MeltedJoystick.com Gaming Blog

RetroArch Hitting Steam Brings Emulation One Step Closer to Full Legitimacy

Sun, 21 Jul 2019 21:16:21 -0500

On July 12th, a very interesting thing appeared on Steam. RetroArch, the official frontend for the Libretro emulation API, is coming to PC gaming’s oldest and biggest digital distribution platform on July 30th. For FREE. RetroArch...

“AtariBox” Becomes Atari VCS

Sun, 14 Jul 2019 21:01:18 -0500

During E3 2017, Atari (delenda est), one of the first-and-worst game console manufacturers, announced that they were coming back from obscurity with a new hardware device. All of 2018 rolled by without a whisper about the so-called “AtariBox,...

Shadow of Stadia

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 21:32:55 -0500

When Google revealed their soon-to-launch Stadia game-streaming platform earlier this year (and pushed a video about it at E3), the world said, “Meh.” With Google’s business model from yesteryear, where users buy individual games exclusively for play on Stadia; combined with smolderin...

Backlog: The Embiggening – July, 2019

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 05:28:41 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! With July comes the traditional Summer Game Drought. Just when all the cute, little kiddies thought they’d have all the time in the world to veg-out with some mindless fragging and forget everything they learned the previous year in school, the game publishers always shut off the flow valve, dropping the deluge of game releases down to a trickl...

Hasbro Finally Puts the D&D License in Good Hands

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 21:15:20 -0500

The Dungeons & Dragons videogame license has long been a coveted property for the creators of computerized role-playing games on any platform capable of playing videogames. Back in the halcyon days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, the D&D license was firmly in the hands of SSI – Strategic Simulations, In...

E3 Impressions 2019

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 17:21:47 -0500

Going into E3 this year, my hopes were higher than at any point in recent memory, thanks in large part to the pre-E3 reveals of a number of exciting titles that I actually care about. These games, which I wanted to see more of at E3, include, but are not limited to, “Baldur’s Gate 3” and “Borderlands 3,” as well as a number of older announcements like “The Outer Worlds” and “Cyber...

Review Round-Up: Spring 2019

Sun, 09 Jun 2019 18:53:08 -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: The MJ Crew had a pretty good coop quarter for the first time in a while. We managed to get through 2 local coop games during our Friday gatherings, and I – person...

Backlog: The Embiggening – June, 2019

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 18:52:35 -0500

Welcome back to another look into the near future! June is here, and the dreaded Summer Game Drought is at our doorstep. Will entire crops of gamers wither in the fields beneath the blistering Summer heat? Or will game publishers and Indies finally get their doo-doo together and space out their releases more? Only one way to find out! Devourers of shovel-ready excrement may find themselves dis...

OUYA Suffers Second Death as Forge TV Goes Away Next Month

Sun, 26 May 2019 20:48:28 -0500

MeltedJoystick has been covering the life and times of the ill-fated OUYA Android microconsole since be...

Epic (Store) Fail

Sun, 19 May 2019 05:22:02 -0500

At the end of 2019, the MJ Crew was tentatively excited about the prospect of a new competitor in the increasingly-crowded digital PC games ecosystem, with the transformation of Epic Games’ Epic Launcher into the Epic Store. Unfortunately for gamers everywhere, the Epic Store has spent the first half of 2019 proving to be...