Conan O'Brien Loses It Over Lara
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Exactly! The aesthetic of those environments makes me feel that the graphic violence is justified, if not necessarily "easy" to watch. In this instance though, it just seems - like you said - unnecessary and out of tone with the rest of the game.lumenadducere said:
I know from the promotional material that the development team wanted to make the world of Tomb Raider more realistic with an emphasis on danger, but this looks downright exploitative. I mean they have her struggle for a few seconds after she gets impaled! Too harsh of a "punishment" for an inexperienced college student.
You know what? I hadn't thought of that before, but it makes a certain amount of sense.ThingWhatSqueaks said:
Well, one could make the argument that the phenomenally brutal deaths in the Dead Space series is too harsh of a punishment for an engineer, but I don't remember there being much of a backlash to those.Chris Batson said:
It's certainly disturbing but I think that is to its advantige. The gore is happening to your character rather than being given out by you like in say god of war, so its a punishment rather then a reward. I remember in Resident Evil 4 the only thing that kept the tension was knowing that if I lost I would have to watch a really gorey death. Its a more effective punishment then all most any thing else and puts the fear of death in me I don't get form other games. I don't like that kind of violence but that is exactly the point, thats at least how I see it.Chris Batson said:
Damn, that was pretty funny! I've seen a few of these, but I think this was the best. I wonder why I had no issues watching the video, being Europe and all that.
"look at this, she found a handbag and now she's distracted" I laughed a little too much at that.
"look at this, she found a handbag and now she's distracted" I laughed a little too much at that.
Looks like Lara isn't ridding herself of the view that she's nothing but a shallow sex symbol any time soon. Not in Conan's eyes at any rate.
You Americans sound really awkward when you say Lara. Conan's pronunciation of La-Ra seems to be the problem, he should try Lar-Rar.
You Americans sound really awkward when you say Lara. Conan's pronunciation of La-Ra seems to be the problem, he should try Lar-Rar.
Ironically, she was named Lara instead of Laura because Americans had trouble (or the original designers figured Americans had trouble) pronouncing Laura as Laura, and not Lara.Daystar Clarion said:
And yeah, the Craig/Creg thing drives me fucking insane. For the longest time watching South Park I figured it was a different name that hadn't picked up over here.
As opposed to saying Isaac's many, many, many, brutal and horrible deaths are too harsh of a 'punishment' for an Engineer?Chris Batson said:
I don't understand. This sort of brutal quote-unquote "unnecessary" approach to dying in games has been done for ages anyway. So why start complaining about it now? Is it because that was 'out-of-place'? I didn't think it was.
Only if they wouldn't be disturbed if she was a man.Tenmar said:
I personally don't care for the violent death-animations, it just doesn't interest me, and often they just look silly.
Unless they're very stylisized and over-the-top, and there's a lot of variety.
But in a game like this? I don't much care for them. At their worst they might look silly.
Undoubtedly that Isaac is a man is a part of it, but there's also the fact that Tomb Raider is an established franchise, so people already know Lara. While Dead Space established from the start that it was a game with a lot of gore, and people who bought it were prepared for it.JeanLuc761 said:
As for violence against women in video-games, violence against female characters is fine.
UNLESS it's exploitative and sexualised. That was the main complaint against the Hitman nuns,
and the fears for the Tomb Raider-thing (especially after the comments about 'protecting ' Lara). I haven't played the latter yet, but it seems those fears were unfounded.
I'm sure some people feel uncomfortable because they aren't as used to seeing violence like this towards women, but maybe this is a good opportunity to reflect on why you aren't as disturbed seeing such things happen to men, and how used you are to violence in media.
Don't worry, I was being sarcastic. It's not like I'd trust a Conan O'Brien "review" of a game!m19 said:
I don't think that this gets enough attention. I'm not 100% sure WHY it angers me so much that Americans insist on pronouncing it wrong, but it makes me want to punch them all in the face.Daystar Clarion said:
Oh, and on topic I suppose... Not played a Tomb Raider since 2. Probably not going to start up again now. I got bored of the 2nd one many many years ago because I sucked at it and struggled to get past, like, the 4th level, kinda got me off the whole 3D platforming/puzzling genre to be honest.
Now what I remember from the Original Tomb Raider... apart from killing a T-Rex with pistols?
Jumping from a great height and breaking Lara's neck.
This is nothing new.
Jumping from a great height and breaking Lara's neck.
This is nothing new.
Exactly.. the way she was groping at it was disturbing.synobal said:
I've seen a lot of icky death in media. Hell, I've seen all of game of thrones and THAT has the par-decapitation of a horse. *shudder* But that branch through the neck was just... that squicked me out, man. Squicked me out bad. Her expression and gestures were.. yeah, pornographic.
It's not exactly pornographic in my eyes. Compare it to the Saw movies, films often considered the height of the sick torture porn sub-genre of horror. The victims in the film have long, prolonged deaths in extremely painful ways. They normally actually do have a way to escape which either causes even more pain or is too hard, and their last moments are usually that of either terrible agony, disgusting emotional distress or both. Whereas this is one of the many ways you can die in the game, it lasts a few seconds and it's no more violent than most games. Hell, go play Chivalry: Medival Warfare; that has deaths including having your arm chopped off, you looking at it then flopping to the ground and it's all in first person. In my eyes disturbing death scenes does not always torture porn, yet torture porn is always disturbing.Catie Caraco said:
The death wasn't sexualized in any way, and I'm pretty sure if one were to be in that terrible predicament in their final moments they will probably make faces that could be mis-construed as sexual. Let me ask you, if they simply changed the model from Lara to a man would you call it sexualized? I think people are just seeing it as torture porn because it's a woman, when the other countless brutal and terrible deaths in video games aren't because they're men.
Uh, no, the reason I feel that way is because that's the emotion it elicits in me. I don't watch torture porn, but the expression on her face looked more like a money shot that an 'I'm dying' expression, and the way in which she was grabbing at the branch or whatever it was looked more like a caress than anything else. So, yeah, looked kinda pornographic to me.Tenmar said:
I'm allowed to react one way, you can react another. I for one am not a fan of graphic violence, so I may not be a connoisseur, but don't tell me that I'm putting a moral spin on it. I never said that it was a bad thing, in fact I'm impressed by the strength of the reaction it elicited. I don't have a problem with the game and will probably pick up a copy. But that doesn't mean I'm not squicked out by a part of it.
I was squicked out by the horse scene in Game of Thrones. Didn't make me stop watching it, I just look away at that scene now.