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Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible

by imiric 3y ago

Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. > That's like Nintendo deciding, after the 6th Super Mario title, that Mario should now look like a more realistic man and lose his big nose and his outdated hat. Or as if Capcom had decided, for Metal Gear Solid 3, to swap out Solid Snake for some other guy with the same name. You're saying that Mario and Snake didn't also change from their initial 2D sprites to their later 3D models? Mario's nose and signature cap were hardly distinguishable in the early games, and just weren't important compared to the gameplay. Mario himself changed radically in each game; from Tanooki, frog and cat suits, to becoming other characters entirely in Odyssey. Snake's features only became visible in the first MGS, and the model in The Phantom Pain might as well be a different character. (It doesn't help that MG chronology is confusing as hell, and I'm not certain that "Venom" Snake is actually the same person as "Solid" Snake...) The change of Lara Croft was certainly influenced in part by the zeitgeist, as you say, but it's largely the result of normal character evolution in most gaming franchises. Do you really expect a character to have a braid in all versions? And why is Lara's hair or physical proportions so important to her character? Her defining features are being an upper-class explorer and overall badass, which is part of every TR game. This is a really good article, BTW. Kudos to the author!

swexbe 3y ago
Venom, Solid, Solidus, Liquid, and Naked Snake are all different people. Naked becomes Big Boss. Solid, Solidus, Liquid are clones of Big Boss. Venom thinks he's Big Boss. I don't understand what's so confusing? :)
- generichuman 3y ago
  Also don't forget that Venom went under surgery to look exactly like Big Boss.
- imiric 3y ago
  Ah, TIL, thanks. But they all should look like Big Boss then? Considering the reply to your comment that Venom underwent plastic surgery... Kojima may be a genius game designer, but he's an awful writer IMO. None of his lore makes sense, and is only convoluted for it be served in exposition dumps in hour-long cutscenes. Death Stranding is a prime example of that. I enjoyed playing it, but can't remember a thing about the motivation of any of the characters.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    > But they all should look like Big Boss then? Not quite, because they were not all direct clones the way we think of cloning in real life, because in the Metal Gear universe, they could do "selective cloning". I forgot the details of how exactly they described it (and I haven't played beyond MGS3 yet). But in MGS, Liquid and Solid have a conversation about it, where Liquid insinuates that they took the "best genes" of Big Boss to clone Solid (who actually looks like Big Boss), and used the remaining "weak genes" to clone Liquid. I would bet that this whole explanation is also sprinkled with a bit of nanomachines-related lore in the later games. Also, their differences in looks could be explained by environmental factors and style choices. I would argue that Solidus looks just like Big Boss and Solid, but aged, more muscular, and with different facial hair.
    - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
      Actually, Solid being the better clone and Liquid being inferior is unreliable narration on Liquid’s part. He was led to believe so, but Revolver Ocelot contradicts him later on. Revolver Ocelot: "Yes. The inferior one was the winner after all. ...That's right. Until the very end, Liquid thought he was the inferior one."
      - filoleg 3y ago
        Yeah, I just wanted to avoid spoiling anything more than was strictly necessary, for those who are curious and might consider playing it. Inbefore someone says "it is an old game", I beat MGS 1+2 just a couple years ago for the first time ever, and I usually am more into newer games. Still looking forward to play MGS3 and the rest of the series in the future.
cubefox 3y ago
> Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. Well, the article explicitly shows an early sketch where she looked even more comic-like than in the final renders. The character was never intended to look realistic, that wasn't just a technical limitation of the hardware the game run on. In fact even for Tomb Raider 6 the renders didn't look realistic: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/laracroft/images/e/e4/Tr6-model-011.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/laracroft/images/e/e4/Tr6-... > You're saying that Mario and Snake didn't also change from their initial 2D sprites to their later 3D models? Mario's nose and signature cap were hardly distinguishable in the early games, and just weren't important compared to the gameplay. There were some early changes, but Mario looks basically exactly like he did on the cover of Super Mario Bros 3 some 25 years ago: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8csAAOSwH9JeGgLT/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8csAAOSwH9JeGgLT/s-l1600.jpg Even Tomb Raider 1 - 6 did not have that much continuity. > Her defining features are being an upper-class explorer and overall badass, which is part of every TR game. That could also be someone else. Lara Croft now looks like a completely different woman. And very generic too, nothing like the distinctive face (and with the braids, and the exaggerated proportions) she had before. The continuity of the first six games is simply lost, it's like replacing Homer Simpson with some different, slimmer, more average looking character, while still calling him Homer Simpson. Maybe they wanted the series to have more realistic graphics, which wouldn't fit her classic stylized design. But I'm sure they could have come up with a design that looked at least similar to the old Lara. Even cosplayers do a decent job: https://prd-rteditorial.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/22162820/Laura-Croft-Classic-Costume-Tomb-Raider.jpg https://prd-rteditorial.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-conten... https://abload.de/img/66872776_280264737309kmfka.jpg https://abload.de/img/66872776_280264737309kmfka.jpg
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- BingLee 3y ago
  >Even cosplayers do a decent job Ha ha. And what would they know about character design! The new design has proven sticky amongst a proportion of the cosplay community at the very least, and that surely is a useful bellwether.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware Are you saying real women don't have triangle boobs?
- cubefox 3y ago
  Those were already fixed in the second game, but people have a good memory for such things.

by imiric 3y ago

swexbe 3y ago

Venom, Solid, Solidus, Liquid, and Naked Snake are all different people. Naked becomes Big Boss. Solid, Solidus, Liquid are clones of Big Boss. Venom thinks he's Big Boss. I don't understand what's so confusing? :)

generichuman 3y ago
Also don't forget that Venom went under surgery to look exactly like Big Boss.
imiric 3y ago
Ah, TIL, thanks. But they all should look like Big Boss then? Considering the reply to your comment that Venom underwent plastic surgery... Kojima may be a genius game designer, but he's an awful writer IMO. None of his lore makes sense, and is only convoluted for it be served in exposition dumps in hour-long cutscenes. Death Stranding is a prime example of that. I enjoyed playing it, but can't remember a thing about the motivation of any of the characters.
- filoleg 3y ago
  > But they all should look like Big Boss then? Not quite, because they were not all direct clones the way we think of cloning in real life, because in the Metal Gear universe, they could do "selective cloning". I forgot the details of how exactly they described it (and I haven't played beyond MGS3 yet). But in MGS, Liquid and Solid have a conversation about it, where Liquid insinuates that they took the "best genes" of Big Boss to clone Solid (who actually looks like Big Boss), and used the remaining "weak genes" to clone Liquid. I would bet that this whole explanation is also sprinkled with a bit of nanomachines-related lore in the later games. Also, their differences in looks could be explained by environmental factors and style choices. I would argue that Solidus looks just like Big Boss and Solid, but aged, more muscular, and with different facial hair.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    Actually, Solid being the better clone and Liquid being inferior is unreliable narration on Liquid’s part. He was led to believe so, but Revolver Ocelot contradicts him later on. Revolver Ocelot: "Yes. The inferior one was the winner after all. ...That's right. Until the very end, Liquid thought he was the inferior one."
    - filoleg 3y ago
      Yeah, I just wanted to avoid spoiling anything more than was strictly necessary, for those who are curious and might consider playing it. Inbefore someone says "it is an old game", I beat MGS 1+2 just a couple years ago for the first time ever, and I usually am more into newer games. Still looking forward to play MGS3 and the rest of the series in the future.

cubefox 3y ago

> Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either. Well, the article explicitly shows an early sketch where she looked even more comic-like than in the final renders. The character was never intended to look realistic, that wasn't just a technical limitation of the hardware the game run on. In fact even for Tomb Raider 6 the renders didn't look realistic: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/laracroft/images/e/e4/Tr6-model-011.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/laracroft/images/e/e4/Tr6-... > You're saying that Mario and Snake didn't also change from their initial 2D sprites to their later 3D models? Mario's nose and signature cap were hardly distinguishable in the early games, and just weren't important compared to the gameplay. There were some early changes, but Mario looks basically exactly like he did on the cover of Super Mario Bros 3 some 25 years ago: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8csAAOSwH9JeGgLT/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8csAAOSwH9JeGgLT/s-l1600.jpg Even Tomb Raider 1 - 6 did not have that much continuity. > Her defining features are being an upper-class explorer and overall badass, which is part of every TR game. That could also be someone else. Lara Croft now looks like a completely different woman. And very generic too, nothing like the distinctive face (and with the braids, and the exaggerated proportions) she had before. The continuity of the first six games is simply lost, it's like replacing Homer Simpson with some different, slimmer, more average looking character, while still calling him Homer Simpson. Maybe they wanted the series to have more realistic graphics, which wouldn't fit her classic stylized design. But I'm sure they could have come up with a design that looked at least similar to the old Lara. Even cosplayers do a decent job: https://prd-rteditorial.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/22162820/Laura-Croft-Classic-Costume-Tomb-Raider.jpg https://prd-rteditorial.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-conten... https://abload.de/img/66872776_280264737309kmfka.jpg https://abload.de/img/66872776_280264737309kmfka.jpg

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
BingLee 3y ago
>Even cosplayers do a decent job Ha ha. And what would they know about character design! The new design has proven sticky amongst a proportion of the cosplay community at the very least, and that surely is a useful bellwether.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

>her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware Are you saying real women don't have triangle boobs?

cubefox 3y ago
Those were already fixed in the second game, but people have a good memory for such things.