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.

2762 Posts

Get Borderlands 3 For Free on the PC Epic Games Store!
The Epic Games Store continues to give away free games and this months game is something special in Borderlands 3. While the reviews are not perfect, it's garnered fairly universal praise for it's gameplay and improved mechanics. Some took point with the characters and story but if you love Borderlands, this is a solid entry to the series. Oh and it's free.

Sadly, it's not free in perpetuity so head over to the Epic Store and grab it before the deal expires on May 26th!

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/borderlands-3

Nintendo Switch Sports Brings A Classic Wii Game To The Switch!
Switch Sports launched last month and I picked it up the day my kid got sick. I figured if we were going to be inside a lot, Switch Sports would be a great thing to play and be active. Simply put, if you enjoyed Wii Sports and have a Switch, Nintendo Switch Sports is a must purchase. In my opinion, Wii Sports was one of the best video games of all time and the fact that it was a pack-in title was a great idea that caused the Wii to be incredibly popular.

So far, I've only played a handful of matches of Bowling with my son and his far favorite is Chambara (a game where you swipe swords at each other until someone falls over into the water). Nintendo Switch Sports uses the joy cons that operate similarly to the Wii Remotes. I'd say the joy cons are just as good as the remotes but the problem I find is that when the Switch is behind my TV they are way less accurate. It's not a hard problem to fix, I just put the switch in front of my TV but it's a bit annoying and I wish the bluetooth on the Switch was a bit more powerful than it's not for the joy cons. If you have muscle memory built up from Wii Sports, Switch Sports controls are slightly different. It's not a big deal but we found ourselves bowling wrong quite a few times before the new control scheme clicked for us (you don't let go to release the bowling ball).

Any video game that's fun and gets people up and moving is great in my book. Wii Sports was a classic game and Switch Sports really does seem to have taken that game, gave it a great modern coat of paint and put it on the Switch. I've heard Golf is coming as a free update later and that seems like a fun thing to try. I'm surprised it took Nintendo this long to update Wii Sports & Wii Sports Resort but I'm happy they did and the results are quite fun.

Evil Comes Everywhere: Diablo Immortal Launches on Mobile & PC June 2th!
Diablo Immortal is coming to mobile and PC June 2nd, which is good news for everyone. They are billing it as the first MMOARPG Diablo game which, if mostly accurate, seems great. While a lot of mobile games are fun I don't play them long as I burn out pretty quickly on the light mechanics and progression blocking that free to play games typically come with. With all that said, it should be fun to have PC & mobile cross play and the game looks like Diablo III on your phone and if it's in that ballpark the game should be quite fun.

"A battle for the ages draws near. The Burning Hells’ flames flicker and crackle in anticipation, an omen they seek to communicate—Diablo Immortal™ is coming! On June 2, brave adventurers in most regions* will take up arms against the demonic forces of Skarn, Lord of Damnation, as they uncover events taking place between Diablo II and Diablo III.

Community feedback has been imperative to the development of Immortal and has influenced the game in many ways, as you’ll come to see. One recurring piece of feedback we especially took to heart was the desire to play Immortal on PC. Well, we are most pleased to announce this has been made a reality—in addition to releasing on Android and iOS devices, Diablo Immortal will also be free-to-play for Windows PC upon launch in Open Beta.

This is an especially proud moment for us to announce, as Immortal represents a handful of firsts for both the Diablo franchise and Blizzard. Upon launch, Immortal will be the largest Diablo game we’ve released, home to more distinct zones, unique encounters, and satisfying ways to cut down demons than ever before. Immortal is also the first Blizzard game to be built from the ground up for mobile, delivering the same AAA demon-slaying experience you love but to be played from anywhere.

Lastly, Immortal is the first MMOARPG Diablo game—providing the opportunity to socialize, play, and explore the world freely with other players in ways never previously experienced across the Diablo franchise."

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo-immortal/23787371/diablo-immortal-a-new-plane-of-hell-opens-for-mobile-and-pc-on-june-2

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo-immortal/23797159/making-diablo-immortal-for-pc

“Misery Accomplished” Welcomes You To Things Not Turning Out The Way You Thought
If you didn’t know, back in 1998 I started a band called Roy with my friend Paul. We played a lot of shows in Portland back then and released a few songs and some albums. After a very long hiatus we’re back and I’m posting about the new album here and I hope you are into hearing about it. If not, feel free to skip this for the video game and film stuffs you usually come here for.

Misery Accomplished is an album about achieving your goal and it not turning out the way you thought. Some people might call it a concept album but it might be more appropriately thought of as a reality album. When I started writing the songs for Misery Accomplished a year ago we were mid pandemic and I had no idea I was going to go through a divorce. I thought the concept of Misery Accomplished was for someone else, and in a way I was lauding my political and social thoughts that were for people that had nothing to do with me. Thing is, when my life took a turn for the horrible, Misery Accomplished became something I thought about a lot and only recently realized is the most autobiographical thing I’ve ever created.

A new Roy album is something I’ve thought about for a few years but decided to actually do when my friend Will gave me his old Casio LK-100 keyboard. To-date we’ve only used one Casio keyboard and an acoustic guitar to write all Roy music. A new-to-me Casio keyboard felt fresh and I liked the idea of Roy dueling with Casio keyboards, which is a sound featured on nearly every track on the album. One day when I was with my son I plugged in the new keyboard Will gave me and started writing an early chorus for “If JJ Abrams Rebooted the Little Mermaid.” Finley immediately started singing it with me and it was one of the most fun moments I’ve had in my life. I don’t think Misery Accomplished would exist if he didn’t keep singing the song over the next few days. Finley is featured on the chorus to “If JJ Abrams Rebooted the Little Mermaid” and I hope to do more songs with him.

When I initially wrote the song “Chris Hemsworth Abs” I thought the song was a joke about things other people experience. Darkness? Pain? Grief? It was a song where the punchline was what other people experienced but as time passed I realized it was everything I was going through. During the worst parts of the divorce I listened and played that song a lot. It was a song written by a much happier me and it felt like he was time traveling to sing it to me when I was at my worst. Literal time travel? No. But it’s a song that makes me feel better when things feel like shit.

When we were writing songs for Misery Accomplished Paul decided to take front and center singing and writing duties on two songs in “Mammoth Army” and “Freedom (Freight Train)”. “Mammoth Army” is a song he’s been working on here and there for over 10 years and I’m glad he finally finished it. The song recklessly flies down the track as it musically smashes into everything and to-date is one of the most involved and well constructed Roy songs we have. It feels like a full journey start to finish and it’s nothing like a song I’d write.

I wrote the song “Netflix and Die” on my iPad and didn’t think of it as much more than a funny take on the popular phrase Netflix and chill. But recontextualizing the song for where I am now, it’s a song wondering if I'd ever experience a relationship in the way others do. It’s hard to process the loneliness of a relationship in its ending death march that takes years without end.

Start to finish Misery Accomplished was only eight songs and after the worst parts of life happened we added two more to it. After the song “Misery Accomplished II” the bullshit ends and I take a breath and we wrap the album on two songs Freedom (Freight Train) and Freedom (Hurricane). A few weeks after my wife told me she wanted a divorce, in one of the lowest points in my life I wrote a song and recorded it on my iPhone and sent it to Paul. I was going through some heavy feelings and I wrote something in all of that. I want to be really clear here, I absolutely did not want to put Freedom (Hurricane) on Misery Accomplished. Over the months we worked on the album Paul said I should record it and I went through several drafts of the song, changing it to be a bit more upbeat. He kept suggesting I record a version like I did when I was at my lowest point and that’s what’s on the album. Me at the lowest point I’ve ever experienced writing a song about the only thing that mattered, my relationship with my friend. Paul decided to take that concept and wrote a completely different version of the song called Freedom (Freight Train). Thing is, even though his version came after and is a variation on mine, I think his is a better song. That said, I really enjoy that it’s two perspectives on the same relationship. I think that’s what relationships are or should be, two people saying the same thing in a way where both messages become something better, unique and also the same.

You can listen to Misery Accomplished today on nearly all the music and streaming platforms. Head over to our website to get all the links to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Bandcamp, YouTube and more.

https://royband.com/misery-accomplished.html

Minecraft Is Still Really Fun To Play With Kids!
I love playing video games with my son. He's almost 6 recently we got into Minecraft together. I found the physical Switch version of Minecraft on sale for $20 and figured that was a great time to pick up the game and play it with him. He immediately was hooked on the game and we went about building our first house inside a mountain and crafting our area to our mutual satisfaction. Minecraft is a well understood and widely played game at this point so nothing I'm saying is news to anyone but it's fun experiencing awesome things for the first time with your kid. Our cave house was built up to be a small castle of sorts so we can peer over the edge at night and see all the Zombies, Creepers and Spiders that spawn below. We've also built up a quite large wheat field, animal pen and treehouse above it such that we can hear and watch our animals make way too much noise at night.

It's impressive how many little updates have come to Minecraft since I played it first years and years ago now. The Switch version is incredible and Mojang has taken great lengths to not only make the game playable on a controller but actually quite fun. The Switch version is slower than the PC version in terms of loading but once you are in the game things run along quite well.

We don't have grand ambitions for our area but it would be pretty cool to find where the Villagers are staying around us. Since we're on the Switch I can't do a map hack to peek where that might be and I haven't found a way to zero in on where they may be so for now, I think we'll have to just explore a lot around us.

For now, we are having a lot of fun playing the game together, or I suppose I play the game and we talk about what we want to do. At some point when he's older I image we'll play multiplayer Minecraft in our own world but for now it's fun to just share in building our house and world together this way.

The Greatest Ninja Turtles Game Collection Brawls It's Way to PC And Consoles This Year!
The Ninja Turtles video games are some of the most iconic retro arcade and console games around. As a young lad I spent way too many quarters playing the Ninja Turtles Arcade game and later got Ninja Turtles on the NES. NES Ninja Turtles, I'd argue, is a good game that's incredibly difficult. Still, I played it so much I made it to the Technodrome a handful of times but never could quite complete it.

Now that the new Ninja Turtles brawler Shredders Revenge has blown up the gaming scene with a lot of interest it seems Konami is looking to keep that going with the release of The Cowabunga Collection featuring 13 classic Ninja Turtles games including the Ninja Turtles Arcade Game, Turtles in Time, SNES Tournament Fighters, The Hyperstone Heist and The Manhattan Project. This is even getting a physical release at launch so if you looking to add this to your game collection, you can. And with a $40 launch price tag that's about a dollar a game so why not?

The thirteen games coming in the collection are:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super Nintendo)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Super Nintendo)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Sega Genesis)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Sega Genesis)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan (Game Boy)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers (Game Boy)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (Game Boy)

https://www.konami.com/games/tmntcollection/

DF Retro Goes Deep On The Splatterhouse Series
Splatterhouse was always one of those games that was so absolutely gory, so disgustingly vile I could never get my parents to let me rent it. Needless to say I never really played it until it came on a Namco Arcade pack my friend Will gave me his extra copy of on Switch. Splatterhouse looks like a mindless arcade game that might have leaned to hard on the shock horror vibe and less on gameplay but that's far from the case. Not only is Splatterhouse on arcade incredibly fun to play, it's controls are really top tier and in some ways, outshine classics such as the first Castlevania.

Steam Deck Launches To Incredible Reviews!
The Steam Deck has finally started shipping to nearly universal praise. I think they only downside to the Steam Deck I've heard of is that if you play hefty graphical games at 60fps the battery life doesn't last very long. Valve has some toggles to downscale games to get more battery life, but if you can only get an hour or two from any modern intensely graphical game.

To date, Valve has released some innovative hardware that hasn't quite achieved mainstream status. The Steam Deck seems like it might be the magic hardware that a lot of gamers may get. That said, if you signed up for the Steam Deck late in the game it might take you a long time to finally get one. Let me know in the comments if you plan to pick this up or if Valve's latest hardware won't be something you get.

**Update: I'll drop coverage of the Steam Deck in the comments I find interesting so check that if you want**

The Bethesda.net PC Launcher Takes An Arrow To The Knee
https://i.imgur.com/8WpTrDk.jpg
Bethesda sent out an email to all of it's PC launcher (think Steam but only Bethesda games) users about the service being shutdown this year. I'm wondering if this move is part of the fallout from the recent Microsoft acquisition as Microsoft already has a storefront and they are also very happy to use Steam as a platform alongside it. In a PC landscape where each large publisher builds it's own bespoke launcher it's nice to see some consolidation. Steam is the clear leader in the PC landscape so I don't love seeing everything move to one service entirely, I also don't mind seeing my Bethesda.net games move over to it.

Goodbye Bethesda.net PC launcher, we barely knew before ye!

You can read the whole email Bethesda.net sent to it's players below:

"We’re saying goodbye to the Bethesda.net Launcher this year. We would like to thank you for your support and assure you that all of your games are safe. If you’re not playing PC games through the Bethesda.net launcher then your work is done here. Thanks for reading! If you do have games through the Bethesda.net launcher, don’t worry. Starting in early April you’ll be able to migrate your games and Wallet to your Steam account. For more details on what this process will look like, read on.

You have plenty of time to plan and begin migrating your Bethesda.net library to your Steam account. The migration to Steam will include your game library and Wallet – meaning you will not lose anything from your Bethesda.net account. Many games will also have their saves migrated, with a few requiring some manual transfers. For games that require it, you will still use your Bethesda.net login to sign in to play. Your Bethesda.net account will not be lost and will still be accessible on our website and in-game, and we will continue supporting all Bethesda.net accounts with our future titles.

NEXT STEPS

In early April, you will be able to initiate the migration process following detailed instructions we will have available to you then.

We expect you to have a lot of questions and encourage you to take a look at our comprehensive FAQ. For those of you looking for questions specific to Fallout 76, we also have a Fallout 76-specific FAQ on Fallout.com.

Until May, you will still be able to access and play your games on the Bethesda.net Launcher, but we suggest that you start the migration process as soon as it’s available. "

https://bethesda.net/en/article/2RXxG1y000NWupPalzLblG/sunsetting-the-bethesda-net-launcher-and-migrating-to-steam

Splinter Coming To Ninja Turtles Shredders Revenge
Splinter is coming as a playable character to Ninja Turtles Shredders Revenge with the original Turtle Team and April O'Neil! I hope they announce more characters you can play, personally I'd love to play as Casey Jones. That said, I imagine they might release more characters later on as DLC depending on how the games does but it would be nice to get a hefty roster at launch too.

What characters would you like to see join up?