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 …
Portable Exclusivity Must Die
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/24/11 at 06:49 PM CT
Sony has just announced a new ‘Remaster’ series of PlayStation Portable titles that will be ported to PS3 Blu-Ray with upgraded visuals and controls, while retaining cross-platform save data with their portable origins. Considering Sony’s difficulties in doing anything right this-gen, I am surprised by this incredibly sensible move: It’s time for portable exclusivity to die.
Handheld gaming originated with Nintendo (as so many things do) in their Game & Watch platform. These early handheld titles were pointless little timewasters with incredibly simple gameplay and no goal more complex than achieving a high score. With the advent of the smartphone, handheld gaming has come full-circle, with cheap (typically free or 99¢) little timewasters bringing in players by the droves and providing big profits for developers and publishers alike.
Yet somewhere in the middle of the story, things went awry. As Nintendo continued to push handhelds, they and their third-party …
PlayStation Network: The Future Is Now!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/30/11 at 02:32 PM CT
As of this writing, the PlayStation Network (PSN) has been down for over a week, with no forewarning, and will presumably be down for nearly another week. This has, unsurprisingly, caused an incredible amount of ‘BAWW’-ing among those gamers who were born after the Internet had come into full-bloom. What’s incredible is that these gamers are whining more about the loss of connectivity caused by hackers breaching PSN than the potential for identity theft and credit card fraud. Even more insane is that some of these same gamers expect Sony to compensate them for the outage. Compensation… for a FREE service?
For some reason, these young gamers think that the Internet is something that is always ‘just there’ and always ‘just works.’ They never had to put up with dial-up or become fluent in Modem Shriek. And now they are completely shocked an unable to function without online connectivity in a game console. They don’t realize that they are getting a sneak-peak of what …
Generation 8 Begins?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/17/11 at 02:30 PM CT
Several media outlets have recently broken news that Nintendo will be revealing their 8th Generation console, and successor to the Wii, at E3 2011. All of the ‘details’ are nothing more than rumor and speculation at this point, but there are some intriguing concepts on the table:
+The upcoming console will not have the ‘Wii’ moniker attached to it.
+The upcoming console will be able to output HD video.
+The upcoming console will have a controller that features a touchscreen, buttons, and a camera.
+The new controller can serve as a Wii sensor bar.
+The upcoming console will be backward compatible with Wii.
+The upcoming console will be ‘more powerful’ than Sony’s and MS’s current consoles.
It certainly makes sense for Nintendo to abandon the name ‘Wii,’ as that is a very specific console that the company created to target the ‘Blue Ocean’ demographic of non-traditional gamers. Non-traditional gamers are not only not real gamers, but they tend not to …
Fifth Star
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/25/11 at 10:21 PM CT
Welcome to MeltedJoystick, the latest member of the ImaJAN network! Those of you who are already members of FilmCrave will probably find the site to be a pretty familiar place. However, you may be confused and frightened by the presence of a fifth star in the MeltedJoystick rating system. Unlike movies, which are constrained by 4-star traditions dictated by the increasingly out-of-touch MPAA and newspaper critics, videogames, as a New Media, are free to use whatever rating system their reviewers desire. At MeltedJoystick, we are using what we feel to be the simplest and most accurate rating system: five stars available, each divisible in half, providing a 10-point system.
That scary fifth star doesn’t go on either end of the 4-star system used by FilmCrave and other movie reviewers, but instead sits right in the middle. It is actually the THIRD star in the system and it serves an absolutely vital function: it provides a pivot point upon which Good and Evil can wage their eternal …
Welcome to Melted Joystick & Contest Rules
Chris Kavan - wrote on 03/12/11 at 04:47 PM CT
Congratulations! You've found the blog - sorry, you don't win anything yet. On behalf of Alex, Nelson, Nick and myself, thank you for signing up and taking time to help us out with our video game social networking venture.
If you've already got started and rated and reviewed a few games, that's great. Make sure to update your profile: I want to know what you like, and what you hate. If you think my tastes are terrible, by all means let me know. Feel free to wax poetic on the latest games, or if you've been out of the loop for awhile (like Alex), dig deep into those memories when games came on cartridges, not discs.
Whatever your pleasure, have fun with it! Start up discussions, make some lists, and give us your feedback. If you give us your time, you just might walk away with a new game to call your own. Details of the contest are below: it's formal, but also important, so please read over the rules at your leisure.
Rules and Regulations:
1) This contest is open to all …
Melted Joystick - The Next Crave Website
Nick - wrote on 02/17/11 at 03:40 PM CT
With the success of FilmCrave, it only makes sense that we make another Crave website dedicated to video games. Since we all love video games just as much as movies, it was an easy decision to go for it. After several long months of planning and work, Melted Joystick is now a reality. We expect this site will attract avid gamers of all types from all around the world to enjoy what the site offers. Being able to rate games, write reviews, and create game lists empowers gamers to get their opinion out. We then take this member provided data and create overall top games lists by year, genre, and platform.
So, come and sign up for Melted Joystick and start making friends, get your voice heard, and be apart of the most innovative gaming community on the Internet!
If you have any feedback on the site, or would like to see some new features added, be sure to post them in forum.
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