Exeposé
| WEEK TWENTY-TWO
Escaping the Tomb
GAMES
www.exepose.ex.ac.uk
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Becky Mullen explores the history of Playstation’s leading lady across three generations OH, Lara. It’s hard to know where to start. Let’s not talk about the character design, because we’ve heard it all before. It’s worth saying that when I was ten, I barely noticed. I just saw a badass lady zipping around, shooting things, with an accent that was a super posh version of mine. She also had a lot of money and a motorbike. If I was coming to the old series now, I’d probably recoil in horror, or at least roll my eyes. But nostalgia is a funny old thing, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Lara Croft.
“Gamers were uncomfortable with the strong, independent woman being stripped of her personality” Tomb Raider is one of the most successful video games franchises of all time, with good reason. Developed in 1996 by Core Design, the original game transformed 2D platforming into a 3D world and sold 7 million copies. Having a female protagonist was no small deal either, and Lara’s popularity carried her through another five games until she was brought back from the dead in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. Lara’s resurrection was ironically the death of the Core Design era, and the franchise passed over to Crystal Dynamics, who hold it today. But as she entered the new millennium, Lara’s hopes weren’t really improving. In 2001 Angelina Jolie donned the braid for the first of two Tomb Raider blockbusters, but the least said about them, the better. Crystal Dynamic’s first game Legend shifted a moderate 4.5 million, but by Underworld the fran-
chise had taken a significant dip in popularity. It’s hard to say why this was the case. Was it because of the constant running commentary in Legend, with the additional snarky historian who apparently jumped ship for Assassin’s Creed? Were people finally getting bored of the shrinking clothes? Either way, it was all a bit sad, but I still played them anyway. Cut to 2012 and, despite teaming up with Square Enix, Crystal Dynamic’s reboot hype machine got off to a wobbly start. Ron Rosenberg kicked off a storm when he likened the new Lara to a ‘cornered animal’ that the player would want to protect. Gamers were uncomfortable with the strong, independent woman being stripped of her personality and forced to become yet another damsel in distress. It seemed like the end of an assuredly cliché, assuredly objectified, but still fun escapist fantasy. I bought the game fearing the worst, but as the reviews testify, Lara is more real and badass than ever. Some critics, however, still aren’t convinced. There’s been some backlash to Lara’s ‘vulnerability’, the very fact that she got scared. But that’s just the way we like our heroes nowadays, forced into awful situations so they can make a show of rising above it. Like her fellows, Lara doesn’t take long to adapt to the role. She certainly got over it quicker than Desmond, who took several games to finally stop complaining. A flawed protagonist is a more interesting one and Lara’s new origin demonstrates how video game writing is changing for the better. Games are getting more complex and storytelling should too. The Tomb Raider franchise is finally back on its feet, and there’s an exciting future ahead for Lara Croft. Let’s hope she can keep everyone’s attention this time.
Get your pixels out: The state of gender equality in games Kate Gray, Online Comment Editor, is done with ponies and short shorts AN advert for Ocarina of Time in 1998 asked the question: will you get the girl, or will you play like one? Freud would have a field day with that one. Games have never really been designed for the female demographic. I personally can’t relate to a perpetually kidnapped, eternally well-dressed plot device as much as a male player can relate to a generically male protagonist. True, there are games aimed at girls, but they tend to be aimed at a younger age range, when the dilemma of what to name your dream pony is much more important than saving the world. Even these games, in particular the “Imagine…” series, perpetuate a female stereotype that has the potential to instil the newest generation of girls with the idea that, while boys can play the archetypal hero, slaying dragons, solving puzzles and generally chainsawing their way through life, girls are better suited to pretending to fulfil the roles that they will ultimately end up playing anyway: cooking, mothering, and avoiding any ambition or adventure outside of the kitchen. Older gamers will happily shun these pink beacons of despair that call themselves games in favour of a more interesting plot. However, this is where
we start to see the Madonna-whore complex that plagues the industry come out to play. In typical adventure games, women are relegated to either the damsel in distress (Princess Peach is a prime example) or the femme fatale, who doesn’t seem to understand the point of armour that covers much more than her nipples.
“Female gamers yearn for a realistic protagonist that doesn’t have to get her baps out to be appreciated” In fact, even when developers try super hard to subvert this, people still end up wanting to see Samus in her Zero Suit, not the bulky armour that gives no hint of cleavage whatsoever, or playing as FemShep just to see how filthy you can make her. It really demonstrates how men in the gaming industry just seem to be mentally incapable of designing a woman that doesn’t just serve as a pixelated Oedipus complex. There are plenty of actual female people out in the world that can go about their daily lives without having to giggle like a schoolgirl or
chain themselves to the oven to prove their worth. So I hope we can all appreciate how badly female gamers yearn for a realistic, relatable, playable protagonist that doesn’t have to get her baps out to be appreciated. Being in the 21st century now, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for that Lara Croft – a woman who spends most of her time jumping off of and then climbing stuff – might possibly dress for the role, rather than dressing for an archaeology-themed strip club. It really shouldn’t be much of a ground-breaking story to know that she wears trousers in the newest instalment – millions of women, around the world, wear trousers every day – but unfortunately, the reality is that the developers of Tomb Raider seem to expect rapturous applause purely for making their protagonist resemble a regular woman. Yes, it’s a move in the vague direction of gender equality, but really, it’s one that should have been taken years ago. It’s been said a thousand times, in a thousand ways, but until developers wake up and realise that they are objectifying and insulting almost half of their demographic, it needs to keep being said. Lara Croft’s newest incarnation is, after all, a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Not yet.