A good character can represent an entire generation or just a game genre that is powerful. No matter how far back we may go in gaming there is always a connection to be found and an experience that others can share with you. These mascots of the gaming world are much more than a person in a rubber suit representing our colleges or favorite sports teams. They represent a feeling, an idea and most importantly the power of the human mind.

1. The Mario Brothers:

Well this one is obvious, they’re basically the little Italian men that started it all. Hell, Mario is the guywho is dodging barrels and saving the damsel in distress before he even had a game himself. His nemesis is a guerrilla with an identity crisis who thought he was a donkey and there were more ladders than most of us would care to ever actually climb.

Then he met up with his brother and they went on to fight Bowser and save the Princess as well as the Mushroom kingdom. Mario and his brother Luigi are the most iconic characters in video game history and probably the most popular plumbers to never actually unclog a pipe. They’ve had cartoons, a movie and merchandise named after them. The Mario Brothers are where many of us started as gamers. We will always have fond memories of these brothers no matter what platform we’ve chosen as our favorite.

Director Motomu Toriyama  , who you will note was the one who took the town areas out Final Fantasy XIII because they were “too much work” and wilderness lead planner Yui Umeda, who has a job title that doesn’t even make sense, enthusiastically answered that yes, Lightning is bigger. In fact, she’s gone from a C-cup to a D-cup. We wish we were joking about this, but Toriyama actually instructed his team to make them bigger and even jiggle. Toriyama did clarify though that, “It actually depends on the wear you select. Sort of like supportive underwear.”

Classy.

Of course the world, which needed no reason to hate any Final Fantasy XIII game anymore, found some new ammunition. Square Enix was bombarded and criticized. What seemed like just some fun, if somewhat creepy additions in the form of costumes and poses – some which were throwbacks to previous Final Fantasy games like Cloud’s Buster Sword and SOLDIER outfit, and Yuna’s kimono – have turned out to be yet another insane dive into the worship that Toriyama has for the “goddess”.

Or has it?

Let’s be honest here: Tifa, even by the standards of the 90’s, wasn’t exactly anything less than gifted (and she wasn’t that old either). Ashe from Final Fantasy XII wore a mini-skirt hither tither, battling over-whelming beasts while some of us waited for the inevitable slip and peek. Even Vanille, from Final Fantasy XIII, was constantly revealing her inner thighs and indulging the shadier fans among us with her child-like antics. And don’t even get us started on Final Fantasy X-2, which was a menagerie of fan service in every serviceable form, from the interactions between the three girls, to their dresses, to the villainess’s dress and more.

But then, look at Lara Croft in the latest Tomb Raider reboot. She’s grittier, tougher and goes through far more torture than most mainstream males do (with the exception of Isaac “Did I Just Survive a Moon Being Dropped on Me?” Clarke). But even if her body is fairly more realistic and proportioned this time around, she’s still parading around in tight jeans and revealing an ample amount of cleavage.

Honestly, the game industry is incredibly sexualized, because the core belief – that game developers are catering to males – will always exist. However, great games always have their say as well – whatever we may say about Croft’s exposure, she was part of an excellent adventure. And no amount of fan service could excuse the fact that Final Fantasy XIII was an awful game (Final Fantasy X-2 less so but still). It’s not hard to make money by pushing a mentally strong heroine either, and in fact, it can be argued that games like Portal 2 did better than games with male heroes.

However, it’s important to look at Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII’s attempt to sexualize or fetishize as just an attempt to cater to the more “devoted” fans of the character. Heck, why else would they include a Cloud costume and Yuna costume? It can’t be because of the insane exposure those offer. In the same way, there are plenty of costumes within the game that help conceal or expose Lightning as much as the player wants.

As for the new “physics” adorning Lightning’s assets? Well, is it as exaggerated as Dead or Alive? Is it any more ridiculous than Saints Row? Can it be viewed as a means to cash in on players’ whims to see the female anatomy jiggle? Does it matter? It’s there, and honestly, it would be a whole lot weirder if they didn’t move at all, even if Lightning was a C-cup.

Regardless, the debate is just that: a debate. We can argue over whether Square Enix is committing a travesty when it’s nowhere near as overt as Dragon’s Crown’s sexuality. We can also argue about the developer doing everything in its power to make the game a success, which includes fan service in all its forms and a new “open world” approach. Or we can just argue that the Final Fantasy XIII series at this point has gone way paste its expiration date.

Because when people want to trash your entire game over something like increasing your heroine’s breasts by one size – or even the other way around, where people are reluctant to rush to game’s defence because it’s just another in a line of f**k-ups – well, it’s time to wrap it up, move on and try something else, no?

Square Enix have released a video which shows the final battle of the game. There are spoilers here obviously but this shows the amount of care put into the enemies, environments and details.

The battle is quite hectic but also very challenging as it’s not easy to fight through undead Japanese soldiers. I think that’s what they were. The entire premise of the section to save Lara’s friend but this section features Oni who are strong enemies that aren’t easy to defeat.

Considering the environment is breaking apart due to strong winds, it gives advantage to Lara to sit back and pepper these enemies with bullets. There are enemies on top of towers who have an advantage over Lara and some of them also charge at her not allowing her to use her weapons properly.

Check out the video below.

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It’s a deep, eye opening read so I would recommend people to go there, but there’s a point I need to make. Women in revealing costumes is not an indicator of consent. Men need to realise this; most of them do, of course, but when such incidents happen in 2013, something needs to be done about it.

The entire mindset needs to change. One cosplayer who saw the whole thing, was interviewed by The Mary Sue and here’s what she had to say:

“At other conventions I have done more revealing costumes like Rogue, Emma Frost, Huntress, and Wonder Woman. I had always liked the Tomb Raider game, the comics and the movies,” she said.

“I had played the demo in SDCC this past summer and was just blown away by the graphics and just how incredible it was. I decided on Friday to wear khakis, a grey tank top and my official Tomb Raider necklace to the Tomb Raider panel.”

“The other Laras all wore khakis, combat boots, grey tanks, had a bow and did some blood makeup. I think we were all pretty excited.  We were taking pictures in the booth and then we moved out towards the walkway so that people walking by could see a group of Lara Crofts. We took more pictures and then this guy comes up and asks if he could ask a few questions. His partner had a more professional looking camera and so I think all of us just shrugged and said ok.”

Then the interviewer asked a question: “How does it feel to  be at a convention where none of the men could please you?”

Such a thing needs no explanation really and reflects badly on the outlet the guy was representing. Sadly, Megan Marie didn’t name the outlet and wished to keep it anon, and that’s perfectly a right thing because of how quickly things can spiral out of control on the internet.

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tomb Raider didn’t have it any better, as writer Rhianna Pratchett for the new reboot spoke about not only the problems facing female protagonists in games but diverse characters as well.

Speaking to Kill Screen, she stated that, “You’ve got a situation where female characters do get scrutinized more than male characters do, and in some ways can be seen as holding a banner up for female characters.

“A lot gets heaped on their shoulders. Lara Croft gets a lot more scrutiny than Nathan Drake does, as a female. Nobody talks about how well Nathan Drake is representing men, or male characters in games.”

“Developers themselves are much more diverse than the characters. Whenever anybody talks about a need for more female protagonists I say: ‘There’s a need for more female protagonists, but there’s a need for characters of different ethnicities, ages, sexual orientation, ability, et cetera.’ We are very narrow when it comes to our characters.”

In fact, she wanted to work to make Lara more womanly in Tomb Raider; maybe even make her gay and explore the different complexities of gender and sexuality. Games like Mass Effect have tried, for a while, but the industry is still yet to fully embrace the notion.

“There’s just so much to be explored, if we could just be a little bit braver about our characters. Because gamers can take it, I think,” says Pratchett.

PC gaming has an unlikely ally in Square Enix due to them giving a lot of attention to the PC version of games they publish. Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sleeping Dogs and the upcoming Hitman: Absolution–all look spectacular on the PC, and it’s only because of the additional resources greenlighted by them.

So the question on everyone’s minds is, will Tomb Raider be the same? The answer is yes, but more details will be revealed later.

“We spent a lot of time making sure that the standard here is good enough for someone who’s only ever experienced Tomb Raider on PC,” Art director Brian Horton explained to EDGE.

“We have dedicated people making sure the PC game feels just like console ones, but at the same time takes the best advantage of the format. We’ll have things like being able to have higher-resolution textures— There’s a lot of details I can’t go into right now, but the PC version will definitely make those who have a powerful gaming PC very, very happy.”

The PC version of Sleeping Dogs was specially encouraged by Square Enix, and the game also received a high res texture pack.

“When the game changed hands from Activision to Square Enix, Square was incredibly supportive of the PC version and actually wanted us to do more with it. It was at that point that we began to focus more resources on the PC version and it became what it is,” senior producer of the game Jeff O’Connell revealed.

So we can expect something similar here. The game comes out next year for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The recently leaked Tomb Raider Trilogy has now been confirmed by Square Enix for the PS3- exclusively. It will contain Tom Raider Underworld, and HD remastered versions of Tomb Raider Legend and Tomb Raider Anniversary.

The package will also include some bonus content as well, such as a Tomb Raider Trilogy PS3 theme, the official Lara Croft female avatar outfit, the official Viking Thrall male outfit, and a collection of some Making Of videos.

“We’re really excited to be able to offer gamers the chance to play both Legend and Anniversary ‘remastered in high definition on the PlayStation 3,” said Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher. “These are two titles we are extremely proud to have created.”

This package will be released in the US on march 22nd and UK on March 25th.

We are originally used to seeing the pampered Lara Croft in her castle go rogue as the good life is not enough for her as she goes treasure hunting to for fill that void.  Well the next Lara Croft game shows her from a different light, all rugged and bad ass looking as seen on the cover of the next issue of Game Informer. Head of Crystal Dynamics, Darrell Gallagher, says to “Forget everything you knew about Tomb Raider” and goes on to say that the new game is “an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other.” I suppose this is a prequel even though the picture leads me to think otherwise but the story is that a younger Lara Croft becomes stranded on a mysterious island with her boat being destroyed from a storm. That is all the info so far stay tuned for more or pick up the next issue of Game Informer if your not subscribed to it.  Oh yeah the title is great.. it’s called “Tomb Raider”.  The original game titles are just what you name games when you run out of ideas now i guess.

Gaming magazine PC Gamer’s spies have seeded the rumours that the next Tomb Raider game is going to be open world. “Set on a Japanese island, the idea is to have one, cohesive level with multiple ways around the puzzles,” says the ‘Spy’ section of the magazine.

“We’ll also be exploring Lara’s origins, so she’ll be younger and inexperienced in the ways of raiding tombs.”

We will keep you posted as more information on this matter comes our way.