We Are Beset by Sequelitis on This Episode of Waypoint Radio

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What, if anything, does a sequel owe its predecessors? While didn't realize it at the time, that's the question we chewed on during this nearly two-hour long episode of Waypoint Radio. Some games, like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, try to satisfy long time fan and newcomer alike. Others, like Fallout 76, eject much of what made the series what it was in favor of new experimentation. Listen to us try to figure out which tactic works best for us below!

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqkmd/we-are-beset-by-sequelitis-on-this-episode-of-waypoint-radio
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Did someone say Sequilitis?

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Can someone tell me what article it was Austin was referencing about bad standards of subtitles in video games?

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Did they seriously call Morgantown, WV, an actual college town, Morganville? Or did Austin just make a mistake.

Also how far south does this go? Anybody been to Bluefield or Welch or Athens or Princeton or something?

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Enjoy!

Also yeah what the hell was that Spyro excuse.

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Knack II,

thank you.

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Hey, semi-serious question. . . What if y’all streamed some coop Minecraft?

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Thank you!

In real life I’m a UX/UI designer and I’m always on the look out for learning more!

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It’s Morgantown in-game, that was a mistake.

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Shout-out to Patrick for bursting into a rant over the Spyro thing and then cutting himself off with a characteristic Klepekist “Hm!” Very relatable emotion :yum:

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This was basically a throwaway joke on the pod, but Lebron’s school wasn’t a charter school; it was a legit public school he opened in partnership with that school district. Way closer to a magnet school than a charter.

Also, Natalie missed the best of all of Eevee’s special moves—the dark type move, Baddy Bad.

I am not kidding.

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The discussion at the end of this episode on historical accuracy in Battlefield V was very interesting. When it comes to WW2 games, developers and designers seem to have little problem with putting the player in the shoes of a soldier, pilot, or general on the side of Nazi Germany. This is across the spectrum of gaming from multiplayer FPSs to tabletop wargaming.

Meanwhile, I recently came across some interesting notes from Joel Toppen, the designer of GMT’s Navajo Wars. It’s a solitaire wargame where the player takes on the role of the Navajo/Diné people, and the adversary is controlled by a “bot” (I assume in the form of flowcharts, if it’s anything like other GMT games with solo modes). Toppen writes about the design of the game:

Very quickly I ruled out a multiplayer format. The reason for this is simple: it would be very culturally insensitive to have as the goal for one of the players, the destruction of the Diné. Instead, I wanted the game to tell a story. I wanted the game to tell the story of the Navajo struggle to maintain their way of life. More than that, I wanted to tell the story from the native perspective. To do this, a solitaire game format was adopted.

(from the “Playbook” here)

I could imagine the same mindset being adopted about Nazi Germany, and only making games where the players are in the role of the Allies. But obviously the industries of gaming have gone the other way with the WW2 setting…

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Late to this episode, but I wanted to recommend something as an antidote to Fallout 76’s vaultpolitik - The Punisher: The End, a brutal horror comic by Richard Corben and Garth Ennis that came out under Marvel’s adults-only MAX imprint. Some familiarity with the character is beneficial, but it’s really a perfect self-contained thing.