Gaming Podcast is back after the one week break, and finally truly weighs in on the announcement of the Switch – and aren’t impressed. What does impress the crew is the latest addition to the survival horror genre, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which takes the radical approach of being a survival horror game. They also ponder about how great a Zelda/Minecraft game would be.
The next episode will be Gaming Podcast’s 10th anniversary, so longtime listeners are encouraged to write in.
Aside from cardboard products by Nintendo, there wasn’t much to talk about this week, thanks to the January slog. However, the guys did play games and there was some news to talk about.
This week’s headlines include:
All this and Listener Feedback, too.
This week’s Memorial Day podcast has very few stories but we managed to pack it full of content including the long awaited Punch-Out Wii review! The news includes:
Mass Effect 2 Information LeakedWe also hit up some listener comments, learn a bit about nanites, checkout some gaming history on Track & Field all while popping out a new weekly question: Will you buy a video game compilation that includes updated old games with new functionality like “Waggle” controls?
A new draft of the R18+ classification has been released by home minister Brendan O’Connor through the Australian Federal Government. The new guidelines closely match those in place for Australia’s film industry. The new R18+ rating removes restrictions on bad language, drug use and nudity; in contrast, the current guidelines forbade the classification of any adult-themed games.
O’Connor’s draft claims that the R18+ rating will allow “virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes”, and violence in games “except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified.” As far as sex, the draft says, “Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is ‘simulation, yes – the real thing, no'”.
Of course, “standards of morality, decency and propriety” is still troublesomely subjective, while “simulation, yes, the real thing, no” is comicly inept for videogames, where everything is simulation. You may be able to tell when live actors are actually performing sexual acts, but when can you tell a videogame character is actually having sex?
O’Connor stated:
“The Gillard government wants to provide better guidance for parents and remove unsuitable material from children and teenagers. The introduction of an R18+ classification will help achieve that and will also bring Australia into line with comparable nations. This issue has been on the table for many years, without the necessary progress to make a change. We’ve recently seen several states publicly express their support for an adult only rating for games and I’m keen to reach a unanimous decision at the July meeting.”
Rather than banning games, why not punish stores for selling mature games to underage children? Or put the onus of raising children on the parents?
Nintendo should make money off its intellectual property accumulated over the past decades; I’m sure that a lot of people would like to own an online library like that of Steam, Origin, Uplay, and etc. exclusively of Nintendo games.