jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Terrible Job, Missing People And a Crazy Cult Make Knuckle Sandwich Look Delicious

Cough. Yeah, well you know I couldn't really help making that pun so... anyways, let's not count this too far against me ok? Anyways, oh right Knuckle Sandwich is a great new upcoming RPG game from Indie developer Andrew Brophy that just dropped on Steam Greenlight.

"Knuckle Sandwich is an ａｄｖｅｎｔｕｒｅ／ｒｐｇ thing where you play as a young man who starts working at a run down diner. His job sucks and his boss isn't much chop either! Luckily, people from around town start to go missing and a hella mysterious cult appears and they're looking for someone who seems dangerous.

Wait, no - that's not lucky, that's bad!

It's not up to you to get to the bottom of this mystery, but you do it anyway because your job is terrible and you'd rather be anywhere else. "

It looks to bring back some of the lost RPG flavor that has been missing from recent triple A RPG's of late and I really appreciate that. I upvoted them on Steam and I seriously recommend you head over and check the game out on Greenlight too.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=455482194

Blizzard Talks Starcraft 2 LoTV Collectors Edition Details

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I've been waiting to pre-order Legacy of the Void until details of the Collectors Edition dropped and today was a good day. If you saw the Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls, Starcraft 2 or Heart of the Swarm Collectors Editions this is fits along side those. Featuring the base game, CD score, behind the scenes DVD & Bluray and field manual this version should round out my collectors set for the trilogy.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19907624

Spin Up Those Record Players Because The FTL Score Is Out On Vinyl

"To accompany the game, Ben Prunty composed a masterful sci-fi soundtrack that we're thrilled to release on vinyl for the very first time! Give it a listen here. To do this vinyl recording its ultimate justice, we had the audio mastered at Telegraph Mastering Studio. We can't wait for you to hear it like this!

We teamed up with Leif Podhajsky to design a vinyl package that blows our minds with its awesomeness! Leif's pedigree includes album covers for many top labels, including famed rock group, Tame Impala."

I like seeing this kind of lush physical release treatment for Indie games and soundtracks as they generally only exist digitally. This is a nice piece to put on the shelf and listen to. Personally I still buy CD's(I know, I know I am very old) and Vinyl isn't too far removed from that.

This is also interesting news coming on the heels of recent reports that claim the new Vinyl sales market is now outpacing streaming services such as Spotify. Kind of makes sense as artists always make more when you buy music than stream it but I wish streaming were a bit more artist lucrative as it's the new primary way people consume music.

http://store.iam8bit.com/products/ftl-vinyl
http://time.com/money/4056464/vinyl-records-sales-streaming-revenues/

Watch The Recent Chucklefish Stardew Valley Stream

As WhiteboySlim mentioned in the latest roundtable, ConcernedApe is nearing the release of Stardew Valley. He says it should be out sometime this year and as such Chucklefish streamed the game for an hour. Personally I want to wait to experience the game fresh, but I don't fault you for peeking early. I'll clip out a bit from a recent blog post on the matter:

"The game is very close to being finished. I don’t have a set release date yet, but it will certainly be out this year. Single player is 99% finished, but needs a more polishing and debugging. Multiplayer still needs some work, and I am looking into possibly switching to MonoGame, which would allow for a Mac and Linux release. I can’t make any promises about that, but I’d really like for it to happen."

http://stardewvalley.net/dev-update-30/

The Humble Bundle Gets Netflix Like Subscription In "Humble Monthly Bundle"

"A highly curated bundle of our favorite games at one fixed price. Includes everything from recent hits to hidden gems to timeless classics - every month. Receive a bundle every month. Simply sign up, and let the games roll in. Discover games that haven't been featured in other bundles. Help worthwhile causes — 5% of each month's proceeds support charity."

If one of the problems in your life is not having enough games to play, The Humble folks are on the scene with The Humble Monthly Bundle. You pay a monthly subscription of $12 a month and you get a bundle delivered to you each month. New subscribers get Legend of Grimrock 2 and you can cancel anytime. What I like about this is that the games you pay for that month are yours to keep. What I don't understand about this is what games are going in the first bundle? I am also not sure how many games will come with it each month?

That said, I bet this hits the sweet spot for many games and I am curious if this is something you are going to look into?

https://www.humblebundle.com/monthly

Click And Tap Your Way To Virtual Riches In AdVenture Capitalist

I thought it would be fun to talk about AdVenture Capitalist on the day we drop traditional web advertising from Cheerful Ghost. AdVenture Capitalist is a free to play game by Hippo Games that takes the cookie clicker formula, simplifies it and is styled after a 1920's era Capitalist Utopia. You start the game by selling lemonade and can upgrade to a newspaper route, car wash, pizza delivery all the way to running your own oil company. Since clicking each time you want to sell something is tedious and not very Capitalist the game allows you to hire managers to do the clicking for you. If you get Managers running all your companies you can step away and come back to billions in profit(wish it were that simple). You can reset the game to gain Angel investors that grant you bonuses next game and each reset gains you leaderboard ranking.

AdVenture Capitalist is a free to play game funded by ads and in app purchases and available on Steam on PC, Mac and Linux alongside iOS and Android.

Why We Dropped Traditional Web Advertising From Cheerful Ghost

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When I launched Cheerful Ghost more than three years ago I wanted to build an amazing video game community that was funded by its users. Initially I had three ideas for ways to make enough money to keep things going and one was using traditional web banner advertising. I didn't plan on this making us much money, but felt it was a good compromise to make a few bucks to offset some of our traffic costs. In a perfect world, I don't actually mind this model as it mirrors much of how traditional forms of radio and television use to fund the programs we love. With that, there have been some very interesting conversations recently about web advertising, privacy and respect for your readers. These factors coupled with the simple fact that our 3 year net on ads is less than the price of Fallout 4 has led us to drop our use of traditional web advertising. We don't find it effective, respectful of your privacy or very awesome to look at. We have replaced our advertising banner space with a rotating mention system. Right now it rotates between two things that mention that we recently published our first game Starship Rubicon and mentions how our site is funded.

Cheerful Ghost is a site aimed at creating a safe, open and independent place for people to talk about what interests them in video games. If you have any ideas on how we can do this better or ways we can improve our current Membership system, let us know.

Fallout Anthology - One More Collectable Before The End Of The World

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"For the first time in the history of the award-winning franchise, all the Fallout games you know and love – or need to catch up on – are available in one explosive PC collection. Fallout Anthology features five critically acclaimed games and official add-ons in a premium collectible set – neatly packaged inside a Fat Man mini-nuke!"

I was just going to pickup Fallout 4 but now.... this is really great and I have a place on my new shelf for it. I also don't own Fallout 3 on PC yet as I played it on PS3 originally and want to come back and replay it.

Are you going to pick this up? It's not a bad deal for all 5 games and comes with a neat nuke collectable too.

https://bethesda.net/#en/events/games/fallout-anthology-announced-at-quakeCon-2015/2015/07/13/0

New Legacy of The Void Video "Reclamation" - Everyone Dies For Auir

Blizzard has released a new video called "Reclamation" that goes into history of the Protoss as they get ready for the new Legacy of the Void game.... errrr as they get ready to invade the Zerg infested Auir. As with many things there is a completely coherent idea that war can be avoided and that the Protoss should find a new homeworld to avoid the massive loss of life that would result in an all out war with the Zerg. Good thing Artanis completely rational ideas are immediately discarded as if they went with it after you started the game you'd see Artanis hanging out on the current Protoss homeworld knocking back a cold one saying "good thing we didn't do that war thing" as the credits rolled. Personally i'd find playing that game fun for a few minutes but then wish he'd chosen the more violent path. Good thing he doesn't disappoint.

I know i'll be watching endless Protoss march to their deaths on November 10th, will you?

Hideo Kojima Reviews Hideo Kojima a Hideo Kojima Game

Jack and Rich review Metal Gear V and like all of their reviews I found it amusing and fun. Like Rich, the last Metal Gear game I played was on the NES and I wasn't really drawn to the rest. Many people loved the later Playstation games and there is an incredibly loyal fanbase for them. So much so that this review seems to have caused some Metal Gear fans to take shots at Jack in the comments. Video Game controversy isn't new but I often find it strange as people are essentially getting upset someone has an opinion about a game they don't share. Sure Jack and Rich are snarky as is the Red Letter Media way, but I didn't find it grossly offensive or insulting.

Jack and Rich take point with the story as well as some of the characters such as Quiet that acts and is presented in a very odd manner. They seemed to enjoy the gameplay very much which got a mixed no and yes recommendation from them.

Have you played any of the modern Metal Gear games? What do you think of this assessment of the game?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/29/2015 at 07:23pm

I've not played any of the modern MG games and only had limited experience with the original NES game (although it seems really awesome at the time).

I enjoyed Rich and Jack's review of the game, and the backlash of MG fan comments seems to boil down to "You don't understand Metal Gear games."

Which then brings up the question "When playing a game(or reading a book, or watching a movie), should you be able to enjoy the game on its own, or because each sequel builds upon the previous games(or books or movies), to really review the game, you should go back to the beginning to fully understand the current game?" (That was a long and convoluted question, I know)

I generally think each game should be able to stand on its own, but I can understand being frustrated with someone who doesn't "get it." I'd be annoyed with someone if they started watching Game of Thrones starting with Season 5 and then tearing it apart for not making sense, or not understanding how the previous seasons built up to it. But of course tv shows are different than movies/books/games that are usually self-contained stories.

Any thoughts?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/01/2015 at 01:19am

There is no such thing as an "objective review." Our perspective paints everything we review and as such I am not sure how I can remove myself from myself on any piece of art. The only kind of objective review I can think of is one that simply lists facts because saying the game was "great" or "immersive" is all subjective. So when someone says they don't like something I love it's not a huge deal to me. I think people often intertwine themselves in the art they love and take all criticism as aimed at themselves or as they would a close family member. I think this covers more than gaming though.

"When playing a game(or reading a book, or watching a movie), should you be able to enjoy the game on its own, or because each sequel builds upon the previous games(or books or movies), to really review the game, you should go back to the beginning to fully understand the current game?"

Depends on the intent I suppose. If this is meant for new gamers to the franchise then sure, if it's meant for diehard fans then maybe not. In this instance I, most likely, won't pick it up for that reason and a few others.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/01/2015 at 01:32am

This just helps support the view that reviews, and even aggregate review scores like Metacritic, aren't necessarily helpful to you. You can get some information from it to help decide if you'll like it, but don't be a slave to the score. In this case especially, you're going to appreciate the game more when you have the lore from the previous games.

SHOULD games stand on their own? That's up to the developers to decide. If you think of games as art (and with Metal Gear Solid, it's definitely more art than many other games-- 45 minute cutscenes, anyone?) then the artist paints with his or her own brush. Art is meant to be enjoyed, for the most part, but it is meant to be an expression of the artist.

So basically what Jon said. :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2015 at 02:59am

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