We grew up with games. Now they're growing up with us.

One of the most well-known video game heroines is Lara Croft of Tomb Raider fame.  Let’s take a look at the femme fatale we all know and love:

Her eyes are up there, gentlemen.

That was years ago.  This is Ms. Croft’s current iteration for the next Tomb Raider game:

Shouldn't be hard to find the eyes in this one.

Aside from her battered state and the dramatic graphic upgrade in the second picture, see if you can spot the differences.  I gave you a hint — look at the eyes in the lower picture.  Soft.  Vulnerable.  Human.  And unlike before, she no longer walks out of those tombs looking immaculate and sexy.  She actually looks like an adventurer.

Women have had a turbulent history in games.  They started out as princesses, damsels in distress.  Metroid made strides when it introduced heroine Samus Aran, but most guys never realized they were playing as a woman . . . until they unlocked the ending scene that depicted Samus in a bikini.  After that, it was hard times for a while.  Women still rarely got to be part of the action, and when they were, they always rode into battle in the skimpiest, least practical outfit possible.  I won’t overload this post with pictures, but you’ve probably seen examples.

Maybe one more picture.

The Tomb Raider series saw a drop in sales around 2000 because sex appeal just isn’t a substitute for good gameplay.  Developers had to take note.

Then women started getting into games, and guys had some awkward conversations with our girlfriends when they demanded to know why these avatars were wearing next to nothing.  And then, like magic, us guys started to understand.  We saw screenshots of skimpy bikini-clad girls, and while our gazes still lingered, we rolled our eyes and moved on.

And that brings us to today.  I’m not going to pretend that women aren’t exploited in games anymore.  It still happens, and it happens a lot.  But times are changing.  We’re figuring out that the way we treated women in games was not only exploitative, it was holding the industry back.  We want to play as women who kick ass, not who would look good on the cover of Maxim. Why else would Lara Croft undergo such a dramatic makeover?  And why else would everybody be talking about it?

Lara, you’ve come a long way, baby.

Violence in video games is a tricky subject.  I could write about what is or isn’t acceptable, but the definition of “acceptable violence” varies widely from person to person.

Mortal Kombat is credited (kredited?) as the first mainstream game to take violence to the extreme.  Of course, that was 1992.  Today, we have games like Splatterhouse or God of War, titles whose legacies are built on blood and gore.  But those are the extremes, far beyond the realm of realism.

So what about realism?  Call of Duty: Black Ops has machine guns that perforate bodies and sever limbs.  Realistic, sure, but does that make it acceptable?  The enemies killed in Call of Duty are facsimiles of real armies and people that fought.  They’re humans, or at least representations of humans.  Is it better to disembowel a dragon in an unbelievable shower of blood, or would you rather kill “people,” albeit realistically?

So let’s say that people are off-limits.  How do you define that?  In the Left 4 Dead series, the player shoots, slices and explodes zombies.  They’re humanlike, and they represent humans that were infected by some disease.  Yet there they are, in various states of decay and attacking the player with animal ferocity.  On which side of the “human” line do they fall?

How do you set limits when there are so many trip-ups and loose definitions?

Violence is one of the most complicated moral issues currently faced by video games.  It’s far too heavy to explore in a single post and come out with any sort of satisfying conclusion.

We’re still going to try, though.  Check back again Friday.

This is a blog about video games.  Wait, where are you going?  Come back here.

Alright, it’s a little more than that.  It’s not about the newest trends or latest announcements.  It’s not about reviews.

Many people may hate to admit it, but our culture has been changed by the impact of video games.  Mario is one of the most recognized figures in the world, and there are actual clinics devoted to rehabilitation of people addicted to games like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike.  That’s all (kind of) interesting, but the real fun starts when we look at our our culture is now affecting video games.

Those of us who grew up on the Super Nintendo are college-aged and looking toward our futures and people who started on the NES or earlier now have their own families to take care of.  Our interests have changed, and now the industry that carried us through our childhoods is having to change to accommodate us.  Sometimes it succeeds.  Usually it fails.

So, there are a number of issues here.  Sex and violence are the two most obvious, and they will be discussed, probably at great length.  There are other factors, though: addiction, ease of play and mass appeal are a few.  Join me for the next few months as I check out these themes and how different games (rated “Mature” or not) measure up to our changing standards.