Videogames case study 1: Lara Croft Go blog tasks

Language
1) Lara Croft is a female protagonist adventurer who first appeared in the Tomb Raider series starting in 1996.

2) The series Indiana Jones was a heavy influence on the creation of Tomb Raider and Lara Croft.

3) Lara Croft and Tomb Raider has moved beyond video games as it has now been turned into 2 different movies.

4) You can now play Lara Croft Go on Android and Apple devices.

5) Lara Croft Go is a turn-based puzzle video game in the Tomb Raider series.

6) Lara Croft Go uses narrative by creating 3 main levels with sub levels with the design of a map to lead you through the sub levels as the story line.

7) The iconography that can be found is the dusty sort of nature like colour scheme and images of jungle/animals that allow the game to seem adventurous and Lara Croft to seem like an explorer. This helps as the game is adventure based.

8) Apart from Lara Croft the other characters in the game are snakes, spiders, lizards and the queen of venom.

9) In Lara Croft Go the setting is basically just a temple in the jungle. Compared to other Lara Croft games this is very similar as it features abandoned temples and jungles much like other Tomb Raider and Lara Croft games.

10) Essentially Lara Croft started off as an adventurous female protagonist however she was dressed in a somewhat sexualised outfit and had an extremely unrealistic body shape which is a bad representation of women. Over time Lara Croft has evolved in that her body type is now much more realistic and her outfit is not as bad.

Representation
1) Usually in video games women are represented as side characters, prizes and/or maidens in distress.

2) Lara Croft reinforces female stereotypes in the media with the way she is dressed and her body type. This is because her body is an extremely unrealistic shape and her clothes are lacking which may cause her to be sexualised.

3) Lara Croft also subverts female stereotypes in the media. This is because she is the first female protagonist and her powerful, adventurous ways are generally seen as masculine however she shows that both men and women can be strong.

4) Some people believe that the video game industry is sexist and needs to change because of the overly sexualised way they portray women as side characters and prizes in skimpy outfits.

5) Although you can argue that Lara Croft is just another objectified woman designed to appeal to a male audience because of her unrealistic body shape and sexualised outfit, I believe that Lara Croft can also be used as empowering female icon as she has broken all of the boundaries surrounding female characters in video games and the longest standing prejudice against male protagonists and female protagonists.

Industries
1) PEGI stands for Pan European Game Information.

2) PEGI's job is to enforce the video game rating system of which they also created to help European customers to make informed decisions when buying a game.

3) Square Enix Montreal

4) The 2 popular video game franchises that were combined to make Lara Croft Go were Tomb Raider and Hit Man Go.

5) Another thing that is a part of the Tomb Raider/Lara Croft franchise is the 2 movies that have come out about the game.

Audience
1) Audiences may enjoy playing Lara Croft Go because it can given them nostalgia and is an interactive game which people enjoy. Also this game is set

2) Audiences can play Lara Croft Go when waiting for public transport/commuting or just at home.

3) When designing Lara Croft Go people at square enix  looked at the settings of both the Tomb Raider video games and the Indiana Jones movies for inspiration.

4) Diversion, relationships

5) The target audience for Lara Croft Go is possibly older women around the age 20-35 as this brings nostalgia to the 90s video game Tomb Raider.