OUYA Becomes Desperate, Resorts to Bribery
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/30/14 at 01:19 PM CT
While at one point everything seemed to be coming up roses for the OUYA company and its Indie console, all that fell apart once the hardware actually hit store shelves. After my unfavorable impressions of the OUYA hardware and the proprietary OUYA shop’s library of games, I hadn’t touched the thing for months.
Yet OUYA managed to drag me back to the Indie console just yesterday, as I received the following email from them Friday afternoon:
Being the thrifty soul that I am, how was I to turn down free money? If OUYA wants to resort to bribery to coax users into dusting off the Little Gray Box that Couldn’t, so be it. So after waiting two hours for the OUYA to download a system update, I input my promo code and snagged my $5.
I’ll bet you’re wondering what I spent it on, aren’t you? Get ready for a surprise… NOTHING!
In all the months my OUYA sat untouched, all of my ‘favorite’ games either went multi-platform, received zero updates, or became …
The 8th Generation Gets Its Gimmick: Reality
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/23/14 at 01:37 PM CT
At GDC this past week, the big players in the world of videogame hardware unveiled their not-so-original vision of the future – and it seems that the 8th Generation will contain a lot of reality-centric features, be they the traditionally-imagined ideas of Virtual Reality or the new-age ideas of Augmented Reality. Not only did a new version of what I have been touting as the PC’s trump card over the consoles, the Oculus Rift, appear at GDC, but Sony also revealed their own VR headset, code-named Project Morpheus, for the PlayStation 4. Unfortunately, based on a straight-up comparison between the 7th Generation tech used in the PC’s Razer Hydra and the PS3’s PlayStation Move, I’m thinking that Sony’s obsession with camera-and-light-based tracking will leave Morpheus underwhelming.
Not to be left out, Microsoft is reportedly working on some kind of vaguely-defined “Kinect Glasses” for use with their XBONE console. Unlike the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus, …
Steam Controller Revision 2 Hitting GDC 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/16/14 at 01:00 PM CT
While things have been fairly quiet since Valve first announced their somewhat weird-looking Steam controller, that doesn’t mean nothing has been happening with the project. This past week, Valve revealed to members of the Steam Universe group that they have been hard at work hand-crafting a small number of revised Steam controller prototypes to show off at the Game Developers Conference next week.
Based on the contents of this PowerPoint presentation (starting on slide 34), it looks like Valve has taken to heart much of the criticism leveled at the original Steam controller prototype by armchair critics such as myself and their beta testing participants. The awkward-looking central touchscreen has been removed, having been made redundant and useless by the versatility of the controller’s two dynamic trackpads. The four face buttons have also been relocated from an unorthodox (and no doubt uncomfortable) split layout around the now-absent centerpiece into a more standard …
Backlog: The Embiggening - March, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/07/14 at 12:48 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. March marks the de-constipation of the game development industry, as the backed-up release schedule that traditionally marks the start of a new calendar year suddenly gives way in a diarrheal flow of excrement. Let’s put on our hip-waders and run a seine through the flow – maybe we’ll catch some unseen goodness in our net (don’t count on it)!
Shovelware and licensed trash makes up a significant portion of March’s releases. And a close look at the crappiest of the crap reveals some disturbing trends. Least disturbing is the release of a new ‘South Park’ game which happens to be a turn-based RPG. My love of the genre is clashing with my distaste for the license in this case, so I will ultimately give it a pass. More disturbing is the release of a game based on “Rambo.” Why is a tie-in to a Sylvester Stallone vehicle from the ‘80s that saw a remake in 2008 being released in 2014? I guess it doesn’t really matter, as …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/02/14 at 02:36 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
To quote the late, great George Harrison’s song, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. As such, the weather has been perfect for staying inside and playing videogames! Yet, somehow, the MJ staff didn’t manage to complete a single co-op game, despite starting “Borderlands 2” and “Diablo 3.” This quarter, I focused mostly on playing the variety of the cheap Indie games I have bought on Steam recently. At the same time, I’ve had an itch for a really in-depth Sandbox game, which “Dragon’s Dogma” and “Terraria” didn’t quite scratch. Nearly 200 hours into “Skyrim,” I’m not sure if it’s scratching the itch either, but we won’t know until next quarter.
“Guacamelee: Gold Edition” – 4/5
“Terraria” – 3/5
“The Temple of Elemental Evil” – 3/5
“Evoland” – 4/5
“Ittle Dew” – …
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