michaellivingjp

Ratings in Japan aren’t handled by one agency. It’s been a while since I’ve looked these things up, but when it comes to games, computer games and console games are rated by different agencies. Consoles are rated by CERO which are controversially strict. I think their reasoning is that consoles, more so than computers, are ‘family’ entertainment machines, so they are overly strict in what’s allowed. Now, I’m not defending them, by any means, but they are taking the (arguably) realistic approach that even adult games could be seen by young kids if it’s on the living room tv, and they tend to take that to an insane degree. I seem to recall Smash Bros. running into problems because of potential upskirt viewing. Needless to say there’s a lot of controversy over how they do things, especially among game creators.

They say one of the hardest things about fighting [censorship] is that you find yourself defending people you find reprehensible. I don’t think the issue here is what they changed, but that they decided to alter something after purchase. Fixing bugs or adding new content is one thing, but altering something or taking away something a certain number of people enjoy is something I think we should all oppose.

I really hope this NFT thing is a phase and disappears soon, but I have a feeling that, like loot boxes, they’ll probably be around for a while.

I think it’s great that the option is there to really dive into the world’s lore if you choose to do so. And you can easily just skip it if you want, too. I always enjoyed reading about the stories based on actions you had a hand in, like the newspapers in Red Dead, or the conversations in towns that would change in different rpgs. I used to actually search out everything and read all I could. Maybe it was a bit of a Charlie Brown syndrome since he said, ‘Somebody went to the trouble of writing it, so I sort of feel obliged to read it.’ Then again, a large staple of my gaming in my teenage years was Working Designs translations which, for the most part, were pretty darn interesting. Unfortunately, I don’t have the hundreds of hours to sink into learning the ins and outs of the game’s world that I used to have.

@Northern_munkey Well, to be fair, the last one I played was TW12, a 10 year old game, I know, that I picked up maybe 5 years ago, and I’m sure the series has evolved somewhat from there, but the fact that they locked half the courses behind MT, that really put me off. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t particularly like this path that major studios have taken. As a result, I tend to wait for the ‘complete edition’ to come out. That’s not a common practice with these golf games.

I love me my golf games, and I enjoyed a number of the Tiger Woods ones, but with EA’s micro transactions and pushing the always online thing, I’m thinking I’m done with this series.