#120: The Wasted Potential of Tomb Raider

It's no secret that I was a big fan of Tomb Raider (2013). As my friend Sam and I explored in our Interactive Friction season on that game, it wasn't perfect, but it served as an excellent branching point to build a whole franchise off of. When the credits rolled, both of us were excited to see what direction Crystal Dynamics would go in future games. But now, after playing through the following two games, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I'm left feeling snubbed. It's less certain now that there is a clear direction for the series. Bluntly, both games are emblematic of a wasted opportunity to really explore Lara's character and expand on it, repeating too much of the 2013 reboot's story and systems in contexts that don't make sense.

Interactive Friction: Tomb Raider (2013): Episode 1: Here We Go Again

Welcome everyone, to the new season of Interactive Friction. After talking about it so much during the Far Cry 3 season, we decided to go into more detail by covered the 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider.



I know it's strange to spend so much time discussing font choices and subtitles, but that something that is so commonly done wrong in games that there are not many examples of well done subtitles. The only reason that is a major pet peeve of mine is that it took me a long time to upgrade from SD to HD when I first got my PS3. Because of the way HD gets downgraded, a lot of text became extremely difficult to read on SD television sets. A lot of that frustration can be easily escaped by just making smarter choices in font and presentation.

We also enables TressFX, and honestly it's not that great. When Lara is just running around, then it's okay. However, when she's more active, it's far too bounce-y, to the point where it's distracting and immersion-breaking.

It is also interesting to view this tutorial in contrast to the "parody" tutorial we just went through in the Blood Dragon episode. The game is really good at using these initial gameplay sections to teach you basic mechanics without patronizing you without pointless pop-ups if you have already played it or other games like it before.

One of the throughlines we are going to explore as we advance this series is how similar Far Cry 3 is to Tomb Raider in terms of the overall story arc. However, Tomb Raider handles not only the transition from scared college kid into hardened warrior significantly better than Far Cry 3 does. It is much more believable and Lara earns her character arc much more than Jason Brody does.

For example, in the first episode of Far Cry 3, we had already made a human kill. Though Jason felt bad about it, the game spent almost no time dwelling on it. In that same episode, we were already acquiring weapons and firing them at animals. At this point, the only kill Lara has to her name is a deer, and she's completely broken up about it. While Jason has already started fighting against people, Lara is still in process of getting her bearings and figuring out how to stay alive, making her feel a lot more like a human being than Jason ever really did. Plus, she has the added benefit the player being able to see her face, giving us a better window into how she feels.

We'll talk a bit more about what else Tomb Raider does to make the transition from normal person to warrior more believable, but that will happen as we progress through the game's story.

#58: What Makes the Collectible?: Tomb Raider vs. Assassin's Creed

When the new Tomb Raider reboot was being announced, I had initially dismissed the entire thing out of hand because I have been disappointed by prior Tomb Raider games. Without going into much detail (and more importantly, to avoid spoilers since the game came out not too long ago), I was pleasantly surprised by the solid gameplay from the team at Crystal Dynamics and excellent narrative penned by Rihanna Pratchett. One particular element that impressed me was how inoffensive and, dare I say, fun the collectibles were to gather in this game. In the past, I have rallied against collectibles in other video games, most recently and most notably Assassin's Creed 3. It crossed my mind that analyzing exactly why one game's collectibles intrigue me while another game's collectibles repel and disgust me may be worth writing an article for, so it became the topic of this week. Since I am talking about only the collectibles in Tomb Raider, I promise to keep discourse on it spoiler-free, since people are still finishing it up.

One of the first things that might explain why the collectibles in Tomb Raider were much better than those in Assassin's Creed 3 is that it makes more sense for Lara Croft to want to collect the items she comes across than it does for Connor to. The lead of Assassin's Creed 3 was focused on murdering Templar agents in pursuit of a better world. Because of this, it made little sense for him to spend his time running around the city to collect pages from Benjamin Franklin's Almanac's, scouring the forest in pursuit of eagle feathers, or going around breaking into chests located throughout the world. With the possible exception of the Peg-Leg trinkets (and even that is running on a pretty weak case in my honest opinion), all the collectibles do not really tie in to the character or the narrative. They seem completely superfluous and only exist for the sake of having them.

This is not true for Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider. Much of what the game lets players collect would make perfect sense for Lara to take the time to gather. Since she is in the middle of a survival situation, it would make sense for her to want to gather salvage and weapon parts from the area. Another easy to explain collectible are all of the various artifacts Lara can find. While some might say that it makes little sense to want to look for these kinds of artifacts in a survival situation, Lara is an archeologist by trade, inherently interested in objects that detail the kind of experiences and lives people on the island would have led. Even in the story, there are several times during the course of the plot where Lara takes a break in order to examine whatever tomb or vestige of the past that she currently occupies. This curiosity of her's extends to collecting the journals left behind by the many inhabitants of the island, both past and present, that players can gather. As someone who studies people and culture, documents of any kind are of intrinsic value to Lara. While it may not be necessarily true for all collectibles, in the general case Lara Croft would have a good reason to collect most of the optional items in the Tomb Raider reboot.

The second reason Tomb Raider has, in my opinion, better collectibles is that players have a better external, in-game motivation to collect them. In Assassin's Creed 3, a lot of the things players could collect did not have much worth in terms of rewards for collecting them. Gathering up all of the eagle feathers scattered throughout the Frontier merely unlocked a Native American tribal garb that visually was not very impressive or distinctive in any way. Another solid example of a lack of rewards are the Almanacs. When Connor finishes collecting a set of Almanac's, they unlock a blueprint for one on Benjamin Franklin's inventions which can be crafted at Connor's Homestead. While this seems like a big deal, the inventions are static objects with no other purpose but to decorate the Homestead, conferring no practical benefits to players. Lastly, the treasure chests do offer material rewards, but I can hardly call them particularly beneficial. What I mean is that chests contain materials, recipes, and money which can all be used in different ways to take advantage of the in-game economy. As I have mentioned in my critique of Assassin's Creed 3, the in-game economy has no real use to players and can be skipped entirely without suffering for it or losing anything that one might get by participating in it. If the chests' rewards feed into a worthless add-on, it can be said that they are also worthless add-ons.

When contrasted that with Tomb Raider, this lack of rewards becomes even more glaringly obvious. Everything that can be collected in the game confers at least some sort of reward. Performing any task, even collecting an object, gives the player XP which are used to get skill points that can be spent to unlock new talents and passive skills for Lara, giving players an extra edge against enemies and the environment. In this way, Tomb Raider already offers more practical rewards than Assassin's Creed 3 ever did, but that is not the only way they reward players. One of the most commonplace and ubiquitous collectibles in the game is “Salvage.” Salvage is like XP in the sense that players can spend salvage to upgrade the weapons Lara finds over the course of her adventure. Each weapon can be upgraded with a limited selection of upgrades. This is where another, slightly less prominent collectible comes in: The weapon parts. Weapon parts come in different categories: bow, pistol, rifle, and shotgun. When the player collects enough parts in a given category, Lara will upgrade the corresponding weapon to a stronger version of itself (with all current upgrades transferring over) when the player reaches a campfire. Upgrading a weapon improves its abilities and unlocks more upgrades which players can use Salvage to unlock. Tomb Raider actively rewards those who take the time to explore and hunt for these collectibles. This makes the process far more enjoyable, even if it is partly due to a Skinner Box-like effect.

This is not the only way in which players get rewarded by what they do. Games can offer more for collecting than simple gameplay benefits. Another way in which Tomb Raider has better collectibles is that collectibles can also further develop the characters and setting of the game. When Lara finds an artifact and picks it up, she gives players a brief description of what it is and what significance it has. These artifacts can tell us a little about past civilizations and people that have landed on the island and lived there for long stretches of time. It helps players understand exactly how many people have been impacted by the island and its many secrets, working as a form of world building. Also, as an archeologist, Lara does not just magically know everything about a given artifact. There are many of them in the game that players can rotate around to a specific angle to learn additional information. One example in particular stands out to me: In one area, Lara can find a small dragon statue, making the remark that it looks like a priceless antique. If one rotates it so that the bottom faces the camera, she will say “Oh! It's a fake. 'Made in China'”. Other examples just help to bring players into the world and the role of Lara Croft.

As I said earlier, the characters are also developed through collectibles, not just the world. This comes in the form of all the logs and journals players can track down. Whenever the player grabs a journal, the character who wrote it narrates the text for the player. This can best be equated to the audio logs made famous by games such as System Shock 2 and its spiritual successor, Bioshock. There is a reason why this often works: It allows the player to learn more about a character and what makes them tick without needing to write up an entire conversation and animate it. Without spoiling anything, these logs make the characters more relatable and understandable. Combined with the artifacts, they also enable much more world building than either could alone. By collecting these items, the island and the people on it feel like a fully fleshed out world, and there lies the beauty in the way Tomb Raider handled them. I would try to find a comparable example from Assassin's Creed 3, but I do not believe one such example exists.

Lastly, the final reason I liked Tomb Raider's collectibles a lot more is because they are generally more challenging to get. Let me preface this by saying that in both games, all the collectibles are comparatively easy to find. Even if players have difficulty doing so normally, there exists ways players can make discovering the location of collectibles easier: Assassin's Creed 3 has maps which Connor can purchase to point out the location of every collectible in the game, while Tomb Raider allows Lara to upgrade her “Survival Instincts” (similar to Batman's Detective Mode in Arkham City), to highlight them and place them on the map when they are in range. (For the record, that is a good thing.) However, once the collectibles are located, getting to them is different in both games. In Assassin's Creed, it is typically pretty easy. Once Connor is roughly aware of a collectible's location on the map, it is a trivial task for him to get to it with the usual set to traversal mechanics. This is not the case in Tomb Raider. While some are certainly easy to get, many of them will take a degree of problem solving to reach. At other times, it is not even possible to collect a given treasure until a certain piece of Gear has been acquired allowing Lara to bypass an obstacle in her way, like classic Metroidvannia-style games. Having to actually bypass an obstacle by oneself to get a treasure, without the game doing excess hand-holding or making it too easy, gives a feeling of satisfaction that is otherwise absent, making the act of picking up a collectible all the sweeter.

In the end, Tomb Raider managed to do the impossible: It caused me to rethink my stance on collectibles in video games and give them the illustrious title of “Not inherently bad.” The only thing that has been able to remove itself from my shit-list in such a way is the Quick-Time Event. I am glad this game caused me to reevaluate my thinking, because for a long time collectibles were one of the fastest ways games could irritate me. It all started with those abominable feathers in Assassin's Creed 2 which were so annoying to gather up and for such an insignificant payoff. Nonetheless, collectibles are just another tool in a designer's arsenal to use and balance wisely. Like any tool, there are times where it works and times where it does not. A designer's responsibility is to know the difference.

#30: The Reason for “Bad” Female Characters

(As always, when I do a subject like this on characters/plot, spoilers are abound. Be advised)

            Recently, a certain individual has been cropping up a lot in discussions about video games. There has been a bit of controversy surrounding her and what she says about female archetypes. Among that controversy, there has also been some legitimate criticism of her and her methods. Regardless of your opinion regarding that matter, it is hard to deny that she has started a discussion: A discussion as to why female characters are the way they are most of the time. Most gamers are all aware of the fact that finding a good female character in a game can be... difficult at times. But what is the real reason behind this? I am going to spend this week proposing a hypothesis as to why that is.

            The hypothesis is this: We see many bad female characters all the time simply because many of the characters in mainstream gaming are very poorly characterized period. We see the poor characterization of women more clearly because our culture has become far more attuned to bad female characters than male characters, due to all the baggage we have carried on from the past and the many issues regarding woman's equality we still have to address in the modern day. This sensitivity is bolstered by the fact that the fairer sex tends to not be as represented in video games as men are, so any prominent female character, for better or worse, tends to stand out to the community.

            To prove the first point of this hypothesis, I will be looking at games that are praised for characterization and analyze the characters in them, both male and female, and then do the same with games that are notorious for poor characterization to show the difference between the two. I do not feel the need to go into the other points as they have more to do with culture, not video games, and I would hope that most people would who read this already know them well. Also, I admit that I feel painfully unequipped to tackle the subjects of women's rights issues and perception of gaming culture as I do not have any experience studying culture or psychology.

            The first game that I want to analyze is one that I never tire of talking about: Mass Effect. One of the few things most of the people who play Mass Effect can all agree on is that Bioware did a really good job with the characters of the series. So much so that most of the characters that the player can ally with have huge fanbases. Whether they are a smooth talking police officer that serves as both a close friend and rival like Garrus, a scientist who committed terrible war crimes but had good, logical reasons for doing so like Mordin, or the ace pilot with a snide sense of humor, a crippling disability, and a huge chip on his shoulder like Joker, all of the male characters are well-developed.

            And the exact same thing can be said of the female characters of the game. That is why one of the most endearing characters of the entire series happens to be female. I am, of course, referring to Tali. In the first game, Tali is the one who gives Sheppard evidence that Saren is a terrorist. She is shown to be smart, able to handle herself, and displaying a high degree of technical aptitude. When the player settles down to talk to her on the Normandy, she also shows that she is very relatable individual who has a crush on Sheppard, but is too shy to voice it. As the series goes on, she matures into an Admiral for her races fleet. The same can be said of Liara. Liara starts off as a shy, timid archeologist and evolves into the galaxy's best information broker by the third game. The women in Mass Effect are as much characters as the men because Bioware took the time to write good characters.

            Another example of strong characterization is the Uncharted series. While people have mixed reactions to the series as a whole, the main characters are by far the strongest part of the franchise. The protagonist Nathan Drake has, over the course of the series, become much more fleshed out and interesting as a result of Naughty Dog's writing. In the first game, he was just an everyman. By the third game, the audience knew enough to form a real connection with him. He was abandoned as a child and grew changed his name, making up a story about being related to Sir Francis Drake and changing his name to reflect that. He grew to love treasure hunting and danger to the point where he has a pathological need to do it despite the risks. There is also the character of Victor Sullivan, who serves as Nate's mentor and main tie to the criminal world. He is also one of the most popular characters in the series due to his personality, which was why the third game focused so heavily on his relationship with Drake.

            The women in Drake's life are also quite interesting. The most notable female from the Uncharted series is Elena Fisher, who serves as the love interest and foil to Nathan Drake. When the audience first meets her in the original game, she is a journalist looking for Sir Francis Drake's coffin with Nathan's aid. She is shown to be quite capable in a fight despite having no experience with weapons. Elena also displays great observational skills when listening paying close attention to what people around her are saying and by actively giving Nathan tips and advice on how to solve puzzles that he encounters. Though tough, she also has a genuine personality. Ms. Fisher is relentless in her pursuit of the truth and in coming to her allies' aid in the first two games. She often puts herself in great danger until a grenade going off close to her puts her in mortal danger towards the end of the second game. Afterward, in the third game, she becomes more subdued and concerned for Nate and Sully, but still willing to help them out. When Sully get's kidnapped and Nate disappears, she draws up detailed plans to stage a rescue. She is Drake's conscience and foil to his optimistic side. To that end, she is similar, yet opposed, to Chloe Frazer, who represents the devil on his shoulder and his inner pessimist. Though Chloe lacked the screen time Elena did, being absent from the first game, her character was very fleshed out and she quickly became another fan favorite.

            Both of the above franchises created strong characters and built relationships with these characters. As a result, the females among them possess strong characterization and became real, believable people. When the writer knows how to build strong characters, the gender will not be something that needs to be written around. It will instead be a logical extension of the person in question, like race, sexuality, or religious affiliations, or other traits. It should inform, but not define a character. Not all games realize this, and we get really some really painful to watch characters, both male and female, in video games as a result.

            A very well publicized example of this would be Samus Aran from Metroid. Specifically, the Samus Aran from Metroid: Other M. Most fans of the franchise refuse to talk about this little piece and for good reason. They took one of the few respected female characters in games and made her a stupid, completely subservient slave to the orders of a man who once commanded her, but no longer has the legal power to order her around. While people cried foul at this portrayal of an established icon, the problem ran deeper than that. Almost every facet of the story was poorly conceived. The characters were not interesting. The plot was filled with awkward attempts to shoehorn in the obvious mother motif. (Samus receives a “Baby's Cry” distress signal emanating from a “Bottle Ship”. Also, Other M is an anagram for Mother, if that was not obvious.) And Samus does not use lifesaving and otherwise perfectly fine gear until Officer Moron allows her to. (For example, she receives clearance to use a lava-shield after she crosses a lava pit.) This whole thing was poorly conceived. Every single person in this plot acts like a fool, result in a female character so horrible that some even go as far as to consider it sexist, though your opinion may vary.

            Another, quite egregious, example of bad writing being the central cause of horrible female characters is Tomb Raider: Underworld. I am limiting the discussion to just this game in the series not because I do not believe other games in the series have similar problems, but because it is the only game in Lara Croft's more recent incarnations that I have had the displeasure of playing. Ms. Croft, throughout the adventure, demonstrates a “strong” personality. By that, I mean that she continuously acts like a complete jerk. She seems perpetually angry throughout the journey, which is not helped by the fact that revenge is the primary motive for her actions. The two villains in the game are both women who suffer similar fates, although one is more manipulative and able to hide her anger. The few male characters in the game are not much better. They are not angry, but they seem superfluous and have no depth because they are either mooks or Lara's friends who show up in the start of the game and never again. I do not mind an all female cast, but I would prefer the protagonist to have a greater depth than “Grrrrrrrrrrr,” regardless of his/her gender. The main plot is pretty forgettable. All I remember is that it involved Norse mythology and there was a segment that had Lara kill tons of mooks with Thor's Hammer. This game was a huge failure in terms of writing and the portrayal of its feminine lead reflects that.

            The problem is not that games portray women poorly, it is that they portray people poorly. It is a symptom of a broader problem than you may have been lead to believe. Fortunately, this issue is not a difficult one to remedy. If the problem with women in games stems from bad writing in general, then the solution is simple: All we need to do is improve the quality of the writing teams in modern gaming. Take a page from the staff at Obsidian, Naughty Dog, and the part of Bioware that writes character and character interaction. Focus on making strong characters and believable relationships and alliances between them. If we can begin to make stronger characters, these issues will start to fade. This can apply equally to all genres and types of stories one could find. Strong characters are free to exist in any story, whether a dark and serious or light-hearted and goofy. To that end, I encourage discussions between gamers, developers, and anyone else who loves games to talk to each other about what works and what we need to change. This is the only way we can better the medium. So I say let the likes of Anita Sarkeesian speak. If they are wrong, let us tell them why and how they are wrong and correct them. We would be capable of much better in terms of storytelling in this medium through this type of discourse.