As hero origin stories go, this one is up there with the best. It perfectly balances young Lara's inexperience with her courageous resilience and effectively demonstrates how she overcomes extreme danger to become an accomplished hero by the game's conclusion. So yes, she is very human, being wounded and beaten throughout the game. But she doesn't require superpowers to strive onward. She draws on her very human brute determination to push herself to succeed and this is what demands our respect as gamers and draws us to root for her success as we play on. With nothing to aid her but her mind and her resourcefulness, she is nothing short of a heroic protagonist throughout the game, constantly striving to save the many lives of her friends and undertaking life-threatening missions in order to try and get them off the island. At times it's hard to relate to your favourite superheroes, what with the weight of the whole world on their shoulders. But in this latest instalment of the Tomb Raider series, we can completely put ourselves in Lara Croft's position. She is purely trying to ensure her and her friends survive. Over an expertly crafted story arc, we follow Lara as she fights off many evils, amongst them being her own insecurities, to save the lives of her friends and defeat the island of murderous scavengers. Crystal Dynamics have honoured the icon of Lara Croft by using each challenge to bring out her greatness and masterfully establish the origins of such a renowned heroine in a refreshingly interesting way. So Lara's back and let's hope she's here to stay as 2013's Tomb Raider has delivered a newly empowered and modernised heroine that allowed Crystal Dynamics to overcome the potential disaster of rebooting an intimidatingly high profile gaming franchise. In a year that has seen a higher than usual number of games centre round a sole heroine, it was important that Crystal Dynamics got their heroic portrayal right and set the bar at a height that reflected Lara Croft's status as a gaming legend. Had they stuck to the indestructible and infamously opaque character, there's a chance Tomb Raider could have paled under the strength of heroines offered up by games like The Last of Us and Beyond Two Souls. But instead, 2013's Lara Croft reminded us why she's as successful as she is.
Born in Yorkshire, Katie is a freelance journalist currently based in Essex. As a keen sports writer, Katie has a diploma in Multimedia Journalism from the Press Association and has worked on the busy Newcastle Chronicle sports desk. She has also written for Gateshead FC and contributed to various websites including Give Me Sport.
When she's not watching sports, films or playing music, she's gaming. 8 hours and eventually reaching wave 80 on Modern Warfare 3′s Resistance is a productive day!
