In an industry primarily dominated by men, few women have been featured
as the main playable character in a lot of games that came out in the
past. When you think about women characters in gaming there are two
women that immediately pop into your mind, Lara Croft and Samus Aran. On
Women's History Month, I wanted to dedicate it to looking at the video
games that decided to take a chance with a female lead, and I could
think of no better place to start than with the first name I just
mentioned. Lara Croft's Tomb Raider!
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure game developed by Core Design and
published by Eidos Interactive and released in 1996 for the Sony
PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Microsoft-DOS. It would be the beginning
of a long line of titles to be released years later and has recently
received a reboot now that Eidos is owned by Square Enix. Today I'll be
looking at the PlayStation version.
We open up in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the 1940s to a nuclear test in the desert. The following explosion releases an ancient device that has a mysterious woman imprisoned in a capsule. After that we jump ahead to the present at a hotel in Calcutta where Lara Croft is approached by a man named Larson Conway who introduces her to the owner of Natla Technologies, Jacqueline Natla. Jacqueline informs Lara of an artifact called the Scion hidden inside the lost tomb of Qualopec somewhere in the mountains of Peru. With a smirk on her face, Lara agrees to go looking for the artifact and that's when we're taken to the title screen.
It's not your standard new game, load game, etc. that a lot of title screens has. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Instead, we get a ring of items representing each menu with a beautiful melody that will be delightfully playing in your head long after you first listen to it. Starting a new game or loading a save file is represented by a little black book, a photo of Lara's home is used for the tutorial level, the PS One controller for the controls menu, Lara's signature red shades for screen adjustment, and headphones for sound, and of course we have a closeup of the woman herself with the Tomb Raider logo in the background. You know you're in for something special when there's already so much atmosphere with just the title screen.
The tutorial lets you explore Lara's house and covers the basics of the gameplay. We also get to see that Lara has a blue mat in the music room and turned the ball room into a gym. Rich people are weird. This would become another staple alongside the title screen, and in future titles you'd be able to explore even more of Lara's home.
The game is split into four main stages divided up into parts: Peru, Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis. The game has fifteen levels overall, and cinematic cut-scenes before and after each major stage. Your main objective is to navigate each level in search of artifacts and solving puzzles to advance. This game is a thinking game, meaning if you're not using your head or minding your surroundings you could end up running around the same place for hours. You can't save any time you want, either. At certain points the game has a dark blue crystal appear to allow you to save at that specific part and it will allow you to save after completing a level.
Chances are you won't be finding Lara in any animal rights rallies any time soon. When she isn't shooting back at people trying to kill, her she's fighting bats, wolves, cheetahs, full grown bears, crocodiles, and DINOSAURS! There are fucking dinosaurs in this game! Tomb Raider is packing enough jump scares and suspense to be considered horror at some points. I've never spent so much time going “Oh shit!” when something appeared on the screen, be it the wolves, turning around to see a bear come at me, or the T-Rex that wanted to eat me alive, and all I have are these two tiny little pistols! All I gotta say is thank God for auto-fire.
Speaking of jump scares, man oh man is there a lot of jumping in this game. Your main method of dodging enemies and gunfire is by jumping sideways, backwards, and forwards, as well as rolling because turning around takes too long. You can also shoot back while you're jumping but it isn't always timed right, and even then you're still getting hit whether you like it or not. My advice? Stock up on plenty of med-packs. You have small ones that replenishes some health, and then larger ones that replenishes all of it. You're going to need them, and a lot of them.
The soundtrack in this game is simply phenomenal and nothing gets the blood pumping faster than this song playing in the background as you're being attacked by enemies, or put you in the zone with something like this while exploring. Just hearing all of this again quickly jumped Tomb Raider up as one of my all time favorite soundtracks.
I get the feeling the people behind this game didn't brush up on their mythology. During the first level in Greece we have a room dedicated to the Nordic god Thor when Zeus is the Greek god of thunder. Some may consider this a minor complaint, or nitpicking, but in a game about archeology I think it deserves to have some attention.
The camera. Oh, sweet Lord, the camera! All right, so you need to jump to a ledge across from you, right? You're trying to line up your jump and just as you get out to the ledge the camera decides that it would be a great idea to show you the side of Lara Croft's face instead! You can use the first-person view mode to look around to make sure you're standing in the correct spot, but it's still ridiculous, especially if you're firing at an enemy and then the camera goes haywire to where you can't see anything.
Lara is depicted as a strong and intelligent woman who relies on that intelligence and her wits to overcome obstacles. She never once through the course of any of the games relies on looks to get the upper-hand on anyone. She also displays creativity early on in the game with changing a ball room she never uses into a gym so she can stay in shape for when she does goes tomb raiding. That's pretty clever. While I'm sure she isn't the sort to turn down help, or be less appreciative of it, a lot of the time she doesn't need the extra hand. When you can take down a giant mutant and demons by yourself I think you're going to be all right for the most part.
Her passion for archeology transcends any financial desire. The thrill of the adventure is her reward. Lara is like a female Indian Jones, but she isn't a blatant rip off of the character, she has her own look, style, and personality that sets her apart from him and other characters. The brown hair tied in a ponytail, the blue top, brown shorts, and the twin pistols has become a staple of the character, and makes her pretty easy to spot. As well as the Angelia Jolee lips.
Lara isn't the only imposing female figure in the game. The other is in the form of Jacqueline Natla. An Atlantean frozen in time for her misuse of power and was released into modern times growing her own company where she stands at the head with henchmen under her command. She's straight up manipulative, using Lara to find parts of the Scion artifact for her to be able to make a new race of mutants, and then sending her henchmen in to collect the artifacts that Lara put all the work into finding. Since then, Natla has been exalted as the main antagonist of not just the first Tomb Raider, but the entire Tomb Raider franchise despite not appearing in every game, and only recently returning in Underworld. It makes perfect sense to me because when you think in terms of Tomb Raider villains Natla is the first person to pop into your head, if anyone.
Tomb Raider is a fun and challenging game that rewards patience when it comes to exploration and puzzles, and was revolutionary for its time in terms of graphic ability and telling a story. With its success it also showed that there was a marketplace for women to take the lead in video games without having to be in so much armor you'd mistake her for a man. Lara being recognizable to even non-gamers on sight being further indication of this, but does the game still hold up today?
For the most part, yes. It's still a fun and enjoyable game with plenty of challenges that awaits you with an amazing soundtrack that makes the environment feel all the more alive. The only place where it feels kind of dated is with the graphics and cinema experience, which is only because of how far we've come since 1996, and the former still looks pretty good even by today's standards. Overall, Tomb Raider is a game that people can enjoy regardless of gender.
Get it
We open up in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the 1940s to a nuclear test in the desert. The following explosion releases an ancient device that has a mysterious woman imprisoned in a capsule. After that we jump ahead to the present at a hotel in Calcutta where Lara Croft is approached by a man named Larson Conway who introduces her to the owner of Natla Technologies, Jacqueline Natla. Jacqueline informs Lara of an artifact called the Scion hidden inside the lost tomb of Qualopec somewhere in the mountains of Peru. With a smirk on her face, Lara agrees to go looking for the artifact and that's when we're taken to the title screen.
It's not your standard new game, load game, etc. that a lot of title screens has. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Instead, we get a ring of items representing each menu with a beautiful melody that will be delightfully playing in your head long after you first listen to it. Starting a new game or loading a save file is represented by a little black book, a photo of Lara's home is used for the tutorial level, the PS One controller for the controls menu, Lara's signature red shades for screen adjustment, and headphones for sound, and of course we have a closeup of the woman herself with the Tomb Raider logo in the background. You know you're in for something special when there's already so much atmosphere with just the title screen.
The tutorial lets you explore Lara's house and covers the basics of the gameplay. We also get to see that Lara has a blue mat in the music room and turned the ball room into a gym. Rich people are weird. This would become another staple alongside the title screen, and in future titles you'd be able to explore even more of Lara's home.
The game is split into four main stages divided up into parts: Peru, Greece, Egypt, and Atlantis. The game has fifteen levels overall, and cinematic cut-scenes before and after each major stage. Your main objective is to navigate each level in search of artifacts and solving puzzles to advance. This game is a thinking game, meaning if you're not using your head or minding your surroundings you could end up running around the same place for hours. You can't save any time you want, either. At certain points the game has a dark blue crystal appear to allow you to save at that specific part and it will allow you to save after completing a level.
Chances are you won't be finding Lara in any animal rights rallies any time soon. When she isn't shooting back at people trying to kill, her she's fighting bats, wolves, cheetahs, full grown bears, crocodiles, and DINOSAURS! There are fucking dinosaurs in this game! Tomb Raider is packing enough jump scares and suspense to be considered horror at some points. I've never spent so much time going “Oh shit!” when something appeared on the screen, be it the wolves, turning around to see a bear come at me, or the T-Rex that wanted to eat me alive, and all I have are these two tiny little pistols! All I gotta say is thank God for auto-fire.
Speaking of jump scares, man oh man is there a lot of jumping in this game. Your main method of dodging enemies and gunfire is by jumping sideways, backwards, and forwards, as well as rolling because turning around takes too long. You can also shoot back while you're jumping but it isn't always timed right, and even then you're still getting hit whether you like it or not. My advice? Stock up on plenty of med-packs. You have small ones that replenishes some health, and then larger ones that replenishes all of it. You're going to need them, and a lot of them.
The soundtrack in this game is simply phenomenal and nothing gets the blood pumping faster than this song playing in the background as you're being attacked by enemies, or put you in the zone with something like this while exploring. Just hearing all of this again quickly jumped Tomb Raider up as one of my all time favorite soundtracks.
I get the feeling the people behind this game didn't brush up on their mythology. During the first level in Greece we have a room dedicated to the Nordic god Thor when Zeus is the Greek god of thunder. Some may consider this a minor complaint, or nitpicking, but in a game about archeology I think it deserves to have some attention.
The camera. Oh, sweet Lord, the camera! All right, so you need to jump to a ledge across from you, right? You're trying to line up your jump and just as you get out to the ledge the camera decides that it would be a great idea to show you the side of Lara Croft's face instead! You can use the first-person view mode to look around to make sure you're standing in the correct spot, but it's still ridiculous, especially if you're firing at an enemy and then the camera goes haywire to where you can't see anything.
Lara is depicted as a strong and intelligent woman who relies on that intelligence and her wits to overcome obstacles. She never once through the course of any of the games relies on looks to get the upper-hand on anyone. She also displays creativity early on in the game with changing a ball room she never uses into a gym so she can stay in shape for when she does goes tomb raiding. That's pretty clever. While I'm sure she isn't the sort to turn down help, or be less appreciative of it, a lot of the time she doesn't need the extra hand. When you can take down a giant mutant and demons by yourself I think you're going to be all right for the most part.
Her passion for archeology transcends any financial desire. The thrill of the adventure is her reward. Lara is like a female Indian Jones, but she isn't a blatant rip off of the character, she has her own look, style, and personality that sets her apart from him and other characters. The brown hair tied in a ponytail, the blue top, brown shorts, and the twin pistols has become a staple of the character, and makes her pretty easy to spot. As well as the Angelia Jolee lips.
Lara isn't the only imposing female figure in the game. The other is in the form of Jacqueline Natla. An Atlantean frozen in time for her misuse of power and was released into modern times growing her own company where she stands at the head with henchmen under her command. She's straight up manipulative, using Lara to find parts of the Scion artifact for her to be able to make a new race of mutants, and then sending her henchmen in to collect the artifacts that Lara put all the work into finding. Since then, Natla has been exalted as the main antagonist of not just the first Tomb Raider, but the entire Tomb Raider franchise despite not appearing in every game, and only recently returning in Underworld. It makes perfect sense to me because when you think in terms of Tomb Raider villains Natla is the first person to pop into your head, if anyone.
Tomb Raider is a fun and challenging game that rewards patience when it comes to exploration and puzzles, and was revolutionary for its time in terms of graphic ability and telling a story. With its success it also showed that there was a marketplace for women to take the lead in video games without having to be in so much armor you'd mistake her for a man. Lara being recognizable to even non-gamers on sight being further indication of this, but does the game still hold up today?
For the most part, yes. It's still a fun and enjoyable game with plenty of challenges that awaits you with an amazing soundtrack that makes the environment feel all the more alive. The only place where it feels kind of dated is with the graphics and cinema experience, which is only because of how far we've come since 1996, and the former still looks pretty good even by today's standards. Overall, Tomb Raider is a game that people can enjoy regardless of gender.
Get it
No comments:
Post a Comment