"You fulfilled your mission. It will revive peace in space. But, it may be invaded by the Metroid. Pray for a true peace in space!" - Ending screen text to NES Metroid.

Even back in 1986 Nintendo was opening up Metroid for a sequel. It's also kind of strange/fun to see a Nintendo game talk about praying for peace. Who does Samus pray to for peace and what is her belief system? I tried to do some searching to find out and it seems the Metroid Wiki doesn't seem to know either because talking about the Galactic Federation in the Metroidverse they say:

"The specifics of culture, religion, trade, currency, technology, civil rights/liberties, and so on are also unknown."

http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Federation

It's also like how Nintendo put a cross on Link's shield in the original Legend of Zelda but Link isn't a Christian. I think old school Nintendo just picked these words and icons without thinking too much about lore because they were easy to understand and are now a fun discussion point.

http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Christianity

But I digress because the point of all this is to say I FINALLY COMPLETED THE ORIGINAL METROID. Which was a fun tick on my video game bucket list. As I said before in talking about playing NES Metroid, the game really opens up after you collect 3+ Energy Tanks and the Varia suit and also improve in the way of the games platforming. So if you have a NES Classic, the ability to get a map of the game and some time, I recommend you play the game if you haven't yet.

I'm planning on playing Super Metroid when I open my SNES Classic and then after that want to tackle the 3DS Metroid Samus Returns. I've considered coming back to Metroid II on Gameboy but decided against it and are going to come in the 3DS game fresh.

A while ago Shovel Knight on consoles got two updates I was envious of. XBone owners got a Battle Toads content update and PS4 owners of the game got Kratos content. I don't love console exclusives but the Battle Toads content looked really cool and I always wanted to check it out. Looks like Yacht Club is making the Battle Toads content free for everyone on PC today so we all can!

"Hop to it! The Battletoads are now available on PC/Mac/Linux versions of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove! Steam, Windows Store, Humble Store & GOG."

I linked to a good article from IGN about how to get the Battle Toads content along with the Battle Toads PC patch notes and update Tweet from Yacht Club.

http://yachtclubgames.com/update-notes/
https://twitter.com/YachtClubGames/status/916010644947722240
http://www.ign.com/wikis/shovel-knight/Battletoads

Fans have been asking Blizzard to get an "appear offline" mode in the Battle.net client for ages and they are finally brining that feature forward in beta. Steam has had it for ages, which is nice when you want to jump on and play a game without anyone bothering you or knowing about it. Sneaky!

"Appear offline allows you to set your status to show you as “offline” to your Blizzard friends while remaining connected to Battle.net. This means you can launch the app and game away without distraction.

Appearing offline will show you as offline to everyone in your Blizzard friends list. Once you have joined a game, the experience of appearing offline might be slightly different depending on which game you are playing. In the case of World of Warcraft, your guildmates will see your character come online and enter WoW’s in-game chat channels, and anyone who has you as a character-level friend will see you online on their friends list. Everyone outside of the same game as you will not see you online or playing any games.

Do you see a friend who’s offline but you really want to send them a message while it’s on your mind? You can now send offline friends messages and they will receive them the next time they come online! While appearing offline you can still send and receive messages in the app, but it is up to you when you want to respond."

There are a few more features including profiles and more social features and if you want to read more about that head over to the Blizzard blog below.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/21098852/new-social-features-now-in-beta-in-the-blizzard-battle-net-desktop-app

The SNES Classic launched this week to rapturous nerd acclaim following up the epic NES Classic launch of last year. Immediately after the NES Classic came out people were trying to hack it to run Linux and put more games on it. The hacks came and solidified on Hakchi2, a tool that allows you to mod a ton of stuff with your NES Classic. At least, it claims SNES Classic support, i've heard stories of people bricking theirs so i'd wait a bit until that all settles out*.

That said, the path forward to mod your NES Classic is pretty clear but... why should you mod it at all?

Honestly if you're not very technical then i'd stay out of it entirely. You have the chance to brick your system and with how hard they've been to get bricking you NES would suck. That said, it's not hard and a couple features of Hakchi2 make it really compelling.

Forget the fact that you can load on more NES roms with Hackchi2, yeah you can do that but I haven't yet. The biggest reason to mod your SNES Classic is to allow you the ability to press down and select at the same time to return to the home menu. This is a lifesaver if the reset button is an annoying distance from you (and it is for me). Another awesome feature of using Hakchi2 is that you can copy the save states from your NES Classic to a local file for backup purposes. It's possible to accidentally (using save states w RPG's) to wipe out a ton of progress so backing up all your save files from time to time isn't a bad idea.

Hakchi2 also mods the included NES Classic kernel to support more controllers out of the box which is nice but they don't mention which ones. I imagine it's a sort of generic USB controller support which is cool if you have USB to that strange Nintendo controller format.

So even if you don't add more ROMS to your NES Classic, and i'm not sure I will, the controller home mod and save state backup is worth the price of admission alone. That said, use it at your own risk because bricking your NES wouldn't be great.

* After looking more at the Hakchi2 code it seems the author is working on SNES Classic support so i'd wait a bit until a new version is launched with SNES Classic support before you use it.

Tim Schaefer and Zak Mcclendon run through the first playable version of Psychonauts 2 and the game is shaping up really well. Looks like the game is made with the new Unreal Engine from what I gathered from the video and because of that the game looks buttery smooth.

Wondering if anyone played the original Psychonauts and if this game is on your radar as something you are going to play when it launches?

Does Cuphead look good on a black and white TV? Surprisingly yes... it really does. The games graphical style works well on the old TV and it's made even more pronounced on the black and white TV. Is this the best way to play Cuphead? No but it's a distant second.

I've been watching a lot of Super Nintendo Classic video reviews and most of them say basically the same thing. The Super Nintendo Classic is a great, if imperfect way, to play a really incredible collection of Super Nintendo Games. That said, most reviews don't dig into the differences between the Classic and the original hardware and how the SNES Classic compares to it in terms of graphics, sound and framerate. The video review above by DF Retro is an incredibly complete look at the SNES Classic including all it's quirks such as minor artifacts, sound issues and the like.

His wrap up? The Super Nintendo classic improves on the NES Classic quite a bit to make a really great system that does it's best to capture the feel of the original Super Nintendo but with a ton more detail than the traditional review. I like these kinds of deep reviews as they compare details at a very nerdy level, which I like to bask in. You should too so press play and enjoy.

Portland Retro Game Expo is one of those things I can't miss. Two days dedicated to retro games, panels, a crazy huge free to play arcade and more retro gear you could ever want? What's not to love?

We are running with a much larger booth this year and because of that are doing more awesome stuff. This year we are running 4 Classic NES Tournaments, hosting Wick showcasing his upcoming Indie game Crescent Loom AND selling an incredible collection of VHS tapes!

Win Awesome Stuff In Our Classic NES Tournaments

This year we are having four classic NES Tournaments (two per day) of some amazing NES classics and the winners of each tournament will walk away with a special prize!

Saturday: Super Mario Brothers Speedrun & Bubble Bobble Score Tournament.

Sunday: Marble Madness & Snake Rattle and Roll.

For more information on the tournament dates, times and prizes head over to the PRGE site below:

http://retrogamingexpo.com/tournaments.php#cheerfulghost

All The Cool Kids Will Be Playing Crescent Loom!

We are going sharing a booth with Wick who will be demoing his amazing new Indie game Crescent Loom.

"Crescent Loom is a game about creating life. Knit bones, stitch muscles, and weave neurons into a biologically-realistic simple creature."

We just wrapped up a fun new interview with Wick that will launch on the first day of PRGE so look out for that on Cheerful Ghost October 21st!

http://wick.works/crescentloom/

You Are Selling VHS Tapes? Are You Crazy?

Well, yes but it's also pretty cool too and you are morally obligated to stop by and browse through our VHS tape collection. I've been spending the last 5 months hand selecting our VHS tapes for sale featuring some absolute classics as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Nightmare on Elm Street, Blackula, Stand by Me on Betamax, The Godfather Collection (partially sealed), The Lost Boys, Conan The Barbarian (sealed), Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Abyss, Blade Runner, Alien(s), Point Break and much, much more.

Portland Retro Game Expo is October 20th - 22nd and for more information on ticket prices and times, head over to the site below.

http://retrogamingexpo.com/

Jack & Rich from Previously Recorded review Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and if you are interested in the game or what's out on the Switch I recommend you give this review a shot. They are harder on the game than the general review consensus seems to be (currently 85% on MetaCritic) but they end up recommending the game in the end. Mario + Rabbids is a game I was considering a day one Switch purchase because I do enjoy X-Com like games and Ubisofts particular take on it really looks fun.

Remember that old contest for NES Treasure Master? I do and I wanted to play it but I could only get two NES games per year from my parents and Treasure Master didn't make it to the top of my list. Good thing too because the game doesn't actually look very fun. I always thought i'd be able to beat the game to win the prize and it seems like the Angry Video Game Nerd thought the same thing.