I just found out about a cool new retro system coming out this December called the Retron 5. It sports compatabiliy for the NES, SNES, SFC, Genesis, Famicom, Gameboy, Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance. It will be available at launch for $99 and will support scaled output at 720p over HDMI.

I know what just got added to my Christmas list!

http://hyperkin.com/blog/2013/09/hyperkin-to-release-retron-5-on-december-10-2013/

Diablo III released on console recently and like many people that have it on PC, I didn't buy it. I have been curious to try it as Blizzard made many changes to it that are not in the PC version. I was able to do that because Blizzard added a Diablo III demo to PS3 and XBox 360 which takes you all the way to the Skeleton King. I have been playing the PS3 demo over the last couple of days and wanted to write a bit about the differences between the console and PC version.

the long road to the controller

Originally I figured porting Diablo III to consoles would be strange because of the game controls. Diablo III has a pretty rich interface with hotkeys, character customization and I thought it wouldn't translate well to a controller. I was wrong, Blizzard has done a great job porting the game to consoles and making it accessible. In fact, the game might be more fun because it requires a bit less effort to play. To "fix" the no mouse support on consoles, Blizzard implemented a locking auto-aim feature that makes things much simpler. The game is still challenging, but if you are not 100% accurate with your shots, the game will help you out a bit. This made the whole couch experience much nicer. I really felt at home kicking back and slaying monsters. Some might relish the precision of the mouse, but you can play the PC version for that.

Blizzard added a roll / evade move to each class that is really useful. The game is harder on the console because you can't click around to evade things like the PC version so they added evade. It's a nice mechanic and I found it useful for fights with many enemies and tough bad guys. They haven't ruled out bringing evasion to the PC, but I don't think its something the PC version needs.

difficulty modes

The PC version of Diablo III shipped with a static difficulty based on the game mode you were in. So if it was your first play through, you were at Normal difficulty. If you killed Diablo you went to Nightmare and then Hell and finally Inferno. Diablo III on console has these modes as well but you can also specify a difficulty within each mode. So in the demo they allow you to select the difficulty mode for your character in easy, medium and hard. There are two other options but they are not available in the demo. I selected medium and it was much more challenging that what I experienced in the PC version in Normal mode. Enemies were much tougher to take down and there were more of them. I never felt like Normal mode with Diablo III on PC was hard and bordered on too easy. The console version on Medium provides a much appreciated challenge. I can only imagine hard and beyond is even more so.

the look and feel of the game

I am a PC gamer. A few years ago I jumped back to my PC and I haven't missed a beat. One of the great features of PC gaming is graphics and play control. That said, Diablo III on console doesn't really suffer in terms of play control or graphics, its just different. One very noticeable element of the presentation of Diablo III on console is the anti-aliasing, it doesn't look like it's turned on at all. Basically what this means is the game looks "jaggy" or everything looks like it has a rough edge. Anti-aliasing takes some horsepower to pull off so many console games drop it. Compared to the beautiful lush textures of the PC version, the console version suffers here some as well. That said, the game still looks stunning and beautiful and I didn't feel like this was "muddy Diablo III." It is just Diablo III paired down to what the PS3 can handle well.

I have a 5.1 Dolby system in my living room so the audio for this environment was appreciated. The great score really comes to life on my speakers and I would say the console version provides a marked improvement over my 2.1 PC speakers.

conclusion: it's a hell of a lot of fun

If you can't play the free Diablo III demo on PC because you are console bound you need to download the demo. Hell, if you own it on PC and just want to try it out you should do that too. The game really comes to life on the console and in some ways is a better presentation of the game. And at the end of the day, it still lets you kick Diablo's ass and that's what its all about right?

I made a Let's Play for Delver, a new 2D retro styled Rouge-like. It's all fun and games till I get wiped out by a Teleport switch. I plan on doing a few more of these to see how far I can get.

Someone awesome person decided to create a map of the entire overworld of Link's Awakening. Looking at it all in its Gameboy pixel glory is pretty awesome to behold but I also realize how small the overworld really is. That said, it takes quite some time before you have the ability to go everywhere and in the game it really does feel larger than it actually is.

Hand's the best part of the overworld in Link's Awakening was Animal Village. I also had a pretty high appreciation for the part where you collect leaves to enter the slime dungeon.

Some really interesting bits of trivia about one of Biowares best games. Did you play Knight of the Old Republic on XBox or PC? What did you think of it?

Wanted to share with you guys something I had printed to advertise The Cheerful Ghost Roundtable. I'll be handing them out soon and tell you about it in the next couple of days!

http://cheerfulghost.com/roundtable

In the latest episode of Game Show, Jamin Warren talks about how League of Legends has dealt with trolls. League uses a Tribunal to deal with trolls and it seems to have really impacted the game in a positive way.

When Cheerful Ghost launched I checked out the League of Legends community and it was a cesspool of horrible. Using both positive and negative reinforcements RIOT is doing something that seems to have worked.

As always, another rad episode of Game/Show.

"When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players. "

I think many players will be really happy about this, myself included. The best way I found to get great gear in Diablo III is to grind for gold and buy items. I am happy to see the new loot 2.0 system as well and can't wait for the axe to fall on the Auction House.

The Auction House will end on March 18, 2014.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/10974978/

Interesting video covering the history of Half-life and Valve. Much has been said about both topics but this video covers them well including who was the inspiration for Gordon Freeman.

Gabe Newell gave a rousing talk at Linux Con today. He talked more about Valve's strategy with games, Windows, consoles and Linux. It is all shown in the video above(warning, it was recorded and put on YouTube so it isn't perfect).

A few note worthy bits from the talk:

• Valve is announcing hardware next week


• Valve is sinking resources into Linux in terms of development in SDL, LLVM & a Linux debugger


• They are working on something in mobile


• Valve wants to unify the mobile, PC and living room experience so they are not all different


• They want the future of technology to be built on open technologies

All of that sounds great and I am very interested in seeing what news they drop next week. But a Steam mobile handheld? The future looks very interesting.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/16/1924232/gabe-newell-talks-linux-as-the-future-of-games-at-linuxcon-na