Roar Uthaug's 'Tomb Raider' Should Have Stayed Entombed
Roar Uthaug's insistence upon combining faux gravitas with action results in countless scenes of unintentional hilarity.
15 Mar 2018
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Henry isn't the only surrogate for gamer identity in Hardcore Henry.
26 Apr 2016
Good Hair Is Wasted on Humans
High tech hair in video games always looks unrealistic, well, except on monsters.
25 Sep 2015
Where Did All the (Action Figure) Girls Go?
The scarcity of the Black Widow action figure on toy shelves has me thinking about what we think we know about gender identity in play, be that play with toys or play in video games.
10 May 2015
Big Breasts and Badasses: The Dividing Line of Gender Representation in Gaming
In which the author suggests that the new Lara Croft might be the best example of androgyny in gaming.
25 Feb 2015
Some Worlds Are Best Seen From Outside Your Own Eyes
I don't have a problem if you want to play Grand Theft Auto from a first person perspective. Knock yourself out. But I won't be doing so anytime soon.
05 Nov 2014
A Good Menu Sets the Mood: Part 4
Fez and Tomb Raider deserve special mention for the aesthetics of their main menu screens.
11 Jul 2013
Sadism Is Fine As Long As It’s Short
With all the horrible ways to die presented in Tomb Raider, why are the impalings singled out as gratuitous or exploitative? I think that it has less to do with their content and more to do with their context.
27 Jun 2013
Playing to Suffer, Suffering to Play
I have found myself struck with admiration recently by games that I have played that have put me in less than empowering positions, games that celebrate difficulty and hardship, struggling and deprivation, rather than empowerment and excess.
23 Apr 2013
Survival as Facade in 'Tomb Raider'
The new Tomb Raider chronicles the birth of a survivor, but it's a story that is easier to see than it is to feel.
17 Apr 2013
The Horror of 'Tomb Raider'
The game opens with a prologue straight out of a hillbilly cannibal horror flick.
11 Apr 2013
Bringing "It" Out in Lara Croft
That intangible, violent “it” is burgeoning in Lara, but it’s also being contextualized so that I still feel bad when she gets shot in the head with an arrow.
28 Mar 2013
With Great Vulnerability, Comes Great Brutality: The Evisceration of Lara Croft
Amid a hail of gunfire, the player-character crumples to the ground, defeated, that is, before a loading screen pops to revive her. At least, that's how most action games represent death. In Tomb Raider, I've seen Lara Croft stabbed through the neck, had her head split open on a coral reef, seen her torn apart by wolves.
19 Mar 2013
Touchy Feely: 'Tomb Raider' and Haptic Design
As much as the mud on her face or the gorgeous environments, the physical animations of Tomb Raider recreate a more adventurous, realistic, and compelling Lara Croft.
13 Mar 2013
Where the Heart Is: The Use of Home in Video Games
Home is where we see characters in a state of normalcy. We get to know what the protagonist does between adventures, and for a medium that depends so much on empathizing with the lead character, seeing who they are at home, away from it all, is a significant experience that more developers should consider investigating.
12 Mar 2013
Why Is She So Feminine?
“She's all, 'ah,' 'eek,' 'oooh' all the time,” my daughter said, referring to the noises that Lara Croft makes when wounded in the new Tomb Raider. “Lara Croft is supposed to be tough.”
05 Mar 2013
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