Backlog: The Embiggening – May, 2020
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/03/20 at 02:00 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future. Thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine/shelter-in-place/stay-at-home zeitgeist is has foisted upon us, game developers and publishers don’t really seem all that keen to release a bunch of new games.
This is, of course, completely ass-backwards, as videogame development is done entirely on computers, and thus can be done from anywhere, meaning that the programmers, artists, and musicians whose talent goes into making the games we love (or love to hate) can and should still be doing their thing, regardless of the state of the pandemic. Not only can the work involved in creating videogames be done from anywhere, there’s no time when people need the escapism brought by the medium more than now. The entire world is a more-or-less captive audience, staying home, bored out of their minds. Wouldn’t this be the ideal time to release a bunch of new games? Even if they aren’t the full “AAA” experience?
I guess …
Trump Unknowingly Touts Videogame Mechanic as COVID-19 Cure
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/26/20 at 03:10 PM CT
The wholly-unqualified, perpetually-bankrupt (both financially and ethically), conspiracy-mongering, insult-flinging President of the United States (and sometimes Troll Doll), Donald J. Trump doesn’t like videogames. And he will gladly throw the medium under the bus whenever he can use such action to gain brownie points with the religious fundamentalist nut-jobs in his voting base (such as when a mass shooting can be attributed to the shooter’s love of gaming instead of Jesus). However, this past week, President Clown inadvertently came up with a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been sweeping the world and crashing economies for months now, that comes straight from the unspeakable world of gaming.
Speaking at a Federal Coronavirus briefing, Trump – whose vocabulary is largely limited to the words “tremendous,” “beautiful,” “powerful,” and a small handful of other similar adjectives – was impressed by the ability of both disinfectants and UV light to …
“The Woke of Us”: Sony Sequel to be Less Game, More Propaganda
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/19/20 at 05:43 PM CT
Earlier this April, a leaked plot synopsis for “The Last of Us: Part 2” made the rounds in the dark underbelly of the Internet gaming community, before being removed by a DMCA takedown notice. In this synopsis, it was revealed that, far from being a post-apocalyptic zombie story that just happens to contain lesbians, the long-awaited cinematic sequel will, in reality, be a LGBTQ+ gender dysphoriac story that just happens to take place after a zombie apocalypse.
Series writer, Neil Druckmann, is a self-professed male feminist and follower of Anita Sarkeesian, who, emboldened by both the positive reactions toward and negative backlash against his “The Last of Us” DLC and graphic novel, which revealed main character Ellie’s lesbian leanings, has decided to cram as much divisive identity politics into the sequel as possible. While leaks and rumors are inherently disreputable, veteran voice actor, Troy Baker, who portrays former-lead-character, Joel, in ‘The Last of Us’ …
Atari Hits New Low with Cryptocurrency and Online Gambling
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/12/20 at 03:03 PM CT
I don’t think it’s necessary to retread the well-trampled ground of Atari’s (delenda est) past crimes, since I covered that dark chapter in videogame history quite well enough back in 2012. Yet, just when it seemed that the worst platform-holder in all of gaming history was ready to turn over a new leaf with their rebooted Atari VCS ‘open’ tinker-friendly console (which still hasn’t shipped nearly a year after going up for pre-order), two new Atari (delenda est) projects have come to light for 2020, and they are wholly indicative that the vile subsidiary still hasn’t learned its lesson.
First off, Atari (delenda est) has created a new cryptocurrency to compete with Bitcoin and its myriad ilk, which seems to be tied intimately into the Atari VCS’s online ecosystem. These so-called “Atari Tokens” are meant to be a new take on the old token-based economies of “totally legitimate businesses” like carnivals, county fairs, and traditional arcades where players of …
‘Animal Crossing’ is Not a Tentpole Franchise
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/05/20 at 05:02 PM CT
Those depraved Nintendo fanboys are at it again! With the dismal release schedules happening in the world of videogames for the past two months, combined with the delays and postponements triggered by the coronavirus plague, hype-driven, FOMO-inspired gamers are desperate for some new thing to obsess over. And as Nintendo platforms are prone to what their own fan communities euphemistically refer to as “droughts,” anyone who only owns a Switch at this point is being forced to look closely at the platform’s giant pile of ports – and old news doesn’t inspire FOMO – or desperately cling to the single new first-party release and inflate its importance beyond sanity. Most of them chose the latter. And what is that release? “Animal Crossing: New Horizons.”
First, let’s start with a short history lesson about ‘Animal Crossing.’ The series was a new first-party Nintendo IP that initially launched on the Gamecube, alongside the likes of ‘Pikmin.’ However, before …
Backlog: The Embiggening – April, 2020
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/29/20 at 06:01 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future. Thanks to the disgusting eating habits of our brothers and sisters in China, the world is on lockdown as we attempt to ride-out the spread of the COVID-19 plague. For gamers, staying inside and never glimpsing the light of day is standard operating procedure, but the effect the coronavirus is having on the companies that develop and publish the games we dedicate our lives to is far more dire, with numerous pending delays. But modern games are a commodity that can be purchased digitally, thus removing the requirement of contact with a store clerk or other shoppers, and as more and more people are forced to adopt the gamer lifestyle, the demand will only increase.
How unfortunate, then, that the only thing worse than the continuing community spread of COVID-19 in April is the slated schedule of videogame releases.
It’s a new month, and of course, there will be shovelware. The quantity of it is rather light, though… but …
Vaguely Related Review: Channel Master Stream+
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/22/20 at 05:38 PM CT
Android-powered microconsoles have been a thing for 7 years already, and they’ve universally panned out to be crap. From the Ouya to the Nvidia Shield line, and even the non-Android-powered AppleTV, none of these platforms have done anything to move gaming forward. The Ouya held promise as a way for Indie games to shine in the public eye, but ultimately Steam and the Nintendo Switch have been far more important in that regard. The Nvidia Shield line, which started with a handheld, evolved to a convertible tablet (which pre-empted the Switch’s main novelty by a couple years), then ditched all of the handheld options for a set-top box that aims to rope users into a perpetual subscription to stream PC games from one screen to another. And the AppleTV is primarily a media consumption box, with gaming bolted-on after the fact, as a way to give Apple fanboys more places to interact with their perpetual Apple Arcade subscription.
Interestingly, out of all the failed-and-failing …
E3 2020 Canceled… Will it Ever Return?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/15/20 at 04:03 PM CT
Like so many other large-scale social events, the Electronic Entertainment Expo – colloquially known as E3 – has been canceled in 2020 due to concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. E3 was considered a staple of the Games Industry for many years since its inaugural event in 1995, but more recently, with the Internet sinking its talons onto more and more facets of business and everyday life, E3 has been on the decline.
In 2013, Nintendo officially bowed-out of E3, starting their tradition of ‘Nintendo Direct’ videos in lieu of hosting a large-scape press conference each year. This made sense in the aftermath of the disastrous WiiU reveal, and as a gaming company struggling with irrelevance in the greater Games Industry, with only its legions of dedicated fanboys to prop it up. But even with its current highly-popular Switch platform, Nintendo has shown no interest in returning to E3 with anything more than a handful of demo booths.
Sony, ever the follower …
He’s Everywhere IV!: Final Fantasy Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/08/20 at 03:10 PM CT
The first time I roasted Chris for his early-March birthday, I tried to prune-down the large number of Chris-like people and creatures that inhabit the entirety of videogames to a meager 10. In the next roast, I stuck with the cockfighting pets from Nintendo’s ‘Pokemon’ franchise. The year after that, I went with Akira Toriyama-designed creatures from the venerable ‘Dragon Quest’ series. The other side of the ‘Dragon Quest’ coin, though, is the equally-venerable ‘Final Fantasy’ series, which has been under the same banner as ‘Dragon Quest’ since Squaresoft and Enix merged in 2003, and is the topic of this year’s roast.
Like ‘Dragon Quest,’ much of ‘Final Fantasy’s’ consistent visual style (what little there actually is) comes from the design work of artist, Yoshitaka Amano, who designed most of the iconic enemies the series is known for, having done nearly all of the visual design work for the first 6 games (i.e., before the series went to pot). …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2019
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/01/20 at 02:30 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 spent most of the quarter playing relatively new additions to my backlog. Some of these experiences incited me to go back and (re)play the titles that inspired them, so I managed to squeeze in a few Retroarch romps (more like slogs) as well. Ultimately, it was still a mostly disappointing quarter, with only the untarnished glory of “Valkyria Chronicles 4” keeping my hopes afloat as 2020 begins.
“Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire” – 4/5
“Super Mario Maker 2” – 3/5
“Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins” – 2/5
“The Messenger” – 3.5/5
“Super Mario Land” – 2.5/5
“Ninja Gaiden (1989)” – 1/5
“Valkyria Chronicles 4” – 5/5
“Asterix & Obelix XXL2: Roman Rumble in Las Vegum” – 3/5
“Even the Ocean” – 3.5/5
“The Fall of Gods” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
It was a really …
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