I thought it was important to put heterosexual male sexuality in the title as I cannot recall any instance of Geralt displaying interest in the same sex.
This kinda grinds my gears. I'm not exactly a Kojima Kultist but I respect the man, after all he DID make a great first step in popularizing the modern notion of postmodernism in games through MGS2 and I have spent many countless nights replaying his Metal Gear series, reading and watching interviews with the man himself and pondering the overlying themes of GENE, MEME, SCENE and SENSE.
I think it's safe to say that if you're going to create a list of Game Devs who have artistic merit, Kojima derves a slot in at least the top 10. The man can construct a meaningful and provoking narrative.
I know some people will want to say "But this is the series where you hide in a cardboard box and there's a man who poops himself, there isn't any meaningful subtext here. It can't tackle real issues." To which I can only say that these people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's a reason most well-paced horror films has comedic relief "breather" moments in between the ever growing sense of dread. If you can't handle camp here and there, then I'm sorry but you really shouldn't be getting involved with media from Japan. [insert witticism about drills piercing heavens, batting a meteor out of the sky with a bass guitar, galaxy sized bullets and trains being suplexed here]
Might I add, that the anime with meteors being batted out of the sky with a guitar (FLCL, if you were wondering) has made grown-ass men cry. Big, hairy men with beards and tattoos and muscles. Camp =/= inability to be emotive and meaningful.
Now, enter The Witcher. Again, CDPR are developers I respect, developers I might even have to admit I have a great deal of bias toward. I love their policies on DLC, on DRM, on pricing, on piracy, everything. I think they're a dev team that at the end of the day, respects you not only as a consumer but also as a fan.
And sure, CDPR catch flak here and there for their portrayal of sexual relationships, I believe people bring up some points about a woman being almost raped then immediately jumping into bed with Geralt, but there's also people bringing up issues of Geralt's infidelity to Triss being neglected if the player so chooses to be unfaithful, a possible lack of maturity on part of CDPR, there's also two occasion in TW2 where sex is explicitly used as a quest reward, which may or may not have lead to some "b& in australia" censorship. Apparently it depends on where us Aussies get our copies. These scenes still work for me and my copy's retail.
But the thing is, the criticism CDPR catches for this is practically negligible and it's few and far between. Yet every time something happens surrounding The Phantom Pain and it's character: Quiet, Kojima is seemingly roasted on all fronts.
Yet I notice, that while the criticism of The Witcher's sexual explorations sound solid and reasonable, the criticism of Kojima seems to be going the complete other direction.
Here's an imgur a friend sent me from a Neogaf thread. Ignore the title.
http://imgur.com/k7CP1Cz
[Context: These people are all talking about Quiet's action figure having soft breasts.]
"... they used her [Quiet, a character that is in the game] as a marketing tool [for the game that she is a character in] which is unacceptable."
"Why does Japan get a pass for everything? They're like a cuter Saudi Arabia." [I won't even touch the racial undertones of that statement, but they're there.]
"I wonder how Joosten [who made the conscious decision to sell her likeness to Konami to create this game] feels after seeing her (kinda boss) upload a picture of [someone] squishing the breasts on a figure modeled after her."
I can't be the only one who finds this incredibly ridiculous, can I? I mean, this is unarguably less of an issue than The Witcher's portrayal of rape, yet I never saw people being this up-in-arms about that.
With the brouhaha that's happening in gaming right now, I'd very much appreciate a little consistency coming from the masses.
This kinda grinds my gears. I'm not exactly a Kojima Kultist but I respect the man, after all he DID make a great first step in popularizing the modern notion of postmodernism in games through MGS2 and I have spent many countless nights replaying his Metal Gear series, reading and watching interviews with the man himself and pondering the overlying themes of GENE, MEME, SCENE and SENSE.
I think it's safe to say that if you're going to create a list of Game Devs who have artistic merit, Kojima derves a slot in at least the top 10. The man can construct a meaningful and provoking narrative.
I know some people will want to say "But this is the series where you hide in a cardboard box and there's a man who poops himself, there isn't any meaningful subtext here. It can't tackle real issues." To which I can only say that these people are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's a reason most well-paced horror films has comedic relief "breather" moments in between the ever growing sense of dread. If you can't handle camp here and there, then I'm sorry but you really shouldn't be getting involved with media from Japan. [insert witticism about drills piercing heavens, batting a meteor out of the sky with a bass guitar, galaxy sized bullets and trains being suplexed here]
Might I add, that the anime with meteors being batted out of the sky with a guitar (FLCL, if you were wondering) has made grown-ass men cry. Big, hairy men with beards and tattoos and muscles. Camp =/= inability to be emotive and meaningful.
Now, enter The Witcher. Again, CDPR are developers I respect, developers I might even have to admit I have a great deal of bias toward. I love their policies on DLC, on DRM, on pricing, on piracy, everything. I think they're a dev team that at the end of the day, respects you not only as a consumer but also as a fan.
And sure, CDPR catch flak here and there for their portrayal of sexual relationships, I believe people bring up some points about a woman being almost raped then immediately jumping into bed with Geralt, but there's also people bringing up issues of Geralt's infidelity to Triss being neglected if the player so chooses to be unfaithful, a possible lack of maturity on part of CDPR, there's also two occasion in TW2 where sex is explicitly used as a quest reward, which may or may not have lead to some "b& in australia" censorship. Apparently it depends on where us Aussies get our copies. These scenes still work for me and my copy's retail.
But the thing is, the criticism CDPR catches for this is practically negligible and it's few and far between. Yet every time something happens surrounding The Phantom Pain and it's character: Quiet, Kojima is seemingly roasted on all fronts.
Yet I notice, that while the criticism of The Witcher's sexual explorations sound solid and reasonable, the criticism of Kojima seems to be going the complete other direction.
Here's an imgur a friend sent me from a Neogaf thread. Ignore the title.
http://imgur.com/k7CP1Cz
[Context: These people are all talking about Quiet's action figure having soft breasts.]
"... they used her [Quiet, a character that is in the game] as a marketing tool [for the game that she is a character in] which is unacceptable."
"Why does Japan get a pass for everything? They're like a cuter Saudi Arabia." [I won't even touch the racial undertones of that statement, but they're there.]
"I wonder how Joosten [who made the conscious decision to sell her likeness to Konami to create this game] feels after seeing her (kinda boss) upload a picture of [someone] squishing the breasts on a figure modeled after her."
I can't be the only one who finds this incredibly ridiculous, can I? I mean, this is unarguably less of an issue than The Witcher's portrayal of rape, yet I never saw people being this up-in-arms about that.
With the brouhaha that's happening in gaming right now, I'd very much appreciate a little consistency coming from the masses.
