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Lara Croft's Big Comeback

Posted by Zonk on Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:21 PM
from the work-it-lady dept.
Entertainment Games
Next Generation has a piece talking to Eidos marketing chief Bob Lindsey about the restoration of Lara Croft's good name. From the article: "Lindsey says the negative associations surrounding Lara will be swept away with a single decent iteration, arguing that Lara, far from being a one-decade wonder, has legs. 'Eidos has learned in spades that just because we make it, does not means they will come,' he says. 'Users are very discerning about what is a good experience and what is not. If you create a big franchise like Tomb Raider, one that has sold more than 30 million units globally, you can't afford to burn it with something that does not deliver.'"
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[+] Lara Croft As The Final Girl 181 comments
Clive Thompson, over at Wired, takes a look at the appeal of playing as Lara Croft ... and doesn't focus on her physical assets. From the article: "The Final Girl theory emerged in 1985, when Carol Clover -- a medievalist and feminist film critic -- was dared by a friend to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Back then, most feminist theorists loathed slasher films, and regarded them as classic examples of male misogyny. It wasn't hard to figure out why: Thousands of young men were trooping into theaters to cheer wildly as masked psychos hacked apart screaming young women. That really didn't look good. But as Clover sat in the theaters, she noticed something curious. Sure, the young men would laugh and cheer as the villain hunted down his female prey. But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman -- the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance -- and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho."
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  • those screenshots look amazing, however screenshots almost ALWAYS lok better than grafix... Now lots hope that the gameplay is as good as the OG and it should be a hugh sucess.
    • those screenshots look amazing, however screenshots almost ALWAYS lok better than grafix...

      Yeah, what kind of hardware do you need to get that kind of resolution? I have seen similar screen shots from other games, but never live. I want build a gaming machine and I want it cheap, fast, and reliable and I want all three. :)
    • I've only played 2 games where the gameplay actually looked as good as the screenshots.

      Guild Wars, and F.E.A.R.

      Mind you, the latter runs like a slideshow on my system, but BOY is it pretty. And creepy.

  • My Firm Belief (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris (230456) * on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:25PM (#14827873) Homepage
    I find this prediction of a big bounce for Lara Croft a little inflated, personally.

    Perky, uplifting statements from the director of marketing tend to arouse my suspicion. It seems to me he's just attempting to implant totally artificial marketingspeak in our heads.

    ...

    ...

    (Boobies! *snrk*)

  • Shifting focus to her other attributes? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animaether (411575) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:27PM (#14827902) Journal
    Lindsey says the negative associations surrounding Lara will be swept away with a single decent iteration, arguing that Lara, far from being a one-decade wonder, has legs

    Well, I suppose after all those Chest Reductions [kotaku.com], somebody at Eidos was bound to notice eventually ;)
  • I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of bringing back Tomb Raider, but Eidos has to deliver. They spun a similar web before the release of the last Tomb Raider game - one that sucked horribly. I would hope that Eidos would have learned from that mistake, but I'm going to remain skeptical.

    Additionally, I don't necissarily agree with their idea regarding canning huge franchises. Sometimes you just have to know when to put Ol' Yeller down - I would hope that Eidos realizes when that time comes for Tomb Raider
      • Well that is the normal content providers game. Build a reputation on a high investment cost title and get reasonable returns. Then use that reputation on a low investment interation, with lots of advertising and cash in big time (so they think). They still try it, even though it should be obvious to them by now what a failure that is and how much money they loose as well as the permanent damage done to the brand name (It's all those RIAA gits floating around in the gaming industry, it sort of works on musi

  • I don't think Lara will be. . . (Score:3, Funny)

    by smooth wombat (796938) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:31PM (#14827948) Homepage Journal
    making a comeback [aol.com] anytime in the near future.

    Oh, wait. You meant the character Lara Croft.

    Never mind.

  • TR1 came out back in the day where 3d games were sparse, if non existant on consoles, especially adventure 3d games. This is one of the main reasons it sold well. Very few people praise its level design or music, for example. TR2 had a far better level design and story to it, yet it was not deamed as well as the first solely on the fact that by that time, more 3d adventure games were coming out and people realised that there wasn't much to the TR series. Since TR1 was the first of its kind for most of u
    • ### TR1 came out back in the day where 3d games were sparse, if non existant on consoles, especially adventure 3d games. This is one of the main reasons it sold well.

      I wouldn't say so. Sure, it might have had its faults, but it still has many aspects that even today are quite popular. For one there is the HUD-less screen, most of the time there is no HUD at all shown, only when an enemy aproaches you energie bar is shown, thus giving quite a cinematic experience. Then the gameplay, which is basically Prince
      • Having a female hero was also something new for the time, sure they overdid it quite a bit and turned her into a boob-monster, but still having a strong female lead isn't the worst thing you can do.

        What's interesting is that the massive bosom was supposedly a complete accident. According to the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], character designer Toby Gard was, "fudging around with the model when he accidentally blew up Lara's bosom to 150% of what he intended it to be." While he was correcting his mistake, the other desi
        • Thank you sir, I only wish you hadn't posted as AC so I could add you to my freinds.

          There is a special place in hell for people who think Lara Croft is anything like the first female hero in a video game. Fact is there are many before her, and all are better. Lara is an example of all that is wrong with female game charachters, not what is right with them, yet she has compleatly stolen the spotlight from the likes of Samus Aran.

          • Samus Aran does not count as the first female action hero. Because no one knew.

            I am certain that the designers of Metroid thought it was a guy inside that armor. They just retconned Samus into being female. I mean, by that argument, the character you play in Zork was the first female. And why not?

            • I am certain that the designers of Metroid thought it was a guy inside that armor. They just retconned Samus into being female

              Err... it's not a retcon just because it's a surprise.

              Samus was revealed to be female at the end of the first game [vgmuseum.com] provided you didn't leave it on overnight or something (it's kind of hard NOT to beat it in under 5 hours unless you're actively trying)
          • I guess Lara Croft is the first real&virtual female model/porn star in a computer game.
    • Indeed. The entire franchise always seemed to be based around the fact that the first game sold very well. Third-person shooters went through a brief surge of popularity on the PC at the time and consoles finally made it to the point where they could render jagged, polygonal 3d games. The game itself was ok, a bit of a rip-off of Prince of Persia (before the actual PoP remake came out and blew it away), but mainly sold because it was an artifact of it's time. The sequels were dutifully cranked out to dimini
    • I think you make valid points, however, TR1 also gave the player an unprecedented level of control over the character: You could leap up and hang from your fingertips, shimmy left or right, do a diving roll, do multiple jumps sideways and backwards...it was just phenomenal. It was one of those games I showed people who actively disliked videgames and they uniformly became enthralled. In addition, the settings you explored and the images portrayed, coupled with your ability to fully explore the environment (
  • A decent third-person platformer with a wonky camera which is mainly trained on Lara's ample TnA assets needs to be made to "right" any wrongs that were made when whoring the franchise out for maximum dollars fell flat. I guess that will salvage Lara's prestigeous name... that and a nude hot coffee mod.

  • Well, do it then (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheSkepticalOptimist (898384) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:40PM (#14828066)
    The last Tomb Raider game was simply marred by horrible controls that prevented you from doing anything properly in the game. I mean, I was stuck in the first alley way for a hour trying to carefully jump between platforms without falling and having to get myself back to that location. In a game all about precise jumping and timing, having poor game control simply ruined the experience.

    While Tomb Raider's original interface was novel at the time, the idea of specifically leaping up to ledges, swining on vines, leaping over platforms, all with a more manual approach to gameplay, ultimately what they need to do is adopt a more 3rd person style shooter system, where the character responds more quickly and some of the movements are automated to make the franchise shine. I don't want to play another version where I spend a hour falling off a platform because they keyboard and or gamepad doesn't respond quickly enough.

    Just, don't make another movie out of it, please!
    • That's interesting. Compare it to Ocarina of Time, whose controls, when they were announced, were almost universally criticized.

      "No jump button? Why the hell don't I have a jump button in a 3-D game?"

      And yet, Nintendo provided other opportunities to fill the gap (instead of timed jumping, solving puzzles) and, a few moments of fine-controls (a few heart containers took some maneuvering to get to).

      That said, I seem to remember back then a distinct, strong desire not to become "the female Link". Perhaps

      • Link suffered from the "no jump button" partially because they wanted people to focus more on the problem solving than the issue of controls. Mario 64 was already pure action. Link was supposed to be something more.

        Tomb Raider, in my opinion, failed totally to be anything better than a mediocre novelty because the controls schemes are too mechanical, they felt fake, and they were sluggish.

        I used to hate how walking forward just a tad took you forward an exact and predictable amount. Turning turned you a
  • Let's just hope that there is another naked patch for this game. What? I know I'm not the only one thinking that...
    • Let's just hope that there is another naked patch for this game. What? I know I'm not the only one thinking that...

      What I've been wondering is where are the nude patches for the movies?

      Angelina Jolie... *drool*

      Did anyone else get a stiffy watching her in Hackers? Smart chicks rule.
      • Yes, smart chicks do rule. But lame, script-kiddie, self-consciously "alternative" women don't. I've long considered her the worst part of Hackers... which is quite a feat.

        Then again, I personally find her very, very unattractive. Something about her giant mouth and how she has this weird face that makes her look like an alien.
        • Yes, smart chicks do rule. But lame, script-kiddie, self-consciously "alternative" women don't. I've long considered her the worst part of Hackers... which is quite a feat.

          Getting hollywood to accurately portray a single piece of modern technology is a frickin miracle - even The Matrix fell short in spots when it came to technobabble - and you expect them to accurately portray a smart modern female technophile? I was willing to settle for their best effort - best being used extremely loosely here hahaha

          The

  • What a brilliant plan (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Scrameustache (459504) * on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:05PM (#14828309) Homepage Journal
    Lindsey says Lara will mark the comeback for Eidos, a company which has, in recent years, lost its reputation for innovation.

    I'm sure that releasing the nth sequel of a tired franchise will bring back their reputation for innovation.
    • ### I'm sure that releasing the nth sequel of a tired franchise will bring back their reputation for innovation.

      There is nothing wrong with a sequel if its actually good and new enough in terms of gameplay. And as far as I can remember there hasn't been a decent TombRaider on the current generation of consoles, Angle of Darkness wasn't any good and the rest seems to be for PSone and friends, so doing a good sequel now would be quite ok. The annoying part with sequels is only if they recycle the same engine
      • While you have a point about the fact that Nintendo's released god knows how many Mario games, you can't deny two things:
        1) In general, they do try to add new things to the sequels (ie, the vacuum element in Luigi's Mansion and the water squirter thing in Mario Sunshine), and that the games generally stand well on their own.
        2) At the same time, they do release other non-franchise titles, aka Nintendogs, Elektroplankton, Odama, and so on.

        Not every game a company makes has to be 'innovative'. Some can ju

  • We'd rather the Duke of Nukem' was Eidos' comeback. Lara has stared in too many crappy games over the last 10 years or so. The Duke always delivers. (even in "A Time to Kill").
  • Lara's prominently displayed "Big Comebacks" indeed.

  • Eidos has learned in spades that just because we make it, does not means they will come.

    Isn't this the problem with the videogaming industry as a whole? Isn't virtually every publisher counting on the name and the packaging to sell the game instead of bothering with a good game? It's only been said a few thousand times on Slashdot now.

    I would think a game review site that isn't a payola machine or an outright front controlled by the publisher would be welcome, but maybe there's so much crap floating

    • There are game sites that don't give a game a good review just because - but they are few and far between.

      I generally read penny arcade - and while not a traditional review site, I've found their insights keen. They recently did a strip about a reviewer (maybe an editor?) at a big mag that actually wrote what he thought about a game - I would suggest trolling the archives to find his name and paying attention to his mag in the future.
        • There are good sites out there - all I'm saying is that it's a big problem in the industry right now, one that a few editors have recognized and chosen to speak up about.

          I've seen horrible games reviewed glowingly on site after site, in magazine after magazine. I get XBOX mag - ok I expected that to be an advertising rag. I get Game Informer - which if I actually sit down and read it and compare reviews for some games to the actual gameplay experience, I sometimes wonder if I got the right game.

          I'm not sa
            • I have no disagreements with anything you say - in fact it is what you say that leads me to believe that Game Informer does misleading reviews.

              The cover is obviously for sale; no problems there, you've got to make your money somewhere right? However the cover is apparently a two-for-one package deal with a glowing review included. I, like you, have come to the conclusion that any game I see on the cover of Game Informer is definitely one I want to stay away from hahaha

              Ditto on the previews; such obvious a
      • You're right, and this means early reviews may never be trustworthy.

        I almost never pre-order games anyway, so I don't care if a review is written after the game is on the shelves. Even after release, a trustworthy review would be pretty valuable. Personally I'd rather wait an additional month and know more about what I'd be getting.

  • ...Lara, far from being a one-decade wonder, has legs.

    Oh yeah, and they go all the way up! ;-)

  • .. by merging it with the Bloodrayne franchise. That way you can have a game with double the boobies - and if that's not enough to ensure the game will sell, how about tacking on a Hot Coffee style end sequence were Ms Croft and Ms Rayne make out. Heck, Majesco could sure use the money.
  • ...Lara, far from being a one-decade wonder, has legs.

    What else would those short shorts be showing off?

    Although prosthetic legs would certainly explain why the controls sucked in Angel Of Darkness.

  • Lara, far from being a one-decade wonder, has legs.

    R-i-g-h-t.

    Next time you're going to be telling us that Cameron Diaz has ears, or Salma Hayek has elbows.

    Balderdash. I can't remember seeing them even ONCE.
  • The screenshots for the new game look pretty nice, but in this day and age it's nothing special. That isn't a bad thing, it just means that the gameplay has to be pretty damn good.

    Unfortunately, from what I've seen of screenshots so far it looks like the game is going to play pretty much like the previous Tomb Raiders; it's just more of the same.

    The only reason I see this game enjoying any success is because the lead character is hot. Some guys will have a good time staring at her rear all day. It's interes
  • >> He says the marketing and positioning is all going to be based around the character herself, revamped in every way imaginable. "This character is coming to life in every way; in terms of physics and animation...

    So even bigger tits then.
    • "This character is coming to life in every way; in terms of physics and animation..."

      The key words are physics and animation. This time around it's not the size of the balls that matter it's how high they bounce.
  • Well the original one. On the PC. The only 'platformer' in fact I ever liked, the one with the save anywhere system so you could take Lara for a stroll and then quit when real life reared its ugly head.

    More or less the game was just fun to play. The sequel was sorta fun as well except it somehow never had the magic moments of the first and was a lot harder. Then came the console save points. Remember game designers, save points are a hardware limitation, NOT good game design.

    ME the PAYING customer want to

    • I still play the original TR (and TR2, to a lesser extent) on my PS2. The irony of the series is that as the technology improved, the gameplay deteriorated. TR 1 and 2 concentrated on doing one thing well - 3D platforming and puzzles. From TR3 onwards, more and more distracting crap was thrown in to make the games more 'realistic', to the point where you practically needed a shift key on the joypad to access all of Lara's new abilities. (Angel Of Darkness was all but unplayable because of the horrible contr
    • The first tomb raider was awesome. The controls and fluid movemnts were in a class noone had visited since the original Prince of Persia (and only a few since), and the environments, lighting etc. was very atmospheric for its time. As long as you accepted that the underlying game was basically a series platform/timing puzzles (much like PoP, BTW), it was a damn fine game. And well received in the press.

      BTW, although she always had a somewhat unrealistic body, the really huge boobies only came in the foll
      • Same here. There was a demo involving some tigers in a cave or something. It was very pixelated even by PS1 standards.

        Played it once. Died a lot. Cursed poor camera and indistinct graphics.

        Yawned.

        Never bothered again.

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