It’s Time to Give Up on Physical Media
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/15/17 at 04:01 PM CT
I bring you dismal news, MeltedJoystick readers. Sadly, the physical distribution of videogames has reached the end of its usefulness. As much as it pains me – as a staunch proponent of physical media and perpetual software ownership – I have to admit that physical media in videogames is no longer what it once was. Cartridges and discs have remained largely the same in structure, but the ways in which they are currently used largely negate their original purpose. What happened to bring us to this point? Read on to find out.
5. Games Require Installs, No Longer Run Off the Install Media.
Thanks to Microsoft and the OG Xbox, the concept of games requiring hard disk installs was shoveled from the PC side of gaming to the console side of gaming in the 6th Gen. While the OG Xbox never got a whole lot of respect from gamers outside the ghetto, other console makers took note of its ability to snag PC game ports… thus every Sony and MS console since has followed the same paradigm. …
New DIRECTV Commercial Inadvertently Mocks ‘Dark Souls’ Fanbase
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/06/17 at 02:46 PM CT
I’m not going to give DIRECTV, the satellite pay TV company, credit for knowing anything about the videogames industry or the contemporary gaming zeitgeist. However, this ad, which started airing on network TV last month, seems to express a sarcastic awareness of the fact that there are some people out there who ‘enjoy’ unpleasant things.
The first time I saw this ad on TV, I nearly fell out of my chair laughing, as the fools contained therein instantly brought to mind the tiny-yet-rabid Cult of From, whose ‘favorite’ games are all reminiscent of banging one’s head repeatedly against a ceiling joist or intentionally sleeping under a pile of poison ivy. Would I rather play ‘Dark Souls’ for an hour or have my arm stuck in a vending machine for an hour? Hmmm… that’s a H.A.R.D. choice…
Backlog: The Embiggening – October, 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/01/17 at 04:58 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! October is here, and that mean’s Halloween is officially old news (as of August), and the Christmas/Holiday Season is ready to kick-off with a bunch of crap bewildered parents and grandparents are supposed to buy for their demanding Second-Run Millennials. There are a WHOPPING 57 game releases coming in October – FIFTY-SEVEN! – but once you filter through the crap, with my sage and experienced assistance, you’ll find but a tiny number of titles worth caring about. It’s like bobbing for apples in a barrel of sewage… and most of the apples have been replaced with turds.
Fourteen – count, ‘em, 14! – new pieces of shovelware will be gracing us with their presence in October. Pay attention, and you might learn something about the varieties of shovelware of which you must maintain constant awareness. The first, and easiest to identify, variety of shovelware we’ll look at this month is Licensed Swill: That is, games …
Why ‘Final Fantasy’ Sucks Now
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/23/17 at 02:33 PM CT
A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, Square Enix, the company that in 2012 was considered a ‘complete failure’ is still failing away. We thought the “Final Fantasy 13” Trilogy was bad enough, but “Final Fantasy Versus 13 15” has really taken things to a whole new level (so much so that neither Chris nor I, both long time ‘FF’ fans, have any plans to touch it). Smartphones and luxury sedans in a FANTASY game? Square Enix seems to have nothing but contempt for its audience at this point, pandering to the lowest common denominator whose banal minds can’t conceive of a world without smartphones and instant communication.
Many plot tropes used in both Fantasy and historical fiction are completely subverted by the presence of instant, long-distance communication, which will cause the writing to become more tortured than it already has been for decades. On the other hand, limited forms of instant communication have existed in Fantasy Role-Playing since …
The House Wins; We All Lose
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/16/17 at 05:34 PM CT
Over the last several years, I’ve found myself harping on the evils of DLC and microtransactions, completely dismayed at the success of these predatory, unscrupulous, and consumer hostile practices in the videogames industry that are significantly influenced by the nascent mobile apps industry. Unfortunately, instead of slowing down as consumers balk and push-back against these practices, they’re only gaining Steam… yes, with a capital “S,” as even Valve’s PC gaming marketplace, once an exclusive club where only the most virtuous developers and publishers could peddle their wares, has been caught up in this ‘new’ economy where free games make profits off of microtransactions that merely buy the chance that a useful item might pop out of a randomized loot container. Third party websites even went so far as to construct an elaborate system of full-blown gambling, where competitors could bet real cash on the outcome of opening a Valve loot box (which was purchased from …
At Long Last, “Pokemon Rusty” Gets the Finale it Deserves
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/10/17 at 03:20 PM CT
I’ve been a fan of the Dorkly YouTube channel’s “Pokemon Rusty” webseries since the very first episode, which was posted in November of 2012. For those who aren’t in on the joke, “Pokemon Rusty” is a spoof of the original Red/Blue/Yellow versions of Game Freak’s “Pokemon,” but instead of following the adventures of a competent up-and-coming pokemon trainer as he struggles against adversity to become the very best (like no one ever was), we instead get to bear witness to the world’s literal worst pokemon trainer, a bespectacled Jewish kid named Rusty whose Dad wants him to give up on this ‘pokemon’ nonsense to work in the family deli (Presumably, Rusty would still get to hang out with lots of Delibirds… eh? Eh!?).
Naturally, Rusty doesn’t listen to his parents (he is legally an adult at 10 years old, after all), and goes about following in the footsteps of his pokemon idol, Red. Rusty isn’t actually malevolent, but his sheer incompetence leads …
Review Round-Up: Summer 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/02/17 at 02:00 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 Summer, I chased – and caught! – the 16-bit dragon. I had an excellent time with “RetroArch” and partied like it was 1996 with a whole slew of SNES and TG-16 titles I’d never played before (and since many of them are super short, I was able to submit a LOT of reviews). My favorite game of the quarter, though, turned out to be the 2006 Game Boy Advance “EarthBound” sequel, “Mother 3.” You have no idea how close that game came to receiving a perfect score… It’s criminal that Nintendo won’t officially localize it.
“Terranigma” – 4/5
“Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” – 4.5/5
“Deus Ex: Human Revolution” – 3/5
“Dungeon Defenders 2” – 3/5
“Bahamut Lagoon” – 4.5/5
“Do-Re-Mi Fantasy: Milon’s Quest” – 3.5/5
“Star Trek Timelines” – 3/5
“Mother 3 (a.k.a., …
Backlog: The Embiggening – September, 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/27/17 at 03:10 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! It’s Back to School time, once again! All the cute, little mistakes that resulted from birth control failures are now out of Mom’s and Dad’s hair for the vast majority of their time. And when the little sweeties are at home? They want to hunker down and play some garbage, like ‘Call of Duty’ or “Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds.” Really, what’s the point in releasing a bunch of games when the least discerning portion of your audience is pre-occupied with other things? Maybe the parents get some good games to help them forget they have too many (any) children? Nah! Don’t bet on it!
SHOOOOVEL HOOOOOOOO! September is bringing forth the largest single dump of shovelware we’ve had in a long time. As is traditional for September, all of the annual Sports franchises are getting new releases, which accounts for nearly half of the crap. I remember when each console got, like 1 release for any given sport. Yet another …
Microsoft Should Stick with Hardware… Just Not Consoles
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/20/17 at 03:49 PM CT
In recent years, I’ve had ample opportunities to field test Microsoft gaming hardware… and I really like it! This praise may come as a surprise in light of my constant exhortations that Xbox is a plague upon console gaming and should never have existed in the first place. However, my view on the Xbox itself has not changed in the slightest. I do, however, love Xbox peripherals.
One simple truth that has held for nearly the entire duration that videogaming has existed as a form of entertainment and a hobby is the fact that buying third-party peripherals is not a particularly good idea. Companies like Mad Catz and Nyko have been around seemingly forever, peddling their shoddy, cheap knock-off controllers, memory cards, etc. and leaving gamers with malfunctioning piles of junk. While it is true that some third-party companies, like Hori, manufacture some acceptable-quality specialty controllers – things like Fighting sticks or Racing wheels – unless you’re buying something …
TurboGrafx-16: Now on MeltedJoystick
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/13/17 at 02:31 PM CT
We’re constantly working to make MeltedJoystick better. The most recent improvement to the site is the addition of TurboGrafx-16 (and TurboCD/TurboDuo) titles to the database. You can now officially, rate, list, and review all of the forgotten classics from Hudson’s/NEC’s 4th Gen contender (which was obliterated by the SNES and the Genesis).
What? You never owned a TG-16 or knew anyone who did? Surely you owned a Wii or knew someone who did, right? A number of TG-16 games got a second chance at fame and fortune during the 7th Generation when they were released on Nintendo’s Virtual Console via WiiWare (now known as Nintendo Network). Even if you aren’t a fan of paying Nintendo’s inflated prices for what amount to heavily-DRMed ROMs wrapped in single-use emulators, you can easily experience the entire breadth of the TG-16 library thanks to the No-Intro Collection on The Internet Archive and an emulator like Retroarch.
While the TG-16 was by-and-large known for its …
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