Or would we just treat it like Die Hard, The Edge and The Grey and praise it for being so 'manly'? Apparently a man getting fucked up, but still finding the strength to fight on is badass, but if you change the man to a woman, then suddenly it's gross and misogynistic.

Yeah, the double standard is a bit strange, but that's society for you. It's not an issue I'm especially engaged in, but one might argue that the people freaking out about it and calling these things wrong and misogynistic are no better. After all, aren't they _also_ attempting to shackle females and fit them into their own world view? - Jeff on formspring

I'm all for equality. Women have just as much right to get beat up as guys do.

Wait that came out wrong.

Someone, somewhere, will complain either way.

The obvious difference being how prevalent Lara's screaming and moaning has been in the media that has been provided. Unlike the examples provided, Lara doesn't see to have that moment where she's yelling in an act of dominance rather than reacting to the shit that's happening to her ie a victim.

@huser said:

The obvious difference being how prevalent Lara's screaming and moaning has been in the media that has been provided. Unlike the examples provided, Lara doesn't see to have that moment where she's yelling in an act of dominance rather than reacting to the shit that's happening to her ie a victim.

isn't the whole point of the story that she's a victim that overcomes it and becomes the hero? she's supposed to be a victim at first. right?

Yeah it's a bit weird, I mean look at this, did anybody complain about it?

Well people would complain that there is a dude named lara

That's bullshit double standards for you man. They're everywhere in our "modern" society.

@Dallas_Raines: The thing getting to people isn't that she is being hurt and having it rough. It's the presentation of that pain. They have been over-the-top with painful moans and abusive scenes that just seem unnecessary. Usually, men being tortured are shown spitting out blood, throwing a grin, and saying something awesome, but Lara Croft has been getting tortured and just left crying and moaning in desperation throughout. Their original presentation of the game with her slogging through the water, moaning every few steps, was simply crazy. Today's demo was better, with some great inclusions of badassery, but it still seems a good bit strange. It's one thing to present pain and someone overcoming it. It's another thing for a game to seem to delight in the pain of its main character and make her moan every two seconds.

I'm guessing the final game won't be so pain-and-moaning-centric, but we'll have to see. Either way, still some odd choices of scenes to show off.

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

No.

People that are complaining need something to complain about because.. its cool to complain about it. Looks at the new Hitman trailer.

I can safely say that watching video of this game would make me feel uncomfortable even if the character was male. Maybe not as much, but its still a bit too far for me. Its got nothing to do with "White Knight" or any of that bull. Its hard to explain, maybe its just because I am an older gamer.

@Marokai said:

I find it kind of unsettling because of all the unnecessary moaning and whining.

Yeah, typical woman, won't shut her mouth even when she's being stabbed or shot or falling out of the sky. UNNECESSARY!

The problem is that there is that element of sexual power that doesn't exist when the man is the hero. By that I mean Nathan Drake will never be tied up and sexually assaulted by his captors as a way of exerting their dominance or just to humiliate him. Unfortunately they've already shown footage of one of the bad guys trying to grope her and kiss her. Until they can make a game with a female protagonist that shows her as being vulnerable in the sense that a person cannot withstand so much punishment and not vulnerable in a way that leads to her being overpowered sexually, these complaints will materialize.

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

@CaptainTightPants said:

Yeah it's a bit weird, I mean look at this, did anybody complain about it?

Yeah I don't recall people talking about how sexual all of Isaacs moaning and groaning is in that game. Maybe it's cause he doesn't have boobs.

I have no idea why anyone is bothered by this or the Hitman thing for christ sakes people they are video games. CHILL THE FUCK OUT.

@Marokai said:

A stupid comment from Jeff on his formspring that can't and won't be challenged anywhere he'll take notice. What a shocker. I don't find it creepy and misogynistic because of all the shit she goes through, I find it kind of unsettling because of all the unnecessary moaning and whining. I want to see Lara in a dominant, triumphant position, instead of constantly getting the shit beat out of her before a cut to title card. It screams of torture porn to me, not some sort of subversive edgy feminism.

@huser said:

The obvious difference being how prevalent Lara's screaming and moaning has been in the media that has been provided. Unlike the examples provided, Lara doesn't see to have that moment where she's yelling in an act of dominance rather than reacting to the shit that's happening to her ie a victim.

In the hopes of spurring intelligent and civil discourse:

Fuck off.

People always find something to complain about.

Always.

I think it's time for them to develop their own games so people can take a piss on it the whole way.

It's not like the game is about torturing her. She is fighting to survive and will win. Whats the problem?

@Marokai:

God, it was so disturbing when John McClane had an earth shattering orgasm as he pulled glass shards out of his feet in Die Hard.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

People who think her moans sound sexual are fuckin weird.

It's a video of a woman attacking and killing men, a fight that she started herself without any justifiable reason provided, then getting knocked around some nature. And people call it misogynistic?

Also I would moan and cry like that if I were flying down rapids getting cut the hell up. Doesn't make me any less manly, it just makes me a normal human being with a normal pain tolerance.

@Clonedzero said:

@huser said:

The obvious difference being how prevalent Lara's screaming and moaning has been in the media that has been provided. Unlike the examples provided, Lara doesn't see to have that moment where she's yelling in an act of dominance rather than reacting to the shit that's happening to her ie a victim.

isn't the whole point of the story that she's a victim that overcomes it and becomes the hero? she's supposed to be a victim at first. right?

Why exactly is that better? Nathan Drake and Indiana got to grow into heroes without such a backstory even if they lost part of the time.

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

She isn't an action hero. She is a girl caught up in a fucked situation. The point that 'heroes' should be able to handle it is a adolescent view of protagonists. Show the protagonists as what they are trying to be, human.

@Marokai:

God, it was so disturbing when John McClane had an earth shattering orgasm as he pulled glass shards out of his feet in Die Hard. Also, the new trailer and demo feature her murdering a helluva lot of guys.

@DonChipotle:

Yeah, they need to get their minds out of the gutter.

@Subjugation said:

People always find something to complain about.

Always.

I think it's time for them to develop their own games so people can take a piss on it the whole way.

This comment and the others taking the same thesis are insanely ironic.

I think it's interesting that the developers are focusing so much on the pain of the character, which is generally glossed over in most forms of media. It's a humanizing approach. It's torture porn if you indulge in it, but it's humanity if you empathize with it. The vocalizations are a bit much, granted, but I don't think that in any way ruins the concept. Also, there is vindication throughout the game, you see it every time she straight up murders everyone on the screen and I'm sure you'll see it at the end of the game.

Is it torture porn in Castaway when Tom Hanks tries to start the fire and ruins his hands or removes his own tooth? Tomb Raider is way closer to this than, say, Saw or Dead Space.

@Marokai:What is a better way? NOT being beaten not attacked? You'll see the character in the games release but so far Lara has been shown trying to find and save someone in the gameplay, thats good enough for now.

@Marokai said:

@Dallas_Raines said:

@Marokai:

God, it was so disturbing when John McClane had an earth shattering orgasm as he pulled glass shards out of his feet in Die Hard. Also, the new trailer and demo feature her murdering a helluva lot of guys.

The level of misunderstanding in this thread has reached critical. I'm not complaining about her getting the shit beat out of her, I'm complaining about that being almost entirely all we have ever seen of this game in public venue, and how she's had very little personality in the process. As another commenter earlier in the thread said, if this was Nathan Drake, he'd end with standing up, wiping off his shirt and saying something stupid and witty. Lara just gets beat up and thrown into the next avalanche in waiting for her. It's not misogynistic to want to see this character, not treated in a nicer way, but simply showed off in a better way.

So your real problem is the lack of one-liners.

@Marokai:

"I hate tombs."

It depends on how it's done. No one complains about Katniss Everdeen going through the shit, because she's flinty. But she's flinty from the start.

The problem with Tomb Raider so far is we're getting small, early slices of what is hopefully a story about growth -- about how Lara gets her flint. It's a weird inverse of what would happen if they showed a male character going through genuine pain and experiencing fear, to which many folk would say, "Fag!"

@Dany said:

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

She isn't an action hero. She is a girl caught up in a fucked situation. The point that 'heroes' should be able to handle it is a adolescent view of protagonists. Show the protagonists as what they are trying to be, human.

Well other than the simple fact that what she does in that trailer is clearly action hero material. The day anyone could do a quarter of the shit she was pulling off in the demo will be the day science recognizes metahumans.

EDIT - you don't get to have it both ways and then claim innocence.

@Marokai:What is a better way? NOT being beaten not attacked? You'll see the character in the games release but so far Lara has been shown trying to find and save someone in the gameplay, thats good enough for now.

@huser said:

Well other than the simple fact that what she does in that trailer is clearly action hero material. The day anyone could do a quarter of the shit she was pulling off in the demo will be the day science recognizes metahumans.

That is because they are still making a game. Don't be dense.

@huser: Video games. They all don't have to be the same and have the protagonists be rugged and tough.

I don't feel anything about lara's potrayal to be of any issue.

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

Yeah but they've talked about trying to take the game in a realistic direction. Realistically, if any person, i don't care how awesome they are, went through what she's going through they would respond in an audible fashion. If you're trying to make an immersive game you don't show someone taking bullets and bouncing off the ground after a huge fall and show them just bounce up and skip off. It's dumb to get upset about her expressing how much falling off a cliff hurts.

I was thinking about this type of thing when I was watching it earlier. I thought "Wow, Lara is (kind of) bad-ass... Huh, would it seem different if this were a man protagonist?"

@TentPole said:

@huser said:

Well other than the simple fact that what she does in that trailer is clearly action hero material. The day anyone could do a quarter of the shit she was pulling off in the demo will be the day science recognizes metahumans.

That is because they are still making a game. Don't be dense.

Why? Plenty of games exist that don't require action hero level powers to be compelling. If you want to claim you are making some character study of climbing back out of the deep end with realistic consequences to bad shit that's fine, but that doesn't really jive with otherwise being an action hero.

@huser: God, ussing the world 'action hero' is such a generalization, that its meaningless to this conversation.

@rebgav: Because its finally happening in games and people hate progress.

@huser: Name some character based action adventure games that don't exceed the bonds of realism in order to make a better game. Go on I am listening.

honestly the only thing that bothered me was that molestation scene in that trailer a couple days ago. That was legit uncomfortable and since this is a video game, they won't spend the time to actually deal with it in a proper manner.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

Yeah but they've talked about trying to take the game in a realistic direction. Realistically, if any person, i don't care how awesome they are, went through what she's going through they would respond in an audible fashion. If you're trying to make an immersive game you don't show someone taking bullets and bouncing off the ground after a huge fall and show them just bounce up and skip off. It's dumb to get upset about her expressing how much falling off a cliff hurts.

Realistically, an unarmed presumably untrained young woman doesn't have much hope against dozens or hundreds of armed men. Realistically, BATMAN wouldn't be favored under those odds.

All I'm saying, close your eyes and its like your watching porn. Is that a bad thing? Maybe... but hell I'm into it.

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@huser said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Dany said:

I have no issue with it. People having issue with it need to get over themselves.

What do you want her do do? Laugh and giggle when she falling/being attacked? God some of you.

Thats what I find strangest about this. If I got the everlovin shit beat out of me i'd be moaning too.

But action heroes don't or very rarely do, certainly not to the degree Lara has been shown to be. That's the point.

Yeah but they've talked about trying to take the game in a realistic direction. Realistically, if any person, i don't care how awesome they are, went through what she's going through they would respond in an audible fashion. If you're trying to make an immersive game you don't show someone taking bullets and bouncing off the ground after a huge fall and show them just bounce up and skip off. It's dumb to get upset about her expressing how much falling off a cliff hurts.

Realistically, an unarmed presumably untrained young woman doesn't have much hope against dozens or hundreds of armed men. Realistically, BATMAN wouldn't be favored under those odds.

VIDEO GAMES

It doesn't have to be mario in one end and BATMAN in the other. There is a happy medium that can be found in the middle

@huser said:

Realistically, an unarmed presumably untrained young woman doesn't have much hope against dozens or hundreds of armed men. Realistically, BATMAN wouldn't be favored under those odds.

Realistically she would just be raped and murdered. Thank goodness it is a videogame.