MeltedJoystick.com Gaming Blog

Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2020

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 15:15:46 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future. With the onset of March, we bid farewell to the misery of Winter and begin to look forward to the rebirth ceremonies associated with Springtime and the Spring Equinox, representing the long-fought victory of warmth, light, and life over cold, darkness and death. March is also the month that traditionally “comes in like a lion and out like a la...

Can’t Stoppy That Copy

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 15:20:23 -0500

The other day while doing some late-night reading, I noticed a large scratch across my wrist and immediately thought, “Yikes! It looks like I tried to kill myself!” I don’t know why I thought that, considering the scratch most likely came from hauling a load of firewood without gloves, but the seed of that thought has stuck with me. Why do we, in the 21st Century, immediately think of suici...

Console Gaming Deathwatch Enters Phase Three

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 15:27:21 -0500

The long, slow death of console gaming is continuing at its leisurely pace. The first phase was the “singularity,” in which all consoles and PC became largely undifferentiated due to the rampant multi-platforming of third-party game releases. The ...

Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2020

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 14:30:14 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future. February is, thankfully, the shortest month of the year. It also signals the last official month of the Winter season here at MeltedJoystick. Not only can we look forward to breaking free from the grasp of the Winter doldrums, we can be grateful that another month of crap releases will fly by in the blink of an eye. It’s another month, and o...

Apple Gaming Hands-On: It Sucks as Much as Expected

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 15:33:07 -0500

I have never owned an Apple product, not even an iPod MP3 player back in the day when iPods were all the rage and a new model was released every couple years (like iPhones nowadays). However, I have used plenty of Apple products, and this use exposure is why I never actually bought any: I just don’t enjoy the experience they provide. However, if one were to dig deep into my own person...

Could Compelling Console Capabilities Come in the 9th Generation?

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 16:30:31 -0500

At MeltedJoystick, we’ve been aware of the death of console gaming since 2017. Sure, we may occasionally partake in some brief necromantic dalliances – Chris with his PlayStation 4 and me with my dusty, offline Switch – but for the most part, we’ve been quite happy with modern era PC gaming. However, recently the...

“Done Right?” GameFreak Completes Nintendo’s Transition to Scummy “AAA” Corporate Publisher

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 14:33:41 -0500

When the newest entries in the ‘Pokemon’ franchise of beginner/casual RPGs were released in November 2019, there was a major fan uproar. In a decision that could only be described as “questionable,” perpetual ‘Pokemon’ developer, GameFreak, released “Pokemon Sword Version” and “Pokemon Shield Version” with a gutted National Pokedex, leaving hundreds of pocket monsters on the c...

100… err 50… err 10… err 5? Yes, Five Games to Look Forward to in 2020.

Sat, 04 Jan 2020 15:35:05 -0500

The monthly ‘Backlog: The Embiggening’ articles I assemble for MeltedJoystick are usually depressing enough. But I received a special request from a reader to ring in the new year with a list of ‘kinda-sorta-confirmed-we’ll-get-back-to-you-on-that’ game releases coming over the entirety of 2020. The big games journalism sites would just dump everything in a big pile and point excitedly,...

Backlog: The Embiggening – January, 2020

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 15:40:46 -0500

The Boring ‘20s are right around the corner, and as a new year and a new decade prepare to land upon us like so much parasite-riddled excrement from an unwell ruminant, it’s somewhat peaceful to soak-in the tiny, insignificant January Games Industry release schedule. Indeed, the Two-Faced God, Janus, whose name is attached to the first month of the year, symbolically looks forward and backwar...

New Year’s Backlog Ablutions 2020

Sun, 22 Dec 2019 16:26:08 -0500

Last year’s New Year’s Backlog Ablutions experiment turned out to be quite the success. While both Nick and Matt ultimately failed the challenge, this goal-setting activity succeeded in getting both of them to play more regularly. However, Chris and I both found the challenge to be “2EZ,” so this year the MeltedJ...