Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/30/17 at 05:24 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! June was full of lies, and the dreaded Summer Game Drought does appear to have snuck up on us, once again. July features a LOT of delayed releases from previous months that never quite got out the door. The remaining releases aren’t looking particularly inspiring.
There are only two pieces of shovelware coming in July: One in each major shovelware sub-shovel. There’s “Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star” coming to Switch, for those who like their shovelware based on a non-game IP. Then there’s “Miitopia” coming to the 3DS, for those who like their shovelware so casual that it’s hard to find an actual game in there.
There are four ports/remasters slated for July as well. The PS4 and XBONE will both be receiving a compilation of the completely uninteresting “Don’t Starve” games, as well as a delayed port of loathsome Roguelike, “Rogue Stormers,” and “Minecraft”-ugly RTS, “8-Bit Armies,” while the PS4 …
Chasing the 16-Bit Dragon
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/25/17 at 03:48 PM CT
I have a LOT of “RPG Maker” games and other retro RPG titles in my Steam library. I also have a lot of Kemco’s retro RPGs in my Google Play library. Yet I find myself rarely playing these, as, after an initial taste of these titles that aim to replicate the classics of the Golden Age, I have been bitterly disappointed.
Yes, I got solid enjoyment out of “Skyborn,” and, yes, the spoofy parody games by Zeboyd have been enjoyable in a very “Earthbound” sort of way, but all of the other neo-16-bit RPGs I’ve played in the last few years just haven’t done anything for me. I feel like a Chinese addict who finds themselves constantly “chasing the dragon” in my attempts to find a new RPG that will instill in me the same feelings of awe that “Final Fantasy 6,” “Dragon Quest 5,” “Suikoden 2,” or “Chrono Trigger” did, yet always failing because the metaphorical ‘dragon’ is an unreachable target.
However, the ‘dragon’ actually gave me some …
E3 Impressions 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/18/17 at 03:33 PM CT
I honestly didn’t get my hopes up for E3 this year. No significant rumors have been circulating about major upcoming reveals, and the only new hardware we’ve been waiting for is yet another Xbox (which nobody should care about anyway). Fortunately, Nintendo managed to produce a large enough quantity of surprises to carry the rest of the show single-handedly.
Microsoft:
Want: Expanded Backward Compatibility, “Sea of Thieves” (still!)
Not Sure if Want: “Metro Exodus,” “Super Lucky’s Tale,” “Ori and the Will of the Wisps,” “Age of Empires Remastered”
Do Not Want: 4K Pandering/Hardware Fetishism, XBONEX, Ridiculous Car Stunt Reveal for “Forza,” “Last Night,” “Crackdown 3,” 22 ‘exclusives,’ of which only 1 is actually exclusive
Microsoft finally pulled the concealing tarp off of Xbox Scorpio… revealing the milquetoast mid-generational upgrade whose official name is Xbox One X. It is incredibly disappointing that neither Sony nor MS had …
Always Destroy the Head: Atari Set to Release New Hardware
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/10/17 at 10:08 PM CT
Alas, you all did not heed me! Woe to the videogames industry, for a wicked spectre from the past is come to bring ruin to us all!
It has long been my vehement opinion that Atari, the perpetrator of the Great Crash of 1983, the same Atari which later acquired, then painfully abused the Dungeons & Dragons videogame license from Wizards of the Coast, should be completely and thoroughly destroyed – Its intellectual properties broken up and distributed to other rightsholders, its offices razed to the ground and sown with salt.
Now this same Atari (delenda est), which you all believed to be no threat, has risen from the dead, marshalled its forces, and is about to make a move. In a surprise pre-E3 2017 announcement, Atari (delenda est) revealed that they will be producing an upcoming device called “AtariBox.”
YouTube channel, SpawnWaveMedia, has been picking-apart any new information they can get their hands on regarding the AtariBox, and have come to the frightening …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/04/17 at 02:46 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:
This Spring, I decided it was finally time to dust-off the original two ‘Deus Ex’ games in order to educate myself before playing “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” sometime this Summer. In general, though, I had a rather disappointing quarter, without a single game scoring over 4 stars.
“Krater: Shadows Over Solside” – 2/5
“Deus Ex: Invisible War” – 4/5
“Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition” – 3/5
“Yet Another Zombie Defense” – 1/5
“Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut” – 4/5
“Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris” – 4/5
“CastleStorm” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris didn’t have a particularly good quarter either. He was disappointed by a Survival Horror game, as well as the dumb zombie coop thing we played for one evening. He also didn’t like the coop experience of “Lara Croft and …
View Archive
