jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Elder Scrolls Legends Releases On iPad

Elder Scrolls Legends released on iPad today and with that Bethesda also dropped a schedule for the rollout of the game on even more platforms. Elder Scrolls Legends will drop on Android tablets in April, Mac in May and phone in mid 2017. This seems to be a popular release strategy for all the new digital card games and Bethesda doesn't seem to want to be left in Skyrim on this one(get it, because Skyrim is cold.... please don't beat me up).

Super Meat Boy Gets A Physical Release With IndieBox

If you love Meat Boy and want to have a box copy of it along with a ton of swag to go along with it you should check out IndieBox. This month they are packing up Meat Boy in the "Super Dumb Boy" collectors edition packaging alongside a DRM free copy of the game, 2 disc soundtrack and more.

https://www.theindiebox.com/

Evolution Complete: StarCraft Remastered In 4K Launches In The Koprulu Sector This Summer!

The rumors were true and StarCraft & Broodwar are currently being remastered by Blizzard for a PC & Mac release this summer. This looks to be a full remastering of the original game with new crisp HD art and an updated engine for modern LAN and Internet gameplay. Next week Blizzard will drop an update to the original StarCraft game to get ready for the remastered version this summer:

"In preparation for StarCraft: Remastered, Blizzard Entertainment will update StarCraft: Brood War later this week to version 1.18. The update will include bug fixes and improvements, including the ability to rebind keys; observer mode; modern anti-cheat measures; compatibility improvements for Windows 7, 8.1, and 10; and more. Once the update is live, StarCraft Anthology, which includes the original game and the Brood War expansion, will be free to download and play. "

StarCraft is one of my all time favorite games and it getting this HD remastering update is incredible. To date some of the best HD remasterings of games have given them new life in a world where running them on modern systems is difficult and the old StarCraft is no exception. Blizzard updating the multiplayer means that it will be easier to play StarCraft with friends over the Internet, which up till now has been pretty difficult.

"In StarCraft Remastered, we’ve kept everything you love about StarCraft, but upgraded everything else.

Detailed visuals - Zoom out for a Battlecruiser’s view of the battlefield, or zoom in to see the veins on a Mutalisk’s wings.

Stylized Briefings - Race-themed comic book interludes tell the original story with a fresh coat of paint.

Amped Audio -The original soundtrack and dialogue, re-recorded and rejuvenated."

I've wondered if Blizzard would use the original engine to do a possible retelling of StarCraft or use the new StarCraft II engine and it seems this is a remaking of the original game with much update love. From the many behind the scenes videos about StarCraft i've heard the codebase is hard to work with so this is a pretty large effort and I can't wait to pick it up when it drops this summer. I also hope Blizzard releases a collectors edition, that would be an incredible way to launch this retelling of the game.

https://starcraft.com/en-us/
https://blizzard.gamespress.com/

Travis Admin wrote on 03/26/2017 at 06:09pm

I was just coming to post this! I hope we get the same kind of treatment for Diablo II and others. Starcraft is coming up on 20 years old... 20 years! It's amazing to see it played so heavily still, and getting this kind of update.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/27/2017 at 01:05am

Yeah, Travis is right, it was about 20 years ago (apparently) that I got my copy of Starcraft. I couldn't find it within my small local area, so I actually travelled half an hour to a Wal-Mart in West Virginia to get it. I can't remember which box cover I chose, I think it was Protoss or Terran.

This is good news and what surprises me more is that it's supposed to be out this summer. I enjoyed the game and the expansion. I liked the cut scenes and funny things units and characters say. Remember, "I love you Sarge!" LOL

However, I'm not sure when or if I might pick this up. I enjoyed SCII, but the recent additions were a bit too difficult for me and I ended up cheating. This kind of turned me off a little bit. I remember using cheat codes on the original. I don't remember it being extremely difficult. It's been a long time since I've played it, so I don't recall very much very well.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/27/2017 at 03:12am

The only missions I remember I cheated on in SC was the ending mission where the Protoss team up with the Terrans against the Zerg. That was nuts and I just typed in the code to have it be over. And it was. And I was confused by the ending.

Go figure.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/19/2017 at 06:30am

Starcraft is now free with a new patch. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/starcraft-goes-free-today-with-new-patch-its-first/1100-6449431/

Travis Admin wrote on 04/19/2017 at 01:10pm

And when the remaster comes out we'll be able to play multiplayer across this version and the remaster.

The one thing that I question is that CD-key banning is the most effective tool they had against hackers. They don't have that now since someone can just make a new account rather than having to pony up money for it.

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The New Season Of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Is Happening And It's Beautiful!

Netflix dropped the trailer for the new season 11 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 today and it looks... bonkers incredible. As a longtime MSTie from watching it late night on Comedy Central in the 90's I can say that getting a new season is pretty magical. I bought the huge pack of episodes on Vimeo, funded the Kickstarter and bought a Tom Servo kit because... you know... it's the greatest show of all time and it all needed to be done. The work that needs to be done now though is unpacking that new trailer which you need to watch right now so stop reading and get to clicking!

It looks like Jonah works for Gizmonic institute as a space garbage man.

As he is doing his job Kinga Forrester and Son of TV's Frank trick him to responding to an SOS and make him watch bad moves on the Moon 13 research station. It looks Like Kinga is "reopening her familes most legendary experiment." I never got why they needed to run this experiment so maybe they will explain that? Or maybe it's just a show and I should relax. Seems likely.

The show looks glorious in HD. I was wondering if the show would feel wrong in crisp HD but it looks incredible. They balanced the right amount of old school hand made feel with the camp these terrible movies are known for.

One of the movies they will riff is 1961 monster film Reptilicus. Seems like a perfect fit for MST3K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilicus

April 14th is WAY too long to wait.

So far series creator Joel Hodgson has been light on what he's revealed from the new season and this trailer seems to drop a ton of small details. Can't wait to see what else is revealed in the upcoming weeks and if we get a new trailer I will post it here for our dissected enjoyment.

If you haven't watched MST3K and are curious I recommend you checkout the classic episode they recently added to Netflix. I recommend starting with Pod People and after that hitting the rest of the Joel episodes.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80173925

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 03/23/2017 at 02:44pm

I still need to catch up on MST1K and MST2K

Travis Admin wrote on 03/23/2017 at 02:47pm

I'm so looking forward to this. I haven't watched a ton of the old MST3K but I've seen some, and I've seen a lot of movies with RiffTrax, which is kinda their follow-up. It's all riffing on movies, without the plot, but it's still great.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 03/23/2017 at 03:46pm

I hear it takes place in the not too distant future.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/24/2017 at 04:52am

I still want to pitch that if you have stepped away for a bit and want a recommendation on one to watch on Netflix that you start with Pod People. It's a very special kind of bad movie and the host segments and everything else makes it a very special episode.

It's also perfect for watching late at night so if you don't know what to watch... POD PEOPLE! Trumpy will thank you(this is not a political reference, but if you watch the episode it will make more sense)

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/24/2017 at 05:23am

I've never seen this show, so I was kind of delighted to see it on Netflix when I joined. Perhaps I'll check it out sometime.

Oh and speaking of Netflix, I probably wouldn't have jumped on the Netflix train if it wasn't for Cheerful Ghost. :)

Travis Admin wrote on 03/24/2017 at 02:22pm

Greg I don't know how you existed without Netflix :D

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Seiken Densetsu Collection Coming to the Switch In Japan!

The Secret of Mana Collection is coming to the Nintendo Switch and so far it's Japan only. It features the Gameboy and two Super Nintendo entries that round out the classic collection. Stateside we got Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy Adventure only but if this collection comes to the states this will be the first time we get a proper port of Secret of Mana 2 / Seiken Densetsu 3. Because nerds can dream right?

Faeria Has Finally Launched!

After spending a year in early access and a beta period Faeria has finally hit 1.0! Faeria is a free to play digital card game that is if like Magic The Gathering got together with a board game and had a kid that liked video games. It's a really fun blending of the digital card craze that seems to find a very organic flow with a hexagon board that you need to place land on strategically to win. It's kind of a hard game to describe so I've linked to a Kripparian video above where he talks about the game, it hitting 1.0 and then plays a couple games showing off how it works.

Faeria differentiates itself from other games like Hearthstone in that it is way more generous with free to play. For instance daily quests are things like "Play 10 yellow cards" that give you 200 to 600 gold. Since a pack costs 1000 gold you can open packs a bit faster than in Hearthstone and since the game is more strategic, when you lose it doesn't feel as harsh as losing to RNG. Faeria also enhances free to play by offering daily login bonuses you can get by just checking in once a day. They've also included a very nice set of single player missions that show you how to play the game and give you a lot of starting gold and packs.

You can play Faeria right now for free on Steam on PC, Mac and Linux or iPad. They plan on launching Faeria on Android tablets soon as well as iPhone and Android, which should be great to expand it's player base. I seriously recommend you create an account and check out the game and if you do let me know and i'll send you an invite to the game so I can get some free packs as you play the game.

Oh and when you play the game you can use the codes "KrippFaeria" and "FaeriaKripp" to get a couple extra packs to open too!

https://www.faeria.com/news/patch-notes/134-faeria-is-now-released

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/19/2017 at 03:37am

I enjoyed Faeria up until a point. The last time I played I was working on my dailies, but I got blocked. I think I might not be high enough in levels to complete some of them. The only thing I could actually do required me to play against other people. That's what made me quit. Still, it's a good game and I recommend it for those that like such games. For people like me, it's good and fun, until you're forced to play against others (which I really despise). That said, congrats to Faeria on 1.0!!

Travis Admin wrote on 03/19/2017 at 03:39am

In a world where free-to-play card games are becoming a dime a dozen, it's nice to see a new take on it. This seems like the kind of thing I'd suck at but I'm going to give it a shot!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/19/2017 at 03:44am

Travis, I strongly recommend checking out the Faeria YouTube channel. They usually have good videos, such as how to build decks. I liked the yellow elemental cards, I think that kind of deck is usually referred to as a rush deck. It is pretty fun to rush at your opponent and beat them quickly, granted I mostly played against the AI.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/19/2017 at 03:50am

> In a world where free-to-play card games are becoming a dime a dozen, it's nice to see a new take on it. This seems like the kind of thing I'd suck at but I'm going to give it a shot!

I'm not particularly good but I still win a fair amount of the time against people with better decks than me in casual. I've played through a lot of the single player stuff and I haven't quiet completed it and am sort of saving it for later

That said, you can get a lot of milage out of the basic decks and it's a ton of fun. Plus, right now I haven't seen anyone be amazing yet. Since it's new still people aren't dominating things. At least I haven't seen that yet, but i'm not playing ranked.

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Automate Your Home With a Raspberry Pi And An Ocarina

Do you want to automate your home? Do you want to set all your home gadgets to start when you play your Ocarina? If you do then prepare to get inspired to live the dream as YouTuber Sufficiently Advanced wired his house to turn on the heater, turn on the lights, water his plants, turn on a smoke machine and more all though the mighty power of his Ocarina. Sufficiently Advanced seems to have built all this automation himself which makes this all the more impressive.

Everyones Favorite Game About Pure Evil Gets A Cool New Update

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/DGF0VMEI2C9T1489538279252.gif

Sometime after Diablo III Reaper of Souls I was hoping we'd get another proper expansion. It seems instead of getting a full expansion we've been getting a ton of updates that if you bundled them all up would equal a full expansion when you consider the Necromancer class coming this year. I still would love some more story to see what happens after Reaper of Souls and try and wrap up the whole thing that happened to Leia but... I have honestly no idea what the future of Diablo III is. That said, Blizzard still seems hell bent (rimshot) on updating it with really useful stuff and the latest 2.5.0 patch is icing on a cake made of... pure evil.

You should hit the blog post below for information on the full patch but the short of it is that there will be a new interface for crafting materials so they no longer take up inventory slots. That alone is worth the price of admission but 2.5.0 also contains The Armory which gives each of your characters 5 unique armor loadouts you can toggle between. On top of that they are adjusting the rate at which certain Adventure mode zones spawn making the ones that show up a bit too often less seen. There are a couple other things in 2.5.0 so hit the link below for more details.

And if Blizzard is reading this... please... Another couple acts of Diablo III please?

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20597130

Travis Admin wrote on 03/17/2017 at 01:59pm

Oh wow. Crafting materials no longer taking inventory slots gives me like two stash tabs! I'll have to log in to check this out. I don't want to start playing again until the necro update, I want to come into that fresh, but I gotta see this new QoL stuff.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/17/2017 at 09:41pm

Crafting materials not taking up inventory space is sweet! This update sounds good, but not something that makes me want to jump back in the game right now. I'm looking forward to the Necromancer. I like that there's still so much in the game that I haven't even touched. I've hardly done anything in Adventure mode, though I did try it out a few times.

I'd like to see another expansion for this game, but I won't be disappointed if it doesn't get one. I don't see the need to "wrap up" the whole Leia thing. I guess I just didn't feel that it was lacking closure.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/18/2017 at 04:49am

Y'all, Leia is the princess/general in Star Wars. You're thinking of Leah :D

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/18/2017 at 05:27am

I blame my error on Jon, he wrote "Leia" and so I wrote it that way, too. Infectious, Jon, you see your error is infectious. LOL

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/18/2017 at 04:41pm

> Y'all, Leia is the princess/general in Star Wars. You're thinking of Leah :D

Right, that person.

I have a way with getting people to do the wrong thing....

... suckers.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/20/2017 at 10:51am

Updated Necromancer video, the "Melee-nancer." It looks pretty cool. I'm really intrigued by what they said at the end, that this could be a real expansion, possibly with a new Act, not just a simple character class addition. They also said that while there is still no release date, the Necromancer will be joining the PTR "soon." I'm going to take a guess and (hope) that this will be out by summer time. Anyway, the video is short, but worth watching!! https://youtu.be/v8Kc8vNap-E

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/20/2017 at 05:15pm

I really wish they did a full act for the Necro update. Seems like they said there might be but Blizzard is being very cagey about it, which I understand. *fingers crossed*

But like Travis I want to wait until the Necro is out before I head back in the game to experience all the freshness at once.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/22/2017 at 02:55am

Blizz seemed to clear up all our questions with a recent update. TLDR; No new story updates.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20597129

"Is the Necromancer part of an expansion pack?

No, the Necromancer is part of a content pack which includes the class, an in-game pet, cosmetic wings, two additional character slots, two additional stash tabs (on PC), a portrait frame, pennant, banner, and a banner sigil.

It will, however, launch alongside a free major content patch that includes two new zones, Challenge Rifts, and more. These additional features will be available for all players with Diablo III: Reaper of Souls or the Ultimate Evil Edition.

How much will the pack cost?

We’re not ready to announce a price yet—we know you’re eager to find out, but we have a few more i’s to dot and t’s to cross before we can share.

When is the Necromancer coming to Diablo III?

We are currently aiming for the second half of 2017; when we have an official release date, we’ll certainly share it!"

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/22/2017 at 03:29am

Thanks, Jon! It sounds like what I expected it to be originally. The only part I'm not too fond of is the last sentence, "second half of 2017," as I expected this to come out during the first half. I'm still ok with that though. I have other games to play and there are also other games I'm waiting on (like Terraria: Otherworld).

Travis Admin wrote on 03/22/2017 at 03:52am

I think second half of 2017 has been their target for a while now, but I may be wrong. That said, I've gotten to a point in my life where I'm kinda patient with game updates/releases.

Speaking of patience and game releases... yeah Terraria Otherworld :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/23/2017 at 04:28am

> That said, I've gotten to a point in my life where I'm kinda patient with game updates/releases.

I agree. I have so many games already that I don't need anything to launch at any particular time. So developers can take as long as they need, i'll still be around when it gets done.

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The Disney Afternoon Collection Comes To PC April 18th

Capcom is bundling up all of NES games from it's 90's era cartoon show called the "Disney Afternoon Collection." Featuring DuckTales, DuckTales 2, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2, Darkwing Duck & TaleSpin this collection is more xtreme than Hammer Pants! Ok well nothing is more xtreme than Hammer Pants but this is a pretty good collection and will come to PC, XBone & PS4 on April 18th.

The collection also comes with a few new things such as a time attack, boss rush and rewind mode so when you mess up in DuckTales you can do it all over again. Not that you'd need to because DuckTales is actually pretty easy. DuckTales is a lot of fun but it's one of the easier Capcom platformers.

http://www.capcom-unity.com/official_capcom_blog/blog/2017/03/15/90s-kids-rejoice-the-disney-afternoon-collection-revisits-ducktales-rescue-rangers-and-more-retro-classics-on-april-18

Full Throttle Remastered Revs Up To Ride April 18th!

I'm impressed that Double Fine is continuing to remaster classic LucasArts games. Obviously it's a pretty good business choice as they keep doing it but as a fan of Day of the Tentacle & Full Throttle I get as much joy seeing these games ported to modern systems with as seeing the original Ghostbusters rescanned and mastered in 4K, which I got and is incredible. If you must pre-order it you can do that on GOG, which seems to get an exclusive pre-order window for these old LucasArts / DoubleFine remasters.

You might not have known but Jedi Master Mark Hamill voiced the villain Adrian Ripburger in Full Throttle which should be well more than you need to check this out as his voicework along with the rest of the cast is top notch. Full Throttle has always been panned as one of the easier LucasArts games but I never felt that was a failing of it as the story and characters were interesting enough to have me replay it multiple times.

https://www.gog.com/game/full_throttle_remastered

jdodson1

2759 Posts

Elder Scrolls Legends Releases On iPad

Super Meat Boy Gets A Physical Release With IndieBox

Evolution Complete: StarCraft Remastered In 4K Launches In The Koprulu Sector This Summer!

The New Season Of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Is Happening And It's Beautiful!

Seiken Densetsu Collection Coming to the Switch In Japan!

Faeria Has Finally Launched!

Automate Your Home With a Raspberry Pi And An Ocarina

Everyones Favorite Game About Pure Evil Gets A Cool New Update

The Disney Afternoon Collection Comes To PC April 18th

Full Throttle Remastered Revs Up To Ride April 18th!