Backlog: The Embiggening - February, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/02/13 at 01:20 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. February may be the shortest month of the year, and may immediately follow a somber month of mourning for the past holiday season, but it looks like this February there are plenty of new games being released. Will any of them be worthwhile? I doubt it!
February looks to be a light month for shovelware and licensed trash. Across all consoles and handhelds, there are only two multi-platform licensed games, an “Aliens” tie-in (I guess trying to cash-in on last year’s “Prometheus”? The timing seems off…) and a game based on Cartoon Network’s “Young Justice” series. Other than that, the 3DS is getting an exclusive “Monster High” tie-in, the corpse of the Wii is getting yet another crappy singing game, and the Xbox 360 is getting a “Fist of the North Star” game, based on an obscure anime that Xbox fanboys have probably never even heard of (talk about not knowing your audience).
In the land of non-shovelware …
Wiimote + GlovePIE: The Road to Ecstasy Leads through Agony
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/25/13 at 03:14 PM CT
During my precursory research into finding a viable, PC-compatible replacement for the Wiimote, I learned that, despite there being a large number of different motion controllers available for PC, they are all either really expensive, or absolute garbage. It seemed that the only route left to me was not to find a substitute for the Wiimote, but to force the Wiimote itself upon PC gaming. Thus I was left with no other option than to use GlovePIE, an Xpadder-style keymapper that helps a PC’s operating system make sense of the data coming through the Wiimote’s Bluetooth connection. While it may sound simple in theory, considering how easy-to-use Xpadder is, getting GlovePIE and a Wiimote to play nicely with Windows is a frustrating experience fraught with inconsistency and unpredictable behavior.
To begin, a gamer wishing to use a Wiimote for PC games needs to have compatible hardware. Wiimotes and GlovePIE only play nicely with specific brands of Bluetooth radio and work better …
Vaguely Related: Splitfish SFX Evolution
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/19/13 at 02:25 PM CT
Recently, I’ve been attempting to find some way of replicating the Wii’s pointer capabilities on Windows in order to make playing FPSes on PC a more pleasant experience. While I found numerous dedicated motion controllers for PC, all of them were either expensive, crap, or both. While a few options did fall into the acceptably-cheap price range for experimental purchase, most of those were so obviously marked-down that they raised red flags in my mind immediately. Despite the sirens going off in my head, I made the decision – against my better judgment – to “take one for the team,” as it were, and test out the Splitfish SFX Evolution.
After launching at a price of $90, the drop to $20 on Amazon.com is an obvious signal that the SFX Evolution hasn’t sold well. But maybe, just maybe, it hasn’t been selling well because the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race can’t appreciate it rather than because the controller is a piece of trash? If only that were the case…
The …
The Most Anticipated Games of 2013: The Last Hurrah for the Seventh Generation?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 01/16/13 at 05:29 PM CT
While rumors are floating around about the exact release date for the next generation of systems from Sony and Microsoft, one thing is clear, with the release of the WiiU, it's apparent that this is most likely going to be the last year for the venerable Xbox 360 and PS3. Whether it's this fall, winter, something tells me there's a good chance this upcoming holiday season will see another new system under the tree.
But you may as well go out with a bang, so what is there to look forward to this year? As I have been a PS3 fan from the beginning, it's looking like a good year. Throw in some hotly anticipated multiple platform games, and it really is looking like they did save the best for last. Here then are my most anticipated games of 2013:
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
I won't have to wait too long to check this one out, seeing as it's coming out Jan. 22 - but I have been looking forward to this since it was released in Japan last year. For one, it may be a decent …
Motion Controls on the PC: A Quest of Futility
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/12/13 at 05:01 PM CT
Last July, I wrote about the ways FPSes could be adapted to make me actually enjoy playing them. Number 4 on that list – Pointer-Based Aiming – has recently become even more important to me, as the MeltedJoystick crew is planning on jumping into the PC version of “Borderlands” and “Borderlands 2” (once the GotY version of the sequel hits bargain basement prices on Steam). Outside of Chris, the ‘Borderlands’ series is one that none of the MeltedJoystick crew would ever consider playing, especially not for $60. But with cheap prices (like $6 cheap) and a small amount of RPG elements to set it apart from more traditional FPSes like ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Battlefield,’ even erstwhile MeltedJoystick guest-blogger, Matt, has decided to join the action and fill-out the team of 4. So, now we have the game (the original “Borderlands”), we have the players, we have gaming PCs capable of running an “AAA” game from 2009… What’s missing? Pointer controls.
I …
Does Violence in Games Beget Violence in People?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 01/06/13 at 02:48 PM CT
The recent tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has opened up multiple avenues of debate. While much of the attention has been devoted to gun control, the NRA had to weigh in and, unsurprisingly, brought up the specter of violence in the media to shift the burden of blame.
In the words of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, taken from his speech given on Dec. 21:
"And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Kombat,” and “Splatterhouse.”
And here’s one, it’s called “Kindergarten Killers.” It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had …
Backlog: The Embiggening - January, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/06/13 at 02:32 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Now that the Christmas rush is over, we’re left with games that could either be considered Early Birds or a month too late. Regardless of what we might think of the games released in January, it is never a particularly big month. Out of the whopping 7 games releasing this month, it looks like there might be a couple of good ones.
Now that Christmas is over, there is little reason for developers to release licensed games and shovelware. Un-savvy moms and dads of small children have already spent their game budgets for the next few months, so any titles in this category released NOW will get a chance to linger on store shelves and accumulate the nice layer of mold they deserve. That said, 505 Games is still bringing “Chimpact” to the corpse of the late DS. Seriously… it’s a touch-controlled game about a chimp that can only be played on a dead handheld. Why did they even bother?
Multi-platform games dominate the limited …
Year in Review: 2012
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/31/12 at 02:36 PM CT
The year 2012 has come and gone. Every year has its great successes as well as things that didn’t quite go as planned. Let’s take a look back at what the past year brought us:
Top 5 Fails
5. OnLive Goes Bankrupt, Nobody Cares
OnLive, the little game streaming company that couldn’t, went bankrupt in 2012. The 1600 concurrent players who enjoyed streaming video of high-end games over the Internet to dumb terminal consoles or underpowered netbooks may have let out a collective whine of despair, but if they did it was entirely drowned out by the sounds of apathy or queries of, “What’s an Onlive?” by the majority of the videogame playing public. Unfortunately, attempts are still being made to save OnLive, and, even worse, Sony apparently wants to copy OnLive’s model and purchased Gaikai for $380 million (money they don’t have).
4. New PlayStation Store Makes Shopping a Chore
Sony getting hacked is soooo 2011. What really made 2012’s PlayStation hack so …
Is Everything Better with Zombies? Almost! Just Don't Ask About The War Z
Chris Kavan - wrote on 12/27/12 at 04:47 PM CT
I have a bit of an obsession when it comes to the living dead. Books, games, movies - you name it, if it's zombie related, chances are I've either played, read, watched or at least heard of it. And I'm not the only one - I mean, you could name 2012 the Year of the Zombie - but has the saturation point finally been reached?
Game often add zombie themes to them - Red Dead Redemption had a whole separate disc release of just its zombie theme. The latest rendition of Call of Duty - Black Ops II - has an extensive zombies mode. The Walking Dead recently won Game of the Year honors at the Spike 2012 Video Game Awards (amongst others). And I have to say, the third season of the TV show is the best yet.
So it's obvious the next logical step is a zombie-themed MMO - I mean, it just makes sense? Right? Lucky for us, Dean Hall came along and created a highly successful mod for ARMA 2, DayZ. This is a mod that actually puts "survival" into a survival horror situation - you have to worry …
What’s so Great about That? MeltedJoystick Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/23/12 at 01:34 PM CT
As a long-time gamer, I have had the dubious privilege of experiencing a complete paradigm shift in gamers’ popular opinion. While the dawn of the Internet saw a consensus that I almost entirely agreed with, more recently I’ve been left *facepalming* in wonder and dismay at the things that obtain popular and critical acclaim. When I saw that the editors at Ars Technica shared my sentiments, I found myself looking forward to an interesting read, unshackled by the status quo. I was not disappointed, and found myself nodding in agreement with every one of their overrated picks.
In an attempt to kindle this small fire of dissent amid the massive glacier of paid reviewers and people (including critics) with no taste, the MeltedJoystick staff have decided to chime-in with some of our picks for the pile of Most Overrated Games. Of course, in order to prevent this from becoming an N64 bash-fest, I set down one limitation: The games in this article are all current-gen (or last-gen, …
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