Can Wizards of the Coast Reclaim the Tabletop Crown with D&D Next?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/22/14 at 03:20 PM CT
Not too long ago, tabletop gaming was completely dominated by the game that essentially started the RPG genre way back in 1977: Dungeons & Dragons. While there have been alternative tabletop rules systems for decades, D&D was so synonymous with tabletop gaming that its name became the default for the activity, much like “playing Nintendo” was 1980’s vernacular for anything videogame related.
Sadly, TSR, the original company started by D&D creator, Gary Gygax, went out of business in 1997, selling its assets and tabletop gaming intellectual properties to competitor, Wizards of the Coast. At the time, Wizards of the Coast and TSR were very different companies, each serving as a rallying flag to one side of a tabletop gaming civil war. On one side, the Dice Chuckers liked their RPGs, with character customization, storytelling, cooperation, adventure and loot. On the other side, the Card Floppers liked the gambling-esque thrill of getting a rare pull from a booster pack, the …
E3 Impressions 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/15/14 at 01:29 AM CT
Last year’s E3 is a tough act to follow with regard to how NOT to do E3, despite hosting the debuts of two 8th Generation consoles and the accompanying hype. Every press conference last year essentially amounted to a company spokesman coming on stage, taking a dump, then pointing at the steaming mound and singing, “Tada!” Sony managed to win the hearts and minds of gamers and the press simply by producing the least smelly heap of offal (read: not the XBONE). Over the course of the year, Microsoft managed to flush most of their mislaid movements (though the smell still lingers), and Nintendo managed to squeeze a few releases past its constipating blockage. Needless to say, my hopes were not high for E3 2014 to provide anything better. Thankfully, I was surprised this year, as every console had at least one exclusive game that I would be excited to play.
Microsoft:
Want: Microsoft to stop making consoles (still!), “Ori and the Blind Forest”
Not Sure if Want: “Project …
GOG Galaxy Set to Shake the Foundations of PC Gaming
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/07/14 at 03:25 PM CT
Our friends in Poland are gearing up to shake the foundations of Lord GabeN’s Steampowered throne with the upcoming release of their very own game client. While GOG has been around for a while, their DRM-free philosophy prevented them from shackling their (old and Indie) games with any kind of mandatory client. The entirely-optional GOG Downloader was the closest thing they had.
That will all be changing with the announcement of GOG Galaxy, which will finally bring CD Projekt’s e-shop up to par with the likes of Steam, Desura, Origin, and Uplay… at least as far as features go. Galaxy will support all of the good things provided by game clients, like automatic updates, friend lists, friend chat, and achievements. What it will not support, unlike the other three, is DRM.
This is incredibly exciting news, as I have purchased certain Indie games on Steam instead of GOG just for the sake of having access to Steam’s auto-updates. With Galaxy promising such feature parity and …
Review Round-Up: Spring 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 06/01/14 at 01:54 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 didn’t see the MJ Crew toward our goal of finishing more co-op games. We managed to get through “Diablo III,” but “Borderlands 2” eluded completion due to its insane amount of content (and the fact that the crew missed a few too many weekly sessions). We also started “Super Mario 3D World,” but came just shy of finishing thanks to Memorial Day messing up Chris’ schedule.
I finally got to some of the longer games I’ve been putting off due to their… well, length. “Skyrim” did not scratch my Sandbox itch, and “Ni no Kuni” did not scratch my RPG itch. But between them, I have plenty of raw, itchy patches that need to be balmed, yet it seems the item shop is all out of that particular remedy.
The end of the PlayStation 3 has been on my mind this past quarter, and I’ve been doing my best to …
Backlog: The Embiggening - June, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/26/14 at 12:10 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Every year, gamers everywhere suffer through an annual occurrence known colloquially as the Summer Game Drought. It is ever ironic that the time during which publishers should be pushing out the most gaming products – Summer Vacation, when kids (the biggest buyers of licensed crap and samey FPSes) have plenty of free time and extra spending money from Summer jobs – is actually the time when the fewest new gaming products see the light of day. In 2014, it’s looking like the beginning of the Summer Game Drought might be a bit on the mild side, based on numbers alone. However, a closer look reveals that the stuff being released in June is being sent out to die based on tie-in deadlines or perhaps a feeling that less crappy crap might be perceived as ‘okay’ when placed side-by-side with really awful stuff.
Licensed games and shovelware are making a strong showing after all but disappearing recently. There are movie tie-ins for …
Dis-Kinect-ed
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/18/14 at 02:00 PM CT
Half a year after its launch, and the Xbox One will be losing a limb. Specifically, Microsoft has decided to release a version of their latest unnecessary console without its only differentiating gimmick: the Kinect 2.0. On June 9th, those wanting to get XBONE’d will be able to purchase the console for $100 less and with 100% less paranoia about being watched and wiretapped by the Kinect’s always-on camera and microphone.
But what is Microsoft really accomplishing with such a move? In the 7th Generation, the original Kinect was the Xbox 360’s only truly novel feature, and it never really had a chance to show what it was capable of in the hands of a development team interested in creating a better experience than a “WiiSports” knock-off or an endless stream of inane dance games. The Kinect had the potential to open up a whole new type of interface – “Minority Report” style – to enhance the capabilities of an existing controller instead of supplanting the …
5 Wii Games to Play with your Mom on Mothers’ Day
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/11/14 at 03:39 PM CT
When Nintendo targeted the “Blue Ocean” demographic of non-gamers with the Wii, not only did they enforce the stigma of Nintendo consoles not being for “real gamers” (who only play “Call of Duty” and “Halo” all day while shotgunning 40s and even lifting) that they’ve been dealing with since the N64, but they also became associated with old ladies and fad followers. Be that as it may, the Wii actually DID succeed at engaging non-gamers in a way no hardware had before, and Nintendo produced plenty of games (of wildly varying quality) to target their new audience.
I don’t know about most of the younger crowd coming up nowadays, but when I was a kid, my Mom knew NOTHING about games. Perhaps younger women who grew up with 8-bit and 16-bit games are a bit more literate about the subject? Regardless, it seems that gender doesn’t really matter when it comes to being baffled by the stupid things kids like, and my Mom didn’t understand why I enjoyed videogames so …
Backlog: The Embiggening - May, 2014
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 05/04/14 at 01:03 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. May is bringing the tumultuous post-holiday period to a fitting end by returning game releases to something resembling a status quo. While, miraculously, there are ZERO shovelware releases to report this month, there is one overwhelming multi-platform game that will dominate headlines and capture the rapt attention of every mainstream “AAA” whore, along with a handful of M-rated dreck… Let’s get right to it.
So, what is this overwhelming May release everyone is destined to be talking about for a month before its luster fades and it drops into obscurity? None other than “Watch Dogs,” a new sandbox title that looks to be an attempt at combining gaming’s ‘Grand Theft Auto’ franchise with TV’s “Person of Interest.” Meh. Among the other mainstream multi-platform games, we have a FPS sequel to ‘Wolfenstein’ (which I’m sure will be as amazing a sequel as the latest ‘Duke Nukem’ game), some sort of fake RPG by …
“Defiance” Destroyed Due to Detrimental DLC?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/25/14 at 03:58 PM CT
After going through a rough patch last May, Trion Worlds, the developers and publishers behind an array of MMO-style games has decided to radically change the core gameplay elements of their struggling Third-Person Shooter MMO (and SyFy Channel tie-in) “Defiance” with the latest DLC pack, dubbed “Arktech Revolution.”
While I never got the chance to play pre-Arktech “Defiance,” I (and the rest of the MJ crew) was kind of excited about it. From reviews (which were never particularly glowing) and people talking about the game in forums, it sounded like “Defiance” was essentially an MMO version of the ‘Borderlands’ series, but without the ballooning numbers attached to equipment that cause favorite weapons to become obsolete after only a handful of level-ups. “Defiance” was supposed to have a relatively ‘flat’ level progression (called EGO Rating in-game), providing increased access to a larger number of perks, but allowing players to hang onto (and …
Violence for Violence’s Sake
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 04/20/14 at 03:50 PM CT
Last week, I discussed the recently revealed source of rage that spurs gamers to violence, and shared one of my personal experiences with frustrating gameplay leading to outside-of-game fury. This week, I’d like to take the opportunity to follow-up on last week’s topic and share some of my ruminations on the interactivity between media (of any kind) and the instigation of violence among its consumers.
Because I’m an “insider,” so to speak, nobody on the “outside” will take my comments as unbiased, and will consider them to be some kind of apologetics, so I feel no need to keep the kid gloves on. I’ve been an insider since I first ignored the cries of “Videogames rot your brain!” and “Dungeons & Dragons is the work of the Devil!” back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The saddest thing about these cries for the censorship and restriction of media is that they come most strongly from a group that desperately clings to its own source of media – a source …
View Archive
