Year in Review: 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/28/18 at 07:16 PM CT
Another year has come and gone, and the world continues to turn, despite Donald Trump’s best efforts to make it grind to a halt. Once again, it’s time to take a look back at the year and praise the 5 biggest Wins for the gaming community while simultaneously *facepalming* over the 5 biggest Fails.
Top 5 Fails
5. Sixense STEM Vaporware Vaporizes
I’ve been covering the Sixense STEM, the magnetic-tracking-based motion control system for VR and VR-free PC gaming, ever since it was announced as the successor to the Razer Hydra. Sixense’s first solo hardware project was troubled from the outset, despite raising a ton of money on Kickstarter. Thousands of people pre-ordered these things, expecting to receive them 4 years (!) ago, yet the company perpetually dragged its feet, pushing the excuse that the Chinese factories making the plastic casings for the tech kept screwing up.
Well, in 2018, the other shoe finally fell, and Sixense officially announced that the STEM was …
MeltedJoystick Games of the Year 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/24/18 at 01:55 PM CT
This year, the MeltedJoystick Crew decided to break with tradition with regard to our annual Game of the Year. Historically, we’ve posted a poll and, up until last year, took nominations from users to populate it. However, our voter turn-out has always been tragically low, while nomination turn-out has been incredibly high. Thus we’ve always had polls where most of the nominees received no votes. Last year, we took action and cut-out nominations by users and just hand-picked a small, elite number of titles for consideration. Unfortunately, some users couldn’t handle the situation and behaved badly. So this year, we’re doing away with the poll altogether, and instead presenting the Top 5 Games of 2018, as hand-picked by the MeltedJoystick Crew.
1. Dragon Quest 11
Square-Enix really outdid themselves with the latest release in the venerable ‘Dragon Quest’ series. Not only did they avoid doing the things that bungled-up the last two main-line ‘Dragon Quests,’ but …
My Unexpected Encounter in a Bethesda Game
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/16/18 at 04:24 PM CT
After having my mind blown by “The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion” back in 2011, then feeling like “The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim” offered little in the way of difference in 2014, and pounding “Fallout 3” and “Fallout: New Vegas” back to back in 2015, I thought the jig was up for Bethesda Softworks, and that they could do nothing more to surprise me with the samey, enormous, glitchy Sandbox games that made the company famous.
Recently, I’ve been playing their latest single-player offering, “Fallout 4,” since purchasing the Game of the Year bundle during the Steam Autumn sale. Over 100 hours into the game, I finally experienced something shocking and noteworthy.
I find it rather easy to avoid spoilers for popular “AAA” titles, and I knew little of what to expect from “Fallout 4” outside of the character creation system, the dog companion, and the crappy pipe-based guns that were shown off in the official trailer. I knew nothing of the memes surrounding a …
Epic Games Launcher Becomes Epic Games Store
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/09/18 at 03:32 PM CT
This week, Epic Games, the development house behind both the omnipresent Unreal Engine and a handful of actual games that run on said engine, such as the inconceivably-popular “Fortnite: Battle Royale,” took the next logical step in making vast sums of money by transforming their Epic Games Launcher, which debuted in 2015, into a full-blown digital storefront. Reportedly unhappy with the fact that Valve Software’s Steam platform, the current global leader in videogame digital distribution, takes a rather hefty 30% cut of all sales made by third-party games, Epic Games’ new store will only take a modest 12% cut, while simultaneously waving the Unreal Engine licensing fee for third-party Unreal Engine games sold through the Epic Games Store.
This new store follows hot on the heels of Bethesda Softworks parting ways with Steam for the rollout of “Fallout 76.” However, big developers/publishers going their own way and rolling their own storefront isn’t a new thing, as …
Review Round-Up: Fall 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/02/18 at 03:01 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 pulled a Chris this Fall, and played several longer games, thus cutting my review output somewhat. I also did quite a few uncharacteristic things this Fall, such as buying a digital PC game at launch (I still got a discount, though) and replaying a couple of old games from the past that I had already played to completion in the past. Playing solo, I managed to get my ‘Dragon Quest’ fix, which should last me for quite some time, whereas playing cooperatively, the Crew experienced some truly abysmal garbage.
“Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura” – 3/5
“AereA” – 1/5
“Dragon Quest 11” – 4.5/5
“Zero-K” – 2/5
“Unravel” – 3.5/5
“Drakkhen” – 3.5/5
“Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood” – 3/5
“Dragon Quest Builders” – 4/5
“Odallus: The Dark Call” – 4/5
“Tomba!” – …
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