Girl Power

By Jason Hill
April 20, 2006
smh

Lara Croft's creator has been reunited with his million-dollar baby but controversy still surrounds his high-kicking adventurer.

A decade after she raided her first tomb, Lara Croft remains the world's most recognised game character.

Lara was instrumental in gaming's rise to mainstream entertainment as well as in attracting many women to pick up a joypad for the first time.

After six Tomb Raider games selling 25 million copies and two films grossing more than $500 million, it is easy to forget how revolutionary Lara was in 1996. At the time, the game industry was focused on adolescent males and few titles featured female characters, let alone in starring roles.

Lara Croft's rise to pop culture stardom included appearing on stage with U2, on countless magazine covers, television commercials and even a music single. Lara also became PlayStation's de facto mascot just as gaming hit the mainstream - a modern icon to replace the childish heroes of the past such as Mario and Sonic.

Lara's creator, Toby Gard, wanted to create a smart, athletic archaeologist in the Indiana Jones mould.

"Lara is fire and ice, mind and passion, strength and agility, but she is also an unusual anti-hero," he says.

"She pursues knowledge of the past, uncovers mysteries, but for her own personal reasons, and nothing stands between her and those goals. She inhabits a world full of mystery, not least of which is Lara herself."

Gard famously quit Tomb Raider developer Core Design after the first game was released, in protest at how Lara's physical dimensions had been drastically inflated to titillate, turning his back on millions of dollars in royalty payments.

"I left as a result of my disapproval of the sexualised marketing of Tomb Raider," Gard says.

"Over the years she was marketed in more and more sleazy ways, which were completely contrary to the goal of the character, and as a result lost a little of her popularity."

The latest Tomb Raider game released last week reunited Lara's creator and the buxom heroine for the first time in a decade.

After leaving developer Core Design in protest at the sexualisation of his beloved character, Toby Gard established a new studio, Confounding Factor. But the venture closed in 2004 after the failure of its first project, a critically panned pirate adventure called Galleon.

Returning to where he began, Gard was recruited by publisher Eidos to work on Tomb Raider: Legend with developer Crystal Dynamics. Eidos hope Legend will resurrect what many critics consider a flagging franchise after the disastrous reception to 2003's Angel of Darkness.

"I was brought in primarily to create the new look for Lara," says Gard, "but I ended up having input on the story, and overseeing all the other characters' designs, directing the cinematic, working on Lara's movement system and generally consulting on the design."

Despite his famous exit from Core, Gard still feels pride in his creation.

"It's a really cool thing to see Lara being so popular. It's especially mind boggling when I think that a character I made up ended up being turned into two Hollywood movies," he says.
Despite turning his back on millions in royalties, Gard has no regrets. "You are who you are because of your choices. I learned a great deal by leaving Core that I could not have learned if I'd stayed."