Game Informer has an incredible spread on the new Doom game that is slowly unlocking over the next couple days. In the next couple days they will do a story on Dooms new Snapmap feature which is the coolest part about the new game in my opinion. The detail and love iD is putting into the game really shows and it does seem to be a love letter to the feel of the original.

No exact date is set yet but it should be in the first couple months of this year. Doom is coming out on PC, PS4 and XBox One and I am curious how you plan on playing it and if you are going to pick this one up on launch day?

http://www.gameinformer.com/p/doom.aspx

Joni and Sean and the two part super group behind the Indie Zelda-like Anodyne are close to releasing their follow up Even The Ocean. Even the Ocean is a story based side scroller where you "follow Aliph, a technician for Whiteforge City, as she investigates a recent string of power plant failures..." It features an interesting power mechanic that you can balance to use in your favor situationally. From following the game in it's early stages it looks to have changed some but it still looks great.

When the game launches i'll post more but you can find out more by checking the games website.

http://www.eventheocean.com/

We also talked to Joni and Sean back in 2014 about the game which Scrypt and I saw at that years PAX Prime. You can read that interview below:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1557/even-the-ocean-the-upcoming-game-from-analgesic

Beloved musician and entertainer David Bowie recently passed away to the grief of many. It's hard not to see the effects of Bowie's long career in music and pop culture. Many may not know but David Bowie was featured in a game called Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

"Responding to the desperate pleas of a mysterious character from another dimension, your soul must enter the dark and futuristic city of Omikron. This heralds the beginning of an epic adventure through an increasingly strange and dazzling parallel world, trying to solve the many puzzles that prevent you escaping alive. Think, fight and interact with the immense gaming environment to defeat the menacing demons that have tried to trap you."

As a memorial to Bowie, Square Enix is giving away The Nomad Soul for free on PC and Steam and you can redeem your copy at the link below using the coupon code "omikron" at checkout.

People from the United States should use the link below:

https://store.na.square-enix.com/product/281956/omikron-the-nomad-soul-pc-download

People from everywhere else should use the link below:

https://store.eu.square-enix.com/emea_uk/games/pc-windows-download/Omikron-The-Nomad-Soul.php

One goal of 2016 is to do more Cheerful Ghost video projects. Keep the Roundtable going strong, do more local developer interviews and game streaming. I love Hearthstone and I know some of you do too and thought it might make sense to do a new Hearthstone series where I play the game and talk a bit about it. Specifically i'll be focusing on grinding my Hearthstone gold dailies, talk about the game in terms of strategy to help people understand the game a bit more and learn that they can do pretty well playing the game for free. In this first episode I grind out one of my daily quests while playing 3 ranked matches. I talk about and use two of my new decks specifically my Dragon Priest and Warlock Zoo.

Recording this using OBS on my Mac and everything went very smoothly. Eventually I may start doing this on Twitch but I figured to start out simple and see how it develops.

Drop any comments you have on this episode and thanks for watching!

YouTuber ASMR made this video where he pages through Electronic Gaming Monthly while he whispers his thoughts about them. His channel is dedicated to him doing playing games, crinkling plastic and going through magazines while whispering. If you were really excited about looking over some EGM magazines while someone softly talks to you, get ready for an amazing time!

Decided to share this because this was so different I had to share it with somebody.

We've shared some absolutely incredible speedruns and this one is no exception to that tradition. Speedrunner Yagamoth was present at the 2016 Games Done Quick charity drive which raised 1.2 million dollars for the prevent cancer foundation. His speedrun is of the 90's classic I am currently playing called the The Secret of Mana. Secret of Mana is an old Square game that is a real time hybrid that mixes Zelda and Final Fantasy elements. As Yagamoth runs through the game he talks a bit about it and how he uses glitches to achieve a faster run. Under two hours is a really impressive effort as my current game is well over 15-20 and I just unlocked the final Mana fortress.

https://gamesdonequick.com

"Miles off the coast of Westmarch lies an island that many believe to be little more than legend. Cut off from the rest of Sanctuary’s developed civilizations, Greyhollow was once the center of a grand empire. Often times, such isolated societies grow and advance at incredible rates, and Greyhollow was no different. Its citizens devoted their cause to a mysterious and, as is often the case in Sanctuary, completely evil being. For reasons still unknown to this day, this unimaginably advanced society collapsed, leaving ruin, chaos, and a lingering curse behind."

Diablo III is still getting some major attention from Blizzard and the upcoming 2.4.0 patch contains a bunch of updates that will give it's players much more to play. I am interested in checking out the new thorns balancing changes they are making to the Crusader as well as the new Grehollow zone. No word on the next Diablo III expansion but I imagine we will hear about one this year. I hope the next expansion adds a couple new characters and acts but that may be more of a dream that reality.

Read the full set of patch notes below.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/19941042/patch-240-ptr-patch-notes-12-14-2015

*UPDATE*

The 2.4.0 patch is out now! http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/19998542

For the last couple years we've been going strong with the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable which is a monthly live stream video roundtable show where we talk about all manner of geekery and video games. Recently we've been advertising the livestream more and had a great time in the most recent episode about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I've also been doing more with video as seen in my recent interview with Wick as well as Let's Plays and Cheerful Ghost mini videos. I've updated our Cheerful Ghost YouTube channel, organized everything into tidy playlists and we just recently added our new YouTube channel art as seen above.

I want to thank Scrypt for working on the amazing piece seen above and I to say I love it is a bit of an understatement! As video on Cheerful Ghost expands, it's nice to have amazing art reflect that and I hope 2016 is a great year for it!

If you want to follow more of Scrypt and his art projects, check out his blog post below:

http://johningalls.tumblr.com/post/136691154742/so-i-got-nasty-sick-over-the-holidays-and-i

Some games are fantastic on smartphones. Hearthstone, Flappy Bird, Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake and Skullduggery are all good games that work well when you tap around your screen. There are also entire genres of gaming that are not served well on smartphones. First person shooters, real time strategy and traditional platformers are not great with tap controls. Because of this i’ve been searching for a handheld gaming system where I can play a different variety of games. In the last couple months I picked up the GPD XD and it’s one of the slickest gaming devices I own.

The GPD XD is a Chinese made Android handled that resembles a Nintendo DS. The GPD XD sports a Quad Core 1.8 ARM CPU, 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. It has the clamshell hinge, two full analog thumb-sticks, a directional pad, X/Y/A/B buttons as well as two trigger bumpers for each index finger. It has a volume toggle, on and off switch as well as ports in the back for headphones, usb power, a micro SD card and HDMI mini out. It runs a GPD semi-custom Android build that sports a strange UI that you can change if you want. It’s a fully unlocked Android 4.4.4 device so you can install anything from the Google Play store or any Android app through an the .apk format. From my initial usage the battery seems to last about 4-6 hours and it has a relatively quick recharge cycle. The battery lasts a bit longer if you turn off Wifi and turn it off when you are not using it as the sleep cycle seems to drain the battery.

The specs are actually pretty solid for a handheld device but the most powerful gaming device is junk if you can’t play any games on it. Needless to say the GPD XD comes loaded with a ton of games over the Google Play store and some are tuned well for a traditional controller. I’ve downloaded Duck Tales Remastered, Knights of the Old Republic and Sword of Xolan and they all work amazingly well with the controller. I obtained those games for free on Amazon Underground as Amazon has a special deal with certain games to provide them to the player for no cost. It’s an interesting model Amazon is trying and I am not sure how it works for the game developers, but as a player it’s pretty solid. Only a couple Android games work with the controller and I imagine as more games are optimized for AndroidTV, the landscape will get much better here.

That said, playing Android games isn’t the only thing the GPD XD can do and one other big use case for it is Emulation. I have a ton of physical Nintendo, Super Nintendo, GameCube and Wii games and it’s nice to be able to play them wherever I want. It’s also nice to use only one device to play them all. The GPD XD emulates the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance and PSP with ease. It falls down on DS emulation but since I don’t have many DS games it’s not a huge problem. In world where your NES and Gameboy cart batteries die, it’s nice to be able to load up the game on a device that will never suffer that fate. It’s also nice to be able to switch between Gameboy Tetris and Secret of Mana in a couple seconds.

Since the GPD XD is full blown Android you can use it for pretty much whatever you can think of. Want to output the XD to your HDMI monitor and plug in a keyboard and mouse and use it as a sort of PC? You can. Want to attach it to your TV and connect a USB controller? You can. Want to watch a movie on it? Yep. One of the big problems I have with buying tech is buying into an ecosystem that doesn’t allow you to use in whatever context you want. I love the hell out of my iPhone but it’s annoying I can’t always use it in the ways i’d like to. These unlocked Android devices really allow that and I think it’s a huge bonus.

One other killer feature of the GPD XD is Moonlight. Moonlight is an open source project that allows you to use NVidia streaming to play your PC games on any device that can run Moonlight. Since the Moonlight developers have a great Android port Moonlight runs well. What this means is that I can stream Fallout 4 to my GPD XD from anywhere in the house. Well, Fallout 4 or any other PC game I have. Someday I hope Valve releases a Steam in home streaming client for Android and iOS but until then, Moonlight works amazingly well.

The GPD XD is a great device if you are interested in the fledgling Android controller games market (like I am) or want to play your retro games in a more convenient context without rebuying. Since it’s a Chinese designed and made device it suffers from some odd translation and usability decisions but if you can hack your way around Android, it’s not a problem. In the end if you are looking for a device that is open and hackable with a traditional control set the GPD XD is for you. If you are looking for a place to play the latest and greatest Nintendo or iPad games, you should stick with what you already have.

Yesterday Steam had 12,332,504 users online at the same time breaking it an all new Steam concurrent user record. In the "post PC era" Steam is doing pretty well and with the advent of living room machines, the Steam controller and Steams new VR this number should keep growing. The top most played Steam games are not too surprising with Dota 2 in the lead followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fallout 4, Team Fortress 2 and Sid Meier's Civilization V.

I imagine the Steam sale and holiday had much to do with these numbers but as with the last couple sales, I didn't buy anything as I have enough to play as is.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats