Rage 2 was one of my most anticipated games out of E3. They teased a Rukus The Crusher talking head and it looks like it's a thing you can buy with the upcoming collectors edition. It doesn't seem to steeply priced at $119 considering it comes with Rukus, the base game on the platform of your choice(as long as it's only three systems) and a steelbook case, a collector’s poster, an exclusive mission, & wasteland wizard cheat codes. There's also a bit more DLC included such as a monster truck, an armor set, and the... BFG. Looks like all pre-order versions of the game get the "Cult of the Death God" exclusive mission, settlers pistol, Nicholas Raine armor, and a monster truck but the Collectors Edition gets a little bit more.

I'm not quite sure how i'm going to play Rage 2 but you can get it for the normal or more... enhanced price.

Rage 2 gets really angry on PC, PS4 and XBox One the Spring of 2019.

It's that time again for a new Hearthstone expansion and this next one looks like a lot of fun and it's called The Boomsday Project. Doctor Boom is an old Hearthstone Legendary card that was one of the most overpowered in the game before he was rotated to wild. He's back and in his own expansion that looks like it fuses explosions with Hearthstone SCIENCE! Speaking of fuses a new mechanic MAGNETIC is for Mech cards allowing MAGNETIC cards to fuse to other mechs giving them the stats and abilities of the MAGNETIC card. It's a lot like Deathstalker Rexxar's Build a Beast ability but for mechs which looks to be very interesting.

A side note... the Hearthstone team is getting really great at making very fun videos showing off expansions and this one is the most entertaining to date. I'd recommend checking it out just for fun even if you don't plan on playing the game.

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/expansions-adventures/the-boomsday-project

If you have Twitch Prime head over to Twitch now to collect on all the free games you can! Amazon Prime is a pretty big day and since Amazon bought Twitch it's now partaking in the festivities giving away a ton of indie games for Prime members such as Metal Slug 3, Broken Age, Brutal Legend, Tacoma, Next up Hero and Qube 2.

With all the free game giveaways on Twitch by having Twitch Prime I have an ever growing Twitch catalog. Curious if Twitch is going to position itself as a competitor to Steam, GOG and Origin as it's already ramping things up to become an interesting digital store.

https://blog.twitch.tv/get-ready-for-the-biggest-game-giveaway-in-twitch-prime-history-52e55aba19eb

Metal Jesus got his hands on the new RetreoN 77 Atari Remake system and put it through the paces. The whole retro console remake market is pretty hot and this system seems to have a nice light footprint starting out at about $70. That said, it's not perfect and it seems RetreoN is having issues with the controllers in the first run. That said if you are looking for a good way to play your Atari games in HD this is a solid option.

"PROS:
Runs real 2600 cartridges (approx 99% compatibility)
720P HD output
Supports original Atari joysticks and paddles
Toggle 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio
Super long controller cable
Looks nice

CONS:
Joystick may break during heavy use
Doesn't support more than 18 ROMS
Slight video/audio lag because of software emulation"

This years Summer Games Done Quick was one of the best i've seen to date I think a couple reasons for this is that there are a lot of great new speedrunners running awesome games and the Games Done Quick team is better than ever. This years charity was Doctors without Borders and it's a cool thing to consider that Games Done Quick is the biggest single funding event it has and this year was a blowout with 2.1 million raised! If you want to relive the entire week you can stream it all on the Games Done Quick YouTube page or just check out the runs i'll highlight here. I wanted to talk about a few now and will create a few more posts in the upcoming weeks.

Final Fantasy VI Glitchless 100% Speedrun by puwexil in 6:53:00 The final speedrun that closed the event was by Puwexil and was 7 hours of pure Final Fantasy III/VI awesomeness. Since it's a glitchless 100% run Puwexil runs the whole game as quickly as possible while getting each character. It's worth watching and I know you don't have 7 hours to watch it in one go so piecing it out a bit over time seems like a good way to watch it all.

Video embedded above.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D by gymnast86 in 1:32:35 Majora's Mask is a game on my list of shame and I plan on picking it up to play this year. That said, I watched the first half of the run and it shows off why this game is one of the most beloved in the series. I stopped watching because I didn't want to spoil the whole game but if you've played it before coming back to watch the 3DS port is well worth it as it's one of the best ways to play and watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pejFW9W_yM

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Undead Campaign by CovertMuffin If you haven't watched a CoverMuffin run you should because he's a lot of fun to experience. Later on in the event he was one of the people reading off donations and did a great job doing that. He's a fun personality and his knowledge of WarCraft III is immense. Come of the WarCraft III stay for CoverMuffin's laugh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhISmAF6ASw

The Legend of Zelda Race of LackAttack24 v beetea v Eunos in 36:20 Last year I woke up early to catch the Legend of Zelda race and this years was just as fun but didn't require me to wake up at 5am. It's a great race and each player is quite good. That said, a clear winner emerges by a pretty impressive time and 36.20 is a great run!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo0LVPu2QIM

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Bingo by Runnerguy2489 in 1:13:06 One new format for running Ocarina of Time that came to this years GDQ was Ocarina of Time Bingo. Basically you start the run with a bingo board and the runner picks a sequence row or column and tries to run it as fast as possible. You need to know the game and all of it's skips and exploits well to get a good speedrun of the format and Runnerguy makes it look easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVu7WWpjWnU

Wanted to wish all the stateside Ghosts a very happy Independence Day. Drop off what you’re doing in the comments and enjoy the national feast of hot dogs!

This might seem like an odd topic for Cheerful Ghost but as we are all lovers of film the discussion seems useful. Cheerful Ghost has a booth at Portland Retro Game Expo each year and as a way to make a few bucks to help cover the booth cost and a stab at doing something a bit unusual we sell VHS tapes. I've been a light collector of VHS for the last couple years and selling tapes at the booth was a natural progression of that. All that said, I recently found a video that takes a second look at the home video format and VHS specifically. It's a great video and I think many of the points are spot on as some films really are better suited to be watched at home rather than in a theater. The video uses the example of Kevin Smith's Mallrats and Clerks and I totally agree.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is an upcoming game for the Switch and 3DS that you can play a demo of right now on both systems. It launches on July 13th but we know quite a bit about it already and from what we know it looks like a great Wii U port. Digital Foundry reviews the new Switch and 3DS demo and compares them to the original Wii U version. Some good news is that the Switch version ups the resolution from 720p => 1080p a really nice improvement. The Digital Foundry video mentioned that the Wii U capped most games as 720p as I figured they'd be 1080p but it seems the Switch is a much more powerful system.

Nintendo keeps brining the amazing Wii U ports and in this instance they also are bringing it to the 3DS. It's cool to see the 3DS keep being supported and Nintendo is talking about a possible successor to it. I'm open to a new DS but as with most things Nintendo, it's a surprising rumor to hear as I figured they'd be focusing on a Switch only future.

If you want to play Duck Hunt on a modern LCD TV the Modern Mallard Kickstarter might be the ticket. It requires you to mod your light gun & game cart for it to work and the base pledge is $129. It's a super incredible project but... I got a CRT TV for $10 and it works awesome with Duck Hunt. Still, if you want to HD all the things this is a really compelling option.

"Well, you can't play Duck Hunt anymore with your NES: it doesn't work on modern flat-screen TVs. You need an old, bulky tube (CRT) TV to play. The Zapper can't "see" modern TVs, and modern TVs have enough delay on their inputs to confuse the game. You're out of luck.

Until now.

Do you want to play your copy of Duck Hunt with your NES on a modern TV? Want to relive the fun of the game or share it with your own kids? You can with Modern Mallard!"

Pokemon Quest just launched on Android and iOS two days ago and i've been playing it a bit since it dropped. I'm going to say right at the top that Pokemon Quest is a good mobile game and it's free to play elements aren't too annoying. That said, the game is good but not great and it's not quite boring, but it's not that compelling either. You might as well call Pokemon Quest "Pokemon Rival Turf Wars" because the basic gameplay is you have 3 Pokemon in a group they walk around levels automagically and pick fights with other Pokemon until your Poke-gang kicks everyones ass. Your group has an overall power level and it's easy to tell if you have enough power to beat the current stage or not. As you beat levels you are awarded power stones that boost Pokemon attack and health as well as speed up their activated abilities. It's a fairly simple game in concept and execution and I think that's all to it's credit yet even with a fun voxel art style and original Gameboy sound effects the game is ... fine.

That said, I imagine Pokemon fans will enjoy this little jaunt in the Poke-verse and it should make a zillion bucks for Nintendo.