jemborg said:
Perhaps Yahtzee could clarify why the evil protag in Saints Row 2 is ok whilst it's not in TRU. I'd be interested in knowing his personal perspective on this, but I suspect it's something to do with the excellent "square peg in a round hole" argument offered earlier. In TRU it just doesn't work, whereas in SR2 it does. It's that elusive "mes en scene" (sorry about the spelling) effect. This time around he found her/it to be neither endearing or likeable maybe.
I could be wrong, but Lara is meant to be an empathetic character as well as a role model for girls, in that she's self-sufficient and pretty much fearless when she's not making her usual trip to Jagged Rock Junction. The premise of Tomb Raider has always aimed towards the kind of adventuring and action that made the Indiana Jones films so much fun to watch, and gave us a more shapely protagonist to control. However, the fact that Lara does act more like Kratos or an SR2 character does punch a big hole in that veneer of high action-adventure standards.
We expect Kratos to be evil, and we delight in dragging the razor-sharp edge of his priceless historical artifact against someone's throat. We don't expect Lara to so blithely and willingly blast her way through archaeological finds lost to humanity for centuries only to break all the emperor's pottery and nick all his stuff. Indy always had a measure of respect for the relics he pursued, whereas Lara seems to think every dig is like an underground Chanel outlet store having a sale.
TRU and its predecessors are fairly linear games, while SR2 is a sandbox game. There isn't anything wrong with linearity unless your proxy protagonist is someone you can't identify with or don't like very much. As Yahtzee said, when a sandbox is presented full of cars, guns and blood-filled folk our first impulse is to cause havoc, and who better to do that than some form of violent psychotic? Such a person, however, would be frowned upon when they fill a 2000 year old tapestry full of bullet holes because the velociraptor that somehow made it to Greece won't stand still long enough.
TL,DR: Lara's supposed to be an archaeologist, and psychotics don't do well around ancient pottery.