jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Alien Isolation Coming To Mac & Linux on Steam September 29th

I've heard it said that in space no one can hear you scream with glee that so many sweet games are being ported to Mac and Linux. Or is that line shorter? 2014's chest-bursting hit Alien: Isolation is coming to Mac and Linux on Steam next week and I am very excited. It seems that some publishers are releasing a game initially then when the game has been out for sometime, drop it on Mac and Linux. I think this is a good strategy to pump some life in a games release cycle. This news also comes about a couple months away from Steam Machines launching so it might be related to that too.

Now watch the original 1979 trailer for a piece of cinematic history and the movie that spawned all of this amazingness, Alien.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVY_lonKf4

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S3 E5 - That Episode Where They Talk About Terraria

Travis, WhiteboySlim and jdodson are back at it talking about what we've been playing, the upcoming games we are all planning on getting and then one of our favorite games Terraria. Terraria is a special game for Cheerful Ghost as we have been playing it for about 3 years and 5 group servers. We talk about our love for the game, the parts about it we love the most and our most recent server experiences. This may bring our total mentions for the game to damn near close to infinity.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/24/2015 at 02:53am

Look at Travis, "with arms wide open!" LOL

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/24/2015 at 03:31am

Undeeeeeearrr the sunliight!

Travis Admin wrote on 09/24/2015 at 03:39am

I love that default video pic there. I just need a bigger beard.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/24/2015 at 04:35am

I am currently playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Starbound is much better than when I first played it. That crystal boss was tough! Yes, the penguin is still there!

Games coming out in upcoming months I'll be playing: Fallout 4 and Starcraft II: LotV. I plan to start out with Fallout 4. Then I intend to play Starcraft II from the beginning and work my way towards the new expansion. Otherwise, I have no idea what else is coming out that I'd want to play

Years ago, I posted in a video games group on Facebook asking for suggestions on a game to play. Travis then told me about Terraria. After looking at the videos, I thought it didn't look too appealing, but once I jumped in, I was hooked! The updates keep us coming back, but there's so much greatness in the game. The game play, music, everything. What is there not to love about it? I haven't created everything in the game. I'm also not very creative with building, but it's cool to see what others come up with.

The Moon Lord was tough! I'm so glad Travis made that arena! I'm still not sure how I'll do that boss fight on my own. I imagine I'll copy over the arena Travis made. Duke is tough! I was so glad when I finally beat him. I was so intimidated by that boss! Fishing is cool! Yeah, those mine cart tracks were pretty much every where!

I usually progress through the different tiers of metal gear. However, on the new Expert Mode server, I got my first Ebonwood armor set and it looked awesome. Ultimately, I get Platinum, even if it didn't spawn in my world (I use silt and slush to get it if it's not there). Also, I pretty much almost always go with melee weapons.

I don't think I fought any of the Expert Mode bosses. So, I didn't get any of the special loot. Listening to you guys talk about Terraria is making me want to play again! I agree with us starting our new server on Expert Mode, especially since I haven't spent much time with it.

Yes, Travis gave me a copy and I greatly appreciate it! I bought a copy for my son recently. Honestly, it's because of Terraria that I got on here at Cheerful Ghost and "met" you awesome guys (I already knew Travis because we were college roommates)! I love this site!

I have the mobile version of Terraria, yes for my Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" tablet. It's good, but unfortunately the Kindle version is way behind every other version. I thought the touch controls were cool. I liked using my finger as a replacement for the mouse, but I thought it was harder to get used to switching the auto-cursor on and off on the PS3.

Soon, maybe we can talk about what's in store for Terraria's future.

Yes, Cheerful Ghost "drink and play!" I can get my favorite red wine, Riunite Lambrusco! =)

(This comment has been edited to fit the 3,000 character limit....you're welcome!)

scrypt Supporter wrote on 09/24/2015 at 07:31pm

For those concerned: everyone survived the fire, but my eyebrows look a little different now.

Great show, guys! Tim, I'm so glad you made the correction on Yogi vs Pooh. Jon, love the new digs (or at least the new office!). Travis, I'm convinced now that Hangouts has an arm fetish.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 09/24/2015 at 07:31pm

Oh, and Drink & Play?! Yes, yes, yes!!

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Cygnus Destroyer Reviews Gameboy Classic Super Mario Land

No one really talks about Super Mario Land anymore but I really enjoyed playing this classic on my Gameboy. When my brother got a Gameboy the first two games we had were Tetris and Super Mario Land so I spent much time playing them both. I did find the graphics of Super Mario Land a bit less than what I enjoyed in Super Mario Brothers but really liked the levels and gameplay. This game was pretty hard for me as a kid and I never actually completed it like I did the other Mario games.

That said Super Mario Land and the other Gameboy titles are really impressive considering the Gameboy had a 4 mhz CPU, 8k of system RAM and an 8k graphics chip.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/22/2015 at 06:10pm

I loved Super Mario Land! It was my first Gameboy game and I played it a lot. My dad coached all us kids' soccer teams (me and 2 siblings), so I had a lot of practices to sit through. My Gameboy got a lot of work! I have really good memories of this game, and loved the submarine and plane levels.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/23/2015 at 03:04am

Those were great levels. As I was looking at the Wikipedia for the Gameboy it had a 15-30 hour life from those 4 batteries. That's better than smartphones. Then again, it ran at 4mhz.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/23/2015 at 04:41pm

I remember this game! It was one of the first games I had along with Tetris and Alleyway. I thought it was difficult. Memory is telling me it was a long game. I think I did end up beating it at least once.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/24/2015 at 03:32am

It was hard for a Mario game but Cygnus doesn't seem to think so as he didn't mention it. I am going to play it again so maybe it was just harder than I expected at the time.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/24/2015 at 03:40am

It was hard just because the physics were different than what you were expecting for a Mario game. The later Mario games on the Game Boy were more in line with what you'd expect which made them "easier" in a way.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/24/2015 at 04:37am

I liked the sequels, or at least the first one with Wario. Sorry, I haven't watched this video yet....will do soon.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/24/2015 at 04:47am

This also reminds me that a couple of games I loved on the Gameboy, other than Alleyway, was the Zelda and Metroid games.

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Would You Be Convinced To By The Legend Of Zelda By Reading The Back Of The Box?

Uh hell yeah I would have. My parents? They'd take some convincing but eventually I was allowed to by The Legend of Zelda. The premise of RetroLiberty's convinced series is to see if you'd buy the game based on the box art and description yet The Legend of Zelda was featured in many issues of Nintendo Power, conversations with my friends and in store kiosks so I find this one hard to say for sure. Young me would have wanted this one due to the gold box art, art and dungeon screenshots but Zelda was so huge it's hard to say what I would have chose aside from all that.

What about you? Were you convinced?

The Craziest Grim Patron Turn I've Seen Yet

This may very well be the craziest Hearthstone turn i've seen. Basically it features two Grim Patron decks with multiple cards working together. An armor smith card is granting the defender mad armor while the attacker drops two berserkers that gain attack for damage done to all characters. I've gone lethal on someone with about 18 damage dealt in one blow, but 32 for two berserkers is pretty neat.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 09/22/2015 at 06:13pm

That was so rad!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/23/2015 at 03:04am

It was a good match. If you're gonna lose. Lose to that.

JaBo wrote on 09/29/2015 at 06:24pm

I've played the Grim Patron deck and it got boring, they do need to nerf the warsong commaner though to not give charge to summoned minions off other minions again. It's too strong. If I had a way to charge to a minion in priest I'd have this style deck with the heal trigger guys. As is, I've hit someone for 30+ in one swing on T5 with it.

They need to nerf warsong, and add a new neutral minion that gives charge to adjacent minions or can give 1 minion charge. Maybe deathrattle, give your minions charge...something to allow other than warrior to make some fun burst down decks.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/29/2015 at 07:41pm

Grim Patron is a great deck and Blizzard hasn't said they are going to nerf anything associated with it. I don't see it a ton in casual, is it all over ranked?

JaBo wrote on 10/01/2015 at 06:43pm

It's a pretty standard deck. If I play against warrior, it's either Grim Patron, or a control deck which I have started playing (and others it seems) with the new warrior legendary. http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/hearthstone.gamepedia.com/e/e5/Varian_Wrynn%2822342%29.png?version=aa0d3c558d40f77cc6396c1a4844327f

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/12049211_10208050839408116_7237592726228030483_n.jpg?oh=3b5fb1a2b91d63a4e49eccc0fcb3ac88&oe=568C5ABC

and

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12036595_10208050886209286_1358128675092086035_n.jpg?oh=b185d60af41acf45c2060547bde433f7&oe=56A0B1CE

Yup

JaBo wrote on 10/01/2015 at 06:53pm

I it is a combo deck though, so it's not 100% reliable, I'm pretty strong against it as a control warrior deck because my health stays around 20-30 while my armor can shoot up to another 20-30 and they can't burst me down in 1 turn. But as control priest, I have been burst down from 25+ life to 0 in 1 turn with them having nothing on the board

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2015 at 03:01am

Crazy. I've seen new decks that focus on TONS of card draw and armor for Warrior. It's an interesting deck but I beat it that one time I played it. Your deck, I haven't quite seen that one in casual.

JaBo wrote on 10/02/2015 at 09:26pm

I keep card draw out of my control decks as much as I can for 2 reasons. One, Fatigue Rogue is brutal against control. (Just google that, it's basically flooding your opponent with card draws using Coldlight Oracle and making their draws be burned out and killing them with damage for drawing from an empty deck). I have that deck made right now and it can do well pretty consistently.

The other reason is in a mirror match, it often can go down to who has cards left in their deck and who starts taking draw-damage first. So when I play other control priest decks, they will sometimes (often) include those Northshire Clerics and Power Word: Shields. I do not.

Btw, I shouldn't have jinxed myself. I got hit yesterday for about 60 in a turn by that damn warrior combo. He had 0 creatures on the field and I had like 50+ health/armor. It was pretty annoying. I had 2 creatures on the board and those helped him by increasing the dmg triggers for berserker guy.

My Control Warrior deck has been really fun lately, I am bouncing between that and my Secret Face-Hunter deck.

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Age of Empires II HD To Get New Expansion "The African Kings"

Age of Empires II HD is getting a new expansion titled "The African Kings" adding a new civilization called The Malians. Age of Empires II was released in 1999 yet it is still going strong with the recent HD re-release, The Forgotten Kingdoms expansion and now the upcoming The African Kings. I look forward to more Age of Empires II as this RTS classic, in my opinion, will never go out of style.

http://www.forgottenempires.net/age-of-empires-ii-teasing-at-e3-2015

Oh and Age of Mythology is also getting a new expansion called "Tale of the Dragon" that was also teased at E3. I am still waiting for iD to drop word of a original Doom map-pack but until then this will have to do.

Jonathan Blow's "The Witness" Will Launch January 26

This might be a day one purchase for me, if I had a PS4. Jonathan has mentioned it will come to PC but it seems it will be exclusive to the PS4 for a time. The Witness is a very beautiful game and I hope all the hard work has made it incredible. Are you interested to head into The Witness an explore an abandoned island?

"Hi everyone! We finally know the release date for The Witness: it’s 26th January 2016. That’s about four months from now, and it will be a very busy four months as we work hard to make the game the absolute best we can.

We’ll be very happy to get the game out into the world, because we’ve been working on it a long time! We originally thought The Witness would be coming out toward the end of the PS4 launch window, but… there’s just been a lot to do. I think when the game is in your hands, you’ll find it to be intricate and deep, and also unlike anything else you have played."

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2015/09/17/the-witness-release-date-confirmed-for-26-january-2016/

Get Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 Free On Origin

Remember when in-game live action filmed shots were incredible? Remember when real time strategy games shipped separate campaigns on different CD's? We might not ever return to that but if you want to trip back to the early 2000's EA is giving away Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 free on Origin right now.

I am a big fan of Red Alert and Red Alert 2 really advanced the series in terms of gameplay, graphics and multiplayer. I put the original Red Alert games up on the wall of amazing RTS with Warcraft, Age of Empires, Rise of Nations and Starcraft.

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/free-games/on-the-house

Travis Admin wrote on 09/18/2015 at 05:21pm

Speaking of games we played in college!

Snagging this. I haven't played it in ages, I don't know how well it will hold up, but I LOVED this game.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/18/2015 at 05:22pm

Let me know if multiplayer is still on for this.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/18/2015 at 05:34pm

Wasn't it like the old multiplayer, where someone set up a host and the other people connected? If so, it will always be on.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/18/2015 at 07:30pm

Whoa, it's Laura Palmer's dad as the president! I knew he was familiar when I saw him in Twin Peaks.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/18/2015 at 07:34pm

Oh yeah, "speaking of games we played in college!" =)

Travis Admin wrote on 09/18/2015 at 07:39pm

Huh. This think plays as if I was trying to coax Skyrim out of a Voodoo 2. More investigation needed.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/18/2015 at 09:09pm

I didn't realize until I started my download that it includes the expansion, Yuri's Revenge, which I thought was awesome. I wish they would have done that with Dragon Age: Origins (included the DLC)! I still have a couple of copies of this game, but I'm getting it on Origin anyway.

(After install completed.) Ok, this experience is pretty bad. I try to change the resolution, but it goes green and everything gets bunched up on the left side of the screen. The max resolution by the way is 1024x768 with 16 bit colors. I managed to change the resolution. I had to click on the screen where the buttons should be to exit and relaunch the game. However, at the highest resolution setting, the game seriously suffers. Everything moves incredibly slow! At the default (lowest) resolution, things move much quicker, but Tanya dies as soon as you have access to her. On the medium setting, things move more normally, but Tanya still dies just about right away.

I don't know if my other copies of the game would behave differently, but I imagine there may be some ways around these issues. Perhaps we need to change some settings in our Nvidia Control Panel (creating a profile for the game). "More investigation" is indeed needed in order to actually play this.

"Trying to coax Skyrim out of a Voodoo 2," that's really hilarious, Travis! Perhaps someone else with different hardware may have a different experience (especially if their hardware is 15 years old LOL).

Travis Admin wrote on 09/19/2015 at 05:38am

I'm thinking of installing a VM for this, I should have some Windows ME discs around here somewhere.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/19/2015 at 06:47am

That was one recommendation I saw in my Google "investigation" into the issues. It seems that the executable properties should be edited for compatibility with XP. There were also some .ini file configurations. I try anything out, though, but it seems that solutions to the issues are available.

Does Windows 10 have a virtual machine? I thought 8 had it. Maybe that's a feature for one of the higher level versions (like Professional or Enterprise), which I don't have. I noticed my VMWare trial expired, so I uninstalled it. I could try it again and run the game in an XP VM.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/19/2015 at 01:56pm

Hyper-V comes with the Pro editions, but I don't hear many kind words about it. VirtualBox is free and Free.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/19/2015 at 07:29pm

See, I knew you knew what I was talking about, you always know what you're talking about. =) I don't think I was aware of VirtualBox, so thanks for telling me about it.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/20/2015 at 04:11am

VBox is great. It doesn't have the performance of VMWare, but it also doesn't have the price tag.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/20/2015 at 06:40pm

Yeah Virtualbox is superb. Let me know if compatibility mode or Virtualbox work better.

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StarCraft II Legacy of the Void Launches November 10th

To keep with tradition, Blizzard has released the Starcraft II Legacy of the Void opening cinematic with the new November 10th launch date. The games launch is only a few short months away but Starcraft II LoTV will launch the same day as Fallout 4. It makes sense, release a few months before the holidays but I wonder how sales will be impacted with the competing with Fallout 4? On one had both games have wildly different audiences but on the other hand, i'll be buying both.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19893687/legacy-of-the-void-launches-1110-watch-the-cinematic-now-9-13-2015

Does The New Apple TV Compete With Consoles Or Is It Something Entirely Different?

During Apple's latest showcase they unveiled an updated Apple TV. As we have been postulating for the last few years the new Apple TV will supports apps, a brand new Wii like controller(when plugged into an iPhone) and support for 3rd party game controllers. The new Apple TV starts at $149 and while inexpensive will be locked to 1080p and come in 32G and 64G storage options. During the keynote they demoed a multi-player version of Crossy Road. While Crossy Road looks fun I wonder how powerful the new Apple TV will be? Will we see publishers like 2K drop games like Borderlands & X-Com on Apple TV? Will Apple TV support Steam styled game streaming from Macs? Time will tell but for now it's an interesting option and one I imagine many people will pursue.

http://www.apple.com/tv/

jdodson1

2762 Posts

Alien Isolation Coming To Mac & Linux on Steam September 29th

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S3 E5 - That Episode Where They Talk About Terraria

Cygnus Destroyer Reviews Gameboy Classic Super Mario Land

Would You Be Convinced To By The Legend Of Zelda By Reading The Back Of The Box?

The Craziest Grim Patron Turn I've Seen Yet

Age of Empires II HD To Get New Expansion "The African Kings"

Jonathan Blow's "The Witness" Will Launch January 26

Get Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 Free On Origin

StarCraft II Legacy of the Void Launches November 10th

Does The New Apple TV Compete With Consoles Or Is It Something Entirely Different?