The Giant Beastcast: Episode 46

Alright let's get into it. Thanks again

Beastttt

Oh yeah, time for the Beast. :)

I like in 2016 that I have a place to go for hot Coleco news.

Only three 4's?

Like clockwork.

Nothing can stop the Chameleon!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAST

"We also discuss dlc FOR Fallout 4, and 100 Foot Robot Golf. FORE!!"

But... will there be VR discussion? Please let there be more VR talk!

Jeff B's mystery box rope-a-doped them really good.

nothing on FF15?

Wait... that tumbnail is 'real'?

EVE is weird yo. (and also kinda cool, but no time to play it)

For all of the Gears of War clones that kept popping up everywhere during the heyday of Gears, the important thing to note is none of them were as good as the original thing. There's no other cover-based shooter that can really even touch Gears of War, so the idea that we're oversaturated with Gears-esque gameplay because of all the clones just doesn't fit for me.

I more than anyone bemoan the rather predictable path they've taken with Gears 4*, but even if they are simply making another Gears of War game then that still sounds really fucking awesome to me. Gears of War is in a league of its own, and every new Gears release is akin to the King of cover-based shooting sitting back on its throne. For all of the problems Judgment had (which was primarily a lack of content) the core gameplay was still fantastic.

*It's clear they haven't followed the Game Informer coverage of the game otherwise they would have also brought up the striking similarities the new enemy type 'the swarm' have with the Locust. They're even shown to still use the hammerburst!

I need to see that Aphone?

The discussion of the twitter/Baldur/Nintendo controversy was really well done - just want to applaud the GBEAST for that. As someone who doesn't follow videogame news very closely I appreciate you guys really getting into the details/issues of it.

The space pope is real! All hail the space pope!

@vinny the "pole with two chainsaws" weapon was from Dead Rising 2

@kgkris said:

@vinny the "pole with two chainsaws" weapon was from Dead Rising 2

No, he was thinking of Skorge from Gears of War 2.

@bisonhero: Very possibly the best part of this week's episode. The Coleco Chameleon segment comes in a close second.

From what I can tell most people aren't upset just because a trans character exists, more that it's just what you said, a false-feeling shoehorned badly-written character whose whole reason for existing is that they are trans. And of course the gooblygock joke which come on, that's exactly the reaction they were goading for with that line and they got it, then they are gonna act surprised that the bait was taken?

That said of course there are sick assholes as well who ARE upset just because there's a trans character, though I like to tread carefully in these situations from lumping everyone who doesn't like thing together with them. I get the impression those people don't make up even close to the majority of people complaining.

Last but certainly not least, on top of all this - I haven't played it. So I don't know, maybe what I've observed in is wrong and maybe the character is actually very well written. I'll never know for myself because frankly Baldur's Gate combat always required too much babysitting for me to get into. All I can go by is what I hear people say. And what I mostly hear people say is one side saying it's just a pandering character with no substance and bad writing and the other side saying that the first side hates trans people. I DON'T KNOW. I hate everything.

@vinny It's episodes like this that make me wish there was a video component to this podcast.

The talk around the firing and attacks was really touching. I still come off as an ignorant asshole about a lot of things, especially on the internet, but learning to not hold on so tightly to ideas about people and the world has really helped me. It's really powerful to hear that people whose views I really respect went through some of the same stuff I did. Thank you for making a point to discuss it.

I stopped really discussing videogames online about 3 or 4 years ago, before the gamergate thing. I'm a girl. I play games. I would praise games like Monster Hunter for including a female character option, or criticize Nintendo for having 2 male toads in NSMB Wii to choose from, but no Peach or Toadette, just because that would be such an easy thing to change, and they probably hadn't thought about it. It likely hadn't occurred to them that they could've put a girl in there, and I thought that by making my voice heard, someone would notice and include me in the future. But I was immediately pounced on from all sides about ruining creative visions, and pandering, and it just got so tiresome after a while that I got frustrated and stopped. They put Peach in the sequels though, so maybe someone listened after all.

This is a thing that goes way beyond videogames. It's entrenched in our society, and it's something that I think will get better as more people talk about it. But this coordinated attack stuff going unpunished is just disgusting.

@biostormx: I mean, it's weird to be this upset about a trans character existing regardless of the reason. There's probably badly written straight characters in that game too, but just because it's a trans character that character suddenly has to have a big purpose, be really well written etc. It strikes me as mostly strawman arguments from people who are pissed off that they included a trans character but don't want to come out and say it. You see the same sort of arguments when other minority characters are included in games. Just adding a trans character isn't a political act, especially not something that should get a game downrated to hell and back with user reviews on various platforms.

I expect this comment section to go well btw :p

I start hearing what is the fake north korean shitty Homefront PR (presumably) and I think, "Oh no, don't do this Jeff. Don't give them the pleasure...."

@amyggen: Hah, I don't know. There might be some truth to that for some, but I do admit to getting annoyed ANYTIME a demographic seems to just be shoehorned in as a diversity ticket though. And I'm definitely not against diversity in games, I just want it to be done well and not just done so you can say "we made a Native American character!" or whatever. Of course I'm not a native american, maybe that's still a good step for them, it just feels really weird and bad to me when it happens.

And yes, I'm sure the comment section will be a bastion of civility~

My response to the Anti-SJW people and the SJW people is exactly the same, if you dont like something in the game, DONT FUCKING BUY THE GAME.

@biostormx: My point is that there's plenty of white, straight characters in all fiction that don't really have a purpose beyond existing in the world, so it feels weird that a creator suddenly has to justify including minority characters of any kind. Sure I would always prefer well written characters, but it's a weird double standard that probably makes artists vary of including those type of characters.

@biostormx: Why does it feel bad to you? I agree with you if it's like, an embarrassing stereotype (look at the weird flamboyant gay character trope in Japanese media for example), but what if they're just there, existing?

@amyggen: Right, but those white, straight characters aren't being shoehorned in in a way to try to take advantage of some percieved diversity credit, which is why a badly written white character still sucks, but not quite as offensively.

I'm not trying to start shit here though, for all I know this character was made with the best of intentions and maybe a lot of thought and effort was put into it. Just my two cents, I'll leave it at that.

@biostormx: I just fundamentally don't understand that point of view. If white straight characters are the default those kind of characters don't need to be shoehorned into anything, true, so this will never be a problem for those characters. But if a writer wants to diversify their world he or she should be able to create minority characters that are just there without any justification, the same way they can a "default" character.

@amyggen: All I can tell you is when I see a character that's just black to be "the black guy" or whatever I just groan and go "really?"

It just feels like it's having the opposite effect it's intending, instead of bringing the cause of diversity forward in games it's pushing it backwards. I guess I can't explain it in a satisfactory way, just an instinctual gut feeling that makes me sicker than just "oh that writing is bad"

Speaking of the Alison Rapp fiasco, she said on Twitter that moonlighting was not actually a violation of Nintendo's rules. She also said that she was moonlighting under an assumed name. If her second job was allowed, why was she doing it under an assumed name? What kind of job was this?

Just as the guys were saying, they hoped them talking woudl get people to look and think, perhaps that is all that needed to happens for some in the industry. The more people say, "No, actually we do want women characters. No, we would love to play as Zelda in "Zelda Game", there will be more such opportunities.

I think the same is true for the threats. The more people say, "Hey that was wrong and this is why" the more some people that don't yet get it might get it. It is a slow, painful, and difficult process.

@amyggen: I think that the problem most people have is that the identity stuff is literally one of the first lines that the character has. It's like walking up to Eder in Pillars of Eternity and the first thing that he says is "I like to have sex with women." But that's not how any of the characters in that game work. And it's not how any of the characters in the original Baldur's Gate worked(besides maybe Safana and even then a lot of her "stories" seemed partially if not entirely fabricated to seem more provocative). They were multifaceted and it took a while and lots of dialogue to learn personal details about them. If this game did that I wouldn't see people having as much of a problem with it that they do, regardless of the in universe problems that such a character presents.

The issue is that they don't have to be "shoe-horned" in because they are the overwhelming default already.

Lets say we lived on Earth-2 and the default in games was Asian women. They were the stars in the games and NPCs were overwhelmingly that gender and ethnicity. If a developer then put a white male in the game, would they have to then make sure that that character has a huge and well thought out back story and a reason for their existence and that the writing is perfect? Would it be fair to attack the writer who only wanted to include some different types of people in their game if they don't reach that lofty goal of perfect back story and perfect writing?

I guess my point is I want people to experiment and feel free to write the characters they want to write. It doesn't mean they're free from criticism, but I hope that that criticism is fair and not just a knee jerk reaction.

I understand playing a game and thinking the writing is weak, or that a character could be better. A lot of big budget games have female characters that could be written better. But when that criticism gets levied these days in those instances, most people are told to deal with it. Asking for change, or even just self reflection, is called censorship with no amount of irony or self-awareness. Excuses boil down to the artistic vision of the game creators and defending that vision.

So tell me, how is this different? Why can't people just deal with it? The writer wrote their character and made an artistic choice, why not let that choice stand? Isn't that what we say when someone talks about Quiet's attire? Or some if the story beats in the new Fire Emblem game? Or the satire in a GTA game? I don't really see a difference. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

Also, the big comment I have seen is that if people want more of these types of characters, they should just go write their own and do their own games and content. This writer did that, she created her own NPC to fill out the world, and gets vitriol. You can't have it both ways. You can't say you want people to go do their own thing and create their own characters, then as soon as it happens, try to tear it down by saying it's not good enough for whatever your standards are. It's moving goal posts and it appears, from someone who is reading a lot of stuff and thinking about a lot of stuff, to be a no win situation for people trying to create those new characters.

@kgkris: There's really no hard proof of that other than a picture from her Twitter profile, which doesn't say that those pictures are for sale or anything. AFAIK that's people putting two and two together and maybe coming up with five. We will probably never know for sure either way.

Man, I enjoy it when they dive into ridiculous game situations. Yeah yeah, I can shrug off an enemy force somehow getting into a place en masse without issue and somehow still not take the main character out in the name of fun, but it's still fun imagining the absurdity that makes it possible.

What's surprising to me is that the transgender character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, Krem, didn't receive any sort of backlash that approaches what's going on with Baldur's Gate, least not to my knowledge. And this is a male transgender character, so he's like a minority within a minority. This is a good thing of course, but at the same time it leaves me perplexed as to why Baldur's Gate is receiving so much flak. I haven't played BG, but it does at least sound like Krem is more of an established character to the one in BG, so that possibly erases the contingent of complaints that he was underdeveloped.

To the guy with the 980Ti woes - If you've RMA'd it once already, I'd bet it's either the motherboard or your PSU that is the problem.

Dodgy power supplies can make all manner of weird things happen, especially with parts that draw significant amounts of power like graphics cards. Try and source another one and see if that helps at all.

Most hardware problems with computers can be figured out by isolation testing - replacing components until you find the one that's causing the problem. You've already replaced the graphics card and reinstalled Windows, so you can be at least fairly confident it's neither of those.

@yummylee: They already had the Gamergate crowd going after them because of a "It's about ethics..." line in the game, so that crowd needed little excuse to turn transphobic too to add to their own outrage about the game.

@yummylee said:

Krem was cool af. I think people, if they didn't keep talking to him, would never know that he was transgender. It was a long and interesting conversation that happened over pretty much the whole game. I don't think I heard most of his story until over halfway through the game. So, the cynical part of me says that maybe people didn't talk to Krem enough to hear his entire story, and that was why there was no vocal complaints about the character ie - they just didn't know. The hopeful side of me is that people did continue to talk to Krem and because he was such an awesome and well written character, when they got to the culmination of his story, they accepted him.

I have no idea, but I had so much fun talking to everyone in that game, so I bothered Krem after every big mission and story beat. I thought his story was cool and I wanted to see where it went.

This is what the problem is with the Baldur's Gate character. Would Krem have been as interesting if the first words out his mouth were "Hey I'm Krem I used to be a woman but now I'm a man, here is a quest."

Thank you so much to Kevin for taking the time that I didn't to write a detailed explanation on Zeno's Paradox! I have no idea how clear that was for the guys, though. :)

Ah, you make a good point regarding how people could have simply not followed through and learned of his backstory. Though, in some ways, it's kind of impressive for how him being transgender doesn't define him completely. It's not something he immediately spouts out upon you meeting him and instead lets it exist as but one piece of his character that you can (possibly) learn. Him being voiced by Jennifer Hale was the icing on the cake, too. I never even realised until I checked out the game's overall cast list. It was the same sort of pleasant surprise to learning Nolan North voices David in The Last of Us!

I liked Krem too, a shame he couldn't have joined your party. Although if that were possible I'm almost certain there unfortunately would have been a controversy similar to this BG situation...