Yeah I came here to say this. I remember Resident Evil 4 had that too and I always hated seeing it, and felt it was just so unnecessary.
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Polygon Opinion: "Tomb Raider’s grisly death animations are outdated"
- Thread starter ket
- Start date
Lara hacks people up in these games, blows their faces off with shotguns while gore effects splatter about. Someone post Lara's brutal stealth kills. This is no Uncharted.
Frankly, these articles seem to treat an unabashedly brutal killer with paternalism. It reeks of "you will want to protect her" sexist garbage.
Frankly, these articles seem to treat an unabashedly brutal killer with paternalism. It reeks of "you will want to protect her" sexist garbage.
It never really bothered me. I found them funny most of the time, and they've lessened as the series has gone on. I only saw them like two or three times in Shadow.
No, here we're just grasping at straws. Really grasping. She just dies a gruseome death there's nothing more to it then that.
It's noticeable that the author only notices the female death animations of the player character. The same games feature some incredibly violent deaths for men as well. And you'll see a lot of it because all of the enemies in all three TR reboot games are men!
No, because you literally said nothing.
I get why people say this though because this sort of brutality is uncommon for these types of games. Uncharted doesn't have any of this, the far cry games don't, the modern tom clancy games don't.
The only games of this genre than I can think of that celebrate failure to such a degree is Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat.
Huh.. are you implaying the origianl TR games didn't have gruesome deth animations?
They did. That's one of the reasons why the reboot games have them too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2W2K8oUplw
For their time especially, these were brutal.
like damn: https://youtu.be/J2W2K8oUplw?t=104
Yeah, I agree with this. I don't mind gory death scenes in, for example, straight-up horror games, but it always came across as surprisingly over the top in the new Tomb Raider game. I wasn't particularly grossed out by it and maybe it would have worked in a different context, but it didn't work in this one.
It's funny cause I keep going back to the "you'll want to protect her" meme from before the reboot launched, and I feel these graphic death scenarios were mainly put in for that reason. It's to shock you to get gud so that her smile isn't mutilated by your failure.
They should tone down the sadistic ones like the throat impales but if anything the death animations could stand to be better. The sliding rag doll from failed jumps or Lara "bouncing" off blades and what not look so lame.
It's probably one of the most try-hard things I can think of in a recent release, almost like the poster child for all of the "ow edgy" memes that get passed around.
I'm not that far in it yet, but The Missing seems like recent counterpoint example too. I would say The Last of Us is another good example of a game where brutal violence inflicted on the player character is effective and sensible.
So it would be good if OP would have included more text since people here more often than not don't read the articles and jump to give their off the cuff hot takes. Consequently here are a few more relevant bits:
Thanks mate.
Thanks mate.
Yes I did. I said people making a case for the game being sexist because a woman gets killed violently is complete nonsense to me.
It just comes off as "women shouldn't be killed violently", which ironically is what I find to be sexist.
The early portions of the game are extremely dark, and Lara massacres tons of men in extremely brutal ways. But yeah her death animations are outdated and sexist.
K.
I don't think these are even in the same universe as the current games.
I think they're appropriate, work well, and wouldn't personally call them sexist, but I realise that's not something I'm qualified to make the call on. There's nothing gender-specific or sexually objectifying about them as far as I can see, though I'm sure I haven't watched all of them yet. But seeing Lara torn to pieces by dogs, smashed on wooden spikes etc, all give an actual sense of death that you simply don't get with screen-fade-out-continue. I wish more games did something similar.
But it's okay in Mortal Kombat because... It's a fighting game?
I can't see how it's outdated. It's absolutely fine.
I can't see how it's outdated. It's absolutely fine.
I honestly find it hilarious that she only ever dies in the most horrible ways possible. I'm only ever a failed quick time away from her being impaled or transected. Amazing.
Then again, I always loved games like Moonstone and Creatures.
*glances over to REmake 2, where we've already seen Leon getting his intestines pulled out of his gut and that's the censored version for E3*
Oh... okay... but it was never that gor--
*glances back to the decapitations starting from RE1, the ceiling floor trap or boulders crushing the protagonist also in 1, the acid facemelt in RE4, reaching down a decapitated man's throat in RE7, etc etc.*
...Oh.
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I wouldn't call it weird at all.
Different strokes for different blokes tho.
Exactly. Perfect example of people seeing what they wanna see.
People calling out all gore porn makes more sense, though I personally don't agree with people hating on "gore porn" in the first place. Only taking issue with it when it happens to a woman makes you the sexist.
If Tomb Raider had a male protagonist who went through the exact same death animations, would it be sexist? Was the Dead Space series sexist? Those games have some pretty horrific death scenes, far worse than anything in the TR reboots and the protagonist is male.
The assumption that the death scenes are gratuitous simply because the protagonist is female doesn't really have any basis. The death scenes are consistent with the rest of the experience, which is far more gruesome than the previous entries in then series. I mean, in SoTR, you can murder dudes and hang their corpses from trees. Hell, have you seen Lara's takedown animations with the various weapons?
Think about how bafflingly shallow this argument is. That since a game is a standard corridor shooter and not a survival sim, that the narrative should not attempt to tackle a "grisly" aesthetic.
No Mark, just because a game is designed similarly to Uncharted does not mean that it's universe should feel like Uncharted. Aesthetics go a long way.
Is it? I haven't played the new game yet. Does the ending or developer comments rule out a 4th entry?
To be fair, the original Resident Evil 2 had quite a few scenes edited or removed because, at the time, the ratings boards was way more strict about that sort of thing.
RE7, for example, doesn't really have anything like this. It's kind of strange because the dismemberment in RE7 is almost comedic since everything is repaired or regenerated instantly due to a number for factors.
This is part of the reason the first reboot game felt like a game where half the gameplay systems had been ripped out of the game due to some focus group. The story and early tutorial things you do make it seem like you're in for a game with strong survival sim aspects, like having to hunt for food or get materials for crafting or manage your body heat at fires. None of that's in the game though. Hunting animals just gives you xp and all the "materials" are just in crates or whatever.
The torture porn stuff would have made sense if the gameplay had any survival stuff in it, but as is it just feels gratuitous.
I dunno, plenty of games have really gruesome endings for characters. In particular Mortal Kombat and God of War come to mind. In fact, for Mortal Kombat, the gruesome deaths were what set it apart from the competition.
I don't see why we should single out Tomb Raider in this discussion.
I don't see why we should single out Tomb Raider in this discussion.
Did you read the article or are you just getting defensive because the word sexist was used in the headline.
To be fair, I remember a lot of people shying away from MK9 due to its fatalities.
I don't think it's outdated, just out of place in TR. Like that shit is great for a horror game or Doom.
I don't mind them and I don't see how they're sexist.
They are certainly on par with some death scenes in the Last of Us but come nowhere close to the many deaths of Isaac Clarke in the Dead Space series.
They are certainly on par with some death scenes in the Last of Us but come nowhere close to the many deaths of Isaac Clarke in the Dead Space series.
I can't say it bothers me. Its pretty cartoonish. I only have so much frame of reference for getting impalled on a tree or getting crushed by a boulder. Unlike say TLoU Part 2 where people are being realisticly stabbed, gutted, having their arms broken, etc.
How else are you gonna want to protect her?
The problem with the games is that they don't go far enough. They want to be graphic about the hardships she goes through, they want to hint that she's "damaged", then turn around and try to paint her as spirited and charmingly relatable instead. Her abrupt transformation from innocent doe in the wrong place at the wrong time, who suffers when she takes the life of a wild animal to survive, and is scarred by the adventuring life she didn't sign up for in an island of psychos into one of them, doesn't seem natural or healthy. Yet they don't follow through with it. They use the imagery but it isn't consistent with the character or story. By the end of the game she acknowledges she is enjoying the killing a little too much, bloodthirsty and blinded by revenge, and by the start of the second one she is obsessed with other people's interests instead of her own.
The death animations wouldn't feel out of place if the brutality themes were appropriately addressed in her character. TLOU does this, while TR skirts around showing, then ignoring and trying to pretend it's all part of her fun adventures. "I hate tombs". Yeah, you do girl, but it's not funny in the "I hate snakes" Indy way your mediocre writers intended.
The problem with the games is that they don't go far enough. They want to be graphic about the hardships she goes through, they want to hint that she's "damaged", then turn around and try to paint her as spirited and charmingly relatable instead. Her abrupt transformation from innocent doe in the wrong place at the wrong time, who suffers when she takes the life of a wild animal to survive, and is scarred by the adventuring life she didn't sign up for in an island of psychos into one of them, doesn't seem natural or healthy. Yet they don't follow through with it. They use the imagery but it isn't consistent with the character or story. By the end of the game she acknowledges she is enjoying the killing a little too much, bloodthirsty and blinded by revenge, and by the start of the second one she is obsessed with other people's interests instead of her own.
The death animations wouldn't feel out of place if the brutality themes were appropriately addressed in her character. TLOU does this, while TR skirts around showing, then ignoring and trying to pretend it's all part of her fun adventures. "I hate tombs". Yeah, you do girl, but it's not funny in the "I hate snakes" Indy way your mediocre writers intended.
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Well, your original comment implied that the older games somehow had a more wacky tone in their death animations, but that is simply not true.
https://youtu.be/J2W2K8oUplw?t=104
https://youtu.be/J2W2K8oUplw?t=129
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2W2K8oUplw&feature=youtu.be&t=139
You could percieve the newer ones more "brutal" because they look better, but at their time, TR1's death animations were extremely gruesome.
Eh if anything there isn't enough realistic deaths in games. It's always so fantastical or just cut away or made cartoonish/over the top.
Gimme a Solider of Fortune 3 with today's technology.
Gimme a Solider of Fortune 3 with today's technology.