Comments 95

Re: Random: Pandemic Shooter's eShop Page Makes You Wonder If Anyone At Nintendo Checks These Things

Brett

@Spiders Great comment.

The word "queer" is another good example. It's gone from being pretty much exclusively an epithet to a completely proper term. Meanwhile, other completely proper terms have gone the other way. The word "retarded" replaced other terms that had become generic insults, and once "retarded" became a generic insult, it was replaced as well (and the word is generally banned from polite conversation, although it hasn't quite reached the same Voldemort-level of taboo as the n-word).

Language evolves constantly, and there are taboo words today that will recover in some other form, and there are correct terms today that will be out of fashion or offensive at some point. I doubt anybody will be saying "people of color" in 30 years.

The problem is the performative outrage, the impulse to "gotcha" people using last week's terminology, to care only about the superficial terminology of a discussion, and not the actual hearts or minds of the people discussing. That stuff is more toxic than this or any other video game.

If you're talking about banning media that mocks bad ideas, you're adopting something of a Hitler/Trump policy on speech and satire. You're not making the world a better or safer place. "I hate this society" is the language of a mass shooter, not someone seeking to raise understanding between people.

I'm not a right-wing person, and when I hear some guy in a red cap making fun of "woke snowflakes", I tend to roll my eyes and move along. Having read all of the above, I'll probably roll my eyes just a bit less next time.

Re: Random: Pandemic Shooter's eShop Page Makes You Wonder If Anyone At Nintendo Checks These Things

Brett

@Heavyarms55
Political satire, and generally satire of any kind, usually makes fun of bad things, yeah. It's why Charlie Chaplin made an acclaimed satire of Adolf Hitler in 1940, and not one of FDR. If you're troubled by the centuries-old tradition of satire, and if you "hate this society", it may be worthwhile to talk about that with someone more qualified to help than this comments section is.

Re: Random: Pandemic Shooter's eShop Page Makes You Wonder If Anyone At Nintendo Checks These Things

Brett

@Scapetti Well the whole purpose of this article is likely to generate clicks by creating discord and actually drawing out offensive comments and folks offended by them (and everything else). This outrage is performance art.

Incidentally, if one is seeking to protect their children from anti-homophobic satire, I believe the eShop has parental controls, in contrast to this website.

Re: Random: Pandemic Shooter's eShop Page Makes You Wonder If Anyone At Nintendo Checks These Things

Brett

Unless you're the kind to regularly indulge in performative offense-taking, it's hard to find a problem with anything here. The game description is implicitly critical of COVID conspiracists by tying them in with flat earthers.

No conspiracy theorist is going to read this and think, "Oh finally, a game that tells the truth and speaks to ME!" As dumb as they may be, they'll know they're being mocked.

I doubt the game is great, but they should follow it up with a satire of the folks who partake in this whiny kabuki.

Re: Review: The House In Fata Morgana - Brutal, Beautiful Storytelling In This 'Breath Of The Wild' Metascore Rival

Brett

I've been waiting to see a slightly more negative review that mirrored my own experience with the game, but oh well!

I love visual novels and found this one pretty amazing for the first several hours, but eventually the bleakness and sadism of it all just reaches comic levels, like the excessive morbidity and blasphemy of some metal music. Somewhere after the first half I started rolling my eyes or laughing at the tryhardness of it.

The game also seems to present a worldview of "girls like cooking and boys like adventure", which is endorsed in the narrative by heroic characters. This is a genre that has more than its fair share of sexism, but at least there's occasionally some irony to it. Not here!

Re: Former Star Fox Programmer Would Be Interested In Making A New Entry Without The "Gimmicks"

Brett

Here's a Star Fox Zero protip for everyone:
You should be looking at your television about 98% of the time.

It's an absolutely fantastic game, but I think Nintendo slightly overestimated player willingness to try something slightly different. I remember Kotaku had an absolutely moronic article about how you should sit when you play it, so that you can see both screens at all times.

Re: Review: Has-Been Heroes (Switch eShop)

Brett

Still annoyed by fonts, but I can't put this game down! Absolutely love it. And the controls aren't hard, and I don't even understand why they sound hard. They're downright simple...

Re: Review: Has-Been Heroes (Switch eShop)

Brett

I've just barely started, and the mechanics feel good, but JESUS CHRIST they chose the WORST FONT STYLE AND SIZE IN THE HISTORY OF ALL GAMING for the dialogue at the beginning. What the hell were they thinking?

Re: Editorial: Cheer Up, There Are Some Exciting Games on the Way

Brett

The reason this is all so frustrating to me is that it would actually be relatively easy to satiate the needy Nintendo fanboys. Seriously. A couple remakes and a translation. How hard would an F-Zero GX remake be? Or a Sunshine remake? For Wii U or 3DS, whatever's easier. And translate Mother 3. If they had done these things, or any two of these things, combined with the weak sauce they already brought, we would all be running naked in the streets in ecstasy.

I hate this idea that Nintendo's fans--who must certainly be the most tolerant and patient in the world--are somehow impossible to please. I've calmed down since Tuesday (I went way over the top), but I'm still very disappointed, frustrated, and just downright pessimistic about what Nintendo is turning itself into. Free or not, AC: amiibo Festival doesn't belong on a console really at all, and sure as hell doesn't warrant inclusion in the Digital Event over Devil's Third and Fatal Frame. Ugh

Re: Iwata Vows To Listen To E3 2015 Digital Event Feedback And "Work To Better Meet Your Expectations"

Brett

As a fan for 25 years, and a shareholder, I'm pretty damn sure I will not be buying any of their upcoming consoles until at least ten million or so other people have done so.

I mean, you buy Nintendo consoles for the amazing exclusives, and by everything I saw today in the biggest conference of the year, they have nothing planned in that department. Not a damn thing for Wii U, that's for sure. People here talking about E3 being "just another Direct" are wrong. Watch the last two to see for yourself. This is where you make big announcements. Not where you re-announce big announcements from last year.

I'm aware that I'm being a drama queen, but really, I'm done with these morons. I'll probably buy a PS4 (my first non-Nintendo console) before an NX, and won't switch until I run out of games. And unlike Nintendo consoles, I bet I don't run out games.

Seriously, what a middle finger.

Re: Feature: A Year in Development - RCMADIAX

Brett

I haven't played this guys games, but I think the hate is pretty out of control. The prices seem reasonable, and there's no fraud going on. The games seem to be what he says they are.

Even the whole Flappy Bird phenomenon is something I don't get. When it was just a free mobile app, people were seething with rage about it (Kotaku, for example), and I don't see why. It's a certain type of game, the type of thing people might have dumped quarters into ages ago, that focuses on high scores in a hard game with a simple mechanic. Where's the problem?

Now, if he was behind the really crappy looking "Tested by Robots", that's not acceptable....

Re: Talking Point: Platinum Games Has Secured a Golden Wii U Legacy

Brett

Wonderful 101 is truly one of the very best Wii U games, and should be bought and played multiple times by any Wii U owner of a reasonable age. It's really up there with Earthbound, Super Metroid, and Majora's Mask in terms of being a brilliantly designed game that really has an emotional core for players to connect to. The climactic moment of the game, which I won't spoil, is a mix of euphoria, comedy, and relief that I've never seen so perfected in any other game (or film for that matter).

If you're a Wii U owner, you can probably track this down at a criminally low price at this point, and you really need to do so.

Re: Naughty German Retailer Breaks Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Street Date

Brett

It really is all of Germany. It's usually no problem at all to go to Saturn and pick up a game days before it should be released. I now just assume it. Got Mario Kart 8 and Windwaker HD and all kinds of games early.

I think they shouldn't do it, but I can't help take advantage! Europe generally is a bit uninterested in following these rules, or obeying copyright, possibly as a result of not being a particularly creative culture for the past century or so.

Re: NES Remix Confirmed And Available Today on the Wii U eShop

Brett

@aaronsullivan

Well, I just expected a bit more remixing than what you actually get. The bulk of this game is just five second bits of old games with no changes whatsoever. So, what was I expecting? A bit more "remixing". Not 16 ancient games for $10.

When I said it probably took them a week, it was hyperbole in that I think it took them less than a week. If you like, I am wide open to being enlightened by you, someone who has not played this game and almost certainly does not work in game development, as to how long a game like this takes to develop, particularly for a company like Nintendo, which has loads of developers. A game equivilent of a clip show with a few dozen short "remix" hacks does not require the amount of work you seem to think it does.

Re: NES Remix Confirmed And Available Today on the Wii U eShop

Brett

Playing now. Hate to say it, but to be honest, this isn't very good. Nintendo, in all honesty, probably didn't spend more than a week making it.

So far, the majority of the game is WarioWare style minigames where you just do something trivial in one of the 16 games. There's a bunch of challenges for each, but most are uninteresting and many are as trivial as "stomp the goomba". Really.

The remix mode has you do some little thing in a game with some weird handicap. It's slightly interesting, but not really. It would have taken about a second week's work to make all of this more interesting. Shame too, because after work I went and got an eShop card to get this. I recommend waiting for reviews. Maybe there's more to it, but so far, it's slightly insulting.

Re: Nintendo Direct Focusing On Wii U And 3DS Games Coming Spring 2014 To Air Tomorrow

Brett

I can't help but let my expectations get slightly out of hand. HD Starfox with Slippy annoying me right there in the Gamepad screen is too appealing not to get excited about. How Nintendo has managed to abuse this franchise as long as it has is beyond me.

Just give me one surprise for Wii U other than the Wii Sports expansion you'll almost certainly offer right after the presentation and I'll be thrilled. Even if it's Yarn Metroid or something ridiculous.

Actually...Yarn Metroid...hmmm

Re: NPD Results Deliver a 3DS Milestone And Modest Wii U Sales

Brett

I don't want to be optimistic just for the hell of it, but this 200,000 figure is mostly going to be from the last week of November, and December is definitely going to be better. Furthermore, does anybody know what kind of track GameCube/Dreamcast/whatever was on at this time? Wii U has been on a slow but steady upward trend, which may not have been the case with those consoles.

I won't pretend that any one game will make a huge improvement, but the numbers are climbing, not declining, and this could all work out okay after all.

That said, nine million obviously isn't going to happen, and whoever said Iwata must be looking over his shoulder is right....

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