The gang is back with brand new Nintendo games, Dark Souls 2, the Tomodachi controversy, and your emails!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/37390/episode-382-the-gerenicity
James kicks off this episode with extended thoughts on Stick It to the Man, a bizarre comedy-adventure out now on Wii U and several other platforms. Guillaume checks out Kirby Triple Deluxe for 3DS and learns that it's... a lot like other Kirby games. He also shares final thoughts and a weighted recommendation for Child of Light. Feeling inspired by our recent discussions of Mario sports games, Jon checks out the classic Mario Tennis for Game Boy Color (thanks to Virtual Console). Jonny celebrates the announcement of a Metroid-style sequel to Stealth Inc. (on Wii U, no less!) by trying the first game on his Vita. He also tries Dark Souls 2 --after many, many suggestions by RFN listeners-- and finds much to enjoy, amid all the frustration and curse-filled rage.
We have a great selection of Listener Mail this week, starting with a past-blast as we're asked to follow up on a comment made on the show in 2010 about how Wii games would hold up, graphically speaking, years later. It expands into a larger discussion of why some games look great forever, while others are hard to revisit -- and which generations struggled the most with it. Next up is a timely question about diverse characters and stories in Nintendo games, which gave us a perfect chance to recap and discuss the very fluid Tomodachi Life controversy. Keep in mind that we recorded this before Nintendo of America's updated comments! These topics ate up most of our time, but we fit in one more question about the impact of stereoscopic 3D displays on free-roaming 3D platformers. Yeah, it's a bit confusing.
We've got more catching up to do for Listener Mail in the coming weeks, and there's been a surprising amount of news considering it's pre-E3 season, so please continue to let us know what you think and suggest topics for the show! Until next time, you can also hear more from Guillaume on the Purpose Rockstar podcast, as well as Jonny and Karl freaking out over the energetic vocals of Otis Redding on a new episode of Discover Music Project.
To call Nintendo homophobic or whatever due to not making it possible to be gay in your random relationships in a kiddy game is just making a mountain out of a molehill. I see many people calling it a life simulation game, but I imagine they don't know about how it works, and think it's a Sims clone.
That said, I sure would like to see a game that attempts to include miscellaneous fetishes on top of every orientation in an attempt to satisfy everybody.
Most respected video game bloggers know better than to make claims like this, but yes, part of the people who turned this into a big deal to begin with are acting like Nintendo is homophobic/discriminatory. I brought up how Japanese people portray themselves as Caucasian in media, and apparently that means they're discriminating against themselves too and have a wrong culture.
That's what I gathered from Reddit's r/games subreddit.
To call Nintendo homophobic or whatever due to not making it possible to be gay in your random relationships in a kiddy game is just making a mountain out of a molehill. I see many people calling it a life simulation game, but I imagine they don't know about how it works, and think it's a Sims clone.
That said, I sure would like to see a game that attempts to include miscellaneous fetishes on top of every orientation in an attempt to satisfy everybody.
It's interesting to hear the RFN crew tackle something as contentious as LGBT & minority representation in video games. I largely agree with Guillaume that I don't trust the current writing talents to make any attempt to make a nuanced gay character that isn't a bad stereotype.
I watched one of the Tropes v. Video Games videos on youtube, and while I think there are conclusions stretched quite a few times in the video, there was one statement that rung true to me: the wish for developed characters that just so happen to be women, not characters whose defining trait was the fact that they were a woman. I imagine gay/transgendered people would hope for the same treatment of characters that represent them in media.To call Nintendo homophobic or whatever due to not making it possible to be gay in your random relationships in a kiddy game is just making a mountain out of a molehill. I see many people calling it a life simulation game, but I imagine they don't know about how it works, and think it's a Sims clone.
That said, I sure would like to see a game that attempts to include miscellaneous fetishes on top of every orientation in an attempt to satisfy everybody.
Have people been really calling Nintendo homophobic over this? I haven't been keenly following this, but while I wouldn't be surprised over the internet making these claims, I would be disappointed if video game journalists did the same.
I'l repeat my stance, from the talkback thread - Nintendo should just not include a gender option in these games, then it wouldn't matter what kind of character you enter a relationship with.
It's interesting to hear the RFN crew tackle something as contentious as LGBT & minority representation in video games. I largely agree with Guillaume that I don't trust the current writing talents to make any attempt to make a nuanced gay character that isn't a bad stereotype.
I watched one of the Tropes v. Video Games videos on youtube, and while I think there are conclusions stretched quite a few times in the video, there was one statement that rung true to me: the wish for developed characters that just so happen to be women, not characters whose defining trait was the fact that they were a woman. I imagine gay/transgendered people would hope for the same treatment of characters that represent them in media.To call Nintendo homophobic or whatever due to not making it possible to be gay in your random relationships in a kiddy game is just making a mountain out of a molehill. I see many people calling it a life simulation game, but I imagine they don't know about how it works, and think it's a Sims clone.
That said, I sure would like to see a game that attempts to include miscellaneous fetishes on top of every orientation in an attempt to satisfy everybody.
Have people been really calling Nintendo homophobic over this? I haven't been keenly following this, but while I wouldn't be surprised over the internet making these claims, I would be disappointed if video game journalists did the same.
I'l repeat my stance, from the talkback thread - Nintendo should just not include a gender option in these games, then it wouldn't matter what kind of character you enter a relationship with.
Is the future of nintendo caving to political correctness and just not releasing games like this in the future?
My goals when I selected that email for the show were to treat it seriously, keep a tight context of video games, and avoid any comments based more on political ideology than on simple reason. I felt good about how it went at the time, but in anxious to hear how it sounds a second time, especially after Guillaume sanding off the burrs.
Gay relationships have therefore as much business being in a "kiddy" relationship game as the heterosexual relationships that are already in it.
I think this issue is interesting in the sense that it's an indicator that the definition of family is slowly changing, in North America at least, and Nintendo is now fully aware that it needs to be cognizant of that.
You can't see the forest for the trees.Oh definitely. As i said i barely spent 20 minutes into it. And i AM looking forward to starting it someday.
I'm not the world's best gamer at all, and I'm currently playing Tropical Freeze & failing pretty hard. Those minecart levels are what I consider trial & error, especially in the first DKCR. In many cases you can't react fast enough and you have to memorize the level - in Dark Souls, most of the time you have enough space to at least run away. Games like Metal Gear Rising I had lots of problems with, until I finally could beat it, but somehow I still made it through every game in Souls series, without "trying over and over".I have a creeping suspicion that HDTVs (and maybe wireless controllers) have majorly killed fast action games simply because they impose such a significant lag time between your action and when it's actually gonna be reflected on TV, game designers simply can't afford to operate on timings shorter than say, half a second.