The Top (Bottom?) 5 Falls from Grace in the 7th Generation
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/27/14 at 03:35 PM CT
Some game makers never really amount to anything. Some game makers start small, rising to greatness and glory upon the back of an extremely well-crafted game (or series of games). Some game makers start out big and evil and simply stay the course, raking in huge profits while lighting cigars with $1,000 bills. Then there are the game makers that, through every fault of their own, take a glowing reputation and completely flush it down the toilet, never to recover. The 7th Generation saw a lot of not-so-great things happen in the videogame industry, including huge numbers of bankruptcies and shuttered studios. The following five companies may not have crashed and burned, but they are desperately close to the ground, dragging their reputations behind them.
5. Re-Logic
Starting life essentially as a pirate developer, Re-Logic gave us the definitive (and unlicensed) ‘Super Mario Bros.’ experience with “Super Mario Bros. X.” After receiving takedown requests from Nintendo, …
Vaguely Related Review: The DragonLance “Age of Mortals Campaign” Trilogy
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/20/14 at 04:17 PM CT
May 2014 saw the end of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I started running in August 2009. It was great to get back to the tabletop for some gaming after a ridiculously long hiatus that saw me bereft of this type of experience for almost all of the 7 years I spent as a college undergrad and grad student. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to keep playing tabletop games, it was simply a matter of impracticality… and the glaring fact that everyone I played tabletop games with had either moved to another state or otherwise dropped off the face of the Earth after high school. I graduated high school in 1997, so there was no TwitFace or Big Brother to help us keep tabs on each other. It was as if my admittedly-tiny social circle was there one day and gone the next.
Likewise, my beloved DragonLance Campaign Setting was also going through quite a few growing pains at exactly the same time my tabletop gaming group was in crisis. In 1996, TSR, in a desperate attempt to return to …
What Good, Really, is a Second Screen?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/13/14 at 01:50 PM CT
It has been a decade since Nintendo first floated the idea of giving players twice the screen real estate for gaming by giving them twice the screens. With three Nintendo hardware platforms in a row sporting a second screen – the DS, 3DS, and WiiU – it appears the Japanese company has doubled-down on this particular gimmick.
But is the second screen provided by Nintendo hardware really of significant benefit? On the two handheld platforms, the two screens are tightly packed-together, acting instead as one long vertical screen that can be divided in half or taken as a single unit. While the close proximity of these two screens puts them both within the player’s field of view at all times, the end result isn’t exactly spectacular. The DS and 3DS suffer from a chronic case of Vertical Video Syndrome, presenting visual information in a manner counter to the layout of the human visual system. Likewise, this visual layout is counter to every other technology made for displaying …
What’s New in D&D Next: A Primer
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/06/14 at 05:33 PM CT
Last month I discussed the rise and fall of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG, and how Wizards of the Coast managed to lose their non-digital gaming crown to upstart Paizo. What I didn’t discuss was what is actually changing in D&D Next (a.k.a., D&D 5th Edition). Let’s take a look at how D&D Next will be breaking compatibility with 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder (henceforth, 3.x), as well as 4th Edition, while streamlining game mechanics at the same time.
1. Goodbye Skill Ranks, Base Attack Bonus, and Saving Throw Bonuses; Hello Proficiency Bonus
3.x introduced these three core mechanics to replace a lot of Gygaxian weirdness that was present in AD&D, such as the infamous THAC0, negative Armor Classes being better, and inconsistency in determining whether high or low roll on a 20-sided die (d20) determines success. D&D Next wants to get rid of the complicated paperwork and number inflation these mechanics can cause by combining them all into a single bonus: Proficiency.
The weird …
Backlog: The Embiggening - July, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/29/14 at 01:11 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Last month’s gentle start to the Summer Game Drought has given way to a full-blown, apocalypse-level dearth of new titles for July. El Niño may be deluging parts of the United States that have been drought-stricken for the better part of a decade, but his expertise in rain doesn’t do diddly with regard to the games industry.
How bad is the drought this year? Well, how about a whopping 6 titles slated for a July release? Is that sparse enough?
Not only are the releases unbearably thin in July, but the quality is even lower than usual.
There are TWO licensed games coming in July. One is based on the abominably-drawn anime “One Piece.” It will be hitting the odd combination of PS3 and 3DS. The other is yet another LEGO tie-in, this time involving ninjas and handheld consoles.
There is ONE ‘grown-up’ FPS coming in July: The drab military shooter sequel “Sniper Elite III.” Of course, it will be hitting every …
Can Wizards of the Coast Reclaim the Tabletop Crown with D&D Next?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/22/14 at 03:20 PM CT
Not too long ago, tabletop gaming was completely dominated by the game that essentially started the RPG genre way back in 1977: Dungeons & Dragons. While there have been alternative tabletop rules systems for decades, D&D was so synonymous with tabletop gaming that its name became the default for the activity, much like “playing Nintendo” was 1980’s vernacular for anything videogame related.
Sadly, TSR, the original company started by D&D creator, Gary Gygax, went out of business in 1997, selling its assets and tabletop gaming intellectual properties to competitor, Wizards of the Coast. At the time, Wizards of the Coast and TSR were very different companies, each serving as a rallying flag to one side of a tabletop gaming civil war. On one side, the Dice Chuckers liked their RPGs, with character customization, storytelling, cooperation, adventure and loot. On the other side, the Card Floppers liked the gambling-esque thrill of getting a rare pull from a booster pack, the …
E3 Impressions 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/15/14 at 01:29 AM CT
Last year’s E3 is a tough act to follow with regard to how NOT to do E3, despite hosting the debuts of two 8th Generation consoles and the accompanying hype. Every press conference last year essentially amounted to a company spokesman coming on stage, taking a dump, then pointing at the steaming mound and singing, “Tada!” Sony managed to win the hearts and minds of gamers and the press simply by producing the least smelly heap of offal (read: not the XBONE). Over the course of the year, Microsoft managed to flush most of their mislaid movements (though the smell still lingers), and Nintendo managed to squeeze a few releases past its constipating blockage. Needless to say, my hopes were not high for E3 2014 to provide anything better. Thankfully, I was surprised this year, as every console had at least one exclusive game that I would be excited to play.
Microsoft:
Want: Microsoft to stop making consoles (still!), “Ori and the Blind Forest”
Not Sure if Want: “Project …
GOG Galaxy Set to Shake the Foundations of PC Gaming
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/07/14 at 03:25 PM CT
Our friends in Poland are gearing up to shake the foundations of Lord GabeN’s Steampowered throne with the upcoming release of their very own game client. While GOG has been around for a while, their DRM-free philosophy prevented them from shackling their (old and Indie) games with any kind of mandatory client. The entirely-optional GOG Downloader was the closest thing they had.
That will all be changing with the announcement of GOG Galaxy, which will finally bring CD Projekt’s e-shop up to par with the likes of Steam, Desura, Origin, and Uplay… at least as far as features go. Galaxy will support all of the good things provided by game clients, like automatic updates, friend lists, friend chat, and achievements. What it will not support, unlike the other three, is DRM.
This is incredibly exciting news, as I have purchased certain Indie games on Steam instead of GOG just for the sake of having access to Steam’s auto-updates. With Galaxy promising such feature parity and …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/01/14 at 01:54 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:
Spring didn’t see the MJ Crew toward our goal of finishing more co-op games. We managed to get through “Diablo III,” but “Borderlands 2” eluded completion due to its insane amount of content (and the fact that the crew missed a few too many weekly sessions). We also started “Super Mario 3D World,” but came just shy of finishing thanks to Memorial Day messing up Chris’ schedule.
I finally got to some of the longer games I’ve been putting off due to their… well, length. “Skyrim” did not scratch my Sandbox itch, and “Ni no Kuni” did not scratch my RPG itch. But between them, I have plenty of raw, itchy patches that need to be balmed, yet it seems the item shop is all out of that particular remedy.
The end of the PlayStation 3 has been on my mind this past quarter, and I’ve been doing my best to …
Backlog: The Embiggening - June, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/26/14 at 12:10 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Every year, gamers everywhere suffer through an annual occurrence known colloquially as the Summer Game Drought. It is ever ironic that the time during which publishers should be pushing out the most gaming products – Summer Vacation, when kids (the biggest buyers of licensed crap and samey FPSes) have plenty of free time and extra spending money from Summer jobs – is actually the time when the fewest new gaming products see the light of day. In 2014, it’s looking like the beginning of the Summer Game Drought might be a bit on the mild side, based on numbers alone. However, a closer look reveals that the stuff being released in June is being sent out to die based on tie-in deadlines or perhaps a feeling that less crappy crap might be perceived as ‘okay’ when placed side-by-side with really awful stuff.
Licensed games and shovelware are making a strong showing after all but disappearing recently. There are movie tie-ins for …
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