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.

2761 Posts

Heroes Of The Storm 2.0 Thoughts + Upcoming Free Stuff
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Recently Blizzard dropped a massive 2.0 update on Heroes of the Storm and this last weekend I was able to play a couple matches. I paired up with a friend that plays a ton of Heroes of the Storm and we made our way through about 6-8 games together. As part of the Heroes of the Storm 2.0 launch celebration Blizzard let you select a Heroes pack that focused on certain types of Heroes such as Assassins, Bruisers, Specialists and Support. I picked the Bruisers bundle and as such played mostly of that type and focused on Muradin, XUL & Valla. Heroes of the Storm has come a long way since it's original launch and i'd say it's a really fun pickup and play hero brawler that is fairly easy to learn. Blizzard has also added a ton of different maps with unique objectives making Heroes of the Storm a very unique MOBA that feels more like Unreal Tournament than DoTA 2. If you're like me and not a great player you can practice with bots only OR play games with human players on your side against bots. Heroes also has human team matches and full ranked system so if you are interested in that it's available.

So Much Free Stuff

If giving away the Hero packs with Heroes 2.0 wasn't enough Blizzard is giving away a few more things over the next month if you play the game. Starting back May 30th and ending June 12th if you play one match per day you get a free loot chest. Loot chests are like Hearthstone packs and you have the chance to open a hero, new player skin or any kind of spray, taunt, emoji or voice line. This weekend I opened the new hero D.VA and I can't wait to try her out.

To celebrate the Necromancer coming to Diablo III if you play 15 games with a friend as a hero from Diablo from June 13th - 26th you will unlock 1 epic loot chest, Leoric’s Phantom mount and Ghost Kerrigan wings in Diablo III. I am going to see if I can clock that many games as the Diablo III wings seem pretty epic and i've enjoyed the few pairs I have already.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20719773/
http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20811888/

Relabeling Your Destroyed NES Carts
The 8-Bit Guy has a cool new video about relabeling destroyed NES carts. He created the Pitfall and Wrestlemania labels by hand, which is no small feat. 8-Bit Guy also talks about some criticism where people shouldn't restore original game carts because history is being changed. 8-But Guy notes that restoring a personal game cart is like restoring an old car and since they will stay in his personal collection it's not a big deal.

I Played The Diablo III Necromancer Beta And It's Incredible
jdodson gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale
This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.
jdodson gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale
This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.
A week ago I was let in to the Diablo III Necromancer Beta and to put it simply the Necromancer is a ton of fun. If you loved Diablo III and Reaper of Souls and want a new reason to jump back into the game to play all the new updates you should check out the upcoming Necromancer update. To be clear, The Necromancer will be a separate DLC that you will need to buy and is launching this summer(no word on the pricing yet).

"As a master of the dark arts, you wield the powers of life and death necessary to restore the Balance! Necromancers are powerful spell casters who lay waste to their enemies using curses and reanimation—along with an obedient cadre of pets. This new class employs a controlled gameplay style using the raw materials of life: blood and bone."

The Necromancer is a class that feels at home in Diablo III. It was my most played class in Diablo II and I was expecting it to be a near clone of the Diablo II class and I was surprised that it plays differently but feels very similar in tone to the original. My current Necromancer character "DeathsDoor" has the dual Scythe as his main attack(it sends out two Scythes that hit all enemies in front of him) and a long ranged bone spear alternate attack that takes up mana. This bone spear is a good powered attack for taking down enemies at a distance and travels through all enemies in it's path. That said the main fun of my current Necromancer build is my massive army of Skeletons, Corpse Explosion, the Flesh Golem and Bone Armor.

When you play as the Necromancer whenever you kill an enemy a corpse drops on the ground. The Necromancer has many abilities to use corpses and one that's my favorite is Corpse Explosion. This allows a crazy chain reaction where you start exploding enemies in a chain to take down a huge mob. The only downside to sinking most of your abilities into corpse attacks is that if you don't have any corpses available you can't do much. Corpse explosion works well for huge mobs but not bosses so having good alt abilities here is useful.

Another cool ability is Bone Armor which is activated when you select it over a group of enemies and it yanks out their bones and you wear them as armor for a time. It's a fun and totally gross ability that fits the Necromancers theme well.

I haven't leveled my Necromancer to max yet but already have had a blast just taking it as far as I have. The Necromancer is a very fun addition to Diablo III and one I am very interested in playing more of when it launches this summer. With that, I still wonder what the future of Diablo III is and I hope they add another campaign to the base game as I really enjoyed the last one in Reaper of Souls. That said, the Necromancer update should be well worth checking out and if you want to jump back in to Diablo III it might be a good time to do it.

https://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20698502/necromancer-beta-now-live-5-23-2017

The New Far Cry 5 Trailer Is Out And It's Making Some People Angry
I don't have a problem with shooter games and violence. I also think it's good that video games branch out from the same kinds of plot lines and story beats. The new Far Cry 5 trailer dropped on the Internet recently and besides Ubisoft taking the game visuals to a new level (it really does look very good) the game is getting a bit of a backlash from gamers for it's setting. Basically the game is set in rural Montana where a religious cult takes over the town of Hope Springs. Since all of what I described is not only a crime in America, but also total bullshit if you enjoy the freedom to do what you want with your life, in Far Cry 5 you are the player set to take the cult down and free the town. With that, some gamers feel that this game is an attack on certain heartland values and American loving rednecks. I can understand some of this criticism as typically games don't feature the modern day US heartland as it's backdrop. Many might find this shocking but frankly... it shouldn't be as shooters have been waging war in countries all over the world for quiet some time. Now that the game is in rural Montana now we have a problem? I don't see it. If games can explore new ideas and settings why not a game where you take down a religious cult in Montana? I get that this hits close to home for many gamers in America but... shouldn't this be OK too? Maybe the only kinds of shooter settings palatable for some are yet another WW2 shooter, Nazi killing simulator or yet another jaunt through Hell?

Regardless of the controversy I love the new take and I hope Far Cry 5 doesn't go all hamfist with this game. Ubisoft can say something interesting here and I hope they do because they now have everyones attention.

Far Cry 5 will drop on PS4, XBone & PC February 27, 2018.

The Trailer For The New Castlevania Anime On Netflix Is Out!
Netflix is spending a ton of money on original new content and one of the new shows that will be coming to the streaming service this July 7th is Castlevania. The new trailer doesn't pull any punches as it starts with someone putting a Castlevania game into an old Nintendo and then the Netflix logo and 8bit video morph into a few clips of the show. The animation style looks solid and I wasn't sure how i'd feel about a dark adult Castlevania but this looks like it could be pretty interesting.

What do you think of the new Castlevania trailer? Is this something you are going to watch when it drops on Netflix July 7th?

Didn't Get An NES Classic? John Riggs Reviews An NES Classic Bootleg.
For $20 this NES Classic bootleg is quite the deal and it comes with 500 games but is it any good? From the video I have serious doubts AND it doesn't even include The Legend of Zelda or at least I didn't see it when he scrolled through all 500 games.

My Continuing Adventures In Link Between Worlds
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As i've said before, one of the main reasons I wanted a 3DS was to play Link Between Worlds, the direct sequel to A Link to the Past. I plan on writing on my journey through the game as it's quite good and think it might be interesting to read. Link to the Past isn't a very difficult game but it's fun, engrossing and a very tight and focused gameplay experience which is why it's always topped my list for one of the best games of all time. That said, Link to the Past is pretty easy if you play it in the right way and Link Between Worlds ups the ante some to make for a more interesting game. For instance, in traditional Zelda games death has no real effect on how you play the game. In fact starting with Link to the Past you can collect Fairies in bottles to bring you back to life each time you die. Effectively this means that if you have the maximum number of bottles and play the game reasonably well, death has no negative effect on gameplay. Link Between Worlds tries to change this with item rentals. At a certain early point in the game you meet a purple rabbit named Ravio that takes over the house you start in to rent and later sell you items. If you die in a dungeon Ravio takes you to the house again and removes your item rentals. It's an interesting mechanic where dying actually has some kind of downside and I think it's pretty cool. Even though you can store fairies to restore you back to life if you lost an item you need to complete a dungeon, you still have to go and get it. Later on in the early part of the game Ravio allows you the ability to buy items for 800 gold, which removes some of the negatives of dying but buying out all the items takes along time and I've only purchased a couple of them. Buying items is also different than the traditional Zelda way of finding them in dungeons which is a fresh take on how Zelda games work.

Recently I just gathered all three pendants and collected the Master Sword. This mirrors the original Link to the Past and I wonder what the Link Between Worlds equivalent of the Dark World is? Maybe it's the Dark World again? I'm not sure as I haven't read many spoilers about the game but when I find out i'll let you know.

James & Mike Play Alien Vs Predator Arcade & Talk About The Alien Franchise
I'm really excited to see the new Ridley Scott Alien: Covenant film and I don't think i'm the only one as there seems to be a lot of recent videos looking at the old Alien films and franchise games. In the video James and Mike of Cinemassacre play the old Alien VS Predator arcade game and talk about the Alien VS Predator film and other Alien nerdery. I'm going to watch Alien: Covenant with friends tomorrow and have really been enjoying the gaming commentary about these older franchise games and movie series retrospectives. If you are looking for a good Alien series retrospective before you head to the theater to watch the next Alien film Cinemassacre has a long breakdown of all 7 Alien films including Prometheus you might want to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8m6Jg9Y7X0

Cygnus Destroyer Takes Aliens Colonial Marines to Court!
Aliens Colonial Marines is the Gearbox and Sega 2013 smash failure that many view as one of the worst games of all time. Because of this and the release of the brand new Alien: Covenant film Cygnus Destroyer takes Aliens Colonial Marines to the Innocent Until Proven Guilty court. It's a solid review and I think his take is fair and now that all the hype of this game is over I think people can look at it again with a fresh perspective.

Are Some Apps And Games The New Nicotine?
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A month ago after the launch of the latest Hearthstone expansion I decided to stop playing. It seemed like the right thing to do after playing it nearly every day for four years but I wondered if it would be hard to walk away from a game I played for so long? Come to find out it wasn't hard at all. Occasionally I check the Hearthstone community for interesting developments and there are some but for the most part I am just missing out on a new meta card cycle and new bag of community salt that comes from such a high profile game.

One of the reasons why I thought it might be hard to step away from a game i've played for almost four years is because of the sunk cost and the thought that my time would have been wasted. I think this is why people have a hard time stepping away from freemium games where they spend well more than the price of a normal triple A game and just as much time. But my view of Hearthstone is that i'm proud of what I collected over that time and since I sunk nearly nothing into playing but my time, walking away wasn't hard. I've read many posts by people in the Hearthstone community that want to stop playing the game but can't seem to due to how much money and time they've spent. Recently I was listening to the Real Time With Bill Maher audio podcast and in his closing segment compared social media to nicotine. I mostly agree with Bill here and this is partly one of the reasons I don't frequent Facebook and also partly why I stepped away from Hearthstone. Even though apps and games might be made to be just as addictive to humans as nicotine I think it's our job to understand this, how it effects us and try and change our habits accordingly so we can live better.

New Rule: Social Media is the New Nicotine | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDqoTDM7tio

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/3318/when-is-it-time-to-take-a-hearthbreak