Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/29/23 at 03:32 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! February is already upon us, as 2023 gets off to a rocky and tumultuous start. As tech and media companies hemorrhage staff via mass layoffs, how will that affect the quality and quantity of game releases? It won’t! We’ll still be drowning in crap.
We’ve got a light shovelware load coming in February, with one particularly big release in there that will likely dominate the month: “Hogwarts Legacy.” Now, I’m in the camp that considers the ‘Harry Potter’ IP to be old news, and who didn’t enjoy either of the last two ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films, but apparently, some people just can’t get enough Potterverse (just ask my ex-girlfriend). Honestly, the only reason I’d even consider buying a Potterverse game would be to irk the trannies who hate J.K. Rowling for telling the truth. Other than that title, we’ve also got some Switch games based on cartoons: “Spongebob: Krusty Cook-Off” is a port of a mobile game, …
New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/22/23 at 03:36 PM CT
The results of the last year’s New Year’s Backlog Ablutions are in! It’s official: For the first time since we started doing the Backlog Ablutions Challenge in 2019, ALL of us managed to succeed!
Of course, I was done by May, while Nick barely squeaked by, submitting his review for “Metroid Dread” on December 31st, while the other two guys managed to finish by late Autumn.
Because there were no losers, no Penalty Games will change hands. And since there were no losers, we believe we have finally hit the ‘sweet spot’ for the challenge, so there will be no rules revisions for 2023.
We all have one year to play two specific backlogged games that we’ve chosen for ourselves in advance. We must be ‘done’ with these games – as in, not planning to play them anymore, as neither finishing a game that turns out to be terrible nor getting 100% completion or achievements are part of the bargain – and submit reviews to MeltedJoystick for both by midnight on …
Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/15/23 at 03:24 PM CT
Welcome back, once again, to another look into the near future! 2023 is here, and both We the Gamers and the Games Industry itself have the opportunity – and excuse – to start afresh. Will gaming turn over a new leaf in the new year? Or will we get stuck with the same corrosive trends, slowly eating away at us like cosmic entropy? I’m not a gambling man, but I’d bet on the latter…
Is there shovelware? You bet! Only in the new year, it looks like we’re only getting the Licensed Swill flavor. There are two games based on anime and/or manga: “One Piece Odyssey” and “Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.” Then there are two Licensed games that are also ports, with “The Witcher 3,” based on a series of novels, which is hitting 9th Gen consoles; and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” based on a graphic novel, which is getting a second chance at life on Steam after being de-listed from consoles.
Are there ports? Of course there are ports! The Switch is still out-in-front …
MeltedJoystick Games of the Year 2022
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/08/23 at 03:13 PM CT
After two Plague Years, 2022 was an attempt at returning to normalcy. Of course, it seems that the pandemic and its aftershocks have continued to reverberate through our societies, bringing ever-more divisiveness and hostility, as the Culture Wars reach a fevered pitch in the West and Russia instigated a completely unjustified real war in the East.
While it was incredibly easy to come up with a single stand-out title to crown the MeltedJoystick Game of the Year, it was significantly more difficult to come up with 5 such games deserving of such an honor. 2022 was ultimately dominated by a small number of terrible releases and, as I have noted in my monthly Backlog: The Embiggening articles, an obscene number of ports, remasters, remakes, and rehashes.
With 2022 introducing the Steam Deck as its sole new platform, we knew we weren’t going to be drowning in Launch Window efforts to create and market ‘system sellers.’ However, the surprise of the year is that Nintendo …
View Archive
