Well I do agree with you that the new Lara Croft is a step in the right direction (even if I played Tomb Raider 1 and 2 and found them to be fun), but the game and marketing is still oversexualised. On the other hand Feminist Frequency criticises rape and abuse when it's used just to further the male lead character, so...

I prefer the fatuglyorslutty take on this stuff in the gaming arena, at least compared to the media stuff she's covered so far. Still, she's welcome to add her voice, she's not a shrill asshole by any means, whether anyone thinks she's right or wrong.

And as for the abuse, that's sheer bullshit that I don't wish on anyone.

There is a very good opinion piece on thisby Tadhg Kelly in Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/172639/Opinion_Narrative_turns_creepy_in_Tomb_Raider.php

So far, this is to me the most sensible input in this so far. Points of interest:

"Tone and gender are not where my disquiet comes from. It comes from the objectification of pain, which is an area that games sometimes stumble into without realizing it. It's that all games tend to reduce down to their components, and in a sense are dehumanized. It's not about the fact that you're placing the player in a situation of protection, power and control, but rather that the hoped-for emotional connection that the game's maker believes will happen tends not to.

This is so for two reasons. First, the play brain. Its whole job is to synthesize any scenario into a set of components that form the levers of problems it can solve. It tends to reduce, to smooth, to quantify and objectify because that's how it figures out how to win. I often say that perhaps the main reason that games are attractive is that they are simpler, fairer, fascinating and more empowering that real life, and that's largely about the appeal to the play brain. While the game may inspire with its setting and theme, the mechanism matters.

Second, players do experience empathy for game characters, but not really for their own doll. The doll is not a hero and they are not roleplaying. They are simply projecting themselves into the world and interfacing with it through what amounts to a remote controlled action figure. It's a lensed extension of self. This is why so many of the great icons of the game industry are paper thin as characters. Nobody knows nor cares about the motivations of Mario or the back story of the Master Chief because each is just a suit of clothes that the player gets to wear which can perform empowering actions. However narrativists often don't believe that and insist on trying to add character, motivation and empathy to the one part of the game that doesn't need it. So we get cut scenes and dramatizations and exposition.

[...]

The issue is simply this: the emotional connection between player and character that many game makers believe exists does not. There is no such thing as a player character.

The difference between a new Tomb Raider and a Scream is not the level of screaming and slashing, it's that in the film you are empathizing with a heroine, but in a game this action sort of happens to you but not you at the same time. So the feeling is either decidedly 'Meh, get on with it', or 'I don't really find the sensation of pushing this doll into torture scenarios joyful'. Where is the sense of winning in such a scenario, as opposed to just watching it all play out for reasons passing understanding? It gets a little grim, no?

And it makes me wonder about the game designers who come up with this sort of idea because of the stark dissonance between what they think they are making versus what they are actually making. How do you end up at a place where you think that the threat of sexual assault is a perfectly valid way to jazz up an action adventure?"

I really don't find that opinion compelling. I don't see any evidence that the major claim, an emotional connection between player and character does not exist, is true. I do see a bunch of faulty assumptions based on it, though. And the inflammatory and unhelpful nature of the question How do you end up at a place where you think that the threat of sexual assault is a perfectly valid way to jazz up an action adventure? is really obnoxious to me.

I do not mean to sound insensitive in anyway, but I do have to wonder if what you said could as well apply for any incredibly traumatic event. There are games about people whose loved ones have been killed in horrible ways, in front of their eyes. Are those games insensitive to real people whose love ones have been killed in horrible ways in front of their eyes?

Did you find Kill Bill to be an incredibly offensive movie for the attempted rape and the murders?

Rubbish. Sorry, but this article probably the best-written piece of cluelessness that I've seen in a while. The author takes one type of player (the one that only plays himself), styles him into the "only" type, completely ignores all others, and then tries to present this blindfolded view of reality as an argument that actually advocates paper-thin player characters.

Technically well written, but totally clueless about the multitude of player types (and gaming approaches) that exist.