Returning to Lara's Home
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- The game design choices behind Lara's Home, the marketing behind Tomb Raider 1, and the developer behind Lara Croft who left it all behind.
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#tombraider #laracroft #gamedesign #analysis #ps1
What Toby Gard said about being "protective" about Lara is absolutely true. I tried to be very careful directing Lara's actions, and the first time she died due to my error, I actually felt sad. This happened about 25 years ago, and I am STILL protective. I don't make her die just to see what happens. Well....there was one exception....the hand of Midas. 🙂
hands of midas death is iconic XD
Same! I always feel so bad when I accidentally get her killed, and I've even apologized aloud to the TV to her 💀😂
I did the Angel fall just to... see it. I am a monster (I love Lara 😅)
This was actually the most potent feeling I came away with from the 2013 reboot as well, though for different reasons. Because she felt so vulnerable and anxious within the narrative, and some of the death animations could get so graphic, I felt extremely protective of her. I even caught myself thinking things like, "It's okay Lara, we'll get through this", which never really happens for me. Still, I think it's really interesting that the reboot captured that same feeling, and it's part of why I enjoyed that game so much; I felt a connection to Lara that made me want to protect her.
When you get used to how tutorial is handled in the first 3 games and realize you almost never see that in other games, I would say Lara's home is groundbreaking. Here in my country I grew up with the games alone and never watched any advertisement or commercial piece until a few years ago, so I never had that primarily over sexualized view of her, rather I've always seen her physical appeal as a result of her being super athletic, plus personally I believe her intelligence and witty sense of humor along with her body proportions makes her charm rather than looks alone. So I fully understand and sympathize with Toby Guard's frustrations towards the publicity. I'm super hyped for the upcoming remasters and hopefully depending on how they fare, we could be seeing one modern Tomb Raider game more closely based on the original trilogy
That is why the Anniversary for PlayStation2 is the last noteworthy entry that bothered to be a TR game that had her mansion as a open place to explore etc.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthy true. Too bad they didn't even try with the rebooted games
The whole "over sexualized" stuff is silly in itself. Especially if you consider how the adult industry is blooming nowadays regarding women showing of their body for money on the internet. Being attracted to the opposite or same sex is one of the main survival instincts. Of course you want to make pretty characters naked. No matter 8-Bit or high polygon 3D, male or female. Men just don't cry 24/7 about it though. The same with "unrealistic body standard". Women like Lara exist. Men like Kurtis Trend exist. But only women cry about it.
Always important to tell the story of Lara, Toby Gard and how the marketing team fully hijacked the character.
I do think Vicky Arnold doesn't get enough credit though. She wrote the script for the game which goes beyond just a female protagonist. The main enemy was a powerful realized female character too and with such little dialogue and I'm 1996 the game absolutely passes the bechdel test. The game was a huge step forward in many ways.
Another component of the marketing team and what they did is convince many of the fans that Lara has to look a certain way to be legitimised.
Natla is fucking legendary. And one of a kind.
Excellent! I always loved that lara has the house tutorials outside of the game, but never considered how cool it was contrasted to other games!!
good Content. Thanks. I always thought that Angelina Jolie in the first Tomb Raider Movies portrayed Lara exactly how you described here. Mysterious, Interesting, Intelligent, well behaved. They nailed it. You could make a Follow-Up Episode including the first Movies.
Well said, Angelina (and the scriptwriters) totally got the character and nailed her personality.
I always wanted Kate Beckinsale to play the role
This is so fantastically well done. I hadn't even noticed you were a small creator until you mentioned it. Great work mate!
Not holding out hope for the remasters being any good but at least more people are checking out Oldraiders and appreciating how they were crafted.
As an aside, I never saw the cringe "sexy" ads as a kid so Lara was just a badass role model. Excellent video, keep 'em coming.
As someone who works for television. This episode is beautifully edited and narrated! Well done! 🙏
When I started this video I genuinely wondered how you could talk about Lara’s mansion for 20 minutes, and when I got to the end of your video it felt like no time had passed at all.
From one small creator to another (of a similar age from the sounds of things!) this was an excellent piece of content. Keep it up! 👍
This is one of the best videos about Lara Croft I've ever watched!!! Great job!! 😍
How beautiful Tomb Raider documentaries like this one are. It is amazing how much heart people still put in this amazing and lost franchise. Thank you deeply for this
Within the first minute I'm already hooked by your voice and editing style. Great video so far and I love the use of the Tekken Tag OST!!
That was really nice. I always liked how relaxing and inviting Lara's house felt. I liked doing flips over the butler 🤣
Great video, i expected just gushing over lara‘s home in the first 3 games, which i would have totally accepted because I love lara‘s home but you did so much more with it.
As a kid I remember spending what seemed like hours in Lara's mansion hoping to find some secret room or unlock a new area, something they capitalised on in TR2 and 3.
This video went in a direction I wasn't expecting. For a while I was wondering where you were going with it but you tied it together nicely. A really well scripted, surprisingly deep video essay.
The fact that this is the content I expect of someone with a couple 100.000 subs is speaking volumes. Great production quality! ❤
Dude. I'm so glad the algorithm brought me to your stuff. You are super insightful, have extremely unique understandings, and give super thorough and meaningful research to your overall message. I was absorbed the entire time watching this. Can't wait to see more stuff from you!
Been following Foxmaster's playthroughs since TR1. He's currently playing TR2. I'm back in the world of LC like it's 1999
Yeah, not only is it good to have the tutorial always at hand, but you can always go there to chill. I call the TR3 home "my virtual home away from home" because it's the place I loved visiting since I was nine (TR3 was my first). It feels so comfortable there. I'm far past needing Lara's help with the controls, but I always love returning there :)
Also while Toby left because of the marketing, I still think we shouldn't dismiss Lara's portrayal from TR2 onward as somehow "not authentic" in the games themselves, after all it was a team effort. Toby came up with her, but the whole team gave their input, and of course the scripts themselves were written by Vicky Arnold (at least for TR1-3) and Lara's PR was overseen by Susie Hamilton, so these two also contributed to her characterization.
Anyway, great video, well edited and thought out! :)
This was fantastic! I had no idea about the history of Lara's original creator and how he stepped away from the series due to the marketing. What a badass. Please keep going with these videos, that was super enjoyable.
Great video! I'm so happy that Tomb Raider (especially the classics) are getting the recognition they deserve. Those games were groundbreaking during the early days of 3D gaming. Also the TR community is one of the best, more inclusive and non toxic gaming fandoms.
Thank you for making a video about Lara Croft and even more for talking about such an unique topic as its first game's tutorial ♥ Tomb Raider was the first videogame I ever played thanks to my dad. I always enjoy watching other people praising and talking about how good these games are.
These games were worth the learning because once you understand the controls you’ll be making gameplay look so easy.
Wow, didn't realize Prince of Persia was the genesis of Tomb Raider, in addition to Assassin's Creed.
It's even more interesting when you consider Prince Of Persia 3D, which took a ton of inspiration from Tomb Raider, but ended up being a total failure.
That was really interesting! I can tell you’re also a massive fan of the franchise. 😊
Excellent video, love Tomb Raider!
4:14 I played this part as a kid and I thought I was really stupid for thinking this was way too complicated. I knew most buttons, but this was just alot all at the same time.
I'm glad I wasnt the only one being confused by this
That video of Miyamoto playing Ctash Bandicoot feels like forbidden knowledge. Like Nintendo is gonna send a group of ninjas to kill me now that I've seen that
I'm hype for the Remasters, hopefully they deliver on every end.
I've enjoyed your video. Thanks for taking the extra time to put this level of production quality on CZcams. I honestly hope the the algorithm gets sorted out so you have a chance.
I loved replaying Lara's house, it was a safe place and I always remembered I'll "shimmy over".
I think the Hazard Course from Half-Life would fit the bill, too. Whenever I go and replay Half-Life, I take a run through the Hazard Course as well, even though I have absolutely no need for its lessons after 30+ years of playing FPS games.
Loved the video brother. Its monumentally underrated. Well edited and i could just feel, that you acutally cared about it, and that you looked up for a lot of things. Keep going bro, keep growing.
"The character doesn't belong to me anymore" Maybe not legally, but Toby Gard will always be the creator of the best lady figures in game history. Absolute respect goes to him for walking away from the shite direction that Lara was being corrupted by. Being contorted to manipulate a certain demographic, including myself at the time being a young boy. That marketing crud knew what they were doing...
Don't mistake this next bit of text as anything other than pure admiration - To me, Lara Croft has everything and can do it all. An epitome of a strong woman. Brave AF - I mean she goes places that most people wouldn't dream of because they're too dangerous.
Her physical strength, including her athleticism and acrobatic ability are incredible and are matched only by her intellect, wit and beauty. She's amazing under pressure, quite literally sometimes because of her immense swimming skills.
And I love how even though she's got all that, she does have flaws. She's not infallible. On a few occasions her wit and mischievous personality has got her into some serious trouble. But she's always able to get herself out of that trouble.
Also, let's be honest, if anyone had even half the physical and personality attributes that Lara Croft has, we'd be show boating like hell. We'd be show offs. Lara Croft is a reserved character, keeps to herself.
A testament to how cool her character is. The best thing by far though, is that I know there's at least one girl out there who has many of those qualities in real life 😊🥰
Wonderful video fella, really enjoyed. But time will tell if modern games learn from the old greats. But don't hold your breath. Seems like they're too stuck in the woke and depthless ways, and unfortunately, they sell so well, so those sh*t shows are a cyclical systematic issue that likely won't f*ck off anytime soon 🥴
Wish stupid kids would learn what being woke actually means instead of just screaming and crying because there was a gay character somewhere.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 It's a word only parrots use. They heard it somewhere and now everything is apparently 'woke'. It means nothing anymore. No one who uses it can actually define it.
@@jUQMtDmf The black community can define it, since they coined it.
As for conservatives, it's just how they rebranded "blasphemy". It's designed to make people smug and stupid. Clear definitions would only get in the way of that goal.
Especially since they're trying to convert people who might be squeamish about openly talking politics.
I wish you would realizce what woke people did to western companies and IPs. No one cares about Star Wars, Terminator, Charlies Angels, He-Man, She-Ra etc....etc... anymore because those people love to destroy legendary IPs.
Women MUST be ugly or else they are unrealistic.
Men must be dumb or else the female protagonist can't chow off.
Of yourse the character must be race swapped because minorities can't have original characters and if they make one, they are written safe, boring and stereotypical. of course there must be lesbian or gays characters shoved into it because we must represent them in the most stereotypical way no matter if they fit into the story or not.
Man you sheep are embrrising. Why don'tyou buyx the woke crap then? Why are they all failling? @@juststatedtheobvious9633
It has meaning. It is often rainbow coloured sh*t. But hey, all IPs are failing and Hollywood is burning due to that.@@jUQMtDmf
I resoect the hell out of Toby Gard. When I was younger, I didn't understand where he was coming from; I didn't disagree with him, or anything, I didn't agree, I just didn't really get where he was coming from, what he was talking about. I was too young, and the information on the games and why Tomb Raider was starting to fall apart as a franchise was scarce back in the day.
It's taken me years to really uncover the man's legacy, and the legacy of the work put in by dozens of people over the years who put a part of themselves and their lives into the games, and I've come to see his work and the decisions he made--especially his decision to leave--for what they are. Triumphs. I do hope Lara returns again, despite being passed from hands to hands over the years, and I hope she comes back in a good way.
I'm a Nintendo boy so I never played Tomb Raider, had no idea she spoke and broke the fourth wall. Kinda can't wait to try it out when the collection comes to Switch.
I have a lot of strong opinion about tomb raider. I think the character's been unfairly maligned. The Marketing took things too far. Depicting her in ways toby didn't like so he left. I respect toby a lot for that. But I think those events have led to a mythologising or exaggerating about the character in general. In the actual games I think they did a great job at not straying from sexy to sex object (the south pacific outfit being the only one I think was a bit ott). And her classic character is far more interesting (and fun) than the newer "fixed" version in the survivor trilogy. For instance classic Lara rejected the assumed trajectory of her life (being married off into another well-to-do family) and her inheritance to make her own fortune (admittedly that's not communicated in the actual game but the back story being in the manual was standard at the time) and she was motivated by a want for adventure, discovery and bravura. James Bond meets Indiana Jones. New Lara's motivations seem to be mainly about her parents and are frankly a bit dull. Classic Lara's from an era where story and character were often seen as superfluous. Yet, despite that, she's well realised. I know exactly who she is as a character. Yet the newer dev's seem to think she needed fixing.
Well said. I thikn that even in today's world, and not just due to nostalgic attachment, Lara would fit in well, considering she's been so well defined in the older games. Characters like this still aren't all that common. Especially with capturing that sense of adventure, and a powerful female protagonist with such a high class, dry witty sense of british humor.
Fantastic video! Only planned to have a quick look what it is about but then watched the whole thing.
I will definitely check out the rest of your channel.
Fantastic video didn't know you were a small creator till the end 😊
amazing content keep up the amazing work
Fantanstic video! You've got an effortless flow to how you edit and explain things. I learned a lot about Lara Croft's creator, seems like quite a swell guy.
What an amazing video! Excited to see what's next!
Million subs quality content
A nice video you made here!! Cheers!
I use "shimmy sideways until there is room" whenever i'm trying to figure something out, not even necessarily in games :P.
6:20 Didn't you read the manual? As a kid, reading a game's manual on the way home from the store was a giddy experience foreshadowing the fun I'd soon have.
It's funny, at the "These games released the same year as these games." part, all I could think was that the 2D, sprite-based, pixel art ones actually aged _better._
This is a well put together video. Thank you.
as someone who read the manual i never missed any controls hence why i was able to enjoy tutorials and easily get through them
Love that Splinter Cell easter egg, the saint of well directed sins line really stuck with me.
That was a really excellent video, thank you so much for the work you put into it .🥰
Poor Toby! I respect everything he had to say, I'm sad he was kicked for being so thoughtful and interesting, and interested in his character.
Anyway, brilliant video. As a kid i was always super invested in Lara's home, it was such a cool area. I still think it's awesome.
Great summary of the lara croft persona. I checked your others videos. I suscribed without second guessing. 😊great work.
I was in 4th grade when this came out and the stress was real 😭😭🤣
I can’t wait for the remaster and to go back into it
This is a magnificent video. Commenting for the algorithm so, hopefully, more people can see it. Thank you!
The first time I played TR1, probably my favorite game ever, I actually didn’t even see the option to go to Lara’s home until after I’d finished the game 🙈 It definitely would have helped
Also, new subscriber. Thanks, algorithm!
It's funny that he says he quit Twilight Princess because it had a long tutorial, but when I first played it I had no idea that was even a tutorial lol. I just thought, oh these characters are quirky and the town is cool.
With that animationstyle as in the thumbnail i could imagine the first series be remastered with. Looks almost naturally upgraded to back in the days, seriously
Great video 👍
I liked this video as soon as the "PC is better" text came on, lol. Seriously, though, what a great video on the origins of Tomb Raider. It sucks how the marketing honed in on the "sexy" angle when that wasn't what the games were about at all. Lara was a trailblazer for strong female characters, and I love all the adventures I go on with her, especially in my favorite Raider, 3.
I bet dude is just busy living life with the holidays and doesn't know he blew up. nice work.
Fantastic watch! Love the jazz
Thanks for telling this story and about Gard
It's nice to hear her name pronounced correctly in a video like this , I was half expecting to hear it pronounced Laura 😅
Some of my favourite TRLE's are set in Lara's Home, I've played so many version they all blend together inside my mind.
Telling non game playing people I know knew that I liked Tomb Raider would always be greeted with me being branded a creepy pervert as they thought the game was about walking around as a big boobed naked Lara 🤦♂ The marketing around Lara always creeped me out.
Pushing/Pulling objects was explained in the manual of the first game, at least on playstation. I went to check and it's on page 11. Same thing with shooting.
some of the best games ever made
No one can take away the sweet memories of luring an elderly person into a freezer room and locking them in it!
Subbed as soon as I heard the Tekken Tag Xaioyu stage music.
Amazing video! Thank you 🎉
I remember always come back to Lara's house, in any Tomb Raider, i also LOVED the house, the second and third game are my favorite.
Sometime i try to beat a record on the course, most of the time putting the bachelor inside the fridge
Great Video. It made me want to play tomb raider again.
In Tomb Raider III the first level is probably one of the most memorable in the game, outside of the military complex, especially when you lock the butler in the fridge! ;)
You're totally going places.
As a girl playing Tomb Raider back then, I didn't feel that protective thing.
I just loved having a character I could connect with better. I've had disabilities my entire life so even at that age I had no illusions that Lara was a role model I could ever live up to in real life, but through her, I could be athletic and physically competent in a way my actual body was incapable of ever achieving.
Plus she was really pretty which just made me want to imagine myself as her even more.
Well thought out video.
love the vid Tim sensei
Sadly it seems that Toby is something of a one trick Pony. Even when he came back for Legend-Underworld he wrote all these daddy issues into the character and she was much more sappy.
He recently brought out a game called "Dream Cycle" and sales seem to have been pretty poor.
That being said, the epic walkout was and always will be the most badass thing the industry will ever see. Boss shit.
I always find it funny when people say there weren't real female game protagonists in games before Lara Croft. Like people really forget that Samus and the Metroid series existed when talking about Tomb Raider, huh. 😅
Also Alone in the Drk. Princess Peach in western Mario 2. Basically most fighting games had female characters, too.I bet there are more.
It is very silly. But similar lies certain kind of people love to tell if especially if they want to sell a product.
*sigh* I miss that Lara Croft...
Gotta wonder just how much damage the marketing departments have done to various games over the decades.
It killed the gaming industry itself. Sure games exist but they are spiritually dead. All the franchises are either shut down for a long time or have nothing to do with the OG setting, lore or anything at all. Games itself are dragged out tech demos at best.
Takes them 5+ years (some even have 10 and 15 years of development and they are still not finished ...) to make a game that have a one hour dragged out tutorial based nonsense and the rest is maybe 1-2 hours of gimmicks and barely and point of playing anything. But sure enough they love to point out how the game is "pretty". Yeah right, the game might be pretty for a screenshot but the clunky nonsense gameplay or better say lack of gameplay doesn't really make it pretty or worth anything.
Silent Hill 2 was a masterpiece, developed from the ground up, was revolutionary, pretty, had depth, atmosphere and was all done in just one year. SH3 was done in half a year so as SH4. Granted reusing the engine and some of the assets but still was innovating things. The animated textures, the codes etc all groundbreaking that they managed to push PlayStation2 beyond it's limits. Then Gran Turismo 4 too was pretty played well and had 700 cars, hundreds of music tracks etc. Later nobody learned or topped that.
GTA5 is quite a popular game some even say how pretty it is but the controls are irresponsive the characters feel like they are on ice and drunk, the story and characters cringe there are zero redeeming points in any of it. Online is a cashgrab grindfest that also have zero meaning. Many games just like it all overhyped and I done with it all. Many of us quit gaming all together. We finished subscribing to placebo that is called gaming.
@@minmogrovingstrongandhealthyGta5 is an excellent and fun game.
Awesome video !
Imo, it's not just that long mandatory tutorials *can* ruin replay value, they DO ruin replay value. If there wasn't the option to change your character again before wandering out into the wasteland, I don't think I'd ever play Fallout 3 or 4 again.
I just thought about it as well. Her foyer is filled with blocks. They probably could have had her push them out of the way to get to other rooms. Surprised they didn't think of that in retrospect.
Cool video, I've never played those tomb raider games, so learning about those early 3d games tutorials is cool. And yeah it's sad that they over sexualized Lara later. However I did played the most recent trilogy and I'm glad they turned around and made Lara her own character with flaws and it's way more than a femme fatale. Hopefully they release some games soon
Great video, thank you!
Fighting games did female characters before Tomb Raider. 1982’s Wabbit on Atari 2600 did a playable female character first so some of the people interviewed were wrong
And like another comment mentioned, Nintendo’s Metroid existed before Tomb Raider
To be honest I liked very mush the Tomb Raider 1 save system from PlayStation version, it's very reliable to find one after passing by so many jumps and traps.
I learned a lot about Lara when I saw she kept her elderly butler locked in the meat locker.
I always liked the Lara's Home tutorial in the first TR game, because of Lara's voice and the overall tone and atmosphere of the tutorial.
Oh, and how do you do the "special ledge grab" animation shown at 17:32? It's so stylish and cool :o
Hold down the Walk button while climbing up.
The miniature of this video is the way in which Tomb Raider 1,2 and 3 remaster should look like
lara isnt a femme fatale, the advertisement just made it look like it but she cant care less about flirting or anything
The PS1 didn't have a "save anywhere" feature, but it did have a level select!
It is true that there is a difference between a character that is attractive, and one that is sexualised. There were plenty of male protagonists around then that were attractive, but never sexualised. It was to make the player feel empowered, rather than attracted to the male protagonist. Thats what they were going for with Lara it seems.
It’s a complex thing. In the comics, Lara is sexualised more than in the games, and it’s hard not to find her attractive. But she was still very strong and assertive. Never just a bimbo. The comics also lean into her sexual side more. There was one part where she wanted to have sex with this handsome man and tried getting the attention of him by dressing sexy. So the sexualisation was on her terms.
@18:45 In Deux Ex training level there is a hidden brick/door to a hologram projector, with Jaime Reyers complimenting of finding it
I never really felt protective of Lara, she was always the cool adventurer to me. When Tomb Raider came out it was cool to finally have a classy female rogue in a videogame who would blast away anything that got in her way.
3:25 I HIGHLY disagree that the PC version is better. Dying in the PC version brings no consequences, no penalty, so you can play the game carelessly, which takes away all the tension you've mentioned earlier. Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games of all time exactly because if you make ONE SINGLE MISTAKE you'll lose hours of your progress, which always puts me on edge and makes me give my best.
I hope when the remastered games get released, they implement an Easy/Hard toggle before you start your adventure. "Easy" would be the PC version, where you can save anywhere, and "Hard" would be the console version, where you can only save using one-time save crystals. That way everybody can play these games the way they want to.
It's so wild how many peopel don't realize that often a nintendo game IS someones first game ESPECIALLY pokemon.
Personally preferred the treasure hunts of croft manor from anniversary and legends which seem to be the culmination of what lara's house from the og tomb raider was supposed to be.
Save point can only be used once?
I didn't know that a Footage of the OG Tomb Raider was in Spice Girls.
Well said.
THE THUMBNAIL HOLY...