Your new Insert Credit panel, now including Ash Parrish of The Verge, discusses Dragon Age fanfiction, the best video game music of the last ten years, and a Spice Girls nude code. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Brandon Sheffield, and Ash Parrish. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.
The beginning of this episode features some words from Brandon Sheffield on personal loss, the election, and what we can do going forward. The usual intro begins at (09:01). Thank you.
For data transfer, one thing I wanted to bring up was the Nintendo 64 Transfer Pak. As a kid I owned Mario Tennis for Game Boy Color, and some things could only be unlocked via the transfer pak to Mario Tennis for N64. I never got one as a kid, as it was too expensive for one use.
However, as a grownup, I was able to get one used and finally made the transfer. My super strong GBC players went to Mario Tennis on N64, and my GBC version got new characters and stages. It was amazing. I later sold my N64 collection, but I still have the game for GBC in its full-unlocked glory.
Learning curves… I think there is an intimidation factor in those. A game that friends of mine love, but intimidates me, is Against The Storm. There’s SO MUCH in the menus and so many resources to trade that it’s intimidating. I think my difficulty learning is partly due to that. I also do want to enjoy the game, as it’s allegedly the base-building aspect of RTS games like Warcraft and Starcraft in a roguelike experience.
Video game music… Risk of Rain 2, Deep Rock Galactic, Dome Keeper, Furi… all have soundtracks I love. Also want to take a moment to plug a now-defunct radio show from Interlochen Public Radio called Gameplay, hosted by Keith Brown. It was a show dedicated to video game music. Shows featured specific games, themes, or composers. All episodes are still on the IPR website: GAMEPLAY| Interlochen Public Radio | Interlochen Public Radio
Thanks for another great episode, and welcome to a permanent seat, Ash!
Going to get on the record to express my complete lack of targeted sympathy towards Brandon, but a brimming reserve of sympathy towards anyone for whom such a thing would be welcome, please dip thy ladles as needed.
I’ve only made it so far as Brandon’s opening, but I just wanted to say thank you for opening up, and to confirm that this show is one of the things helping me through the post-election despair as and other difficulties .
most important thing I’ve learned from a video game: Signalis, and how love is worth it even if it doesn’t have a happy ending (Jaffe’s answer did almost make me cry even though I don’t like how NieR handles its trans rep lol)
a warm welcome to Ash! it’s wonderful to have monsterfucker representation on the panel.
Ash becoming a permanent panel member is fantastic news!
On the matter of save imports, I’m actually sort of surprised, post-Veilguard that Bioware didn’t go the route they did for the original Playstation 3 port of Mass Effect 2, where you got to make 6 or so key choices about the prior game (since the original *Mass Effect was originally Xbox exclusive). I think having a couple of choices from each prior game would have smoothed over some of the frustration folks had about the game being something of a soft reboot
I wasn’t personally too bothered by the lack of imports, but Bioware was one of the few studios really exploring that sort of thing as a possibility, and with them stepping back from it (for a variety of understandable reasons) is sort of a bummer more generally. In that sense we probably have reached the pinnacle, likely with the original Mass Effect trilogy
Roleplaying games (and Bioware games, as it happens) were also a big part of how I realized I was trans, so I suppose that’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned from video games. Mass Effect 2 is probably one of the big ones: I had already hit a point where I was automatically playing women as protagonists in RPGs, but in this one I really wanted to romance Tali, who is locked to male Shepard
So, on my second playthrough I thought “I’ll make something of a self-insert and romance Tali,” but I lasted a couple of hours before I realized something was wrong about that. It still took me a long time to figure out exactly what that meant (for years I rationalized it as just preferring Jennifer Hale’s performance as Shepard), but I don’t think I’d have figured everything out without those games
Re: the learning curves question, I think that people talk about learning curves in largely the way that the panelists describe, but games can also have “difficulty curves” that more or less map to what was being discussed as the improper way to use the term “learning curve” (i.e. games can have a steep difficulty curve where there is some kind of dramatic escalation in complexity or in the demands on the players’ reflexes).
Entirely plausible that people have conflated the two types of curve in casual conversation!
There is a lot of competition on the list of Bioware’s straight romance crimes, but Tali’s romance is definitely in a fierce battle for that top spot
I think Jack being locked to Maleshep romance is significantly more egregious than Tali, and the Tali situation already should have landed multiple Bioware people in the Hague.
I honestly don’t know which one of them bothers me more. You’re right that Jack’s in particular is incredibly egregious though, since she says she’s bi/pan in actual dialogue in the same game she’s only romancable by a male Shepard
I’ve never been able to figure out what they were thinking with Cassandra being straight, but…
I actually sort of liked it in the end only because the scene you get where she lets you down is actually incredibly awkward and adorable, and it’s not the kind of thing you really get to see in games very often
Testament to the higher points of Bioware’s writing that I actually sort of liked Cassandra even though Chantry Seekers are basically cops (that’s why she’s straight btw, she’s a cop).
