Tomb Raider series to escape its colonial past

'Escape from its colonial past' lol. Lara Croft is a fictional British Upper Class aristocratic adventurer who's home of 'Croft Manor' has many historical artifacts obtained by her forebears, probably when Britain had an Empire. However, non of this is mentioned in the games specifically.

However, in the games, while Lara might pick up the odd trinket here and there, she doesn't leave the tombs she's 'Raided' with sacks full of 'finders keeps' artifacts to display in her mansion back in Blighty.

Just another one of those 'they're trying to cancel culture, cancel history' conspiracy stories that seems to be going around like wildfire these days.

Pretty crazy that 98.8% of the stuff those ancient cultures left around are shotgun shells and health packs.

It's a spinoff book. Not a game.

Why are people having difficulty comprehending this? It's literally in the OP post.

Obviously the right-wing grifters will latch onto it and make it an outrage for revenue thing.

Weird take as well. In Tomb Raider 2 that's exactly what she does. Only Tomb Raider 1 is exclusively tombs. 2/3/4/5/6 becomes more like a globe trotting Bond adventure where the artifact is primarily a doom-day device of some sort.

Like half the people discussing this have never actually fucking played them.

Of course largely disregarding the Crystal Dynamics stuff as 98% of it is garbage barring those isometric games.

But even in those, it's still largely the case of bad peeps > forced to deal with them

She's already a whiny bastard now, why the **** would I want to play a game where some pink haired far-left idiot is giving me a lecture on how bad British people were? Aside from the game sucking?

Like the Daniel Craig Bond movies, suicide watch. Rather boot up a bit of Moore and have a good chill time. Not watch Bond cry a lot with sad face and get murdered.

Almost like they wanted to be colonized.

people getting outraged over an excerpt from a table top role playing game rule book. lol

You can't let the woke folks win or let folks paint colonization as bad.😏

@Macutchi: Okay, didn't read the full article, mostly only the excerpt the other guy posted. Still, this makes sense:

"Everything flows through Crystal Dynamics, they have to approve everything in the end."

Seems logical that the tabletop RPG makers would write the shitty protagonist the studio wants.

Video games are made up of fictional fanasty worlds meant for entertainment not realism and historical context (unless that's what the game is intentionally trying to be).

Laura Croft didn't colonize anyone guys and she's not real.

Sure it's worthy of shooting the shit with these fanasty settings, but for real people take the shit to seriously.

do you even like the modern tomb raider games? i saw in another thread you'd made youtube vids about them, but i'm sure i remember you laying into them pretty heavily, maybe in the lounge.

seriously i would love you to post a positive thread about a game you like. you've got good critiquing skills, but your posts are always so glass is half empty / negative

That sounds like bad critiquing skills to me.🙃

Was playing OG Tomb Raider: Remastered and was laughing my ass off at skateboarder guy 500 feet underground in a Tomb where giant Hellraiser monsters are attacking with lava all over the place.

This is too stupid and fun for modern Tomb Raider. And I bet you stole it from Africa.

well yeah i guess, critiquing means being able to articulate equally both the good and the bad, whereas warmgun only focuses on the bad, but he's thoughtful with it, it's not just 'this game sucks' level of analysis.

he clearly enjoys video games as he plays them enough and he wouldn't be on gaming forums if he didn't but, without exaggeration, i cant recall him every saying anything positive about any game. he complains about everything. i'd just like to hear him post some positive opinions for once

Tony Hawk had a cameo role in Tomb Raider before getting his own game.

I love how old games tried be goofy and creative. Modern games a lot of the time just wanna do realism and depress you.

@Archangel3371:

This, idc if a game is “woke”as long as it is good.

A lot of story based games in the past had “woke” themes but committed to the cardinal rule of art… show don’t tell. They made concerted efforts to change your mind through masterful subtle storytelling rather than preaching to you or being blunt/boorish with your messaging.

Basically I think a lot of the ranting about DEI, and “woke” comes down to the sophomoric attempts at including messaging or diversity. People have no problem with DEI but the way it’s done.

I think most people actually have positive reactions to diversity and positive messages like ending racism. They just don’t want a character delving into a diatribe or pointing out the obvious consecutively. They just don’t want immersion breaking practices like in Mass Effect Andromeda (because I never met a trans person who talks like the NPC does in that game).

Right?

I don't care

X-Men 97' does this perfectly.

@Jag85: I haven’t taken notice of JRPGs bashing the Catholic Church. I am Christian so if any JRPGs attack my faith then I might have to look elsewhere.

I just hope they make her morbidly obese, African and a lesbian.

I would totally play that game.

Hmmmm well, Imperial Japan doesn't get critiqued nearly as much as other evil empires.

Reading into

Unit 731 - Wikipedia

Nanking etc.

Imagine if the government of Germany disputed its outrageous crimes and experiments on oppressed minorities (primarily Jewish people).

@lavamelon:

Tales of Symphonia

Tales of Hearts R basically the christian character is refereed to as a bully

Heck there are even JRPGs where you fight god

Yes with big features.

Then you clearly have not watched Chinese movies... They're full of Japanese-bashing. In Chinese movies, Japanese imperialists are the equivalent of Nazis in Hollywood movies. Whenever I saw Japanese characters in Chinese movies, they were evil villains most of the time.

The most famous example is Bruce Lee's legendary Fist of Fury. Literally every single Japanese character in that movie is a pure evil villain with no redeeming qualities. The movie was so anti-Japanese that Bruce Lee's producers were worried it would be banned in Japan... Yet the irony is that, not only was it released in Japan, it became a massive blockbuster in Japan!

When asked why Japanese audiences loved Fist of Fury despite the movie being so anti-Japanese... It's because they identified with Bruce Lee rather than the Japanese villains. They saw the Japanese samurai "bushido spirit" in Bruce Lee, not the Japanese villains. And that's the beauty of cinema. Fist of Fury helped Japanese audiences feel what it was like to be a Chinese victim of Japanese imperialism.

I prefer Fist Of Legend. (which is on Youtube btw) Think it's less ham-fisted and just a better movie.

It's mostly older JRPGs from the '90s. Back then, there was a lot of "Christian-phobia" in Japan. Basically, there were various "new age" Japanese cults that combined Christianity and Buddhism at the time. The most infamous was Aum Shinrikyo, which became a terrorist group. They carried out a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Japan during the '90s. Since these cults were heavily inspired by Christianity, the religion became an easy scapegoat to blame in Japanese media at the time. As a result, a bunch of Japanese games, anime and movies from the '90s were frequently bashing Christianity.

But don't worry, most of that Christian-bashing died down in the 2000s. Seems like the Japanese eventually got over their "Christian-phobia" and moved on. So you won't find much of that in modern JRPGs since the 2000s.

For sure! Most remakes suck, but Fist of Legend is that rare remake which improves on the original. While Jet Li can't quite match Bruce Lee's screen presence (very few actors can), Fist of Legend is an improvement in most ways.

One of my biggest pet peeves with Fist of Fury is that the villains are too easy... I get it that it's Bruce Lee and he was too over-powered for these actors anyway, but at least give the man a challenge! Ironically, the only somewhat challenging villain in the movie was the Russian fighter (we see some proto-MMA moves in that fight). The movie was so anti-Japanese that the Japanese villains weren't even formidable fighters, but instead a Russian fighter was the best opponent in the movie! In contrast, Fist of Legend shows Jet Li fighting opponents who sometimes present a challenge and he gets his arse kicked by the M. Bison looking Japanese military boss before overcoming the odds.

The Japanese characters are also more human this time. In Fist of Fury, the Japanese were just shallow evil villains with no personality beyond being evil and easily get their arse kicked by Bruce Lee. But in Fist of Legend, the Japanese villains are more fleshed-out and formidable threats, and there are also some Japanese characters who aren't evil, like Jet Li's cute Japanese girlfriend.

However, I did think Fist of Fury had a better ending. The ending was more tragic and showcased the brutality of Japanese imperialism, whereas Fist of Legend toned down it down for a more happy ending.

This product is about as relevant to Tomb Raider as Mario is Missing is relevant to Mario, so I don't understand why anyone would give a shit.

You can sit back and allow the woke mob to destroy everything. We have to fight back against every encroachment. 🙃

Bruce Lee was a better fighter and had more charisma than Jet Li, which are the only things that matter, because almost all their movies (Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan as well) were written by morons, sometimes themselves.

Playing through Shadow right now thanks to GamePass. :P

Good stuff!! :D

Omg, Brits are held accountable for their artifact thievery and looting of the colonized nations XD Outrageous, outrages!!!

If you think of it, who is Lara Croft? Overprivileged rich British chick living in a mansion who steals and extracts historical artifacts, as a hobby, from third-world countries. But by the game's logic, those historical and cultural heritage artifacts are better off in a British museum or Lara Croft's mansion, which, by the way, is a crime by international conventions, and Lara Croft is just a petty contrabandist.

The same goes for Nathan Drake, who in sake of his own greed destroyed more than one invaluable historical locations fighting pirates and other criminal syndicates, instead of reporting those locations to the legitimate authorities of the host countries.

Imagine if both heroes would share locations of historical ruins to the authorities of the host counties. Usually, those countries are extremely poor and a real-life discovery of such location would mean huge changes to their economies: all the subsidies they good get from international investors and scientific communities, new jobs, development of touristic industry, etc. That is, such discovery would save millions of people from abject poverty instead of enriching a few assholes such as Nathan Drake and Lara Croft.

The plotline involve her saving the world multiple times for a doomsday device, typically from a completely invented civilization.

Seen a couple of people with these takes thinking it's clever.

The first game is heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, obviously. 2-3-4-5 are actually more closely aligned with James Bond.

The original game in it's entirety has about 4-5 human enemies. 2 it is almost entirely human enemies in anything but Tombs.

Again, said like 3-5 fucking times now, it's a nothing burger. Spinoff book. It still doesn't seem to be registering with people which is extremely baffling.

Me personally, even looking at he cover with the self-insert of the author as a disabled fat, black person holding a crossbow, it's quite lulzy. It's like every trope a right winger would expect from a far leftist.

But whatever back to Unfinished Business.

Agree with pretty much everything you said. Especially the part about Bruce Lee basically being unchallenged.

The final fight is miles better than anything in Fist of Fury.

Disagree with Warmblur above about the fighter being better automatically making it better. As it's not a real fight, theatrical, He def has more screen presence than Jet Li, no dispute there, but Jet Li has generally been in much better movies. Hero for example take over pretty much any Bruce Lee movie.

Clearly a shit ton more mechanics going on here more than "he can fight well"

I agree Jet Li has been in better movies, but he had a much longer career whereas Bruce Lee's career was cut short (RIP). Bruce Lee's movies were also the ones that laid the groundwork for Jet Li's movies and almost all the other martial movies since the '70s (not to mention shonen battle anime and fighting games).

While I was a fan of Jet Li's other movies, I found Hero to be way overrated. I liked his other stuff like Fong Saiyuk, Fist of Legend, Once Upon a Time in China, Fearless, and even some of his Hollywood movies like Romeo Must Die, Unleashed and The One. But Hero just didn't do it for me.

I disagree, think Hero is a masterpiece. Not just one of the best looking films made but with with substance. Done in the stylizing of Rashomon utilizing truth, lies and half-truths through but through color and battle ending in a thoughtful if somber conclusion.

As far as his other movies go, Fearless is alright, though a tad predictable. He's done the "hero fucked up into exile" thing a few times. Namely Tai Chi Masters. Trope kind of done to death. My fav movie that done that was The Shaw Brothers movie Opium And The Kung Fu Master, which is superb.

Once Upon a Time in China found abit long, drifted off a few times. But only watched it the once and opinion has changed drastically on stuff on rewatches.

High Risk is pretty underrated. Seems to have got shat on by critics but watched it again recently and had a good time.

Hero visually looks incredible, no doubt. But I found the story a bit boring. I loved Rashomon, but Hero's take on the Rashomon formula felt like it dragged on and got boring at times. The ending was quite similar to Fist of Fury, but I thought Fist of Fury was more impactful with its ending. Hero is a good movie, but I remember feeling a bit disappointed it didn't live up to the hype.

I thought the first half of Fearless was great. It reminded me of a famous Gandhi quote: "An eye for an eye makes the world go blind." The first half of Fearless had one of the best on-screen representations of this philosophy. I agree the second half became quite predictable, like Tai Chi Master, but it had a good redemption arc.

There's a number of Once Upon a Time in China movies. Can't even remember which one was my favourite anymore, as I rented them back to back. I agree some of those movies are a bit meh, but a few of them were really good.

You know what, I don't remember watching High Risk... I don't think I watched it. Another favourite was Black Mask. It's a bit like Green Hornet if it just starred Bruce Lee's character.

Lmao

Crystal dynamics going even more woke confirmed.