Issue #31: Carnage vs. Cuteness – January/February 2018

Here’s a situation I never thought I’d find myself in as lifelong Nintendo fan: Having the option to play, with regular frequency, M-rated games on a Nintendo home console. Oh, sure, there have been a few here and there before, on the Wii U and in the generations preceding it – but seeing a game intended for ages 17 and up was such a rare event that no “adult” audience could ever be established. And I never minded! I’m not much of a fan of blood and gore or any of the other kinds of content that force the ESRB to slap that “M” label down in the corner of any given game’s box art. I don’t even watch R-rated movies! Give me a PG-13 with lots of explosions and I’ll do fine.

Even though they’re not my personal choice for entertainment, though, I recognize that M-rated games appeal to a vast audience – and so their traditional absence from Nintendo’s platforms has meant that vast audience has had to get their fix of such content through PC gaming or Sony’s PlayStations or Microsoft’s Xbox machines. The weird new reality, though, is that Nintendo’s Switch is beginning to find a foothold in this long-unexplored territory through releases like L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the game that appears on one of our two covers this time, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

It’s one of two covers because we wanted to visually illustrate the two directions Nintendo is now being pulled in: This new library of mature games must exist in concert with Nintendo’s tried-and-true, family-friendly fare. (And who better than Kirby to illustrate that?) So, Force fans, we submit for your consideration Carnage vs. Cuteness, a split issue with one foot in both camps of content!