Does Violence in Games Beget Violence in People?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 01/06/13 at 02:48 PM CT
The recent tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has opened up multiple avenues of debate. While much of the attention has been devoted to gun control, the NRA had to weigh in and, unsurprisingly, brought up the specter of violence in the media to shift the burden of blame.
In the words of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, taken from his speech given on Dec. 21:
"And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Kombat,” and “Splatterhouse.”
And here’s one, it’s called “Kindergarten Killers.” It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had …
Backlog: The Embiggening - January, 2013
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/06/13 at 02:32 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. Now that the Christmas rush is over, we’re left with games that could either be considered Early Birds or a month too late. Regardless of what we might think of the games released in January, it is never a particularly big month. Out of the whopping 7 games releasing this month, it looks like there might be a couple of good ones.
Now that Christmas is over, there is little reason for developers to release licensed games and shovelware. Un-savvy moms and dads of small children have already spent their game budgets for the next few months, so any titles in this category released NOW will get a chance to linger on store shelves and accumulate the nice layer of mold they deserve. That said, 505 Games is still bringing “Chimpact” to the corpse of the late DS. Seriously… it’s a touch-controlled game about a chimp that can only be played on a dead handheld. Why did they even bother?
Multi-platform games dominate the limited …
Year in Review: 2012
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/31/12 at 02:36 PM CT
The year 2012 has come and gone. Every year has its great successes as well as things that didn’t quite go as planned. Let’s take a look back at what the past year brought us:
Top 5 Fails
5. OnLive Goes Bankrupt, Nobody Cares
OnLive, the little game streaming company that couldn’t, went bankrupt in 2012. The 1600 concurrent players who enjoyed streaming video of high-end games over the Internet to dumb terminal consoles or underpowered netbooks may have let out a collective whine of despair, but if they did it was entirely drowned out by the sounds of apathy or queries of, “What’s an Onlive?” by the majority of the videogame playing public. Unfortunately, attempts are still being made to save OnLive, and, even worse, Sony apparently wants to copy OnLive’s model and purchased Gaikai for $380 million (money they don’t have).
4. New PlayStation Store Makes Shopping a Chore
Sony getting hacked is soooo 2011. What really made 2012’s PlayStation hack so …
Is Everything Better with Zombies? Almost! Just Don't Ask About The War Z
Chris Kavan - wrote on 12/27/12 at 04:47 PM CT
I have a bit of an obsession when it comes to the living dead. Books, games, movies - you name it, if it's zombie related, chances are I've either played, read, watched or at least heard of it. And I'm not the only one - I mean, you could name 2012 the Year of the Zombie - but has the saturation point finally been reached?
Game often add zombie themes to them - Red Dead Redemption had a whole separate disc release of just its zombie theme. The latest rendition of Call of Duty - Black Ops II - has an extensive zombies mode. The Walking Dead recently won Game of the Year honors at the Spike 2012 Video Game Awards (amongst others). And I have to say, the third season of the TV show is the best yet.
So it's obvious the next logical step is a zombie-themed MMO - I mean, it just makes sense? Right? Lucky for us, Dean Hall came along and created a highly successful mod for ARMA 2, DayZ. This is a mod that actually puts "survival" into a survival horror situation - you have to worry …
What’s so Great about That? MeltedJoystick Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/23/12 at 01:34 PM CT
As a long-time gamer, I have had the dubious privilege of experiencing a complete paradigm shift in gamers’ popular opinion. While the dawn of the Internet saw a consensus that I almost entirely agreed with, more recently I’ve been left *facepalming* in wonder and dismay at the things that obtain popular and critical acclaim. When I saw that the editors at Ars Technica shared my sentiments, I found myself looking forward to an interesting read, unshackled by the status quo. I was not disappointed, and found myself nodding in agreement with every one of their overrated picks.
In an attempt to kindle this small fire of dissent amid the massive glacier of paid reviewers and people (including critics) with no taste, the MeltedJoystick staff have decided to chime-in with some of our picks for the pile of Most Overrated Games. Of course, in order to prevent this from becoming an N64 bash-fest, I set down one limitation: The games in this article are all current-gen (or last-gen, …
Does Valve Have What it Takes to Enter the Console Wars?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/16/12 at 02:36 PM CT
Gabe Newell has recently stated to Kotaku that Valve is working on a “Living Room PC.” While the details are sketchy at best, the consensus is that this Living Room PC will compete with 8th Generation consoles in a more direct and in-your-face way than PC gaming ever has done in the past. Based on the things that Gabe, Valve, and Steam have done in the past year, the results could either be amazing or catastrophic.
According to Gabe’s statements, he is both excited about the potential of Steam Big Screen Mode for Linux and anticipating hardware makers to start building and selling PC configurations specifically designed for use in the living room. While PCs configured for use in the living room have been around for years under the moniker of “Home Theater PCs” instead of “Living Room PCs,” Valve specifically wants to build a Living Room PC with a tightly controlled environment. Supposedly, the use of PCs in the living room will provide much more flexibility to …
Review Round-Up: Fall 2012
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/08/12 at 07:17 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 proved to be nearly as dire as the Summer for our co-op reviews. We only ended up playing one fully co-op game (“PixelJunk Eden”), while dabbling in two others (“SoulCalibur 5” and “Nintendo Land”) and starting (but not finishing) another (“Torchlight 2”). Outside of co-op games, I was finally able to put the entirety of my Wii’s library to rest (experiencing games ranging from mediocre to spectacular in the process), clear the rest of the ‘PixelJunk’ out of my backlog, and dig into an incredible Indie RPG.
“The Last Story” – 4.5/5
“Overlord: Dark Legend” – 3.5/5
“Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord” – 3/5
“PixelJunk Eden” – 2.5/5
“Pandora’s Tower” – 5/5
“SoulCalibur 5” – 3/5
“PixelJunk Shooter 2” – 4/5
“Cthulhu Saves the World” …
WiiU Owners Reject "AAA" Gaming?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/08/12 at 03:13 PM CT
My own observations of the WiiU's WaraWara Plaza have shown that almost everyone who owns a WiiU is playing "New Super Mario Bros. U," while just a handful of Miis gather under "Black Ops 2." It seems that Kotaku, who actually have staff members who own those unappreciated-by-WiiU-owners titles, have been able to apply some hard numbers to the WaraWara Plaza Mii distributions.
~700 people playing "Black Ops 2"?
~30 people playing the newest "Madden NFL"?
These numbers sound appropriate based on my esteem for those games/franchises. Too bad the other platforms with those games aren't putting up similar numbers. Of course, considering how huge the numbers for these games are on the Xbox 360, I can't help but wonder two things:
Why aren't these games Xbox 360 exclusives?
Why does Nintendo care so much about getting this particular type of third-party support for the WiiU?
Who Wants to Set a New Guinness World Record for Marathon Gaming?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 12/04/12 at 07:27 PM CT
I like to think that I'm pretty passionate about gaming. I did sink over just over 240 hours worth of time into Skyrim, earning the Platinum trophy. However, that was over the course of several months time. Imagine me doing that same feat in one continuous play through. It would take that kind of dedication, effort (and, I imagine just a hint of madness) to match the efforts of one Okan Kaya.
Seems this Australian was so excited for the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II that he not just broke the old record, he obliterated it. Luckily, Guinness has rules that accompany such a feat: that is, one is allowed a 10 minute break every hour - and any accumulated time can be carried over. That means you don't have to worry about winding up like this or this or this. That's right - support and rules are there to keep you alive, (relatively) healthy and sane. But there are a few things holding me back.
For one, I can't honestly think of a game I would want to play for over 135 hours …
Backlog: The Embiggening - December, 2012
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 11/30/12 at 01:51 PM CT
Welcome to another look into the near future. The holiday season is now upon us. You know what that means? Tons of last-minute releases from developers and publishers who are desperate to get their products on store shelves in time for a Christmas purchase!
…
Well, that’s what the holiday season USUALLY means. This year, December’s releases are surprisingly, frighteningly sparse.
After barraging us with dozens of releases for the last two months, the creators of licensed games and shovelware are finally taking a break. December is giving the PS3 and Xbox 360 compilations of the individual episodes of “The Walking Dead” (not to be confused with next year’s “The Walking Dead: The Video Game”) which have been appearing on Steam for several months (and, according to Zombie Expert Chris, are actually good). The PS3 and Xbox 360 are also getting a single new exclusive licensed game each: A ‘Power Rangers’ Kinect game for the 360 and a ‘Lord of the Rings’ …
View Archive
