Lara and the trauma of killing

[Busard]

I still think that the story was poorly adapted to reflect the gameplay. I'm fine with keeping the action and fun of the combat, but the story should at least reflect that more. It's just not believable, character wise, to have this kind of contrast. You don't become an instant killer like that. Taking a human life can be a shock to many, if not most.

I think the game, while not bad, would've improved vastly if it intertwined story and gameplay more into one core. Right now, it just suffers the usual fault of being totally disjointed, and being one of these "movie games", not particularily challenging or relevant, just something you watch while pressing buttons because the gameplay doesn't involve you in the story and vice versa.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

You know...Spec Ops did it pretty well just with voicework.

At first the hero is all professional (*not raising his voice at all* "Precision shot on my mark"), but by the end he's screaming like a bloody savage (*screaming* "I! WANT! HIM! DEAD!!!!"). It did a good job for me of conveying the hero's mental slippage into battle rage from all the non-stop horrors that he saw.

They could have done it like that for Tomb raider. Have her begin with sob-like adrenaline fueled screams and "Sorry"s when finishing enemies, and by the end have her whooping and sounding like the brutal gun-wielding psycho she's become..

 

[m19]

They could have done it like that for Tomb raider. Have her begin with sob-like adrenaline fueled screams and "Sorry"s when finishing enemies, and by the end have her whooping and sounding like the brutal gun-wielding psycho she's become..

They did do that. She starts with, "We don't have to do this," but eventually starts to taunt her enemies and by the end of the game her attitude has quiet an edge. But, no, it's not a Heart of Darkness impression like Spec-Ops. Nor does it have to be.

 

[jcfrommars9]

I still think that the story was poorly adapted to reflect the gameplay. I'm fine with keeping the action and fun of the combat, but the story should at least reflect that more. It's just not believable, character wise, to have this kind of contrast. You don't become an instant killer like that. Taking a human life can be a shock to many, if not most.

I think the game, while not bad, would've improved vastly if it intertwined story and gameplay more into one core. Right now, it just suffers the usual fault of being totally disjointed, and being one of these "movie games", not particularily challenging or relevant, just something you watch while pressing buttons because the gameplay doesn't involve you in the story and vice versa.

By definition, becoming an instant killer is exactly what Lara became when she killed someone for the first time. But in all seriousness, she was forced to kill. When I played the game, I didn't feel like I was handling a cold blooded murderer like 47, but a very reluctant one. I also felt like someone who was always going to throw the first punch when push came to shove. Even before Lara killed that guy, when he tried assaulting her and she kneed him in the groin and seemingly either drew blood or bit his ear off. Girl's a fighter.

 

[randmonds4]

They will never suspect...

 

[Gabanuka]

I'm glad that she actually reacted to her first kill. One thing that always pissed me off about games like AC2 was that the protagonist accepted killing so fast.

Personally I'm going by the theory shes running on adrenaline, as soon as its all over im pretty sure she'll start feeling a bit more regret.

But didnt we see Etzio having a fist fight and being absolutely hot blooded about it? i am pretty sure he already beat someone to dead before to the point of being over it quickly.

Hot Blooded maybe but I'm pretty sure everyone got out alive.

Been awhile since I played it but I remember you start of dodging that little pricks men. then as soon as you get a hidden blade you can stab them easily.

Come to think of it Etzio seems to accent his father was an assassins really quickly.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

You know...Spec Ops did it pretty well just with voicework.

At first the hero is all professional (*not raising his voice at all* "Precision shot on my mark"), but by the end he's screaming like a bloody savage (*screaming* "I! WANT! HIM! DEAD!!!!"). It did a good job for me of conveying the hero's mental slippage into battle rage from all the non-stop horrors that he saw.

They could have done it like that for Tomb raider. Have her begin with sob-like adrenaline fueled screams and "Sorry"s when finishing enemies, and by the end have her whooping and sounding like the brutal gun-wielding psycho she's become..

What was done well in Spec Ops was nothing to do with gaming. That's my problem. They have movie script writers making games now, when the medium of gaming offers so much more.

The hero in Spec Ops is not me, so what he does of his own will is film - it's the plotwriter telling me a story. People will say "that's okay, sometimes we just want that from a game" and they're right, but it's still disappointing because of the missed potential and extremely low ambition in any area except graphics and production values.

 

[HellsingerAngel]

I've heard no small amount of praise for how Lara isn't converted from a fresh-faced student into a hardened murderer instantly after her first kill. This acclaim seems very misplaced to me given how the game portrays her conversion (mostly through player-mediated cutscenes). Does it make the slightest difference to me if I have to sit through a few more of Lara's expressions of disgust over her actions? She still becomes a trigger-happy gun-killer by the end, and it's still as ridiculous as it was without these cutscenes, with the game giving the impression that after the first few kills, killing is incredibly easy and natural.

Cutscenes do disjoint an action game. That being said, this is a Square Enix franchise and they are known for their pretty visuals and disjointing cutscenes to show off those pretty visuals.

Now, I don't know whether or not this is true - maybe humans actually are natural killing machines. I'm not concerned with that. The problem is, the developers went to so much trouble to eliminate that idea, with Lara's transition extremely heavy-handed in the narrative. You could say that's what the whole game is about. They clearly wanted us to feel the traumatic effect killing has on Lara, that she's human and not a killing machine.

I think your hyperbole is a little out of place. The entire narrative (as I've played so far) has focused on the "fight or flight" dichotomy with our natural instincts. The whole characterization of Lara as a self-perceived runner is contrasted with the how her companions see her as a fighter. The entire game, to the point of where I've played, has been the gradual realization for Lara that her friends were right. The game even goes as far as to give audio cues with Lara constantly saying "I can do this. I can do this!" whenever a particularly harrowing feat is blocking her path.

So why not go further and bring some of that into the gameplay? Give her some penalty for using the gun to kill instead of stealthing her way around or choosing not to kill. I don't know what. In turn-based D&D it would be a -1 on her to hit roll. In a real time game like TR it could be the screen going blurry for a second or something like that when she chooses to kill. One game I can remember that did this was the FPS Call of Cthulu. Yeah, I know everyone hates that kind of thing and I do too, but maybe that's good: it's annoying because it's an effect of Lara not being used to killing, and the traumatic effect it has on her. Maybe she could later put skill points into willpower or something like that. As it is, there's no reason NOT to kill. No benefit to a stealth approach, or merely injuring an enemy instead of shooting him in the head.

Because that's not fun. Negative reinforcement is a poor excuse for not being able to create positive reinforcement in a game. This is why D&D went with almost no penalties in 4th Ed and instead just gave you stacking bonuses instead. It achieves the same end but the latter feels better. I think someone mentioned having bonus exp for sneaking past guards and I think that would have been a great idea if they wanted to implement stealth more often. That being said, the game is basically a narrow hallway and is obviously a crafted experience. I'm not sure if people are thinking about that when they comment on the game but obviously Crystal Dynamics wanted you to kill those people. It certainly ties in with the growth of the character as I presented it above from someone who thinks they're a coward to the realization that they can actually kick a lot of ass. Lara is one of the first empowered female icons in videogames and maybe, just maybe, CD is trying to keep that theme but in a much more positive way than "holy shit, huge boobs"?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

They could have done it like that for Tomb raider. Have her begin with sob-like adrenaline fueled screams and "Sorry"s when finishing enemies, and by the end have her whooping and sounding like the brutal gun-wielding psycho she's become..

They did do that. She starts with, "We don't have to do this," but eventually starts to taunt her enemies and by the end of the game her attitude has quiet an edge. But, no, it's not a Heart of Darkness impression like Spec-Ops. Nor does it have to be.

Oh. Nevermind, then. >_>

(That'll teach me to comment about a game I haven't played yet.... >_<)

 

[Kopikatsu]

A game where your choices and actions during gameplay actually alter the personality of the main female protagonist and the story, from an innocent bystander to a murderous hypocrite, who wants to stop a bunch of genocidal aliens by being a genocidal powerhouse? and the story reacts to it by making everyone of your enemies call you on it? and you can avoid all that by not killing anyone if you so choose?

Spoiler

Nop. Never heard that one before. It is OBVIOUSLY clear that the Triple A industry cannot make such a thing for their scripts because its too hard to do. And if they cant do it in 2013, then nobody will, amaright? not even back in 2008.

No sir. What a shame.

You might want to actually... I dunno... state the name of whatever you're trying to disprove him with? Because I have no idea what... game? you're talking about. Just a thought.

OT: Yeah no. It's an action game. Typically it's a bad thing to reprimand and inhibit your player for actually, you know, engaging in the action. You might as well make the argument for why the game isn't more like Deus Ex, giving you wider areas and the ability to slip past enemies without being noticed at all. And that's a can of worms you don't really want to open.

I have to ask, why does it seem like people only have problems with protagonists being murderers when they're not grunting, grimdoom slabs of dull pulled from some generic fictional military force?

Er, I thought he was rather obviously referring to Iji. I've never played the game before, but his sarcastic comment matches Iji's premise.

 

[shrekfan246]

Er, I thought he was rather obviously referring to Iji. I've never played the game before, but his sarcastic comment matches Iji's premise.

He was, and I found that out thanks to some Google-fu and other people quoting me, but I didn't know that beforehand when I entered this thread because I had never heard of the game before. I highly doubt I'm the only person, too.

 

[Zenn3k]

I've heard no small amount of praise for how Lara isn't converted from a fresh-faced student into a hardened murderer instantly after her first kill. This acclaim seems very misplaced to me given how the game portrays her conversion (mostly through player-mediated cutscenes). Does it make the slightest difference to me if I have to sit through a few more of Lara's expressions of disgust over her actions? She still becomes a trigger-happy gun-killer by the end, and it's still as ridiculous as it was without these cutscenes, with the game giving the impression that after the first few kills, killing is incredibly easy and natural.

Now, I don't know whether or not this is true - maybe humans actually are natural killing machines. I'm not concerned with that. The problem is, the developers went to so much trouble to eliminate that idea, with Lara's transition extremely heavy-handed in the narrative. You could say that's what the whole game is about. They clearly wanted us to feel the traumatic effect killing has on Lara, that she's human and not a killing machine.

So why not go further and bring some of that into the gameplay? Give her some penalty for using the gun to kill instead of stealthing her way around or choosing not to kill. I don't know what. In turn-based D&D it would be a -1 on her to hit roll. In a real time game like TR it could be the screen going blurry for a second or something like that when she chooses to kill. One game I can remember that did this was the FPS Call of Cthulu. Yeah, I know everyone hates that kind of thing and I do too, but maybe that's good: it's annoying because it's an effect of Lara not being used to killing, and the traumatic effect it has on her. Maybe she could later put skill points into willpower or something like that. As it is, there's no reason NOT to kill. No benefit to a stealth approach, or merely injuring an enemy instead of shooting him in the head.

I'm sure others have better ideas, I'm just saying that if they want to feel the trauma they have to do more than write it into the story and show it to us. After all, the one thing we get to do in the game is kill. We can't even choose not to. Especially with the debates over gaming and gun control I saw some potential in TR's character setting for intelligently demonstrating to the media, NRA and everyone else that games (esp. shooters) aren't just kill kill kill. I don't know how. In the end, they're the game developers, not me. There must be something they can do. Be creative?

Anyone who has ever had to kill another person will tell you.

After the 1st one, it becomes very easy.

I don't have a problem with it, I think people are being WAY overly judgmental of Tomb Raider.

I think its a fun and exciting game. Those "runs" through set pieces breaking down all around you are exhilarating and pulse pounding. I'm enjoying every minute I spend with Tomb Raider.

In an era where garbage like SimCity is released (same day mind you), you shouldn't shit all over a gem like Tomb Raider, it could have been SO much worse.