DISPATCHES APRIL
Grand scheme
It’s not often that the arrival of a new videogame elevates my anxiety levels, but the release of the latest trailer for GTAVI does fill me with a sense of unease that we’re about to embark on another era dominated by alpha-male gaming. My experience of having anything remotely critical to say about GTAV a decade ago on social media or online forums in terms of its depiction of minorities was not a positive one, and although things have changed since then, I do wonder to what extent. I get that Rockstar has made some progress in recent years, but it’s often only been in response to concerted pressure over a period of time. Queer leads are almost comically one-dimensional; trans characters portrayed as over-the-top stereotypes who work in ‘taboo’ professions such as the sex trade. And then there’s the optional violence against women or minorities without repercussion inside or outside the game, shared via clickbait clips which you’d struggle to find in other mediums unless they were trying to capture the incel market. The claim that it’s all down to the player feels disingenuous; there are plenty of things developers restrict without explicitly flagging them. Still, the general Reddit consensus remains: “It’s a satire and has a go at everyone – get over it”. That’s basically the old Bernard Manning defence, which delegitimises any concerns without engaging with them.
Perhaps an element of this is being a dad to a nine-year-old these days and wondering what impact a game like GTAVI will have on boys in particular, and their perception of gender roles and identity. It was so refreshing to see much of the gaming media including Edge swerve coverage of a certain videogame last year because of its association with exclusionary views, but with Rockstar’s record in this area being at least debatable, I guess I just really hope it doesn’t set things back again. They are not by any stretch the worst offenders but because of the sheer number of games they sell they are the most visible, and to people experiencing prejudice and violence in a real-world setting, how they portray diversity will potentially have a lasting impact on how a whole generation thinks about these issues. I could of course be worrying about nothing if GTAVI turns out to be a bastion of wokeness, and I realise in even raising this issue I risk fulfilling another stereotype: the over-sensitive snowflake. But it’d be nice to think that the game’s release when it happens doesn’t make online spaces in which certain people already feel unsafe even more unwelcoming. Mark Whitfield
As videogames’ popularity continues to grow – along with the time we spend with them as a society in the process – it’s reasonable to be concerned about their influence in a way that feels quite distinct from the outlandish scaremongering of the Jack Thompson era. That said, while we’re not expecting GTAVI to make a big noise about it, right now we’re quite confident that Rockstar won’t drop the ball here.
“How they portray diversity will potentially have an impact on a whole generation”
As a full-time journalist for an online gaming outlet, I knew what the GTAVI trailer release (or debacle, depending on where you fall on the hype scale) represented in audience numbers. Still, we collectively felt that everything about it could be – and eventually was – covered in one comprehensive news article.
It is truly dismaying, then, to see the sheer volume of coverage that a not even two-minute-long video teaser can get in a couple of days; one single website publishing dozens of 400-word features
about the most minute details, the frailest of theories, blurring the already thin line between reporting and pure, unhinged form of (albeit innocent) conspiracy talk. It’s an all-too-familiar ride that seemingly started about ten years ago when GTAV came out — and one from which we cannot get off. I’d like to believe in a wicked, earth-shattering Google engine reform that would render SEO-heavy editing completely obsolete, but we all know that won’t ever happen. This is when I can’t help but feel jealous of what the publishing cycle of print media allows: a paucity of words that forces its writers to make every sentence count without precluding intent. May the outsiders among us live long enough to see what GTAVII will have in store.
Diogo Ribeiro
Given it’s been 11 years since GTAV arrived, thinking about when VII might turn up is terrifying. Still, it’s a diversion from a bit of deadline stress. For that unwitting kindness, an Edge T-shirt is on its way.
Fading Lite
Having recently read your 100 Greatest Games feature, and Danny Abbasi’s letter in E393 about strange design decisions, I was inspired to write about my belated completion of Super Mario Odyssey.
Pretty much anything positive about this game has already been said, but having played it on the Switch Lite I was surprised at how it felt a bit like a round peg in a square hole; like a game from an earlier generation ported to new hardware.
For instance, the screen-shake effect to simulate the HD Rumble of the original Switch is borderline useless and certainly irritating, which doesn’t help when it is a requirement for finding certain Power Moons. Similarly, while the game is not particularly hard, the odd moment where it presents a challenge often benefits from the use of some convoluted motion controls (does anyone still enjoy these at the best of times?); shaking the console while trying to monitor the screen not only gets you some strange looks from those around you, but it also doesn’t work particularly well from a gameplay perspective.
Granted, the game was designed for the original Switch, but for a company that often prides itself on polish, would it have hurt Nintendo to think a little more about how to update the game to suit its other hardware? Then I started thinking about the rest of the game in general. Again, it’s a 3D Mario game and with that comes certain tropes, but for a 10/10 game released not that long ago, some elements underwhelmed. The rehashed challenges across the worlds; the lack of cohesion between those worlds and the skybox puzzles; and the Darker Side finale that relies too much on repetition. Edge described Odyssey as ‘the pinnacle for 3D character control’ but in that regard all it did was highlight the woefully inaccurate nature of Switch’s analogue sticks a lot of the time.
An enjoyable game on the whole, then, but I surely can’t be alone in seeing past the praise and questioning certain decisions? Alastair Mooney
We stand by those words, and didn’t run into any issues with the hardware during our many happy hours playing Odyssey to completion. Although, reading between the lines here, what you’re really saying is that the Lite variant of the console is a bit rubbish, no?
Universal hate
What is it about The Last Of Us that inspires so many people to tell others how much they hate it? That it’s overrated, ashamed of being a game, miserable; that they hated Joel; that the gameplay is not very good; that it’s unoriginal (apparently it’s just Children Of Men). People used to say that if it was a TV show, nobody would care about it. Then that didn’t happen, so now they say the TV show is better and proves it was always a TV show pretending to be a game. I can’t think of a videogame series that has inspired such ire for so long, and for so many people to so frequently vocally distance themselves from it. Is it just a reaction to the praise? The emotional quality of the story creating visceral responses? Or the various rereleases and adaptations generating fresh hate?
I know some people dislike games with a cinematic focus, but the likes of Metal Gear Solid or God Of War aren’t as hated. Perhaps it’s pointless to complain about negative criticism, which people are entitled to. I have my own criticisms too. No game is universally loved, even the ‘greats’, but people tend to just move on. Very few people are angrily proclaiming how rubbish they think Ocarina Of Time or BioShock or Final Fantasy VII are.
Perhaps I’m just bored of people regurgitating the same points over a game I enjoyed quite a lot once upon a time. But I don’t think the hatred for the game is normal. Mark Millward
Is there a good reason not to allow the player to save progress when they quit a game? I understand that there’s a multitude of design and technical reasons why a developer might not want – or be able – to introduce saving at any point in time, but is there ever a good reason not to implement a ‘save and quit’ option? Granted, I have a particularly unusual contrast in mind: I’m coming off the back of Baldur’s Gate 3, which lets you save freely in the middle of combat and dialogue, into some Steam Next Fest demos that don’t seem to let you save at all. But forcing the player to keep playing for a save feels like an especially petty way to generate engagement.
Particularly as we get older, our commitments grow. Yes, this is another thinly veiled ‘I am an older Edge reader and have kids’ moan, having lost that ability to set aside a guaranteed hour or two for games.
Leo Tarasov
Maybe it was justifiable once upon a time, but not now. And that’s precisely why Switch’s suspend feature is an absolute godsend.
Q