jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2744 Posts

The new Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer isn't new by any stretch but I decided to post it here after Avengers: Endgame has had more time at the box office because this new trailer contains more than a few Endgame spoilers. I'm not going to talk about the implications of the trailer here, but if you want to discuss all of that, let's have at it in the comments.

All that said, I wasn't sure if I was going to be interested in the MCU in a post Endgame world and it seems from this trailer, I am. I'm not sure if this is an opening night film, but something I will want to see in theaters for sure. What about you?


Aladdin on the Sega Genesis only had a six month development window but what shipped was an incredible platformer worthy of the legendary cartoon. Ben Paddon takes a look at the game as well as the other ports surrounding it as well as how Virgin Games worked alongside Disney animators to make the game look incredible. The Aladdin game was Directed by David Perry who went on to mastermind Earthworm Jim as well as a host of other classic titles and Ben talks about that and how the game engine of Aladdin was used in a lot his work and beyond.


FTL: Faster Than Light is one of those games I'll be playing here and there until I'm a grey beard and the followup Into The Breach is just as incredible looking, I just haven't played it yet. I'm holding out hope that it will come to the Switch and until then I'm a fan from the sidelines. Noclip, the amazing purveyors of YouTube game documentaries recently caught up with Subset Games at GDC and filmed a design discussion of FTL and Into the Breach. It's a good teardown of both games and how developers Justin & Matthew got their start in the industry.


There is quite a bit one could say about the new Sonic the Hedgehog trailer but I want to focus my thoughts down to one basic thought. I love campy movies. Movies that are intentionally or unintentionally made with a nod and wink that revel in the underlying silliness of the premise can be some of the coolest theater experiences. The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog seems to hat tip to the fact that this movie is gonna dial the camp factor to 11. Also, I wasn't interested in this film until I saw Jim Carrey doing his "Ace Ventura but with a bit more restraint thing" and I absolutely love it. Perhaps I'm a soulless nostalgia zombie tethered always to the 90's. Or maybe I just love stuff that looks like fun. Jim has taken a bit of a break from acting recently and it didn't make sense to me why he decided to jump back in with this role but after seeing how much fun he's having on screen, I really get it.

I'm not sure I'm going to see this film in theaters but to be fair to myself, I might. This movie could be a horrible train-wreck or something quite different and at this point I'm not entire sure which it will be. That said, a film that has the audacity to make Gangsters Paradise it's first trailer featured song is brave and I for that alone it gets my respect.


Gearbox had a Borderlands 3 event recently where they unleashed a lot of information about the new game including gameplay. If you are a super fan of Borderlands the included video is a must watch and includes a showcase of the new Sanctuary starship hub, the first intro level with Claptrap and co-op. It seems that all the guns in Borderlands 3 have alt fire modes where you could have a pistol that fires regular bullets and it's alt fire mode shoots grenades.

Graphically the game looks like Borderlands with a bit more resolution and detail and a higher frame rate. Rand Pitchford boasted that this is the biggest Borderlands game yet, but I didn't get a sense for how big that would be. Hopefully at some point they let us know, but as of now, this looks like a solid follow up to one of the best shooter games around.


GrandPooBear is one of the best Mario Speedrunners in the world and he recently came to Portland to the Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade for his first ever Speedrun Sessions. He brought along Oatsngoats as well as Andy to speedrun Super Metroid and Link to the Past and I was able to make it to the event with some friends. In a nutshell, it was a really fun night and watching these events live has been one of my highlights in gaming. Poo closed the event to an incredibly warm audience that was whooping and cheering as he beat Grand Poo World 2, one of the hardest Kaizo Mario games i've ever seen.

I'm sharing Poo's Speedrun Session above for Grand Poo World 2 but I recommend you also watch Oats and Andys run link below.

Super Metroid 100% Oatsngoats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdRzZ5too_c

Link to the Past No Sword Andy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go03qZCWDsw

I interviewed Poo before the event, I encourage you to check it out below.

https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/4060/speedrun-sessions-is-coming-to-portland-my-interview-with-grandpoobear

Fun Fact: You can see Cheerful Ghost user Will Ball to the right of Spikevegeta (the guy in the Mega Man II shirt) in the YouTube screenshot before you hit the play button.


Marques Brownlee is one of the best tech reviewers on YouTube. His focus is the latest smartphones, headphones and at times AV gear. He just released a new video in a series he calls Retro Tech where he takes a look at old tech and reviews it and in the first episode he looks at the classic Gameboy. The Gameboy has been reviewed before but Marques video is interesting because he reviews it from an entirely fresh perspective as he's never actually played one before. Along the way he interviews a lot of people in tech that have history with the Gameboy and looks at some of the peripherals of the system and its legendary indestructibility.

"The Game Boy is the most popular handheld gaming console ever. It allowed us to take games like Tetris, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda with us on-the-go, changing the gaming industry and our free time forever. On the 30th anniversary of its release, Marques Brownlee unboxes and explores how the Game Boy came to be, it's impact on society, and why it's leaving us feeling so nostalgic."


Capcom is looking to get into the retro-system nostalgia movement with a very unique offering called the Capcom Home Arcade. It features some of the best Capcom arcade titles and is a dual arcade stick lapboard emulation device meant to be played with a friend. Priced at $260 it looks to be a fairly premium device for the 16 pack in titles it comes with, that said if the hardware is top notch this could be a pretty good value. The Capcom Home Arcade features 1944: The Loop Master Alien vs. Predator, Armored Warriors, Capcom Sports Club, Captain Commando, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Eco Fighters, Final Fight, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Gigawing, Mega Man: The Power Battle, Progear. Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting, Strider & Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo which is enough to keep you and your friends busy.

Besides looking incredibly pretty, the home arcade boasts that it will support wifi to allow leaderboards of the games featured on the system. Looks like the system is powered over USB and requires an HDMI connection so both cables must run along to the television. I wonder if the price tag is to cover the extremely long HDMI and USB cables that need to be included for this thing to work?

It would have been awesome to get some of Capcoms Marvel licensed games but I imagine licensing that might have been prohibitive. Capcom Home Arcade will Haduken its way to your living room on October 25th.

http://www.capcomhomearcade.com/home


If you love retro games and want a pristine HD experience usually you can buy a clone system that emulates the games well but can introduce latency or emulation artifacts you might not want. Typically Speedrunners and folk that prefer playing on original hardware play retro games as they were originally intended but those retro systems are limited to analog video, something that doesn't look great on modern displays. Analogue decided to solve this problem by not emulating the original video game hardware in software but by creating chips that recreate the original systems bit for bit. To-date Analogue has released a version of the original NES, Super Nintendo and now Sega Genesis that runs the original games in crisp 1080p and with zero input lag. DF Retro has a new video up that compares the Mega Sg to the original Sega hardware and it looks like the Mega does really well and even surpasses the original system in many ways.

Metal Jesus also has a good review of the system too, so if you need more metal in the review, this is a good one to watch too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufhJ89wAYrs

https://www.analogue.co/mega-sg/


Star Wars Celebration is upon us and during the Episode IX panel Lucasfilm unveiled the new teaser for Star Wars Episode IX titled "Rise of Skywalker." One of my friends is waiting to watch the teaser until we see Endgame in the theater so I'm not going to spoil any of the teaser details in this post but we can in the comments.

After this teaser I'm more excited for The Rise of Skywalker than Endgame or any other movie this year. It's the end of the Skywalker Saga but not quite end of the Star Wars franchise. I've heard news from Lucasfilm and Disney that after this movie they are going to take a break from making films and focus on TV shows on the new Disney+ streaming service. I like the idea of great Star Wars shows but had hoped they'd have figured out how to roll out a new film each year.

That said, let me know what you think of The Rise of Skywalker teaser and i'll put my spoilery thoughts in the comments.