Pokemon G(tF)O
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/17/16 at 02:44 PM CT
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or are one of those extra ‘special’ isolationists who live in Montana specifically because the state has no infrastructure, you’ve no doubt heard about “Pokemon GO,” the mobile team-up between Nintendo’s Pokemon Company and Google’s Niantic. This new mobile game microtransaction engine completely blew-up during its first week of general availability in the United States, rocketing to the top of every metric chart that matters (and even ones that don’t matter) as people have flooded into public places in search of Pokemon to catch and Poke-Stops to refresh their supplies of pokeballs.
“Pokemon GO” has been such a wildly viral success that it has even been picked-up as a topic by both world and local TV news broadcasts, which never normally happens until months after the fact for stories involving electronic entertainment. The question still remains, though, is “Pokemon GO” anything to actually get excited about?
If …
Farewell, Imagisphere: ‘LittleBigPlanet’ on Sony’s Chopping Block
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/10/16 at 01:52 PM CT
It was recently announced that all online services for Sony’s incredible, imaginative, and distinctly not Dudebro franchise, ‘LittleBigPlanet,’ are all going to be shuttered at the end of July 2016… in Japan. Naturally, the rest of the world began to worry that Sony was also going to decapitate poor, little Sackboys everywhere else. Sony responded in typical corporate fashion, stating that only “LittleBigPlanet” for the dead PlayStation Portable and “LittleBigPlanet Karting” (which was a fairly terrible karting game all around) will be getting the axe in the wider world, and that there are currently “no plans” to unplug the rest of the series in the West.
Of course, those of us who are familiar with the way Big Evil Corporations in the games industry talk will realize that “no plans” doesn’t actually mean anything, and fans of the flagship “Play. Create. Share.” franchise should be worried regardless of the nation they call home.
This decision to …
What Do ‘Final Fantasy’ and ‘Star Trek’ Have in Common?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/02/16 at 02:08 PM CT
With the impending release of the latest ‘Nu Trek’ movie, “Star Trek: Beyond,” and as the inexorable doom that is “Final Fantasy 15” closes in upon us, I have found myself reminiscing about these two much-beloved franchises. Specifically, I couldn’t help but notice how their best days both seem to be very far in the past. Further consideration reveals a number of bleak similarities regarding the ways that Square Enix and CBS Paramount have mishandled their biggest individual IPs.
Each Kept Getting Better and Better… Until 20 Years Ago
It’s fairly easy to draw this analogy. While “Star Trek: The Original Series” and “Final Fantasy” were both fairly rough around the edges, largely due to being products of their times, it was clear that both IPs clearly had ‘something’ and brought a unique flavor of nerd bait to the table. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Final Fantasy 4” sanded off all the rough edges and put on a new coat of paint, …
“Dark Souls” = The Job Market
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/25/16 at 04:44 PM CT
The 7th Generation saw the rise of many unfortunate trends in gaming – as well as the fall of nearly as many. One of the most enduring catastrophes of the 7th Generation was the sudden and unexpected surge in popularity among masochistic, H.A.R.D. games, with the movement led primarily by dogmatic fanatics from the Cult of From. These cultists, henceforth known as Souls Trolls, see to the inflation of their favorite series’ Metacritic scores through nefarious infiltration of nearly every gaming media outlet. With Souls Trolls as the only people who like their favorite series AND as the only people generally willing to review it, they promote a self-fulfilling prophecy of praise where absolutely none is deserved.
Unfortunately, Souls Trolls have infiltrated the media beyond the walls of light-weight gaming news sites like Polygon, Kotaku, and NeoGAF. Recently, it was revealed that one of their number had managed to creep his way into the respected halls of the Wall Street …
E3 Impressions 2016
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/18/16 at 03:06 PM CT
After a surprise-filled E3 last year, our expectations were boosted a bit. 2015’s E3 was a welcome relief from the rut-worn boredom that was the hallmark of the conference for several years prior. Unfortunately, last year’s surprises wore a new set of ruts, and we’re still driving in them this year. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the 8th Gen consoles hardly look different from the 7th Gen, now 8th Gen E3 conferences are all starting to look alike!
Microsoft:
Want: Play Anywhere
Not Sure if Want: “Sea of Thieves” (still!)
Do Not Want: Scorpio, dead-horse-beating first-party sequels
Microsoft didn’t really do anything impressive this year. They added an official name, “Play Anywhere,” to the XBONE/Windows10 crossplay program they announced last year. They also talked a lot about upcoming sequels in their first-party franchises… which are all starting to feel exactly the same. ‘Gears,’ ‘Halo,’ ‘Forza’ – whooptee freakin’doo. “Sea of …
GOG Connect: I Totally Called It!
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/12/16 at 02:36 PM CT
Back in June 2014 – two years ago – I was excited about the steps GOG.com, the PC gaming platform owned by ‘Witcher’ developer, CD Projekt, was taking in reaching feature parity with the 500 lb. gorilla of PC gaming platforms, Steam. At the time, I speculated that GOG would have to do something drastic, like give away DRM-free copies of games that customers already own on Steam, in order to grow its user-base.
Guess what GOG.com announced this past week? GOG Connect is a new feature that allows PC gamers with both Steam and GOG accounts (read: ALL PC GAMERS) to link their Steam profile to their GOG profile and receive complimentary GOG copies of select games in their Steam library.
While GOG Connect isn’t currently the 100% comprehensive Steam backup I would eventually like to see, the fact that CD Projekt was willing to make this move at all shows how insanely committed the company is to not being a Big Evil Corporation or behaving in a typical Big Media …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2016
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/04/16 at 05:13 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:
Spring wasn’t particularly productive with regard to completing games. The MJ Crew only managed to co-op our way through 2 titles, thanks to some stupid scheduling issues, and we’ve generally been feeling blasé and unmotivated about the co-op games in our collective backlog.
For my part, I completed a variety of games… but only one of them was really great.
“Apotheon” – 4.5/5
“HOARD” – 3/5
“Lost Planet: Extreme Condition” – 2.5/5
“Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine” – 4/5
“The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel” – 2.5/5
“Call of Juarez” – 3.5/5
“LittleBigPlanet 3” – 4/5
Chris’ Reviews:
Chris still can’t pull himself away from his damnable phone long enough to put a meaningful number of hours into his favorite genre of content-bloated Action/Sandbox games. Thus …
Backlog: The Embiggening – June, 2016
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/28/16 at 07:45 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! It looks like the eternal cycle is becoming a bit unpredictable, as June – traditionally the start of the 3-month-long Summer Game Drought – actually has a lot of release dates on the calendar. Of course, we already know half of them will be remasters or ports, and the rest will be crap, so let’s just get on with it.
Only two bits of shovelware will be sullying toy store shelves in June: First, the LEGO adaptation of “Star Wars 7.” Chris would love that. The other is an annual motocross release. You know a franchise has devolved into shovelware when it gets annual releases, but if you aren’t sure, the fact that “MXGP2: The Official Motocross Videogame” is a videogame that contains the word ‘videogame’ in the title should clue you in. Chris would NOT love that.
Let me check my watch here… yup, it’s still the 8th Generation and the gaming industry still hasn’t imploded in a Second Crash just yet, so …
Disney Infinity is Finished. What About Skylanders and Amiibos?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/21/16 at 02:50 PM CT
On May 10, 2016, Disney Interactive Studios – the videogame publishing arm of the giant tentacle monster that is Disney – announced that they were folding-up shop and discontinuing their big seller, the ‘toys to life’ figuring-selling engine, “Disney Infinity.” Having reached the 3.0 revision mark last year with the addition of the ‘Star Wars’ IP, late of LucasFilms, “Disney Infinity” appeared to be a significant money maker, earning its parent corporation around $200 million last year alone.
Yet Disney doesn’t think the ‘toys to life’ market has enough room for growth moving forward, but is instead stagnating as more and more competitors enter the arena and divide the audience’s focus. Activision more-or-less created the market with their “Skylanders” figurines, and Nintendo followed suit in their own special way by releasing their Amiibo line of NFC figurines that interact in less-than-meaningful ways with a variety of current Nintendo games …
Chinese Company Tencent to Show Microsoft How It’s Done
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/14/16 at 03:23 PM CT
Between 2000 and 2014, videogame consoles were banned in China, which is ironic considering they are all made in that last bastion of functioning Communism. It seems that psychotic Chinese parents lived up to the ‘Tiger Mom’ stereotype and demanded that their country’s government ban electronic gaming devices due to their potential for corrupting the youth and wasting precious brain power.
Whether the Tiger Moms have a point is neither here nor there. What is interesting is that the Chinese holding firm that owns a huge portion of China’s booming PC gaming market (because, of course, the government couldn’t ban PC use when they temporarily shut down consoles), Tencent, has recently decided to throw their hat into the console arena now that the ban has been lifted. And the way they’re going about their foray into consoles should make Microsoft sit-up and take notice.
Tencent will be producing the TGP, a Windows 10-powered console with the company’s own custom …
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