Of Games and Passes and the Intersection Thereof
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/19/23 at 02:31 PM CT
Microsoft has had a shockingly good few years recently with regard to positivity surrounding their gaming endeavors. Perhaps they have finally managed to shake off the stigmata of their terrible early versions of Windows and their identity as primarily an office-based software developer, as more and more people forego office PCs and just do everything on their phones. Regardless, for the first time that I can remember, Microsoft has a bona-fide legion of fanboys trolling the Internet gaming communities.
What do these fanboys do? Why, they sing the praises of Gamepass, of course! Or, as they refer to it, “The Best Deal in Gaming.”
Xbox Gamepass debuted in 2017, at the beginning of the 9th Generation of console gaming. The service is a unique take on gaming, which erodes the audience’s investment in gaming products by providing an all-you-care-to-play buffet of heavily DRM’ed, lightly-curated digital game downloads for Xbox (and/or Windows) in exchange for a $15/month …
He’s Everywhere VII!: MOAR Pokemon Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/11/23 at 03:30 PM CT
It’s March, again, and that means MeltedJoystick’s favorite fur-bearing, idiosyncratic cryptid, Chris, is another year older, and another year more set in his ways. Last year, I listed a number of D&D “Monster Manual” denizens that remind me of Chris, but this year, I’m going to do a sequel to the second ‘He’s Everywhere!’ blog post from way back in 2017, when I listed the 10 most Chris-like pokemon. Of course, there are always more pokemon being added to the Pokedex, so it’s unsurprising that there are a number of new Christophers in the mix (plus a few I may have skipped over the last time around).
10. Galarian Stunfisk (#618)"Stunfisk is a circular, flat pokemon that exists primarily to get stepped-on. The Galarian variant, however, is, like every other Galarian variant, a bit more nasty and vindictive (like Chris), adapting itself with steel spikes reminiscent of a bear trap. So, while it still exists to get stepped-on, it’ll ruin the day of the thing doing …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2022
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/05/23 at 02:19 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:
I got off to a roaring start in 2023, finishing 10 games, including ALL of my Backlog Ablutions before the end of February. Unfortunately, most of what I played turned out to be mediocre or crap. What a strange world we live in, where a series of retro hentai games managed to outshine everything except for the excellent – and previous MJ Game of the Year winner – “Psychonauts 2.”
“Battletoads (2020)” – 1.5/5
“Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales” – 3/5
“Tower and Sword of Succubus” – 4/5
“Midnight Castle Succubus” – 4.5/5
“Sable” – 2.5/5
“Just Die Already” – 2/5
“Ocean’s Heart” – 4/5
“Castle in the Clouds DX” – 4/5
“Psychonauts 2” – 4.5/5
“Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising” – 3/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris got a good start on his Backlog Ablutions already, …
Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/24/23 at 10:38 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Winter and the last dregs of 2022 are officially behind us, once again, as Spring spoings into our lives, bringing with it superstitious Paschal holidays, seasonal allergies, crazy weather, and probably a whole bunch of terrible videogame releases. Let’s check on that last one…
We’re starting off Fiscal Year 2023 with corporate publishers pushing shovelware in all three major categories. In the Licensed Swill category, we’ve got “Peppa Pig: World Adventures” and “DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos.” In the 2Cazul2Liv category, we’ve got the cringe-inducing “Parents vs. Kids” mini-game slop. And in the ‘We Release This Every Year Because You’re Dumb Enough to Keep Buying It’ category, there’s “EA Sports PGA Tour,” “WWE 2K23,” and “Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 6.” Yes, that’s actually the title!
Moving on to old crap pretending to be new crap we’ve got… OH …
Live Services: Not So Lively Anymore
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/19/23 at 02:32 PM CT
Just a few years ago, every Games Industry publisher and their dog was trying to get in on the hot fad of Live Service gaming, where a slow, steady drip-feed of grindable content keeps players engaged and playing a single product for years upon years. Live Service gaming is, ultimately, just the latest incarnation of an Industry model that has been around for decades, first exemplified in the MMORPG boom of the of the early 2000s, when the success of games like “EverQuest” and “World of WarCraft” saw a proliferation of similar games using similar monetization strategies.
Our current – and rapidly ending – Live Service bubble can be attributed directly to the success of Epic Games’ “Fortnite,” which popularized the now-infamous “Battlepass” mechanic, essentially transforming a Free2Play game into a subscription-based game through the power of FOMO. In spite of “Fortnite’s” ongoing success as a Live Service, numerous copycats – including …
“Hogwarts Legacy” Reveals Insane Media Bias
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/12/23 at 04:07 PM CT
“Hogwarts Legacy,” the brand new game from Warner Bros. based on the ‘Wizarding World of Harry Potter’ by British novelist, J.K. Rowling, just released. What should we expect from a new Licensed piece of shovelware based on a series of novels aimed at children-through-teens? Well, according to Wired Magazine it’s a ‘mid’ game (as expected), yet is deserving of the absolutely deplorable 1/10 mark of shame… due to J.K. Rowling’s ‘transphobic’ insistence that sex is biological and women are different from men.
Yup, in the most recent display of insane behavior from the mainstream media – which has been going on for at least a decade at this point – Wired is in hot water with the gaming community over the fact that it assigned the review for “Hogwarts Legacy” not to a videogame critic, but to a deranged person-who-identifies-as-female whose prior articles for the site have been reviews of sex toys and coffee. Makes sense? (Nope!)
Surely this was some …
D&D Now Stands for ‘Debacles & Disasters’
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/05/23 at 04:15 PM CT
Wizards of the Coast had a very busy January, as the Hasbro subsidiary and owner of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG since 1997 set about the process of… burning itself to the ground.
It all started with Wizards’ new President, Cynthia Williams – a typical ‘Professional Executive’ who came to the tabletop games company from Microsoft’s Xbox Division – taking the lead in setting up heavy monetization for the next generation of Dungeons & Dragons: An Internet-powered, subscription-based thing known as ‘OneD&D.’ As part of the effort to ensure than any-and-everything about OneD&D was primed and ready to be transformed into a revenue-generating microtransaction, Wizards’ leadership took the bold step of updating and revising the Open Game License – known colloquially as the OGL. However, the revision was leaked to the public before Wizards was officially ready to reveal it.
The OGL was originally created simultaneously with D&D 3rd Edition in the Year 2000, …
Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/29/23 at 03:32 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! February is already upon us, as 2023 gets off to a rocky and tumultuous start. As tech and media companies hemorrhage staff via mass layoffs, how will that affect the quality and quantity of game releases? It won’t! We’ll still be drowning in crap.
We’ve got a light shovelware load coming in February, with one particularly big release in there that will likely dominate the month: “Hogwarts Legacy.” Now, I’m in the camp that considers the ‘Harry Potter’ IP to be old news, and who didn’t enjoy either of the last two ‘Fantastic Beasts’ films, but apparently, some people just can’t get enough Potterverse (just ask my ex-girlfriend). Honestly, the only reason I’d even consider buying a Potterverse game would be to irk the trannies who hate J.K. Rowling for telling the truth. Other than that title, we’ve also got some Switch games based on cartoons: “Spongebob: Krusty Cook-Off” is a port of a mobile game, …
New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/22/23 at 03:36 PM CT
The results of the last year’s New Year’s Backlog Ablutions are in! It’s official: For the first time since we started doing the Backlog Ablutions Challenge in 2019, ALL of us managed to succeed!
Of course, I was done by May, while Nick barely squeaked by, submitting his review for “Metroid Dread” on December 31st, while the other two guys managed to finish by late Autumn.
Because there were no losers, no Penalty Games will change hands. And since there were no losers, we believe we have finally hit the ‘sweet spot’ for the challenge, so there will be no rules revisions for 2023.
We all have one year to play two specific backlogged games that we’ve chosen for ourselves in advance. We must be ‘done’ with these games – as in, not planning to play them anymore, as neither finishing a game that turns out to be terrible nor getting 100% completion or achievements are part of the bargain – and submit reviews to MeltedJoystick for both by midnight on …
Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/15/23 at 03:24 PM CT
Welcome back, once again, to another look into the near future! 2023 is here, and both We the Gamers and the Games Industry itself have the opportunity – and excuse – to start afresh. Will gaming turn over a new leaf in the new year? Or will we get stuck with the same corrosive trends, slowly eating away at us like cosmic entropy? I’m not a gambling man, but I’d bet on the latter…
Is there shovelware? You bet! Only in the new year, it looks like we’re only getting the Licensed Swill flavor. There are two games based on anime and/or manga: “One Piece Odyssey” and “Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.” Then there are two Licensed games that are also ports, with “The Witcher 3,” based on a series of novels, which is hitting 9th Gen consoles; and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” based on a graphic novel, which is getting a second chance at life on Steam after being de-listed from consoles.
Are there ports? Of course there are ports! The Switch is still out-in-front …
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