(Seven Reasons Why Crystal Dynamics and Rhianna Pratchett Utterly Failed to Make Me Care About Lara Croft….Again)

The Tomb Raider franchise has never been something that’s particularly interested me before. I wasn’t feeling the first one back in the good ol’ PSX days, and no amount of playground-whispered cheats to reveal crudely pixelated breasts was enough to change my mind. Platforming games aren’t really my thing to start with, and to me, Lara Croft’s never been appealing as a character. She’s no Tifa Lockheart or Jaheira from Baldurs Gate. She’s certainly no Commander Shepard. It looked like Lara and I were done for good.

Something about the recent reboot interested me enough to give it a go, however – the idea of giving Lara a character arc especially – and despite my misgivings, I found myself having a surprising amount of fun. Mechanically, this year’s Tomb Raider is a solid title, and also has a sweet bow to play with. As an origin story though, it left me wanting more. To clarify, here’s a bunch of reasons why I still give more of a shit about the Tetris block shaped like an ‘L’ than I do about Lara Croft.

1. Oh Lara, not you too!

As if being trapped on an island of cultists wasn’t enough, the writers had to give Lara that most heart-wrenching of mental illnesses. You know, the one that makes her whisper exposition under her breath when no-one else is around. It’s estimated that roughly twenty-percent of all fictional characters are currently afflicted by this illness, with numbers rising all the time. The worst part is that the majority of those affected often suffer in silence, never revealing their problem to the world (unless no-one else is around to hear it.) As you can imagine, this hellish Catch-22 situation plays havoc with the lives of those affected. Luckily, you have the power to change this . Please give generously to your favourite Triple A studio today, so they can hire writers who can spell their own names, and might possibly know how to not patronise the fuck out of their audience. Don’t delay, EVERY SECOND COUNTS!!

2. “I’d set out to make my mark, to find adventure…but instead, adventure found me!” Dun, Dun, Dun!!

Well, that worked out nicely for everyone involved then. And at least we don’t have to worry about any of that pesky dramatic tension now. Which is handy, because there is none

3. The game assumes that murder is a heroic action, as long as you’re murdering crazy cultists.

Why is it that cultists seem to feature in games so much? Oh, I remember now. Because it takes absolutely no fucking effort whatsoever to make them seem evil; this makes them an easy choice for lazy writers, being behind Nazis but probably slightly above aliens on the stock villain list. Look, charisma is a powerful thing, and I’m sure these folks meant well when they got involved. It’s not like they advertised themselves as an evil death cult, they were probably called The Super Friends Club or something, and gave out free biscuits and juice at meetings. Why don’t you cut them some slack for once?

4. It’s hard to care about someone who basically robs graves for a living.

One of the major flaws with Lara Croft’s character is that she’s as antiquated by this point in time as the relics she collects. It’s admirable that the writers at least made an attempt to flesh out her character, but the problem remains that her basic goal in life – to steal cool shit and sell it so she can afford such lifestyle essentials as a fridge big enough to trap her butler in – is about as far away from a noble conclusion to the hero’s journey as you can get. The issue here lies in trying to revamp a character from a time when a basic convention of gaming – in Lara Croft’s case, collecting shiny objects – was enough to base an entire persona on. Mario has two distinctive features – He saves Princesses, and he has a cool ‘stache. The princess saving is a necessity because it gives players a goal, and the face fuzz is (and feel free to look this one up) a necessity because it was, back in his Jumpman days, the only way the designers could give Mario a definable nose with the technology at their disposable. It’s hard to feel empathy for someone whose only goal in life is the acquisition of gold coins, especially if they’re a trust fund kid anyway, eh Lara? Personally, I’d much rather see Naughty Dog explore the dark, trauma-ridden history of Crash Bandicoot. I’m sure Carl Jung would have had a field day with all those masks.

5. “I’m the lead archeologist here”

Really? Shit, I guess we better listen then, since you went to the trouble of making up your own title and everything.

6. The ‘Clever Girl’ Achievement.

Well done again, games industry. You put out a title with a strong female protagonist, and then you go and ruin it by giving the achievement’s names like this. I could almost feel the guy who named this one rubbing his hand on my leg as it popped up on the screen, telling me that if I made him happy, I could really ‘go places’ in the industry. I also felt condescended to by proxy for every woman I’d ever met. Nice own goal there.

7. If you’re trying to convince me that Lara Croft is uncomfortable with killing, you might want to actually let me experience it as a player.

For anyone who hasn’t seen them already, I highly recommend the excellent Extra Credits Videos about using a game’s mechanics to enforce its overall narrative, as they put it far more eloquently than I could. I can only assume that no-one at Crystal Dynamics was aware of this concept, otherwise they would have known that a two cut scenes does not a character arc make. Anything would have been better than nothing. Give Lara Croft a ‘mental stability’ meter which makes her aim worsen the more people she kills in quick succession. Make her hallucinate. Show one of the cultists looking at a family photo seconds before I put a flaming arrow through his neck. Anything. Trying to convince me Lara cares about the fact she’s committing genocide one second and then giving me extra experience points for a headshot the next doesn’t work. Sorry Lara Croft, but I still don’t give a shit. No matter how many bones you break, you’re still making widows at an alarming rate.

Nick Rueben is still bitter about the fact Jaheira broke up with him in Baldur’s Gate 2. Feel free to send him love, hate, and bacon via Twitter. @NickTheHumanBoy.

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