MeltedJoystick.com Gaming Blog

Backlog: The Embiggening – December, 2024

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 22:34:21 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! It’s a New Year, once again, and – as is always the case with a new beginning – the Games Industry has a chance to make a fresh start and maaaaaybe not do all the same stupid stuff they did last year that lost them a ton of money and left several Big Names in I...

New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2025

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 14:01:23 -0500

The results of the last year’s New Year’s Backlog Ablutions are in! Sadly, we couldn’t keep our Perfect Streak going into a third year, as Erstwhile Matt – this initial instigator of this entire sorry display – failed utterly, completing only one of his three chosen games and, furthermore, failing to submit a revi...

Year in Review: 2024

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 22:57:41 -0500

Well, the world didn’t end last year, in spite of world politicians’ overwhelming levels of hubris and stupidity. Unfortunately, that means the MJ Crew had to come up with a year-end list including 5 things that didn’t completely suck about gaming and nerd culture in 2024… Hey, we tried. At least coming up with complete gaming disasters was still easy, so that’s a plus, right? (N...

MeltedJoystick Games of the Year 2024

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 14:04:06 -0500

This year seemed to fly by, even as quality videogame releases were few and far-between. The good news, though, is that every single game that got the MJ Crew’s attention this year (in a good way) was the type of thing that would normally fly under the radar. These were mostly surprise releases with no (or next-to-no) hype buoying them up, while the most-hyped titles of the year fell-flat al...

Are You Prepared for Dungeons X Dragons?

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 19:24:17 -0500

The social downfall of Hasbro Wizards of the Coasts continues. Not merely satisfied with filling its last 4 years of book releases with enough DEI pandering to choke a hippogriff and purposefully alienating its core audience, the corporation recently released a 50th anniversary coffee table book with a foreword that include...

Review Round-Up: Fall 2024

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 21:56:21 -0500

Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time: Nelson’s Reviews: Ugh. None of us really did much gaming this Fall. After my distasteful Summer filled with mediocrity and disappointment, I found myself avoiding starting a new game ...

Backlog: The Embiggening – December, 2024

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 21:20:55 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! It’s time to toll the ancient Yuletide carol once again, as the end of the year stares us in the face. Let’s take a look at what the constipated factories of Industrial Gaming are trying to squeeze out in a desperate attempts at generating a last-minute profit. There are only half-a-dozen shovelware titles coming in December, and all of th...

GOG is Blowing Smoke Again, This Time “Games Preservation”

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 15:04:44 -0500

As much as I would love to love the Polish videogame publisher formerly known as Good Old Games, I’ve been finding it incredibly difficult to overlook the fact that their audacious soapbox pontificating has never actually resulted in significant positive changes in Industrial Gaming. Little more than a week ago GOG launch...

What’s Going on at Kotaku?!

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 14:58:44 -0500

Kotaku used to be the definitive place for Games Journalism in the 20- ‘00s. Every game, every discussion, every gaming tangential subject – you name it, if you Google’d it, all roads lead to Kotaku, and they were – with heavy emphasis on the past tense part of the statement – a comprehensive and good place to read about videogames. Kotaku’s ability, as a digital-only platform,...

Nintendo’s Draconian IP Enforcement Just Got Worse

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 14:20:49 -0500

Oh, Nintendo. We love Nintendo, don’t we folks? Yeah, they were the company that rebuilt console gaming after the 1983 Crash. They were the company whose developers, led by the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata, created some of the best, brightest, and most memorable IPs in gaming, frequently carving out whole new genres, but always, at least, iterating on what came before in novel and...