Game/Show is back in 2014 with a list of games they are excited about seeing this year. I am curious to see how Jonathan Blow's The Witness will be as well as the new Thief game.

That said, the video is missing any kind of video game clips and I wonder if this has to do with YouTube's new policy in regard to Let's Plays and reviews? I hope not as this episode, while good, lacks the fast pacing the entire first season had.

"PRGE is proud to present the Northwest Classic Games Enthusiasts video game swap meet at the Portland Doubletree Hotel on January 18, 2014. We are taking it old-school...back when it was all about getting buyers and sellers together to help build buyers collections and help sellers find good homes for their extras while preserving the cultural and historical aspects of videogames. Nothing fancy - just games, games and more games.

Doors open at 10:00 AM until 7:00 PM. Admission is $5.00 at the door. The event is child-friendly so bring the entire family"

Cheerful Ghost will have a booth at this years Northwest Classic Games Enthusiasts Swap Meet in Portland. Since Cheerful Ghost is one of the best places to talk about Retro and new games, we will be present! Stop by and say hi while you hunt down that copy of Mario Paint with a working mouse for your Super Nintendo collection!

http://retrogamingexpo.com/

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/events/51

"Midora (pronounced "mid-ora") is a love letter to the classic 2D RPG adventures like The Legend of Zelda or Mana that have frequented consoles and enamored audiences for generations. It's a charming world to explore, with new mechanics to learn and quests to fulfill all while hopefully tugging at your nostalgic heartstrings. Midora seeks to bring you the same tried and true feel of familiar titles, but with the grace of a new, modern experience, with in a beautiful, 100% pixel art setting.

Midora is set in a welcoming fantasy world, one shaped by the elements countless lifetimes ago. Of course, not all can be peaceful in lands such as this, and the threat of a history changing upset is just beginning. And that's where our hero comes in: Snow, a young girl on her adventure to restore harmony to her world."

I was impressed watching the Kickstarter video for Midora as it already looks very good. Midora seems to pay homage to Zelda and The Secret of Mana while brining in it's own flair. As with nearly every new Indie titles Midora will ship on Mac, Linux and Windows and they have stretch goals into other platforms like iOS and Android.

Currently Midora is 3.6K of funding to the 60k goal so if you want to fund it now, you should.

YouTube reviewer @DubiousGamingOnline reviews one of Capcom's classic NES games Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. I remember playing this one for the first time at a friends birthday party. They rented it and we played the co-op and loved every second.

When the Starbound beta launched I decided I would limit my time with the game due to the frequent game wipes. I have been interesting in checking out the game since I played it last and decided to try the latest Beta, Angry Koala. After tinkering around with the game for a few hours I found out nearly everything has been changed and for the most part, I like all the changes.

I really like the new tree planting system as the game didn't seem like a proper mining game without it. The first thing I did when I started my game was plant trees. They grow back rather quickly which allows for easy farming. You can also burn wood into Coal which seems to work pretty well. It takes 10 wood to make 1 coal and all told that isn't much.

There are more items available and since it's the holidays you can make a elf woodbench which allows you the ability to craft a lot of special Holiday items. You can see some of what I made in my screenshot above, but there are many more items available to craft. A new item resource called "Holiday Spirit" drops from enemy kills allowing you the ability to craft the Holiday items.

The game gives you WAY less pixels than when the beta initially hit but penalizes you less pixels for dying. That said, needing pixels to craft armor is annoying. Why do I need another resource to craft armor and weapons beyond ore? I get why you would need pixels for other kinds of stuff, but armor and weapons?

The ore placement and planet generation seem way better than when the game initially shipped. Things seem more organic and I am very happy with the amount of ore I found digging deep in my starting planet. I think they have things humming along here and I love the improvements.

I found many more bases and treasures chests than I did with previous betas. You don't seem to go too far without finding something interesting to explore. If I had one suggestion it would be to stock them with more interesting stuff. I love how the bases are generated and I find the enemies and NPC's they spawn interesting enough, they just seem.... kind of empty. That said, they are better than what I found in the early beta and I love the improvements.

I found a _TON_ more seeds and fruit to farm. The farming system seems largely untouched but if I had a recommendation it would be for something to farm that gives you plant fibers.

Overall I really think they are heading in the right direction with the game and am looking forward to more changes they make through the beta. If you are loving Starbound but getting tired of the constant game wipes, it seems Chucklefish will do one final character wipe in the new year. Unsure if this means they might do a world wipe, but it's something anyway.

"Final character wipe will be included with the next patch, for everyone asking! So…as soon as possible. In 2014. :D"

https://twitter.com/StarboundGame/status/416696077950390272

Introversion let loose a pretty massive Holiday update to Prison Architect in the form of Alpha 16. They added the ability to generate prison maps with lakes, trees and different terrain types. They updated the AI and enhanced the ability to segregate your prisons by prisoner threat. They also fixed a pretty long standing bug in that you can now build multiple kitchens and the cooks properly work with that. One new feature I find really interesting is the ability to plant and harvest trees. You can immediately sell the trees OR you can take them to your workshop to process.

Oh and if you wanted to forever immortalize yourself within the game, you can now.

"For starters, all ‘Name in the Game’ customers can now customize the size, face type and colour of their prisoners by using our new Name in the game system which you can find here. For two weeks only, we're offering all alpha customers the chance to upgrade to our Name in the Game tier for only $10. This will enable you to name a prisoner, write a short bio about why he's inside and customize his look. This is your opportunity to permanently stamp your personality on the game and prove that you were one of the generous few that helped Prison Architect to become a reality."

Read the entire update list here:

http://forums.introversion.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=46615

There have already been some awesome prisons posted on the Steam Workshop. Take a peek at the time lapse video, it's neat.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=204431832

"Bill Gates was the man - he had the money, the power, the world's premiere spreadsheet program, but he also had a terrible secret: The Microsoft Ski Resort.

One fateful night, at the annual Christmas Party, an employee described his vision of the PC going beyond the realm of word processing and slideshow presentations, and in a fit of rage, Bill banished him to the cold, never to return. However, his exile didn't kill him - he instead survived the only way he knew how... by setting fires to trees and eating wild dogs that had somehow wandered onto the slopes."

SkiFree is a classic PC game that has a rich legacy shown in this new video. Interesting to know the history of this classic game and how the abominable snow monster came to ravage the slopes. Ski, if you dare.

"To help celebrate the holidays and ring in the new year, we've put together a fun little papercraft project for our creative community. In true Diablo fashion, this particular papercraft is of a Treasure Goblin, complete with his very own papercraft Treasure Bag.

We call him Lewt."

If you dig papercraft, Blizzard has posted a fun crafty creation you can make for holidays. I am going to print this out and make it so check back for a picture of how it turned out.

If you want to make a Lewt of your own, head to the Diablo III blog:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/12099016

Happy Holidays and Merry Starcraft!

I picked up BioShock Infinite in the recently Steam Sale for $9.99 looking for a game to play over the holidays. Since the Steam version has a Mac port I installed it on my laptop and decided to cut into it the other night. First off the game is beautiful. Really, this game is one of the prettiest games I have seen in quite a long time. The amount of visual candy present in this game is astounding and the fact that it holds up is a testament to the games league of programmers.

Right now I am alternating between playing the game straight up on my laptop, plugging it into an external monitor and using HDMI to put it on a TV. I am also playing the game with a keyboard and a mouse as well as a USB controller and the game works well with both control schemes. I can bullseye things WAY better with the mouse but I prefer playing the game with a controller.

I don't want to write about the games story because some of you haven't played it, I don't want to spoil anything for you. That said, I want to talk some about the games themes. The game deals with racism and classism in a way few games do and I think this is worth noting because the game isn't ham fisted when it does it. I found the games version of altered America and Columbia to be quite sad and can't help but consider how the United States turned out. I think the game asks some questions about societies in general in terms of treatment of certain classes I found very interesting. Columbia is a beautiful and bright shining beacon of American exceptionalism with an ugly core of hatred and racism.

So far the game seems to be more heavily geared to the art, story and overall tone than the shooter part of the game. Personally I totally dig the games pacing and find that I am having a great time simply walking through the game and experiencing the world of Columbia. That said, the action is starting to ramp up and have found it all to be quite fun and enjoyable.

Like I said earlier, I think I am a little under halfway and have really enjoyed myself so far. I hope BioShock Infinite comes to SteamOS because i'd love to play this on my Steam Machine. I know I am __VERY__ late to the BioShock Infinite bandwagon, but am happy with the game and if you haven't picked it up, I recommend you do.