Backlog: The Embiggening - November, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/09/13 at 03:28 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The trend I observed last month – that the build-up to Holiday 2013 is featuring a single massively-mainstream release per month that overshadows everything else released that month to the detriment of gaming as a whole – is continuing into November with the destined-to-be-record-breaking release of “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” In addition to that guaranteed earner, November is also the release month for Sony’s and Microsoft’s 8th Generation hardware, with all the exclusives that come with that… except the PS4 and XBONE don’t really appear to have all that many exclusives, with their launch libraries instead dominated by multiplatform releases of November games (that are also available on Sony’s and MS’ 7th Generation hardware) and day- late- dollar- short ports of other 7th Generation games that were released in the past few months. Why should we be excited about the 8th Gen, again?
As Christmas draws ever nearer, the …
Vaguely Related Review: Desura
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/02/13 at 04:32 PM CT
It has been close to two years since those heroes of modern PC gaming, GOG and Steam, dragged me kicking and screaming back into the realm of spending the largest chunk of my gaming time on a Windows box instead of a console. Of course, the antics of Microsoft, Sony, and the Big Three publishers helped…
With nothing but happy experiences buoying me, I decided to look into yet another PC gaming hub – one that gets a significant amount of praise from Linux fans: Desura. I first ran across the name Desura being spouted by “Free as in Free Speech, not Free as in Free Beer” software proponents. Apparently, Desura was supposed to be some kind of home for small-time Indie games that couldn’t bear the thought of being shackled with Steam’s DRM (or, more than likely, didn’t have the backing to make it into Steam directly and didn’t have the quality to attract enough Greenlight votes). Based upon this hearsay, I had no real desire to look into Desura. I may like Indie games, …
5 MORE Conspicuous Absences from Steam Greenlight
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/27/13 at 07:16 PM CT
Back in August, I took a look at several upcoming PC games that have been pinging my radar since they were announced, yet hadn’t managed to make their way onto Steam Greenlight, the community-based approval system. After getting positive confirmation from the developers of several of these games that they would indeed be coming to Greenlight, currently none of them have.
However, those 5 games don’t exist in a vacuum, and they have been joined on my radar by other games I’ve either only recently learned of or that were recently released on other platforms. In every case, none of them appear on Steam Greenlight, and I can’t understand why. Do these developers not want to invest a minimal $100 donation to Child’s Play for the opportunity to get their game in front of hundreds of thousands of gamers?
1-3. “Beggar Prince,” “Legend of Wukong,” and “Star Odyssey”
These three games form what is called the “RPG Trifecta” by their developer, Super Fighter …
Open Letter to Trendy Regarding “Dungeon Defenders II”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/20/13 at 01:08 PM CT
Dear Trendy:
On October 8th, your Studio Director David Loyd wrote a blog/forum post announcing that “Dungeon Defenders II,” which was initially revealed to be a MOBA-style PVP game, was being rolled-back to square-one and restarted as a true sequel to the original hybrid of Tower Defense and Hack ‘n Slash RPG. This announcement was met with great enthusiasm by Nick (MeltedJoystick’s software engineer and obsessive “DunDef” player) and by some of our site’s most vocal and active members. As someone who once loved “Dungeon Defenders,” but came to barely tolerate the game as it progressed, I can only say that my enthusiasm at this announcement was tempered by a large dose of skepticism.
Trendy, you are a company that does not have a long or spotless track record with making games. Outside of various iterations of “Dungeon Defenders” and DLC for that game, your only other finished release is an obscure (and unsupported) iPhone game called “Chicken Coup” …
What is STEM, and Why Should You Care?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/13/13 at 01:22 PM CT
STEM has been in the news a lot lately. It seems that American students are shying away from studies in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. I’m not proud of the fact that I’m a part of this statistic, but when not everyone has an aptitude for those fields, and when given a choice between keeping a 3.8+ grade point average (and the accompanying scholarships) studying Humanities or washing out of one of the STEM fields, I think most people who value their tuition dollars would choose the sure bet. Indeed, the best way to encourage more prospective members of the American workforce to study STEM fields would be to remove the harsh penalty for failure: Tuition should be free.
What? Oh, we’re not talking about that STEM, but the similarly-named gaming product!
That’s right, the people at Sixense have decided to cut the ties that bind them to Razer and instead crowdfund their successor to the Razer Hydra with a Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter ended …
Backlog: The Embiggening - October, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/05/13 at 02:22 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. 2013 seems to be following a suspicious trend: Each month leading up to the Christmas Spendstravaganza, one massively-overhyped, overbudgeted, and underwhelmingly mainstream “AAA” release is coming per month, destined to overshadow anything and everything else releasing alongside it. In October, the elephant in the room is “Battlefield 4,” a franchise that essentially serves as the hipster version of ‘Call of Duty.’
Like last month, however, the developers of shovelware have no fear of the month’s dominant release, and are continuing to churn-out incredible quantities of excrement. Superheroes seem to be the dominant theme for licensed games this month, with a “LEGO Marvel Superheroes” game, a tie-in for the rebooted “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, and yet another Batman game in the ‘Arkham’ series. Aside from superheroes, there are also plenty of licensed games coming based on cartoons, including …
Steam Set to Escalate the Console Wars in 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/29/13 at 02:45 PM CT
It has been a long time coming, but this past week Valve, the company behind the incredible Steam PC gaming platform, made three big announcements about their intentions in the nascent 8th Generation Console Wars.
While Valve had traditionally been content to cater to the PC gaming community, recently the company’s president, Gabe Newell, has expressed nothing but disgust for Microsoft and its Windows 8 operating system. At the same time, he has flip-flopped his stance on PC gaming vs. console gaming and embraced the PlayStation 3 with a hacked-together and poorly-utilized version of Steam for Sony’s failure of a console.
With Valve’s week of Living Room announcements, however, Gaben’s true intentions have been revealed, after months of speculation and rumor mongering. Let’s take a look at each announcement in turn.
Announcement 1 – SteamOS:
It’s obvious that Gaben hates Windows 8, primarily due to fear that Microsoft will eventually lock-down the OS entirely, …
Sega & Atlus: Two Star-Crossed Lovers
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/22/13 at 01:35 PM CT
Atlus, the publisher of niche Japanese games and spiritual successor to Working Designs, has followed in its forbearer’s footsteps and gone out of business. Index Digital Media, the owner of Atlus, filed for bankruptcy back in June, leaving ‘Persona’ fans to rend their garments and gnash their teeth over the future of Japanese-schoolchildren-vs.-demon RPGs.
However, there is no need for Atlus fans to despair, as Sega, that perpetual Miss Congeniality of the 3rd through 6th Generation Console Wars, snatched up Atlus for a meager $140 million (or 100 times that amount in Yen). In recent years, this kind of major acquisition by Sega-Sammy Holdings seemed like an impossibility, thanks to the company’s inconsistent financials.
The fact of Sega’s current ability to make any acquisition seems a non sequitur after their series of recent disasters, like “Aliens: Colonial Marines” and “Hatsune Miki: Project Diva F.” Of course, Sega has taken significant steps in …
VitaTV: Sony's First Good Handheld Decision
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/14/13 at 03:21 PM CT
This week, Sony announced their first sensible decision with regard to the PlayStation Vita (and, indeed, their entire handheld ecosystem). The VitaTV is a $100 microconsole ($150 with a controller, but it supports the DualShock 3 controllers we all presumably own already) that brings the world of PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Portable games to the big screen.
I’ve long been a proponent of handheld-to-TV adapters, and had great respect for Nintendo’s past decisions with the SNES’ Super Game Boy and the Gamecube’s Game Boy Player. But recently, Nintendo has been slacking in this capability, and there is currently no 100% legitimate way to play DS or 3DS games on anything but a tiny handheld device (though DeSmume is a rock-solid emulator for PC). With the WiiU’s similarities to the DS, I have been expecting a DS Player announcement for months, yet none has been forthcoming. Instead, Sony took the world by surprise with a device (currently slated only for release in …
Backlog: The Embiggening - September, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/07/13 at 01:37 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Perhaps the Summer Game Drought never really brought its full force to bear this year due to the impending dread by smaller developers of the juggernaut mainstream releases coming in September. Not that September actually looks to have many good releases, just that it will have at least one release that will sell to every ne’er-do-well with a game console: “Grand Theft Auto 5.”
Of course, the shovelware and licensed dreck developers aren’t afraid of “GTA5.” They’re doing their own thing since their target audience is too young to buy a ‘GTA’ game over-the-counter (no matter how fervent the desire). Thus we’re getting a new game based on HotWheels toy cars (Do kids even play with those anymore?), a DS back-port of a 3DS/Vita LEGO game, and teenaged DC Comics superheroes. Slightly older teens, whose angst surely will cause them no end of despair at their inability to legally buy “GTA5,” will have to content …
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