DLC drops today and it looks like more awesome Borderlands 2. You planning on picking this up or do you have this as part of the Season Pass?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/213250

I love Minecraft. So when I saw Minecraft on phones and tablets I snapped it up in a second with dreams of endless farming every second of the day. I will give Mojang a hand for making Minecraft on the phone, it works just about as you would expect. That said, something about playing it on my phone I don't love. The game feels cramped and its not easy to do things the desktop game makes easy. That said, its a fine port but I don't play it much. No mobile farming for this guy.

Occasionally I troll through the top apps on the iTunes store and I recently noticed a new game called The Blockheads. It is a side scroller similar in style to Terraria but built for mobile. The game is also unique in that it uses a home portal to warp in certain items like your crafting bench.

The game is a typical freemium game in that things take time and you can pay a bit to speed things up. I don't find waiting a few seconds for your character to craft or mine something so the freemium aspect isn't evil.

If you are looking for a fun building game for your iPhone I really recommend you download The Blockheads. Plus with a price tag of free, its a no brainer.

I finally beat The Scorchers. Its not the longest bit of DLC ever but its fun as hell. Its also pretty as anything I have seen in a game so far. I took a ton of screen shots of the jaw dropping visuals and will link to the really impressive ones in this post.

I would say that each level in The Scorchers is different in visual and stylistic tone. You go from a cave level, to a new epic Mutant Bash TV level to a killer Warehouse level to the last series of sewers to the final Scorcher end base that is a kind of Pyramid/Mayan themed area. The Scorchers ends with an epic boss battle and it wasn't entirely obvious to me how to win at first so I will help you out a bit, if it glows blue, rocket that shit.

After The Scorchers was over I wanted more Rage. Its so pretty and The Scorchers does what iD does best, gives you some bad-ass shooter mayhem. After you have completed the final Scorcher boss you get a trophy room in Wellspring. Its pretty cool as certain events and secrets unlock certain trophies you can look at and it gives Rage a bit more depth to it.

I like the addition of the new Casino even though I am not the luckiest Rage casino patron. The Scorchers also gives you the option to buy a few new Rage Frenzy cards but I haven't tried them out in a game yet.

Overall, The Scorchers was extremely satisfying and left me wanting more. I hope iD pulls out a few more packs just like this.

A few screenshots:

• An example of how awesome the lighting effects are underground: http://imgur.com/5IESk


• A long sewer corridor to the outside: http://imgur.com/FZwpZ


• Right before the final Scorcher area, a merchant awaits: http://imgur.com/Lb0s0


• Dusk in the Scorcher Base: http://imgur.com/utJmb


• Two Scorcher Cars: http://imgur.com/Sh7O8


• The first glimpse of the Scorcher Boss: http://imgur.com/RzIxP


• More of the boss: http://imgur.com/Vikpk


• Dat epic sundown: http://imgur.com/RHg5e


• An Indiana Jones style pedestal: http://imgur.com/rw5g2


• One of my trophies in the room: http://imgur.com/sEYCT


• I back tracked and found the secret iD developer room: http://imgur.com/NEK90


• More dev room: http://imgur.com/WBABc


• More dev room: http://imgur.com/6jM0w

Update:
We are having a Rage: The Scorchers giveaway contest, more on that here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/panickedthumb/posts/907

Just found an awesome how-to video by NESComplex on creating universal cases for your NES Collection. He goes over design, to print to how to construct the cases for your NES library.

"In this update video I demonstrate the storage system I use for many of my NES games: Universal Game Cases UGC and printed box art covers from www.thecoverproject.net. I show how to print them from PowerPoint, and modify the game cases for NES games using a multi tool. I also address using DS Cases for GBA games and the problem with doing this if you live outside the states. If you know of any websites abroad, let me know and I'll add them to the description! I hope it helps!"

http://www.youtube.com/user/NESComplex
http://www.thecoverproject.net/

CarbotAnimations, the folks that brought us the Starcrafts animations have started to branch out into Nintendo territory. This Zelda video is pretty interesting from the perspective of those dead things in Ocarina. Those things always creeped me out in the original game.

These kinds of videos are always interesting. The film has James Rolfe the Angry Video Game Nerd as a news caster and features the original voice of Sonic in the Cartoon Jaleel White.

What did you think of it?

On dueling:

"Here's a quick rundown of how dueling will work in Diablo III as well as some insight into our design philosophy for the system.

How it Works:

• To duel another player, you’ll need to speak with Nek the Brawler at the inn in New Tristram.


• Speaking with Nek will take you and your party to the Scorched Chapel, a new zone designed specifically for player combat


• This zone has custom geometry and features four different areas: the church, the graveyard, the river, and the lake


• Dueling currently supports up to four players in a Free-For-All format, which means you can battle your friends either one-on-one, three-player FFA, or a full four-player FFA

If you die in the dueling world, you will be resurrected in the dueling zone

• Death is not permanent in the dueling zone, even for Hardcore characters


• You don't take any durability damage while in the dueling zone


• When you're done dueling you can take a portal out or use your Town Portal to return to town.

"

Beyond the dueling update in 1.0.7 the Wizard and Monk are getting buffs. There are also a plethora of other changes you can read about below. Interested in checking out duelling although from everyone I know, my character isnt as epic. Still, something new to checkout.

Are you interested dueling in Diablo III or have you moved on?
http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/8414560

During the Steam holiday sale I picked up Rage: The Scorchers. I liked Rage quite a bit and I am pretty excited to check out the new stuff. I am not finished with it and will periodically post about how my experiences are going with it.

When I played Rage the first time I noticed some areas that seemed like they should have allowed you some access. Like an area at the far end of Haggar Territory where there was a settlement of people, if you go a bit further there is a huge installation you couldn't go in. I figured it would open up at some quest point, but it didn't. There was also a Casino in Wellspring that was closed that you couldn't get in. Always wondered about these locations. In The Scorchers both of these places are available to you in the quest line. Was this content that they took out because they had to make a deadline? Its a shame it didn't make the final game because Rage would have been more epic if it shipped with this content.

So far The Scorchers levels have been really inventive and beautiful. The extra Mutant Bash TV you have to beat to travel the new Scorcher quest line is a totally awesome addition. The only downside to the new Mutant Bash level is you can't replay it in game like the main one. They did add a new mode where you can replay any mission from the game, this is a nice addition but you can't play the new Mutant Bash level over again in your single player game.

Overall the content is fantastic and the extra chance to inhabit the world of Rage is great. Oh right and the new Nailgun is lots of fun. The animations when you switch between the ammo types is interesting as it swaps the entire look of the gun. My gun of choice in Rage is the combat shotgun, sniper rifle and wingstick. Even if harder enemies take a few shotgun hits thats not a problem as I love ducking in and out of cover.

If you dug Rage and wanted a bit more, you should get The Scorchers. I recommend getting it if you are starting out as the missions are available very early on in Haggar Territory and the addition of the Nailgun in your early arsenal would be epic.

http://i.imgur.com/9Rulw.jpg: The new Mutant Bash TV level, at the end you shoot Mutants flung at you with a big ass cannon deck! When you hit one a mess of blood flies everywhere.

http://i.imgur.com/vCNDL.jpg: A new Scorchers mission level.

Valve posted that Linux client usage is already at 0.8% where Mac client usage rose to 3.7%. Wonder how these numbers will change as more games are ported to Mac and Linux?

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

To celebrate the awards Borderlands 2 won in 2012 2k is handing out 5 golden keys to everyone. Remember to use your keys as you seem to max out at 10!

http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/community/articles/983/awards-and-celebrations

According to a recent interview with Gabe Newell, some developers are earning as much as 500k per year adding content to the Steam Workshop. This just in, I am considering switching my career to "digital hatter."

http://www.develop-online.net/news/42933/Steam-Workshop-devs-making-up-to-500k-a-year

Back in 2004 I heard about a remix album for the SNES classic Donkey Kong Country called "Kong in Concert." I had never considered that people would remix video game tunes and decided to download it because it was free and I loved Donkey Kong Country. I wore out the digital files of that album, if such a thing is possible because it is so awesome. Over the last few years I have stocked my Video Game Music collection with Humble Bundle Game Soundtracks, Collectors Edition Soundtracks and free downloads from OC Remix.

To date I have collected 77 albums and most of them are really great. Recently I trolled the OC Remix site and noticed a few new albums dropped one being "Double The Trouble!" the remix album of Donkey Kong Country 3. Now the strange this is I never played DKC3 but since I loved Kong in Concert, I picked this one up. I wasn't disappointed as the remix album is largely fantastic. Not every track is great, but the majority are and it was a joy to discover them.

Oh right and the album is no slouch as it clocks in at 5 hours and 23 minutes of total music. Its also interesting as this remix album does something few do in that it remixes tracks from the SNES and Game Boy Advance versions seperately.

A few stand out tracks:

- Knautilus (video embedded above)
- Intoxica (Pokey Pipes): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGsg5yjwzOw
‎- Road to Double Trouble (Fanfare): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfq6TVeb5xk

There are others but I don't want to spoil your first listen of the entire album. You can pick up the entire album FLAC+MP3 or just MP3 on the OC Remix site.

http://dkc3.ocremix.org/
http://dkcproject.ocremix.org/