Backlog: The Embiggening – April, 2024
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/31/24 at 03:23 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! It turns out that Christopher would have seen his shadow if he wasn’t staring so intently at his phone, so we’ve been saddled with 6 more weeks of Wintry weather. April is upon us, and I still have to keep my furnace turned on at night… so… thanks, Global Warming?
Sadly, videogame releases have become far more predictable than the weather in recent years. Let me don my Carnac-style turban as I look through this list of crappy games that has been buried under Funk and Wagnal’s porch in a mayonnaise jar since NOON TODAY: Crap, old stuff, a handful of stuff I don’t care about, and maybe one or two titles I’m interested in… like it’s been every month for years.
The direct-to-dumpster stuff in the Shovelware category is fairly light in April. There’s a new ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ game, “Wrath of the Mutants”… which really isn’t ‘new,’ but it is a port of an arcade machine to home consoles …
Larian Studios to Part Ways with Hasbro-Wizards and D&D
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/24/24 at 01:49 PM CT
Back in those halcyon days before the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global socio-political fallout, the Crew at MeltedJoystick was super-excited about our new favorite RPG studio being tapped by Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro to create the next big Dungeons & Dragons cRPG… and the fact that it was going to be a sequel in the beloved ‘Baldur’s Gate’ series. What we didn’t know at the time, however, was the fact that Hasbro-Wizards didn’t actually call upon Larian to work on last year’s Magnum Opus and undisputed Game of the Year/Decade/Generation winner, “Baldur’s Gate 3,” but that the Scandinavian Indie studio actually begged, pleaded, and paid for the rights of their own volition (and dramatized the process in a satiric video).
In recent news, Larian has announced that they are not going to be making any DLC or expansions for “Baldur’s Gate 3,” nor do they plan to make “Baldur’s Gate 4.” Even more tragically, Larian has signaled …
Nintendo Continues to Play Emulation Whack-a-Mole
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/17/24 at 02:38 PM CT
A couple weeks ago, Nintendo made one of its heavy-handed legal moves, in which it sued the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, so hard that they took down their website and purged their Github. It’s unsurprising that The Big N was triggered by the existence of Yuzu, considering how hard their fanboys ‘spurged-out when a Yuzu icon appeared in an official Steam Deck promotional video from Valve. And, as we all know, Nintendo has a long, bleak history of clamping down on anyone enjoying their past library of titles without doing things THEIR WAY.
Of course, Nintendo is a flailing giant trying to swat at fleas. They may crush one flea so thoroughly that it is erased from existence… but that does nothing to the thousands of other fleas in the swarm.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that another team of emulation developers has already taken up the torch dropped by the Yuzu team. The provocatively-named Suyu emulator will pick up right where Yuzu left off, …
He’s Everywhere VIII!: Indie Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/10/24 at 03:37 PM CT
It’s that time of year, again! The coming of March means that localized paranormal phenomenon, Chris, is another year older and another year more inscrutable. Last year, I dug back into Game Freak’s world of pocketable monsters to reveal that there are indeed more of them that look, act, or otherwise invoke the abstract concept of “Chris-ness” than I initially realized.
This year, in honor of the recent developments in “Name, Image, and Likeness” law surrounding college athletes, I decided to take a look at all the small-time Indie games that Chris could definitely sue for stealing his unique… err… appeal?
10. “The Binding of Isaac”"When I first saw Chris playing this abomination (in a non-fullscreen window… with a mouse), I asked him if he had done the art design for it. Chris’ levels of depravity and love of the gruesome are at least on par with this game’s developer, if not greater, and every time I (accidentally) see some new horror from Isaac’s …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/03/24 at 01:50 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:
I actually had a pretty good Winter quarter, with plenty of 4.5 scores to hand out. Two of those high-scoring titles were my Backlog Ablution titles, which just leaves me with one more to review to complete my end of the challenge for 2024.
“Catmaze” – 4.5/5
“The Alliance Alive” – 2/5
“Super Mario Bros. Wonder” – 4.5/5
“Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart” – 4.5/5
“Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris actually finished one of the big, sprawling Sandboxes he was playing simultaneously! And he remembered to drop off a review for a coop title we finished together the previous quarter. But…
“Rage 2” – 4.5/5
“MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries” – 4/5
Nick’s Reviews:
… Holy Crap! Not only did Nick successfully clear his Backlog Ablutions for the first time (and …
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