Travis4

Joined 01/23/2012
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Web developer and all-around geek.
https://travisnewman.me

547 Posts

Terraria Is Available On Switch!
Terraria, the game that we can’t get enough of on Cheerful Ghost, has achieved one more step toward their goal of being available on every system. This time, it’s the Nintendo Switch!

This isn’t the Journey’s End update, and in fact isn’t even up to date with the PC version, it’s the same as the other console versions which are still a couple updates behind, pending some work porting the new changes over.

If you haven’t picked this up, this might be a good time for it. One thing to note is that the price, $29.99, is a little steep compared to the PC version which is $9.99 normally, but is currently on sale for $4.99.

Generally speaking, PC is probably the way to go for Terraria, but if you want Terraria that you can play on your couch and on the go, this is the version for you!

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 61b: E3 2019 (Part 2)
And we're back for part 2! If you loved our E3 discussion yesterday, you're in luck because we have another hour of it! This episode is all about the presentations from Microsoft, Bethesda, and Nintendo, and the new info we got about Google Stadia's game streaming service.

If you liked hearing our discussion on these, and want some text discussions too, check out our coverage on Cheerful Ghost!

Microsoft: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4098/e3-2019-day-1-microsoft

Bethesda: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4099/e3-2019-day-1-bethesda

Nintendo: https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/4104/e3-2019-the-nintendo-wrap-up

And check out the official site for Stadia: https://store.google.com/us/product/stadia_founders_edition?hl=en-US

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 61a: E3 2019 (Part 1)
This is the episode so nice, we did it twice! This is part 1 of our E3 discussion-- we ran about two hours and are splitting it up for your listening pleasure. In part 1, we discuss Cyberpunk 2077, Terraria Journey's End, Limited Run Games, Final Fantasy VII, and Jedi Fallen Order.

Come back tomorrow for part 2, where we'll be discussing the presentations from Microsoft, Bethesda, Nintendo, and Google!

For more information on what we talked about in part 1, check out our coverage on Cheerful Ghost:

Microsoft's presentation, including Cyberpunk 2077: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4098/e3-2019-day-1-microsoft

Terraria Journey's End: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4101/terraria-journey-s-end-update-will-release-this-year

Limited Run Games: https://cheerfulghost.com/Will_Ball/posts/4103/e3-2019-day-1-limited-run-games

Final Fantasy VII: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4102/the-final-fantasy-vii-remake-releases-march-3-2020

Jedi Fallen Order and the rest of the EA presentation: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4097/e3-2019-day-0-ea

And a wrap up of some of our favorite things from E3: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4107/e3-2019-wrap-up-what-were-your-favorites

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 60: The Phantom Menace Anniversary Special
On May 19th of this year The Phantom Menace celebrated it’s 20th anniversary so we got together to record this bombad, okeeday celebration Podcast!

Jon, Tim, and Travis are back as always, but as a special treat, our friends Rett and Taylor from Game Dev's Quest joined us to reflect on Episode I, what it means to us, and how its perception has changed over time.

And stick around to find out how well we do at discerning Star Wars character names from actual human diseases!

Game Dev's Quest is an awesome podcast about game development, and you should go listen to that now. Well... Listen to this episode and *then* go listen to Game Dev's Quest.

https://gamedevsquest.com/

E3 2019 Wrap-Up: What were your favorites?
If you were paying attention on Cheerful Ghost this week, you saw my posts about the big presentations up to Sunday, and then only scattered info from there on. Yeah, sorry about that everyone. I had planned to do my usual summaries from each of the big conferences but I got knocked out by a bad case of strep throat.

But I've caught up on the news, and rather than suddenly dropping a ton of posts, I'm just going to share a few highlights. I picked the Engadget video embedded above for this post because it hits a lot of the high points for the general public, even if they aren't all my highlights.

These aren't in any particular order except the first two:

BREATH OF THE MOTHER F*&@% WILD SEQUEL
No, we didn't get a ton here. Just a very brief look at a cinematic from the game with a couple hints at what the plot might be. But just knowing it's coming is the highlight of E3 for me. BotW is one of my favorite games of all time, and *may* be my favorite Zelda game. So I'm a little hyped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fr1Z07AV00

Link's Awakening Remake
Note however that I said BotW "may" be my favorite Zelda game. It's between that and Link's Awakening on Gameboy Color. And the new gameplay we got for this remake in the Treehouse was just what I was hoping for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHwhTv-LdPY

Mario Maker 2
The Treehouse also brought us some in-depth Mario Maker 2 gameplay and I didn't think I could be any more excited for this, but here we are. This is only part 1, I recommend you check out part 2 and 3 as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMxmq3bhSuw

I started with my Nintendo highlights because I think they stole the show this year. Can't wait to put my Switch into heavy use.

Jedi Fallen Order
Stig Asmussen (from the God of War series) directing a Star Wars single-player action game is basically a dream come true. We got to see a lot of gameplay here, and it looks tight. If I'm being honest with myself, some of it looks a little familiar to recent action games, but the addition of a light saber and force powers knocks the game up quite a few notches for me.
https://youtu.be/8939aURV9Dc

Cyberpunk 2077
There's so much depth to this game that it seems as though you could play it for a year and still not uncover every possibility. It looks like it blends Blade Runner and the Deus Ex series, which is a match made in heaven. This game was already high on my list for anticipated releases, but this made it jump near the top. And let's be honest, I said Nintendo stole the show, but Keanu Reeves stole the show when he showed up on stage after it was revealed that he's playing a character in the game. He always seems like such a wholesome dude and his brief appearance was charming as ever. Never change, Keanu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwgrsjHlqas

Doom Eternal
After the first trailer Bethesda showed for this at E3, I was a little disappointed. It didn't seem to add anything. But they went on to show some gameplay and adding interesting traversal of the environment to the game looks to elevate this game far past the original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK73XMgkpc8

Terraria: Journey's End
Ah, the update we've been waiting forever for will be the last major update. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. This game has given us way more than we paid into it over the years. I've already covered this in depth here:
https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4101/terraria-journey-s-end-update-will-release-this-year

Final Fantasy VII Remake
We finally have a release date! It'll be here next March:
https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4102/the-final-fantasy-vii-remake-releases-march-3-2020

Gods and Monsters
To be fair this is a "wait and see" for me, but it has piqued my interest. It looks ... SO MUCH like Breath of the Wild that I had to check that I hadn't created it in a fever dream. But it seems like Ubisoft is trying to capture that Breath of the Wild magic, and if they can, I'll play it.
https://youtu.be/Egzb6_HCqQw

Marvel's Avengers
OK this is something of a problem for me. I really want to experience playing as all these characters. The premise and graphics look great, even if we haven't seen any gameplay of it. It's a bit nebulous. BUT. They designed this so closely to the aesthetics of the MCU but the face designs and voices are so very different that it goes so far beyond pulling me out of the experience of the trailer. This is still one I really want to keep an eye on but I wish they'd given their game its own voice like Spider-Man on the PS4 did. It pulled inspiration from everything, but was unique.
https://youtu.be/LDBojdBAjXU

Your turn!
This is just a fraction of what was covered. What were your highlights? Drop them in the comments and lets geek out over the new games we get to play soon!

To catch up on the rest of our E3 disussions:

EA: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4097/e3-2019-day-0-ea

Microsoft: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4098/e3-2019-day-1-microsoft

Bethesda: https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/posts/4099/e3-2019-day-1-bethesda

Will's excellent Limited Run coverage, highlighting something I would have missed otherwise: https://cheerfulghost.com/Will_Ball/posts/4103/e3-2019-day-1-limited-run-games

Nintendo: https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/4104/e3-2019-the-nintendo-wrap-up

The Final Fantasy VII Remake Releases March 3, 2020
I had planned to roll this into my Square Enix roundup post but I'm way under the weather today so that may be later and I wanted to get it out there.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake will be with us on March 3, 2020, exclusively on PS4.

We are sure to get more at the Square Enix presentation, but a trailer was shown at Square Enix's recent Final Fantasy concert.

This looks shiny, and I can't wait. This has been on my radar since rumors started years ago. You may remember, in our predictions for 2019 episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, I jokingly predicted that we would learn nothing about the remake this year, hoping that reverse psychology would take hold and they'd give us some details. And so they have!

There are a few dozen amazing reasons to own a PS4, and this may be another one. I'm tempering my expectations for now, but I'm excited to learn more.

Terraria: Journey's End Update Will Release This Year
If you've been on this site much, you know we love Terraria, and that we've been waiting for the next update for quite some time. Well, we only have a little longer to wait, as Terraria will receive the Journey's End update this year. It will naturally be free, as all updates have been.

The name "Journey's End" certainly sounds final, and that's what Re Logic has in mind. This will be the last major update to the game, with only bug fixes, balancing, small things like that. What had been teased as 1.3.6 has become 1.4 because of the massive changes they've added.

Shortly after this was shown at E3, the official forums got the news in full, with all the changes coming, including:


  • Terraria: Journey’s End includes a full re-visit to all elements of Terraria. Over time, some things may have felt left behind or made obsolete by newer content. No more! Old things made new and new elements added to flesh out the overall experience – think you know all there is to know about Terraria? Think again!

  • Terraria: Journey’s End will include over 800 new items for players to find or craft!

  • Terraria: Journey’s End adds new foes to defeat and challenges to overcome as you seek fortune and glory.

  • Terraria: Journey’s End will see a full revamp of world generation – including overall improvements and a handful of new mini-biomes to explore.

  • Quality of Life improvements abound in Terraria: Journey’s End! From Block Swap to the Void Vault, these will ensure that the player spends more time doing what they enjoy most – and having more fun at the same time.

  • Terraria: Journey’s End will see the addition of an in-game Bestiary. As players defeat higher numbers of any given foe, they will learn more about them – from key statistics to even what each foe can drop as loot!

  • Terraria: Journey’s End will bring the hallowed game of Golf to Terraria. Golf? That’s right, Golf. Trust us, it is insanely fun – so get your golf skills up to par now!

  • Terraria: Journey’s End will add an all new difficulty mode. Beyond the existing Expert Mode, this is intended to be a true challenge for the most experienced and skilled Terrarians – a true gauntlet for the best of the best. Will your gaming skills and creativity be up to the task?

  • Terraria: Journey's End adds in all new and enhanced weather effects.



I cannot wait to get my hands on this. While I'm sad that this will be the last major update, at the same time it's cool to have this capstone to kinda tie things up. Even if we never get a Terraria 2, this has been a hell of a ride.

I'm absolutely sure that shortly after this drops, we'll have a new Cheerful Ghost server to play on, so stay tuned for that!

Read the full announcement here: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/re-logic-announces-terraria-journeys-end-at-e3.80018/

And for a full list of all the teasers we've been fed over the past couple years, the wiki has you covered: https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Upcoming_features

E3 2019 Day 1 - Bethesda
Bethesda kicked off their presentation with Todd acknowledging the missteps Fallout 76 had at launch, but praising the community for helping fix things. And it's true. It was a mess back in November, but it's fantastic now. Not perfect, there's still plenty to do, but we got some sneak peeks at what's to come among the announcements. Here's what's coming over the next year for Bethesda:


  • Fallout 76 is, as mentioned above, getting some big updates. The Nuclear Winter update coming this summer brings a battle royale mode to the game, which... is odd. But OK. I will play it to get any items that I really want, and then ignore it but if people want it, it's cool that it's there. Based on the players I've interacted with, though, I'm not sure how popular it will be.

    In addition, the Wastelanders update coming this fall brings humans back to the region after the scorched plague drove them off (or killed them, or turned them into weird sentient zombies. But not the cool non-feral ghouls). It will also bring a new quest line with factions and game altering decisions. THIS is the one that is most interesting to me.

    Finally, tomorrow begins a week-long free trial, so get your Bethesda launchers ready folks (I'm panickedthumb there, by the way)

  • The Elder Scrolls Online is getting a new expansion, Elsweyr, that takes you to the Khajit homeland and there are some dragons to fight.

  • The Elder Scrolls Legends is getting an Elsewyr card set to go along with the Online expansion

  • Ghostwire Tokyo is the next game from the makers of The Evil Within, and it looks like either The Leftovers or the Thanos Snap in Tokyo, with some seriously creepy vibes. I want to see more about this, I have no idea what kind of game it is, but I'm intrigued.

  • If you told me 3 hours ago that I'd be typing the following sentence I'd have said you're crazy: We're getting an online, free-to-play, cartoon-styled Commander Keen game. Yeah, what a time to be alive! I'll definitely check this out but much like the above, I don't really know what kind of game this is.

  • Arkane is bringing us Deathloop, a game where two people are re-living the same time loop. One person wants to keep the loop alive, one wants to break it. Trouble ensues.

  • Wolfenstein: Youngblood looks suitably amazing. If you've played the recent Wolfenstein games this will look very familiar but now you can play co-op. It's more Wolfenstein, and therefore it's awesome

  • Rage 2 is getting frequent small updates, including some new vehicles and a mech suit soon, and the new expansion is coming later this summer.

  • Orion is Bethesda's new streaming tech that can be included in any game, and increase streaming performance by reducing the required bandwidth to stream. As a dev I *really* want to know how they're pulling this off.

  • Doom Eternal looks amazing. So amazing. The same insanity from Doom, but with far more veritcality and a focus on world traversal. You have a grappling hook for one, but there are also other platforming elements added. The end result is something that's even more fast paced, and the twitch shooting is ramped up significantly with so many more interesting ways to take out an enemy. This one launches November 22.


    • As a lover of Fallout 76, the Wastelander update is a big draw for me, but my hat tip has to go to Doom Eternal for this presentation. I NEED IT NOW.

    Day 1 was a blast, and I'll be back tomorrow with more updates.

E3 2019 Day 1 - Microsoft
Microsoft brought their A game to E3 this year. Their focus is definitely on games, games, and more games, mostly third-party, but they're doing a damn fine job of selling Xbox as the way to go. I'm not going to get into everything because there was a lot, but here are some highlights.


  • Xbox Game Pass for Windows is a new service that costs $9.99 a month and gets you access to 100+ games on Windows, much like their Xbox Game Pass for consoles, and EA's similar offering for Origin. If you have an Xbox One as well, you can get both game passes and Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 a month.

  • Xbox Scarlett (probably a codename) is the next Xbox console, coming April 2020. They claim significantly increased performance with 8k resolution and 120fps in some games. They're also putting a focus on load times, and making cloud gaming a priority. They mentioned playing four generations of games on it, so it seems like their backwards compatibility is still going strong.

  • Speaking of streaming, Project xCloud is coming this October and will let you stream games from your console at home to nearly any device, anywhere in the world, for free.

  • Halo Infinite will be a Scarlett launch title and it looks gorgeous, but we didn't really see any gameplay.

  • Borderlands 3 got a new trailer and it looks as amazing as ever. In addition, the new Borderlands 2 DLC rumors were confirmed, and you can play it right now. After the show, IGN sat down with some folks from Gearbox for a gameplay demo of Maze the gunner, on one of the many varied planets you can visit. You can check out that gameplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWtFYMeBGjI

  • Cyberpunk 2077 is now my most anticipated game for the next year, and it's not even because Keanu Reeves is in it. This game has serious depth; even the clothes you wear can affect how the world treats you.

  • Gears of War 5 is coming out September 10, and has a new interesting multiplayer co-op mode where you have to kill everything and GTFO fast.

  • Minecraft Dungeons is coming next Spring. Imagine Minecraft aesthetic with Diablo-style gameplay. It sounds odd but it looks very interesting. They're focusing on accessibility but will have depth to keep people of all skill levels happy.

  • Doublefine has been acquired by Microsoft Game Studios, and we got a new trailer for Psychonauts 2.

E3 2019 Day 0 - EA
EA isn't really at E3, but that didn't stop them from doing their own presentation the day before E3 kicked off. It's a massive three-hour show that you can watch above, but here are some highlights:

  • Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order by Respawn is the first single-player Star Wars game since the Lucasfilm sale went through, and it looks like a doozy. Stig Asmussen, who worked on God of War 1 - 3, and was the director of God of War 3, is directing Jedi Fallen Order, and it shows. A lot of the world traversal feels like some of the stuff we saw in the old God of War games. The combat looks very Star Warsy, lots of strategic force use, plenty of lightsaber combat. I really like what I've seen here and can't wait to get my hands on it

  • Apex Legends is getting a new playable character, a new gun, and a dragon that will appear in season 2

  • Battlefield V is getting private servers, new multiplayer maps, and will be returning to the Pacific Theater

  • FIFA 2020 is getting a new mode that feels like the old FIFA Street games, and this mode is being targeted as a new player orientation since you have fewer players to handle. The 11v11 mode has gotten some heavy tweaking as well, and they really get into the weeds with details on that. As a soccer fan I've tried FIFA games before and felt a little overwhelmed, this may be my path into actually playing a licensed sports game.

  • Anthem hasn't been very well received, and the devs feel that. Their segment in the presentation was mostly reassurances that they are working to fix things.

  • The Sims 4 is getting a new expansion, Island Living, which gives players some fun in the sun as well as some thematic hazards like volcanoes. A few Sims games are getting some new outfits to celebrate Pride Month




For me the standout has to be Jedi Fallen Order, and it was definitely the setpiece for the stream. As I said up top I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm glad to see EA *finally* doing some single-player stuff with their Star Wars contract.