Nintendo Attempts to Subvert the ROM-Hack Community with “Mario Maker.”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/14/14 at 01:21 AM CT
The fan communities of ROM-Hackers who take existing games and transform them into new experiences to be played via emulators have long been at odds with the companies that sell the base games that are the hackers’ medium. Between Square Enix shutting down the likes of “Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes” and “Chrono Resurrection,” and Nintendo ruffling its feathers over the fanslation of “Mother 3,” as well as completely original fangames like “Metroid: SR388,” “The Legend of Zelda: Outlands,” and “Super Mario Bros. X,” to name a few, it’s clear that these companies perceive their games only as products to be controlled and not the cultural phenomena they actually are.
While Nintendo may say that they don’t want to shut-down projects made by fans out of love for their IPs, very few of these projects manage to avoid being hit with cease and desist orders. Nintendo purports to only throw the book at fangame projects that don’t treat the source material …
Review Round-Up: Fall 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/06/14 at 05:58 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:
Fall has not been conducive to the MJ crew playing coop games. Part of this dire situation is due to Nick using his turn to pick our online coop game to dump us back into the MMO void of “Dragon Nest.” We were also running low on local coop games, so Chris and I ended up doing a lot of solo gaming. I tackled numerous short Indie titles from my Steam list.
“FEZ” – 4.5/5
“Of Orcs and Men” – 3.5/5
“Valdis Story: Abyssal City” – 4/5
“New Super Luigi U” – 3/5
“Breath of Death 7: The Beginning” – 4/5
“UnEpic” – 4/5
“Ys 1 & 2 Chronicles +” – 1.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris continued his self-indulgence in ‘Chris would love that’ games, and continued to NOT actually love them (all those 3.5-star ratings equate to ‘like’ at best). The only game he LOVED was, again predictably, …
Backlog: The Embiggening - December, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/30/14 at 01:30 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. December is here, once again, to mark the coming of the “Holiday Season.” Not Christmas, because that would be exclusionary towards non-Christians (despite the fact that Christmas has never actually been about Christianity). It’s exasperating that our contemporary politically correct culture always needs to latch onto the most sterile and bland names for things. I’ll still be celebrating the ancient pre-Christian holiday of Yule and have already decorated a simulated pine tree with simulated sacrificial entrails.
What do gamers have to celebrate in December? How about A MONTH WITH NO SHOVELWARE?! Yes, it actually looks like it’s going to happen! There isn’t a single shovelware title slated for a December release as of yet (though that is still subject to change, as usual).
In fact, December’s releases are looking incredibly sparse overall, especially being the ever-important second Yule since the PS4 and XBONE …
What Was the Last Game that Had YOU Extremely Hyped?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/23/14 at 06:27 PM CT
Hype has become extremely commonplace as an advertising mechanic in the videogame publishing business. Among the Triumvirate of Evil, the production of Hype outstrips the production of quality games by an incredibly high margin.
Of course, Hype is not actually anything new. The generation of unrealistic expectations via word of mouth and media buzz has been around forever. What fueled the Old West gold rushes? Hype. What fueled the DotCom Bubble? Hype. As a frugal and savvy consumer, I try not to buy into the Hype surrounding most products, though I did find myself falling prey to both the WiiU and OUYA last year, despite the fact that the Hype around both of those consoles was rather muted compared to what we usually see.
I try to save my Hype for things that have a strong chance of meeting expectations. As such, I have found myself relatively sedate in my levels of Hype for over a decade now. Yes, I was mildly Hyped about a handful of 7th Generation games, like …
“Dragon Nest” Mercenary Monster System Can’t Come to NA Soon Enough
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/16/14 at 01:55 PM CT
The MeltedJoystick staff is generally rather averse to the MMO subgenre of games, but we did find ourselves somewhat enchanted by the not-very-MMO-like-at-all nature of Eyedentity’s and Nexon’s “Dragon Nest” when we played through the Level 60 Cap content last year. Recently, we’ve jumped back into the world of “Dragon Nest” to see what’s new since we went on hiatus.
All in all, not much is new. The level cap has been raised to 70, the experience point curve between levels 60 and 70 has been thrown completely out of whack (making daily grinding a necessity rather than a luxury), and level 40+ equipment has been revamped to use a fancy new Dragon Gem upgrade system instead of the old system of Suffixes and Hidden Ability Sparks. Almost all of the annoying entry passes required for entering the titular Nests have been removed as well, along with a few revamped locations and events.
However, something is in the works (and is already available in the Korean and …
EFF to Preserve Online Play, Misses the Point
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/09/14 at 03:06 PM CT
I am not alone in my concerns regarding what happens to old videogames when their owners no longer find them profitable. This past week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation started making noise about creating a Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption to allow circumvention of software security for the purpose of creating unofficial servers for games that are no longer officially supported.
If the EFF gets its way with this exemption request, the idea that games don’t have an online expiration date should hopefully catch hold of both the gaming public and the developers/publishers behind the creation of entertainment software. Giving the hardcore fans who already run unofficial servers for their favorite games explicit permission to do so is a significant win for consumer rights.
Unfortunately, the EFF doesn’t quite go far enough. The exemption request specifically states that the ability to run private servers for old games should NOT apply to massively-multiplayer games. …
Backlog: The Embiggening - November, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/01/14 at 03:11 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. It’s November! Now that Halloween is in the rear-view mirror, capitalists have no other impediments in their quest to flood the market with the Crap the Came for Christmas. Thanksgiving? What’s that? In America, we’re not thankful for anything… except dupes to whom to sell shovelware!
Shovelware? Yes, there is a bit of it this mont… OH MY GOD IT’S OVERWHELMING!
It seems that some of the shovelware manufacturers – specifically Disney – have started reducing the pellet count in their shotgun blast releases in order to specifically target the vital organs of those most susceptible to buying such crappy licensed garbage. Thus the new “Penguins of Madagascar,” and “Planes: Fire & Rescue” are only targeting Nintendo platforms (what with Nintendo’s unshakable ‘kiddie’ reputation). Likewise, both Disney and 4Kids are bringing their new “Big Hero 6” and “Winx Club” games exclusively to Nintendo …
The Best of the Best: Where are the Physical Collections?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/25/14 at 02:29 PM CT
While it is true that I was extremely disappointed with “The Best of PlayStation Network Vol. 1,” my disappointment has little to do with the concept behind the product and everything to do with the execution. Steam and GOG.com have slowly been whittling away my insistence upon possessing a physical product tied to the gaming experience, yet both of those platforms only have a strong presence on PC (making PC much better for it). With digital (mostly Indie) games on consoles, the experience still boils down to paying far too much money for an ephemeral product that will only last as long as the current hardware generation.
What products like “The Best of PlayStation Network” should aim to do is create a more lasting product to stand as a testament to the quality of the Indie and small-budget games from a given time period. Instead of being hideously rare, such compilations should be so numerous as to fill an entire shelf with Internet-independent instances of these games. …
Vaguely Related Review: Game Fuel Redux
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/19/14 at 01:27 PM CT
It has been quite some time since I last had some Mountain Dew Game Fuel on hand way back in 2011. I’ve been well-stocked in Mello Yello and Sun Drop for so long that I haven’t really paid much attention to new Game Fuel releases. And since Game Fuel seems inextricably tied to releases of games I don’t even give half a fig about, I don’t even notice advertisements to let me know the stuff is around again.
Fortunately, I happened to notice a big Game Fuel endcap at my local Russ’ IGA while perusing the extra-buttery popcorn isle. Once again, Game Fuel is tied to the release of a new ‘Call of Duty’ game (I don’t even know – or care – which one… okay, the Game Fuel boxes say ‘Advanced Warfare’ for what it’s worth) and comes in two flavors. Cherry-citrus is back with a vengeance, but the companion flavor is something new and extremely Yellow… like so Yellow it would kill the Green Lantern on contact.
The new Yellow flavor of game fuel is, surprisingly, …
The Death of Saturday Morning Cartoons: Another Shared Experience Lost
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/12/14 at 02:42 PM CT
The first Saturday morning in October 2014 marked a depressing milestone for those of us who grew up and came of age in the 1980s and 1990s. It was the first Saturday morning to be completely bereft of cartoons on every non-cable broadcast network.
Sure, some of the networks still run a mixed block of animated and live-action children’s programming on Saturday mornings, but the majority of these shows are “edutainment” aimed at the pre-school crowd. The last holdouts in running Saturday morning cartoons were, for the most part, running popular shonen animes that are readily available on the cable animation outlet known as Cartoon Network. None of the last dregs of Saturday morning cartoons bear any resemblance to the once-great Saturday morning network exclusives that drove children to wake up insanely early on days when school was not in session.
The last remaining Saturday morning cartoons have been a pale imitation of the Silver Era for a long, long time. Looking back …
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