MeltedJoystick.com Gaming Blog

Review Round-Up: Fall 2025

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 13:11:35 -0500

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 made the mistake of researching a game after buying it and deciding to make it the next title to come off my backlog. What I learned killed my motivation to...

Backlog: The Embiggening – December, 2025

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 00:34:34 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! Winter is upon us, and the deadlines are all drawing near. Will the Games Industry manage to squeeze out a last minute must-play? Or will it be nothing but a succession of constipated turds? Will the MJ Crew be able to clear their Backlog Ablutions? Or will Chris and I (who already have) be getting more free games that we won’t play? Let’s di...

Microsoft Finally Listens, but it’s Too Late

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 15:26:12 -0500

Remember how long I’ve been saying that Xbox should just be a fancy front-end for Windows that makes it easy to navigate on a TV using nothing but a controller? Remember how Microsoft and the Xbox Division have done ANYTHING and EVERYTHING besides t...

Valve Drops the Mic, Set to DOMINATE 2026 with 3(!) New Hardware Options

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 14:25:44 -0500

For decades now, Gamers have believed that Valve, the once-small-time developer and publisher of the ‘Half-Life’ and ‘Portal’ IPs was incapable of counting to three, since none of their games have ever gotten a third, officially-numbered sequel. Well, this week, Valve, the no-longer-small-time owner of St...

Nearly 100% of Corporate Suits Believe Steam is a “Monopoly” in PC Gaming

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 14:11:30 -0500

Just when you think the corporate overlords that are actively ruining the economy on a global scale can’t get any more cringy or stupid, they always manage to find a way to lower the bar even further. In a recent stud...

Backlog: The Embiggening – November, 2025

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 15:23:51 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! With harvest season drawing to a close, in our pre-industrial civilizations, November was typically a month to take a moment to give thanks for what blessings the Earth Gods heaped upon us – or, in leaner times, to give thanks that the Earth Gods bothered to give us anything at all, so at no to offend them into making the problem long-term. ...

Unity = Malware Now?!

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 17:27:36 -0500

Back in 2023, we watched the company behind the Unity Engine – one of the two most popular canned solutions for creating games without having to re-write a bunch of low-level code, alongside Epic Games’ Unreal Engine – attempt to commit non-ritual suicide by changing its licensing paradigm to something so greedy that ...

Oh, Dear. Atari is Trying Out Yet Another Retro Console

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:46:38 -0500

Remember a couple years ago when Atari (delenda est) – the terrible videogame publisher that directly caused the 1983 console gaming crash – decided that the thing the world really needed was a crappy Xbox Division managed to leave $300 million dollars on the table by put...

Backlog: The Embiggening – October, 2025

Sun, 05 Oct 2025 16:11:17 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! It looks like we’re getting a late start on the games coming in Spoopy Month, since I was so flabbergasted by last week’s news of EA’s impending doom at the hands of private equity that it interrupted the flow. But now that every retail location is crammed with tacky, plastic skeletons and other Halloween-related junk; while grocery stores ...