Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/17/19 at 02:46 PM CT

Remember way back in 2018 (3 months ago) when Square-Enix earned special praise in the MeltedJoystick Year in Review retrospective? It is with great sadness that we must recant that praise and return Square-Enix to the garbage heap with the rest of the “AAA” mega-corporate publishers.

When Square-Enix released “Dragon Qu...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/10/19 at 03:30 PM CT

At long last, science, that great discipline through which all Truth is revealed, has taken a look at a unique phenomenon of the modern world: Copyright. Since the Digital Revolution brought on by the advent of the Internet in the early 21st Century, IP rightsholders have tried desperately to continue enforcing their will on the general public through excessive lobbying, which has led to increasi...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/03/19 at 01:46 PM CT

Welcome back to another look into the near future! After getting off on the wrong port… err… foot, 2019 is still chugging along. Let’s see what February, the month for lovers, holds in store for us to love. Or hate.

After multiple months without licensed garbage, annual sports releases, or super-casual fluff, the shovelware has come home to roost. Fortunately, the numbers aren’t great enough t...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/27/19 at 04:22 PM CT

As gaming comes into its own as a mature medium, it is looking more and more to the past, as do so many other artistic media. Remakes, remasters, reboots – all are just euphemisms for ‘rehash,’ as developers and publishers struggle to come up with new ideas or even to iterate on existing ideas in meaningful ways. Nowhere is this love of hindsight more prevalent than in the now-fully-mature Indepe...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/19/19 at 04:21 PM CT

We aren’t even a month into 2019, and an Epic Fail that is destined to make the Year in Review list is already on the books. According to information dug-up and translated by Siliconera, Japan managed to sneak in end-of-the-year legislation that bans any and all forms of hardware or software ...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/13/19 at 03:53 PM CT

With a new year upon us, many people take the opportunity to make overreaching New Year’s Resolutions that they will never be able to own-up to. Whether it’s losing weight, controlling your temper, or drinking less alcohol, most of the typical Resolutions are a real drag because they go against the Nature of the Beast, and all of us are the way we are by-and-large due to things that are far outsi...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/05/19 at 06:41 PM CT

Welcome back to another look into the near future! 2018 is officially over and done, and its mixed-bag of offerings need no longer haunt us as we plunge ever-bold into the future… except for those of us who still have 2018 games in our Backlogs and Wishlists! Let’s take a look and see how the “AAA” corporate gaming industry and the Indie rip-off artists plan to usher in 2019.

TWO MONTHS IN A R...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/28/18 at 07:16 PM CT

Another year has come and gone, and the world continues to turn, despite Donald Trump’s best efforts to make it grind to a halt. Once again, it’s time to take a look back at the year and praise the 5 biggest Wins for the gaming community while simultaneously *facepalming* over the 5 biggest Fails.

Top 5 Fails

5. Sixense STEM Vaporware Vaporizes

I’ve been cove...

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/24/18 at 01:55 PM CT

This year, the MeltedJoystick Crew decided to break with tradition with regard to our annual Game of the Year. Historically, we’ve posted a poll and, up until last year, took nominations from users to populate it. However, our voter turn-out has always been tragically low, while nomination turn-out has been incredibly high. Thus we’ve always had polls where most of the nominees received no votes....

Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/16/18 at 04:24 PM CT

After having my mind blown by “The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion” back in 2011, then feeling like “The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim” offered little in the way of difference in 2014, and pounding “Fallout 3” and “Fallout: New Vegas” back to back in 2015, I thought the jig was up for Bethesda Softworks, and that they could do nothing more to surprise me with the samey, enormous, glitchy Sandbox games that m...