jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Mavis Beacon: The Original E-Girl

YouTube Retro Game Reviewer Bobdunga dropped an incredible retrospective on the legacy of the Mavis Beacon series of educational PC games. I'd put the Mavis Beacon games next to some of the great educational games such as The Oregon Trail, Odell Lake, Number Munchers and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Even if you've never experienced the Mavis Beacon series of games you should treat yourself to Bobdunga's retrospective as it highlights the importance of these games to the early Internet and computing.

"This week, we take a look at the classic Toolworks program known as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, which I'm sure many of us who were born in the 90s remember to some capacity! I take you through the history, inception, and legacy of the fictional typing instructor! Stay tuned to the end for a little surprise! ;)"

Time To Head Back To Rapture? Get BioShock: The Collection on Switch.

BioShock: The Collection released on Switch recently which contains BioShock, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite plus all the DLC. There have been some questions about what's included if you decide to buy the Switch physical release and I do want to say that the box does come with a game cart and that game cart has the opening acts of all 3 games. I can confirm all three games do play just fine BUT if you want to play the full games you will have to download the full games clocking in at 31GB. So if you don't care about owning a box to put on your shelf the digital release does make sense to get.

I played BioShock Infinite when it was ported to Mac and all the DLC but the original BioShock game has always been something I've wanted to play to the end. When I heard about the Switch release of The BioShock Collection that seemed to be a good time to jump in and I have to say that Rapture looks and plays fantastically on the Switch. Is it as good as playing on a top of the line PC? No. But I did play the original BioShock for a handful on minutes on the PS3 and I can't tell a huge difference between the PS3 and Switch in handheld mode. Plus kicking back on the couch and playing BIOSHOCK in handheld just seems like some magic.

I've only clocked in a bit of time on the game itself and so far it's a fantastic experience. The dark tone and storytelling are top notch but for a game that came on in 2007 that's hardly new information.

If you've played BioShock a ton already this Switch release might not excite you but this collection brings three awesome games to Switch giving it a wider audience of younger gamers ready for something a bit different.

2K released a few older games to Switch recently along with The BioShock Collection including The Borderlands Collection and XCom 2. As a huge Borderlands fan I do plan on picking that one up as well because I love collection well ported games on the Switch I want to play again.

Watch LGR Restore An IBM PC XT 286 from 1986

LGR is one of those really unique YouTube channels that focuses on all kinds of retro tech and one of his latest videos hit me right in the feels. My Grandmother had an IBM PC XT 286 and it was one of the coolest computers I used as a kid because it was my first experience dialing up a BBS. On one visit to my Grandmothers she showed her new computer that could dial up the Library and that you could search through the book catalog and put something on hold. The whole process of dialing up the library was magical and I remember staying up late just searching the library for books like The Hobbit and The Big Friendly Giant. There wasn't much to do beyond looking for books but the next time I came over I had a few BBS numbers and dialed those up and tried a fun game called Legend of the Red Dragon which was the inspiration for Tale of the White Wyvern.

The IBM PC XT 286 is a beautiful computer and LGR is able to restore one to working order from the parts of two systems he had around. If I had more space in my house i'd have more classic PC systems so until then I can dream vicariously through him.

"Cleaning, upgrading, and overall reinvigorating a vintage IBM computer system from 1986! The Model 5162 here is a bit of an uncommon beast at this point, combining the classic case design of the XT with the 286 internals of an IBM AT. Let's fix it!

The Untold History of Arcane: Dishonored / Prey / Ravenholm / LMNO / The Crossing

"Noclip travels to France and Texas to tell the story of Arkane's twenty year history. Featuring exclusive first looks at the gameplay of three cancelled projects; The Crossing, LMNO & the Half-Life spin-off "Ravenholm"."

Noclip, the YouTube documentary channel is back at it with a very strong documentary about Arcane Studios the creators of Dishonored and Prey. One thing I didn't know before watching this was that Arcane was working on a Half-Life 2 episode that featured Father Gregory that looked pretty damn cool until Valve cancelled it.

Download Borderlands The Handsome Collection Free on the Epic Store!

If you somehow missed playing Borderlands 2 or Borderlands The Pre-Sequel or simply don't own them on PC yet you are in luck as they are both free on the Epic Store.

Borderlands 2 is one of the best looter shooters and the Pre-Sequel is well worth checking out and now that they are free it's even better.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/bundles/borderlands-the-handsome-collection

On May 20th Nintendo Online Gets Four New Games!

If you were looking for some new to you retro games to play Nintendo Online is getting 4 new ones on May 20th in Wild Guns, Panel de Pon and Operation Logic Bomb on Super Nintendo and Rygar on Nintendo.

Rygar is a classic Nintendo title I've yet to try and am interesting in giving it a go but Wild Guns has my attention. Apparently Wild Guns is a space western shooting gallery game that looks incredible. Plus if you've played for Nintendo Online free is a great price.

2020's Best Monitors for PC Gaming: A Digital Foundry Guide

Recently I purchased a new Ultra Wide monitor as I am Software Engineer by trade and work from home. I've been doing that now for 8+ years and also provide myself all of my peripherals, monitor, desk, chair and office. About the same time ago I purchase a Dell Ultrasharp that has run like a champ from job to job and StarCraft II to Rage 2 over those 8 years. I recently started a new role at Salesforce and decided that after 8 years it was time for a new monitor. In the end I went with a fresh new Dell Ultrasharp Ultra Wide and it's a dream. It's not something i'd recommend for gaming but if you are looking for a new gaming display Digital Foundry has a great video guide you need to watch.

Digital Foundry makes a few recommendations starting at the best overall gaming 1080p monitor that has a great low price to some superb 4K displays. One thing I've noticed is that if you want to get a very high refresh rate at 140hz - 240hz it's easier to find 1080p displays. You can find a great refresh rate with higher resolution but your options begin to be more limited. That said, keeping the price of a great PC in mind and pushing as many frames as possible 1080p isn't a bad choice for an incredible display.

Let me know what kind of display you are using in the comments and any tech specs you can spare such as size, resolution and refresh rate/hz.

LGR Builds An Incredibly Powerful PC!

I'm not sure this is video game news in a general sense but I found this LGR video to be entertaining and awe inspiring. Awe inspiring because it's really incredible how powerful computers are now and I felt like it was worth talking about. Yeah, yeah, we have blazingly capable computing devices in our pocket, the Nintendo Switch and any smartphone being chief among them but it still feels special to me when we hit certain computing milestones and somehow when I watched this LGR video it felt like one.

What are the specs on his latest PC?

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X Processor
MSI Creator TRX40 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 128GB (4 x 32GB) DDR4-3600 RAM
EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FTW3
2TB+1TB+1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2
4TB Samsung 860 QVO SSD
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4 CPU Cooler
LG Blu-Ray Burner WH16NS40
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W PSU
Fractal Design Define XL R2 Case
Asus ROG PG348Q 34" Monitor

I want to highlight the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X that starts out at $1,800 bells and contains a whopping 32 CPU cores. I remember when dual core machines were hot on the market but extremely expensive. For a time quad core machines were the fastest tech and most expensive tech around but now quad core CPU's are quite common place. To me, 32 core CPU's seem like some kind of incredible leap and noteworthy. What's also noteworthy is that most gaming doesn't use much beyond a few cores if any and we are quite a ways from them taking advantage of 4 cores much less 32. Still, video editing and CAD pipelines can take advantage of that kind of CPU tech and it might not be too far away from games to be able to as well.

So if you had a bunch of cash burning a hole in your pocket and wanted to flex on some kind of crazy future proof Desktop PC, LGR's latest video editing machine may be something to consider. Or just click play on the video and dream of a 32 CPU core future.

Elder Scrolls Blades is Now on the Switch!

Blades released on iOS and Android in March of 2019 and was a pretty good Elder Scrolls game considering the free price. The game looks stunning on my iPhone XS Max and when Bethesda mentioned it would eventually come to consoles and PC I was excited. I played it starting at the beta and stopped a month or so after I started. Blades is a good phone RPG but it didn't have a lot to do and I felt the missions were all very similar.

Since I left Bethesda has been continuing work on Blades and recently they released it on the Nintendo Switch. Since Blades is an online game it seamlessly loads your account from the phone version to the Switch. Your progress, inventory and anything you may have purchased is available to play on the Switch in handheld mode or docked to your TV. Blades was made for mobile but it feels like a great match on the Switch. Blades looks good on the Switch hardware in handheld mode and on the TV but it does feel a bit "last gen." It's a good balance between low download size and graphical fidelity and considering the Switch isn't as powerful as modern consoles or PC's it's fine.

The best part about Blades on Switch is the controls. The touch controls of Blades on mobile works well it's just not how I enjoy playing Elder Scrolls games. Now that the game is fully playable on the Switch joycons and Switch Pro controller Blades feels better. You still can only engage with one enemy at a time as with the mobile game but hitting buttons feels more at home with the other Scrolls games I've played.

Hopefully Blades comes to PS4, XBox One and PC because i'd love to see if Bethesda includes increased visuals to match. Even if it doesn't there is a lot of fun here to play even though Blades contains some annoying free to play trappings.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/16/2020 at 04:44am

I just removed Blades from my phone yesterday. It has some decent playability, but at a certain point those free-to-play trappings become way too much. I got faaaaaairly far I think. I got pretty deep into the neverending dungeon mode. But eventually everything just became samey and I felt like progress halted. The game was designed around making you feel like you *almost* had what it takes to get to your next goal............... just 99 cents and you can get there.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/17/2020 at 10:19pm

You do need a fair amount of that for and endless phone RPG but like you say, you can see the seams too much. I thought Fallout Shelter did this better but you almost never needed lunchboxes and the ones you got normally were just fine.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/17/2020 at 10:20pm

I wonder if Elder Scrolls 6 will take a nod from Blades or be more of a directed story line? I hope for the latter.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/19/2020 at 08:43pm

Me too!

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Behold The Wonder of Terraria 1.4!

ChippyGaming has a fun new Terraria 1.4 gameplay video out showing some of the new game features and they look superb. The biggest standout are the updated graphics and polished UI improvements.

Dare I say this looks to be the biggest Terraria update yet? Glad this game made a zillion bucks so they can give it this final send off.

This has been shared in some comment threads but wanted to give it more visibility.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/11/2020 at 03:09am

That makes me want to play, particularly so I can more easily notice the difference.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/11/2020 at 02:34pm

Yeah I think Journey mode alone would have made this the biggest update yet.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/12/2020 at 12:40am

Saturday!!! Whoooot!!!!!!!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2020 at 02:04am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/13/2020 at 02:31am

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/15/2020 at 02:40am

https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/there-back-again-a-summary-of-journeys-end.87997/

Travis Admin wrote on 05/15/2020 at 03:05am

As Thanos said, this does bring a smile to my face.

This is easily the biggest update. Before this, the core game was still the same, but this changes things in such fundamental ways that it feels almost like a sequel.

Like just the NPC hotels we always made... those are now a very bad idea. But the pylons let us visit them wherever they are, and it makes sense to put them where they want to be. And that changes the game in enormous ways on its own.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/17/2020 at 09:56pm

Try using the seed 05162020 and go find the Moon Lord's legs. This is a mysterious seed and is the date of the update's release. Check it out and watch Chippy's video: https://youtu.be/6pltnm1Ax7o

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/18/2020 at 02:44am

Moon Lord's legs are great. Seems like they aren't too hard to find either.

Wonder what else is hidden in that map and if there are any other maps like that?

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/19/2020 at 08:25pm

I started to wonder something and only did a little "Googling," but I'm not entirely sure I have my answer. What has my curiosity is why Re-Logic (and other devs) have (or continue to do) given us free content expansions/DLC. I read it could be kind of service to the community or fans. I think maybe new content would help increase sales, though I'm not sure by how much or for how long. I'm just not sure that it makes complete sense to me though. I'm certainly not complaining, but I'm sure devs want paid. Maybe they've made enough from sales to keep working on it. Perhaps each company (devs) has their own reason for this. What do you think? Again, I do think it's really nice and even great that devs continue to work on a game even after it's released and with such content. It certainly makes a game more playable (assuming the content is good).

Travis Admin wrote on 05/19/2020 at 08:42pm

They reached their highest concurrent player count on the release day of 1.4, so yeah I think the updates throughout the years have definitely helped their sales. I'm sure they would have made a fraction of their millions without the updates.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/25/2020 at 05:47pm

Jon, you wondered what other seeds might be available, there are two more. I think one is of particular interest to you ;)

https://terraria.gamepedia.com/Secret_world_seeds

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/25/2020 at 07:07pm

Hahahaha ❤️

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 05/25/2020 at 08:37pm

I like games w/ seeds, especially if I can find really good seeds. I haven't searched for one for Terraria, but I could describe what I want, but it might be difficult to get. Also, wow it's almost hard to fathom why people would want this game to be even harder.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/27/2020 at 03:22am

> Also, wow it's almost hard to fathom why people would want this game to be even harder.

Yeah. I don't get why furries but they are here and that's ok.