Category: Jason

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The Mass Effect 3 Controversies

Jason

For those of you who are unaware Mass Effect 3, the conclusion to Bioware’s three part space epic, will be coming out this Tuesday. As such, I think this is a good time to cover the large amount of controversy that has sprung up around the game just weeks before its release. While there are many of you out there probably saying to yourselves, “Jeez, this again? I’ve already heard enough about this on <insert website you visit often>.” I can only say that while I agree with you, I’m in the camp of those who approve of what Bioware has been doing. I therefore find myself in a position where I’m in the minority and feel that all you people out there that dislike what Bioware has done need to either put up or shut up.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about let’s start from the top. Recently Bioware released that their game would be including bi sexual characters and day 1 DLC. Two features of their new game that have, quite simply, caused more then its fair share of outrage on the internet. Forum goers and gaming websites have exploded with debate over both of the issues, and more then one media output has taken a side of these issues (only further lighting the fires of anger in gamers across the internet.) While most of the hate and vitrol is aimed at the announcement of the day 1 DLC, there has been a decent amount of hate aimed at the announcement of bi sex characters as well. Continue reading “The Mass Effect 3 Controversies”

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NerdCrush: Rita Mordio

Jason

**Hello everyone and welcome to NerdCrush! A new series of Blogs dedicated to those characters out there that we have a serious NerdCrush on. You know which ones we’re talking about. Those characters who, from the moment they’re introduced, steal the show in our eyes and help carry their prospective plots along like no others could. The kind of characters who we aspire to be more like or perhaps someday meet in the real world through some form of eldritch magic. The kind of characters who, with a mere cameo appearance, can entice us to watch or play something we otherwise wouldn’t have given two shats about. These Blogs go out to those guys (and gals), our NerdCrushes.**

With Tales of Graces coming out on the 16th, I figured this was the perfect time to start my first NerdCrush piece as the character it revolves around, Rita Mordio, is not only a Tales character but the character that helped spark my interest in Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs) in the first place.

First things first. I should start by saying that my experience with JRPGs as a child was pretty much limited to a certain Pocket Monster game with yellow, electric mice. I grew up on Sonic and Wolfenstein, not Mario or Final Fantasy. So when Tales of Vesperia rolled around a few years back, not only had I not heard of the game before, but I honestly had no interest in playing it. Of course at the time I lived with At The Buzzer’s own Chris Etling, a diehard Tales fan if I ever saw one, who was not only going to get the game, but was interested in having all of us in the house play it. Not being one to shy away from new video games, I figured I’d give the game a chance, even if I’d had no prior experience with games like it before.

As it turns out, Tales of Vesperia was exactly the kind of game that I needed to play in order to get me into JRPGs. Real time combat, voiced cut-scenes, a typical “save the world” story with non-typical JRPG characters… I could write a review of Tales of Vesperia, but I won’t. I’ll leave that up to Chris if he ever feels like it. For now we’re going to focus on my favorite part of Vesperia, Rita Mordio. Continue reading “NerdCrush: Rita Mordio”

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Lady Gaga and the Future of Music

Jason

**Many of you may not know this, and to be fair how would you, but I once wrote for NAU’s Lumberjack newspaper. While not everything I wrote was journalistic gold, there were a few gems that I still feel deserve a look at.**

Let me be the first to say I was not a fan of Lady Gaga. I just didn’t get it. She struck me as a typical wannabe superstar who was no different than any other pop singer we’d seen in recent years. Other than the rumors of her potentially being a man, nothing struck me as particularly interesting about her.

Yet something strange happened when I actually bothered to watch some of her music videos — I liked them. Apparently I’m not alone, either, because Lady Gaga now has the prestigious honor of being the first franchise to ever reach 1 billion views on YouTube. While it may seem like a frivolous accolade, one has to wonder why Gaga was the first to ever reach this milestone. Or perhaps more importantly, what does that say about the current generation’s mindset?

Underneath those over-extravagant hats lies the mind of a truly talented young woman. A keen eye will notice her music videos often have an atypical sexual undertone. While it’s no secret sex has been a huge factor in pop music for decades, Lady Gaga doesn’t limit her videos to sexual norms. Bondage, furries and other such “deviant” sexual ideas are rather common in her videos. With her achievement of reaching the 1 billion-view benchmark, it’s impossible to deny our generation is being exposed to these radical ideas. Continue reading “Lady Gaga and the Future of Music”

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Review: Katawa Shoujo; or how I stopped worrying and learned to love disabled girls

Jason

**I’m gonna start this blog off by giving you all fair warning that the game I’m about to “review” most certainly crosses into NSFW territory. Although the content of this blog does not, Google searching this game and clicking some of the following links could very well be a trap.**

Katawa Shoujo, or Disability Girls, is a game/visual novel centered around a young man with a heart condition who finds himself at a school for the disabled that just so happens to be filled with cute, single girls. If that sounds like the setup for a bad porno or some kind of webcomic you’d find on 4chan, then you aren’t all that wrong.

Produced by 4 Leaf Studios, Katawa Shoujo does indeed find its origins on 4chan (/a/ in particular) where a thread popped up featuring the artwork of one RAITA. The piece featured all the building blocks for a dating game involving a private school for the disabled, and started quite a wave of interest in the subject. Of course, this kind of thing isn’t all that surprising to see on the Internet. Although surprisingly, from what I understand, this push for disabled and crippled girl content was actually urged on after a thread on /b/ featured the touching tale of a nurse at a nursing home doing his best to take care of a 7-year-old girl that had recently come under his care after having lost her family (and most of her limbs, plus an eye) in a terrible car accident. Kotaku posted a slightly more detailed history of all this on their site a little while back, for those interested in their article it’s here.

Regardless of its origins, though, the most important thing to remember about Katawa Shoujo is that it’s a game that would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the Internet. Now I don’t mean that in a “the web helped them put it together” kinda way that almost any project could claim these days. I mean it in the sort of “this game was developed and put together by people from many different locations all around the world without ever getting together in the fashion an typical game studio would” kinda way. This game is a shining example of the kind of quality projects that can only just now be made in this day and age. Continue reading “Review: Katawa Shoujo; or how I stopped worrying and learned to love disabled girls”

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The Mass Effect Universe, and why you should care

Jason

NOTE: David is out of town dealing with a family emergency, so Jason Hagerty (a guest on Episode 012 of the show) is filling in this week.

Let me start off by saying that I didn’t get around to playing the first Mass Effect until quite some time after it was released. I’d seen promos here and there, of course, but at the time I wasn’t a huge Xbox fan and nothing about the game’s advertisements really drew me in. A nondescript male space marine saves the galaxy from alien invaders — tell me if you’ve heard THAT one before. But eventually, after being told how good it was time and time again by people who HAD played it, I saddled up and bought the Game of the Year edition.

Thank God I did.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that playing Mass Effect was a “life changing” experience, I’d definitely say it’s one of the most defining games of my lifetime. Now don’t get me wrong, the game is by no means perfect; but the combination of RPG elements, third person shooter combat, and a thrilling story line about the first human Specter (think U.S. Marshal, but in space) drew me into a universe that I would gladly go back to over and over again.

If you haven’t played the games yet, consider this a piece on why you should. Only, I’m not going to focus on gameplay or graphics or any of that stuff…that’s what reviews are for. I’m going to focus on the strength of the setting itself, and why the Mass Effect Universe is one of the strongest Intellectual Properties of our time. Continue reading “The Mass Effect Universe, and why you should care”