The Tomb Raider series is a series of video games with distinctive adventure plots which combine elements from traditional fantasy stories (such as the end-of-game guardian dragon) with the adventure style of Indiana Jones stories and Science Fiction (for example the Area 51 level). The path of the narrative is partly pre-ordained by the programmer but also partly conditioned by the decisions of the person playing the game and his or her developing skills.

The traditional structure of an adventure game is maintained. The player has to solve problems, find treasures and fight off enemies and there are end-of-level guardians to be fought before the next level can be attained. The action takes place in a variety of exotic locations. For example, Tomb Raider III begins in India, moves to the South Pacific, to London, to Nevada (part of the action takes place in Area 51), and finally to Antarctica.

One aspect of the game is the inventory. The player has a variety of objects which can be called up on the screen. They appear in a circle and they can be rotated, then the player selects the item. This was used in a recent Lucosade advertisement on British TV. The assumption was made that the audience would know this method of selection and the convention that although Lara was being attacked by wolves in the commercial, the wolves would wait while she selected from the inventory.

The story is enhanced with animated video clips. I consider the one which introduced Tomb Raider III as worthy of detailed semiotic analysis. I have chosen this clip because it introduces the narrative to the reader and contains a number of intertextual links.

It begins with a captioned picture of Los Alamos and a close up on a snake. The Tomb Raider title and the general theme of the story echoes the Indiana Jones trilogy. Snakes also figure as an important symbol of in the Indiana Jones story as a symbol of a fear which has to be overcome for the hero to complete his quest. Is it significant that it is also a phallic symbol and the text of this clip introduces a theme of ‘girl power.’

Next the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion appears, followed by the sound. The atomic bomb is a ‘potent’ symbol of patriarchal science’s conquest of nature and at the same time of its destructive potential. It signifies the tough male world in which Lara has to assert her authority.

The next shot is of the sun and a spinning disk coming towards the user. The shot of the sun has the lines radiating from it which would appear on a camera lens if this were a ‘real’ film rather than an animation. The sun is a feminising life-giving symbol and it is echoed in the shape of the disc. The disc however has been contaminated by the atomic explosion and the reader can see the electrical discharges flowing across it in a way reminiscent of the effect with which pupils are familiar from Return of the Jedi which is used to signify both the power and the destructiveness of the emperor.

The scene shifts, with another caption, to the Imperial Hotel in Calcutta. A very ‘blocky’ angular Lara is reading her book "Adventurers - Lara Stamps Out Bigfoot." The book is a hardback. The style of cover normally associated with children’s books of the era of Indiana Jones although the story is set in the present day. The scene and the prop signify her wealth and success in this. She is an ‘adventurer’ (The term adventuress seems inappropriate) a white anglo saxon in a third world country in a privileged setting.

English people do not normally wear sunglasses and they were once associated with film stars who often wore them because of the bright lights under which they had to work for long periods. Lara’s sunglasses are circular. This is now an archaic design which suggests the temporal ambiguity which pervades the narrative. They are a useful device for showing her face as well as what she is looking at simultaneously. In addition the sign signifies ‘holiday’ - an escape from the daily round and ‘mystery’ because they conceal part of the face and are associated with ‘dangerous people’ such as screen gangsters.

Larsen who is only seen reflected in Lara’s sunglasses says, "What has a man got to do to get that kind of attention?" in a strong American accent which contrasts strongly with Lara’s upper-class English accent. From the reflection in her sunglasses we can see Lara appraising him. She says "You’re doing fine."

One reading of this exchange is that a real man can get the attention and approval of Lara despite his rudeness. Gemma Moss (Moss 1989, 97) suggests that we "bring to the text assumptions about gender which channel the way I read." Reversing the roles would suggest a very different power relationship. If a girl came up to a male adventurer with the plea, "What has a woman got to do to get that kind of attention," to which the man responds by looking her up and down and saying, "You’re doing fine."

This second reading is underscored by what follows. It transpires that Larsen is there not on his own account but as an emissary (and bait?) for the Natler Corporation "makers of all things bright and beautiful." He opens a lap top computer on which the face of Miss Jacqueline Natler appears. She tells Larsen to "seal it" and he obediently steps out of the picture.

The lap top - the emblem of the ‘yuppie’ in England - firmly locates the narrative in the present day. Ms Natler is a power-dresser with padded shoulders. In the context of the screen she resembles a newsreader, particularly as she proceeds to make use of visual aids.

Her main function is to establish the character and importance of Lara. In the first place the powerful Natler corporation is trying to bribe Lara to undertake a dangerous mission. Lara rejects this out of hand, saying "I only play for sport." This is an appeal to the cult of the gifted amateur. It would not do for Lara to be working for money.

Lara’s financial status is interesting. The introductory pamphlet with the PC version of the game makes it clear that she is from an aristocratic English family who have disowned her and that she makes money from the sale of books about her adventures, such as her encounter with Bigfoot. One of the purposes of the book in the opening title sequence is to suggest that this game is part of a continuing story. It is one of the things which encourages fan fiction which fills in the gaps in the story.

Jacqueline Natler responds to Lara’s rejection of her offer without any delay by offering her the adventure of seeking the unfound tomb of Qualopec and the artefact of awesome power which it contains. It is Lara’s spirit of adventure which is appealed to with the graphics and description of the challenge of Peru.

The description, "rocky crags, savage winds, sheer walls of ice" provokes the only response we hear from Lara. The response is hard to put down on paper as it is a sound which suggests yielding to temptation (hmm). She did not respond to Larsen with anything like the same enthusiasm.

When Jacqueline Natler ends her appeal, You could start tomorrow, what are you doing tomorrow?" Lara raises her head and the picture focuses on her sunglasses and the eyes behind. The fact that she is looking upwards is the only suggestion of assent but the context makes anything more clear unnecessary. At this point the clip ends and the player is invited to start the game.

Lara is established as a person who seeks danger (and thus makes the narrative possible) and as a woman of power who can defy the giant corporations even when their top woman tries to tempt her with riches.

The use of the word ‘sport’ is illuminating because it provides another context in which British women appear in public as lightly clad as Lara usually is but where this is not perceived as dressing for a male audience. Lara is highly athletic but her agility depends on the user.

In theory the user has to go through each level to reach the next, although there are cheats which will enable the user to skip a level when they cannot solve it and the other kind of cheat which gives the answers to the puzzles which the user is facing. These cheats are eschewed by some dedicated games players but written by other dedicated games players.

If cheats are used to remove the puzzle elements there are further cheats which can enhance Lara’s weapons and make the shoot-em-up element of the game easier. Lara uses pistols by default but there are a arange of other weapons available which cheats can access without the player 'earning' them. There is even a cheat of questionable utility which makes Lara explode.

Thus it is possible to play the game as an exploration of exotic locations, as a labyrinth and a puzzle or as a straight shoot-em-up game.

Lara has a variety of moves, the number of which increases with each new game. Here the symbiosis between the player and Lara-as-transitional-object is closest. Lara’s agility can only be unlocked by a skilful player and the motivation to do this is high. Different levels will require different skills. For example in Tomb Raider 3 there is a level in which Lara is disarmed and has to escape from a military prison - she can only do so with the aid of a skill introduced specifically for this game.

The identification of Lara with sport also plays another role. The image of the ‘computer nerd’ is one which the video games industry in general and Playstation in particular are keen to ditch. The ‘Power of Playstation’ series of advertisements all stress that only the toughest can survive in their virtual world, reality is for wimps. Virtual play replacing ‘real play’ would suggest that the skills developed playing these games acquire as much cachet among pupils as skill in playing more traditional sports like cricket. And for parents there is the bonus that it is safe. Playing outside may be healthy but the streets are not perceived as healthy places to play.

The game takes the user from the apparent reality of the hotel, lap-top computers and worldwide corporations into another reality in which battles with dragons and dinosaurs replace human interactions. The user enters a world where Lara Croft is essentially alone and pitted against a very hostile world.

Many of the motifs of this world are taken from the Indiana Jones stories with which users are assumed to be familiar. In the written introduction Lara Croft is described as an archaeologist and expert on ancient civilisations. In fact her ‘knowledge’ will come entirely from the user and the user’s ability to pick up clues from the animations which come between levels and from the exploration of each level itself.

There are many animal opponents starting with the wolves and bats in the first level of Tomb Raider. Her human opponents are foreign villains or hostile natives. In these respects this follows the Indiana Jones tradition as well.

The confused chronology to which I have already referred also contributes to this. Stories which were acceptable to a white anglo-saxon male audience in the thirties are sneaked back under the guise of nostalgia. The story line is one which is worked out between the programmer and the user but there is no way to avoid killing the animals and the dastardly foreigners and win the game. However, a user who concentrates on killing to the exclusion of all else can only win by cheating.

I was struck by the culture which has grown up around Tomb Raider on the Internet. One letter which I received on the Letters to Lara site highlighted some interesting dichotomies:

First a word of caution: identity on the Internet is nebulous and there is a possibility that this "18 year old female" could be a 50 year old male.

The phrase "I love the weapons you wield. However, I’m frightened of guns in real life." shows a clear separation from Lara Croft as transitional object and "Jill S in RL" She then echoes a frequent comment from my pupils in Letters to Lara about reluctance to kill the animals in the game. Lara is frequently attacked by tigers and lions, even monkeys and has to kill them. The player also learns to search the bodies of the slain for rewards. This letter does not give any indication of a player desensitised to violence does it?

The nude raider sites are a particular bete noir of fans of Tomb Raider. Someone came up with the idea of doctoring screenshots from the game to remove Lara’s clothes. There is even a downloadable ‘patch’ which converts the game so that Lara is nude. Lara has been described as an adolescent boy’s fantasy (Guardian Pass notes, 15 12 98) yet many of the fans of Tomb raider have been so incensed about the nude raider sites they have set up a "nude raider free" web ring and ban any sites with nude raider links or pictures from it.

Like some of my female pupils, Jill identifies with and feel empowered by Lara’s clearly dominant role in the game and adopts ostensibly aggressive postures, "I wouldn't mind throwing a few punches their way myself" while keeping her distance from violence in real life. "Jill S in VR" would cheerfully throw punches but "Jill S in RL" is clearly recognised as a different person.

There are a number of "nude raider free" sites which are devoted to fan fiction, much of it from ostensibly female writers. Fan fiction is not dissimilar from an activity with which all English teachers will be familiar. Pupils are asked to write alternative chapters to Great Expectations or conversations between Hamlet and Horatio. The difference being that few pupils would describe themselves as fans of Shakespeare or Dickens.

[Another factor is that pupils rarely know who the authors of video games are. They may be fans of Lara Croft rather than of Richard Flower. This is partly because video games are usually thought of as the production of a team rather than an individual. Richard Flower is one of a team of 32 people credited with the production of Tomb Raider III ]

Playing Tomb Raider has been compared with voyeurism. Using the kind of language to which they would object if it appeared in The Sun, The Guardian described her as "athletic, but breathtakingly full-frontal. If she were real she would fall over." (Guardian Pass Notes December 1, 1998)

Lara Croft figures largely in the publicity for the Tomb Raider trilogy. One picture in particular deliberately echoes the pose which Joanne Walley adopted in the publicity for Scandal. Lara Croft’s head and bare shoulders are visible as she looks over the top of a black chair. Her elbows are on the top of the chair and positioned so that her breasts are not visible and the audience cannot see whether she is wearing any clothes. Her bare thighs can be seen either side of the chair, the lower part of her legs is cut out of the shot. She is not wearing the characteristic holsters and holster-ties and there is no gun in the shot

In this picture her face is far less angular than in the other shots and by not showing all of her legs they are not seen as jointed like those of a marionette. The image of the attractive notorious alleged prostitute Christine Keeler is being evoked but to what purpose? Lara Croft does not resemble Christine Keeler, who in most versions of the story is depicted as a willing victim.

In fact in the scene in Scandal from which the shot is taken, Christine Keeler is involved in an erotic show at a night-club. This is an activity very different from those Lara Croft undertakes in the game but there remains the fact that the game operates in such a way that Lara Croft is usually the central image on the screen and there are moves which most pupils can demonstrate which cause the game to focus on parts of her body, usually her breasts. The game could be run in high resolution by someone who wanted to run those particular moves. It would be a highly expensive way to purchase some soft pornography.

The image of Lara Croft in the publicity is different from the image of Lara Croft in the game itself. It is more ‘human’ and softer than her image in the game. This is emphasised by the fact that most pupils playing the game reduce the resolution on the picture so that the game will run faster. This increases the ‘blocky’ marionette quality of Lara Croft and decreases her quality as a sex object.

Nevertheless I think the role of Lara Croft in the publicity for the game is literally ‘ad-vertising’ turning the potential user towards the game. The reason for purchase may well be quite different.

In "Joystick Nation" Herz details the method by which the highly successful manufacturer Nintendo market their games in waves. The first wave is deliberately restricted so that a relative handful of users have the opportunity to play the game and tell their friends how good it is. Remembering how soon the game sold out in the first wave, the second-wave purchasers will eagerly watch for the re-appearance of the game and ensure a highly profitable outcome. (Herz, 1997).

The success of this strategy indicates that for game players, pictures of Lara Croft might attract them to the game but it is the game play which is more likely to get them to actually buy it. In the same way, motor manufacturers were in the habit of paying girls to wear bikinis and lie on the bonnets of sports cars. This might have caused buyers to notice the car, the purchase was more likely to be on the basis of the power of the car.

Eidos emphasise the use of Artificial Intelligence in the creation of the game which suggests that they recognised the importance of game play. The game is a puzzle and has fifteen levels which the programmers have tried to make as different as possible. Each game in the trilogy has more complex and different locations than the one before, showing a growth in the programmers’ skill.

For these reasons, I think the view that voyeurism is a key factor in the popularity of the game need to be modified. For my pupils, the voyeurism was there but superficial, there was much more interest in the gameplay.

Now read Method of the project