Square-Enix and the Pants on Fire
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/17/19 at 02:46 PM CT
Remember way back in 2018 (3 months ago) when Square-Enix earned special praise in the MeltedJoystick Year in Review retrospective? It is with great sadness that we must recant that praise and return Square-Enix to the garbage heap with the rest of the “AAA” mega-corporate publishers.
When Square-Enix released “Dragon Quest 11” in the West in September 2018, it came with much fanfare and reassurance from series creator, Yuji Horii, that it would be a ‘complete’ on-and-done purchase. Those reassurances were the sole reason I was willing to break my rule about buying “AAA” games at launch for anywhere close to full price.
By December 2018, rumors were already rumbling that the year-late Switch version of “Dragon Quest 11” would include ‘improvements,’ but these rumors were widely interpreted by the gaming media as meaning that the Japanese version of “Dragon Quest 11” would have the additional features the PC/PS4 Western versions contained (like …
Science: “Copyright Infringement is Good for Everyone”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/10/19 at 03:30 PM CT
At long last, science, that great discipline through which all Truth is revealed, has taken a look at a unique phenomenon of the modern world: Copyright. Since the Digital Revolution brought on by the advent of the Internet in the early 21st Century, IP rightsholders have tried desperately to continue enforcing their will on the general public through excessive lobbying, which has led to increasingly draconian laws on the state books in numerous countries, such as the United States, Poland, and most recently Japan.
In a 2018 study by Indiana University, spearheaded by Antino Kim, science has proven what many of us have known for decades already: Copyright infringement results in a win-win scenario. But how is it possible that flaunting the law of the land can lead to positive results? It’s quite simple.
In moderate amounts, copyright infringement benefits the rightsholders for digital media by creating demand and increasing mindshare (a.k.a., positive network effect). …
Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/03/19 at 01:46 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! After getting off on the wrong port… err… foot, 2019 is still chugging along. Let’s see what February, the month for lovers, holds in store for us to love. Or hate.
After multiple months without licensed garbage, annual sports releases, or super-casual fluff, the shovelware has come home to roost. Fortunately, the numbers aren’t great enough to require more than one shovel, though they’re all roughly the same type of licensed trash: A tie in for Monster Energy Drink, a tie-in for the new ‘LEGO Movie,’ a manga ‘Jump’ magazine tie-in, a tie-in for the final ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ movie (with a mindbogglingly Engrish title), and a third entry in the ‘Yo-kai Watch’ anime tie-in.
In ports and remasters, unsurprisingly, the Nintendo Switch is still in possession of a commanding lead this month (no that that’s a good thing). Switch will be getting a lot of old crap, including “Rad Rogers,” …
The Two Faces of Nostalgia
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/27/19 at 04:22 PM CT
As gaming comes into its own as a mature medium, it is looking more and more to the past, as do so many other artistic media. Remakes, remasters, reboots – all are just euphemisms for ‘rehash,’ as developers and publishers struggle to come up with new ideas or even to iterate on existing ideas in meaningful ways. Nowhere is this love of hindsight more prevalent than in the now-fully-mature Independent games ecosystem.
I last looked at Indie games and the development thereof way back in 2012, shortly after MeltedJoystick first launched. Even then I was wary, as the movement was clearly a two-faced Janus, with the Good Face represented by labors of love and games that weren’t popular enough among the Mainstream audience to be profitable for “AAA” publishers, and the Bad Face represented by cheap, lazy, no-effort attempts to snag a few bucks before people caught on. Even in the concept’s infancy, Indie games and a ‘retro,’ nostalgia-driven yearning went …
Japan Takes a Step Closer to Dictatorship with New Law
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/19/19 at 04:21 PM CT
We aren’t even a month into 2019, and an Epic Fail that is destined to make the Year in Review list is already on the books. According to information dug-up and translated by Siliconera, Japan managed to sneak in end-of-the-year legislation that bans any and all forms of hardware or software modifications for videogame consoles. As an amendment to Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act, anyone participating in soft-modding, hard-modding, or grey market keytailing will be subject to a $50,000 fine and 5 years in prison.
Modding game consoles and console games is a tradition that dates back as far as the 3rd Generation, when Galoob’s Game Genie allowed gamers to make ‘magical’ changes to their horrible, barely-playable NES games, such as unlimited lives or invincibility. The phenomenon continued to evolve with the Game Shark and Pro-Action Replay devices taking over in the era of optical media. But in the age of online games, digital distribution, and draconian DRM, …
New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/13/19 at 03:53 PM CT
With a new year upon us, many people take the opportunity to make overreaching New Year’s Resolutions that they will never be able to own-up to. Whether it’s losing weight, controlling your temper, or drinking less alcohol, most of the typical Resolutions are a real drag because they go against the Nature of the Beast, and all of us are the way we are by-and-large due to things that are far outside of our control.
However, when MeltedJoystick’s erstwhile photo/video-grapher (and part-time member of the MeltedJoystick Crew) came to me with the idea that each of us should commit to clearing three games out of our Backlogs in the coming year, I really liked the idea. Unlike trying to make changes in immutable biology or psychology, clearing games out of one’s Backlog is FUN. Plus the minor pressure that comes with putting one’s annual commitment in writing could provide the light kick in the pants needed by certain members of the MJ Crew to play any games at all.
But …
Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/05/19 at 06:41 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! 2018 is officially over and done, and its mixed-bag of offerings need no longer haunt us as we plunge ever-bold into the future… except for those of us who still have 2018 games in our Backlogs and Wishlists! Let’s take a look and see how the “AAA” corporate gaming industry and the Indie rip-off artists plan to usher in 2019.
TWO MONTHS IN A ROW? Without shovelware? It’s an incredibly unlikely occurrence, but here we are! After ending the year with no licensed garbage, annual releases, or super-casual non-games, we get to begin the new year the same way. But don’t get too excited…
…because the ports, remakes, remasters, repackages, and other euphemisms for “pretending old stuff is new” are just as overwhelming as they’ve been for the last few entire YEARS, with no less than 15/22 January releases falling into this category. The Nintendo Switch is maintaining it’s (un)healthy influx of ports, but the one …
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 …
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