Who Makes the Best Sandboxes?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/15/21 at 03:33 PM CT
The Open-World Sandbox genre has come to dominate modern videogaming so completely that, at this point, it feels somewhat like the ‘default’ form-factor a game should take, not unlike the 2D Platformer across the 1980s and 1990s. However, the Sandbox isn’t just a natural progression of basic concepts, but is instead the result of decades of hard work on the part of various development teams to push hardware capabilities and software paradigms as much as possible, occasionally going past the breaking point, but typically learning from the mistakes of others in the process.
Since the genre first proliferated in the mid-2000s, I have played quite a few Sandbox games by a variety of different development teams. In experiencing these games, it has become obvious that they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but also that some just have an overall better ‘feel’ than others. Let’s take a look back at a brief history of the genre and compare the biggest players to see …
Top & Bottom DLCs of the Past 20 Years
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/08/21 at 04:35 PM CT
Downloadable Content, a.k.a., DLC, has been with us for quite a few years now, really taking off during the PC/Console singularity period that was the tumultuous 7th Generation. With the 9th Gen in full-stride and a full slate of new hardware platforms competing against each other to, essentially, run all of the same games, DLC and add-ons can still be a contentious subject in gaming communities. It’s no wonder, considering that many gamers tend to conflate the entire concept of DLC with the loot boxes and microtransactions that have made mobile gaming an obscenely profitable but wholly unredeemable cesspit, and have tried – to varying degrees of success – to worm their way into ‘legit’ console and PC gaming.
My stance is that DLC and microtransactions are completely different things, and generally don’t even consider cosmetic purchases where ‘you know what you’re paying for’ instead of random pulls to qualify as ‘true’ DLC. No, to me, DLC should be used …
Backlog: The Embiggening – August, 2021
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/01/21 at 03:35 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Summer’s almost over. You know what that means: I’m a year older and a year curmudgeonlier, and the cute (read: nauseating) little Snowflakes of Gen-Z and later are heading back to school, where to learn Critical Race Theory and Gender Spectrum, but not math, science, or good old traditional thinking (a.k.a., philosophy) because who needs those, right?
Let’s take a look at what garbage the Games Industry is dumping on us for the next 30 days.
Out of 27 planned August releases – still an amazing turn-out for a traditional “drought” month – we’ve got 6 that I’m classifying as ‘shovel-ready,’ which isn’t all that bad. There’s a licensed tie-in for babbys in “PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls,” another for slightly older babbys in “Madden NFL 22,” one for grognards who still think crappy ‘80s sci-fi is cool in “Aliens: Fireteam Elite,” and one for anime weeaboos in “Shadowverse: …
Japan Really Respects Their Gaming Traditions
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/24/21 at 04:04 PM CT
In spite of the word-of-mouth speculation that anyone over age 20 who still plays videogames is a NEET or Otaku, the statistical evidence that shows only 40% of the nation plays them at all, and the government’s attempts to crack-down on ‘gaming addiction’ among the youth with overbearing laws, the Japanese still put the time when Nippon was at the top of the videogame world – that time between 1983 and 2006 typically referred to as “The Golden Age” – at the center of their modern cultural identity. I mean, how else would you explain the immediately-recognizable tones of the ‘Dragon Quest’ introductory theme and the ‘Final Fantasy’ victory theme finding their way into the DAMNED OPENING CEREMONY of the 20201 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo?
Yes, even while Western media publishes story after story about Japan’s vanishing relevance in videogame markets ranging from the “AAA” space to Single-A to Indies, and yet other word-of-mouth conversations try to …
Steam Deck: What GabeN Was Rambling About
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/18/21 at 03:32 PM CT
All of the console gaming communities have been lighting up over the past few days with news of the upcoming (and up for pre-order) Steam Deck hybrid game console. While the disclosure of this new piece of hardware does make us say, “Aha!” as Lord GabeN predicted it would, it also makes me say, “Why?”
For those who haven’t heard, the Steam Deck is another take on the Steam Machines hardware paradigm from a few years back (so let’s count that as a Win for my first prediction), only this time instead of partnering with third-parties to make a range of console-like PCs, Valve is doing all the heavy lifting itself, and modeling the device after the Nintendo Switch – a handheld PC with built-in controller-style inputs that can be docked to a larger screen at the user’s whim. Valve is also selling three slightly different models of Steam Deck at $400, $530, and $650, with more money netting buyers more and faster internal storage.
The Steam Deck will come with the …
The PlayStation State of Play 2021: Good/Bad/Ugly
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/08/21 at 10:55 PM CT
After, once again, not participating in the smorgasbord of gaming news and hype-generation that was E3 for the third year in a row – only vomiting a disorganized mess of video content on their corporate Youtube account - Sony has decided to maintain its new tradition of releasing a Nintendo-style ‘Direct’ video at its leisure… which in 2021 happened to fall on July 8th. This “State of Play” video could have easily been a part of the official week-long E3 happenings, since E3 was still an entirely digital show in 2021, after being canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Sony’s got a lock on nothing if not hubris.
Since the State of Play 2021 isn’t officially part of E3, I’ll re-use my alternative format of “Good,” “Bad,” and “Ugly,” as I did for the individual digital pressers that replaced E3 last year. And I’m REALLY anticipating a whole lot of “Ugly,” considering how far-gone down the rabbit hole Sony and the PlayStation brand have …
Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2021
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/04/21 at 02:36 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! As America celebrates its independence from hereditary monarchy and The Church exerting undue influence on its political affairs *ahem*… It’s time to blow stuff up! And by “stuff” I mean gunpowder invented by, packaged by, and sold by China, America’s biggest, most dangerous rival on the world stage…
Ehh… let’s forget the patriotism and talk about some upcoming game releases! There are a whopping 30 titles on the docket, showing that 2021 is indeed the year when the Summer Game Drought didn’t manifest… instead we got a regular-old-drought that is threatening to turn the Western half of the country into a desert… except it already is a desert… Man, you can’t grab a Negro by the toe these days without running into political bullshit.
Onward to the games!
We’re really light on the shovelware for July, with only two titles. We can’t even populate the three major shovelware categories like that! …
Can Microsoft Legitimize Android Games… By Making them PC Games?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/27/21 at 12:37 AM CT
Microsoft recently revealed the next iteration of Windows coming in the near future. This OS – dubbed Windows 11, even after Microsoft went on the record stating that “Windows 10 is the last version of Windows” – will include a lot of new features that are beyond the ken of the MeltedJoystick Blog, as well as an even-Mac-ier-than-ever UI refresh. However, the core feature that has the Internet abuzz is the fact that Windows 11 will natively run Android apps thanks to a dedicated subsystem that allows a virtualized kernel direct hardware access (just like the Linux Subsystem for Windows that was added to Windows 10).
When Android first appeared on the scene way back in in 2008 as a slap-dash attempt by Google, whose motto at the time was “Don’t Be Evil,” to produce a competitor for the nascent iOS that powered Apple’s new iPhones, it held a lot of promise. Android would be Open Source! Android would be Linux-based and highly secure! Android would be free to install! …
E3 Impressions 2021
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/18/21 at 10:20 PM CT
After much speculation and navel-gazing on my part last year when E3 was cancelled, the venerable trade show returned in 2021, in spirit, at least, if not in the flesh. Ongoing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic lingering on into its second year caused all of the remaining E3 participants to produce pre-recorded video presentations and set-up online game demos instead of setting up meat-space stages demo booths, thus transforming the trade show into a virtual event, as so many other things did during the past year. Oddly enough, the ‘new’ E3 feels a lot more egalitarian and open than the FOMO-fueled, social-media-powered, influencer-narrated abomination that was supposed to appear. I guess we can at least thank China and their damned virus for that!
Of course, not everyone has been happy with E3 for a long time. Nintendo bowed-out years ago and switched (*snap*) to their ‘Direct’ format, and Sony followed not far behind (as is their wont). This year, E3 shed a bit …
The Year of Ransomware
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/12/21 at 04:20 PM CT
I don’t know if part of it’s just media spin and lumping a whole bunch of things together to make them look scarier and more epidemic than they actually are, but lately we’ve had nothing but bad news in spades. 2020 was the Year of COVID-19 and the Year of Police Brutality Complaints. Now, 2021 is rapidly shaping-up to be remembered as the Year of Ransomware, and Games Industry players aren’t immune.
Hot on the heels of a Serious Business report by “60 Minutes” (jump to the 16 minute mark) of Russian (and perhaps other foreign) criminal hackers installing ransomware on a broad swath of private American computer networks ranging from low level local governments to hospitals to petroleum pipelines, this week reports came to light that at least two of the biggest players in the Games Industry have been subject to similar attacks. And like the Serious Business outfits, nobody wants to report that they’ve been hacked so the government can possibly look into helping them …
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