Video Game Tuesday: Story Censorship

Hey all I’m back with a topic that has meaning especially today for those in the US and EU. It’s all about Story Censorship!

Story Censorship?: I mean changing things in a game that affect the story, this could be removing missions or changing certain animations or models or scenes graphically to avoid getting hit with a higher rating. I hate this, it’s hypocritical and if you have to do so to ship a game with a “certain” rating you aren’t doing your customers and yourself any favors.

Give me an example: Today Tales of Berseria is launching in the US. In Japan there is a certain scene that occurs that directly impacts the story, and because of it’s graphic nature it was toned down to keep a certain rating. Bandai Namco America and EU have both said it won’t change the tone of the story. I’m here to tell you that any changes made, graphically or otherwise does affect the story. A game’s story isn’t made up of just gameplay.The story is made up of the text, the voice acting, the art, the music, and the gameplay. It all affects the story, so changing even a single part of that can and will change the intended tone that you as a consumer will experience. Normally I have great respect for Bandai Namco for bringing the Tales of series west much more often in the past decade, but the simple fact that they need to change the scene at all is a disservice to both themselves and us as consumers. I hope to be receiving a copy of Berseria to review, but regardless of whether or not I do receive it, I will be keeping this change in mind and it will affect my score, not greatly most likely but it will affect it.

There are other examples, like the Russian mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which caused a very big controversy, but they are all disservices to everyone. Make it known that you ought to receive the original story intact, so you can experience it as intended. Otherwise you’ll be getting inferior games.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday.

Video Game Tuesday: Modding

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m taking a look at something I wish Console gamers had more access to. It’s Modding!

What is Modding?: Editing the game software to add or change certain parts of a game. For instance tweaking the game to include higher resolution textures and models is a pretty standard mod for just about any game.

What Else can Mods do?: They can add fun game mods to a game to increase the games longevity. For years after the last Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne patch went out people were still playing because of the ability to create custom game modes. This lead to the popularization of the MOBA genre through the map DOTA Allstars. League of Legends, DOTA 2 and Heroes of the Storm wouldn’t exist without that original mod.

Is there anything else?: Well they can be used to for more explicit purposes like nudity mods in Skyrim, which while juvenile are still some of the most popular mod types in the community. They can also be used to include musical soundtracks and custom models. Which leads to fun things like the recent Star Wars mod in Grand Theft Auto V.

Why Do I want it on Consoles?: Because it’s a pity that console players can’t get access to fun mods to increase the game’s longevity. Granted certain mods like cheat modes would be problematic with online multiplayer, but it can still be fun. I once played a Halo: CE game on my Mac Pro where the creator of a map modified the guns to increase the physics modifier. It lead to fun times where a single pistol shot sent vehicles flying through the air to crash into the other team to score kills. You weren’t able to shoot the other team, but if you shot the vehicles in the middle of the map correctly you could score a kill by crushing them with a flying vehicle. That was endlessly fun and pretty clever, and it’s a pity that game mode hasn’t appeared in future Halo games. Did you shoot the easy to control smaller vehicles like the ghost and have a tough time hitting the enemy or did you try to control the larger and tougher to control vehicles like the Scorpion to get an easy kill.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday? What are some of your favorite mods in games and would you like to see it on console versions?