jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Why Is Dust2 So Popular?

Counter-Strikes Dust2 is one of the most popular multiplayer maps in gaming history. PC Gamer recently interviewed the Counter-Strike map creators Sal "Volcano" Garozzo and Shawn "FMPONE" Snelling about why they think this is one of the greatest maps of all time.

Goombas Fishing And Other Fine Art

Imgur is a great photo sharing site that has quite a lot of video game related content. Recently I found these photos of some cool art with a retro gaming twist. I love seeing those Goombas fishing but I don't want cheep cheep to take the bait. Flip the boat cheep, flip the boat.

http://imgur.com/a/q2Ur6

Smash Into The Next Level Of Street Fighter Championship Ed

I found this totally awesome old Genesis promo video for Street Fighter II Special Championship Edition. So much amazing 90's cheese. Plus it's also fun to watch an old take on a classic game the time it came out even if it's from the horses mouth.

Blizzard Giving Away The Lost Vikings & Rock N Roll Racing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/The_Lost_Vikings_SNES_cover.jpg

Blizzard has been making games for a long time as as such has amassed a catalog of classic games. They have been releasing their old Super Nintendo Games a bit at a time available for free on PC for download. They recently added The Lost Vikings & Rock N Roll Racing to the list of classic games available on Battle.net. While they were at it they also added a Mac port of Backthrone, a title previously made available. The SNES ports of all three titles are superb and Blizzard also took the time to re-translate the menus so that the in game text reflects the new PC keyboard control scheme.

It seems Blizzard is starting with porting it's earliest titles and moving forward so it's just a matter of time before we see Warcraft Orcs & Humans, Warcraft 2 & Diablo ported.

You can download Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings & Rock N Roll Racing(scroll to the bottom of the page) by clicking the link below.

https://us.battle.net/account/management/download/

For a list of all Blizzard classic titles check the link below.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/legacy/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/10/2015 at 01:52am

Thanks for sharing! I don't think I've played any of those games, but I'm going to install them. I haven't played WoW either, even though I believe I could play it for free until my character reaches level 20. I'm currently playing (and loving) Hearthstone. I have unlocked a mount, which you get by getting an achievement in Hearthstone. I believe it is available after you win 3 games in "Play" mode (which is when you play against real people, not the AI).

Travis Admin wrote on 03/10/2015 at 01:54am

They did this a while ago didn't they? I think someone wrote about one of them here.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/10/2015 at 01:57am

Actually, I think I have played Rock N Roll Racing before, a very long time ago. Thanks again for the links.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/10/2015 at 02:00am

Travis: They released Blackthorne awhile ago and I wrote about that. Rock N Roll Racing & The Lost Vikings are new + the Blackthrone Mac port.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/10/2015 at 03:02am

I say that because I've played The Lost Vikings on my PC a few months ago.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/03/blizzard-releases-the-lost-vikings-rock-n-roll-racing-blackthorne-for-free/

Looks like they've been around a while now.

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

Yeah, for sure. I don't see an article filed under those games so ITS NEWS TO ME!

Travis Admin wrote on 03/10/2015 at 03:49am

But also, Mac port!

I was stoked to see Blizzard on the Vulkan support list. It doesn't guarantee anything, but Vulkan is getting a lot of Linux love. I hope they eventually branch out to Linux.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/10/2015 at 03:50am

That would be awesome.

rettisawesome wrote on 03/12/2015 at 10:55pm

In case anyone was wondering rock n roll racing is one of the best games ever. Do not let the name fool you. I sunk many hours into it when it was new. And I still have a ROM of it on my laptop so that I have something fun to play when on trips. Etc. Multiplayer was also legit. One of the first games I played that really impressed upon me the ideas I have about resource management, upgrading , and winning no matter how many people you have to hurt.

rettisawesome wrote on 03/12/2015 at 10:56pm

By laptop I should have said netbook. My small, not powerful laptop. Haha

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/13/2015 at 04:19am

I think I know of potentially one reason Blizzard is releasing these old games for free. To give these old characters some new visibility. They recently brought back The Lost Vikings as a Heroes of the Storm character(thats right, just one character). I've heard it's a really cool character to play as because you switch up the Viking you play as on the fly.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/heroes/the-lost-vikings/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/13/2015 at 09:07pm

If you look on the list of heroes you'll also see E.T.C. I think Rock N Roll Racing is his game. While it says "coming soon," I was able to play as him last night.

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

Travis Admin wrote on 03/14/2015 at 05:30am

That's a very good point. They need more characters to choose from. Is the murlock playable yet? :D

jaelte wrote on 03/14/2015 at 05:59pm

Oh man, I played the hell out of The Lost Vikings back in the day. And I definitely remember hours of fun with friends playing Rock 'n' Roll Racing (Olaf is in another time zone!). Thank you for post this; I hadn't known about it either.

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Nab Syndicate 1993 For Free on Origin

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/Syndicate_screenshot.png

Do you have free time but lack games to play? Do you love going back to classic retro titles? You are in luck as EA is now giving away Syndicate 1993 to everyone on Origin.

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

Cheerful Ghost at Gamestorm 2015

The folk that put on the local Portland game convention Gamestorm invited me this year. So if you are going to the event or are planning on being in the area, let me know so we can hangout for a bit. I am also bringing a limited amount of the new Cheerful Ghost stickers so make sure to let me know you want one and i'll make sure you get it. I'll be at the con Saturday(March 21st) walking around interviewing various people involved with the convention and playing a few games if I can.

Gamestorm is a great local con that focuses on board games, table top RPGs, LARPs, collectible card games & miniatures. It's a pretty popular con in Portland and I like it because it has such a warm community. If you are looking to sit down to play all manner of awesome board games and the like, Gamestorm is worth checking out.

http://www.gamestorm.org/

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/2423/new-cheerful-ghost-vinyl-sticker-prints-the-new-ghost

Heroes Of The Storm Beta Key Giveaway

http://www.loadthegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/heroes-of-the-storm.jpg

Blizzard sent me a few Heroes of the Storm beta keys and I have a few left and wanted to give them to anyone that wanted one. Drop your request in the comments and i'll send you a site message with the key.

**EDIT** All the keys have been sent out

dannytron wrote on 03/06/2015 at 02:52am

I would love a key. I've been looking forward to this game for a while.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/06/2015 at 02:54am

@dannytron: key sent.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 03/06/2015 at 06:41am

This is a pretty fun game. I've only played one match after the tutorial (still a practice match) and won pretty easily, but had a lot of fun doing it.

I'm not crazy about the Saturday morning cartoon-like banter in the tutorial, but other than that, this was a fun experience. I will be coming back to this game as I have time :)

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 03/06/2015 at 06:42am

Played as Malfurion

Alcyonneus wrote on 03/06/2015 at 02:03pm

I will be happy to have a key^^ if u have one. thx

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/06/2015 at 04:42pm

Sent

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 03/06/2015 at 08:18pm

You were right when you said the game is like Dota 2 and fun. I probably spent more time playing it than I have Dota 2. I thought the story was cool and interesting, that Blizzard characters were brought together in a realm to battle. This isn't exactly new (take a look at Smash Bros. and Dissidia Final Fantasy for instance), but it's still cool. I played through the tutorials and I played Practice mode with each available character. It was fun as each character has their own abilities, attributes, and phrases familiar with those that have played their games. There are a few Blizzard games I have not played, so I'm not familiar with all of them.

I noticed a few bugs that weren't really major. I noticed a visual bug, with a weird square tile perhaps not properly rendering. The only other bug I noticed was just kind of annoying. The game often said things that weren't correct. For instance, at times it told me I had died, when in fact I didn't. These were kind of minor and probably easy enough to fix.

I'll probably play the game again. I'd like to see what I can do as a solo gamer, as that's the kind of game I'm used to playing. I didn't really play the game any differently, pretty much going straight forward towards the enemy base. Many of the maps have their own "perks" to achieve, which I think I could spend more time to focus on. Although, I noticed my NPC teammates going for these things on their own. On many of these, you can unleash a beast that becomes your character for a period of time.

_305 wrote on 03/06/2015 at 10:48pm

please can u send me a key

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/06/2015 at 11:32pm

Sorry _305 all the keys have been sent out.

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New Unreal Tournament Video + Early Alpha Thoughts

Last year Epic announced it was creating a new Unreal Tournament game and they were going to be doing things a bit different. Instead of creating a retail copy like in past iterations, the new Unreal Tournament would be released for free and developed in the open with the community. Recently at GDC they showed off a build of Unreal Tournament running on SteamOS/Linux and after seeing how well it was running in 4K I decided to see how well it would run on my PC.

Come to find out, you can download and install the latest pre-alpha build of Unreal Tournament on Mac and Windows right now by heading over to the site and registering. Sign up is simple and one thing you will notice after you download the app is that Epic is building a games launcher similar to Steam or Battle.net. The launcher comes with the things you normally have like a friends list, list of games and news feed. The launcher worked well for me but seemed like it was missing some polish that other launchers have. I add the Epic Games Launcher to the list of game store/launchers I have beyond Steam, Battle.net, Uplay, Origin and now Epic.

The game ran pretty poorly on my Mac even at 720p. It ran at pretty low settings and it still wasn't great so I didn't spend much time playing the game there. I imagine they are nearly 100% focused on the Windows/PC market and as the game marches out of Alpha things on the Mac should get better.

After installing it on my PC the game ran like a dream. The game runs with a very high frame rate and was buttery smooth at 1080p. I maxed out the resolution on my monitor(2560x1600) and lost some frames but everything still looked good. The game started suffering when I increased my settings but I can always drop resolution to adjust.

The game feels like a refresh to the old Unreal Tournament we all love. Focusing on Deathmatch and Capture the Flag is essential for any Unreal Tournament game and those modes are done well. They are somewhat light on modifiers compared to the old games but those should come with time. The games art is also fairly light at the moment and lacks the rich textures of UT2004 and UTBlack but even with more simplified graphics, the game looks great.

I played a few bot & online matches and had fun. When I was playing there were 400 others playing too so it's a pretty active game for early alpha. I also got my ass handed to me so if you are looking for the challenge of the old Unreal Tournament this game has it.

Epic is a company like any other so one thing I was wondering about was how they are going to make money from the game releasing it for free. They have said they won't do micro transactions or the like so unless this game is charitable, some kind of money making plan is in order. In the Epic Games Launcher they have an Unreal market where players can create all manner of helmets & skins to sell. Epic takes a cut of the sale and this is how they plan to fund the game. It's a pretty solid model that works well for Valve & Blizzard and I hope Epic can make the game work with it.

If you are looking to test out the new Unreal Tournament early alpha you can head over to the site, register and download the launcher. As the game continues to advance I'll keep you all posted. I am happy to see Epic come back and give Unreal Tournament some love and hope this version lives up to the legacy of it's past.

http://www.unrealtournament.com/

This Is The New Steam Controller

The final design of the new Steam Controller has surfaced and it looks like the leaked design photos that came out last year. I love the design and fit and finish of it all. We know that it will retail for $50 and be for sale in November. I've heard rumors that it supports movement input and a few other things but there hasn't been an official Valve announcement yet.

When more information drops i'll update the post.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 03/04/2015 at 09:12pm

That looks great! I can't wait to try one out!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/04/2015 at 10:06pm

A few in person pictures.

https://steamdb.info/static/img/blog/57/dsc00482-1.jpg
https://steamdb.info/static/img/blog/57/dsc00501-1.jpg

Travis Admin wrote on 03/04/2015 at 10:22pm

I really want one now. After seeing it in action, even moreso.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/04/2015 at 10:47pm

I don't know. I'd have to feel it out. For the average, AAA FPS, it doesn't look like it would be even remotely competitive. It appears as if they may have sacrificed function over form. It's a neat idea - it looks hot, for sure - but I wonder if it will take.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/05/2015 at 12:22am

I might not be super great compared to other options OR a keyboard and mouse. That said, I think this is meant to be a middle ground to compliment those games not replace some super-twitch controls.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/05/2015 at 01:59am

Verge video hands on of the Steam Controller

http://youtu.be/pqXn5DNN21w

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/05/2015 at 03:09am

A "middle ground" controller is what I'm worried about. If it can play most games "decent/kinda-good", then that seems like a wasted effort in a Steam move to the living room. I understand that a primary point for them to hit is creating a controller which can efficiently and comfortably handle the demands of games that are almost exclusively made for keyboard and mouse. If the FPS genre games on Steam suffer under Steam Controller usage, then people simply won't be playing FPSs on Steam in the living room (with that controller. Which would beg the question: Will the Steam Link support the XBox 360 controller driver?).

All of this is based on speculation, granted. It could perform wonderfully. I want it to perform wonderfully. I suppose I won't be a believer until I can get my hands on it ;).

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/05/2015 at 03:11am

Sure.

My Mac can pass through my XBox 360 controller through to my PC when I am doing in home streaming so I hope the Link can too. I imagine it's a little Linux PC and Linux handles the 360 controller well.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 03:56am

The Steam Link would almost have to support 360 and PS3 controllers, because otherwise they'd be selling a $50 brick that's basically useless without another $50 controller.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/05/2015 at 04:03am

I suppose buying alternate-system controllers isn't the worst thing, should the need arise.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 04:25am

By default I wouldn't even buy the one with the Steam controller because I don't need it.

At least at the time of the first announcement, the Steam controller was all about finding ways around the need for a keyboard and mouse. For example, games without controller support would be able to be mapped to it and you could download specs for it. I hope that the strange layout of the controller is due to that, and that we'll see some great benefit from it. Otherwise it's just a standard controller with weird touchpads instead of joysticks. They may just work amazingly though. I guess time will tell.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 04:28am

Like the video Jon posted, playing SS2 with a joystick, when the game doesn't support it.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/05/2015 at 05:17pm

IGN's take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdMe4mHUH2c

scrypt Supporter wrote on 03/05/2015 at 05:25pm

At the very least, I wish they would concave, to some degree, the top of that analog stick.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 05:35pm

Switching from the right trackpad to the buttons is going to be crazy awkward until it gets into my muscle memory.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/05/2015 at 05:48pm

I look at this controller as something I can use to play games that might not have otherwise been able to be played without a keyboard and mouse on the couch.

I just dropped some coin on two new 360 PC wireless controllers so i'll have those plus the new Steam Controller. Not sure which i'll use more but I am glad to have options.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 03/05/2015 at 05:50pm

Hopefully there's a left and right trigger that you can map to left and right click, so when using the right track pad as a mouse you won't constantly have to be taking your thumb off it.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 07:44pm

Adam, I'm pretty sure you can map them however you want, but I'd assume left and right trigger would be the defaults for mouse buttons, since that's what FPS controls use.

Travis Admin wrote on 03/05/2015 at 07:45pm

That was a dumb way to say that. What I mean is, on PCs you use left and right click for fire and alt-fire, and on controllers you use the triggers for those, so I assume the default would be to have those triggers mapped to the mouse buttons.

JaBo wrote on 03/05/2015 at 11:16pm

Perfect, I was just coming here to get some discussion about steam machines and the controller (more the machine). What's everyone's thoughts on the steam machines coming? My PC is in need of an overhaul and I have a PS3. So I'm behind the curve everywhere! What's beneficial about a steam machine compared to just using a computer? Can't you hook up either to a TV or monitor and run the same stuff?

Travis Admin wrote on 03/06/2015 at 03:35am

You can. Steam Machines are literally PCs, the hardware is all the same. It's all about the OS. SteamOS is a custom linux distribution that provides a more console-like interface. So, you could take your current PC, install SteamOS on it, and boom! Steam Machine. Basically, good luck controlling your current PC from the couch with a game controller. But SteamOS handles all that so it acts as more an appliance/console.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 03/06/2015 at 04:43pm

Which is one of the thoughts I have. Should I build my own or nab a prebuilt? So many choices. Good thing I have till November to decide

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Double Fine Adventure Documentary Is Free To Stream

Double Fine successfully Kickstarted a then titled project called "Double Fine Adventure" that became the game Broken Age. They released the first half of Broken Age last year and will be releasing the second half this year. As part of the project Double Fine hired 2 Player Productions to create a series of documentaries. So far they have released 18 videos to backers(myself included) and plan on wrapping up the series soon with a final few episodes. Up till now you had to back Double Fine Adventure to watch it but as of today they will slowly release each episode one at a time.

"The collaboration between 2 Player Productions and Double Fine Productions that launched a historic Kickstarter campaign is nearing its conclusion! In anticipation of the release of Act 2 of “Broken Age”, episodes of the Double Fine Adventure will be released to Youtube every Tuesday and Thursday starting March 3rd."

jdodson1

2731 Posts

Why Is Dust2 So Popular?

Goombas Fishing And Other Fine Art

Smash Into The Next Level Of Street Fighter Championship Ed

Blizzard Giving Away The Lost Vikings & Rock N Roll Racing

Nab Syndicate 1993 For Free on Origin

Cheerful Ghost at Gamestorm 2015

Heroes Of The Storm Beta Key Giveaway

New Unreal Tournament Video + Early Alpha Thoughts

This Is The New Steam Controller

Double Fine Adventure Documentary Is Free To Stream