Election Antics Part 2: The Denial of Democracy

By VORTEXICA - or; Vortexica complains about British politics ad nauseum.

Last we-... I mean MONTH, in my last article (E3 reactions notwithstanding), I broke down the main results of the May UK General Election and remarked on possible implications for the British gaming industry. This time I want to take one of the main talking points from the election and really lay into it for the sad denial of democracy that it is — or rather was. You can think of this article as me simply letting off steam about something I had to listen to over and over again during the campaign. So if you don't wish to hear me drone on about this incredibly dull topic in an overly verbose way, I warn you, turn back now. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Miiverse's New Console Ban Policy — A GOOD Thing!?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Yes, I do think so.

Recently on June 24, 2015, Nintendo's Miiverse messenger Julie gave us this "update" on rule policy: 

Julie resurfaces from a half-year hiatus to give us bad news.

This instantly triggered a massive uproar, with the comments section of the post being filled up to capacity (1,000 comments) within less than 4 hours. Miiversers have been calling for a boycott, a war, a mass exodus, and civil disobedience.

But... there's no real new policy going on, if you look closely. And that's just what I'm going to do. And this policy is... actually beneficial to Miiverse.

War Between The States: Apple vs. Common Sense

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Even history is censored.

And you really thought that Rawk was just connecting unrelated concepts in his article on the Confederate Flag and Rare Ltd. on Tuesday? No, the ongoing debate and controversy over the Confederate Flag is intricately related to the videogame industry.

How? Well, just look at Apple and their new move on their App Store:

"Apple appears to have joined the growing list of companies removing merchandise depicting the Confederate battle flag, pulling a number of Civil War games from its App Store."

One such game was Ultimate General: Gettysburg from Game Labs LLC. According to Game Labs, the game is the

"most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game's battlefield."

And out of the desire to be accurate and true to history, Game Labs has rejected Apple's consolation of "if you remove the flag from the game you can put the game back on the App Store."

The Fate of Fire Emblem and Traditional Values

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Traditional relationships, but more importantly: Traditional game purchasing.

I have been on a roll lately with being concerned with what I deem "traditional values".

Nintendo used to represent traditional values within the gaming industry, but they've made it clear E3 2015 that they have transformed as a company to be... like any other videogame company. And perhaps no upcoming game (unless you're in Japan, then it just came out as Fire Emblem If) makes this clearer than Fire Emblem Fates. The Iwata Asks for the game was just published, and I recommend reading it here. It really makes clear why Intelligent Systems is doing what they're doing — partly because they got manga writer Shin Kibayashi on board. (They usually don't outsource the story.)

Shin Kibayashi looking fresh.

There are just a couple of unclear parts. One of which is this headline that the mainstream gaming media has picked up: "Fire Emblem Fates will include same-sex marriage" and variations of that. The story broke from the known-to-be-very-deceptive Polygon website.

Here's how Nintendo apparently worded their statement:

"Fire Emblem Fates [...] includes the possibility for a same-sex marriage to take place between the main character created by the gamer and another character in the game"

Apparently, the Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest will allow the male customisable protagonist to have a same-sex affair with another male character, while Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright will allow a female customisable protagonist to have a same-sex entanglement with another female character. If you want your protagonist to be female in Conquest or male in Birthright and want to live out your homosexual fantasies, then you're out of luck. At least you can still live out your erotic fantasies in the My Castle spa. (Obviously that's a scary link to click.)

Nintendo's "Transform" Theme This E3...

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A simple form change... or is it a fundamental transformation of America?!

Before E3 2015 began, I wrote a great article about my fear of... change within the videogame industry. Change for the worse, which is the only direction change really goes in nowadays. There's little hope for better. This negative direction follows the same direction as our greater non-gaming culture.

I made a point that we used to be able to stand behind Nintendo as a great safe-house from this negativity and destruction, but that is changing and changing quickly. And my fears were confirmed when Nintendo, out of Reggie's mouth, stated that "transformation" was their theme of E3.

"It also represents a theme you're going to encounter consistently throughout Nintendo's experience for E3. That theme is transformation. Recently, Mr. Iwata has made several announcements on how Nintendo itself is being transformed. [...] Today, our purpose is more immediate: To focus on the transformations you'll be enjoying right inside your Nintendo gameplay in the coming months." [Emphasis added]

You know what this reminds me of that is totally not just a ridiculous tangent?

Symbols of Stigma: a RARE Story

By RAWKHAWK2010 - She's got stigmas like you wouldn't believe~

As has been made clear in the past few days, select dudes were waiting with bated breath for someone like the Charleston church charger to come along. Not because they were in any hurry to feel sympathy for the victims or their families, but because it would incur a massive out-pour of guilt for said opportunists to jump upon like a goat on a hobo, so that they could achieve their own insidious ends and get everything banned/stigmatized/dead that they don't personally like.

And it appears to be working, beginning with total annihilation of the Confederate flag. Regarding whether the flag should remain at the Charleston capital after appearing in photos with Roof, Governor Nikki Haley said no, Mitt Romney said no, Jeb Bush said no, and even Lindsey Graham said no, which means he just lost the few 2016 votes he might have actually had and will now be performing even more shittily in the Republican Presidential Primary Debate Super Contest than originally predicted. Not to mention that Wal-Mart has opted to pull all Confederate flag-branded items from their stores for being "offensive", despite the fact that just about everything sold in a Wal-Mart is "offensive" to one sense or another (from the ghastly produce to the third-world bar soap).

As the creator of such classics as "Rebel Crossing" and "I Wish I Was In Stoutland", I obviously won't take this sitting down. Well, I might, but I'm sure as hell still going to write about it. Because in defense of the Confederate flag, there's a timely story to be told here. A story about another powerful and beautiful symbol spat on and ridiculed by the "writers of history", which at long last Rose Again as it always knew it would.

The symbol of Rare.

E3 2015: Good, Bad, and Hideous Conferences

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Because ugly doesn't describe what happened last week with some of these companies.

Last week was E3 2015 week on KoopaTV. We published seventeen live reaction log articles for your enjoyment all linked to and labeled in our E3 2015 schedule. Hey, that's one more than 2014. So you heard from us more often on the key E3 moments!

And... it's through hearing us like we were there (Kamek was there literally but was stuck on the shelf for the rest of the conference) that we're able to come up with our educated and informed rankings on which company did the best during E3! 'cause if you're hearing us, then that means we had something to say.

So without further ado, here's the tier list and write-up, best-to-worst, with their main live reaction log linked: 

Super Mario Maker @ Best Buy First-Hand Impressions!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Nintendo Access: Super Mario Maker @ Best Buy! ...What a flop.

A month ago, when Nintendo announced the "Nintendo Access: Super Mario Maker @ Best Buy" event, KoopaTV wrote derisively of it.

"Does anyone out there actually want to go out to a Best Buy and play Mario Maker? Really?"
"Seriously, there is nothing compelling about going to that Best Buy event besides filling up your 3DS's Streetpasses. Which definitely will happen, assuming anyone shows up. The crowds will definitely be thinner this year."

Well, I went anyway on Wednesday June 17. Just to see how many folks would go there. So how many people were there? And should you go Saturday June 20?

Nintendo Treehouse Live: Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright & E3 Ends!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The Treehouse concludes E3, but not before some Fire Emblem Fates action.

By the end of this reaction log, we will have covered the ending of E3 2015.

That sounds like such a huge statement! And we're going right back to our best friends at Nintendo Treehouse Live to bring us the end of E3 and their own videogame showcase. Included: Group pictures! Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, and even more Super Mario Maker! I'm Nintendork 13 13 (on AOL Instant Messenger anyway) and Rawk is himself. Let's go!

Capcom Unity Plays Mega Man Legacy Collection at E3 2015

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Time for a different company's live stream to see how the other side lives.

Did you know that Nintendo is not the only company constantly live-streaming their product offerings this E3 2015? The good folks at Capcom Unity are also doing that, though there wasn't anything that they did not already announce ahead of time.

So today we have Capcom Unity's Gregaman and Mega Man Legacy Collection producer Rey Jimenez. They are obviously talking about Mega Man Legacy Collection, which is a compilation of future-proofed ports of the NES Mega Man games (1-6) along with challenges, art, and a few other stuff. For context, there was a Mega Man Anniversary Collection over a decade ago with Mega Man games 1-8 plus two arcadey games Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man: The Power Fighters. So... a lot of people feel that Capcom is not doing a good job here, and we can see that in their stream since the Capcom guys respond to questions!

I'm Nintendork 13 13, and Rawk makes a cameo. Plus, breaking news regarding George Zimmerman! Let's see how well I know my classic Mega Man!

Some may claim this is "authentic". I claim this was made in Paint.