2015 is newly minted and as such a time to reflect. I am curious what games you all played last year and what you are playing now? Also wondering what everyone picked up in the recent flurry of holiday sales?
I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.
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The results from the Cheerful Ghost 2014 GoTY awards have been counted. We decided to vote for two categories, Best Indie game as well as Best Triple A game. Since the voting was close for both categories I will list the winner and runner up.
The nominations were made by the Cheerful Ghost community out of games we actually played in 2014.
Cheerful Ghost 2014 Triple A Game
Winner - Diablo III: Reaper of Souls: "No One Can Stop Death. The Prime Evil rages within the Black Soulstone, its essence screaming for vengeance and release."
http://us.battle.net/d3/en
Runner up - Wolfenstein: The New Order: "World War II rages across Europe. Where once the Allies pressed advantage, the Nazi forces have turned the tide in dramatic fashion behind the technologically advanced war machine of General Wilhelm Strasse -- Deathshead."
http://www.wolfenstein.com/
Cheerful Ghost 2014 Indie Game
Winner - Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake: "On the distant island of Gogapoe, a land inhabited by monsters and cake, a young boy named Niko is preparing to celebrate his birthday."
http://sleepninjagames.com/mambc/
There was a tie in the runner up category between:
Runner up - Transistor: "Transistor is a sci-fi themed action RPG that invites you to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin as you fight through a stunning futuristic city"
https://www.supergiantgames.com/games/transistor/
Runner up - Shovel Knight: "Shovel Knight is a sweeping classic action adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 8-bit retro aesthetic."
http://yachtclubgames.com/shovel-knight/
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Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone that voted! Let me know what you think of how things turned out in the comments!
The nominations were made by the Cheerful Ghost community out of games we actually played in 2014.
Cheerful Ghost 2014 Triple A Game
Winner - Diablo III: Reaper of Souls: "No One Can Stop Death. The Prime Evil rages within the Black Soulstone, its essence screaming for vengeance and release."
http://us.battle.net/d3/en
Runner up - Wolfenstein: The New Order: "World War II rages across Europe. Where once the Allies pressed advantage, the Nazi forces have turned the tide in dramatic fashion behind the technologically advanced war machine of General Wilhelm Strasse -- Deathshead."
http://www.wolfenstein.com/
Cheerful Ghost 2014 Indie Game
Winner - Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake: "On the distant island of Gogapoe, a land inhabited by monsters and cake, a young boy named Niko is preparing to celebrate his birthday."
http://sleepninjagames.com/mambc/
There was a tie in the runner up category between:
Runner up - Transistor: "Transistor is a sci-fi themed action RPG that invites you to wield an extraordinary weapon of unknown origin as you fight through a stunning futuristic city"
https://www.supergiantgames.com/games/transistor/
Runner up - Shovel Knight: "Shovel Knight is a sweeping classic action adventure game with awesome gameplay, memorable characters, and an 8-bit retro aesthetic."
http://yachtclubgames.com/shovel-knight/
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Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone that voted! Let me know what you think of how things turned out in the comments!
A zillion Binding of Isaac fans might want my head on a pike for putting "fix the original" as the title of my post. Pray, I meant no offense and to me the original game is very special. That said, we all know the original game was written in flash and as such is a bit odd. Since I enjoy the game, I pull out the original to play on occasion and found that with Mac OS Mavericks the game is nearly unplayable. Couple that with no Steam Linux port for the original, I decided to plunge in to the new Isaac demake "The Binding of Isaac Rebirth."
First off the Linux and Mac ports are superb. Gone are the frame skips and load issues of the past. One amazing feature Rebirth sports is native controller support. I know some Isaac superfans are keyboard only but I do like playing it with a controller.
Rebirth also sports a new soundtrack and pixel art style. I think I prefer this to the original but if you like a more smoothed out style, there is an option for you.
I have only a few hours into Rebirth so I can't comment on the new content but I can say that the game feels more fair. I have mentioned this to some Isaac fans that don't agree but it's just an initial impression. I'll post more thoughts on Rebirth later so stay tuned.
First off the Linux and Mac ports are superb. Gone are the frame skips and load issues of the past. One amazing feature Rebirth sports is native controller support. I know some Isaac superfans are keyboard only but I do like playing it with a controller.
Rebirth also sports a new soundtrack and pixel art style. I think I prefer this to the original but if you like a more smoothed out style, there is an option for you.
I have only a few hours into Rebirth so I can't comment on the new content but I can say that the game feels more fair. I have mentioned this to some Isaac fans that don't agree but it's just an initial impression. I'll post more thoughts on Rebirth later so stay tuned.
Cygnus Destroyer finishes his Wisdom Tree / Bible games reviews with Bible Adventures. This game is a classic I played the hell out of as a kid. Because of this, Cygnus Destroyer and I both have a huge fondness for this game. I have really enjoyed watching all his Wisdom Tree videos this month and found it a bit sad to watch his final one. He missed my absolute favoriate Wisdom Tree title Spiritual Warfare, so hopefully he comes back around and reviews it.
In a very interesting move, Sony will ship Playstation Streaming in Samsung TVs soon. Sony will be showing off the Samsung Playstation Streaming demos at CES next month, something I am interested in reading the reviews of. With the advent of Smart TVs, Googles newly minted Android TV, Playstation Streaming and possibly Steam what will TVs of the future not do?
Would you be interested in buying a TV that does everything by default? Is there any downside to a TV that does so much?
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/24/playstation-now-samsung-smart-tvs/
Would you be interested in buying a TV that does everything by default? Is there any downside to a TV that does so much?
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/24/playstation-now-samsung-smart-tvs/
I just wanted to wish everyone a very Cheerful Holiday! I hope 2015 is a great year and you find even more awesome games to play!
Everyone celebrates the Holiday differently and as such and curious how that is going for you? If you don't mind, drop what you are doing in the comments and if you are playing anything and what you think of it new this holiday?
Everyone celebrates the Holiday differently and as such and curious how that is going for you? If you don't mind, drop what you are doing in the comments and if you are playing anything and what you think of it new this holiday?
As the year marches slowly to close the Cheerful Ghost GoTY voting process is upon us. We are opening up two categories this year in Best Triple A Game and Best Indie Game. If you don't see a game on the list, it wasn't nominated. Check out the options below and drop in the comments if you voted.
Vote for the Best Triple A Game released in 2014.
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=5498e8bee4b0cdaa8af2b80a
Vote for the Best Indie Game released in 2014.
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=5498e9fae4b0cdaa8af2b80e
Voting will end January 1st.
Vote for the Best Triple A Game released in 2014.
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=5498e8bee4b0cdaa8af2b80a
Vote for the Best Indie Game released in 2014.
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=5498e9fae4b0cdaa8af2b80e
Voting will end January 1st.
Google recently released the Nexus Player, a high powered Android set-top box. Sporting a Quad-Core 1.8GHZ Intel Atom Chip, 1G of RAM, 8G of storage, a nice bluetooth remote and a hefty 3D chip the Nexus Player is a steal at $100. The Operating Syste running on the Nexus Player is Android TV, a living room UI built on top of it's latest Android Lollipop. After using Android TV for the last few weeks I can safely say that Google has done a great job bringing this to market. The interface is intuitive, quick and useful and as a first iteration device, Google has done a fantastic job.
The Nexus Player is first and foremost meant to stream media to your TV. Up front, Google is suggesting you use it's Google Play Video, Music, YouTube and Games App. If you have purchased music and film content on Google Play, it should be available here. I've only acquired movies from Google Play giveaways and in trying them out, they look fantastic on my TV. The Nexus Player includes Netflix and Hulu out of the box as well as a ton of other streaming apps from the Play Store. Currently there is no official Amazon Prime app but I imagine it will come with time. I use Pandora for music streaming and the included app is slick and simple.
The Nexus Player also features support for the Chromecast protocol. Chromecast allows you to fling anything from inside a Google Chrome tab to your TV or any supporting app. Want to watch The Daily Show on your TV? Fling it over your Chrome tab. Want to move your Pandora stream from your phone to your TV? Fling it from your Pandora app. More apps are adding Chromecast options making it really simple to fling stuff to your TV.
Each set top box is pushing a certain way to buy music and movies, Google with it's Play Store, Amazon with it's own offerings and Apple with its iTunes store. Since I already have a junkload of digital files from ripped CD's and films I need a way to easily stream it off my NAS.
Since the Nexus Player is Android, it's not too hard to unlock it to side-load apps. One app you can side-load is Kodi, a new rebranding of XBMC. Kodi is an open source app that manages your digital music, movies and photos and can read from any standard NAS or network drive. It comes with a ton of plugins like Airplay and is one of the coolest open source projects I know of. So when I heard you could side-load Kodi on the Nexus Player that sealed the deal.
Side-loading Kodi isn't too hard and for more information on how to do that I recommend checking out the official steps on the Kodi website(linked below).
The Nexus Player is a great device for streaming but Google is also pushing it as an Android games console. Google is selling an XBox style Bluetooth controller OR you can just use your XBox 360 or generic controllers. The Nexus Player allows you to use any USB device but you first need a USB host adapter. After I picked up one at Radio Shack I could use my XBox 360 PC controller as well as a regular keyboard and mouse.
I give gaming on the Nexus Player a "good" ranking because the storage you have is pretty limited. Out of the box the Nexus Player only allows you 5.4 Gigs of storage which isn't much considering some Play Store games can be well over a Gig in size. If you only use the Nexus Player to play more casual games this shouldn't be a problem but I hope this is sorted out. Using Android TV as a console is a great idea and a bit more storage means more games, which is better for everyone.
If you are looking for a nice streaming device for under your TV I can't recommend the Nexus Player more. For my needs it does the job well and for my first ever owned Android device, I couldn't be happier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromecast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_Player
http://kodi.wiki/view/Google_Nexus_Player
The Nexus Player is first and foremost meant to stream media to your TV. Up front, Google is suggesting you use it's Google Play Video, Music, YouTube and Games App. If you have purchased music and film content on Google Play, it should be available here. I've only acquired movies from Google Play giveaways and in trying them out, they look fantastic on my TV. The Nexus Player includes Netflix and Hulu out of the box as well as a ton of other streaming apps from the Play Store. Currently there is no official Amazon Prime app but I imagine it will come with time. I use Pandora for music streaming and the included app is slick and simple.
The Nexus Player also features support for the Chromecast protocol. Chromecast allows you to fling anything from inside a Google Chrome tab to your TV or any supporting app. Want to watch The Daily Show on your TV? Fling it over your Chrome tab. Want to move your Pandora stream from your phone to your TV? Fling it from your Pandora app. More apps are adding Chromecast options making it really simple to fling stuff to your TV.
Each set top box is pushing a certain way to buy music and movies, Google with it's Play Store, Amazon with it's own offerings and Apple with its iTunes store. Since I already have a junkload of digital files from ripped CD's and films I need a way to easily stream it off my NAS.
Since the Nexus Player is Android, it's not too hard to unlock it to side-load apps. One app you can side-load is Kodi, a new rebranding of XBMC. Kodi is an open source app that manages your digital music, movies and photos and can read from any standard NAS or network drive. It comes with a ton of plugins like Airplay and is one of the coolest open source projects I know of. So when I heard you could side-load Kodi on the Nexus Player that sealed the deal.
Side-loading Kodi isn't too hard and for more information on how to do that I recommend checking out the official steps on the Kodi website(linked below).
The Nexus Player is a great device for streaming but Google is also pushing it as an Android games console. Google is selling an XBox style Bluetooth controller OR you can just use your XBox 360 or generic controllers. The Nexus Player allows you to use any USB device but you first need a USB host adapter. After I picked up one at Radio Shack I could use my XBox 360 PC controller as well as a regular keyboard and mouse.
I give gaming on the Nexus Player a "good" ranking because the storage you have is pretty limited. Out of the box the Nexus Player only allows you 5.4 Gigs of storage which isn't much considering some Play Store games can be well over a Gig in size. If you only use the Nexus Player to play more casual games this shouldn't be a problem but I hope this is sorted out. Using Android TV as a console is a great idea and a bit more storage means more games, which is better for everyone.
If you are looking for a nice streaming device for under your TV I can't recommend the Nexus Player more. For my needs it does the job well and for my first ever owned Android device, I couldn't be happier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromecast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_Player
http://kodi.wiki/view/Google_Nexus_Player
Don't we all want to consume every video about the infamous Wisdom Tree NES games? Apparently I must and really enjoyed Cygnus Destroyers latest verdict on Sunday Funday. If you didn't know, Sunday Funday was a slightly less challenging reskin of Menace Beach. Since Cygnus Destroyer drop the details in his video I won't repeat much more here except to say, if you are interested in learning more about infamous NES classics, you should check the video.
I also just realized he uses the same pointing picture to title each of his YouTube videos. Not a huge complaint, just something I noticed.
I also just realized he uses the same pointing picture to title each of his YouTube videos. Not a huge complaint, just something I noticed.
Valvetime has found a new Steam Controller design in the latest Steam beta client. From the Valvetime site:
"The new design, shown below, appears largely similar to the previous iteration and features an analogue stick, four main buttons, and two touch pads.
The most striking change from previous designs is the appearance of a four-point directional guide on the left touch pad. It's not entirely clear just yet how the four-point guide will be used or what it's main purpose is, but we'd imagine the left pad may now feature as a softer, more diverse alternative to the standard D-Pad by offering more directional input than just the standard four-points of motion."
I love the new look and the inclusion of an analog stick and the 4 diamond buttons seem like a great idea. What do you think, does this new Valve Controller seem like a good direction or did you prefer the older design?
http://www.valvetime.net/threads/steam-client-beta-update-reveals-latest-steam-controller-design.245634/
"The new design, shown below, appears largely similar to the previous iteration and features an analogue stick, four main buttons, and two touch pads.
The most striking change from previous designs is the appearance of a four-point directional guide on the left touch pad. It's not entirely clear just yet how the four-point guide will be used or what it's main purpose is, but we'd imagine the left pad may now feature as a softer, more diverse alternative to the standard D-Pad by offering more directional input than just the standard four-points of motion."
I love the new look and the inclusion of an analog stick and the 4 diamond buttons seem like a great idea. What do you think, does this new Valve Controller seem like a good direction or did you prefer the older design?
http://www.valvetime.net/threads/steam-client-beta-update-reveals-latest-steam-controller-design.245634/
Over the holiday season I had more time to play games than I have in a long time, so I actually got to play a few things!
From friends on Steam I got Shadowrun Returns, The Banner Saga, Transistor, Fallout: New Vegas and Child of Light. I mostly refrained from buying things for myself this year, only picking up Castle Crashers and the Skyrim DLC Hearthstone. :)
As for what I've actually been playing: I've been craving some tactics style gaming, so I dabbled with both Banner Saga and Shadowrun. Both are cool, but so far I think I like Shadowrun a little more and I've played that the most of the two. I played a bit of GTA:Online here and there as well. I'm also trying to finish up my play through of Costume Quest, which I think I'm close to beating and probably would have already if not for all the new games that I was distracted by.
I also tried picking up Pokemon Y again, but it's been so long since I played I had no idea what I was doing or where I was suppose to go, so I just started over.
I've been playing a ton of Mario Kart 8. A couple mobile games on my phone that aren't good enough to recommend, but help waste time.
One web game that I played last year and kept forgetting to recommend is Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now: http://nothingsgonnastopmenow.com/ (It's a very quick game. Click the link. If you're in your late 20's or older at least.
Hearthstone and getting my butt handed to me. It's hard to get packs when you need gold to get cards, but only get gold by winning.
Just finished the Tomb Raider reboot, and that was solid.
StarCraft 2 because StarCraft 2.
League of Legends with some friends. MOBAs are a blast with a party.
Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask which is awesome. I like that I can just pick up my 3DS on the bus or something, solve a lateral thing puzzle or two and set it down.
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Kill large monster. Harvest it's body parts. Craft gear. Kill larger monsters.
Hyrule Warriors mostly. It takes many hours to complete Adventure Mode. I've already completed one map, now I'm doing the Master Quest map. I then have the Twilight Map to do. The Rewards Map is very small and not all of it is currently available, perhaps more of the area will unlock as I progress in Adventure Mode.
I was playing Terraria on my Kindle Fire, but it still has not yet updated to 1.2. I've decided to continue reading instead of continuing to play it. Maybe when I'm done reading, I'll continue and it'll be upgraded to 1.2 by then. I'm currently reading The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft as recommended by a friend. I'm also waiting for 1.3 to be released for the PC. I'm also waiting on the stable build of Starbound to update as well.
I'm also playing Don't Starve a little bit. I haven't played Starship Rubicon in a while, I'll probably get back into it eventually. Also, I have hardly played Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, since I'm trying to finish Hyrule Warriors.
Binding of Isaac Rebirth. This game is very fun and I am consistently getting to level 3 and getting creamed at the boss. That said, I think I figured out a few strategies to beat it.
Risk of Rain. I _FINALLY_ unlocked the Engineer and Enforcer. So far, I love the Engineer and have played a few games focusing on him solely. The Engineers attacks are all summons based so you can build a turret, light off rockets and drop mines. Really love how that changes the game. If you want to unlock the Engineer you just need to buy 40 drones and to unlock the Commando I think you need to simply see all the bosses.
Don't Starve. Finally figured out how to create and farm crops. I sort of learn something new and apply it to a new game. So far I am up to day 13 on one game and have plenty of food but I need to figure out how to create seeds. Something about putting a bird in a cage?
And when I say "plenty of food" what I mean is that I can now harvest crops and am not starving to death.
Awesome, Jon! A friend of mine posted on Facebook recently that she was playing it, so I asked her about it and if she had an extra key, because I saw where you buy the game and get an extra key to give to a friend. She said she got her's from a friend, so no she didn't have one. I noticed the Holiday Sale was going on and decided to buy the Mega Pack. So, I got the game, the DLC, Don't Starve Together, and an extra key for the latter. I probably haven't made it passed the third day. I'm still learning and looking forward to being able to build a shelter. This morning, I created my first Science Station. I also found a wiki for the game, so I looked at some game play tips and such.
I'm looking forward to playing it and other games more, but Hyrule Warriors has had my focus for a while now. I do really like the game. Some battles are challenging and some a really fun. Like I said, Adventure Mode has a LOT more hours of game play than Legend Mode.
Haven't built a shelter yet. What are the benefits to having one?
Ok you can build a tent
http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Tent
Or craft bedrolls. I found one, which was a nice find but I haven't built a tent or crafted a bedroll yet.
I don't know, honestly, it's just an assumption that a shelter would make the night more survivable. I was thinking it could keep the night terror away. I did build a chest and I did see that I could have crafted a hay wall. http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Hay_Wall#Hay_Wall
I'm replaying GTAV here and there, and today I played an hour or so of Quake II. I love that game.