Review Round-Up: Winter 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/04/18 at 02:29 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 Winter, I got the opportunity to christen my Yule Switch… which was really the highlight of the quarter. Both Switch games I played are excellent, while the things plucked from my backlog of both PC games and Fanslated ROMs didn’t impress nearly as much.
“Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor” – 4/5
“Spore” – 3/5
“Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle” – 4.5/5
“Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide” – 2/5
“Super Mario Odyssey” – 5/5
“Live A Live” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Guess who didn’t finish “No Man’s Sky!” Guess who didn’t finish “The Witcher 3: GotY Edition” on PC! Guess who finally submitted reviews for co-op games from last quarter! If you guessed, “Chris,” YOU WIN! In between his bouts of attempting to become a streaming superstar on Twitch (make sure to check out …
Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/24/18 at 04:08 PM CT
Gaius Julius Caesar was warned to beware the Ides of March shortly before his assassination on March 15, 44 B.C.E. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t heed the warnings. For we who comment on videogames in March 2018 of the Common Era, we need not specifically fear the Ides of March... we should fear the Ports of March, as they have come, but they have not gone.
The blatant trash of the shovelware category is fairly light on the ground for March. Sony is the biggest perpetrator, bringing delayed releases of its Wii/3DS-inspired trilogy of “3D Mini Golf,” “3D Billiards,” and “Island Flight Simulator” (not that anyone cared that they didn’t hit shelves last month like they were supposed to). In addition, Sony will also be gracing us with “Frantics” a new Party game. Warner Bros. will provide another unwarranted dose of ‘Scribblenauts’ make-your-own-fun boredom on all three current consoles, while anime fans can look forward to Tecmo-Koei’s “Attack on Titan …
Switch First Impressions + Paleo-Switch Update
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/18/18 at 03:58 PM CT
While the Nintendo Switch officially launched in March 2017, we here at MeltedJoystick were relatively dubious and on-the-fence about Nintendo’s latest platform until late Summer/early Autumn when the library started to flesh out. I received a Switch as a Yule gift in 2017, and spent the better part of two months putting it through its paces with a pair of games I was really excited about – one first-party and one by a “AAA” third-party. Let’s take a look at how the Switch fared via some tabulations of Pros and Cons!
The Hardware
Pros
+The Joycons with Grips are really nice controllers when used as a pair
+Joycon batteries last roughly a week on a single charge
+HD Rumble and Motion Controls work really well
+Impressive performance for smartphone-based hardware
Cons
-The Joycons with Grips are really garbage controllers when used individually for multi-player
-The asymmetrical layout of the Joycons places the right analog stick too low for comfort
-There’s …
Top 10 Worthwhile Remakes
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/11/18 at 03:43 PM CT
Lately I’ve been pounding the drum pretty hard against all the ports, remasters, and thinly-veiled remakes hitting modern consoles. With all this old stuff being sold as new stuff, it makes me question why anyone should bother with the new platforms at all, if the only thing we’re getting out of them is the ability to re-purchase our extant games libraries.
However, throughout the 40+ years of videogame history, there have actually been a number of worthy remakes that did something more than try to fish for a few extra bucks in the fans’ pockets. These incredible ravamps of older, often-beloved titles, went the extra mile to improve the rough edges and iron over the flaws that sullied their original versions, creating truly definitive experiences.
10. “Super Mario Advance” (Game Boy Advance)
“Super Mario Advance” didn’t do a whole lot to mess with the gameplay mechanics of the original NES “Super Mario Bros. 2 USA,” so it’s fairly low on the list. …
Too Expensive/Big to Make/Fail.
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/04/18 at 03:09 PM CT
The folks at the Extra Credits Youtube channel are at it again. They’ve already established that they know jack-squat about RPGs or difficult games, but now they’re beating the establishment drum that new retail games shouldn’t cost $60 anymore: They should cost MORE.
According to Extra Credits, “supplementary income systems” – that is, game publishers trying to milk more dollars out of their customers post-purchase – are just a thing we’re going to have to live with. Developers have to eat, after all, and bla bla bla, platitude platitude.
The fact that big corporate “AAA” game publishers are constantly looking for new revenue streams has nothing, in fact, to do with the so-called “fact” that games are “too expensive” to make, and everything to do with the fact that the “AAA” publishers we’re talking about are Western, and primarily American, and are thus trapped within the growth-obsessed, bubble-based flavor of Capitalism that has been …
Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/27/18 at 03:07 PM CT
“Feb-yoo-wary, Feb-yoo-wary,
Shortest month of all the year!
Feb-yoo-wary, Feb-yoo-wary,
Feb-yoo-wary’s here!”
Or so went the refrain of the banal children’s song I was taught in first or second grade when learning about the months of the year. Yep, February is the shortest month, but that just means that the “AAA” Corporate Games Industry has less time to cram more crap down our throats. And ports. Oh, god… the ports…
Once again, we get the privilege of sampling all three varieties of shovelware this month. In the licensed IP category, we’ve got a Beat ‘em Up based on the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ anime and manga, as well as a new ‘Sword Art Online’ title based on the light novel series. In the so-casual-it-hurts category, Sony is gracing us with the ‘Wii______’-grade “3D Mini Golf” and “3D Billiards.” And in the shameless commercial tie-in to ‘professional’ sporting events, we’ve got the delightfully-titled “Monster Energy …
The Console Wars are Over: Bring on the Network Wars
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/21/18 at 02:37 PM CT
Recently, I discussed my platform agnostic wanderings as the console generations have passed. While the fervor and insanity of the various fanboys have made it difficult for me to feel at home in any hardware ecosystem, they’re only half the problem. The other half is the corporations behind the hardware that actually seem to drive this insane zeal in their users. In the last two Generations, during which online ecosystems have become an increasingly large part of the console ‘experience,’ to the point of requiring subscription fees just to participate, the hardware makers have shown their hand. The mid-Gen revisions that are the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X only further solidify the situation: The console wars are over. It’s time to start the network wars.
Hardware makers understand that platform lock-in is key. It’s why exclusive games exist in the first place. An exclusive system seller gets people in the door for a platform, and while they’re there, they may as …
Portable Port Portage
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/14/18 at 03:11 PM CT
Nintendo finally published a new Direct marketing video on Youtube – this time a “Mini”-sized variant that still manages to clock-in at nearly 15 minutes – that the company’s rabid fanbase has been clamoring for since the calendar clicked over to 2018. This Direct Mini discusses a significant amount of content that will be appearing on the Switch dockable in 2018… but I find that even in hybridizing their handhelds into dockables as they are endeavoring to do with the Switch, Nintendo is running into a problem they’ve faced since the Game Boy Advance hit the scene in 2001: An overwhelming preponderance of ports… and DLC… but today I’m going to talk about ports.
I loved the Game Boy Advance, make no mistake. The thing was basically a Second Coming for the SNES, and it integrated well with the Gamecube, providing an easy way to play handheld games on a TV with the Game Boy Player and novel screen-in-controller gameplay opportunities that would later prove… …
I Don’t Connect with the Sony Fanbase Anymore.
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/07/18 at 04:28 PM CT
It seems like it was just yesterday: Sega was wallowing in incompetence, Nintendo was taking its first bold steps into irrelevance, and Sony – the new kid on the block – was going to save us from the incumbents’ terminal stupidity. Yes, the 1995 release of the original PlayStation, known to all at the time as the PSX, was the first major shake-up in console gaming since the Crash and resurrection of the early ‘80s, and it allowed the gaming community to look inward at itself and see who was a pragmatic lover of gaming and who was a corporate-stooge fanboy.
At the time, it felt great to throw off the shackles of Nintendo and scoff disdainfully at the company’s sudden dearth of third-party (read: Squaresoft) games, crude 3D conversions of its flagship franchises, and sudden/inexplicable fixation on PvP multi-player. While the PSX, like every PlayStation console to follow it, got off to a glacially slow start, by the time all of the teams were ready to compete head-to-head, …
Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2018
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/30/17 at 03:42 PM CT
The Two-Faced God’s month is here again, which means the old year is behind us, while we have all of 2018 to look forward to with joy and anticipation… or more likely, dread and trepidation. Let’s take a look-see if the New Year will start off with a bang or a wet plop.
Only one piece of multi-platform shovelware will be ringing in the new year! That’s good! But it’s another ‘Dragon Ball Z’ game, which is pretty much as low as you can go without being underground when it comes to licensed anime games. There’s also an exclusive licensed ‘Digimon’ RPG sequel coming to the PS4.
Only two ports will be bothering us in January as well, which is a nice, refreshing break from what is becoming a regular epidemic. The 2017 remake of “Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap” is getting a physical release on PS4 and Switch, while the oft-delayed remaster of “Velocity” will likely/maybe hit PS4 and Vita too.
Three legit multi-platform releases are coming in January, …
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