Trigger Happy
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a different lock. A Tomb Raider door, therefore,
operates as a symbol for “exit” or “threshold,” a means
of policing movement between predefined spaces, and a
key operates symbolically a little like a minor powerup,
a second-order sign denoting “ability to use door.”
There are also clearly artificial symbolic
conventions in the gameplay of the Tomb Raider world:
for instance, if a stone block is a slightly different shade
of brown or gray from its neighbors, that tonal contrast
is operating as a symbol for “pushable”—the player
knows that Lara is able to push the block out of the way
in order to climb up onto it, or to uncover a hidden
passage. The “medikits” that Lara finds scattered
around, meanwhile, are iconic in that they look like
little leather bags with a red cross painted on them—but
their function is purely symbolic. We are not meant to
imagine that Lara really sews up her bullet wounds
with the contents; they are conventional power-ups,
restoring Lara’s health in the time-honored, blatantly
artificial manner. For all its heightened graphic
naturalism, then, the mechanics of the game still
operate, just as in Pac-Man, as a symbolic system. The
“realistic” skin hides a semiotic cyborg.
