I didn’t think Lara Croft would be showing up again.  At least not anytime soon.  But you know, steam sale, cheap copy of Tomb Raider and… I am full on crush.  I am not sure why this version of the character has resonated so much when past ones did not.  The boobs might help.  Or might be representative of why.  Lara is hardly small chested now but more realistically proportioned and so is everything else about her.  She feels more like a living and breathing character.  I won’t really address if she is now a feminist icon or eye candy designed to attract boys, mainly because I don’t think it’s a binary formula, she can have feminist elements and still be designed as eye candy.  She can fall somewhere along the spectrum, there is work to do but that doesn’t mean no work has already been done.  I will say this, I realized this time through not only do I identify with her as I played her (despite some representatives backwards ideas) she comes across as a genuine hero.  If I were in trouble I would want to be saved by Lara Croft.  And that is… not a neat trick but it almost feels like it.  A refreshing point to get, a game where she is defined by heroics, wants and desires rather than by her relationship to a man.  There isn’t a romantic relationship at all, really. It’s pretty great.  She is pretty great.  So here is where I objectify her… today I want to fuck Lara Croft.