Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/26/24 at 03:36 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! The shortest month of the year is upon us again, but with an extra day for terrible Games Industry releases thanks to Leap Year. Let’s see what afflictions will befall us in the next 29 days.
There’s not a lot of shovelware coming in February, so I think we can make do with just the one shovel. There are 2 Licensed Swill games coming: “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” and “Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash.” On top of that, there are two super-casual trash titles coming in the form of “PlateUp!” and “30 Sports Games in 1.” No Annualized Rehashes, though, as those typically aren’t ready for deposit until Autumn, at the earliest.
Some of that shovelware was also rehashed not-so-new releases, colloquially known as “ports,” but known to me as the Bane of All Existence. Sadly, more than HALF of all the releases in February (even including shovelware) are not, in fact, new games meant to surprise and …
6 Games to Watch for in 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/21/24 at 02:58 PM CT
Welcome back to MeltedJoystick’s not-so-annual feature in which we take a look ahead at the entire upcoming year and determine if there’s anything on the release schedule at all to get excited about. Why is this feature so inconsistent? Well, there are many years in which the MJ Crew has difficulty coming up with 5 Game of the Year awardees, let alone any titles to get excited about before the fact. However, 2024 has a few that could be real winners. Let’s get into it!
6. Dragon’s Dogma 2
The original “Dragon’s Dogma” was… okay. With its large open world, unique Pawn system for asymmetrical co-op, giant monsters, and plethora of playable (and swappable) classes, the ‘Dragon’s Dogma’ IP earned a following amongst fans of Dark Fantasy Action games who just can’t tolerate the quantities of bullshit found in From Software games. I didn’t love “Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen” when I played it back on the PS3, but I also didn’t hate it enough that I’m …
Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/14/24 at 02:52 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! We’ve officially survived another year of Games Industrial-sized Fails, disasters, and debacles. With a New Year, we have yet another new opportunity to change our ways and STOP encouraging the Big Publishers to be such trash. Let’s take a look at what the Corpos are going to try shoving down our throats as 2024 rolls in.
We’re off to a… tolerable start with regard to shovelware quantities. We’ve only got three, they’re all the same type (Licensed Swill), and one of them was supposed to come out last year, but got delayed. We’ve got the Switch port of last month’s “Walking Dead: Destinies,” the delayed console versions of a game based on an ancient Mecha anime called ‘UFO Robot Grendizer,’ and lastly we’ve got a new game based on the European ‘Tintin’ comic strip… which I can’t believe is still relevant to anyone anywhere in any world.
Moving onto my favorite category of old stuff being peddled …
New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/07/24 at 02:37 PM CT
The results of the last year’s New Year’s Backlog Ablutions are in! Amazingly, for the second year in a row, all four of the competitors managed to complete their chosen backlogged titles and submit reviews.
Once again, however, Chris and I were done before the Dog Days of Summer were upon us, while Nick and Matt managed to cross the finish line in mid-December. The good news, at least, is that no one was feverishly writing a review while watching the Ball drop in Times Square.
Because there were no losers in 2023, no Penalty Games will change hands. However, because there were no losers for two years in a row, we’ve decided to up the ante again and return to three games for the 2024 challenge.
To summarize: We all have one year to play three 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 …
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