Most people see the glass as half empty or half full. Yahtzee, you see to look at it and ask,"Can I slice my wrist with it?"
Zero Punctuation: Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
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In terms of gameplay and production values and all that this is an excellent game in my opinion, but I still did not enjoy it because I do not like the rebooted Lara and the general tone of the game. This realistic Nolanized version does not allow for fantastical things like monsters, dinosaurs, skinless clones of Lara, legless giants that swallow you whole, or gunfights during a high speed motorcycle chase. And unlike Christopher Nolan who knew how to take characters like Joker and Bane and make them awesome characters in their own right this new Lara is IMO so dull, so homogenized, so irritating. I am longing for the return of old Lara, and this trend of Nolanizing stuff can't die soon enough, unless it is done by Nolan himself...
Wow. It's been a while since I checked out these comment sections, but the tone here is a lot more venomous than I remember them being.
As for new Lara she's essentially a gender-reversed Generic White Male Protagonist, and I can't help but feel that a lot of people who are complaining that she's now a boring character have been perfectly fine playing that dude since forever. No, they're probably not going to do anything particularly brave or niche with the character because the people funding the project are terrified of accidentally doing something that drives players away. So we get the same piece of wonderbread we always do, because having the wonderbread with ladyparts is apparently enough of a risk.
The main problem I have with these games? I don't think they really fare that well from being open-world. To me they're the most fun and epic when you're running though the very linear parts or solving puzzles anyway so the crafting and collectibles seem so superfluous. Other than that I think they're fine. They're not going to revolutionize anything, but expecting that from a 20 year old franchise would be very optimistic.
As for new Lara she's essentially a gender-reversed Generic White Male Protagonist, and I can't help but feel that a lot of people who are complaining that she's now a boring character have been perfectly fine playing that dude since forever. No, they're probably not going to do anything particularly brave or niche with the character because the people funding the project are terrified of accidentally doing something that drives players away. So we get the same piece of wonderbread we always do, because having the wonderbread with ladyparts is apparently enough of a risk.
The main problem I have with these games? I don't think they really fare that well from being open-world. To me they're the most fun and epic when you're running though the very linear parts or solving puzzles anyway so the crafting and collectibles seem so superfluous. Other than that I think they're fine. They're not going to revolutionize anything, but expecting that from a 20 year old franchise would be very optimistic.
I wonder at times if a female Indiana Jones can even work (for long) ...The Almighty Aardvark said:
As pointed out in Plinkett's "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" review, Indiana Jones is vicarious entertainment - Indiana Jones as a character cannot be old; No one likes being old.
It also doesn't work when the protagonist is the opposite gender to the viewer/player.
Who exactly is Laura suppose to appeal to? Women who like adventure? How big a market is that?
I think you're greatly underestimating the market. I remember reading before that the adventure genre is the genre (or at least one of the genres) with the largest female demographic. Can't remember what the actual percentage was though.deadish said:
Anecdotally, whenever I recommend games to female gamers ICO, Journey and SotC, all very adventure heavy games, they tend to get great reception.
As for it not working with the opposite gender, it depends on what features create enough of a difference to stop you being able to identify with them. I can identify with most female characters much more easily than Marcus Fenix, and I find myself creating about as many female characters as male when gender is an option. It really depends on the person
I don't put much stock in psychobabble.slo said:
Nancy Drew type adventure sure. Guns blazing, leaping from cliffs ... I don't know man.
It's also not a matter of identifying with the protagonist's "wishes and principles". The typical human male has little in common with Indiana Jones - he is good looking, fit as heck, relatively popular with women, goes on daring adventures in which he does the nigh impossible ... etc. As pointed out by the Plinkett reviews, Indiana Jones isn't exactly a deep character - he is really "the hat, the whip and the leather jacket". We aren't interested in his "wishes and principles", we aspire to his (fictional and fantastical) lifestyle.
To my understanding, the earlier Tomb Raider games were a lot less of "guns blazing" adventure. Just because they decided to capitalize more on the guns blazing aspect in the recent games doesn't mean that it couldn't have worked otherwise.deadish said:
I'd say less wishes and principles, and more demeanor, personality and appearance that cuts off my ability to identify with Marcus Fenix. But I think what you're saying is that you're talking more about a power fantasy than identification
If it's all about the lifestyle, why does the gender matter? I'm a white, blonde guy, but my vicarious power fantasy can take the form of a woman, a dark haired person, an asian person, or all the above. As long as they're doing things that I'd like to imagine myself doing, that's the vicarious part.
It's broken for me a bit in Tomb Raider not because she's a woman, but because lots of what she's doing is getting beaten up to trigger someone else's protective fatherly instincts, and that's not a vicarious fantasy of mine
Could be, but I feel like if it is, that's just underexposure. Female gamers have had to resort to it for decades, given the meager selection of female characters to choose from. If they found a way to enjoy it, I'm sure most guys can toodeadish said: