We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

RPG Maker VX Ace on Humble for a buck, y'know if you've ever had a fleeting fancy to make a game.

Looks like they're having a try-it-for-free weekend on Steam, too. Though the Steam price is $17.50 and you only get the one thing.
So try it through Steam, but don't buy it through Steam.

I really admire Matthewmatosis' ability to cohesively put his thoughts into words. I wholeheartedly agree with him about TSP. The only reason i want to play any Metal Gear games now is so i can see his reviews.

A friend of mine tried to get me back into Skullgirls and apparently Squiggly was released a long time ago and i didn't get to download her for free, i thought she was only available to the PC version and she wasn't even finished yet. Also, i can't download the updated version? Well there goes all my interest in the game.

ohhhhhhhhhhhh snap

SpoilerShow

Did you guys watch the tf2 thing? It was good.

yeah, 15 minute video, must have taken a while to get all the timings down

it was amazing forever.

sadly the update is not as whelming

Giving the demoman and soldier a parachute is pretty amusing

Finally! The ability to rocket jump without breaking my legs!

yeah, all you have to do is not get shot by the five snipers that the other team is inexplicably using

the new rocket launcher looks potentially interesting but other than that i wasn't particularly impressed by the weapons, i guess turn speed shield is neat though

also axtinguisher now only minicrits unless it's from the front. guess they decided to nerf puff n sting as long as they were finally going to fix sentry damage falloff

almost flipped my shit until i read the sniper rifle's description properly and realized it still prohibited noscopes

tomodachi life is a lot more fun than it looks despite the whole no same sex marriage thing which honestly i was expecting so i dont get what all the fuss is about.

i'm still sad

that i can't use the two official reggie miis with each other

Because a platform as widely distributed as anything Nintendo produces has the potential to reinforce the cultural erasure (hey look, an actually-appropriate time to use this word in a way that's NOT ridiculous! Whoah.) of queer people or to help shift the paradigms towards normalization and acceptance. Gay marriage is far less important to the gay movement than fostering social trends that make it safer and more accepted. In a situation like this one, where the gay-friendly option would have involved minimal effort (and indeed might have been easier than programming marriage options to exclude same-sex partners) and would probably not have had significant consequences for the game and company, it is upsetting that an organization with as much influence over the zeitgeist as a large video game company would choose to continue to ignore the existence and desires of queer people.

Just because it was expected doesn't make it less shitty.

This is armchair sociology on my part I think but little kids playing the game also means they are probably going to accept what it tells them as being a big rule more readily than an adult might, which means work undoing learning they've done later on if other people want to educate them.

holy shit i spent too long looking for shit about this

"The relationship options in the game represent a playful alternate world rather than a real-life simulation. We hope that all of our fans will see that Tomodachi Life was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary."

this is my biggest problem with tomodaichi life it isnt anything about the programming or anything it is that the first statement they said, the first statement on this was that it was a choice they made to not include the option in a weak attempt to not have to talk about it/take sides/whatever

its shitty, it was shitty to do, and the worst part of it, is that this apology could have been the first statement and it WASNT

like jac said ages ago,

"We don’t want to take a side on the debate about whether it’s good to eat delicious cake, now excuse us while we continue eating the delicious cake we’ve already started eating, were eating previous to giving this statement and have continued to eat for the duration of the interview, also we’re shit"

but if i may take a moment to stop pretending that a video game company i care about actually cares about me, the other thing is that tomodaichi life does have various things that prevent marriage and crushes in it and i do find it hard to believe that they couldnt do anything about it

they didnt want to, plain and simple, and thats fuckin shit of them

you can have fun with tomodaichi life because its a fun silly game that shoves caricatures of people in silly situations but you cant say theres no fuss to be had

There is nothing whimsical or quirky about homos. No commentary here, just the facts, ma'am.

They did, to play very temporary devil's advocate, make the claim (after a very unsatisfactory response initially) that any Tomodachi Life II would feature less restrictive relationship options, and such was probably actually the best Nintendo of America could promise, what with only porting the game rather than making it and the only other realistic response needing to involve a time machine to prevent them from making a stupid mistake in the first place (wait did I say realistic)

But promising that and then not doing it is easy, especially when it's the complete opposite of what your first "apology" said, and I'm certainly not buying anything in that series until it's true. What would be the point?
As a "me and my friends simulator" it's a little fundamentally broken at the moment.

Mostly I was expecting it because Japan is kind of against gay marriage AFAIK. I could be wrong though, but it isn't allowed over there at the moment.

I mean yeah of course it sucks and all that but I'm kind of burned out on social justice atm and maybe I want to play a few games here and there?

Honestly my compromise here is just to make one of the guys in a prospective same sex relationship a girl in name only, and vice versa. I mean there are literally no cosmetic differences between genders in this game, although it messes with pronouns.

From what I understand from the trailers, romance in Tomodachi Life seems to consist of several men courting each woman until the point where all the men confess their love for the woman, and the woman chooses the man for which she has the most affection and begins a relationship with him. Has this been accurate in your experience with the game, Garuru? If that's actually how the game works, I could see how it might be hard to program same-sex relationships into such a kinda fucky system.

yeah, all they got are symbolic lesbian weddings at tokyo disneyland

i think they're missing a decent chunk of whatever market they were planning to hit with this port

Nah I think most people are content to complain but then buy it anyway, they're not missing a significant number of customers here.

From what I understand from the trailers, romance in Tomodachi Life seems to consist of several men courting each woman until the point where all the men confess their love for the woman, and the woman chooses the man for which she has the most affection and begins a relationship with him. Has this been accurate in your experience with the game, Garuru? If that's actually how the game works, I could see how it might be hard to program same-sex relationships into such a kinda fucky system.

Not at all. I mean, that's one possible scenario.

But I've had women confessing their love through song, and even an impromptu "fuck it lets date" option which was awesome. There are not only lots of things that can happen, but lots of scenarios for each little thing that happens.

Like, it's all very random and unexpected, which is part of the fun.

So uh yeah I guess same-sex relationships would be easy to put in, but you would have to designate everybody's sexual orientations as well. And I'm not sure how much work that takes.

There's also like tons of content (photo booths, love-reader animations) that explicitly show the couple as one guy one girl, based on clothing. So, probably not as easy to change as people make it out to be.

I've only been following it through Jovian's tumblings, but the player gets a final say in whether two compatible characters actually "start dating" or whatever?

In which case you[Nintendo] could['ve] just set everyone to be pansexual and let the player reject choices for relationship advancement that don't fit whatever sexuality they're giving the characters in question.

Yeah, a whateversexual-by-default system whereby the player determines orientation by only picking relationships that fit your preferred orientation for the character would not be difficult to incorporate at all. Imposing restrictions on men only being interested in women and vice versa would actually add work compared to that. The argument that it would be too difficult is ridiculous on par with Ubisoft's "women are too hard to animate" malarkey; there are lots of reasons a feature like this wouldn't make it into the game, but time constraints or programming problems aren't among them.

Frankly, what Jac brought up is a good illustration of why it's worth being upset (and vocally so!) about problems like this: sure talk is cheap, sure Nintendo could back down or just not produce future tomodachi titles, sure it could all just be appeasement. But it also could not be, and if the gaming community was able to effect change like this by demonstrating what they want and what they are displeased about, why would anybody not make the miniscule effort of making their opinions known? That's why this is a particularly unhelpful attitude to take:

I mean yeah of course it sucks and all that but I'm kind of burned out on social justice atm and maybe I want to play a few games here and there?

First off, because the two are not in any way mutually exclusive. Boycotting on a personal level is a completely ineffective way of sending a message to a company (because they are never going to notice your one more or fewer sale); the only boycott that makes a difference is a large, organized one, and nobody we know has the resources to make that happen and few organizations are interested in doing so for issues like this in the video game industry. So buy what games you want, have fun with them even with their flaws. And that's the central thing about "social justice" (or as I like to think of it in a non-divisive and un-ridiculed way, being a decent person): it allows for the appreciation of problematic media (because again, a personal boycott does nothing but make you feel self-righteous and thus unlikely to take any actual action, in the same way that posting a facebook status about ending world hunger makes you less likely to take meaningful action that helps the hungry) as long as you're willing and able to identify the problematic parts of it and make it clear you don't approve. Ignoring or justifying those problems because the game itself is fun or the movie itself is entertaining just ensures that those problems will remain; don't deny yourself entertainment you enjoy out of some kind of self-conscious social flagellation, just don't ignore problems or pretend they're not that big a deal. The flipside to the problem with a boycott is that companies often do take notice of individual complaints when they come en masse; it's a lot more visible and calculable than individual sales that aren't made, and it threatens future sales to leave the consumers' concerns unaddressed. Outcry doesn't need to be nearly as organized as purchasing campaigns, because by its nature it's going to be something the company can see. No, posting on your blog with eight followers isn't going to change the world, but participating in discussions in news forums or prominent gaming forums makes your opinion visible, sending an email or a letter makes your opinion visible, helping organize or taking part in a group or organization that sends a message makes your opinion visible.

Of course, none of that is in any way a guarantee of anything at all. But it's a lot more likely to make anything at all happen – even gradual, incremental change – than doing nothing or choosing to ignore bad things for the good things they come packaged in. The hard part about that is oftentimes when people complain about a thing you (the general you, pretty much all of these yous haven't been directed at one person) like, it can be easy to take that as a personal attack, or feel shamed for liking it, or as though the character of everyone who likes it is being impugned. By and large, that's not going to be the case: just relax and don't let your choices in entertainment become a prominent part of your identity; don't take criticism of things you enjoy as criticisms of you, and it becomes a lot easier to assess the things you enjoy while still enjoying them. Nothing's perfect, even your favorite thing; don't fight to maintain the illusion that it is, and future things will just continue to get better.