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.

When I bought the original NES Metroid I had already completed Super Metroid and played the heck out of Metroid II on Gameboy. I was at the store and had $20 and wanted to walk away with a new game and Metroid on NES was $20. At that time we were all pretty deep into the Super Nintendo era and heading back to the Nintendo Metroid didn't sit well with me then. I played the game a little bit and used the Justin Bailey code to actually beat the game but I didn't put in any serious time with it.

After getting an NES Classic I decided to come back and look at the original Metroid fresh. Does the original NES Metroid hold up or would I never really be able to enjoy this game?

Metroid Is Awesome If You Have A Map

Well, come to find out, I really like the original Metroid quite a bit but that doesn't mean it doesn't come with a few things to consider. Firstly the original Metroid is difficult and doesn't hold your hand in any way to make it obvious what you are supposed to do. So if you expected to jump in and have the game help you figure out what to do you're gonna have a bad time. Unless you want to map out the whole game yourself, which you can totally do and honestly how we used to do it. As a youngster I had to map out the original Legend of Zelda so I could beat it because it's impossible to do otherwise. Metroid is no different because of my limited amount of time playing games these days, using a map is essential.

All that to say, I picked up Nintendo's "Playing with Power" guide last year and it includes a really great Metroid map I've been using to play the game. It's fun to look at the map, figure out what to do next and then make it to that point and then refer back to the map. Modern games bring the map in game, as Super Metroid does, but doing it the old way, with a Nintendo guide handy and has been a fun experience.

Metroid Is Ultra Hard, Until You Get Certain Items

Metroid is hard as hell until you get about 3 energy tanks and the Varia suit then it gets much simpler. In fact i'd say Metroid, so far, went from "SUPER CRAZY HARD MODE" to "completely fine mode" the more I play. Since I am making my way through each zone, collecting each missile, item and energy tank I'm pretty well set right now and as such the game has really lessened in terms of difficulty. I'm on my way to take on Ridley now and the difficulty might spike again, but so far things have got much easier.

Metroid is a classic NES game that, until now, hasn't really clicked with me. But playing it now, with a really detailed map and making a breakthrough in terms of being better at playing the game i've reached a pretty fun high of enjoyability. If you don't have any prior experience with the original Metroid and want to give it a shot I seriously recommend you look into some good maps to chart a course through the game. You can take the game at it's own terms and map it yourself, but if you are a bit crunched for time using a guide will save you time and some heartache.

With the launch of the crazy popular Super Nintendo Classic other companies want to board the console remake money printing train. The Ataribox is looking to do that and now Commodore wants a piece with the C64 Mini. The C64 mini is a bit more interesting as it is a pretty faithful representation of the original Commodore keyboard system with full HDMI output and USB support. It comes with the base C64 mini system, HDMI cable, Joystick and 64 games including California Games, Uridium, Paradroid, Hawkeye, Nebulus and Monty Mole.

The Commodore 64 was the computer I start programming on so I was wondering if they'd allow you to program on it and it seems they well.

"As befits a home computer you can also plug in a standard USB PC keyboard and use as a classic C64 to type in those old BASIC computer listings or program new games."

Looks like they are also going to release a larger system later on which there are few details on but if it's a more faithful recreation of the original should be really interesting. I have some fun memories taking programs from C64 magazines and changing them to be fun games I wanted to play and I hope this system is just as fun for a new generation.

THEC64 Mini will hit the shops in early 2018 with a price tag of $69.99.

https://thec64.com/

For the next 24 hours the original Fallout is free on Steam so why not head over and add it to your collection? The original Wasteland adventure calls!

"You've just unearthed the classic post-apocalyptic role-playing game that revitalized the entire CRPG genre. The Fallout SPECIAL system allows drastically different types of characters, meaningful decisions and development that puts you in complete control. Explore the devastated ruins of a golden age civilization. Talk, sneak or fight your way past mutants, gangsters and robotic adversaries. Make the right decisions or you could end up as another fallen hero in the wastelands..."

http://store.steampowered.com/app/38400/Fallout_A_Post_Nuclear_Role_Playing_Game/

I am very excited to let you know that Cheerful Ghost Radio is now available for you to subscribe to on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher & Soundcloud, and more to come soon! We wanted to wait to publish the show more broadly until we had a good amount of episodes "in the can" and with the release of "Episode 5 - Epistle 3 Story Time" we felt it was time to push the button.

If you have access to iTunes, the Apple Podcast App, Google Play or Stitcher I ask that you head over, subscribe and rate the show and leave a comment. Those comments and ratings really help us reach a wider audience and that's something we'd love to see the show get more of. We think the show is really special and we've spent A LOT of time dialing it in, making it the right length and sound quality to be something we are very proud of and we hope you love it too.

I want to thank Travis, Scrypt & WhiteboySlim for making Cheerful Ghost Radio a really fun show to be part of and I hope it has a long life to it! You can always find the the latest episodes if you hit the "Radio" link at the top of the page or you can subscribe to iTunes or Google Play by hitting the links below.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cheerful-ghost-radio/id1289515550?mt=2

Google Play: https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Iqj37yspffs2cfyve26k62tvrdu?t%3DCheerful_Ghost_Radio%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cheerful-ghost-radio

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cheerfulghost/

TuneIn: https://tunein.com/radio/Cheerful-Ghost-Radio-p1035701/

This years Nintendo World Championship 16 qualifiers have been chosen and are heading to NYC to battle for determining who is the best Nintendo player in the land on October 7th! One interesting bit of news that came today was the Nintendo is selected Samus Returns on 3DS to be one of the games played at this years World Championship. To get the players ready for the challenge Nintendo is sending them a new 2DS and the game which is a nice way to get everyone up to speed on the game.

I'm adding a Championship event to the Cheerful Ghost calendar so if you are interested in watching this live with me and head over to the events page click join and then click to add the event to your calendar!

As a lifelong gamer and someone that wants to preserve digital culture I support emulators. I also want people to buy the games they play because it's not only required by law but it's also ethical and moral to financially compensate people that create things you love. So when I recently bought Snake Rattle & Roll on the NES I didn't have a problem playing a ROM of it too. Partly because, in many cases the ROM is the best option for the platform but also because I hail from the 90's and cassette and VHS taping was part of how I grew up. It was pretty common to buy a CD dub it on tape to listen to in your car and later on rip that CD to listen to it on your MP3 player.

Recently Atlus, the developers of Persona, issued a DMCA copyright notice to RPCS3 the developers of the PS3 Emulator. I'll copy Atlus's post below.

"You might have heard earlier today that we issued a DMCA takedown notice involving emulation developer group RPCS3 and their Patreon page. Yes, it’s true. We settled upon this action for two reasons:

1. We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen. We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don’t have anything to announce today, we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.

2. We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences."

I'm not a lawyer so i'm not going to say anything about if what Atlus did was legal or not. With that, emulators aren't just things that enable piracy they also allow people to play games on modern systems while not needing to repurchase them yet again. I can see why Atlus might want people to repurchase their games on PC if they were to port them but why is it bad that you can play your old PS3 games on a modern PC? They said it's because of a bad framerates and such but that seems like a really contrived reason.

I also love it when companies release older games with the "HD re-release" treatment giving me yet another reason to open my wallet to buy it. Or even just re-releasing the game on PC is more than enough to get people to buy it again, which some people love to do.

As someone that had their PS3 die and be left with an orphaned library of PS3 games I can say that a good PS3 emulator would have saved me some heartache. In the end I got a friends old system and that works out great but sometimes just playing your old games on a PC is a better option.

http://atlus.com/atlus-and-emulation/

After I picked up the NES Classic and beat Mega Man 2 I figured I'd move on to another game. But I completed Mega Man 2 largely because of the NES Classic state save and load system and it was a kind of earned win but I didn't feel great about it after sitting with it for a couple days. So because of that and the fact that Mega Man 2 is an incredible game I keep coming back to play Mega Man 2 and this time don't use the save state feature. My goal is to be able to complete Mega Man 2 without any state loading and just on the terms of game itself.

So since I completed Mega Man 2 i've been playing more... Mega Man 2. Which has been a lot of fun and part of that is trying to figure out the correct ordering to take the bosses in. So far my run is Metal Man, Wood Man, Air Man, Bubble Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Quick Man and Heat Man. This ordering is optimized to get the Metal Blade as quickly as possible because, frankly, the metal blade is crazy powerful. You can shoot the metal blade in nearly every direction, it doesn't take up much energy when used and has a huge hit zone making it really easy to hit anything. The Metal Blade is also really good at taking down a couple bosses such as Wood Man, Bubble Man and Flash Man too making it, i'd say, the best item in the game.

Right now I can make my way to the start of Dr Wiley's stage without using a continue and only one e-tank. I'm still practicing on doing a couple stages better, currently Air Man's stage is my worst and all the others I can complete fairly easily. That said, Mega Man 2 is fairly hard so the occasional mistake can still kill you quite easily so i've got a bit more to go to be good playing it. Currently i'm focusing on my run of the robot stages and that's been fun to see myself improve there and be able to run it through without dying once.