Backlog: The Embiggening - May, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/27/13 at 02:32 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. May is the traditional start of the Summer Game Drought… and boy is the drought coming on strong and fast! This month holds the smallest number of releases since I started covering upcoming games in the ‘Backlog: The Embiggening’ series of articles. With two new consoles on the horizon and the WiiU deserving a re-boxing, I can only hope that the even-more-drastic-than-usual drop-off in game releases this May is indicative of developers shifting focus to new hardware, and they just haven’t had the time to finish their 8th Generation inaugural projects.
The most frightening occurrence this month is that there are ZERO licensed games or shovelware on the docket. How is that even possible?! Sure, we all fantasize about a games industry that doesn’t make terrible tie-in games or super-casual shovelware… but now that we’re actually getting a month without them, the release schedule looks remarkably, impossible thin.
There …
Hindsight is 20/20 or Why I No Longer Own Any of My Original Nintendo Games
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/25/13 at 08:53 PM CT
I have been a video game fan from pretty much day one - from playing Atari at my babysitters to happily opening my very own Nintendo one awesome Christmas morning. You have a lot going for you when you are young - boundless energy, an inquisitive mind and that feeling of invulnerability that only comes from not knowing any better. One thing you don't have: money. Unless you are amongst the 1% you have to rely on parents (and maybe an allowance) to get by. Unfortunately, it also means, as the Rolling Stones so eloquently put it: "You can't always get what you want."
I have made a great list detailing just how many games I not longer have. Other than the two PS2 games and Chrono Trigger, I can say that all the NES and SNES games were sold for the simple fact I needed money for the latest and greatest system. That's right, gems such as Monster Party (a more obscure title), Blaster Master, Maniac Mansion (R.I.P. LucasArts), Gauntlet, Shadowgate and many Mario Bros. and Teenage Mutant …
The Official WiiU Re-Boxing Ceremony
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/21/13 at 06:22 PM CT
It has been almost exactly 5 months since the MeltedJoystick crew went through the elaborate, Iwata-inspired ritual for unboxing my shiny, new WiiU (dead pixel and all). Since November, the MeltedJoystick crew enjoyed co-op playthroughs of “New Super Mario Bros U,” “Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed,” and “Nintendo Land” (maybe ‘enjoyed’ is too strong a word for that last one).
Our enjoyment of the WiiU lasted until the end of January… and it only lasted that long because we only gathered to play those games as a group once a week. Had those three games been single-player experiences, I think I would have blown through them alone by the middle of December.
While my first impressions of the WiiU were somewhat mixed, thanks in large part to the half-baked system software, slow load times, and the fact that the entire console seemed confused about whether it was a new console or a giant DS, my current impressions of the WiiU are much less flattering. It has …
Ouya! Oh No?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/17/13 at 02:40 PM CT
For those who have been keeping up with the blogs here on MeltedJoystick (and we thank those intrepid souls who have), you may remember that back in July of 2012, fellow blogger Nelson wrote about the recently-announced Ouya - an ambitious Android-based console. Well, flash forward to today and we know a lot more about the Ouya and things are off to a shaky start.
As reported by such sites as CNET, theverge and techradar everything from controller design to game selection has been questioned. Of course the Ouya team fired back quickly essentially saying this earlier copy was not supposed to be for review and that all issues would be addressed before the official June 06, 2012 debut.
But one has to wonder at even $99 whether the Ouya will be able to grab a piece of the market. More recently is was revealed the console is a bit slow when compared to modern Android devices ranging from cell phones to tablets. If your Android device is already better than Ouya, what's the point of …
PS3 Problem - Won't Play Blu-ray Movies
Nick - wrote on 04/15/13 at 08:37 PM CT
I first got my PS3 slim a few years ago through a packaged Sony deal including a LCD TV, a free movie and game. I thought the PS3 was the perfect solution for a blu-ray player. It could even access a media server on my network, as well as something that could play games. An all-win scenario for a low cost packaged price.
But as of late, the one thing I used my PS3 the most for started failing, playing blu-ray movies. At first it was just one or two blu-ray movies I had issues with, so I blamed it on the publisher for not following standards or putting too much copyright protection garbage on the disc. Even though that probably had some truth in it (as it makes those discs harder to read), I started having more issues. I got to the point where very few blu-ray movies would be recognized by the PS3 at all. But... the PS3 never had an issue with any game discs, not even once.
I started searching Google for hours on end trying to figure out what the problem was. Most …
One to Rule Them All: How Consolidation is Harming the Videogame Industry
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/12/13 at 03:48 PM CT
Gazing out upon the game publishing landscape, where once there existed a scenic vista dotted with dozens of small developer/publishers that stood along the skyline like a forest of exotic alien trees, there now stand instead a few hulking, farraginous monoliths, spewing toxicity and death into the air. On the Western horizon of this landscape stand behemoths like EA, Activision, Atari (delenda est), Disney, Hasbro, and Warner Bros. (the latter three aren’t even primarily game makers), while on the Easter horizon stand Square-Enix, Namco-Bandai, Sega-Sammy, Tecmo-Koei, Takara-Tomy, and Konami. While most Eastern companies have the decency to memorialize the victims of their cannibalism via hyphenated naming, in the West the many consumed to fuel the growth of the few are forgotten by all but dedicated historians.
Surely the growth of a few companies must be a good thing, at least to capitalist thinking? These dominant companies must be doing everything right while the …
A Fond Farewell to LucasArts
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/09/13 at 08:54 PM CT
When Disney acquired Star Wars - I knew there were going to be some changes coming. But are all these changes good? Scrapping plans for 3D re-releases to focus on the new films? Good! Scrapping the Star Wars: Clone Wars Series? Bad (I'm still holding out hope it will return on one of the Disney Networks). But nothing is as big as the latest announcement to come out of camp Disney.
In no uncertain terms, LucasArts is dead. But I'm a realist here - LucasArts has been a shadow of its former glory for many years. I mean, this is the studio that gave us Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island and plenty of awesome Tie Fighter/X-Wing games. Super Star Wars was a great platformer and Shadows of the Empire is still one of my favorite N64 games. But lately things have been a bit... tepid. You can only crank out so many Rogue Squadron and LEGO games - and aside from Knights of the Old Republic, there has been a bit of a drought. Oh sure, The Force Unleashed tried - but even a new story couldn't save …
Capcom Becomes the Undisputed Master of Necrotic Equine Pugilism
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/04/13 at 12:11 PM CT
Capcom has always been a company that was willing to take an idea and ride it into the ground. Six ‘Mega Man’ games on the NES? “Street Fighter 2,” “Street Fighter 2: Turbo,” AND “Super Street Fighter 2” all hitting the SNES? Yeah, Capcom has been playing this game for a while and has really developed the skills.
But just when you thought their mastery of lumber-on-horseflesh couldn’t go any further, Capcom has announced that they will be releasing a remake of the NES-era platformer, “DuckTales,” next month. Seriously. “DuckTales.” This is a remake of a 24-year-old licensed Disney game that was originally based on a TV show that hasn’t been on the air in 23 years. As far as I know, Disney has no intention of rebooting the show, nor is it currently being run in syndication on any popular channels. The most recent tie-in Capcom could possibly be milking here is a failed six-issue “DuckTales” comic that flopped in 2011. A FAILED comic, not a successful …
April Fools Day 2013 Video Game Roundup
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/01/13 at 09:01 PM CT
Ah, the Internet was made for April Fools Day - whether it is the eminent death of YouTube or Google Nose - it's always a good day to check around. But what about video games? No worries - there is plenty of fun to go around to everyone - including gamers. Here is a rundown of some of the best that April Fools 2013 had to offer:
Capcom Announces "Super Duper" Street Fighter IV - This joke is super effective!
Reddit Buys Team Fortress 2 I think: "Our new system helps us allocate logistical synergy-based resources in over fifteen inter-dependent base clusters, creating a vortex of statistical momentum and creativity augmentation." - sums things quite nicely.
Blizzard Kidzz Where in Sanctuary is Deckard Cain? Zergling Teaches Typing? The Westfall Trail? Now those are the type of edutainment games we really do need.
Guild Wars 2 Goes Retro This is cool because it's actually going to be live - at least for the month of April - so it's not so much a joke as a throwback - extra …
The Nintendo - EA Feud: Will It Doom the Ailing WiiU?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/01/13 at 07:26 PM CT
As Nelson was so nice to point out in his previous blog - the WiiU has no games coming out this April. The launch was pretty weak already - an extended tech demo, a Mario game and zombies are a potent combination - but not potent enough to spurn that much interest. But for those hoping that the future will be bright for the WiiU - it's looking more and more like things are going to get worse before they get better.
First, third party support for the system is already looking pretty weak for the rest of the year. No Bioshock Infinite (as of this blog, the best-reviewed game of 2013), no Crysis 3, no GTA V, no Tomb Raider - and the list goes on. Sure, it will have some exclusives: Pikmin 3, Rayman Legends and (at some point) a Zelda and most likely Metroid - but these games keep getting pushed back.
Now comes the news that the WiiU that it won't be able to run the Unreal 4 Engine nor EA's Frostbite 3 Engine that will run on the next iteration of the Mass Effect, Dragon Age and …
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