Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy User Manual
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Trigger Happy
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surely be careful never to let Lara become too
individuated. If she were to look photorealistic, too
much like an actual individual woman, what
seductiveness she possesses would thereby be
destroyed. Smith agrees:
We feel that we can make Lara significantly different to the
way she is now, without making her sort of real-life, by only
going up to say twelve to fourteen hundred polygons. You
don’t need to go any higher than that— because you’ll
probably lose some of that feel for her, for how she is now.
With PlayStation2 technology we’ll be able to smooth her
off, without changing the aesthetics that work. We can give
her great facial expressions, and we’ll be spending a lot of
time on clothing technology and working out the physics of
clothes—a cloak, a shirtsleeve . . .
But she’ll never be thoroughly realistic. For Lara Croft
is an abstraction, an animated conglomeration of sexual
and attitudinal signs (breasts, hotpants, shades, thigh
holsters) whose very blankness encourages the (male or
female) player’s psychological projection and is exactly
why she has enjoyed such remarkable success as a
cultural icon. A good videogame character