The Buzz: Is Lara Croft the Sexist Lady in Videogames?
This week, The Bee welcomes Alison Carroll to the blog o' sphere
Every week in the blog o' sphere is news, however it is rare that news affects not only The Bee (and fellow nerds) but also Mrs Bee and Andelko. This week it happens, because Andelko has a new dream coming true, and all of Mrs Bee's dreams are crushed like wedding glasses.
There is new Lara Croft.
The role is taken, so Mrs Bee's vigorous physical training is for nothing, while Andelko's vigorous physical training for regional arm-wrestle contest has just begin! (It is joking.)
Here is picture.
Boom! Excuse me while I kiss the sky!
Now Ms Croft is in the news it is perhaps timely time to remember the mass of debating that has happened for Tomb Raider.
The Bee remembers being young man and playing Tomb Raider for the first time in 1996, when it is one of the first 32bit games. Although blocky compared with games now, it is tremendous then, with rolling curves and hills and mossy crevices. Nice polygons!
But it is for The Bee and his friends something else they are interested in. They wanted to make Ms Croft go into a corner to dolly the camera upwards to look down at her T-shirt. And they want her swimming to open her legs! Of course it is laughable, but entertainment consists of such things for a boy.
For a boy it is fun when Ms Croft is underwater too long or being bitten by wolves or climbing a ledge making noises that sound like she enjoys raiding tombs too much!
Happy time, but it is inevitable that feminists are objecting. Feminists are always objecting! For example, feminists complain to say the women who model clothing and ointment on television are too skinny, but they also have been up in arms about Sony's game Fat Princess.
What do they want?!
Anyway, it is a double-horny dilemma. On one horn is argument that Ms Croft is an unrealistic fantasy woman to make men dribble and women feel inadequate. On the other horn is argument that Lara Croft is symbol of empowering. She is independent and brave, with no husband. So what if she is intensely arousing?
The Prince of Persia is handsome and athletic. He is unattainable ideal for The Bee, and maybe Mrs Bee admires his muscles. So far, The Bee has not found an article in the blog o' sphere by men complaining of this.
Should we make the Olympic Games forbidden, because it is many wonderful physical specimens on television? Shall we prohibit attractive women from public life? Perhaps we should sterilise them to not have attractive children.
Perhaps you can tell that The Bee does not have much time for these arguments. He is in favour of sex equality, but prefers Mrs Bee's method of accomplishing it: presumption, aggression, and acts of sudden violence.
Speaking of being struck, The Bee has discovered a wild invention on the news site of the United Kingdom, BBC News. It is device that you can attach to yourself and it makes you have the feelings in the game.
Have a look at the video here.
If you like, you can have the feeling of being "sliced by a sword or stabbed." You can also have cockroaches to crawl up your arm, and the machine uses robot brushes to feel like skittering legs.
Designer Kanaka Matsuo is proud to say, "it is designed to give children the experience of playing with insects for those who didn't get the chance to experience real insects."
In The Bee's opinion, such children are not missing much.
It is wonderful future technology though, and The Bee is looking forward to testing it with Tomb Raider: Underworld. Of course it will not be possible to interact with Ms Croft in the way he would like, but she will still be able to punch, kick, and stab him.
It is amaze that Mrs Bee did not get that part.
The Bee is an industry insider who has fed on the nectar of over three decades' worth of gaming. All opinions expressed are the author's own.