Games Inbox: Is Lara Croft still the most famous female video game character?

The Tuesday letters page tries to imagine a world without big publishers like EA and Activision, as one reader struggles to believe Half-Life 3 might actually be happening.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing articles to run over the Christmas and New Year break, so if you’ve been thinking of writing a Reader’s Feature now would be the perfect time to send it in. It can be on any subject you want, as long as it’s a minimum of 500 words long.

Queen Lara
Interesting that the two games being discussed the most at the moment are Metroid Prime 4 and Tomb Raider, two of the most famous games with female leads. And in both cases one of the complaints is that the characters are boring and overly serious. Samus Aran has always been a bit of a non-entity, although somehow she’s moved into having negative charisma.

Lara Croft is more complicated because the problem is that they started to take her seriously, despite all her games having very silly plots. There’s a reason why Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake are written as funny characters and, to me, that’s the lesson that should be learned for the new Tomb Raiders.

You can’t have dinosaurs and magic amulets in a game and expect to take everything deadly seriously. I am hopefully they seem to realise this because I do feel Lara is still the most recognisable female character.

Maybe you could argue the ones from Arcane are bigger nowadays but I’m not sure most people even realise that’s based on a game, but either way League Of Legends doesn’t have a main character. In terms of being the centrepiece of her own game I still think Lara Croft is number one.
Cosign

Comeback raid
You’re right, that was a pretty weird list of the most watched trailers. I suppose if you took out Phantom Blade 0 (because it was mostly Chinese fans) and Deadpool (because it’s a free game) it’s about what you’d expect, although I am a bit worried that Tomb Raider was not as high as I expected.

To me that was by far the biggest news of the night, although I’m not sure exactly how big the series is in the US. It was massive here, in the UK, or at least it was with the original trilogy, and like many I hope that it can regain at least some of that popularity. I’ve no idea if it will, but what I saw of the trailers was promising.
Houlat

Impossibility machine
Considering how accurate the rumours have been for The Game Awards and other things recently I can only assume that all the talk of Half-Life 3 really is accurate. It makes sense as a launch title for the Steam Machine, almost too much sense, if you know what I mean. It just feels like a fan wild idea, but then I suppose so did Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Shenmue 3 when they were announced.

It truly will be strange to think the game would become something that actually exists after all this time. Like Valve had been in hibernation all this time. What has changed since they were away? Well, Xbox has gone third party and the whole concept of console gaming now seems less solid than it used to be – which is probably exactly what Valve decided to give the Steam Machine a try again.

I still can’t see that working out but if that’s what convinces them to make Half-Life 3 then so be it.
Olliephant

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

T-Rex crisis
The new Tomb Raider trailer looks promising, and I welcome the not-so-serious approach that the showcased footage hints at. If you ask me, dinosaurs are still underused, or more accurately not used to their full potential, in games and films and the new Tomb Raider game might go some way to address this glaring omission.

There’s an ongoing fascination with the prehistoric creatures, so I don’t understand why giant extinct reptiles don’t feature more in games. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a classic and formidable foe. The first Jurassic Park film is an excellent example of how to use this dinosaur well.

Why can’t we have more games with levels like the T-Rex attack sequence in Jurassic Park? A time travel game could feature such a level. Anyway, the upcoming Tomb Raider game does look good and I’m happy that the franchise is prevailing. I suppose positive sales figures for the remastered games may have indicated that there’s still an appetite for more Lara Croft action.
Michael Veal (@msv858)

Dobkeratops lives
I see Strictly Limited games have got an R-Type Dimensions 3 Collector’s Edition, which includes an amazing alien model figurine for PlayStation 5, Switch, Switch 2, and PC. It’s not the final design but it looks amazing! Here’s the link for the actual game and figurine.

It’s a bit out of my price range though at £180 plus shipping! It ships from the UK, I think, so the shipping cost should not be too bad for UK buyers.
Andrew J.

GC: You can get the same thing from ININ, who are based in Germany and the actual publishers, but it’s not any cheaper.

Sub-optimal Prime
Now that a lot of people are playing, and beating, Metroid Prime 4 I think we’ve all got to accept that it’s not that great a game. Even if you think it’s okay, it’s a million miles away from Metroid Prime 1 as the best in the series.

I’m going to be generous and put it down to the difficult development. I’ve got a feeling it wasn’t started from scratch at all, despite what was said, and that it was probably cobbled together with bits and pieces from at least two different versions of the game. Whether one was linear and one wasn’t I couldn’t say but I hope Nintendo take note of the complaints and adjust their plans.

More likely they’ll just look at the poor sales and we won’t see another entry for a decade or more.
Janson

Optional cheats
Ever since I learnt about it, I’ve been looking forwards to Terminator 2D: No Fate, so when it finally released, I bought the Day One Edition at nearly double the cost of £24.99 (It cost £43.95).

After finally watching it on VHS in 1994, Terminator 2 became my favourite film of all time.

I played the NES version soon after (which wasn’t very good) and later played the Mega Drive lightGun game with a control pad, which wasn’t as fun.

It’s a shame GameCentral gave No Fate 4/10 as I enjoyed what I played, even though I knew what other games it was copying.

You said in your review ‘there could have been more hospital levels’ but Sarah Connor was only in the Pescadero Institute once in the film and when she escaped, never returned.

The chase scene with the T-1000 in the factory had a bit of a jump scare when he suddenly runs quickly from behind you.

I’ll end this email by letting other players know that if you rapidly press left and right on a D-pad while the CRT option is highlighted in the Options, you can unlock the Cheats menu* straight away, unlocking infinite health, infinite time and infinite continues.

Completing the game with these on does not affect unlocking Achievements.
LeeDappa
*I’d like to thank StoneGolem on the GameFAQs board of the game who randomly found this out.

GC: Several of the missions are split across multiple levels, or the hospital level could’ve just been longer. It was over before it even really began.

The wait continues
I know it wasn’t rumoured but I’m still disappointed there was no sign of Persona 6 at The Game Awards. I imagine Atlus will want to do their own dedicated event, but I wish they’d get on with it or at least have some sort of hint.

It’s always a long gap between Persona sequels but it’s going to be a decade old next year and that seems a very long time for a sequel to a popular game. Personally, I’d much rather have less spin-offs if it meant the next mainline game coming out a bit quicker.
Spud

Changing of the guard
I’m not sure that the guy who made The Callisto Protocol and had to leave his own studios when it flopped, is in the position to be worrying about the decline of EA and Activision, but it is interesting that more and more people are openly talking about them as has-beens.

A year or go or so GC talked about there being a danger of all the big name publishers going away and, I’ll be honest, I just laughed. And yet here we are and Activision has killed their golden goose, EA has eaten itself, and Ubisoft is half dead already. All that’s left is Take-Two and they barely make anything other than GTA and NBA 2K anyway. What a weird position to be in.

The industry has choked itself to death on greed and stupidity and while I’d love to think that the execs in charge will finally get their comeuppance, in reality they’re the only ones that will get away scot-free, while everyone else loses their job and is made to suffer.

But what happens now? What is the games industry without the giant publishers that used to be its backbone? I’d love to think it was all smiles and happiness, but the sad truth is that the bigger indies will just take their place and become just as corrupt and unimaginative as the old publishers.

However, I do hope that we might have a brief golden age, maybe five years or so, where things flourish. Where games are not so expensive anymore and sequels are not the only things that get made. It won’t last but maybe we can get a brief taste of paradise.
Focus

Inbox also-rans
I’m 53 next month and after reading the story about Star Wars: Fate Of The Old Republic getting released before 2030 and game lead times, I’ve come to the realisation that I’ll be lucky to see GTA 9!
Sootie607

GC: GTA 9?! Assuming the same gap as between GTA 5 and 6 that wouldn’t be until 2065, when you’ll be 93. We’re sure your grandchildren will enjoy it though.

Ace Combat 8 was the best news to come out of The Game Awards as far as I’m concerned. The soundtrack along is going to be worth the asking price.
Radar

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