Weekend Argument: Reloading Lara

So after much rumour and leaked images, Lara Croft's reboot is official.

I can safely assume given the amount of self-advertising Game Informer has done to acknowledge this exclusive first look, you've trawled through the magazine scans that are now widely available online.

Okay, hands up if what you saw made you spit on the ground and groan because you're witness another DMC/Ninja Theory debacle? Yes? You all go and congregate in the corner over there, and i want all five of you who think this is a bad idea to kindly shut the fuck up for a moment and listen.

Now hands up those who have been burnt out after a steady run of sequels since 1996, but upon seeing said scans, have stopped shrugging at the reboot idea and are sweating more than a sheepdog in the jungle with excitement? Yes? Right. Stay standing.

People sitting down, look at people standing. See them? These people are right, you are wrong.

And I'm going to explain why.

Firstly, let's heft that big old marketing and sales cross on our shoulders. Don't be offended when i tell you this, for its for your own good. You there clutching at the hope that Lara's still fine, you're a bunch of necrophiliacs. You've been dry-humping a corpse these last few years.

Now don't get me wrong, while I didn't have much time for Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary and Underworld were darn decent, and I got all three of the new unofficial trilogy on my gaming shelf ready to play this Christmas. But then, this holiday's being themed on retro classics, and sitting alongside Lara are the likes of Broken Sword and Donkey Kong. Do you see what I'm saying?

Lara's big profit days are long and gone. She hasn't been relevant to the top of the charts or the majority of gamers for years. And when that majority is magnified tenfold by the casual crowd that have drifted in through Warcraft and Wii, she's only claiming a pretty small slice of a pretty big pie.

The central premise of Lara is solid enough. Tough-as-nails independent adventurer exploring uncharted regions solo while unearthing hidden treasures and outracing and outthinking deathly traps? You're rolling gaming's oldest traditions - platforming, exploration, discovering secrets - together and coating it in a female offshoot of Indiana Jones. What's not to love?

But for all the near-death experiences Lara's battled, she's had no tougher challenge than clambering out of a deep well of sexism. Upon her first appearance she was a pioneer in female-fronted videogames (Nintendo's Samus was clad in armour always - sex appeal was never an issue) and it was unfortunate that her early career has been dogged with an obsession over her dual arsenal - and I'm not talking about her pistols.

One designer's off-the-cuff joke with the original Lara model, expanding her bosom to near gravity-defying size during development stuck, and became Croft's boon and curse. There's no denying her physique helped her gain access to the mainstream men's market, a more attractive proposition than a short squat mammal or plumber, but its stained her reputation and her developer's, and pulled the focus away from what was a series of fantastic Indy-style adventures.

Talk of strong female role model in gaming was superfluous - she was a sex icon at best, a poor commentary on lustful virginal gamers' obsessions at worst. There were enough column inches dedicated to the a now-legendary nude cheat, and image-googling Lara today will still bring up fan-imagery of her 90s self in all sorts of positions.

It's a piss-poor position to be in for gaming's first true icon of the 90s.

That's right. Lara deserves that recognition. Think about it: Lara was, and is, the first videogame character since Mario and Sonic to enter mainstream public consciousness. And her endurance has nothing to do with her cleavage, else it would have shrunk along with her bosom with every subsequent Tomb Raider title.

But by the time she'd shirked that stigma in recent years she has already trekked too many miles to stand on the strength and vitality of her gameplay alone. This complete reset allows the name to endure but without the poor stereotype of the past. a more realistic world and character is what we've come to expect as technology as grown and videogames have trended towards more cinematic approaches. After fourteen years, Lara Croft has finally come of age.

Let mainstream spin this as Uncharted meets Lost - they're great comparisons and sell the character for a modern market. For hardcore players the massive changes Crystal Dynamics are making to the gameplay sound both interesting and immersive and are winning approval from gamers. We're excited once more to Croft. She's relevant, fresh again.

As for clearing the decks with the character's development and her various nemesis's over the last few years? Not a problem. The broad strokes of the character and her setting have always been fine. he Indiana Jones imprint always appealed, but unlike Dr.Jones, I'd be hard pressed to remember what great treasure or artefact was the centre-point of any particular game. The same goes for the villains. Lara against the natural world? Sounds like back to basics for me.

And its actually her developer that I'm happiest for.

I've talked to friends about developers stuck in the endless cycle of churing out sequels and how it must turn to mind-numbing tedium after a while, with only microcosms of improvements with each iteration.

Crystal Dynamics has done its best in improving the Lara formula since the franchise was handed to them, but there's only so much you can do with the constraints given to you. Note the developer has been most successful when it's been allowed to take its own spin on the character, with the only Tomb Raider game that received universal critical acclaim these last few years being the recent digital download title Guardian of Light. You could sense that after year's being stuck in a rut, this was a developer having fun once more.

This new Tomb Raider will mark the first time Crystal Dynamics has been allowed to craft its own vision using the foundation stones of the Tomb Raider franchise. If it turns the excitement and action shown in its downloadable title onto the big retail title, then this change will be good for both them, for Lara and ultimately for us. And honestly, anyone that has a problem or takes issues with what we've seen or heard so far on Tomb Raider's rebirth is an idiot, plain and simple.

Agree? Disagree? Just want to tell Gillen to shut the fuck up? Join the debate in the comments section below.