As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Tomb Raider: Trailer up on IGN. Looks like Uncharted: With A Woman

123457

Posts

  • Skull2185Skull2185 Registered User regular
    Holy crap, this looks awesome. Lara's having a suuuuuper shitty day, huh?

    Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
  • Delta AssaultDelta Assault Registered User regular
    Uncharted with a woman works for me. I've pretty much disliked the gameplay of every single Tomb Raider game they've ever made.

  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    I really like the concept, I hope that they use the inexperienced-killer angle more.
    Also I love the line in the E3 trailer "I hate tombs".

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    I really hope this doesn't just end up being "Uncharted w/ girl instead of a guy." It seems rather self-defeating--they aren't going to stop make Uncharted games, right? So, why? Did actual exploration and solitude and not fighting private armies become stupid?

    Meanwhile, they're really wanting that whole "a little exploration, followed by shooting from cover." Great. I regret the one Uncharted game I bought instead of renting, since none of the games have held my attention for more than a few hours, Nazis and Yetis aside.

    Well, that's what Redbox is for. I'm not buying Uncharted 4 just to use an arrow instead of a gun and a girl of a guy. Just a helicopter of Russian mercenaries from basically being the game I've already played at that point. I guess we'll see...

    Synthesis on
  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    Kadoken wrote: »

    Is this guy still talking about that

    That was like a week ago

    Rosenberg spoke out of context and may also be a buttmuffin

    I have faith that this game will be just fine in terms of its narrative

    I do have friends that are wholly uncomfortable with the idea of a rape or attempted rape scene in a game, though. When I asked them why, they said they felt the same way about movies and that it's never done "tastefully." No shit it's not tasteful. It's rape. It is a thing that exists and can draw a lot of emotion, almost universally negative, out of anyone watching it. Yet there are movies that do use it to great effect; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Straw Dogs, A History of Violence, just off the top of my head.

    No reason games shouldn't venture into that same territory if they want to be held on the same precipice of story-telling as good film or television.

  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    I suppose you can argue that since games are such an infantile medium when it comes to story that it's best they don't try to tackle such a heavy and loaded subject.

    Do I think that videogames can handle it legitimately in its narrative? As much as anything else with a story can. Do I trust that any game developer right now, today, can do so? Nope.

  • LilnoobsLilnoobs Alpha Queue Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Developers can handle a rape scene as well as I can handle 12lb balls in my nutsack.

    Lilnoobs on
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Kadoken wrote: »

    Is this guy still talking about that

    That was like a week ago

    Rosenberg spoke out of context and may also be a buttmuffin

    I have faith that this game will be just fine in terms of its narrative

    I do have friends that are wholly uncomfortable with the idea of a rape or attempted rape scene in a game, though. When I asked them why, they said they felt the same way about movies and that it's never done "tastefully." No shit it's not tasteful. It's rape. It is a thing that exists and can draw a lot of emotion, almost universally negative, out of anyone watching it. Yet there are movies that do use it to great effect; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Straw Dogs, A History of Violence, just off the top of my head.

    No reason games shouldn't venture into that same territory if they want to be held on the same precipice of story-telling as good film or television.

    I'd agree by and large--I'm more worried about gameplay direction myself. The last time a TR game decided to significantly ratchet up the amount of combat for the fanbase, we got TRII.

    Synthesis on
  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Or Legend

    And Legend is still easily my favorite

    EDIT: Shit, I thought you said TRIII. The hell? Tomb Raider II is the best of the PS one games.

    UnbreakableVow on
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Tomb Raider III was better--from the standpoint of exploration and environments. I never said TRII was a bad game, but it was a pretty sharp departure from the first game, whereas TRIII was truer to the original formula while still expanding on things (vehicle controls, for example).

    TRII is not bad, but best PS1 game? I wouldn't even say it was the best TR game on the PS1, honestly.

    [/opinions]

  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    I meant best of the PS1 Tomb Raiders, sorry

  • MongerMonger I got the ham stink. Dallas, TXRegistered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Kadoken wrote: »

    Is this guy still talking about that

    That was like a week ago

    Rosenberg spoke out of context and may also be a buttmuffin

    I have faith that this game will be just fine in terms of its narrative

    I do have friends that are wholly uncomfortable with the idea of a rape or attempted rape scene in a game, though. When I asked them why, they said they felt the same way about movies and that it's never done "tastefully." No shit it's not tasteful. It's rape. It is a thing that exists and can draw a lot of emotion, almost universally negative, out of anyone watching it. Yet there are movies that do use it to great effect; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Straw Dogs, A History of Violence, just off the top of my head.

    No reason games shouldn't venture into that same territory if they want to be held on the same precipice of story-telling as good film or television.
    So I was going to link that page at tvtropes about how rape is commonly used as a lazy plot device in the absence of legitimate character development, sort of like how radiation obviously gives you superpowers. Then I found that the word 'rape' is now verboten on that site, and every page mentioning it has now been purged. That is... worrisome.

    That said, the whole thing about being uncomfortable is still something I agree with. It seems like there are a lot of people getting mixed up between 'I am uncomfortable seeing emotionally weighted violence' and 'I am uncomfortable seeing emotionally weighted violence against women,' to an extent that is also quite worrisome. Lara's wailing is not all that different from Isaac Clarke's grunting and wheezing through the entirety of the first Dead Space, all things considered. For some reason, though, an unsettling number of people hear Lara and immediately shout out WHY IS THIS TORTURE PORN SO SEXUAL? It isn't. Furthermore, what is your deal?

    Monger on
  • Gandalf_the_CrazedGandalf_the_Crazed Vigilo ConfidoRegistered User regular
    It's simple: We're accustomed to hearing guys grunt and wheeze and generally be in pain in the movies. If there's more than two guys in a movie, someone is probably gonna get punched, it's just -- regrettably -- how it is.

    Women, on the other hand, aren't put into that same position in mainstream entertainment. If a woman is actually fighting someone, she's winning handily because omg look at the badass woman aren't we so edgy. Or something. It's stupid. But the upshot is that the only situation where it's common to hear female moaning and grunting and such is, well, porn and/or sex scenes in general.

    So when we hear Isaac Clarke grunt, we're like, "That sounds like a dude in pain."

    When we hear Lara Croft moan, we're like, "That sounds like :winky: ."

    It is stupid, but not really stupid on the part of the consumer so much as it is the state of modern entertainment.

    PEUsig_zps56da03ec.jpg
  • KadokenKadoken Giving Ends to my Friends and it Feels Stupendous Registered User regular
    Kadoken wrote: »

    Is this guy still talking about that

    That was like a week ago

    Rosenberg spoke out of context and may also be a buttmuffin

    I have faith that this game will be just fine in terms of its narrative

    I do have friends that are wholly uncomfortable with the idea of a rape or attempted rape scene in a game, though. When I asked them why, they said they felt the same way about movies and that it's never done "tastefully." No shit it's not tasteful. It's rape. It is a thing that exists and can draw a lot of emotion, almost universally negative, out of anyone watching it. Yet there are movies that do use it to great effect; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Straw Dogs, A History of Violence, just off the top of my head.

    No reason games shouldn't venture into that same territory if they want to be held on the same precipice of story-telling as good film or television.

    Me or the author of that article? Because the 16th was only yesterday.

  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    The author of that article

  • NeliNeli Registered User regular
    A gameplay trailer, finally.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkBZ6kKeoTI&feature=youtu.be

    It looks like they've dropped a lot of the horror angle. Most of it, in fact.

    This was a good trailer

    vhgb4m.jpg
    I have stared into Satan's asshole, and it fucking winked at me.
    [/size]
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    As far as this looking like Uncharted with Lara Croft, I don't have a problem with that at all since I don't have a PS3 and have thus missed out on all the Uncharted games.

    As far as this issue of attempted rape, well, what the hell do you think bad men would do to an attractive woman? That's what bad men do, because they are bad men. Critically-acclaimed movies throw in overdone rape scenes and nobody blinks an eye; throw in a scene in a video game where somebody is attempting rape and gets the shit killed out of them for it and somehow that's all wrong? Would they prefer the stupid and massively oversexualized old Tomb Raider stuff with giant CG boobs?

    And how the hell could anybody identify Lara's sound effects as "sexual" in any way? Isaac Clarke gets wailed on by space zombies and grunts and screams about that and that's okay, but Lara Croft gets a freaking piece of rebar through the side and she's not allowed to make noises that say "oh shit that hurts"? The double standards and hypocrisy there are amazing, especially since we got the same sound effects in the Metroid Prime series and nobody pitched a fit there. Guess what! Women sound different than men but can get hurt just the same!

    Also, I found it pretty funny when I reached the end of the video, "Tomb Raider" flashed across the screen, and I thought "huh, there really wasn't much in the way of tombs there"... at which point Lara ends up in a tomb talking about how she hates them. Crossing my fingers for a significant and meaningful survival angle, too; I'd love if the game was basically just a big island with Metroidvania-type obstacles that bar progress until you dig up the right items and solutions.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • MongerMonger I got the ham stink. Dallas, TXRegistered User regular
    Crossing my fingers for a significant and meaningful survival angle, too;
    You and me both. I've always wanted to see somebody take the relatively arcadey hunger and health mechanics from MGS3 and run with those ideas, even if I know that nobody will do it. I think this game has gotten too big budgety for any meaty survival, though. At the very least, I hope hunger is present for more than the goddamn bow tutorial.

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    I really hope they present the survival parts and exploration more: Not the action and cutscene heavy "LOOK AT US COPY UNCHARTED" bits as much. Plus it will do a lot to allay peoples fears the game is non-stop watching Lara getting beaten to a pulp and making groaning noises.

    I also hope the incredibly creepy subtext behind a lot of the marketing gets entirely dropped in future: EG "Protecting" Lara. That was just wrong and creepy on an all new level. Can you imagine a developer saying "We want you to feel like you're protecting Isaac Clarke from being horribly raped by necromorphs". It would come off as just as incredibly creepy and wrong (and be obviously stupid).

    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • NuzakNuzak Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    It's simple: We're accustomed to hearing guys grunt and wheeze and generally be in pain in the movies. If there's more than two guys in a movie, someone is probably gonna get punched, it's just -- regrettably -- how it is.

    Women, on the other hand, aren't put into that same position in mainstream entertainment. If a woman is actually fighting someone, she's winning handily because omg look at the badass woman aren't we so edgy. Or something. It's stupid. But the upshot is that the only situation where it's common to hear female moaning and grunting and such is, well, porn and/or sex scenes in general.

    So when we hear Isaac Clarke grunt, we're like, "That sounds like a dude in pain."

    When we hear Lara Croft moan, we're like, "That sounds like :winky: ."

    It is stupid, but not really stupid on the part of the consumer so much as it is the state of modern entertainment.

    i dunno, i compare lara croft in the new videos getting a rail through the thorax to a woman in serious effort and fucking pain, like a woman in labour, and there are some big sound differences. i'm not suggesting this was intentional per se, but i do think the guy directing the VA in the booth decided perhaps not to go with the bassy grunts and really scary screams in favour of the moans and gasps.

    Nuzak on
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    If I got a chunk of steel through the side, I'd probably make noise closer to something which would could peel paint off a tank than some pained exclamations. I doubt anybody could tell if it was a man or a woman making that noise, either.

    But that also assumes one isn't trying to be as quiet as possible so her captors don't come and get her, as Lara seems to be. With one's life on the line, I imagine one would try as hard as humanly possible to make as little noise as possible, even with a nasty chunk of iron sticking through them.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • NuzakNuzak Registered User regular
    As far as this looking like Uncharted with Lara Croft, I don't have a problem with that at all since I don't have a PS3 and have thus missed out on all the Uncharted games.

    As far as this issue of attempted rape, well, what the hell do you think bad men would do to an attractive woman? That's what bad men do, because they are bad men.

    dude, this isn't real life, this is a story. in real life, men may rape women (regardless of their attractiveness, i might add), but with a story, it's been invented, crafted, carefully or sloppily, to tell you something. it doesn't have to stick to real life. why did they choose to include sexual threat to characterise the bad guys as bad, on top of the obvious murder kidnapping bury you underground stuff? and why does this not happen to attractive male heroes?
    Critically-acclaimed movies throw in overdone rape scenes and nobody blinks an eye; throw in a scene in a video game where somebody is attempting rape and gets the shit killed out of them for it and somehow that's all wrong?

    sexual assault and attempted rape are really, really sensitive areas, man. why am i telling you this? you should know this. if a game decides rape fits in with the narrative they are trying to tell, it has to be dealt with in a manner befitting the gravity of that act. not just rape for the sake of it. because you wanted an easy shorthand to show how vulnerable your poor little flower PC is. IRL, rape has massive consequences, so if you want to be gritty and realistic, you treat it seriously, not as a means to an end.

    and do you honestly think what you have seen so far indicates the game will deal with this seriously? as seriously as "critically acclaimed movies", like girl with the dragon tattoo, which was all about power and rape, and didn't shy away from dealing with that?
    Would they prefer the stupid and massively oversexualized old Tomb Raider stuff with giant CG boobs?

    it's not a binary choice man.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Nuzak wrote: »
    As far as this looking like Uncharted with Lara Croft, I don't have a problem with that at all since I don't have a PS3 and have thus missed out on all the Uncharted games.

    As far as this issue of attempted rape, well, what the hell do you think bad men would do to an attractive woman? That's what bad men do, because they are bad men.

    dude, this isn't real life, this is a story. in real life, men may rape women (regardless of their attractiveness, i might add), but with a story, it's been invented, crafted, carefully or sloppily, to tell you something. it doesn't have to stick to real life. why did they choose to include sexual threat to characterise the bad guys as bad, on top of the obvious murder kidnapping bury you underground stuff? and why does this not happen to attractive male heroes?

    So intent to rape in a video game is sloppy shorthand, but extremely graphic and violent rape in books, in movies, and on TV are somehow well-crafted and appropriate? Those other mediums have just as many ways to indicate helplessness as video games; if they get to subject the audience to scenes that are infinitely more questionable, then saying that video games can't even hint that evil men are interested in rape is a simply a double standard.
    Critically-acclaimed movies throw in overdone rape scenes and nobody blinks an eye; throw in a scene in a video game where somebody is attempting rape and gets the shit killed out of them for it and somehow that's all wrong?

    sexual assault and attempted rape are really, really sensitive areas, man. why am i telling you this? you should know this. if a game decides rape fits in with the narrative they are trying to tell, it has to be dealt with in a manner befitting the gravity of that act. not just rape for the sake of it. because you wanted an easy shorthand to show how vulnerable your poor little flower PC is. IRL, rape has massive consequences, so if you want to be gritty and realistic, you treat it seriously, not as a means to an end.

    and do you honestly think what you have seen so far indicates the game will deal with this seriously? as seriously as "critically acclaimed movies", like girl with the dragon tattoo, which was all about power and rape, and didn't shy away from dealing with that?

    I haven't seen anything to indicate this is being poorly handled, either. There's no gratuitous nudity being thrown around here; heck, there's isn't even really any sexual contact, just the implication of things headed in that direction, at which point Lara takes care of things. The bad guys are predators, of the worst sort. Animals with human mental capacity, but not the social restraints. Even among nasty people, it wouldn't be uncommon to have the serious heterosexual stigma against homosexuality, especially when there's an element of the hyper-macho. It'd be far more strange if they weren't the rapist type; anybody who would enjoy torturing somebody to death would clearly not have a problem with fulfilling whatever other base instincts they would have on whoever is available.
    Would they prefer the stupid and massively oversexualized old Tomb Raider stuff with giant CG boobs?

    it's not a binary choice man.

    Obviously not, but a fear of rape is a very very real worry for most women. Would the scene in question here be nearly as intimidating to me if there was a man as the victim? No, because that's simply not something that's I generally have to be concerned about. How many of the rape scenes that show up in movies are instead cut short at "attempted" because the woman turns around and kills the attacker? That, to me, is a far more important item to notice than come up with "evil man is trying to rape a woman and somehow that's misplaced and wrong".

    Frankly, I think the whole argument is ridiculous. That same video has the corpse of a woman who was tortured to death strung up in the air and nobody bats an eye at that, but spend a few seconds showing that evil men want to rape a woman? Holy shit, that's just completely unacceptable! These guys have totally stepped over the line!

    The whole thing is silly. I can't even imagine the kind of insanity that would ensue if somebody had made a scene similar to any of the hundreds out there in other mediums which really are horrible and wrong and inappropriate, yet for some reason get a free pass, simply because this is a video game.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • NuzakNuzak Registered User regular
    Nuzak wrote: »
    As far as this looking like Uncharted with Lara Croft, I don't have a problem with that at all since I don't have a PS3 and have thus missed out on all the Uncharted games.

    As far as this issue of attempted rape, well, what the hell do you think bad men would do to an attractive woman? That's what bad men do, because they are bad men.

    dude, this isn't real life, this is a story. in real life, men may rape women (regardless of their attractiveness, i might add), but with a story, it's been invented, crafted, carefully or sloppily, to tell you something. it doesn't have to stick to real life. why did they choose to include sexual threat to characterise the bad guys as bad, on top of the obvious murder kidnapping bury you underground stuff? and why does this not happen to attractive male heroes?

    So intent to rape in a video game is sloppy shorthand, but extremely graphic and violent rape in books, in movies, and on TV are somehow well-crafted and appropriate? Those other mediums have just as many ways to indicate helplessness as video games; if they get to subject the audience to scenes that are infinitely more questionable, then saying that video games can't even hint that evil men are interested in rape is a simply a double standard.

    well, ok. here's what i'm saying. you want to handle rape, you handle it with the care that something like rape needs. i'm not saying videogames are incapable of portraying rape in this manner, but given the industry's current problems with sexism and the general youth of the medium, it is better handled (but not always, obviously) by older mediums with more practise, and more mature writers (who also may be female).

    for tomb raider? from what i have seen, the dev team is really not understanding what's wrong with this (see "you will feel big and strong by protecting lara"), and i think that means they will not handle this respectfully.
    Critically-acclaimed movies throw in overdone rape scenes and nobody blinks an eye; throw in a scene in a video game where somebody is attempting rape and gets the shit killed out of them for it and somehow that's all wrong?

    sexual assault and attempted rape are really, really sensitive areas, man. why am i telling you this? you should know this. if a game decides rape fits in with the narrative they are trying to tell, it has to be dealt with in a manner befitting the gravity of that act. not just rape for the sake of it. because you wanted an easy shorthand to show how vulnerable your poor little flower PC is. IRL, rape has massive consequences, so if you want to be gritty and realistic, you treat it seriously, not as a means to an end.

    and do you honestly think what you have seen so far indicates the game will deal with this seriously? as seriously as "critically acclaimed movies", like girl with the dragon tattoo, which was all about power and rape, and didn't shy away from dealing with that?

    I haven't seen anything to indicate this is being poorly handled, either. There's no gratuitous nudity being thrown around here; heck, there's isn't even really any sexual contact, just the implication of things headed in that direction, at which point Lara takes care of things. The bad guys are predators, of the worst sort. Animals with human mental capacity, but not the social restraints. Even among nasty people, it wouldn't be uncommon to have the serious heterosexual stigma against homosexuality, especially when there's an element of the hyper-macho. It'd be far more strange if they weren't the rapist type; anybody who would enjoy torturing somebody to death would clearly not have a problem with fulfilling whatever other base instincts they would have on whoever is available.

    i need to say it again man: they are a fictional invention. there's no saying what is an what isn't "strange" for them, so they don't have to be rapists unless the devs see a need to put rape in the game. it's their choice! the gears of war devs chose not to make the subhuman locusts rapists, bethesda chose not to go game-of-thrones and put rapists in skyrim, and the devs of tomb raider need not make the enemies try to QTE-rape lara. particularly in games culture, where we treat rape so lightly that we talk about how one team beating another in an FPS is "raping them".

    and let's be honest, tomb raider isn't a complex analysis of the dark heart of man and civilisation and gender relations or something. it's an Indiana Jones knock-off where you shoot endangered wildlife and mercs. this one looks like they injected a bit of "the descent" into it. they don't need to have rapists in a b-movie. they really don't need it.

  • NeliNeli Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    There was nothing wrong with that scene of him groping her and her kicking him in the balls, it was just there to show that he deserved getting kicked in the balls. That kind of stuff happens in movies and books all the time as well.

    Some creep will approach our heroine and be CREEPY and we kick his ass for it

    Neli on
    vhgb4m.jpg
    I have stared into Satan's asshole, and it fucking winked at me.
    [/size]
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Neli wrote: »
    There was nothing wrong with that scene of him groping her and her kicking him in the balls, it was just there to show that he deserved getting kicked in the balls 8-)

    It is wrong when you combine it with the obscenely creepy statements by the developer of being Lara's "protector" and similar. That is where the real explosion over the whole thing actually came out of: the scene itself is not in any way that bad really. The creepy context that the developer put it into? Now that's the problem.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • MongerMonger I got the ham stink. Dallas, TXRegistered User regular
    Nuzak wrote: »
    bethesda chose not to go game-of-thrones and put rapists in skyrim,
    There totally is talk of rape in Skyrim, and it's mentioned by the ESRB in the game's rating blurb.
    Tamriel was still young, and filled with danger and wondrous magick when Bal walked in the aspect of a man and took a virgin, Lamae Beolfag, from the Nedic Peoples. Savage and loveless, Bal profaned her body, and her screams became the Shrieking Winds, which still haunt certain winding fjords of Skyrim. Shedding a lone droplet of blood on her brow, Bal left Nirn, having sown his wrath.

    Violated and comatose, Lamae was found by nomads, and cared for. A fortnight hence, the nomad wyrd-woman enshrouded Lamae in pall for she had passed into death. In their way, the nomads built a bonfire to immolate the husk. That night, Lamae rose from her funeral pyre, and set upon the coven, still aflame. She ripped the throats of the women, ate the eyes of the children, and raped their men as cruelly as Bal had ravished her.

    The lore of that series has always been pretty dark, and hasn't tended to pull any punches outside of that one public sex scene in The Real Barenziah being 'censored by the temple' since Morrowind due to revelatory descriptions of cat penis.
    Aegeri wrote: »
    Neli wrote: »
    There was nothing wrong with that scene of him groping her and her kicking him in the balls, it was just there to show that he deserved getting kicked in the balls 8-)

    It is wrong when you combine it with the obscenely creepy statements by the developer of being Lara's "protector" and similar. That is where the real explosion over the whole thing actually came out of: the scene itself is not in any way that bad really. The creepy context that the developer put it into? Now that's the problem.
    I don't know if that was as much a reflection of the game's narrative direction as a spectacularly failed attempt at rationalizing other people's reactions to something or other or something. Really, I'm doing my damnedest to figure out what that guy was trying to get across that wasn't every kind of fucked, but it just keeps getting more inappropriate every time I read it.

  • kevindeekevindee Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Aegeri wrote: »
    Neli wrote: »
    There was nothing wrong with that scene of him groping her and her kicking him in the balls, it was just there to show that he deserved getting kicked in the balls 8-)

    It is wrong when you combine it with the obscenely creepy statements by the developer of being Lara's "protector" and similar. That is where the real explosion over the whole thing actually came out of: the scene itself is not in any way that bad really. The creepy context that the developer put it into? Now that's the problem.
    I don't know if that was as much a reflection of the game's narrative direction as a spectacularly failed attempt at rationalizing other people's reactions to something or other or something. Really, I'm doing my damnedest to figure out what that guy was trying to get across that wasn't every kind of fucked, but it just keeps getting more inappropriate every time I read it.[/quote]

    I found the scene itself to be done heavy-handedly in itself, and it smacked of lazy storytelling, but yeah: the scenes leading up to it in the trailer (Lara constantly getting the shit kicked out of her by everything and anything, getting impaled, stepping into bear traps, et cetera), and the way the developers talk about her made it so, so much weirder:

    "We want her to get damaged".

    "We wanted to make a girl that was somewhat familiar, yet had a special quality about her – something in the way her eyes look and her expression in her face that makes you want to care for her," art director Brian Horton explained to Game Informer.

    "Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won't be about being revealing. It's a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way.

    "There is a different tone we are going for across the board," he said, "and Lara Croft as a sex object isn't our goal. No unlockable bikinis."

    In the Tomb Raider reboot, announced earlier this week, Lara Croft is 21 years-old. This is the story of how she, a desperate survivor, becomes a heroine.

    "She isn't going to be as tall as the men around her – about a head shorter. This reinforces the feeling that she's against all odds," Horton said.

    The guy is talking about how they didn't want to sexualise croft as had been done previously, but then talks about the character in terms of a power dynamic that's so badly skewed against her it's supposed to make a male player basically feel sorry for her and try to protect her? I guess they're going from objectifying her physically to now objectifying her emotionally. There's a line between portraying a character as fighting against all odds while still retaining a semblance of independence and character development, and one that is a tired heroine-in-need-of-rescue trope; especially when she only finds her 'inner strength' after an attempt at sexual violation. It's one-dimensional, and it's lazy storytelling. Other than that, the VA is conspicuously breathy and whispery - and it honestly gives off a porn vibe to me. It's things like this that make people not trust games with a concept like rape. Or abortion, for that matter, or anything that requires nuance and deep thought. The format allows it, but I suspect devs don't trust the playerbase to want to struggle with an issue like this, when they could just switch off their brains and shoot mans / look at women. Looking at the comment section on any article about this game doesn't inspire a lot of hope, either.

    kevindee on
  • InkSplatInkSplat 100%ed Bad Rats. Registered User regular
    How does she only find her 'inner strength' after an attempt at sexual violation? She manages to escape from death previous to that. I'd call that some inner strength. Also, how is it one-dimensional or lazy when they are using all of these "show" details to make you feel like its against the odds, rather than having a bad guy be all like "You don't stand a chance! You're just a woman!"

    If anything, actually thinking about the different things you can do to pull a certain feeling out of the player without resorting to "Here's some skimpy clothes and big boobs, go kick dudes in the balls" is the opposite of lazy.

    Would it have been lazy if they hadn't explained it? If you had gone into the game and simply had all those subtle things effect you without knowing they were purposefully done?

    Would you then assume it had somehow not been purposeful? And then would it be okay? Except.. if they just got lucky.. isn't that worse than designing the experience they want?

    I just don't understand how you can call designing psychological cues into your characters and environments as being lazy. It may not be a direction you like, but that doesn't make it poorly done.

    Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
  • MongerMonger I got the ham stink. Dallas, TXRegistered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Alright, over the past several hours of not being able to sleep, I have concocted a theory. It may be a tad loopy, on account of the aforementioned inability to sleep.

    I'm thinking that a lot of this may be focus group induced bullshit, or something equivalent.
    “As far as sex appeal, we are always thinking about making a character that people want to play, and part of that is a level of attractiveness and being drawn to Lara,” he said.

    “But we don’t want to play up sexuality for sexualities sake. We are constantly talking about context and motivation on this project. If for any reason we wanted to put her in a situation that would be alluring, it isn’t to be alluring. It would be because the situation called for it.” “Lara is a lover of archeology and she has these book smarts. Her brains are another huge part of her sex appeal. She is an attractive girl who doesn’t play up her looks, but she is super smart and she is very ambitious.”

    “Ultimately, what I think is going to be compelling about this – and what our version of sexy is – is the toughness through adverse conditions,” he said. “Seeing her survive through these moments. Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won’t be about being revealing. It’s a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way.”
    So, that quote seems to date back to 2010, and reading it in that context is a little different. It doesn't quite come off as so, you know, pervy. What it does come off as is a more transparent PR spin, a reactionary (or maybe pre-emptive) response to people who would see the reboot and think LARA CROFT IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND I LIKE PLAYING AS HER BECAUSE SHE IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND NOW YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MAKING HER NOT SEXY AND NOT KICK BUTT AND I DON'T WANT TO PLAY HER WHAT THE FUCK. Video games, as a general rule, are power fantasies, right? That was Lara's schtick. She had gigantic knockers and murdered everything. Power fantasy. That quote is very much a stretch for recontextualizing that power fantasy. She's not "sexy," but she's still totally sexy also buy our game.

    Now, post-E3 2011, they're showing off a girl getting impaled on a spike and then scrambling through a bunch of murky water away from some dude. How do you sell that as a power fantasy? People don't like feeling weak and they don't seek out those experiences, but the golden nugget at the center of your experience is that your player character isn't an action hero, but a normal person. She sucks and is slowly learning not to suck. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I SUCK. No, no. You have it all wrong, dear customer! You don't suck. She sucks. You aren't her. You're you, and you're awesome. She's her and she sucks, so you're going to help her to not suck. Because you're awesome. And then by the end of it, she'll be as awesome as you are, because you were awesome at making her awesome. Have we told you that you're awesome lately? Also, buy our game.

    This is the least offensive narrative I could construct, and I'm going to go ahead and believe it, if only for my own sanity.

    Monger on
  • InkSplatInkSplat 100%ed Bad Rats. Registered User regular
    Monger wrote: »
    Alright, over the past several hours of not being able to sleep, I have concocted a theory. It may be a tad loopy, on account of the aforementioned inability to sleep.

    I'm thinking that a lot of this may be focus group induced bullshit, or something equivalent.
    “As far as sex appeal, we are always thinking about making a character that people want to play, and part of that is a level of attractiveness and being drawn to Lara,” he said.

    “But we don’t want to play up sexuality for sexualities sake. We are constantly talking about context and motivation on this project. If for any reason we wanted to put her in a situation that would be alluring, it isn’t to be alluring. It would be because the situation called for it.” “Lara is a lover of archeology and she has these book smarts. Her brains are another huge part of her sex appeal. She is an attractive girl who doesn’t play up her looks, but she is super smart and she is very ambitious.”

    “Ultimately, what I think is going to be compelling about this – and what our version of sexy is – is the toughness through adverse conditions,” he said. “Seeing her survive through these moments. Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won’t be about being revealing. It’s a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way.”
    So, that quote seems to date back to 2010, and reading it in that context is a little different. It doesn't quite come off as so, you know, pervy. What it does come off as a more transparent PR spin, a reactionary (or maybe pre-emptive) response to people who would see the reboot and think LARA CROFT IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND I LIKE PLAYING AS HER BECAUSE SHE IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND NOW YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MAKING HER NOT SEXY AND NOT KICK BUTT AND I DON'T WANT TO PLAY HER WHAT THE FUCK. Video games, as a general rule, are power fantasies, right? That was Lara's schtick. She had gigantic knockers and murdered everything. Power fantasy. That quote is very much a stretch for recontextualizing that power fantasy. She's not "sexy," but she's still totally sexy also buy our game.

    Now, post-E3 2011, they're showing off a girl getting impaled on a spike and then scrambling through a bunch of murky water away from some dude. How do you sell that as a power fantasy? People don't like feeling weak and they don't seek out those experiences, but the golden nugget at the center of your experience is that your player character isn't an action hero, but a normal person. She sucks and is slowly learning not to suck. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I SUCK. No, no. You have it all wrong, dear customer! You don't suck. She sucks. You aren't her. You're you, and you're awesome. She's her and she sucks, so you're going to help her to not suck. Because you're awesome. And then by the end of it, she'll be as awesome as you are, because you were awesome at making her awesome. Have we told you that you're awesome lately? Also, buy our game.

    This is the least offensive narrative I could construct, and I'm going to go ahead and believe it, if only for my own sanity.

    First off.. none of the actual advertising is doing the whole "She sucks! You don't, you're awesome!" At least nothing I've seen. So.. yeah. Again, they're creating an environment so you feel invested, and the only reason people are able to jump all over it is because the designers are being asked the goddamn questions in the first place.

    How can you be like "oh man, they're totally pushing this idea!" when actually, it seems to me, they're just answering questions they're asked. If you don't want an insight into design decisions, don't fucking ask, or don't read the interviews.

    Second, people totally like experiences where they don't have power. That's what the entire horror genre is about. Amnesia is a great example of being completely and utterly powerless--and at the same time, playing at a fantasy where you are powerless is empowering. Because you are in control of it, even if you're seem to have no control. Its the whole psychology behind BDSM as well, that the sub is actually the one in complete control, because they have the power to accept the actions done to them, or the power to stop them.

    Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
  • AbsoluteZeroAbsoluteZero The new film by Quentin Koopantino Registered User regular
    The "rape scene" is doing exactly what they wanted it to: get people talking about Tomb Raider.

    cs6f034fsffl.jpg
  • kevindeekevindee Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    InkSplat wrote: »
    How does she only find her 'inner strength' after an attempt at sexual violation? She manages to escape from death previous to that. I'd call that some inner strength. Also, how is it one-dimensional or lazy when they are using all of these "show" details to make you feel like its against the odds, rather than having a bad guy be all like "You don't stand a chance! You're just a woman!"

    If anything, actually thinking about the different things you can do to pull a certain feeling out of the player without resorting to "Here's some skimpy clothes and big boobs, go kick dudes in the balls" is the opposite of lazy.

    Would it have been lazy if they hadn't explained it? If you had gone into the game and simply had all those subtle things effect you without knowing they were purposefully done?

    Would you then assume it had somehow not been purposeful? And then would it be okay? Except.. if they just got lucky.. isn't that worse than designing the experience they want?

    I just don't understand how you can call designing psychological cues into your characters and environments as being lazy. It may not be a direction you like, but that doesn't make it poorly done.

    What I'm saying is it lacks subtlety, and it's telling of what the developers think of their audience. If you want to show a character growing from victim to hero, and to show that character's journey in a struggle against the odds, you don't have to make her shorter than everyone else. You don't need to have her "get damaged", have her clothes in tatters, have her face looking like she got hit by a bus, flung around like a ragdoll or impaled, and least of all - you don't have to have her, after all of that, spring into action only after being manhandled and beaten by a perv. Everything going against her just feels so ludicrously excessive that, for me, it takes away from the character of Lara herself. There's a more subtle way to showing all of this, and it looks like storytelling got sacrificed for gameplay, as she spends the first half of the trailer basically whimpering, moaning, and getting her shit ruined by everything around her. I use the scene where the dude assaults her as a defining volta in between Lara being a victim an a hero, because that's what the trailer made me feel. You said she "escaped death" before, exactly. She escapes, but she never acts or takes a life. She kills her first guy here, stops running away, and starts murdering people. It felt like a black/white shift to the first half of the trailer, and I'm sure it wasn't coincidence.

    When I say lazy storytelling, I mean just that. Don't act like there is an enormous amount of psychological intrigue about this, it's just a female victim-to-heroine trope, controlled by a male player as an external agent, who guides her to being less useless. That's honestly what it feels like, and I feel like Monger is on the mark. You're not meant to relate to her, your meant to guide, steer. Although in fairness, that's what I got from interviews and the trailer, the actual game could be far different.

    kevindee on
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    The "rape scene" is doing exactly what they wanted it to: get people talking about Tomb Raider.

    And most of you are still going to buy the game regardless. I am, because it looks like a good game.

  • UnbreakableVowUnbreakableVow Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Nuzak wrote: »
    they don't need to have rapists in a b-movie. they really don't need it.

    This is the kind of argument I just don't understand

    On the grand scale of things, is rape worse than murder?

    Yet there is murder in every single medium, thrown around so carelessly that no one even thinks twice about it. No one is saying "murder and murderers don't need to be in b-movies," for example.

    You could argue that, due to the overwhelming prevalence of death and murder in our fiction, that we've grown desensitized to it. Is that bad? No, not really. Everyone still knows at the end of the day that murder = bad. No one's more at risk of going out to commit murder, or find it hard to sympathize with people that have been murdered or the families of victims. Shit, to this day I can't even really watch slasher films, not because of the horror element of "there's a guy coming through the door," but I tend to think about what a horrible way that would be to die, how would their family find out what happened, etc. In the realm of video games, I am literally murdering dudes all the time, yet one of my good friends was murdered on April 1st, and I was not at all desensitized to the impact of the real thing actually happening. Can people not make this disconnect with rape?

    Are people afraid that society will become desensitized to rape due to its prevalence in fiction? Are they trying to stop this from happening? If so, why? At the end of the day, any logical person still knows it's a pretty awful thing to do.

    UnbreakableVow on
  • LilnoobsLilnoobs Alpha Queue Registered User regular
    Oh god, the rape and murder comparison again. When will it stop?

    Hey, come back when we have a culture that glorifies murder and then maybe we can do the comparison.
    Or come back when someone says, "well, that dude totally deserved to be murdered" or that person "asked for it".
    Or maybe when a single group of people are targeted to be murdered over and over in videogames in general and only that group are the murdered because "it makes sense".

    Or maybe we can understand that rape and murder are not the same thing and can not be judged on some linear scale of "badness".

    The "rape scene" is doing exactly what they wanted it to: get people talking about Tomb Raider.

    Laziest statement I've read this week.

  • Gandalf_the_CrazedGandalf_the_Crazed Vigilo ConfidoRegistered User regular
    Hey, come back when we have a culture that glorifies murder and then maybe we can do the comparison.
    Or come back when someone says, "well, that dude totally deserved to be murdered" or that person "asked for it".

    I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, but these both sound like things I see on a regular basis.

    PEUsig_zps56da03ec.jpg
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited June 2012
    Hey, come back when we have a culture that glorifies murder and then maybe we can do the comparison.
    Or come back when someone says, "well, that dude totally deserved to be murdered" or that person "asked for it".

    I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, but these both sound like things I see on a regular basis.

    Yeah, that's what I was going to say. You know what I've heard on a regular basis? "I felt like I was going to kill that guy" or "that guy should get beaten to do death with funny thing X for being so dumb".

    You know what I never ever hear? "Somebody should totally rape that chick" or "raping that chick would be awesome".

    Because one of those is glorified in all sorts of media (the entire action movie genre?) and one of those is never glorified. Ever. So I really can't agree with the implication at all that rape is glorified and murder is frowned upon when it's the exact opposite situation. Except, perhaps, among people who do bad things to other people.

    Honestly, I'm still stuck on "amazed" that a few seconds of showing somebody who has the intent for rape is worse than the idea of somebody being strung up and tortured to death for fun.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • MongerMonger I got the ham stink. Dallas, TXRegistered User regular
    InkSplat wrote: »
    Monger wrote: »
    Alright, over the past several hours of not being able to sleep, I have concocted a theory. It may be a tad loopy, on account of the aforementioned inability to sleep.

    I'm thinking that a lot of this may be focus group induced bullshit, or something equivalent.
    “As far as sex appeal, we are always thinking about making a character that people want to play, and part of that is a level of attractiveness and being drawn to Lara,” he said.

    “But we don’t want to play up sexuality for sexualities sake. We are constantly talking about context and motivation on this project. If for any reason we wanted to put her in a situation that would be alluring, it isn’t to be alluring. It would be because the situation called for it.” “Lara is a lover of archeology and she has these book smarts. Her brains are another huge part of her sex appeal. She is an attractive girl who doesn’t play up her looks, but she is super smart and she is very ambitious.”

    “Ultimately, what I think is going to be compelling about this – and what our version of sexy is – is the toughness through adverse conditions,” he said. “Seeing her survive through these moments. Her skin is still bare on the arms and there are going to be rips and tears on her clothes, but it won’t be about being revealing. It’s a way of saying that through these tough situations, there is a beauty and vulnerability coming through. I think that is sexy in its own way.”
    So, that quote seems to date back to 2010, and reading it in that context is a little different. It doesn't quite come off as so, you know, pervy. What it does come off as a more transparent PR spin, a reactionary (or maybe pre-emptive) response to people who would see the reboot and think LARA CROFT IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND I LIKE PLAYING AS HER BECAUSE SHE IS SEXY AND KICKS BUTT AND NOW YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MAKING HER NOT SEXY AND NOT KICK BUTT AND I DON'T WANT TO PLAY HER WHAT THE FUCK. Video games, as a general rule, are power fantasies, right? That was Lara's schtick. She had gigantic knockers and murdered everything. Power fantasy. That quote is very much a stretch for recontextualizing that power fantasy. She's not "sexy," but she's still totally sexy also buy our game.

    Now, post-E3 2011, they're showing off a girl getting impaled on a spike and then scrambling through a bunch of murky water away from some dude. How do you sell that as a power fantasy? People don't like feeling weak and they don't seek out those experiences, but the golden nugget at the center of your experience is that your player character isn't an action hero, but a normal person. She sucks and is slowly learning not to suck. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I SUCK. No, no. You have it all wrong, dear customer! You don't suck. She sucks. You aren't her. You're you, and you're awesome. She's her and she sucks, so you're going to help her to not suck. Because you're awesome. And then by the end of it, she'll be as awesome as you are, because you were awesome at making her awesome. Have we told you that you're awesome lately? Also, buy our game.

    This is the least offensive narrative I could construct, and I'm going to go ahead and believe it, if only for my own sanity.

    First off.. none of the actual advertising is doing the whole "She sucks! You don't, you're awesome!" At least nothing I've seen. So.. yeah. Again, they're creating an environment so you feel invested, and the only reason people are able to jump all over it is because the designers are being asked the goddamn questions in the first place.

    How can you be like "oh man, they're totally pushing this idea!" when actually, it seems to me, they're just answering questions they're asked. If you don't want an insight into design decisions, don't fucking ask, or don't read the interviews.

    Second, people totally like experiences where they don't have power. That's what the entire horror genre is about. Amnesia is a great example of being completely and utterly powerless--and at the same time, playing at a fantasy where you are powerless is empowering. Because you are in control of it, even if you're seem to have no control. Its the whole psychology behind BDSM as well, that the sub is actually the one in complete control, because they have the power to accept the actions done to them, or the power to stop them.
    I think you're misunderstanding some things.

    1. Loopy. Lack of sleep.

    2. I'm not saying that this is what they're doing. I'm trying to construct (and I stress the word construct) some kind of logical narrative that could explain how someone could say any of this protecting Lara stuff and think that it was a good idea to say that. It's simply too depressing to think that statement was intended to come out in that form at face value.

    3. I'm phrasing this from the perspective of an average executive, not one of us. The ones that are watching multimillion dollar kickstarters of projects they had turned down, in genres they had long considered dead. Those guys. Personally, I like for games to play with the concept of control and the definition and differentiation between the player, player character, and protagonist, who may or may not be entirely separate entities. That's the one thing this medium has that other mediums don't, and nowhere near enough people are experimenting with it.

    4. Loopy. Lack of sleep.

Sign In or Register to comment.