The Lara Croft Redesign

[Paragon Fury]

Okay to all those who are stupid. Women having over-sized breasts and emanating sexuality are not what we call empowered women, they are what we call hookers.

This Lara is a normal proportionate human. Female empowerment does not mean we should make all video game women have a pair of giant breast and a huge buttox on a stick body and then flaunt sexuality. That is why we have so many overly sexual teenage girls who are anorexic.

And this recent trend of trying to run away from sexuality and independence isn't going to do them any good either.

This is a SMART, ATHLETIC, NORMAL SIZED, (And fairly attractive, probably because of the last three things) woman in extroidenary circumstances being awesome.

Lara Croft was never supposed to be "normal". Ever. For fuck's sake, she raid temples were she fights T-REXS FOR TREASURE. Where does REALISM fit into that?

Thing is, Bayonetta is right up with with (pre Other M) Samus, Zelda, etc.

She has almost all traits people ascribe to "good" characters, and even more, unlike the "famed" Alyx Vance, her personality and purpose do not completely collapse into a black hole of suck if you take away her support cast.

You want to know why that Is that those female characters are all like that? Because they are from the 80s/90s! It was the days of Duke Nukem and ridiculous characters that were just way too fictionalized.

Except that they are all meant to be highly fictionalized characters. If they tried to do Duke what they've done to Lara, the Internet would literally EXPLODE. In addition, they're all seen as good characters not only because of how they look, but because of how they are; they can each exist independently of other characters. Zelda doesn't suddenly stop being Zelda and lose something if you take away Link. Samus was the only character in her games for most of her existence.

On the other hand, subtract Gordan Freeman from Alyx Vance, and you're not left with much. She's almost completely helpless without him (Dog is no match for the Combine), often just makes his life harder, and Gordan only goes with what she says because HE CAN'T FUCKING SPEAK! The only reason she isn't dead is because the G-Man needs her to be all cryptic to better fuck with everyone's minds.

And Bayonetta, like Zelda and Samus, can exist outside her own little "bubble". She doesn't need Jenne, or Rodan or anyone else to define her. She knows who she is, and she has many of the traits ascribed to other "good" characters. Yet people want to deny her this just because she knows she's (supposed to be) hot and uses it.

I mean I know a bunch of women who are just appalled by how most games make women sticks with giant boobs and then put them in tiny clothes and put them in games. (My favorite quote personally is "They don't give all the men in the game giant penises.")

We are moving into an age where media character heroes are not all "Master Cheifs" or "John McClains", and this goes with "Lara Crofts" too. People are not interested in playing characters who aren't human, they smart, strong, invincible, emotionless, and really... boring. It's a time of "Nathan Drake's", "Nathan Hales", "Commander Shephards" and so on, and now too must female characters begin to turn into normal human characters, with human weaknesses and emotions, who still save the day. And you know what normal women don't have? GIANT BREASTS.

And you know what normal men don't have? SQUARE JAWS. SIX PACKS. PERFECT "V" SHOULDER-TORSO RATIO. IMPECCABLE DICTION AND SPEAKING ABILITY. None of those men you mentioned are "normal". Nathan Drake might as well be the fucking Highlander, Commander Shepard is the fucking Highlander, and Nathan Hale is better than 99% of all military personnel out there. You don't see men with giant packages because pants (or shorts for that matter) do a damn good job of hiding that.

Divide any way you like, its the same thing.

Bayonetta or Lara Croft etc. walks into a bar, 95% of the women in that bar just lost the attention of every man in that bar.

Dante or Nathan Hale or Commander Shepard walks into a bar, 95% of the men in the bar just lost the attention of every woman in that bar.

Its a two way street here folks.[/quote]

 

[RelexCryo]

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

 

[Krythe]

I love all the internet white-knights crawling out of the woodwork to say that a woman can't be asthetically-pleasing and strong, completely ignoring that every male protagonist ever is in MUCH better shape than is average and most are overly chizzled-looking too.

 

[Nazulu]

Don't like the new look, I find that this model is less charateristic than the original, last thing any game needs is to be more realistic. They might as well just create a new character.

That said, I'm not a fan of Tomb Raider at all, the old games didn't really do much for me.

 

[RelexCryo]

I think it looks good, she looks more like a proportioned human being now but
ATTENTION DEVELOPERS!
you do NOT make a strong female character by making her manly, the original Laura Croft was fairly feminine and flirtatious then she turned into the emotionless tough girl that everyone expects from games and abandoned every personality aspect that made her female. so far the best representation of a strong female character is Bayonetta.
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/2/20608/1238292-bayo_bayonetta_super.jpg
so quick checklist
strong willed and doesn't need a man but is still attracted to them and shows it: check
still maintains a love for stereotypically "Girly" things because she personally enjoys them and knows it doesn't make her "weak": check
in touch with and in complete acceptance of her sexuality: check
maternal instinct without being "Baby crazy" or wanting children: check
one statement in Bayonetta summed up the whole character
"Do I look like I enjoy children? well making them, that's another story"
wow that was quite a rant.

Ugh, Bayonetta makes me want to vomit.

I think you're giving to much credit to Lara Croft's progression as a character, and not enough to the fact the a lot of Tomb Raider games were just plain bad.

There are plenty of examples of prominent female characters in games that aren't ridiculous a la Bayonetta.

Jill Valentine of Resident Evil
Seemingly no attempt was made to make her "sexy" or flirtatious, yet she's a very popular character. (same could all be said for Clair Redfield, not quite as popular though).

Catherine Archer of No One Lives Forever
Great female character, ton of personality, very head strong, never came off as overly sexualized.

Samus Aran of Metroid
Let's pretend The Other M doesn't exist for this one. Samus rose to popularity as a silent protagonist, all while rarely ever even hinting at the fact that she's female.

Aya Brea of Parasite Eve
She might have the look, but she acts like a damn guy.

Jade of Beyond Good & Evil
No explanation needed here.

Point being game dev's shouldn't and don't have to appeal to horny teenagers to make a successful game with a female lead character.

snip...

I Love Laura, I do, but let's face it.

...snip

Just not quite enough to get her name right?

Wow...associating female empowerment with androgyny...is just overwhelmingly mysogynistic.

Here is something I posted earlier:

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I love all the internet white-knights crawling out of the woodwork to say that a woman can't be asthetically-pleasing and strong, completely ignoring that every male protagonist ever is in MUCH better shape than is average and most are overly chizzled-looking too.

That's not really true, there are plenty of male protagonists with realistic builds.
Dante (DMC) is lean, not particularly muscular aside from a 6-pack which is no huge achievement for thin folk. Nathan Drake (Uncharted) is pretty much Joe Everybody. John Shepard (Mass Effect) has a very realistic build for a soldier. Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes) is scrawny.

You could say they all have athletic bodies, and they do, but so does the new Lara Croft.

 

[Dark42]

Am I the only one that thinks this redesign has a shocking resemblance to Sheva from Resident Evil 5?

 

[RelexCryo]

Am I the only one that thinks this redesign has a shocking resemblance to Sheva from Resident Evil 5?

The outfit is almost identical to Sheva's default outfit in RE5. The physique is not.

 

[RelexCryo]

Okay to all those who are stupid. Women having over-sized breasts and emanating sexuality are not what we call empowered women, they are what we call hookers.

This Lara is a normal proportionate human. Female empowerment does not mean we should make all video game women have a pair of giant breast and a huge buttox on a stick body and then flaunt sexuality. That is why we have so many overly sexual teenage girls who are anorexic.

This is a SMART, ATHLETIC, NORMAL SIZED, (And fairly attractive, probably because of the last three things) woman in extroidenary circumstances being awesome.

Thing is, Bayonetta is right up with with (pre Other M) Samus, Zelda, etc.

She has almost all traits people ascribe to "good" characters, and even more, unlike the "famed" Alyx Vance, her personality and purpose do not completely collapse into a black hole of suck if you take away her support cast.

You want to know why that Is that those female characters are all like that? Because they are from the 80s/90s! It was the days of Duke Nukem and ridiculous characters that were just way too fictionalized.

I mean I know a bunch of women who are just appalled by how most games make women sticks with giant boobs and then put them in tiny clothes and put them in games. (My favorite quote personally is "They don't give all the men in the game giant penises.")

We are moving into an age where media character heroes are not all "Master Cheifs" or "John McClains", and this goes with "Lara Crofts" too. People are not interested in playing characters who aren't human, they smart, strong, invincible, emotionless, and really... boring. It's a time of "Nathan Drake's", "Nathan Hales", "Commander Shephards" and so on, and now too must female characters begin to turn into normal human characters, with human weaknesses and emotions, who still save the day. And you know what normal women don't have? GIANT BREASTS.

Arlight, I am going to repeat this again, and I hope a mod doesn't crack down on me beacuse of it:

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

 

[mindlesspuppet]

snip...

I think you're giving to much credit to Lara Croft's progression as a character, and not enough to the fact the a lot of Tomb Raider games were just plain bad.

There are plenty of examples of prominent female characters in games that aren't ridiculous a la Bayonetta.

snip...

Aya Brea of Parasite Eve
She might have the look, but she acts like a damn guy.

Jade of Beyond Good & Evil
No explanation needed here.

Point being game dev's shouldn't and don't have to appeal to horny teenagers to make a successful game with a female lead character.

Wow...associating female empowerment with androgyny...is just overwhelmingly mysogynistic.

Is that really all you took from the entire post?

I wasn't giving examples of "female empowerment", I never even mentioned the term (for that matter, neither did the post I was replying to). What I did give were examples of prominent female characters in gaming that weren't ridiculously over sexualized like Bayonetta.

I love that I actually wrote "point being ...", and then stated the point I was making, and you're still so thick that you misconstrued it for something entirely different. Either that or you're trying to manipulate what I said to make me look bad and label me as "misogynistic".

Also, since when is being a tomboy the same thing as being androgynous?

Here is something I posted earlier:

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

Yes, because Lara Crofts body was o' so muscular before this. She sure did strength train those pecs. It's impeccable how she managed to isolate them too, because it's pretty much impossible to exercise pecs without also exercising back and/or arm muscles. She didn't exactly have a large trapezius to match her absurdly large tits pecs. Well developed legs too, huge quads too for all that hardcore pulling she does.

Honestly, it's actually pretty fucking hilarious that you're trying to defend the old Lara as being more realistic.

Also, what has lead you to believe that Lara is going to be doing any heavy lifting in the new game? Seems like she should relay on agility and ingenuity instead of strength to get things done.

 

[The-Bad-Blooded]

I actually like this design, me being a tomb raider fan, I like that they've fixed her proportions and how they've made her look like someone fresh out-of colledge, I think the designers did well here.

 

[RelexCryo]

snip...

I think you're giving to much credit to Lara Croft's progression as a character, and not enough to the fact the a lot of Tomb Raider games were just plain bad.

There are plenty of examples of prominent female characters in games that aren't ridiculous a la Bayonetta.

snip...

Aya Brea of Parasite Eve
She might have the look, but she acts like a damn guy.

Jade of Beyond Good & Evil
No explanation needed here.

Point being game dev's shouldn't and don't have to appeal to horny teenagers to make a successful game with a female lead character.

Wow...associating female empowerment with androgyny...is just overwhelmingly mysogynistic.

Is that really all you took from the entire post?

I wasn't giving examples of "female empowerment", I never even mentioned the term. What I did give were examples of prominent female characters in gaming that weren't ridiculously over sexualized like Bayonetta.

I love that I actually wrote "point being ...", and then stated the point I was making, and you're still so thick that you misconstrued it for something entirely different. Either that or you're trying to manipulate what I said to make me look bad and label me as "misogynistic".

Also, since when is being a tomboy the same thing as being androgynous?

Here is something I posted earlier:

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

Yes, because Lara Crofts body was o' so muscular before this. She sure did strength train those pecs. It's impeccable how she managed to isolate them too, because it's pretty much impossible to exercise pecs without also exercising back and/or arm muscles. She didn't exactly have a large trapezius to match her absurdly large tits pecs. Well developed legs too, huge quads too for all that hardcore pulling she does.

Honestly, it's actually pretty fucking hilarious that you're trying to defend the old Lara as being more realistic.

Never said it was more realistic. I am pointing out that the current design is not realistic either. The design looks more childlike than strong. How is that empowering?

You want a realistic design? Give her the body of the strength trainer she supposedly was/is. Give her strong, toned, muscles. Giant looking boobs would also inevitably go with this body, simply because that is realistic.

 

[SyphonX]

If you put all the different Lara's in a line, this new design would the one that doesn't look anything like the others.

She has no ass.

She has no chest.

She barely has any hips.

First of all:
It's not a porn.

Second:
There is no secondary remark.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Agree entirely. I like the move to a more realistic woman, but making her so different as to be unrecognizable is stupid.

 

[Choppaduel]

They should have just axed Lara Croft & come up with a different protagonist for Tomb Raider games. Retcon is cheating, far as I'm concerned.

 

[SovietX]

I cant wait for the new lara. The new one looks huuman to me. Also, remember that this isnt just a sequel, its a complete reboot. They cant really have her looking the same if they are giving her a new story and everything.

The new lara will be epic. (Read about the new game having survival aspects, should be fun)

 

[Axzarious]

As someone stated earlier, they did lose lauras character. Dont know what happened, but maybe the studio switch was to blame. Anyways, I've never played the games, but one thing I can say for certian, is the character design of the current laura is far less memorable, along with being bland and generic.

Maybe the gameplay will make up for it though. Not sure. Ill play this by ear.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Lara Croft is supposed to be ridiculously strong- a hardcore strength trainer. She has consistently been shown lifting and pulling extremely heavy objects in her games. Please keep in mind, strength training and body building are not the same thing. When a woman strength trains, she develops very, very big breasts. Her pectoral muscles actually push her Breasts outwards and give them support. A woman with average breasts looks like Dolly Parton if she strength trains.

So, in reality, her having small breasts is not realistic. It is absurdly unrealistic. She is unrealistically flat chested. It looks like she has a childlike body just for the sake of having a childlike body. Explain this to me: How is this empowering to women? Women who strength train have giant looking boobs. For what concievable reason do you think making her look like a skinny underage kid is a good thing?

Just because she's athletic doesn't mean she strength trains. Hell, there's lots of people that have an athletic look to them, yet they barely lift weights. To do the things she does, she really needs a strong core, not super-huge pectorals. That would just mean a tight stomach, not huge breasts because of huge pectoral muscles. She doesn't necessarily have to be strong to push and pull heavy objects (I don't remember her ever lifting a heavy object, but then again I don't remember much from those games) You have to be able to use force in certain areas or use leverage.

So, in reality, her having small breasts actually is realistic.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

snip...

Never said it was more realistic. I am pointing out that the current design is not realistic either. The design looks more childlike than strong. How is that empowering?

Who the hell is saying anything about empowering?! Why are you fixating on this?

Though, in response; if you really see her body as "childlike", there is something deeply fucking wrong with you, and by all means, yes, the new Lara certainly would seem more "empowering" for women than the silicon filled, collagen injected, half-naked Lara of past.

You want a realistic design? Give her the body of the strength trainer she supposedly was/is. Give her strong, toned, muscles. Giant looking boobs would also inevitably go with this body, simply because that is realiistic.

She doesn't need to be strong. For fuck's sake, look at some female athletes (not body builders).

Spoiler

Lolo Jones

Nastia Liukin

Amanda Beard

Mia Hamm

All incredibly athletic and physically capable women, all of which match up pretty well with the new Lara. To give her more muscle mass would make her impractical for endurance and agility.

 

[The King of Rock and Roll]

I think she needs more cleavage.