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[pigeon]

Only if you think having secondary sex characteristics is sexist. They're both skin tight.

I am literally flabbergasted at the possibility that you believe the male armor there is skin tight. Do you think those men are reptiles and have scales all over them and that's why the armor looks that way? Skin tight has an actual meaning, it doesn't just mean "not all blousy."

It would be less sexist if the zero suit had a big boob plate on it?

Then having her walk around in latex? Look at that male armor. It already has a big armor plate on the shoulder which extends down the upper torso and a metal plate covering the groin (a CONCAVE metal plate, to deflect attacks away and incidentally to disguise the shape). If Samus was wearing that, there wouldn't be a problem. Instead she's wearing a skin-tight suit (an ACTUALLY skin-tight suit, in that it is TIGHT to her SKIN) that carefully outlines the underside of her breasts, which has to actually be a design goal because otherwise it would be physically impossible -- fabric doesn't actually work that way.

Back on topic: not only am I totally creeped out by this game after hearing the producer describe it, but I'm basically terrified about the outlook on life suggested by his comments.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Wait, are we saying that Samus's armor is sexist now? What? Please tell me that I misunderstood and you're talking about the Zero Suit (which, sans the stupid heels was fine in Other M).

Yes, we've been talking about the Zero Suit, although it's a tad off topic since this is a thread about the kind of stupid thing the Tomb Raider producer said.

 

[Dennis]

A few observations:

I am quite surprised at the backlash. The implied sexual assault part of the trailers did feel like too much but the general idea of a game character that is initially out of her depth and yes, vulnerable, does not offend me in the slightest. I am also quite sure that the whole point is that Lara will become stronger and more capable and self-assured as the game progresses.

The urge to protect the vulnerable is a natural one and so I am not surprised a game would try to use that. Judging from the success of the Twilight series among females, a lot of girls and woman seem to enjoy fantasies of being weak and needing the protection of cute vampires and werewolves.

 

[Jamie OD]

"She literally goes from zero to hero... we're sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again."

Glad to see I'm not the only one a little disturbed by those comments. I understand what they are trying to do but it sounds like they sort of get a slightly perversed enjoyment out of the idea.

 

[RagnarokX]

I am literally flabbergasted at the possibility that you believe the male armor there is skin tight. Do you think those men are reptiles and have scales all over them and that's why the armor looks that way? Skin tight has an actual meaning, it doesn't just mean "not all blousy."

It's as skin tight as the Zero Suit, unless you believe the lines on it are also reptile Samus' scales.

Then having her walk around in latex? Look at that male armor. It already has a big armor plate on the shoulder which extends down the upper torso and a metal plate covering the groin (a CONCAVE metal plate, to deflect attacks away and incidentally to disguise the shape). If Samus was wearing that, there wouldn't be a problem. Instead she's wearing a skin-tight suit (an ACTUALLY skin-tight suit, in that it is TIGHT to her SKIN) that carefully outlines the underside of her breasts, which has to actually be a design goal because otherwise it would be physically impossible -- fabric doesn't actually work that way.

Samus has a power suit, which is much more armor than the males have. She wears that when she needs to do combat. She only takes it off when she thinks it's safe to. Soldiers can't dematerialize their armor like she can, and even if they could, they probably aren't wearing anything under it cuz it's skin tight.

 

[RomanticHeroX]

That's okay Eidos, I'm pretty sure there's no way you can talk yourselves out of this immense chasm you've been digging. I'll keep ignoring Tomb Raider, but this time for a completely different kind of awkward sexism.

P.S. please don't screw up Hitman

 

[pigeon]

It's as skin tight as the Zero Suit, unless you believe the lines on it are also reptile Samus' scales.

No. It isn't. I'm not sure how to clarify this more. You can see the entire outline of Samus's breasts. That is skin-tight. That guy's abdomen could have a six-pack or it could be a beer belly, there's no way for me to tell. That is not skin-tight. That is how we distinguish between things that are something and things that aren't that thing.

Samus has a power suit, which is much more armor than the males have. She wears that when she needs to do combat. She only takes it off when she thinks it's safe to.

Or when her armor gets stolen. Or when it's blown off. Or when she uses her strongest attack (okay, that's Smash Brothers). How many times has Samus been in combat in her underwear? How often does that happen to male characters?

 

[RagnarokX]

No. It isn't. I'm not sure how to clarify this more. You can see the entire outline of Samus's breasts. That is skin-tight. That guy's abdomen could have a six-pack or it could be a beer belly, there's no way for me to tell. That is not skin-tight. That is how we distinguish between things that are something and things that aren't that thing.

Samus has breasts, men do not. Her suit is made specifically for her body and is form-fitting. Her boobs aren't stretching it out, it has like cups built in. That does not mean the male armor is not skin tight. That stuff is literally as tight as it could possibly be without being a corset. You can tell it's not a beer belly because it doesn't bulge out...

Or when her armor gets stolen. Or when it's blown off. Or when she uses her strongest attack (okay, that's Smash Brothers). How many times has Samus been in combat in her underwear? How often does that happen to male characters?

Once (Twice if you count running away at the end of Other M, I guess she needed 2 hands? wasnt really combat). The male characters are always in their underwear, since their thickest armor is skin tight...

Both armors are like space wet suit material. Like thinner flexible kevlar.

 

[Jay Sosa]

What? No. I try not to die because I want to finish the game.

 

[Vermillion]

Now I want to play Other M again...

On topic, the comments don't make sense. "Want to protect" describes someone who is defenseless, and it seems to go against the entire point of a videogame (usually statements put you in the shoes of the character or as joining them... protection usually has to do with shitty missions). It seems that they're focusing far too much on Lara as a woman than the hero they want to build her up to be, and that's a mistake.

 

[sonicmj1]

Those moments of vulnerability would seem more powerful and possibly less creepily contrived if they weren't used as a promotional selling point in material released months in advance of the game.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

To be honest, I actually find this new Lara croft more vulgar and offensive as the previous one. it's like playing on some obscure rape fantasy for a whole game.

 

[walking fiend]

Lara Peach

 

[Finaika]

Samus has breasts, men do not. Her suit is made specifically for her body and is form-fitting. Her boobs aren't stretching it out, it has like cups built in. That does not mean the male armor is not skin tight. That stuff is literally as tight as it could possibly be without being a corset. You can tell it's not a beer belly because it doesn't bulge out...

If the male armor is skin tight we can see the full shape of his penis.

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

A few observations:

I am quite surprised at the backlash. The implied sexual assault part of the trailers did feel like too much but the general idea of a game character that is initially out of her depth and yes, vulnerable, does not offend me in the slightest. I am also quite sure that the whole point is that Lara will become stronger and more capable and self-assured as the game progresses.

The urge to protect the vulnerable is a natural one and so I am not surprised a game would try to use that. Judging from the success of the Twilight series among females, a lot of girls and woman seem to enjoy fantasies of being weak and needing the protection of cute vampires and werewolves.

Don't confuse little girls and teenagers with women.

You people just don't get it do you. Yes, she'll most likely become a badass by the end. No, this game wouldn't make such a point of sexualizing violence against her and focus more on her suffering than gameplay in all advertising if she were a man. She wouldn't need to get through all that shit.

And yes, people missing the point who would probably quote this, is okay for women to star in games with such a character arc. But it's completely fucking sexist that in the adventure genre, where Lara is the only big name female, is the ONLY who goes through one like this. If even the most famous female character in gaming needs to go through this bullshit there's a big fucking problem.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Oh god, Moe Tomb Raider confirmed?

Naw, if it were reversed, games catering to gay-gaf would look like this:

I'd like to think we're above being won over by such transparent and vapid tactics. It also reminds me of this debacle.

Spoiler

I'd anonymously day-1 both of these things if they were sold as games/mods. DON'T JUDGE ME NEO-GAyF!

 

[walking fiend]

If even the most famous female character in gaming needs to go through this bullshit there's a big fucking problem.

I can think of at least three adventure games from top of my head that the female characters go through a personality change and become stronger, but they pull it off without the developer resorting to rape fantasies:

The Longest Journey
Syberia
Still Life

---
I think this is mostly due to Amy Hennig leaving CD; I can't imagine with her we would see something like this; she was probably the most important person at CD.

 

[RagnarokX]

If the male armor is skin tight we can see the full shape of his penis.

They're wearing codpieces over the skin tight armor to protect their fragile balls. They don't have power suits. That's their maximum level of armor. Samus has no balls to protect. Can you see vagina? Do her nipples poke out from the suit? No?

Even without the codpieces:

Where is full shape of penis?

 

[stupei]

The implication of course is that male gamers might not be comfortable with a woman who is strong just because, so first she needs to suffer a great amount of abuse in order to find strength. Strength, as we all know, is a totally masculine trait, so for a woman to be a badass she has to have been violated enough to be pushed beyond her female restrictions. She has to be broken so that she can be fixed!

And of course the gamer will want to protect her, giving them the sense that they are the ones being strong for her rather than strength coming from within Lara herself. We wouldn't want to give the mistaken impression that a girl wouldn't need a man's constant protection and attention, right?

Everything about this is offensive to both men and women. I don't understand why they keep going out of their way to make everything surrounding their decent looking gameplay seem absolutely awful. :\

I disagree. It's mostly offensive to women. It reflects poorly on the developers (and I presume men as a whole), though.

The idea that male gamers want a heroine to be abused and debased before they will consider her believably strong for a more "realistic" approach to the franchise shows a pretty low opinion of men.

 

[Vermillion]

I disagree. It's mostly offensive to women. It reflects poorly on the developers (and I presume men as a whole), though.

 

[Glass Rebel]

I must be missing something because I don't see anything wrong with a weak and inexperienced 21-year old Lara for an origin story. Badasses aren't born, they're made.

Other than that it's safe to assume that Square-Enix is once again failed to market the game correctly because they want that mass market money, look at what happened to Deus Ex (it was awesome) and Hitman: Absolution.

 

[RagnarokX]

I must be missing something because I don't see anything wrong with a weak and inexperienced 21-year old Lara for an origin story. Badasses aren't born, they're made.

Other than that it's safe to assume that Square-Enix is once again failed to market the game correctly because they want that mass market money, look at what happened to Deus Ex (it was awesome) and Hitman: Absolution.

That's not the problem. The problem is that from all the footage I've seen the game is like a torture porn where Lara is constantly being injured in gratuitous ways and she even almost gets raped. The amount of abuse inflicted on Lara goes beyond ridiculous levels. Plus the gameplay is nothing like the old games so it might as well be an entirely different franchise.

 

[ArjanN]

The implication of course is that male gamers might not be comfortable with a woman who is strong just because, so first she needs to suffer a great amount of abuse in order to find strength. Strength, as we all know, is a totally masculine trait, so for a woman to be a badass she has to have been violated enough to be pushed beyond her female restrictions. She has to be broken so that she can be fixed!

And of course the gamer will want to protect her, giving them the sense that they are the ones being strong for her rather than strength coming from within Lara herself. We wouldn't want to give the mistaken impression that a girl wouldn't need a man's constant protection and attention, right?

Everything about this is offensive to both men and women. I don't understand why they keep going out of their way to make everything surrounding their decent looking gameplay seem absolutely awful. :\

The idea that male gamers want a heroine to be abused and debased before they will consider her believably strong for a more "realistic" approach to the franchise shows a pretty low opinion of men.

IMO you are reading way, way too much into it.

To me it seems more like they're trying to humanize the character a bit, and not just have her be the completely one-dimensional James Bond/Indiana Jones with boobs she was before.

That's not the problem. The problem is that from all the footage I've seen the game is like a torture porn where Lara is constantly being injured in gratuitous ways and she even almost gets raped. The amount of abuse inflicted on Lara goes beyond ridiculous levels.

I think all the footage we've seen is from the beginning of the game though. Also, I think the vibe they were going for was more gritty like The Descent while torture porn is stuff like Hostel, where you're clearly supposed to get some sort of sadictic kick out of it.

 

[AlphaDragoon]

Lara Craft Nendoroid preorder now

I'd kinda like to have that, actually.

And yeah, not to keen on the dev's intent here. I don't mind that this Lara is a newbie, I don't even mind her being softer than the previous one to an extent to make that point, I was fine with how they showed her in the initial trailer. But with each new bit of information it makes it seem like their purpose is to make poor Lara into Other M's Samus...which would suck. Big time.

And it's highly offensive to me as a guy that they think all men feel women are weak and need to be protected solely because they're women. I'd like having a sense of wanting to protect Lara if it was because you get attached to her as a character, that's cool. I felt that way about Nate in Uncharted where I was attached to getting him out of the crazy endgame sequences, and you really get this sense of "holy crap I don't want my character to die, gotta get out of here" even though you know you can always just retry if you fuck it up. But that's not what they mean, I think.

tl;dr: Making Lara more realistic and softer, okay. Making her into a ball of patheticness like Other M Samus, bad.

 

[Vermillion]

I must be missing something because I don't see anything wrong with a weak and inexperienced 21-year old Lara for an origin story. Badasses aren't born, they're made.

Other than that it's safe to assume that Square-Enix is once again failed to market the game correctly because they want that mass market money, look at what happened to Deus Ex (it was awesome) and Hitman: Absolution.

My problem isn't the game's elements alone - rather, the combination of the elements and the commentary. In fact, the commentary brings it all into focus that there is an intentional focus on Lara's gender, and the wording of it is... disappointing, to say the least.

EDIT: Barring the intentional maternal aspects of the story (take those as you will), Samus in Other M was fine. I've seen many of the things that people complained about done by male anime heroes. It's a Japanese thing. Because if they likened her to female anime heroes... let's just say that it would actually be sexist on so many levels you could not count.

Other M Samus was not a "ball of patheticness." I recall the reason she was limited in the first place (barring the obvious gameplay angle) was because she was far and away the most powerful being on that station.

 

[KAOz]

Wow. This sounds, not too good.

Seriously, I think they should make her kind of like Heather in Silent Hill 3, but less teenager. That is probably one of the better depictions of a strong, yet vulnerable female in a game. Wasn't that what they CD are aiming for? She feels more real than most other female characters in games. And not overly sexualized either.
Hell, only reason she is wearing a skirt is because the female members at the team thought it'd be more "trendy" than jeans.

Well, bah.

 

[acm2000]

i certainly wouldnt use protection on lara

 

[cameron]

I wonder how Eidos PR will market the XP system. Will they advertise it as a progression mechanic, by upgrading weapons or abilities. Basically pushing the game design aspect. Or will they go with the creepy "you'll want to buy Lara nice things" route?

 

[RagnarokX]

My problem isn't the game's elements alone - rather, the combination of the elements and the commentary. In fact, the commentary brings it all into focus that there is an intentional focus on Lara's gender, and the wording of it is... disappointing, to say the least.

EDIT: Barring the intentional maternal aspects of the story (take those as you will), Samus in Other M was fine. I've seen many of the things that people complained about done by male anime heroes. It's a Japanese thing. Because if they likened her to female anime heroes... let's just say that it would actually be sexist on so many levels you could not count.

Other M Samus was not a "ball of patheticness." I recall the reason she was limited in the first place (barring the obvious gameplay angle) was because she was far and away the most powerful being on that station.

Pretty much. Adam's team couldn't even open the front door without her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-unzQB0PBcs#t=3m2s

 

[Glass Rebel]

That's not the problem. The problem is that from all the footage I've seen the game is like a torture porn where Lara is constantly being injured in gratuitous ways and she even almost gets raped. The amount of abuse inflicted on Lara goes beyond ridiculous levels. Plus the gameplay is nothing like the old games so it might as well be an entirely different franchise.

I've seen "torture porn" thrown around since the first trailer and I still don't agree. I always saw it as the devs deliberately setting her apart from her previous incarnation by making her more vulnerable and human. The marketing is pretty in-your-face, I agree, but I wouldn't fault the game or the devs for that, it's business after all. Fact is, we haven't played the game yet and the "abuse" in the hunting footage wasn't as excessive IMO.

The rape scene is another thing. I think we all can agree that rape is terrible but when I saw it in the trailer I didn't think it was out of place at all, on the contrary, it was quite powerful and unsettling.

 

[eso76]

Are they sure we won't want to make her jump off the tallest cliffs as usual, instead ?

 

[Nome]

Hopefully this song will be on the official soundtrack.

 

[Haunted]

So basically, Lara was too strong before, and guys can't relate to a strong woman, so this new weak version is easier for guys to latch on to because they'll want to protect her instead of being intimidated.

That's exactly how I read it. Although to be fair, their point about yesteryear's overly sexualised version being hard to relate to [not because she's strong, but because she looked like more of an inflatable doll than an actual human] is probably valid on some level.


Ideally, they should've changed her design, but not her personality.

 

[Haunted]

omg

 

[2San]

That's exactly how I read it. Although to be fair, their point about yesteryear's overly sexualised version being hard to relate to [not because she's strong, but because she looked like more of an inflatable doll than an actual human] is probably valid on some level.


Ideally, they should've changed her design, but not her personality.

How do you read it like that? TR has always been a popular series, the devs are just trying something new, because we have seen enough of the old character(which didn't have much of a character tbh).

Naw, if it were reversed, games catering to gay-gaf would look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/bKfg3.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
Should've been an unlockable in Uncharted.

 

[Electivirus]

why must GAF taunt me so ;-;

 

[AB12]

So moe.

One reason I hate anime nowadays, sucks that they are going in this direction. But I hope the game is at least fun.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

IMO you are reading way, way too much into it.

To me it seems more like they're trying to humanize the character a bit, and not just have her be the completely one-dimensional James Bond/Indiana Jones with boobs she was before.



I think all the footage we've seen is from the beginning of the game though. Also, I think the vibe they were going for was more gritty like The Descent while torture porn is stuff like Hostel, where you're clearly supposed to get some sort of sadictic kick out of it.

Lara Croft and the Adventure of Rape and Stab Island

"Humanizing" - IGN
"As squicky as The Descent" - Edge
"10/10. Where's my check? - Game Informer
"I liked the part where she was punched repeatedly in the stomach until she vomited blood, cried, and begged for death, then was dragged behind a horse while flashing a little side-boob, then escaped by flailing the skin off her own wrists." - USA Today

 

[Finaika]

Where is full shape of penis?

This phrase made me laugh lol

 

[NeoRausch]

Waitwaitwait!

metroid is a girl?!

Spoiler

hurr! :3

 

[Ken Masters]

As a female, I find you to be very cute and I'm straight as it gets :3
.

This wasn't creepy at all

 

[Novid]

Anything the Japanese do, we do it ten times worse. Who was the IDIOT who said Lara neeeded protection? This dude had to be a brony. Has to be.

 

[Derrick01]

I want to protect a chick who rips out a dudes neck with an arrow, and then continues on to burn 4 more men? Yeah, no.

I saw a closed door demo of the game that made it even more absurd. She gets caught in a bear trap, and pops right back up and runs like the wind a minute later.

F this game.

I...don't see the problem here. Would you have rather controlled her limping or crawling for the rest of the game due to a mangled foot? Realistic, sure. But not fun.

Actually have you ever played a video game at all before?

 

[Gbraga]

Naw, if it were reversed, games catering to gay-gaf would look like this:

If you give him slightly larger pants I would actually be 100% ok with this.

Not that with the current pants it would be unacceptable, it's just that I don't like it. But I see nothing wrong on a man without a t-shirt in a waterfall. Even his pants actually make sense.

 

[Ken Masters]

If you give him slightly larger pants I would actually be 100% ok with this.

Not that with the current pants it would be unacceptable, it's just that I don't like it. But I see nothing wrong on a man without a t-shirt in a waterfall. Even his pants actually make sense.

But his larger pants would defeat the point

 

[strafer]

I will protect her with my life.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

the phrase "rape quicktime events" is hilarious

Naw, if it were reversed, games catering to gay-gaf would look like this:

I'll take two.

 

[Gbraga]

But his larger pants would defeat the point

As I said, even the pants makes sense so alright you can keep it. I don't see a problem with that and wouldn't feel offended by playing this character.

They can make him suffer as well to show him growing to a badass.

You see, I agree that Zero Suit is nothing more than fanservice, I agree that this person who made that statement has said something pretty stupid (even if it was not what he meant), but the double standard is pretty annoying. A lot of people complained about how Drake was not a believable character, a lot of jokes on how he's such a badass and kills tons of people while trying to be a normal guy during cutscenes, but when they try to show how a character grows into a badass instead of just throwing a character people can't relate to and it's a woman, OH SHIT WHY WOMEN HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THIS SHIT WHILE MEN GET TO BE THE BAD AND FLAWED CHARACTER.

And Uncharted isn't even a survival game, and yet people still complain and joke about how Drake is such a badass when he shouldn't be.

It's ok not to like what they're doing in this game, but wanting Lara to be as stupid as male characters just so they're equal? wtf?

 

[Deleted member 81567]

Can someone tell me what the hubbub is about. I saw nothing wrong with what they said.

 

[truly101]

let's be fair here, Lara was always defined by her gender.

Only in terms of marketing and hype. In game, Lara is pretty much sexually agnostic. No character really acknowledges her for being an attractive female (there may be a quip here or there in legend when she wears that party dress), there are no scenarios to which that comes into play. You could switch her for a man and the games and narratives wouldn't be any different