jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Why Can't We Get The Mario Theme Out Of Our Heads?

In this latest Game/Show video Jamin asks why Mario's theme is so gosh darn catchy. He discussed the limitations of the early NES and modern music and what properties are more ear pleasing that others.

Mario's theme is catchy but nothing brings me back to a nostalgic adventure trip like hearing the music from NES Zelda.

"The Mario theme song is HARDWIRED into our brains. It's SO CATCHY! You absentmindedly hum the first six notes in your head when you’re doing laundry, or even find yourself hearing echoes of it in the modern music of today. What was it about your experience with games like Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Tetris that made their music so memorable? The Tetris theme? Classic! Final Fantasy Prelude? Famous! But why? There’s an easy answer, and then there’s the CRAZY answer that Jamin sheds light on in this week’s episode of Game/Show. Watch it and find out what makes retro game music so memorable!"

Cheerful Ghost Roundtable: S3 E3 - Free To Slay

In this episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about what we've been playing, the latest Humble Nintendie Bundle & the latest craze with free to play games. In this episode you can find out how much our lifetime spend is on free to play games and if we regret any money we've put into them. You're welcome internet!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/28/2015 at 04:28am

Retroblazer is the Wolfenstein/Doom clone I was thinking of: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=375199095

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/28/2015 at 04:33am

Nintendo doesn't have a paid subscription service. They do have a service that you can sign up for and to access some things, you may need to log into that service. They are currently working on changing it a bit, though, there has been some news of it recently. They frequently have sales going on, which I can see from a notification on the game pad (the Home button lights up blue).

Other than sales, Nintendo has other promotions which people can participate in and receive digital download codes. When the new Smash Bros. games came out, one of the bonus rewards of registering both games at Nintendo's site was that I could get Mewtwo for free when they released him as a character in the new games. The games were out for quite a while before that DLC was released and Nintendo emailed me the codes to download that DLC for both systems.

I think it's cool to see Nintendo in a Humble Bundle. I did see news of this before, but I'm not familiar with any of the games included. I'd like to see more Nintendo Bundles, though. HB seems to be a great way to buy video games!

Travis Admin wrote on 05/28/2015 at 05:44pm

Whoa... Retroblazer looks fun!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/28/2015 at 08:55pm

Who's setting up the God Mode event?

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/29/2015 at 01:42am

I would, but my computer is 2000 miles away. If you guys have a God Mode event without me, I'll cry bitter tears.

(Just kidding. I'd be crying anyway, because of the whales.)

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Sign Up / Log In

Blizzard Releases New Hanzo Footage For Overwatch

Overwatch is a upcoming game by Blizzard that is a FPS first for the studio. With each new gameplay footage drop the game looks like a really fun entry into the team shooter space. Taking nods from Team Fortress and Unreal Tournament, Overwatch is a game in a dystopian far future that doesn't bring the gritty dark tone with it. It's also an entirely new set of IP so nothing from the Diablo, Warcraft or Starcraft universes here.

The character shown in this gameplay reveal is Hanzo a parkour assassin that can climb walls and pick off other heroes with his bow. Whereas I don't typically enjoy playing heroes like Hanzo, the overall game mechanics seem interesting to try and I can't wait to try the game out.

Blizzard is still unsure if Overwatch will be a free to play game or have some sort of up-front cost but if the success of Hearthstone or Heroes of the Storm is an indicator, we might be able to play this one for free too.

http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/

Humble Nindie Bundle Comes To Wii U & 3DS

In it's first ever console debut, The Humble Bundle folks are at it with the Humble Nindie Bundle. Partnering with Nintendo eShop all the games in this bundle are redeemable on the Wii U or 3DS. The titles available on the Wii U are Guacamelee, Stealth Inc 2 & The Fall. The games available on 3DS are Woah Dave!, Mighty Switch Force! & Moon Chronicles. Two games are available for the Wii U & 3DS such as SteamWorld Dig and OlliOlli.

If someone has a Wii U i'd love to hear about how seamless the games are to redeem and how they play.

Mario Kart Fury Road

The latest Mad Max Fury Road is racing to box office gold and on it's way has received a few parody trailers. Would a post apocalyptic Mario Kart game be fun? Not sure, but this trailer is.

Three Seconds of New Doom Footage Teases Larger Reveal

Bethesda let loose 3 seconds of new footage teasing an upcoming event where we will all learn more about "new Doom." From the horses mouth to you:

"Get the first in-game footage from DOOM . See the game unveiled at Bethesda's E3 Showcase - Sunday, June 14th at 7 pm PT."

The game looks great and I can't wait to learn more. Plus, didn't we all sign up to get the Doom beta when we pre-ordered the new Wolfenstein game?

Heartstone Roundup - The Grim Patron, Gold Strats and More

In a recent interview with PCGamer, Blizzard talked about a bunch of game related bits and one that stood out to me is that Hearthstone has amassed 30 million players. They mention this is due to launch on mobile. I dived back in after the phone launch and it seems I wasn't alone.

During the interview a question was also asked in how Blizzard gauges the effectiveness of new cards.

"For me, my main goal is not actually to get cards into decks permanently, but to have people experiment with new ideas a lot, which is slightly different. So, for example, Flamewaker caused people to try out decks with tons of spells in them. And some people had some success with that, but more importantly they experimented with it. So even if the Dragon decks, after a month of experimentation, don’t end up being the best decks—as long as people have had a lot of fun trying things out, then we've succeeded in one of our main goals."

They discussed a few new cards but I wanted to highlight one part of the interview about Grim Patron. It was a new card in Blackrock Mountain which is a 3/3 that costs 5 and when it survives damage another one is summoned.

http://media-hearth.cursecdn.com/avatars/198/0/14435.gif

Blizzard said this when they were asked if the card is a problem:

"We’re always watching the meta game and Reddit and the forums, but it looks totally fine to me right now. It’s pretty healthy, it’s powerful, it’s a new deck type, it’s fun. One week it’s like “wow, Grim Patron decks are the strongest this week”, but the next week it’s like “Oh… a totally different deck is really strong right now.” So I think there’s enough variety right now that it’s not actively something we’re thinking about."

It's a great interview and they talk more about Grim Patron, Dr. Boom and more.

http://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstone-interview-grim-patron-dr-boom-balanced/#page-1

One thing I have been focusing on is getting cards by unlocking gold playing daily quests. It's a legit path but it takes time and patience. I found a good strategy for trying to get the most gold you can from daily quests by strategizing when you reroll them. It's a great strategy and was also useful to know that you can reroll your quests at all!

"Reroll all 40 gold quests. Don't finish 40 gold quests. Finish 60/100 gold quests as soon as possible, unless they require finishing a 40 gold quest. Finish a quest if you can't reroll and you have 3 quests."

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1wck6c/maximizing_gold_from_you_daily_quests/

If you are wondering how you reroll your quests, check the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J35B1FfHNUg

Nintendo Bringing Back The World Championships For 2015!

In a recent email from Nintendo they dropped some news that they are bringing back the Nintendo Wold Championships. The Nintendo World Championships was a competition in the 90's that kids took part in so the best Nintendo gamer in the world could be crowned. If this all sounds familiar it is because this was the basic plot for the 90's classic film "The Wizard." Nintendo is bringing back the World Championships at this years E3 and I am happy they are making a live stream available to watch.

"For the first time in 25 years, some of Nintendo's biggest fans will get to go head-to-head in a gaming showdown for the ages. Join a worldwide audience by watching the live stream on Sunday, June 14.

Want to compete? Get ready for qualifying competitions coming May 30."

So far those are the only details about the competition but if you are ready to go head to head with other Nintendo gamers I encourage you to break out your NES gamepads and start practicing!

http://e3.nintendo.com/?eid=email_860778610_862064380_33625ed2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_World_Championships

Previously Recorded Talk Shovel Knight The Nostalgia Engine

Rich and Jack are back at it talking about Shovel Knight. Rich seems to be hung on if Shovel Knight is a great game or a game that falls back to nostalgia and retro feel in place of actually being good. Rich and Jack both loved the game, it just seems that Rich isn't sure if the game stands on it's own.

After playing Shovel Knight it is true that the game is a NES dream come true but I think it holds up well for modern gamers.

Starship Rubicon Has Been Greenlit On Steam!

When I got the email from Steam that Starship Rubicon was Greenlit on Steam I immediately called Wick and left him a message. A few minutes later we were gleefully talking about it and basking in the glow of joining the games accepted to Steam club. As the Greenlight campaign was still a significant way from the top 100 (though we had an awesome approval percentage!) it appears Valve works in mysterious ways!

Wick has been hard at work on a big Rubicon update that will feature a Linux port, a raft of bug fixes and some really awesome new features that we will talk about as we march closer to a Steam launch. We wanted to personally thank everyone that picked up the game and wanted to let you know that if you Kickstarted the game, bought it from our website, the Humble Store, Desura or Itch that when the game launches on Steam you will get a copy to unlock on Steam.

Thank you to everyone that voted for the game on Greenlight and I hope that when we launch on Steam that more people are able to check it out!

www.starshiprubicon.com
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=331311253

Travis Admin wrote on 05/13/2015 at 03:09pm

Congrats guys! How long does the process take from being Greenlit to ending up on the Steam store?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/13/2015 at 03:24pm

This is exciting news! Congrats! I can't wait to see it on Steam!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/13/2015 at 03:36pm

Awesome!!!! I'm guessing the game doesn't need to go through Early Access, is that right? It seemed pretty solid when I played it. I remember reading that Salt was in Green Light for about a month. Also, it seems like a long time ago that we were giving it a thumbs up so it could go Green Light.

BTW, by adding Steam login on the CG site, you made it much easier to log in while in-game on Steam. Thanks! =)

hardeyez wrote on 05/13/2015 at 04:08pm

Congrats!!!!

JaBo wrote on 05/13/2015 at 05:54pm

Huge congratz! That's really exciting news and something to feel proud about for sure!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 05/13/2015 at 07:40pm

Congratulations! Hope this brings in plenty of new players!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2015 at 01:13am

Thanks everyone, when I heard the news I was very happy. It's a fun milestone to achieve.

Travis: 6 months in total. Wick and I are going to collaborate on a post that will talk more about the process and the length. A few people have been asking for something like this and we don't mind talking openly about our numbers.

Greg: We are not going to put Starship Rubicon on Early Access. Wick is working on a major patch that should fix up quite a few bugs people found but when it comes to Steam it will be the fully released version.