MeltedJoystick Games of the Year 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/24/23 at 02:26 PM CT
2023 was yet another dismal year, adding its own turd-pearl to the string that began in 2020. We’ve seen global instability become even more unstable, while closer to home in the media, we witnessed the fall of Games Journalism and numerous legacy media platforms and IP sacrificed in the culture wars.
Honestly, we’re lucky that ANY good games managed to come out of the current Games Industry in 2023, but we were ultimately saved from despair by the long-time-coming release of the Chosen One, who was destined to take the top slot from the moment Larian announced they were working on it. Filling out the rest of the list, though, was a significant challenge, with many high-profile releases falling flat, failing to deliver on promises, or just not having enough *oomph* behind them to make lightning strike twice.
Without further ado, MeltedJoystick proudly presents our selection of the 5 most Jimmy-Rustling releases of 2023:
1. Baldur’s Gate 3 (PC)
Yeah, we knew this one …
Hasbro, the Parent Company of Wizards of the Coast, Is Woke, Broke, and Gutting the Games Division
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/17/23 at 02:38 PM CT
2023 has been quite possibly the worst year for Wizards of the Coast since the company’s founding in 1990. While Wizards began life as an independent tabletop games publisher whose new-fangled concept of Collectible Card Games ate TSR’s lunch and hastened the latter company’s downfall (and eventual acquisition), everything changed when Wizards lost its independence and was purchased by toy-and-game giant, Hasbro, in 1999. While the influx of massive corporate revenue streams and marketing apparati allowed Wizards to flourish initially, things haven’t been so rosy since the Grate Awokening.
It’s actually somewhat astounding how good a run Wizards of the Coast had under the Hasbro banner, between 1999 and 2019. Yes, there were missteps along the way, but none so disastrous as the 2023 debacle that was set in motion by diversity pledges made in the fateful Plague Year of 2020.
We’ve seen a year-long death spiral from Wizards of the Coast, first with their attempted …
Bungie (and ‘Destiny’) are in Deep Doo-Doo
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/10/23 at 02:17 PM CT
It’s always kind of bittersweet to see something we once loved start turning into doo-doo. As a former Squaresoft fan, I know the feeling well. But more recent generations of Gamers are getting to experience some of that despair with the ongoing downfall of former-Microsoft-studio-turned-third-party-turned-Sony-studio, Bungie.
We will probably never know the full story of why Microsoft allowed the former ‘Halo’ studio to buy its independence after 7 years of servitude in 2007. However, we did get to witness Activision-Blizzard (now officially part of Microsoft) take the blame for ‘ruining’ Bungie and saddling their shiny new ‘Destiny’ IP with a variety of unsavory monetization features.
We also witnessed Bungie fans singing the praises of the studio gaining full independence from the Corporate Games Industry to become a small-time Indie studio, since surely that would remedy all of the ills plaguing their game(s). Right? Wrong! And don’t call me …
Review Round-Up: Fall 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/02/23 at 01:40 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
Fall was not a particularly exciting quarter for me. I got into a rut of playing through a bunch of short, unspectacular Indie games that mostly just made me want to play more “Warframe” instead (as if I need to play more “Warframe”). At least “Turnip Boy” surprised me with how fun, funny, and generally well-made it is for what is essentially a joke game.
“Greak: Memories of Azure” – 3.5/5
“Aeon of Sands: The Trail” – 2.5/5
“Streets of Kamurocho” – 2.5/5
“MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries” – 4/5
“World to the West” – 4/5
“Rayon Riddles: Rise of the Goblin King” – 0.5/5
“Seasons After Fall” – 3/5
“Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” – 4.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Oh, that Christopher! He’s still been playing way too many games at the same time and then forgetting to review …
Backlog: The Embiggening – December, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/26/23 at 03:08 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! As December rolls in, we’re rapidly approaching the end of another year in Gaming, and the Big Players in Industrial Gaming are desperately tossing out everything they can in a last-ditch effort to turn a profit – or at least mitigate some losses! What do we have to look forward to as last-minute Yuletide self-gifts? Let’s dig into it!
Ugh. “Dig” is the operative word, as there’s plenty of shovelware coming in December, though it’s all in the Licensed Swill category (and some of it overlaps with our other favorite category). We’ve got two ‘Lord of the Rings’ games incoming, one a Survival-Crafting-Sandbox-ClusterEFF called “Return to Moria,” the other a Switch port of one of the worst games of the generation, “Gollum.” There’s a PlayStation 5 port of the most recent ‘Transformers’ game, PlayStation (4 and 5) ports of that one weird cowboy game that just came out on other platforms, a Switch port …
Demented Wool-Goblin, Bobby Kotick, to Leave Activision after Microsoft Acquisition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/19/23 at 01:49 PM CT
Well that didn’t take long! The slow-rolling acquisition of former Big Three/Triumvirate of Evil publisher, Activision-Blizzard-King, by Microsoft, which started a few years ago, has finally gone all the way, but is already bearing positive fruit. Bobby Kotick, one of the most egregiously overpaid and publicly-loathed CEOs in all of gaming will be leaving his position at the beginning of next year, seemingly because he doesn’t want to report to Xbox Division boss, Phil Spencer.
I’ve been wondering and speculating whether Microsoft’s Xbox Division acquiring such a big corporate entity would see Xbox corrupted by the incoming influence or Activision getting its act forcibly cleaned up by its new overlord. Right now it’s looking like the latter. Of course, getting rid of one overweening executive parasite won’t necessarily solve all of Activision’s problems, especially when we know Microsoft hasn’t exactly had a monolith of great leadership, with the Xbox Division …
<I>The Escapist</I> Folds as the Latest Casualty in Games Journalism
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/12/23 at 01:53 PM CT
2023 is looking like the year that corporate-backed Games Journalism died. All year long we’ve been seeing stories about the Gaming divisions of large, corporate media outlets facing layoffs or being completely shuttered in the face of plunging ad revenue and lack of relevance. This past week, a staple of my weekly Games Journalism consumption, The Escapist, fired its Editor in Chief for failing to reach revenue targets. This action backfired in the corporate managers’ faces, however, as the entire writing and production team quit in solidarity with their fearless leader, promising to return in some sort of independent form in the near future.
Why is Games Journalism hitting the skids so hard? And why NOW, of all times? Analysts will point out redundancies in the marketplace. Gamers will point out a stunning lack of ethics, dating all the way back to the GamerGate debacle of 2016. Both are correct, as journalism in all topics has morphed from unbiased, fact-based coverage to …
Capcom: “PC Game Modding is Cheating!”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/05/23 at 02:30 PM CT
Long, long ago in those halcyon days of… two years ago, Capcom, one of the big Japanese developer/publisher Corporate Samurai who lorded over the Console Gaming Golden Age of the 1990s like a benevolent Philosopher King straight out of Plato, committed to making PC its “main platform” regarding game development and releases, driving another cold-iron nail into the heart of the twisted pit fiend console gaming has become since the dire 7th Generation. Alas, it seems that Capcom didn’t realize what, exactly, it was committing to, as the Corporate Samurai who once seemed poised to lead Japan into glorious PC Gaming future recently turned a 180, when it declared that unofficial mods for PC games are tantamount to cheating (right before shaking its tiny, Trump-like corporate fists at the sky and yelling at a cloud).
That’s right, one of the only remaining things that still separate PC Gaming and Console Gaming on any fundamental level has drawn Capcom’s wrath. Of course, …
Backlog: The Embiggening – November, 2023
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/29/23 at 12:39 AM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! November is the Month of Gratitude, hosting the United States’ version of the Thanksgiving holiday, in which people look back at the previous year (or more) and take the time to reflect upon what they’re truly grateful for. In my case, those things are the other members of the MJ Crew, my fur babies (Barkley and Mao), and my forward-thinking, dearly-departed parents.
What I am NOT grateful for, however, is the absolute STATE of the Games Industry, where every month is flooded with trash releases, trash ports, censorship, and ideological bickering to the point that I’d like to watch the entire thing burn to the ground. Let the handful of people and businesses who are in it because they value it instead of trying to wring value from it rebuild from the ground up, and give us release schedules filled with a smaller number of meaningful titles that will all garner attention instead of drowning us in crap and seeing which …
Vaguely Related Review: DragonLance Destinies Vol. 2 “Dragons of Fate”
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 10/15/23 at 02:26 PM CT
Last year, I was incredibly excited about the fact that a new trilogy of DragonLance novels by the setting’s original creators, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, was being launched outside of the purview of the increasingly-tragic Wizards of the Coast. Sadly, the first volume of the DragonLance Destinies trilogy left me quite disappointed, as even without the heavy-handed oversight of WotC (rhymes with “Nazi”), Weis and Hickman appeared to be taking the beloved 1980’s High Fantasy franchise in a more Woke direction.
I was so disappointed with “Dragons of Deceit” that I very nearly gave up on the trilogy. But with the August I already had going for me in 2023, I figured the pain and suffering of another volume like “Dragons of Deceit” couldn’t faze me. To my surprise and delight, though, not only is volume 2 of the trilogy, “Dragons of Fate,” a much more polished product than its immediate predecessor, it’s also a good novel in its own right.
First of all, …
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