I quite enjoy the Tomb Raider games...but they are also far more than a little bit dodgy in ways that have little or nothing to do with gender. For instance, in the third Tomb Raider, she is on this 'South Sea island' and has to decimate the indigenous population before she can move on - a seriously disturbing attitude in evidence there, I think you'll agree. Ok, so she's acting in (often pre-emptive) 'self defense', but she is of course there to steal stuff from these people, basically. The very premise of Tomb Raider is fairly fucked up, no?
And, oh yeah, not satisfied with the human death toll, let's kill some endangered species and the occasional dinosaur while we're at it. And have gratutious tits and arse shots, occasionally thrust suggestively against a sarcophagus while stealing an ankh (anyone else notice that in 'The Last Revelation'?) and bringing about the end of the world, and yes, die orgasmically.
Not to mention the fact she is basically carting about a big cock all the time - the female instrument of male colonialist violence?
But, having said that, and despite the fact it annoys me and disturbs me greatly...I do enjoy the game, though I really shouldn't. And I think sfd might agree with me here - quite a few of the people on at least one online lesbian messageboard were at least as enamoured with those pneumatic tits as the average heterosexual male (at least with regard to the film version).
It annoys the hell out of me that she can't do hand to hand combat though. I am a latecomer to the Playstation, and to computer games in general - I used to love Tetris, the card version of Solitaire, and Mah Jongg, on the PC. And then my ex introduced me to Playstation games. Quite a lot of them bore me, and my experience is still limited, I haven't got the cash, the time, or the access to become conversant with many games, and do not play often anyway - I enjoyed Tekken and Crash Bandicoot as well as Tomb Raider, and am a lot better at those that I am at driving games of any sort. Like Kooky mentioned, people have commented to me also about how cool and unusual it is that I as a girl am not afraid to try my hand at Playstation games...and, like playing marbles or mixing concrete, males are sometimes surprised when a girl can do it as well or better than they can themselves (no offense meant - this is from personal experience, and I do not wish to make any sort of generalisation about 'all males' or 'all females'). I am not sure if a different type of game would appeal more to women in general... I think, to an extent, that I put aside my principles to play Tomb Raider... and I would like not to be put in that position. But, would these games be as popular with the real target audience, the teenage boy market, if they didn't have at least some of the problems that people here have mentioned? Or are games companies underestimating the intelligence and political awareness of the teenage boy market? I don't know very many teenage boys, so I can't answer that one... but there is my tuppence worth, anyway... |
