jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2755 Posts

I have a few extra DLC bits from PAX I want to give away. I
I have a few extra DLC bits from PAX I want to give away. I only have a few to hand out so only ask for one to start and when this Friday rolls around you can come back and claim the rest.

The goods:


  • [ 1 Claimed ] 2 Firefall Beta Keys

  • 1 Smite Beta Key

  • [ Claimed ] 1 League of Legend Champ Skin (Arcade Sona)

  • [ Claimed ] 1 Planetside 2 Beta Key

  • [ 1 Claimed ] 2 Offensive Combat Beta Keys



Enjoy!

In the celebration of the Cheerful Ghost Borderlands 2 Haiku
In the celebration of the Cheerful Ghost Borderlands 2 Haiku Contest finishing up tomorrow I decided to stuff a bunch of awesome Borderlands 2 news in a post for everyone.

If the Haiku contests wasn't enough chance for you to win awesome Borderlands 2 stuff, checkout the Gearbox "Weapon of Choice" contest. Check it out by the link below:

https://apps.facebook.com/borderlandscon/contests/286924

The Totally Rad Show recently interviewed the Borderlands 2 lead writer and the video is above. Its a pretty interesting conversation and he drops the details on a fun quest made entirely of Top Gun references.

A few sites in the game press have been privvy to early copies of Borderlands 2 so a few very positive reviews are hitting the web. Some bring some more definition to the game, IGN recently let loose some info about the bonus "Golden Chest" you get if you pre-order the game.

Snip:

"The chest will drop some very rare (purple) loot once open – loot that is scaled to your character, Gearbox says. So the potency of the loot within is dependent on the level of your character when you open it – and while we know how hard it is to not open a chest full of loot in a game where that is one of the primary goals, you may want to hold off as long as you can on this golden chest."

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/13/borderlands-2-golden-key-unlocks-this-chest-in-sanctuary/

I will be eagerly getting my copy after work on the 18th and running home to toss the game to pick a fight with Handsome Jack.

I played Age of Empires Online when it launched a year ago
I played Age of Empires Online when it launched a year ago but it didn't stick with me. At PAX this year someone handed me an Age of Empires Online card and recently redeemed it on Steam and gave the game another go. Before I had to download the game through Games for Windows Live but it is now all managed through Steam. You need a Games for Windows Live account but if you already have an XBox account that may work as well.

I encourage you give Age of Empires Online a shot because the game is very fun. They recently released an update that fixes some gripes people had with the game at launch. The game has since adopted a model similar to League of Legends in that you can outright buy Empire Points to get the later Civilizations OR you can do things in game to earn Empire points.

Age of Empires Online has a very unique stylized art style. It can also run on older hardware which is nice for some with older gaming rigs. As I played the game I noticed the game feels much more at home with Age of Empires 2 than any of the latter games. After reading more about it, the developers modeled Age of Empires Online after Age 2, which is a great homage to the classic play style.

It sounds odd that a MMORTS would even work at all, but they pulled it off very well. I am only level 6 and there are tons of quests still to complete and things in the game I haven't yet tried. The early level quests are things like, "build a few farms" and "go kill some bandits" but then the game opens up and soon enough you are tasked with dispatching the enemy in the typical Age of Empires fashion to gold and xp.

The game offers 1v1 and 2v2 PvP after you hit a certain level. You can also go into Skirmish modes and try your hand with all flavor of bots or play co-op with friends. Let me know what you think of the game and if enough people are interested, it might be fun to play it some night together!

Decided to take a break from Skyrim and the PC and decided
http://i.imgur.com/cUaos.jpg
Decided to take a break from Skyrim and the PC and decided to play a console game. I decided to start a new game on 2009's Wolfenstein by Raven/iD. Back with I picked up the game I was gaming about 99% on my PS3 but now I am about 80% PC. Right away I noticed the 720p graphics and some lagging game-play at times. The game is very well done, its just not as sparkly as the PC games I am playing right now. I do have it on the PC and will try it out to see how different the versions are.

Raven/iD really polished the game on the ps3 into a really fun shooter. They added some fun mechanics to the game in the way of gold you can collect for in game item upgrades. You also get Veil Powers that allow you certain fun abilities in the game. One that comes to mind is the ability to create a shield around your player to block most incoming bullets for a time. The shooting is very well done too as you have some fun WW2 guns as well as some "veil energy" enhanced lazer gun type weaponry.

I guess I am sucker for killing Nazi's and Wolfenstein doesn't disappoint in this way. Add in a paranormal element and BJ Blaskowitz and the game feels like something out of an Indian Jones film.

With the passage of September 15th we will see an end to the
http://i.imgur.com/F7p21.jpg
With the passage of September 15th we will see an end to the Cheerful Ghost Borderlands 2 Haiku Contest. We have been very pleased with the results and have had fun reading and voting on your entries! Please get all your friends to vote and your submissions in by Sept. 15th @ 4p EST.

You can read over the original post here:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/485

Someone asked for some clarification on the rules for entry. Specifically if we would allow someone to win if the Haiku was not properly formatted. After conferring with the other judge on this contest and reading the original wording we have decided that we will allow a improperly formatted Haiku to win this time. With our next contest we will be much more explicit about this in the future. The original wording of the post compelled people to craft a Haiku appropriately but it was not an explicit requirement.

The contest is still anyone's game as there is 6 days left to go.

That said, we will not accept multiple user account votes. I have noticed that some users have created duplicate accounts and voted on their own Haiku. According to the rules, each duplicate vote(even if it looks like its from a different account, but its actually you) will not be counted.

Here are all the entries so far, please look over them and vote on the one you like the most in the comments section of the Haiku post with a "+1." Remember, you can only vote for one.

Maju: http://cheerfulghost.com/Maju/posts/543
POP3D: http://cheerfulghost.com/POP3D/posts/531
XeSpace52: http://cheerfulghost.com/XeSpace52/posts/529
RadaR: http://cheerfulghost.com/RadaR/posts/518
vdogmr25: http://cheerfulghost.com/vdogmr25/posts/511
WittyAdrian: http://cheerfulghost.com/WittyAdrian/posts/510
Dark_Dragon: http://cheerfulghost.com/Dark_Dragon/posts/507
Adym: http://cheerfulghost.com/Adym/posts/504
Kurrus: http://cheerfulghost.com/Kurrus/posts/503
Axel_Miller: http://cheerfulghost.com/Axel_Mller/posts/502
Shierzhi: http://cheerfulghost.com/Shierzhi/posts/499
Jacob_Richardson: http://cheerfulghost.com/Jacob_Richardson/posts/495
Jason_C: http://cheerfulghost.com/Jason_C/posts/494
Journ: http://cheerfulghost.com/Journ/posts/490
Reginald_Coop: http://cheerfulghost.com/Reginald_Coop/posts/489
Joshua_Aerni: http://cheerfulghost.com/Joshua_Aerni/posts/488
hardeyez: http://cheerfulghost.com/hardeyez/posts/487
Brav: http://cheerfulghost.com/Brav/posts/552
Jermatoo: http://cheerfulghost.com/Jermatoo/posts/551

If I didn't include you Haiku in the list above, let me know and I will add it!

Bethesda just released more details of what will be shipping
http://i.imgur.com/a3z8o.jpg
Bethesda just released more details of what will be shipping with Doom 3: BFG Edition. A snip of some interesting bits:

"ONLINE multiplayer for Xbox 360 and PS3:

DOOM: 2-4 players per map
DOOM II: 2-4 players per map
DOOM 3 and Resurrection of Evil: 2-4 players per map
Lost Mission: N/A

OFFLINE multiplayer for Xbox 360 and PS3:

DOOM: 2-4 players per map
DOOM II: 2-4 players per map
DOOM 3 and Resurrection of Evil: N/A
Lost Mission: N/A

PC Multiplayer:

On PC online Multiplayer for DOOM 3 and Resurrection of Evil is 2-8 players.
On PC there is no multiplayer options for Doom and Doom II."

Bummed that the PS3 version won't ship with split-screen multiplayer. Bethesda notes that the reason for that is Doom 3: BFG Edition is based on the PC version and split-screen only shipped with the XBox version. Kind of a bummer thats not available for Doom 3 but I am seriously excited about playing Doom and Doom 2 split-screen with my friends!

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1408944-doom-3-bfg-edition-faq/

Fun is learning the ROH in your FUS from the Greybeards.

http://i.imgur.com/x01Oi.jpg
Fun is learning the ROH in your FUS from the Greybeards. Awesome is learning how to run really fast as a Dragon Shout and then using it right away. Rad is entering a sweet catacomb and having some statues rise out of the water.

The above screen grab is right out of a sweet moment where I entered the "final chamber" of a dungeon trying to find something for the Greybeards. As I entered the room statues rose up from the water and I was really having fun with it. Bethesda is good at crafting those moments and I sure felt that at times with Fallout 3.

That said, I made the tough choice the other day to travel WITH A COMPANION! Seriously though, I want to be the loner in Skyrim. I want to travel the endless expanse by myself, survive off the land and catch butterflies all by lonesome. That's the way I want to play my Dragonborn, she is a loner than can take on the world. Thing is, the game is really hard that way and I won't drop down the difficulty. So I capitulated and now I roll with Lydia. Lydia is a very apt knight person, she follows me around and joins the battle and keeps quiet. From time to time she clears her throat but I think deep down she knows I prefer keeping to myself in Skyrim.

And I do. Sometimes ill just walk a direction because I can. A few times a cougar or bear sort of just runs out of the brush and scares the shit out of me. A few times it ended in my death, but not while Lydia is on the case. I send those bears straight to Yogi in heaven. (ask me more about that if it makes little sense. I readily admit it doesn't even make much sense to me).

Recently I read an article from Time online about some new awesome Skyrim mods. Read it here, its pretty cool.

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/31/the-10-best-new-skyrim-mods-for-august-2012/#bear-musician

The Skyrim community keeps bringing the awesome, but a few noteworthy points:


  • A Bear Musician Mod? Thank you Zeus!

  • A Space Travel Mod? I hope it comes with Chewbacca as the pilot!

  • A Frost Flame Spell? Jeez guys, what next an "up down" jump?

  • Skyrim footprints? I do have a lot of RAM free I guess!

  • Left hand rings? Cool.

  • Bat vampire travel? Only if I can make it so I sound like Count Chocula when I turn!

  • Skyrim School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Holy %#$$ing $@#$ that is incredible. Hogwarts in Skyrim? Big Harry Potter fan so that sounds incredible.



Seriously though, that stuff really does look cool and Skyrim on PC keeps on being one of the best games you can buy due to the community alone. Hope it has an even longer life to it in the coming years!

According to 2K the Mecromancer will be released October
http://i.imgur.com/XnqHP.jpg
According to 2K the Mecromancer will be released October 16th and will cost $10. That is, unless you pre-order Borderlands 2 then it will be free. Totally excited about picking up this class to try out, its not quite the Borderlands 2 normal class.

Gearbox also said they will be releasing at least 4 DLC packs for Borderlands 2 and if you wanted, you could purchase a season pass to all of it for $30 at game launch.

Nice to have options but, I don't know, is this a bit too much DLC talk before the game has even shipped? I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, its awesome to get great content, on the other hand...

Borderlands 2 is set to be released on September 18th.

One treat of PAX this year was being able to get my hands on
http://i.imgur.com/7kBPN.jpg
One treat of PAX this year was being able to get my hands on the new Doom 3 BFG Edition. The level they demoed was the bonus "lost mission" that will ship with the game. The system I played on was Doom 3 BFG Edition in 3D on the XBox 360.

I didn't have to wait in line too long and in a few minutes I put on the 3D glasses and extremely comfortable earphones and I was of exploring. Took me a minute or so to orient myself to the 360 controls but in a minute I was having fun. I have never enjoyed playing a game in 3D as much as this and I was really enjoying how immersive the 3D was. Switching weapons was fun, shooting the bad guys far away was fun... everything was really... well... fun in 3D! This is a pretty new thing for me as my vision doesn't lend itself to enjoying 3D much less actually being able to experience it but somehow, it worked really well.

The game never suffered from slow down or lag, it was all very "John Carmack smooth" on the 360. This kind of thing is pretty apparent to me as I was walking around PAX and other more simple DLC games had some serious frame rate issues compared to Doom 3 BFG Edition. I remember walking by one game and @chowda and I both commented how laggy it looked for being a simple downloadable title.

That said, I noticed a few other things I wasn't in love with when I played the demo. The game was easy. I hope it was just someone putting the game into wimp mode or something because it wasn't as much fun as the original in this respect. The original Doom 3 wasn't impossible, but it was challenging and you had to choose your weapon wisely and conserve on ammo somewhat. The game had liberal amounts of ammo and I got the really good guns way faster than I did in the original game. Getting the sweet guns faster makes sense as the "hidden mission" is a fairly short campaign. I am pretty sure the game will ship with difficulty modes that one can crank up, so I am not too concerned, it was just something I noticed.

That said, I hope Doom 3 BFG Edition comes with difficulty levels and that those levels offer more of a challenge I experienced. All in all though, I am very excited to get this game and am seriously considering picking up some 3D glasses to compliment it.

http://i.imgur.com/mVaHo.jpg

Oh right, the flashlight is totally gone in favor of you being able to flip a gun light on each of your weapons. I think this is a mistake, but making a game more accessible for a modern audience is most likely a good move, even if it changes something I loved about the original.

That all said, I am more excited that I was before about picking this title up and will enjoy heading back to Mars base to make right what was made wrong by the horribly uncouth Malcolm Betruger.

One of the interesting new things I checked out at PAX was
http://i.imgur.com/Y1OcF.jpg
One of the interesting new things I checked out at PAX was the Wii U. I watched someone play a game where they explored/sniped with the new Wii U tablet controller. I took a quick picture of him giving it a go:

http://i.imgur.com/uj1d0.jpg

I was interested in talking to someone from Nintendo about the Wii U to ask a few questions. A Nintendo rep asked if I wanted to play a game and I said I wanted to take a picture of the "normal" controller without a screen on it. He said that I couldn't but he could "clarify things" for me. I said ok and asked him...

"So you obviously have two controllers here, the tablet one with a screen and then the other that has no screen. Will they both ship with the new Wii U?"

The Nintendo rep said that information hasn't been shared with anyone yet and that I should check the website for more information. I kind of wanted to get some "clarity" on the non tablet controller and asked another.

"So the controller without the tablet screen, that's kind of interesting, Nintendo had one they released on the Wii for the classic Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, is this for that or is this kind of a new direction for Nintendo away from the Wii-mote?"

The Nintendo rep said that the controller existed and it had a use for the games they were demoing but didn't say more than that. Felt bad for the guy at this point, he couldn't really say much about anything. I thanked him and went to another station and took some quick pictures of the Wii U and other stuff.

A few observations about the Wii U...


  • The size is physically smaller than my first run PS3. The Wii U is rumored to be about as powerful as the current gen PS3 or XBOX 360.

  • It has the red sync button available on the front in plain view. The Wii has this hidden behind a flip panel.

  • Bigger air vents on the side. The Wii had them, but the Wii looks smaller than the Wii U.



I really wish I could have flipped the top down to see what it sported underneath. I wonder if there are SD or USB ports up front?

http://i.imgur.com/C9gVz.jpg [a picture of the new nintendo controller with no tablet screen. someone else took this, sorry]
http://i.imgur.com/1Symo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gPtVT.jpg [sorry this is grainy I had to take it quick]

Unsure how the new Wii U will fit in with my gaming future, if at all. Still, it could be awesome, I just don't know much about it and Nintendo wasn't really sharing much to make me too excited about it.

What do you think of the new Wii U?