Review Round-Up: Summer 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/01/14 at 04:57 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:
The Summer quarter allowed the MeltedJoystick crew to get back on track a bit more with our multi-player games… well, at least the local multi-player games. We only barely managed to eke out completion of “Borderlands 2” at the last minute, and with a bit of skipped content (thanks in large part to one of the participants taking two months off, during which we were ‘not allowed’ to proceed).
I spent the vast majority of the Summer putting the PlayStation 3 out of its misery. While I did run into a pleasantly surprising (and somewhat old) RPG via a trade with Chris, I was otherwise unimpressed by the last remnants of my PS3 backlog. I turned off the manual power switch on the back of the thing and can’t foresee a reason to ever flip it back on…
“Borderlands 2 (plus all DLC)” – 3.5/5
“Iron Brigade” – …
Why are So Many People Buying the PlayStation 4?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/24/14 at 01:22 PM CT
I have already stated my position on the PlayStation 4, and have no idea why anyone would want to buy a $400 brick that plays full-priced ports of existing games, with little of interest coming in the near future. Apparently I’m in good company, however, as Sony’s own Shuhei Yoshida expressed a similar sentiment, when he couldn’t come up with any logical reason for the PS4 to have sold over 10 million units in less than a year.
Sure, Sony’s happy about making money and will delightedly take credit for creating an amazing new game console… but is that really what happened? If Sony doesn’t know what they did to make the PS4 so incredibly popular, can they avoid screwing it up? Can they keep the nascent 8th Generation console popular? Can they make lightning strike twice and follow up with a 9th Generation console in a few years that retains this unprecedented level of popularity? Can they avoid turning the PS4 into another PS3 or PS Vita (two of Sony’s biggest …
Generation 8: Every Port in a Storm.
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/17/14 at 01:59 PM CT
Back in 2010, Nick lamented on MeltedJoystick’s older sister site, FilmCrave, over the dearth of new and interesting movie concepts leaving Hollywood studios. It’s no secret that game developers and publishers are trying to make videogames more cinematic, and indeed largely succeeded in doing so over the course of the 7th Generation.
Now that generation is over, and the 8th Generation has begun. Unfortunately, it appears that the games industry will be adopting Hollywood’s obsession with remakes as the new generation’s dominant feature. The 8th Generation has been going for nearly 2 years now (though the PlayStation 4 and XBONE have only been around for half that time), and the frequency of ports and remakes is an overwhelming presence in almost every console’s library (OUYA is largely exempt, for what little it’s worth).
PS4 owners are working themselves into a lather praising the apparently Higher-Definition cinematic gameplay of “The Last of Us Remastered.” …
Could the Nvidia Shield Tablet be the Droid We’re Looking for?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/10/14 at 05:40 PM CT
I have been a believer in Android since the OS was first in its infancy, competing against iOS in the smartphone revolution. Of course, my support has always been more theoretical than practical – I didn’t want to see Android succeed so much as I couldn’t stand the sight of an Apple product dominating a market uncontested.
In practice, my true operating system loyalty lies with whichever company provides the best product. Thus, despite my hatred of Microsoft as a game console manufacturer, I put all of my financial support behind that company’s operating systems. Unless MS does something really, really dumb, it will be impossible for Linux/SteamOS, OSX, iOS, or Android to replace Windows as the heart and soul of my computing experience. If I were ever to buy a smartphone (that is, if the cell providers ever provided decent reception at my home and offered reasonably-priced monthly packages), at this point in time it would most likely be a Windows Phone.
On the other …
Backlog: The Embiggening - August, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 08/03/14 at 01:15 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. August brings us into the final days of the long, dry Summer. And while there might not be a singular hype-magnet releasing this month – the biggest mainstream draw is the Dudebro-approved annual release of a shovelware sports franchise – there are certainly a lot more games coming this month than came in pitiful July.
The shovelware as a whole is fairly light – I’m surprised! Only the 3DS is being saddled with a tie-in game for Michael Bay’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, while the ‘grown-up’ consoles are getting MOAR “Madden NFL.”
While out-and-out shovelware is mercifully light in August, there are plenty of ports and compilations clogging the pipeline and preventing new stuff from flowing. “Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare” will finally be gracing Sony consoles, “Hyperdimension Neptunia” will move from stinking up the PS3 to stinking up the Vita as well… and so will “Disgaea 4.” Then …
The Top (Bottom?) 5 Falls from Grace in the 7th Generation
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/27/14 at 03:35 PM CT
Some game makers never really amount to anything. Some game makers start small, rising to greatness and glory upon the back of an extremely well-crafted game (or series of games). Some game makers start out big and evil and simply stay the course, raking in huge profits while lighting cigars with $1,000 bills. Then there are the game makers that, through every fault of their own, take a glowing reputation and completely flush it down the toilet, never to recover. The 7th Generation saw a lot of not-so-great things happen in the videogame industry, including huge numbers of bankruptcies and shuttered studios. The following five companies may not have crashed and burned, but they are desperately close to the ground, dragging their reputations behind them.
5. Re-Logic
Starting life essentially as a pirate developer, Re-Logic gave us the definitive (and unlicensed) ‘Super Mario Bros.’ experience with “Super Mario Bros. X.” After receiving takedown requests from Nintendo, …
Vaguely Related Review: The DragonLance “Age of Mortals Campaign” Trilogy
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/20/14 at 04:17 PM CT
May 2014 saw the end of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I started running in August 2009. It was great to get back to the tabletop for some gaming after a ridiculously long hiatus that saw me bereft of this type of experience for almost all of the 7 years I spent as a college undergrad and grad student. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to keep playing tabletop games, it was simply a matter of impracticality… and the glaring fact that everyone I played tabletop games with had either moved to another state or otherwise dropped off the face of the Earth after high school. I graduated high school in 1997, so there was no TwitFace or Big Brother to help us keep tabs on each other. It was as if my admittedly-tiny social circle was there one day and gone the next.
Likewise, my beloved DragonLance Campaign Setting was also going through quite a few growing pains at exactly the same time my tabletop gaming group was in crisis. In 1996, TSR, in a desperate attempt to return to …
What Good, Really, is a Second Screen?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/13/14 at 01:50 PM CT
It has been a decade since Nintendo first floated the idea of giving players twice the screen real estate for gaming by giving them twice the screens. With three Nintendo hardware platforms in a row sporting a second screen – the DS, 3DS, and WiiU – it appears the Japanese company has doubled-down on this particular gimmick.
But is the second screen provided by Nintendo hardware really of significant benefit? On the two handheld platforms, the two screens are tightly packed-together, acting instead as one long vertical screen that can be divided in half or taken as a single unit. While the close proximity of these two screens puts them both within the player’s field of view at all times, the end result isn’t exactly spectacular. The DS and 3DS suffer from a chronic case of Vertical Video Syndrome, presenting visual information in a manner counter to the layout of the human visual system. Likewise, this visual layout is counter to every other technology made for displaying …
What’s New in D&D Next: A Primer
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/06/14 at 05:33 PM CT
Last month I discussed the rise and fall of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG, and how Wizards of the Coast managed to lose their non-digital gaming crown to upstart Paizo. What I didn’t discuss was what is actually changing in D&D Next (a.k.a., D&D 5th Edition). Let’s take a look at how D&D Next will be breaking compatibility with 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder (henceforth, 3.x), as well as 4th Edition, while streamlining game mechanics at the same time.
1. Goodbye Skill Ranks, Base Attack Bonus, and Saving Throw Bonuses; Hello Proficiency Bonus
3.x introduced these three core mechanics to replace a lot of Gygaxian weirdness that was present in AD&D, such as the infamous THAC0, negative Armor Classes being better, and inconsistency in determining whether high or low roll on a 20-sided die (d20) determines success. D&D Next wants to get rid of the complicated paperwork and number inflation these mechanics can cause by combining them all into a single bonus: Proficiency.
The weird …
Backlog: The Embiggening - July, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/29/14 at 01:11 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Last month’s gentle start to the Summer Game Drought has given way to a full-blown, apocalypse-level dearth of new titles for July. El Niño may be deluging parts of the United States that have been drought-stricken for the better part of a decade, but his expertise in rain doesn’t do diddly with regard to the games industry.
How bad is the drought this year? Well, how about a whopping 6 titles slated for a July release? Is that sparse enough?
Not only are the releases unbearably thin in July, but the quality is even lower than usual.
There are TWO licensed games coming in July. One is based on the abominably-drawn anime “One Piece.” It will be hitting the odd combination of PS3 and 3DS. The other is yet another LEGO tie-in, this time involving ninjas and handheld consoles.
There is ONE ‘grown-up’ FPS coming in July: The drab military shooter sequel “Sniper Elite III.” Of course, it will be hitting every …
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