Should Sega Make a Comeback? Part 1
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/25/11 at 03:20 PM CT
When the Dreamcast died an incredibly premature death after only 3 years on the market, the company that fought tooth-and-nail with Nintendo across 4 generations of console hardware gave up and became a software-only third party. For fans of Sega’s products, this was a major blow, as it resulted in a diaspora of popular titles that were formerly all available in one place. For example, the “Sonic Adventure” games migrated to Nintendo’s Gamecube while the sequel to “Panzer Dragoon” ended up on the Xbox. Suddenly, keeping up with Sega’s library of games became a lot more expensive, as it required owning multiple consoles.
Die-hard Sega and Dreamcast fans have been speculating that the hardware-turned-software developer still has what it takes to compete with the likes of Microsoft, Sony, and their old foe, Nintendo. Now that Nintendo has shown its hand with regards to starting Console Generation 8 in 2012 while Microsoft and Sony struggle beneath the burdens of their …
RareWare: Much Ado about Nothing
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/19/11 at 03:40 PM CT
Ask any N64 fanboy who his favorite developers are, and you will receive the same two responses over and over: Nintendo and Rare. Rare, a British development house, spent the years between 1994 and 2002 as an unofficial Nintendo second party, meaning that they developed games exclusively for Nintendo hardware despite not actually being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese console maker. In 2002, Microsoft bought 100% of the company and made Rare a subsidiary of their own gaming division. Of course, Microsoft has been building a reputation for inexplicably spending large amounts of money on worthless things.
This love by N64 fanboys is extremely disappointing, as whenever I stand on my anti-N64 soapbox, railing against Nintendo’s lack of quality games (or even quantity games) on their failed 5th Generation console, the defense drags out the same tired argument of Rare exclusives that were so amazing that the N64 didn’t need any other games. The truth of the matter is that …
E3 Impressions 2011
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/12/11 at 06:01 PM CT
This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was pretty exciting. For one, it’s the first one for which Melted Joystick has been in existence! For another, it’s the first year that I’ve been able to take advantage of streaming video (hooray for 1.5Mbps!) to watch the proceedings live. Microsoft started the show, followed by Sony, with Nintendo and its mysterious console announcement bringing up the rear. Read on to see what I thought were the highlights and lowlights of E3 2011.
Microsoft
WANT: Kinect Fun Labs, Kinect search, new dashboard
NOT SURE IF WANT: “Minecraft”
DO NOT WANT: More “Halo,” more generic multi-platform releases, Kinect functionality in ‘real’ games
Kinect has started to intrigue me a bit. Kotaku’s Mike Fahey has convinced me that Kinect Fun Labs’ ‘Build-A-Buddy’ feature is the single greatest thing ever to hit the Xbox 360. Combined with other new features, such as voice search via Bing, Kinect is beginning to look like a …
Will the Real James Bond Please Stand Up?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/04/11 at 03:04 PM CT
I’ve been on a bit of a Bond kick lately, what with having recently played “GoldenEye Wii” and having revisited “GoldenEye 64” and “Agent Under Fire” for comparison’s sake. I have found that, despite bouncing around across three different publishers/developers, the Bond license has never really produced a videogame that lives up to the full potential of the movie franchise.
While anyone with any gaming experience and common sense should never expect a Bond movie game to be good (after all, movie games are NEVER good), original Bond stories (not even based on any of Ian Fleming’s original short novels) have proven surprisingly enjoyable in games. Yet for some reason we haven’t seen an original Bond game since 2002’s “Nightfire” (no, “Golden Eye: Rogue Agent” does not count). Instead we got an unfaithful adaption of “From Russia, With Love,” a game version of “Quantum of Solace,” and a redux of “GoldenEye.” Is this really the best developers …
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