jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

A Link To My Past

This cartoon totally nails how I felt going to Toys R Us to get a Nintendo game. Walking down the aisle, looking at all the boxes and picking that one game I obsessed over until my next birthday.

Thanks Mom!

Image from Zac Gormans Blog:
http://tmblr.co/ZyT1fxZ9x9_j

Game Shop: Minecraft Mayhem

In this episode of that wacky Game Shop, the gang play a game very similar to Minecraft together. It uses a pretty cool four player split-screen that works really well for the episode.

Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition: Free on GoG

"Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, the legendary FPS in which the Earth's greatest hero provides a steady flow of bullets and badass one-liners, is available on GOG.com, for the low price of one smile, for the next 48 hours. That's not all. For the first time in history, this supreme space-alien slaughter simulation is also available on Mac!"

Duke Nukem 3D Free and now on Mac? Awesome. Best head over to GoG and nab this game before the clock runs out. Never played any Duke games personally so here is my chance to redeem myself!

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/duke_nukem_3d_atomic_edition

Dat Firehose: Diablo 3, Scaling League of Legends

Looks like Blizzard is experimenting with Diablo 3 on consoles. No official plans yet they are getting it working.

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/10/3752536/diablo-3-running-on-consoles-still-not-an-official-blizzard-project

Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends is now dealing with "big data" and how to scale that to millions of users. As a programmer I find this sort of thing interesting.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/207248/for-league-of-legends-creator-riot-games-big-data-is-serious-business

Valve wants to get DoTA 2 running on tablets but it looks like the current offerings are not hefty enough to power DoTA 2.

http://kotaku.com/5967051/valve-wants-to-get-dota-2-running-on-tablets

A pretty interesting game Eador Genesis was recently launched on GoG. Looks like a good game for people that love turn base strategy games.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/eador_genesis

Will_Owens wrote on 12/12/2012 at 03:31am

I'm really considering getting Eador. I loved playing HoMM (15 years ago? Jeez) and love games that have opaque systems I have to dig in to learn making this look outstanding. The graphics also look pretty cool in that Age of Wonders watercolor painted kind of way. If anyone has any experience playing it I would love to hear more about it. Also, if it has multiplayer capability, we could get a game night going.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 03:41am

Ill append the post but have you played... let me get the link...

Battle for Wesnoth? Its an Open Source game that is very mature and runs on all the relevant platforms, I even think it has an iOS and Android port:

http://www.wesnoth.org/

Its free too :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:42pm

Reason I bring it up, is because if we want to have a game night with a turn based strategy game that might work as its free for anyone to download and runs on all platforms.

Will_Owens wrote on 12/13/2012 at 12:59am

Very true, although, in my case it would be a game morning. I'd be up for that if we can organize something, but turn based strategy isn't the most popular genre anymore...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/13/2012 at 06:52am

Yeah it really isn't. Maybe we can plan something closer to the holidays, ill have some time off to make scheduling anything much simpler :D

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More Time with the Wii U

This weekend I made my way to the Mall for a bit of Holiday gift retrieval. As I made my way through the morass of Holiday Shopping Victims I noticed a Wii U Kiosk. I navigated my way through the Horde and spent some time watching kids play and asked the attendants some questions about some of the games.

One thing I took away from checking out the Wii U is that the games are very pretty. The New Super Mario Brothers Wii U & Scribblenauts HD look stunning.

One game stood out to me as a pretty fun example of the new Wii U tablet style controller was Nintendo Land. Nintendo Land is essentially a set of Wii style party games similar in tone to Wii Play & Wii Sports. The rep. was alternating between two Nintendo Land games: Mario Chase and The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest.

Mario Chase is a game where one Mii takes the role of Mario with the Wii U Tablet Controller. The Mario player's screen and game is controlled entirely on the Wii U tablet while the other 4 Mii's dressed like Toad use the Wiimotes to try and catch Mario. So it seems certain games on the Wii U can support 5 players! The interesting thing watching the game was the integration Nintendo gave for Mario Chase. Only 3 kids were playing with Wiimotes so the 4th split screen box was showing the web cam of the kid holding the Wii U tablet, I snapped a pic showing it off here:

http://i.imgur.com/HCwME.jpg (Three kids with Wiimotes chasing the kid with the Wii U Tablet)

The other game they showed from Nintendo Land was The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest. This was essentially Zelda Four Swords with Wiimotes. Looked like quite a bit of fun.

http://i.imgur.com/pu2sq.jpg

I asked the rep. if I could transfer my old Wii saves to the Wii U and she said I could. I sort of threw this question out expecting her to say no so I was surprised to learn you can do it. For me, this increases the chance I might upgrade to the Wii U. I wonder if Sony and Microsoft's next generation console will allow this?

http://www.nintendofuse.com/2012/11/20/wii-to-wii-u-system-transfer/

A few images from the experience:

A Wii U Kisok Panel: http://i.imgur.com/LHZ8O.jpg
Mario Chase Overmap: http://i.imgur.com/yM1kW.jpg
Mario Chase Starting: http://i.imgur.com/6sf4t.jpg
Apparently Nintendo Uses Mac: http://i.imgur.com/6hiWU.jpg

Travis Admin wrote on 12/11/2012 at 02:01pm

It really does look unique, interesting, and fun. But so did the Wii, and with the exception of first-party titles, I barely ever touched it. There were a few good ones, like MadWorld and No More Heroes, but it's been collecting dust since Super Mario Galaxy 2. Nintendo made something amazing, but the lagging graphics and tons of shovelware kinda pushed out third-party developers.

Hopefully the Wii U is different, but I worry that once the new round of consoles that MS and Sony release will push it to the same spot as the Wii.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/11/2012 at 05:20pm

The last game I played seriously on the Wii was Super Mario Galaxy. My wife and I still pull out the Wii for the Just Dance games at parties. We just picked up Just Dance 4. I have a soft spot for the Wii, but like you it mostly goes unplayed. In the end, my Playstation 3 did more so hopefully the Wii U can fill that void.

I am wondering what Microsoft and Sony are doing next, so far I have no idea what that is but I will hold off until I know more for sure.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 12/11/2012 at 06:22pm

I'll admit that up until a couple weeks ago, everything I heard about the Wii U had been kind of underwhelming. But now that the system is out and people are getting some hands on experience with it, I'm seeing a lot of really positive reviews. Hopefully this enthusiasm will stick better with the Wii U than it did with the Wii.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/11/2012 at 09:37pm

I think the Wii U made some choices to give it lets over the next generation better than the Wii. A few reasons:

The Wii U is compatible with all your old Wii Stuff.

The Wii U is essentially a PS3 or XBox 360 horsepower wise. I believe this is important because the PS3 and XBox 360 will be supported well into the next generation. Whereas the PS4 and XBox 720 might look better, I believe publishers will still make PS3 and 360 ports well into the next generation.

Its $300. This is a good price to start at as it starts reasonably and will drop over time.

That said, for me the most exciting platforms are the PC, Steam in your Living Room and Apple TV with apps.

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Happy Holidays with Minecraft!

Like many of you, when my Holiday time off comes around I plan on playing some games. Minecraft will no doubt be played and it seems that Mojang will be updating it so you can ring in the New Year Minecraft Style.... Minecraft Style.... OP, OP, OP!

From the Mojangs mouth:

"What’s this? This doesn’t sound like a redstone update at all!”, you say. “Indeed,” we say. Thing is, we* suddenly decided we wanted to make sure that you have fireworks for New Year’s Eve, so we’re working in several parallel branches of the code now. One is for the 1.5 “Redstone Update,” and one is now for a 1.4.6 patch update. This update will be out before Christmas, and 1.5 will wait until January (or possibly February)."

Ill be checking the Wiki after the patch drop for the recipe.

http://www.mojang.com/2012/12/minecraft-snapshot-12w49a/

Mew-Genics Title Music

Just adding another post to the continuing trail of cat parts littering the road to the launch of Mew-Genics.

"So we really splurged with the soundtrack for Mew-genics, the game will feature a full album of over 20 studio recorded songs, with more than half of them with lyrics! we really wanted to make the games music feature extended themes of the game or small stories within each song, kind of how Katamari did it in a way, except all our songs are about cats!"

I really dig the title track and am really looking forward for this release.

http://supermeatboy.com/129/Mew_Genics_Teaser_week_7/#b

Dat Firehose: Elder Scrolls Online & Portal on TI

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Online Team recently released a story from the ESO Universe. This one focuses on Jorunn the Skald-King:

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/misc/leader-profile/ebonheart

Some awesome people released Portal for the TI Calculator. Video linked above. Nab the code for your TI:

http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=841

THQ stock jumped 40% after its latest Humble Bundle went live:

http://m.pcgamer.com/2012/12/03/thqs-stock-rises-nearly-40-thanks-to-humble-bundle

Some have noted the Wii U is better for Indie Games. Great even:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/12/03/1549213/cheap-indie-games-make-wii-u-a-better-value

Crysis 3 specs were recently released. Its as if millions of PC's cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced:

http://www.crysis.com/us/crysis-3/buy

Travis Admin wrote on 12/08/2012 at 04:06am

Hey, I think I might be able to pull off Crysis 3 at almost recommended!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/08/2012 at 06:18am

Awesome! You must have some awesome hardware!

Travis Admin wrote on 12/08/2012 at 12:35pm

Not really. I think it's mostly that I got a video card recently. It wasn't even the best or anything, just a $125 NVIDIA that was significantly better than the ATI I was running.

Travis Admin wrote on 12/08/2012 at 04:20pm

Also, Portal on the TI looks surprisingly functional.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/08/2012 at 04:50pm

Yeah, it really does. That TI font... Reminds me of college.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/08/2012 at 06:16pm

Well...I know what I will be spending my math class doing now.

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Game Stop: Episode 7

In this action packed episode with those wacky kids at The Game Shop, the Game Shop loses power! I am pretty impressed with how much they are able to do with just a Game Shop and a few characters.

Quake II Turns 15 Today!

This just in from the "I am getting old Department" it seems Quake II marks its 15th birthday today! Bethesda and iD Software rang in the occasion with some interesting tidbits from iD's Tim Willits.

Only three artists made all the 2D and 3D art for the entire game.

One of the original suggested names for QUAKE II was WOR, but the game’s fast-paced, tactile feel felt closer to a QUAKE game than a new franchise.

‘The Edge’ (Tim’s favorite deathmatch level in QUAKE II or any other game), has over 50 trick jumps possible in the map. Tim only designed two of them, and the rest were discovered by the QUAKE II community.

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/12/06/happy-15th-quake-ii/

jdodson1

2762 Posts

A Link To My Past

Game Shop: Minecraft Mayhem

Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition: Free on GoG

Dat Firehose: Diablo 3, Scaling League of Legends

More Time with the Wii U

Happy Holidays with Minecraft!

Mew-Genics Title Music

Dat Firehose: Elder Scrolls Online & Portal on TI

Game Stop: Episode 7

Quake II Turns 15 Today!