Backlog: The Embiggening - July, 2015
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/28/15 at 02:43 PM CT
Summer is in full-swing… yet game publishers don’t seem to realize they have a captive audience of customers with a lot of vacation time on their hands and no games to play. July isn’t getting very many releases, and several of the stated July releases are just delayed titles from the past few months. Add a lot of ports and remasters to the mix and it’ll be a very difficult month for those looking to spend money on videogames.
Shovelware is practically gone again this month. In fact, the only shovelware titles releasing are annual sports and racing titles: “Rory McIlroy PGA Tour” (since Tiger Woods is no longer good enough at golf to keep his face on the box) and “F1 2015.”
In the land of ports and remasters, the “Zombie Army Trilogy” and “Legend of Kay HD” were both delayed to July. In addition, the “Wolfenstein: The Old Blood” stand-alone DLC will be coming to the 8th Gen consoles (minus WiiU). Sony will also be remastering the PS3’s …
E3 Impressions 2015
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/21/15 at 02:57 AM CT
After several years in a row of bland, unexciting, disappointing E3s, I was expecting this year to be more of the same: Bag on Microsoft because Xbox is a waste of space. Bag on Sony for leaning too hard on third-party games. Bag on Nintendo for leaning solely on first-party games. Bag on the developer conferences because EA, Ubisoft, and Activision are the spawn of Satan and Square Enix is wearing whiteface and blue contact lenses, pretending to be a Westerner. It’s getting to be old hat and feels very redundant.
This year’s E3 promised to be different from the start, however, both by including a few more publisher conferences than usual and by including a PC gaming conference for the first time ever. Color me surprised, as well, that my chosen victor in the Battle of E3 2015 did NOT turn out to be PC, but Microsoft… with Windows 10, not XBONE, so I guess PC still won, in a way. Likewise, I was completely shocked and amazed by a large number of the game reveals (both …
Steam Begins Offering Refunds; Can Used Digital PC Games be Far Behind?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/14/15 at 02:33 PM CT
On June 2nd, 2015, Valve did something unexpected with their Steam gaming platform. While Steam has been beloved by PC gamers for quite some time due to its unobtrusive DRM, all-inclusive client features, and sales with discounts so huge a movie ticket and a cup of Starbucks look like a house payment in comparison, the Achilles Heel of the House that Gaben Built has always been the customer service. PC gamers love Steam when everything is working correctly, but the moment something goes awry and the need to contact customer service arises, Steam loses a bit of its luster, with anecdotes commonly siting weeks to months of waiting for a resolution.
Valve is aware of this smudge on Steam’s reputation, and back in March one of the company’s business officers, Erik Johnson, flat-out said that Steam needs better customer service. Fast forward to June, and that customer service has just gotten a bit friendlier with the added ability to return any Steam game for any reason and …
Redefining RPGs: Let’s Do it Right
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/07/15 at 06:49 PM CT
It has been quite some time since I railed against the stupidity of the modern videogames industry dividing my favorite genre, the RPG, in half along regionally-described lines at the beginning of the 7th Generation. Since then, I have had several unproductive arguments with my own personal Gadfly – and frequent MeltedJoystick Featured User Review winner – Jonzor about ‘J’RPGs and ‘W’RPGs, and have gotten back into tabletop RPGs after a long, involuntary hiatus.
In reading the large amount of material, both in rulebooks and online, about tabletop RPGs that I had missed due to being out of the loop, it seems that arguments about style have been going on since at least 2001, when an Indie RPG writer by the name of Ron Edwards started a discussion about three pillars of RPG theory. Based on the Threefold GDS model that spawned from the dark pits of UseNet in 1997, Edwards’ GNS theory states that RPGs can be divided into three stylistic groups depending on their main …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2015
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/01/15 at 01:55 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:
My year in gaming got off to a great start. By which I mean that I cleared a large number of games off my backlog, not that all of the games I played were great, as that was, unfortunately, not the case.
“Trine 2” – 3.5/5
“Millennium 3: Cry Wolf” – 3.5/5
“The Wonderful 101” – 3/5
“Swords & Soldiers HD” – 2/5
“NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits” – 3.5/5
“NES Remix Pack” – 2/5
“Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons” – 4/5
“Millennium 2: Take Me Higher” – 4/5
“SteamWorld Dig” – 4.5/5
“The Banner Saga” – 3/5
“Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion” – 1/5
“DuckTales” – 3.5/5
“DuckTales Remastered” – 4.5/5
“Pikmin 3” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris has been spending way, way, waaaay too much of his game time lately making sweet, sweet love to his Android …
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