4052d ago (Edited 4052d ago )

...and damn, she's got a nice pair of polygons.

This ^^^ is sarcasm, people. Yes, it's a good game.

x5exotic4052d ago

Uncharted is more of a case than this with Ms. Pardon my ass and the other chick just standing there, despite not being main character.

OP is an idiot.

aliengmr4052d ago

I actually did not buy it for that reason.

I think its rather sexist to assume I did.

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30°

Tomb Raider’s Risky 2013 Reboot Revived a '90s Gaming Icon

Crystal Dynamics' daring reboot of Tomb Raider brought Lara Croft back into the spotlight.

Godmars290395d ago

An attempt at a reboot with no momentum for continuance. Just a torture-porn trilogy about a poor rich girl with daddy issues reluctantly being pulling into a world of violence, versus say the adventures of a quipping Brit treasure hunter who solves ancient puzzles while gunning down rare and extinct animals that it originally was?

Honestly, don't have all that killing. If the devs had been truly clever, not focused on mangling a message about the senselessness of killing which was seemingly and quickly forgotten, they could have worked, if not bloodlessly then not directly by Laura's hand, dealing with enemies as part of the puzzle solving - they didn't have in the game in the first place...

badz149394d ago

"Revived a '90s Gaming Icon"

LOL

the only thing similar between the 2 is the name of the protagonist. if they would have given the game a different name, NONE would even think that it was somehow a resurrected Tomb Raider IP. the last game with the real Tomb Raider DNA was TR Underworld.

250°

The Tomb Raider Survivor Trilogy's Take on Lara Croft Deserved More Recognition

The Survivor Trilogy was a drastic reimagining of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, and it provokes changes for the character that are truly fantastic.

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gamerant.com
isarai458d ago (Edited 458d ago )

Deserves less IMO, i think the 1st in the new trilogy was a perfect 1st step for the new direction. The next 2 games were half steps at best. Not only that, every character in the series including Lara is just annoying and doesn't make sense in terms of motive, like yes they have a motive, but none of it seems proportional to the lengths they are willing to go through for it. The most annoying thing is every one of the games say "become the Tomb Raider" yet 3 games later and we're still not there? No thanks. Then there's the mess of the 3rd game, massive skill tree that serves almost no purpose as there's literally only like 3-4 short encounters in the whole game, and they took till the 3rd game to finally manage some decent puzzles even remotely close to previous games in the series. Nah, the trilogy infuriated me to no end as a long time fan of the series, i hope we get better going forward cause that crap sucked.

Army_of_Darkness457d ago

The first in the trilogy was my favorite. I thought they were going into the right direction with that one until the second one came out and seemed like a graphical downgrade but the gameplay was okay. As for the Third, Graphics were really nice but it was kinda boring me to death with its non-stop platforming and exploring with not enough action! Well, for me anyway...

DeathTouch457d ago

Graphics on the 3rd one were abysmal. It’s more colorful and has more variety, but everything else was a noticeable downgrade.

The more open world with NPC quests was also handled very poorly, to the point I missed Angel of Darkness.

thesoftware730457d ago

I know it is your opinion, but she did progress as a character in each game, she even got more muscular and seasoned.

That is the thing, people first complained that there was not enough platforming and actual tomb raiding in the first and second games. Shadow remedied that and kept the combat elements.

3-4 encounters? huh? did we play the same game? there was plenty of combat and, the skill tree did matter, like being able to hang enemies from trees, set explosives traps on bodies, being able to counter, and that are just a few of the combat skills. The skill tree also had things like being able to hold your breath underwater longer, crafting upgrades, zipline upgrade, and climbing upgrades that all changed how you can approach situations.

Not knocking your opinion, but we definitely had different experiences. I had 98% completion on the shadow.

SoulWarrior457d ago (Edited 457d ago )

Sorry but i'm with him about the low number of encounters, the game throws loads of weapons and skills you're way with a comparatively low amount of places to actually use them, so they felt under utilised.

-Foxtrot458d ago

Yeah...no

It was awful, for THREE GAMES it was "become the Tomb Raider" where she went back to square one after each game. Not to mention after a huge reaction of killing someone for the first time she then becomes Rambo straight after and goes on a slaughter spree without a single other reaction. Her development was all over the place.

She was whiney, weak and in later game a little arrogant and selfish

Oh and the voice actress compared to the previous ones was not as good

Lara Croft deserved better and while they are decent games as they are, we deserved actual Tomb Raider games, we could have had better survival games if they just stuck with the original Lara Crofts origin about her plane going down. Surviving 2 weeks in the Himalayas...I'd have liked to seen that, who knows what mystical threat she could have faced in the mountains or underground some secret concealed cave.

Tacoboto457d ago

I thought Shadow of the Tomb Raider had better gameplay than Rise, but it annoyed me the most of the trilogy when I stopped to think about the story.

It's like they deliberately decided to make her unlikeable and did nothing to make the character you're playing as likeable or have even one sign of humility.

SoulWarrior458d ago

2013 I thought was a fine entry, but Rise and especially Shadow were painfully mediocre follow ups imo, I really didn't like how selfish and angry her character was in those two.

Terry_B457d ago

No. Please forget the crap completely.

northpaws457d ago

First one was decent, played through it twice.
Second one was okay, played through it once.
Third one was really bad, tried twice a year apart, still can't get through the first two hours, it is just really bad.

thesoftware730457d ago

Honest question, what did you find bad about it? the opening 2 hrs of Shadow were fantastic imo.

The opening was very similar to the first 2, what did you find really bad?

Not looking for an argument, just an honest question.

Starman69457d ago

3rd one just didn't feel like a tomb raider game. Possibly because the development was passed to another development team. Big mistake! Microsoft killed tomb raider making the first game a timed exclusive. Never recovered after that.

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70°

The Gamification of Games

Adam Hurd of GameGrin writes: "Gaming is an interactive medium. For decades now we’ve had people criticise the structure of narrative heavy games, for relying on cutscenes to tell the story. In films there’s a phrase: show, don’t tell, the idea that it’s better for the scene to show you what’s going on rather than the characters or text to tell you. In gaming I feel like there should be another rule: do, don't show, the idea that the story should be told through mechanics if possible, instead of in cutscenes."

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gamegrin.com
1387d ago