I always find it impressive when games find new ways to shock me with violence. I think the game devs got their message across very well.

I did not know about Clueless Gamer. The irony!

That was hilarious.

Conan continues to be the only late show host I actually think is funny. This is a great idea for a segment, I've got to watch the rest of them. He reminds me of my girlfriend when she plays video games.

Conan is freaking awesome and so is his show. Not only he's funny, but unlike most of the other hosts, he's not a freaking dick either (Jay Leno, Lennorman, etc).

This is a great segment and this happens to now be one of my favorite ones, awesome job. XD

Holly quick time events Batman!

Question. For those who are shocked at the various death scenes, have you played the other tomb raider games? Lara can die in some pretty horrible ways in all of them, it isn't really anything new. Crushed by boulder, impaled by spikes, falling and breaking her neck, picked up and smashed around on the ground like a rag doll, burn to death, turn into gold and suffocate, and drowning. That is just in the first game too.

I guess the fact that it was more cinematic plays a part in how gruesome the death scenes are in the new games, but remember that in terms of the series' history, pretty terrible deaths are nothing new.

Oh, look, another man on television thinking with his "other head".

'She sees a handbag and now she's distracted'
How he isn't walking round with a black eye for that one, I don't know.

Oh man, these are great! I don't really like Conan's show all that much, but he nails it with these.

Really, it's always fascinated me to see non-gamers play games, to see how they struggle grasping game mechanics. Stuff that's natural to me is like another language for them.

I'm not quite sure how she managed to stay alive for about 5 seconds after getting the wooden spike up her throat and at least partially through her head.

This really made me want to buy the game xD

I really don't get the problem with the dying scene. To me it looked like Lara is gasping for air and is in shock because of what happened. I see nothing sexual about it and if you do I think the problem is more with your mind than the game itself. I actually think that the scene quit fits the gritty feel of the game and makes the player more aware of Lara being in danger / being vulnerable.

Tenmar:

Dude they segregated all of youtube by region. Probably as an answer to prevent slow access to servers which is kinda ingenious but also demonstrates how weak the internet's infrastructure the moment you step out of the US.

Somewhat of a late reply but I just wanted to point out that this is actually quite far from the truth. Among "1st world countries" the US actually has quite terrible internet infrastructure. The situation is much better in Europe and in wealthy parts of Asia. In the US you end up paying multiple times the money for slower connections with horrible data caps and down time compared to EU countries.

The US govt has actually tried paying the companies responsible for the infrastructure to get them to upgrade it but none of the money given has been spent in the last 10 years. You guys should be on 100 down and 10 up connections for 50 bucks a month by now.

The impalement defineately seems like something that would happen in a exploitation movie, more than a regular survival movie. Itīs doesnīt seem fitting in Tomb Raiders context, it is a lot more graphic than most movies out there, itīs a very uncomfortable and drawn out death sequence that repeats over and over if you fail during the sequence.

Not saying it should be removed, but it does seem a bit unnecesary and excessive.

Well, one could make the argument that the phenomenally brutal deaths in the Dead Space series is too harsh of a punishment for an engineer, but I don't remember there being much of a backlash to those.

Well there probably was some since as far as I have noticed DS3 doesn't really has those lenghty animations of your death anymore, you just fell apart like a broken puppet.
I do believe it is there as penalty, you are supposed to feel there is something wrong going on to prevent it in the future. I think it has be scientifically proven that death can be gruesome no matter your current occupation or age :]

Why was no outcry for Issac Clarke?

That poor man is far to precious and incapable to be even depicted like that

I for one appreciate they aren't pulling punches in TR. This kind of edge (I know "edgy" is a dirty word) makes the game world provoking, stirring, and vivid rather than polished vanilla.

Chris Batson:

lumenadducere:

Chris Batson:
Conan, Andrew, and the audience basically had the same reaction as me when I saw that "spike through the head" death a couple of weeks ago. Almost TOO brutal for my tastes.

Yeah, I usually don't care at all about game violence, but that seemed unnecessary. Like, things in ultra-violent games like MadWorld, Manhunt, Postal, etc. aren't an issue for me, yet that made me uncomfortable. I really have to wonder who thought that was a good idea and why the rest of the dev team listened to them.

Exactly! The aesthetic of those environments makes me feel that the graphic violence is justified, if not necessarily "easy" to watch. In this instance though, it just seems - like you said - unnecessary and out of tone with the rest of the game.

I know from the promotional material that the development team wanted to make the world of Tomb Raider more realistic with an emphasis on danger, but this looks downright exploitative. I mean they have her struggle for a few seconds after she gets impaled! Too harsh of a "punishment" for an inexperienced college student.

People struggle when they're impaled. I've seen a man get his throat and neck impaled by a screwdriver. He fucking struggled. He also survived, since it mostly only went through his throat and soft tissue. Anyway, it's not an instant death, and you will absolutely move around if it happens to you, unless it goes through your spinal chord.

I've had the chance to play a little of the game and while some of the death scenes are gruesome when in context of actually playing the game, rather than a small clip to show off the death scene itself, they don't seem out of place at all.

Also throwing Lara to her death is as much fun as it has always been.

Denamic:

Chris Batson:

lumenadducere:

Yeah, I usually don't care at all about game violence, but that seemed unnecessary. Like, things in ultra-violent games like MadWorld, Manhunt, Postal, etc. aren't an issue for me, yet that made me uncomfortable. I really have to wonder who thought that was a good idea and why the rest of the dev team listened to them.

Exactly! The aesthetic of those environments makes me feel that the graphic violence is justified, if not necessarily "easy" to watch. In this instance though, it just seems - like you said - unnecessary and out of tone with the rest of the game.

I know from the promotional material that the development team wanted to make the world of Tomb Raider more realistic with an emphasis on danger, but this looks downright exploitative. I mean they have her struggle for a few seconds after she gets impaled! Too harsh of a "punishment" for an inexperienced college student.

People struggle when they're impaled. I've seen a man get his throat and neck impaled by a screwdriver. He fucking struggled. He also survived, since it mostly only went through his throat and soft tissue. Anyway, it's not an instant death, and you will absolutely move around if it happens to you, unless it goes through your spinal chord.

I didn't mean to imply that someone couldn't survive something like that. I've read a lot of stories of people who've survived self-inflicted shotgun blasts to the head! *shudders* Really, I just found the visceral nature of the death a little too harsh considering the context of a naive, wide-eyed college student putting herself in danger trying to save her friends. In fact, her struggling made it seem all the worse to me. However, this is all the opinion of a fellow naive, wide-eyed college student, so I may have some bias.

By the way, I'm really sorry you had to see something like that. I hope everything turned out alright.

Meatspinner:
Why was no outcry for Issac Clarke?

That poor man is far to precious and incapable to be even depicted like that

Well, that doesn't mesh with the people claiming it doesn't fit well with the narrative. Dead Space is all about violence and gore. Tomb Raider...not so much.

However...I will say that it doesn't bother me to watch Dead Space's deaths. But when Lara suddenly got impaled, I winced. Dunno why, but there ya go.

Tenmar:
I'm sorry but I remember that people wanted their games and women to be as realistic as possible and ya know what? People die in very gruesome ways and you don't get to complain when a developer gives you a realistic character and makes said character die the same way as you see extras die in movies

....

Okay, I had no problem with the game deaths (and found funny how disturbed Conan was) but your griping has made me partly reconsider (also someone bringing up the Lara rape stuff again).

The random spike-shaped tree branch? Not realistic. Rather silly, actually. Firstly that it was quite so long and pointy, and secondly that every fallen tree had exactly the same branch. Thirdly that it went through her neck and - apparently spine or head, somehow.

A real tree branch wouldn't be that long and spike-shaped. It would be shorter and wider (if no less sharp). If it hit Lara in the neck at that speed, it would likely slice open her neck, but she wouldn't impale on it like that, she'd be swept downstream with a bleeding neck. If she was impaled, it would be through the torso - main body mass - otherwise she'd just rip off and keep going downstream. Actually, she might be ripped off even if she hit torso first, depending on where she was impaled, resulting in her being disemboweled.

Are those less gruesome? Possibly. More realistic? Certainly. So why the giant tree spike neck impalement?

I just suggested in another thread that a character firing arrows at a demonic woman's face was a metaphor for oral sex. This, honestly, seem similar. If you mess up, Lara gets face-fucked. By a tree. And we're back to saving her from being raped (to death).