Breasts are a big thing …
Especially if your name is Lady Lara Croft, a woman who whilst screaming “look at me I’m every girl gamers feminist dream” may actually be whispering “I’m here for titillation, to get you hard.. oh baby control me”.
Many an academic paper has been written on Ms Croft, she’s an icon, not only in gaming but in cross over media, print, film, TV and Merchandising. She may very well be the most recognized games character in the world aside from a short, fat, fairly unattractive plumber with a huuuuuuge…. nose, hmm that seems fair, female icon the perceived perfect woman, male icon the perceived perfect man? Anyway this aside there are arguments that rage on as to just whose ‘side’ Lara is on, what team does she play for and when will her reign end? Why does it matter?

Worship at Crofts Alter …
Lara I bow down to thee! One of the very few games where the boys suffer the ‘I HAVE to play as a female character’ syndrome, she rocks! She kicks ass and takes numbers, she is amazing, she’s Indiana Jones on oestrogen and she’s made by men for men… f_ckit, I knew there'd be a catch. Oh who cares, at least the prehistoric ‘girl trips on twig, starts crying, calls for man to rush back and help her’ complex doesn’t exist with her. At least she’s not spreading those beautiful legs for anything other than a cool handstand to dismount, sure boys control her, but so do girls… or does she control us? Hmm, I’m stumped, but happy in the knowledge another Lara Croft adventure is just around the corner, she beckons to me, that sultry voice cooing ‘Come…come… come play with me’.

Burn the witch at the stake!
Some feminists despise Lara Croft, she is essentially the root of all evil and adds to the pressure that women already feel toward their bodies due to the media constantly bombarding them with the elusive body, the perfect body, the body of 18 years olds talking to them between their favourite TV shows about anti cellulite creams and wrinkle fixer uppers (do 18 year olds even have wrinkles?!). Lara Croft is the perfect woman, she’s fit, independent and strong, all the while maintaining every feminine quality imaginable, she’s a Lady, she’s curvaceous, she’s sexy and she’s so hyper-sexualised she leaves other women laying in the dust. But she’s not real, she’s a fiction, even in her real world forms she’s still a fiction played by models and ‘the sexiest woman in the world’, this is why some feminists believe Lara Croft is the root of all evil and to some degree they are of course correct, but Lara is a tiny pebble thrown into a sea of female betterment that is beyond possible, nip, tuck, suck, diet, run, jump, f_ck, exfoliate yourself bitch, fit the mould or die trying.

I’ve become all ‘Jaded’ …
I just read an interview with Toby Guard, he’s the guy who originally conceptualised Lara. He stated that the Lara in TR Legend (the newest title in the franchise) was ‘changed to look more realistic’, I’m not even going to start in on this sentence because I know you, the discerning and clever reader know what I’m thinking of the bespectacled Mr Guard for making such a silly sweeping comment. It’s Jades fault you know, her from Ubisofts sleeper hit 'Beyond Good and Evil', she has a lot to teach, she’s not a 34 Double D, she doesn’t have an ass that’s hugged by skin tight accoutrements, no long flowing locks, sure she’s skinny.. whoopee, we’re all dreaming if we think games designers are going to start making Rueben-esq lady game characters, Jade is about as ‘normal’ as we’re ever likely to see, not that we should settle exactly, but this particular character holds a wealth of cognizance that male game designers should wallow in and soak up. We’d all be better for it and maybe one day we'll see this female character 'normality' enter into gaming a ltitle more, don't worry, Lara will always be with us, Mr Guard suggested there'll be more in the series. She's a capitalist whore and her pimps are hard at work vying for our gaming greenback. This is deeper than that, this is about not falling into the same pot of Tits and Ass gaming Lara lives in, this is about scope and the knoweldge that female gamers don't always need to feel they have noone representing them in a playable capacity that represents normalcy on some level... So first we'll concentrate on getting more playable female characters, then we'll concentrate on changing them? How about developers make them the right way first, save us all a little time and money huh?