jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

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

2762 Posts

Into The Breach Is Coming To PC Feb 27th!
Into the Breach is the upcoming turn based strategy mech vs monsters game from Subset Games the creators of the Indie mega hit Faster Than Light. They dropped the new recently that the games is coming to Windows on Steam, GOG and Windows store on February 27th! I imagine the game will get a Mac and Linux port at some point but it looks like the first release of the game will be Windows only. If you want to know more about the game you absolutely must watch the video above of the developer Justin Ma giving a talk about the game and how they approached it's design. It's a really great behind the scenes talk on how they created the game and their focus on using simple design mechanics seem to have made a very approachable game that is easy enough to understand but can create some very challenging scenarios.

Does Into The Breach look like something you are getting at launch?

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/961039565774512128

The Handheld PC Craze Continues With The GPD Win 2
You don't need to wait for a Steam based handheld because it's already here and it's in it's second form in the GPD Win 2. GPD makes lots of portable systems and I actually own one of them in the portable Android handheld GPD XD. The GPD Win 2 looks to improve the specs and hardware of it's initial launch to cram a ton of PC horsepower into the palm of your hands such as..


  • Intel Core m3-7Y30

  • lntel HD Graphics 615

  • 6 inches H-IPS Technology

  • 8GB Memory

  • M.2 SSD 128GB, Replaceable, No Capacity Ceiling

  • 162×99×25mm

  • ABS + Aluminum alloy

  • 2×4900mAh, In Series

  • About 6~8 hours of battery life, it should depend on the actual working conditions



To put this handheld in perspective the embedded video above is showing new Doom on GPD Win 2 running at 40FPS and Doom on the switch runs at 30FPS. The official GPD Win 2 Indiegogo page has linked to lots of other videos showing off other games such as Wolfenstein II, Witcher III and more running at entirely acceptable PC frame rates making this PC handheld a really great option if you want to play games on the go. If you are thinking about making the jump into portable PC territory the GPD Win 2 is currently priced at $649 and they plan on raising that when the system finally launches.

I really like that the handheld PC space is improving over time and if the 2,896 backers on Indiegogo that have funded this at 1.8 million are an indicator there is a market for these kinds of systems. As the Nintendo Switch gets more popular these kinds of alternatives are going to keep coming and I am curious when we might see from others?

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-win-2-handheld-game-console-for-aaa-games-laptop#/

Here Is The Official Solo: A Star Wars Story Trailer!
Yesterday during the Super Bowl we got a teaser for the new Han Solo movie trailer and today we got the full meal deal.

The movie looks to be very well pretty and I really dug the new droids and some of the shots looked very stunning. I'll put more of my thoughts below in the comments and i'm also curious what you think of Solo from the trailer. Solo is coming out May 25th and if history is a guide i'll be watching it that opening night.

You can also watch the TOTALLY DIFFERENT trailer TEASER that played during the Super Bowl linked below. It shows a few different scenes and it is more of an actual teaser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Szts88zY4o

Mario Kart Tour Is Coming To Smartphones In 2019!
https://i.imgur.com/G6ThFEu.jpg
Nintendo dropped a Tweet today mentioning that they are going to be releasing a new Mario Kart game on mobile.

"The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near. A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019."

I'm pretty interested in a Mario Kart game on phones but I hope it's not a badly paired down version of what makes Mario Kart games great. Super Mario Run was a really great version of New Super Mario Brothers on smartphones but I felt like Animal Crossing was a bit of a miss. I think a Mario Kart game could work with touch controls but I hope it doesn't get bogged down in modern free to play trappings that make those games more annoying than entertaining. What do you all think, does a phone based Mario Kart sound fun or should this franchise stick to proper Nintendo systems with a better control systems and a traditional price tag?

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/958876622517452801

The Commodore 64 Mini Launches on March 29th
https://i.imgur.com/f3xiyOZ.png
Retro game console re-releases have been a really popular market in the last few years and everyone is getting in on the action. The latest entrant, the Commodore 64 Mini will now release on March 29th featuring 64 licensed games, a USB connectable joystick and the ability to use it as a C64 family computer including the ability to write Commodore BASIC programs. They've also said the C64 Mini will be up-gradable via USB firmware updates and I imagine will be somewhat hackable as well.

The keyboard on the unit itself isn't functional but it does come with two USB ports so you can plug in your own keyboard. Depending on the price and how much of a functional C64 system this is, I might pick it up. The first computer my parents had was a C64 and I started writing software for the first time reading BASIC programs out of computer magazines and changing them so I could create my own games.

https://thec64.com/
https://www.facebook.com/THEC64computer/posts/1772462536392313

Listen To This Epic Two Hour Interview With Rian Johnson The Director of The Last Jedi
If you are interested in knowing more about how Rian Johnson came to direct Star Wars The Last Jedi you absolutely must listen to this epic two hour interview with him about The Last Jedi. Firstly, the whole interview is incredible and you should listen to it all but Rian mentioned a few things I thought were interesting based on some of the feedback for The Last Jedi. One interesting bit is that Rian was writing The Last Jedi as The Force Awakens was filming and, at that point, he had the script and dailies to help him write The Last Jedi. He notes that he had no idea what aspects of The Force Awakens would resonate with fans. Rian also mentioned that Snoke seemed to be a particular fan favorite and that if Snoke backstory had been written into The Last Jedi it would have been cut because of time and other character considerations.

This interview also happened on the Slashfilmcast one of my favorite podcasts that adds a really personal touch to The Last Jedi discussion. Soon The Last Jedi Bluray will hit and according to Johnson a ton of deleted scenes are going to hit along with behind the scenes footage that should be interesting to watch. I'm curious what people think of this interview and how the discussion of The Last Jedi has continued since it's launch December of last year?

http://www.slashfilm.com/filmcast-ep-451-an-evening-with-rian-johnson-director-of-star-wars-the-last-jedi/

Project Octopath Traveler Developer Update
Project Octopath Traveler is a upcoming Switch game that looks to bring back some of the best parts of classic JRPG's from the 16bit era to modern gaming with a 3D flavor. The demo launched on the Switch last year and it showed a ton of promise but many people had issues with some of it. Looks like the developers of the game have addressed many of these concerns and talk about how they've updated the game in the developer update video above. Specifically they improved movement in terms of speeding up the character and allowing them to run much faster than before. They bumped up the encounter rate when running at full speed but that seems a fine trade off to get around the game faster.

In the next episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio we all talk about Project Octopath Traveler as one of the games we are excited about playing in 2018 and I mention that the game might be getting updates based on all the demo feedback and it looks like that was right.

John Riggs Reviews The Retro-bit Super Retro Trio+
John Riggs reviews the new Retro-Bit Super Retro Trio+ that melds the Nintendo, Super Nintendo and Genesis together in an interesting way. Not only can you play nearly all of the game karts of those systems with it but it allows you to switch between the different regions as well as provides composite video/audio out as well as HDMI at 720p. Like all X in one systems it supports the controller ports from all the systems so all your controllers work as well as provides a fair NES & SNES Controller out of the box. I have the Hyperkin RetreoN 3 which works really well for composite video/audio but I am looking at picking something up that will do HDMI out and this looks like a really great new option to look into.

"Step up your retro-gaming experience and relive three classic systems like never before, in crisp 720p resolution! The SR3 Plus is the premium top loading console for all of your original NES, SNES, and Genesis games. Custom built with three cartridge slots, six controller ports, and now with HDMI compatibility!

Retro-Bit Super Retro Trio Plus Features

  • Compatible with original NES, SNES, and Genesis game cartridges

  • Custom built with NTSC/PF/NJ/PA region switch

  • AV and HDMI (6 ft. cable included) compatible

  • Includes two 10 ft. wired six button controllers

  • Controllers compatible with SNES and select Retro-Bit consoles

  • Two controller ports for NES, SNES, and Genesis controllers



http://retro-bit.com/super-retrotrio-plus

Awesome Games Done Quick Roundup 2: Mega Man Race & More!
Continuing the Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 wrap up series with another set of amazing speedruns starting with the Mega Man 1, 2 & 3 relay race with Team Auto, Team Beat, Team Roll and Team Rush in 1:26:59. 4 teams all racing through the three Mega Man games in under an hour and thirty. If you are interested in getting some tips on running these games, this is the run to watch.

Hyper Light Drifter by simplyfir in 31:16 - Hyper Light Drifter is a new Indie game that melds the classic Zelda formula with the soothing music of Disasterpiece. It's an expert run by simplyfir and if you want to soak in this game it's a quick way to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzqE6tCOZck

Risk of Rain by scaz.zaf in 13:42 - It takes me, at most, an hour to go a few levels in to Risk of Rain to only die a horrible, horrible death but scaz can complete the game in a blistering 13 minutes! It's such a quick run that it's over before you can blink and scaz makes it look incredibly easy which it isn't.

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

Contra by TheMexicanRunner and angrylanks in 9:58 - Remember when you used to play NES Contra with a friend and used the up up down down left right left right code to get 99 lives and beat the game? Well TheMexicanRunner and angrylanks beat it together with a handful to strategic deaths to make the the whole run clock in in under 10 minutes. UNDER... 10... MINUTES...

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

Dragon Warrior by NEScardinality in 27:19 - Not sure I've watched a run where it showed more RNG manipulation and control over a game than NEScardinaity running Dragon Warrior on NES. In games like Dragon Warrior you randomly run into enemies a lot through the overworld and NEScardinality uses RNG manipulation to avoid nearly all fights except the ones used for gaining experience or gold to get items and levels needed to complete the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgh30BiWG58

My Pickups From The 4th Annual PRGE/NWCGE Swap Meet
The local retro game collector community is pretty strong and as such we have a lot of local events strung through the year that are well worth attending even if you are lightly into the retro scene. In October Cheerful Ghost runs a booth at Portland Retro Game Expo and in January some of the same folks host the PRGE/NWCGE Swap Meet. It's hosted at the Portland Double Tree and it's much smaller and more focused on buying, selling and trading retro games. Will and I hit it up this year and were some of the first people in line to peruse the crazy amount of amazing retro games and collectables. One of my yearly goals is to limit myself to only buying 5 games this year and that makes going to a retro game expo tough but I had a game in mind I've wanted to get for a long time. One of my favorite games on the Super Nintendo is King Arthur's World and it's one of the more obscure games on the platform. I never thought the game got the recognition it deserved as a kind of Lemmings inspired knights and wizards RTS. Since the game doesn't have a huge following it doesn't sell for a lot so I picked it up for a good price.

As Will and I were rounding the show floor I overheard a vendor saying they wanted to move their issues of Nintendo Power and were selling them for a dollar. They were bagged and boarded and in great condition so I immediately was interested. The guy that the vendor told that to directly nabbed each issue he could find but missed a box so after he left I swooped in and walked away with 18 issues. I'm thinking about slowly working to owning a nearly complete collection and this is a really great first step. The issues I bought were Top Secret Passwords, Super Mario Bros. Inside Out Part 1 & 2, Issue Number 9, 23, 24, 26, 28, 37, 45, 48, 55, 63, 68, 70, 71, 74 & 107. I'm thinking a complete collection up to about issue 70 or so sounds good so i'm fairly well on my way to that.

I also picked up a couple versions of Star Wars on VHS I didn't own yet in The Empire Strikes back 1992 release along with The Making of Star Wars VHS released in 1995. I've nearly completed my Star Wars on VHS collection and all I need to button it up is Empire and Jedi on the original CBS/FOX VHS run and Revenge of the Sith. I'm still not sure if I plan on collection all the versions of Star Wars on Laserdisc or if i'll just go for one version of the trilogy on Laserdisc. It's a really obscure format and like Betamax i'm interested in how hard it might be to find locally.