When I sat down to read The SNES Omnibus Volume 1 by Brett Weiss the massive hardback tome transported me back to the 16-bit glory of the 90’s. Immediately the book feels like a must own for the ever growing retro game community and with the explosion of the NES & SNES Classic this feels like a good companion piece. Which, if you want all my thoughts condensed at the top of this review would be to get your hands on this book any way you can. You know, if you love that sort of thing.

The author of the the SNES Omnibus Brett Weiss set out to create a listing of each of the games on the Super Nintendo as a homage to the Leonard Maltin styled movie books such as Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide and 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen. The SNES Omnibus doesn’t shy away from it’s incredible nerdy roots starting with the most geek friendly title of all time to it’s forward by Bill Logudice that goes into SNES technical specs.

The SNES Omnibus Volume 1 covers each of the Super Nintendo game releases in the United States starting with the letters A-M. Brett seems to respect the source material as each game is treated to a one page review and notable quotes from the larger retro game community. The Omnibus starts with 3 Ninjas Kick Back a game made from the 3 Ninjas sequel and even though the game is generally thought to be terrible, Brett gives it a very fair write up. The included notable quotables from the community might not be as kind to the game but the game really isn’t great so that different perspective is useful and often fun to read. Still, I appreciate how each game is given the same attention amazing or not and i’m sure there are a few games in this book you’d be discovering for the first time.

As i’ve said previously, the SNES Omnibus includes quotes and memories from gamers all over the retro scene as well as some very cool game websites. The book doesn’t focus on the perspectives of the most popular retro gaming or video game websites but cast a much wider net. As someone that operates a kick ass video game community review site that isn’t part of the top 50 in the gaming community it’s nice to see other such sites and voices get attention such as http://nintendoage.com, https://defunctgames.com and http://playingwithsuperpower.com.

If you sat down with the SNES Omnibus to read up on 5 SNES games per evening including all the supplemental material you’d have over two months of awesome retro reading. Which, for me, is the best way to come at reading this book with a drink in one hand and my feet kicked up on the couch. One word of warning to people with little children, as I have, I recommend waiting until the little ones are in bed before reading this book. The SNES Omnibus is a large book with amazing content and if you like keeping things in good condition read this when grabby hands are sleeping is the best way to go. The Omnibus and your ability to keep your collection in good condition will thank you!
I decided to take the SNES Omnibus to a friend get together recently to see what other gamers and non gamers thought about the book. Not too surprising it was a hit and seemed to draw the interest of non gamers. The SNES Omnibus didn’t quite make me the hit of the party but it was a nice conversation piece and I was surprised it went over as well as it did.

The SNES Omnibus Volume 1 is meant to be the first in a two-part series and the upcoming Volume 2 should cover SNES titles N-Z. This should be a great way to end the series as many classic games for the SNES such as Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Starfox and Super Punch Out! will be included making it a SUPER conclusion to the series.

I want to thank publisher Shiffer Books for sending me a review copy of The SNES Omnibus. Being able to review stuff like this is part of “the dream” of running a cool video game community and sharing that with everyone here is so much fun. Looking forward to the follow up book and when I do you all will be the first to hear what I think about it!

https://www.schifferbooks.com/the-snes-omnibus-the-super-nintendo-and-its-games-vol-1-am-6439.html

I am beyond excited for the launch of Cheerful Ghost Games through our new BBS. It's a launch that Travis and I have been working for the whole year through a series of little projects that are finally complete.

Cheerful Ghost is A New Wave BBS!

Back in the late 80's and early 90's if you could get the Internet it was expensive and having access to a desktop computer wasn't common. In my family my parents always set aside some money for a family computer even if it wasn't top of the line. Our first desktop computer that had a modem was a Gateway 486 SX/25 with a 2400 baud modem running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and DOS. At the time that wasn't the fastest modem out there but that modem allowed me to connect to local BBS's or Bulletin Board Systems that I used to play games, download shareware and chat with friends. Back then BBS's were one way my friends and I played games together and dialing in to play Legend of the Red Dragon or Tradewars was something I did daily. At the time it was my dream to run my own BBS and I had the software and ability to do it I just couldn't convince my parents to buy another phone line.

I might not have been able to run a dial-up BBS but Cheerful Ghost is the most modern form of that dream and for the last seven years it's been a great place to get together to talk about the stuff we love. Today is special because we now get closer to the BBS dream in that we're launching Cheerful Ghost Games BBS. Like BBS's of yore, our take on it brings some classic BBS single player games to a modern format as well as some of the very best JavaScript/browser games and one game in particular we created ourselves!

ENOUGH! SHOW ME THE GAMES!

Well, I can talk a bit about each game but I recommend you head over to the new BBS to see each game in action for yourself.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games

Cheerful Fortune Each great BBS must have a fortune program that's one part notable quotes and two parts nerd culture. I wrote Cheerful Fortune to be a browser based revisioning of the Unix fortune and BBS fortune programs but with a more Cheerful Ghost focused curation of quotes and sayings. I also released Cheerful Fortune under an Open Source license and welcome contributions to the program through code or fortune files. If you're not a developer but want to see some particularly nerdy quotes or trivia added contact me and I can work with you to get your material added.

Cheerful Fortune is Open Source and I think that Cheerful Ghost built games should have components that are freely available or become Open Source after an amount of time. I think the model iD Software has with their game engines is one I appreciate and something similar could work for our future game releases.

I plan on releasing more Cheerful Ghost games with a focus on games we can all play together. Stay tuned for more on that in the upcoming months.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games/fortune

What Old School BBS Games Can You Play On Cheerful Ghost?

One thing I absolutely had to do when we launched our new wave BBS was include some authentic BBS single player games and we found three that are pretty special. Each BBS game we've included on Cheerful Ghost is true to its original form and as such runs in your browser using DOSBox. It's a crazy technical feat to run the DOS operating system in your browser and as such requires you to have a proper keyboard to play each of the BBS games.

Another note about each of our old school BBS games we include is that they are stateless. What that means is that your score and game session only exist in the current browser window duration you have it open and the game running. So if you exit the game OR close your browser you're gonna have to start over. The good thing is we curated each BBS game to run fine this way as each game is fun for a brief or long play session by yourself.

But enough of that, what are the BBS games you can play?

Freshwater Fishing Simulator

Freshwater Fishing Simulator is a special BBS game that did the whole modern Indie "Simulator" game craze thing back in the 90's before it was cool to do it again.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games/freshwaterfishingsimulator

Don't Wake The Sysop

Don't Wake The Sysop is a meta BBS game where you try and make as much noise as you can without actually incurring the wrath of the BBS Sysop. See back in the day PC's had a speaker and many BBS's allowed you to ring the Sysop that basically beeped the PC speaker to alert the Sysop you wanted to chat. Some users would do this way too much annoying the Sysop and would get kicked off the BBS. Sometimes I'd ring the Sysop and we'd chat about stuff, which was pretty fun when the Sysop was having a good day.

Unfortunately Don't Wake the Sysop won't actually ring my PC but you can play it to relive those special 90's moments that won't be coming back.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games/dontwakethesysop

Barneysplat!

Barneysplat! wasn't my favorite BBS game of all time but it's one that made a pretty lasting impression on my addled teenage brain. Barney and Friends was a very popular show at the time and Barneysplat! was a very timely parody of it where you try and use whatever unsavory means you can to sabotage the show. I thought it was a hilarious game and my friends and I talked about our exploits in the game. Thinking about it from a fresh perspective the game is essentially about trolling a kids show with a positive message of friendship because the game thinks it's cool to be an asshole. I've decided to include it in our first wave of curation not because it's an odd game but serves the WTF player demographic well.

https://cheerfulghost.com/games/barneysplat

We're A New Wave BBS - What New Games Games Do You Have?

Cheerful Ghost Games is a new BBS and as such I wanted to include some interesting new browser games. Each game we've included we can because they were released as Open Source. These games are the first run of many more we plan on dropping in the upcoming months so stay tuned for what’s next!

Candy Box & Candy Box 2

When I realized we could include Candy Box and Candy Box 2 for people to play on Cheerful Ghost I nearly fell out of my chair. The developer of the Candy Box series Aniwey released both games as Open Source and I forked the source on GitHub to make slight alterations to make them playable on the site. You can play Candy Box or Candy Box 2 online elsewhere but part of what made BBS's great wasn't that they had exclusive games but what games the BBS Sysop curated to include and the community that you played them with.

Candy Box is one of the coolest browsers games i've ever played with a ton of personality and charm and if you haven't played it, you need to do yourself a favor. How the game progresses is a joy and I still haven't completed it yet but keep unlocking a bit each time I do.

My recommendation is that you start with Candy Box and when you're done with that play Candy Box 2.

Candy Box [start here] - https://cheerfulghost.com/games/candybox

Candy Box 2 [the incredible follow up] - https://cheerfulghost.com/games/candybox2

What's Next For Cheerful Ghost Games BBS?

The big dream is to release Cheerful Ghost created games on our BBS that you can all play together. We're also going to include other awesome games to play alongside our own creations and this is just the first part of the cool new thing we're doing. As such anything new you do takes a bit of time to settle in and as such we're all interested in hearing more from on how we can improve.

I hope you find some fun with our new BBS games and if you find them as fun to play as we did putting it them together make sure to tell someone.

Since Valve talked about launching a new card game and that it wouldn't be free to play i've wondered how much it would be? Not only has Valve dropped the Artifact launch date of November 28th but also more information on how much Artifact will cost. You can buy two starting decks of 54 cards + 10 boosters for $20. Looks like each booster contains 12 cards and each booster costs $2. The base Artifact set will have about 280 cards so it would take a bit to get each card by opening packs but the good news is you can buy the rest of the cards straight up on the Steam store from other players selling them. Looks like Valve is implementing the same model you can use to play Magic the Gathering except that the game is digital and you get way more cards per booster pack.

Anything Valve does is super popular i'm just wondering how keen gamers are to a card game that costs actual money to play and has no free to play element? Are you going to get the Artifact $20 starter pack November 28th?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/583950/Artifact/

Hearthstones new expansion The Boomsday Project launches August 7th and if you sign on around that time you can grab three free packs and a expansion Legendary. The Boomsday Project is also launching single player puzzle content later in the month and if you check that out you will get 3 more free packs. I like the idea of splitting up the release in two chunks over the month and it's always cool to get a few free packs.

You playing The Boomsday Project when it launches?

"For a limited time after The Boomsday Project starts on August 7, log in to claim 3 card packs and a random Class Legendary minion (or Hero card)—both from the new expansion—for free!

Get 3 more The Boomsday Project card packs FREE when you log in after The Puzzle Lab launches starting August 21."

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21964710

This might be the best episode of Ports Center i've seen. Ben starts things off talking about Skyrim and the ports to various systems and how the gaming community has looked at that. It's becoming a kind of meme that Skyrim will be eventually be ported to anything and that joke hit peak hilarity when Bethesda ported Skyrim to the Amazon Echo.

I don't want to spoil the video but it's a much watch and Ben brings it around for a solid conclusion while drawing parallels to fan reactions to The Last Jedi, a topic we've talked about quite a bit.

SuperHyperCube is a retro VR game that mixes up Tetris with a stylized sort of "tron-like" vibe. Created as a collaboration between Kokoromi & Polytron SuperHyperCube was initially released on Playstation VR and then later Steam VR. At the moment I don't own any VR gear nor am part of the overall VR movement. I think it's an interesting space to be in and I was able to play SuperHyperCube in a Sony store and thought it was one of the most fun VR experiences i've had. All that to say, the behind the scenes doc included above features one of the game developers Phil Fish who has a long and complicated career in gaming. He was the designer of FEZ, which I find to be one of the most delightful and special games i've played in a long time. That said, he had an intensity online that seemed to attract a certain kind of attention that led to Polytron being hacked and him stepping away from the games industry. And then SuperHyperCube released so it seems he might be partly back in, but it's possible he was just finishing out his last project.

I think about FEZ from time to time and Phil in particular. He was featured in Indie Game the Movie which is a complicated movie to consider BUT one thing that it did well was show how certain people handle launching particularly successful games. In a few words? It's a wild ride. That said Indie Game the Movie only showed the most successful games and game a generation of new Indie developers the wrong impression about how things work which may have slightly led to an explosion of Indie games. Not sure more art is a bad thing but it's rough to not make enough money to pay the rent.

Phil cancelled FEZ 2 as he was leaving the gaming scene but I hold out some hope for him to release it someday. I heard FEZ 2 was simply a musical album or something and if that was true would be very exciting.

How about another wrap up of some of the great speedruns from Summer Games Done Quick 2018? Yep, let's do it.

Pokemon Blue/Yellow 2 Games 1 Controller by MeGotsThis in 2:58:36 Two Pokemon games at the same time? These kinds of double speedruns are fun to experience along with the cleverness of the runners on such classic games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AsZf3JnCIg

Kirby's Adventure by swordsmankirby in 49:06 This Kirby run by swordsmankirby is one of the reasons why we're reviewing Kirby's Adventure for this months Cheerful Ghost Games club. The early Kirby games aren't very hard but the skill shown on this run by swordsman is impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY44JxszeFo

New Super Mario Bros. 2 by eddaket in 53:03 The Mario block at this years SGDQ was a treat and one big reason why I asked for New Super Mario Bros. 2 for my birthday was because of this run. It's a great run but more than that NSMB2 looked like a lot of fun and after getting it I can finally say that it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ4uO5PsE8E

Super Mario Maker 3v3 Blind Level Team Race The 3v3 blind level team race for Mario Maker was one of the best races of SGDQ 2018. Each team came in blind to the level so it's fun to see them talking to each other and working to complete each stage. The exhibition at the end of the race was fun to watch too as there were even crazier maps and one runner does a particularly crazy level entirely blindfolded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJ4WDhlJ-o

Pepsiman by theboyks in 25:48 This Pepsiman run was a donation incentive that was met during SGDQ. It's been run at previous events as it's a crowd favorite being that it's a sort of "so bad it's good" endless runner. It also looks like it's super hard, yet theboyks makes it look easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYOmLlzz3E

As Minecraft is now one of the most influental and popular games of the last decade it made sense that someone would make a book about it. In fact a ton of books have been written about Minecraft but the one that I saw sold in stores and advertised the most is Scholastic's 2014 "Minecraft The Essential Guide." It's priced right for it's audience and at $7.99 it's an impulse buy for anyone curious about what the game is. So many copies of this book have been sold that I found it used at a second hand thrift store for $3. Since I own a few video game guides and this one is the right kind of pocket sized hardback in great condition, purchasing it seemed like the right thing to do.

If you've played Minecraft for a while now nothing in this book will be new to you. In fact, it's already aged as there are things in Minecraft the guide doesn't cover. That said, if you like collecting stuff about the games you love then this will be a fun romp through the high points of Minecraft. The book has a brief history of Minecraft and contains a really good primer on how to get in and play the game quickly. It even features sections by Paul Soares Jr, Notch and Jeb that really light up the book with a bigger context to the history of the game and some of it's biggest players. For Mincrafters like me that haven't memorized every recipe, it's nice to have this guide tell you but obviously an Internet search could yield the same result. Still, it's nice to have it all in this little book and if the Internet goes out and you HAVE to play Minecraft and need to craft a bucket this is a nice option.

This book is so well put together that it feels like Minecraft from the header fonts it uses that mirror the base game to how the pages are laid out. It really feels like a Minecraft field guide that you'd want if you were inside the game and I bet the kids that got this as a present loved it. The practical tips it gives are also spot on and one specifically from Paul Soares Jr. about building a house and putting a light on top of it you can see from a distance to not lose your house are super helpful.

If you love Minecraft or want to get a fun gift for someone this book hits the sweet spot at $7.99. But if you don't like Minecraft or the thought of owning some dead trees turned into a physical book isn't your thing, skip it.

If you were wondering how No Man's Sky faired on the XBox One Digital Foundry has an incredible(as always) analysis. The video even goes over the new stuff to No Man's Sky as well as a bit of a retrospective on the game at launch. Looks like XBox One X users are in for a special 4K treat even if the framerate isn't always as consistent. Still the game looks amazing at those frames and someone you might want to look into if you an ultra fan of the game.

Some big Star Wars Episode IX news dropped today that I wanted to share with you all. Not only is Luke Skywalker coming back for Episode IX but so will the entire principal cast of the The Last Jedi including Lando Calrissian! Wasn't sure if they'd bring Lando back but it was confirmed along with some awesome news on how they plan on including Carrie Fisher from the director of Episode IX J.J. Abrams:

"Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character. With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie's legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII."

I've heard a ton of footage of Leia was shot in The Force Awakens and never used so I guess they are glad they didn't include it all in deleted scenes on the Blu-ray!

Star Wars Episode IX starts filming August 1st and will drop in theaters December of 2019.