Microsoft Admits What We’ve Known All Along
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/25/23 at 03:33 PM CT
The theatrics and drama revolving around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard-King just got a little bit Truthy. In response to Sony’s insistence that losing the third-party support of the conglomerate publisher Microsoft wishes to buy, the Big M pulled out an argument that gamers have always known to be true: Microsoft has lost the Console Wars.
In an apparent attempt to paint itself as “The Little Guy” struggling in last place with a meager 16% of the console market (which, as an unrelated aside, is still 3-4 percentage points higher than he proportion of Negros in the American population), Microsoft actually admitted that Nintendo and Sony completely dominate, leaving the House of Gates to pick at scraps. We’ve known Xbox is a joke since the very beginning, though. While a handful of Xbox fanboys – and Xbox boss, Phil Spencer – continually deflect and avoid the topic when confronted with Xbox’s legacy of gaming failure, nothing can cover up the fact …
More Suggested Picks to Take Your “Warframe” Loadout Over the Top
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/17/23 at 06:19 PM CT
Last year, I gave a short list of my top picks for the best-in-class weapons in each major category in Digital Extremes’ long-running Live Service MMO-Shooter, “Warframe.” Of course, because it’s a Live Service, the game is always getting a stream of patches, balance tweaks, and new content. That means the goalposts are always moving. Unfortunately for fans of big explosions, Digital Extremes went a bit overboard in attempting to nerf last year’s meta-game environment that relied heavily on explosive area-of-effect weapons. Fortunately for readers of this blog, none of my top picks from last year were affected much by the Nerf Mallet – though it was pretty touch-and-go for a week or so, when Digital Extremes also over-nerfed regenerating ammo guns like the Fulmin and Bubonico, before ultimately rolling back those changes.
This time around, we’ve got several new content expansions to consider, specifically the ‘Angels of the Zariman’ questline and the most recent …
“Overwatch 2: Hero Mode” Follows “Fortnite: Save the World” into Oblivion
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/10/23 at 02:51 PM CT
In an unsurprising, yet still disappointing bit of news, Blizzard recently announced that the studio will be ceasing development on the cooperative campaign-based ‘Hero Mode’ of their Arena Shooter sequel, “Overwatch 2.” Instead, “Overwatch 2” will remain an entirely PvP-based game, just like the original “Overwatch,” causing many people to wonder exactly why we needed an “Overwatch 2,” exactly.
Of course, Blizzard has also discontinued service for the original “Overwatch,” making the shift of “Overwatch 2” from ‘something completely different’ to ‘more of the same’ feel even more like a blatant cash-grab and a Nintendo-style ‘reselling our customer base the exact same thing a second time, for full price’ than it already appeared to be.
The reason this news is unsurprising is that, just within the last few years, Epic Games’ “Fortnite” underwent a nearly identical shift in its ultimate goals. While “Fortnite” was originally …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/03/23 at 10:13 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
Oof! Spring was not kind to me. In spite of playing a mix of big names and smaller Indie/doujin titles, the only one I thoroughly enjoyed was the ‘Mario + Rabbids’ sequel. Here’s hoping I can get on a hot streak of excellent titles again this Summer.
“Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope” – 4.5/5
“Cyberpunk 2077” – 3.5/5
“Torchlight 3” – 2.5/5
“Aegis of Earth: Protonovus Assault” – 3/5
“Mighty Switch Force Collection” – 2.5/5
“Sakuna: Of Rice & Ruin” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris finished his Backlog Ablutions, so that’s two of us who have officially succeeded for the year and no longer have the Sword of Damocles dangling over our heads. Chris also managed to get through another single-player game, and submitted reviews for two co-op titles. Pretty good for someone who has gotten …
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