the latest iteration of lara croft

[YPrrrr]

yeah but nobody finds male grunting sexy

I can't speak to what people who enjoy men find sexy

I would naturally agree that it is not in my own experience 

lol

what i really mean is that, for whatever reason, female wails of agony are just much easier to sexualize than male equivalents (more generally, female anything is always at much greater risk of being sexualized than male equivalents), so you could play uncharted with the volume all the way up and nobody would make any weird assumptions about nate's grunts if taken out of context

that is not true of the nu-raider games, i certainly would be embarrassed if someone were to overhear the emphatic sounds of lara getting repeatedly impaled and assaulted from behind my locked bedroom door in the dark of night

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LPnoCuB7_c[/youtube]

i never brought up rape that was YOU tec

Are you suggesting that I am projecting my own rape fantasies onto Lara Croft?

tbh it's all in new-lara's line delivery as for why i don't like her. she's always out of breath even when she's not drowning or being strangled. she never says anything with confidence and usually sounds confused or tired. the old lara might have been an objectified sexual fantasy, but it still feels more empowering to play as her because of her self-assured personality. (when i say old lara i mean the one from the ps2 era btw i haven't played the REALLY old games)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVHV7ct4gU[/youtube]

also LMAO how can you even compare the old deaths with these, they're instantly creepier and more brutal

i do get your point, old lara may be a piece of pyramid-breasted eye candy designed to appeal to adolescent males on the surface, but she's also brave and fearless and demonstrates great capability in the face of adversity and those qualities command respect from the player, even if his primary intention when buying the game was to ogle triangle tits and explore his budding ryona interest

the visual sexualization of nu-lara is less blatant, but as a trade off she's turned from an extremely competent treasure hunter into a whiny little girl who cries for the strong manly player's protection from any and all perceived threats

and it is a wholly intended effect, as confirmed by the tr 2013 devs themselves:

https://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

They're more like 'I want to protect her.' There's this sort of dynamic of 'I'm going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'

you could absolutely interpret this as a form of sexualization in and of itself, and argue that the tomb raider devs simply traded one overt manifestation of sexualization for another more subtle (and easier to market in a """gamergate""" world) form when developing the reboot

though, to be fair, like john said, she is supposed to be a young novice adventurer in the new games, they are origin stories after all

i must disclose that the only tomb raider games i've played are the very first and the 2013 reboot, i don't know if the protection fantasy carries over as strongly in tomb raider 2k15

That's true ig, I have to turn down the volume while watching women's tennis too

[Kalahari Inkantation]

you know who else is up there

[spoiler]






[/spoiler]

somehow she only looks better with age

still, even she's no match for lara 2k15

[Kalahari Inkantation]

I'd have to agree. Especially since it's also a believable face.

yes, that's what pushes her to the very top

there's no shortage of attractive video game characters, but they overwhelmingly have greatly simplified features and perfectly symmetrical, uniformly colored generic animefaces that are 'pretty' in the most unimaginative way possible

meanwhile, lara's face is ideal while actually remaining within the limitations of what can be achieved by real human genetics, complete with subsurface scattering and pores and wrinkles and sweat/oiliness and imperfections, all of which serve to make her immeasurably more interesting to look at

[Thyme]

tec, any hot takes on Aloy?

[Kalahari Inkantation]

tec, any hot takes on Aloy?

aggressively plain-looking lol

she's like the best possible facial configuration achievable in vanilla oblivion

[TooB]

Tec, remember when Elena looked like a teenage boy?
She did indeed get better with age though.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

[spoiler=i mean look at this][/spoiler]

slight forehead wrinkles despite a neutral expression, prominent pores, uneven pigmentation, a random assortment of moles, i think i'm even seeing old acne scars

we tend to prefer chemically impure vanilla over chemically pure vanillin because vanilla's impurities are what make it interesting and give its flavor character

that's a huge part of why nu-lara sits comfortably at the very top of the prettiest fictional character list with basically no competition

compare:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

it's not even a contest

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Tec, remember when Elena looked like a teenage boy?
She did indeed get better with age though.

i don't think i'd ever have described her as boyish, though she was certainly most petite in uncharted 1 lol

still v. cute though

with the notable exception of uncharted 3, she just got better looking with age lol

[Kalahari Inkantation]

tec, any hot takes on Aloy?

aggressively plain-looking lol

she's like the best possible facial configuration achievable in vanilla oblivion

and speaking of aloy

oh how i wish her final design had more closely matched the concept art

[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

[TooB]

Damn tec.. I fully agree

[Kalahari Inkantation]

Damn tec.. I fully agree

[spoiler]



[/spoiler]

it pains me to think about what could have been :'(

she might even have deserved a mention in this thread

Instead, the best I can do is compare her to Oblivion's character models.

[TooB]

Damn tec.. I fully agree

[spoiler]



[/spoiler]

it pains me to think about what could have been :'(

she might even have deserved a mention in this thread

Instead, the best I can do is compare her to Oblivion's character models.

no, it's not THAT bad.
be serious now lol

[Thyme]

Damn tec.. I fully agree

[spoiler]



[/spoiler]

it pains me to think about what could have been :'(

she might even have deserved a mention in this thread

Instead, the best I can do is compare her to Oblivion's character models.

2 cara delevingne 4 me

[Kalahari Inkantation]

no, it's not THAT bad.
be serious now lol

it's not bad, but it is an aggressively plain design lol

i'm being entirely serious when i say she reminds me of oblivion, she has the same sort of distractingly round cushing's syndrome face as oblivion's character models do

[TooB]

no, it's not THAT bad.
be serious now lol

it's not bad, but it is an aggressively plain design lol

i'm being entirely serious when i say she reminds me of oblivion, she has the same sort of unusually round cushing's syndrome face as oblivion's character models do

lol, tru