These days it's nigh-on impossible to do a decent version of Lara Croft without offending or upsetting someone, but back in 1996 developers Core Design were in full-on Teenage Boy mode (as was the industry at this point too), designing Lara as this initially elusive hooded warrior of untold skill, only for her to perform some physics-defying acrobatics and whip out a pair of pistols to take out a pack of ravenous wolves in mid air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpkm7SrPFFQ In a decade where Hollywood had the mediascape sewn up with machismo and one-liner-stitching, it was refreshing to see a female character debut with enough clout to take anyone on, and regardless of how insanely ridiculous her titanic Toblerone-chest looked at the time (and more-so today), OXMUK's Aoife Wilson put it perfectly on Charlie Brooker's How Video Games Changed The World:
"There's so much discussion around "Was she an object of female empowerment?", or "Was she an object of male titillation?" When I was like 10 years-old playing that game, it didn't matter. All I saw was a woman, where I'd previously seen a man, and that was huge."
