MeltedJoystick.com Gaming Blog

Embracer Group is De-Grouping!

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 16:38:19 -0500

In recent memory, it seemed that gaming consolidation was inevitable, as Big Corporations snatched up every smaller or Indie studio they could, building their IP portfolios while doing nothing with said IP. The consolidation phase of Late Stage Corporatist Gaming culminated with the this? Mere weeks after Yves Guillemot of Ubisoft caused MeltedJoystick’s CTO, Nick, to collapse in a fit of catatonia with his insistence on coining the term ‘E3 has gone the way of the dodo, and in lieu of that week-long orgy of advertisements, announcements, and Industrial Gaming propaganda, it seems that Gaming as a whole has decided to make do with the Games Developer Conference instead. Previou...

Backlog: The Embiggening – April, 2024

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 16:23:45 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! It turns out that Christopher would have seen his shadow if he wasn’t staring so intently at his phone, so we’ve been saddled with 6 more weeks of Wintry weather. April is upon us, and I still have to keep my furnace turned on at night… so… thanks, Global Warming? Sadly, videogame releases have become far more predictable than t...

Larian Studios to Part Ways with Hasbro-Wizards and D&D

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 14:49:48 -0500

Back in those halcyon days before the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting global socio-political fallout, the Crew at MeltedJoystick was super-excited about our new favorite RPG studio being tapped by Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro to create the next big Dungeons & Dragons cRPG… and the fact that it was going ...

Nintendo Continues to Play Emulation Whack-a-Mole

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 15:38:18 -0500

A couple weeks ago, Nintendo made one of its heavy-handed legal moves, in which it sued the developers of the Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu, so hard that they took down their website and purged their Github. It’s unsurprising that The Big N was triggered by the exist...

He’s Everywhere VIII!: Indie Edition

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 16:37:43 -0500

It’s that time of year, again! The coming of March means that localized paranormal phenomenon, Chris, is another year older and another year more inscrutable. Last year, I dug back into Game Freak’s world of pocketable monsters to reveal that there are i...

Review Round-Up: Winter 2023

Sun, 03 Mar 2024 14:50:56 -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: I actually had a pretty good Winter quarter, with plenty of 4.5 scores to hand out. Two of those high-scoring titles were my Backlog Ablution titles, which just leav...

Google’s Gemini AI is Woke and Regurgitates DEI Manuals When Questioned

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 15:12:44 -0500

After last year, seeing all forms of media, from movies, to TV, to comics, to tabletop RPGs feeling the sting of Getting Woke and Going Broke, it seemed like we had reached the peak of insanity and were prepared to start coming down the other side. Normies and Free Thinkers alike had become so fed up with the constant Woke messaging coming from all angles and the Cultural Vandalism of some of the...

Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2024

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 17:08:37 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! Spring is here, and I have personally confirmed that MeltedJoystick’s in-house small, furry creature did NOT, in fact, see his shadow… probably because his eyes were glued to his phone. So let’s all look forward to yet another terrible docket of videogame releases so we can ...