General Discussion [ Page 85 ]

Another interesting article on games journalism

http://images.eurogamer.net/2012/articles/craig-test/1351787650.43.jpg/EG11/thumbnail/360x200/

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-02-the-games-media-must-renew-the-trust-of-its-audience

Table Top: Star Fluxx

Table Top just released a new episode covering the Board Game Star Fluxx. One of my friends recently picked this up and I need to play it with him sometime. He said it was good, looks like it from the video.

The Best Thing To Happen In The 21st Century

http://www.oculusvr.com/. The first ever cost effective version of simulated VR to ever be developed. It's on kickstarter if you guys want to support it. It's the stepping stone to real and true virtual reality in the future. Take a few minutes of your time and watch that video.

The Final Games of 2012 And Best Of

Reddit user BarryJordan23 made a pretty awesome list of the games remaining to be released in 2012.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1222ba/complete_list_of_all_upcoming_video_games_for/

I looked over the list a few times and nothing really jumped out at me as something I needed to play and as such started thinking about the best games I got this year. I immediately wanted to do something with you all about it and decided a post made sense so we could hash out the details.

For everyone that wants to participate we should all create our "best of 2012" game lists. I am even thinking that we could do a "Cheerful Ghost best of 2012" as well. I could create a new page... Read All

Happy Halloween!

Wanted to wish everyone a safe Halloween, especially everyone with an increased Hurricane quotient this holiday! I have collected a bunch O links of various Halloween bits from sites around like Reddit. I am lumping them together in one post because I find 1000 of these posts to be a bit on the annoying side. All together now.

Video game inspired Pumpkin Carvings:

Borderlands 2: http://i.imgur.com/R6CG2.jpg
Mario Bob-omb: http://i.imgur.com/dg1CZ.jpg
Pichatchu: http://imgur.com/isI0E
Borderlands Gun: http://imgur.com/8WVu5
Cl4pTr4p: http://imgur.com/a/Cny12
Limbo: http://imgur.com/d9GXS
Wario: http://i.imgur.com/hQjtd.jpg
Mario Himself: http://i.imgur.com/lxOEO.jpg
Mario Goomba:... Read All

Steam Halloween Sale! Fear Your Wallets Safety!

After this years Steam Summer Sale and learning how much some of my friends spent on it, I think the most scary Halloween news of all is Steams Halloween Sale! This sale is themed around games that contain lots of blood, killing, shooting and various other bits marked so far down they are 6 FEET IN THE GROUND!

A few of the marked down titles are classics such as:

Left 4 Dead
F.E.A.R. & F.E.A.R. 2
Dead Horde
Zombie Shooter
Killing Floor
Zombie Bowl-O-Rama
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
DEAD Space
Painkiller Complete
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime
Prototype
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
.. And more!

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/halloweensale_2012

Will_Owens wrote on 10/30/2012 at 12:37pm

What a coincidence after posting about STALKER. I may FINALLY pick up the Walking Dead series to play with my wife... if she doesn't get too scared.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/30/2012 at 04:20pm

Everyone needs to play The Walking Dead.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/30/2012 at 09:15pm

I am going to nab The Walking Dead when they are all out as a entire series bundle.

One thing about the games thus far though, are they all the same style or do they change a bit over the different episodes?

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/31/2012 at 04:38pm

The Walking Dead? They're very narrative driven so the change happens in the plot, not in the mechanics or anything else. It's consistently gripping. Essentially, it's making you feel like shit about decisions you make: the game.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/31/2012 at 11:41pm

Sounds great. Its been sometime since I played an adventure like game since Monkey Island 3.

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What Games Are You Playing this Halloween Week?

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Halloween week and was also wondering what games you were playing to usher in the holiday? Recently picked up Doom 3: BFG Edition and that was pretty well timed as it plays well around Halloween. Sometime thing week I am going to crack open Amnesia: The Dark Descent as well.

I am wondering what other Halloween / Horror themed games are you playing this week?

BR Supporter wrote on 10/30/2012 at 12:50am

As you know, I am playing killing floor. Lots of fun. Other than that, I may or may not pick up one of the STALKER games. Not sure which one yet. I can't think of any other games currently that I might play.

By the way, thank you so much for showing me the star crafts animations. I absolutely love them. The Halloween one is really good.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/30/2012 at 01:24am

Yeah, this episode reminds me of the Peanuts Halloween Special... Well minus the Great Pumpkin!

Travis Admin wrote on 10/30/2012 at 01:43am

Just an FYI since we're talking about Halloween-- There's a Halloween sale going on.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/30/2012 at 04:21pm

I'm going to be able to LP the first bit of Call of Cthulhu, as well as a bunch of monster themed NES games. That's my halloween plan! I wanted to do a play through of Amnesia but that will have to wait for Xmas break. Those games have a wintery feel to me anyway.

BR Supporter wrote on 10/30/2012 at 06:42pm

I just picked up Home from the steam sale. Its already a cheap game but the sale made it even cheaper so I decided to buy it. I'll tell you guys how it is after I play through it. I might even try my hand at a LP of it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/30/2012 at 09:19pm

Always +1 to any Lets Play. Something about them makes me realize if I could have done them as a wee lad I would never have left the house...

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/30/2012 at 09:57pm

Home is petty good as long as you're not expecting a long game. I like it a lot as a bite sized nugget.

BR Supporter wrote on 10/30/2012 at 09:59pm

That is what I figured. Something that cheap can't be very long.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 10/31/2012 at 04:37pm

It's also very deliberately paced and there isn't much game to it. It's a little like Dear Esther in that respect, though I think Dear Esther is a bit stronger.

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An Interesting Idea for Interviews

I was chatting with @panickedthumb on Steam yesterday and he had a pretty cool idea. We were talking about the recent interviews I have been giving and he wondered if if would be good to interview the users of Cheerful Ghost itself? I hadn't considered that before and decided that is something I wanted to do.

I want to interview you all, the topics all swirling around gaming and you. Ill contact people one at a time and hopefully make my way through everybody. I am not going to go in any particular order and don't worry, I will get to you soon :D

Thanks to @panickedthumb for the idea and expect to see some interviews with CG users soon.

Space Citizen - interesting looking Kickstarter

Saw this Kickstarter project mention on another forum
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
Looks cool. As a fan of SciFi I'm drawn to this sort of
project.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/28/2012 at 11:43pm

I agree, this kickstarter looks awesome. Many space games in the pipe with the same ideas, one of them should be great!

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/29/2012 at 04:17am

Plus.... Guns!!!

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/01/2012 at 10:28pm

I haven't even watched more then 30 seconds yet. But I can say I already like them. There needs to be more people willing to do space sims. And PC gaming really is where its at. I think PC gamers appreciate games made for them then those on any other system.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/01/2012 at 11:15pm

I agree, open space games go well on the PC. Imagine Minecraft with spaceships? 8O

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/01/2012 at 11:39pm

Ya lets hope that becomes a reality with notch's new game

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/02/2012 at 01:40am

So I finished watching the video now 3 hours later haha. I can't even express how amazing I feel this game could be. Nothing sounds better then to hear "when i made freelancer". Freelancer is still my all time favorite and imo best space sim ever to be created. To see that the master of space sim is creating a new space sim in the current age. Wow. Just wow. Dream come true.

MoonWyrd Supporter Post Author wrote on 11/13/2012 at 02:03pm

Gotta ask, has any one else back it?

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/13/2012 at 10:39pm

I really want to. I probably won't be able to back it before the kickstarter ends. But I will try to back it after its over on the main website.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/13/2012 at 10:45pm

I haven't delved into the territory of paying for games before they launch. If it launches I will pay for it, no question. I bet this will end as my "old school" brain catches up to funding these kinds of things.

MoonWyrd Supporter Post Author wrote on 11/17/2012 at 05:33am

I've backed a few projects on Kickstarter. Although this is the first software project. It may be a gamble, but so far the other projects have gone well.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/19/2012 at 04:48am

Well moon I think I'd say tonight that the gamble is definitely paying off. It looks to have raised more money (with its own site in conjunction with kickstarter) then any kickstarter project ever made for games. It may hit 6million. This is also the only triple A game ever to use kickstarter. Their getting a lot of money from investors. The 6million from crowd-sourcing is probably extremely small. As a space sim fan AND a die hard PC player who likes to push the limits of his computer this is the best thing to ever happen.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/19/2012 at 05:51am

Wow. It's a new time. Publishers are less important than they once were for sure.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/19/2012 at 10:57pm

I'd say it's more of an old time then a new time. Publishers weren't as big to start with either. Kickstarters main crowd is older gamers wanting to get back to the classics. Classic type games seem to be the biggest on Kickstarter. I'm sure that's a correlation.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/19/2012 at 11:28pm

Good point.

MoonWyrd Supporter Post Author wrote on 11/21/2012 at 07:32pm

Older gamers with more disposable income may indeed be why this sort of project has Succeeded. One of the reasons I backed it was I enjoyed Earth and Beyond. Was sad to see EaB bought by EA only to be shutdown.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/23/2012 at 02:59am

Ya EA has bought quite a lot of good competition and shut them all down.

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Drama in the world of Gaming Journalism

Robert Florence has stepped down from Eurogamer because an article he wrote about games journalists and PR was edited due to complaints from people in the article.

It's hard to explain, much easier to read, so here you go. This is the unedited version, with the removed parts in bold:

http://wosland.podgamer.com/a-table-of-cowards/

One thing that sticks out for me is that journalists for reputable news organizations can't accept extravagant gifts from anyone involved in the material they're writing about. Is it ok for a gaming journalist to accept a PS3 from someone with a new game coming out that they'll surely be writing about?

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/26/2012 at 04:29am

Hey panicked, thanks for posting!

My original comment was so long it hit the limit so ill write a redacted version of it, simpler, less words. :D

Ultimately Ill post a follow up to this because its an important happening and I think illustrates why "game journalism" isn't objective and totally broken. How can it serves Gamers when the forces of money choke out honest dialog.

Maybe Robert was out of line? Maybe he was just being honest and hit a nerve that caused some people to fear for their money pile getting smaller? The reason why "game journalism" is broken is because more often than not, its the latter.

Which part-in why Cheerful Ghost exists. Because I believe normal people's thoughts on gaming is more important than paid journalists in gaming.

But you don't have to take my word for it, get the latest highly reviewed title by any old mega game site and it should be fun right? I mean they are the experts and it had a 8.8 rating? That means a totally great game! If you are not scared for your $60 going right into the toilet then you and I both admit "game journalism" has issues.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/01/2012 at 11:17pm

This is a HUGE issue to me. It's more then just money as well. There are so many bias's that factor in you'd think it was a political review. There are some sites that review japanese games horribly simply because they are japanese. Lost planet 2 was a breath of fresh air compared to a CoD or more recent shooters and it received extremely critical reviews. It was made by capcom.

jdodson Admin wrote on 11/02/2012 at 02:53am

Yep, me too. Its not bad for a site to make enough money to pay the bills, but big media game sites take it too far and sacrifice too much.

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