If you are looking for more games to collect for your 3DS the great Metal Jesus is back with a new hidden gems video you need to watch. He covers a bunch of games I didn't know were on the 3DS such as Azure Striker Gunvolt, Pac-man & Galaga Dimensions and Heroes of Ruin.

As we discussed in the last Cheerful Ghost Roundtable my hope is that all the 3DS and Wii U games are made for the new Nintendo Switch because if Nintendo and third party developers can focus on one system it will have an incredible amount of games.

Double Fine are the Queens and Kings of developer documentaries showing off their game making process. After Psychonauts 2 was successfully funded on Fig they have started development and decided to take a trip to the woods to get inspiration for the game from actual nature. It's a fun doc short but focuses more on the bus ride down than actual time in the woods. I guess that's par for the course for nerds, spend more time talking about video games on a bus than time with actual pinecones and bears. Still it's a fun watch and if you are interested in how the game is turning out, well worth your time.

"Stardew Valley Collector's Edition is coming to retail stores nationwide on April 11, 2017 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One! In addition to the full game, the Collector's Edition includes a Pelican Town Map, Mini-Guidebook by Kari Fry, and a code to download the Stardew Valley Soundtrack!"

Stardew Valley was a game we've all been following on Cheerful Ghost since I first heard about it February in 2013 and has since launched to crazy popular acclaim in the PC world. I love that it's getting a retail collectors edition, what I don't love is that it's only going to come out on PS4 and XBone. I know everyone already picked it up on PC, but I'd totally buy this if it came out on PC for the pack-ins and extra key.

I'm interested if people with modern consoles will be picking this up? Seems like a good way to get it if you haven't already and Stardew Valley Collectors Edition comes out April 11th only on PS4 and XBox One for $29.99.

The NES Classic launched to such a crazy high amount of demand that it's still hard to get. Nintendo has recently said that it's continuing to build units but there are some parts it's having a hard time getting so it might take a bit longer until we are all able to get one. I've also seen some new hacks making it pretty easy to load fan created ROMS on to the system making it much more extensible than we originally thought. That said, we still have to wait and if I had to guess when I'll finally get one it would be this summer. If you are waiting and want to occupy your time, and bookshelf with something fantastic you should look into the book "Playing with Power: Nintendo NES Classics." It's an homage to the 90's era of Nintendo magazines and provides pretty extensive walkthroughs of 17 games like Ice Climber, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda and Mario 3.

It's A Secret To Everybody

I have the cheaper paperback edition I got at Target. When I bought the book I didn't know there were two versions and if I had it to do over again I'd get the hardcover edition. Both versions have distinct cover art and I don't prefer the hardcover editions cover, I just didn't know i'd read the book as much as I did. See, back in the day, I wore down my Nintendo Power issues to the spine. I have a Mario 3 guide that I read so much I had to rebind the spine with packing tape. I still own the book and it's still looking as haggard as ever. So I was really happy to learn that Playing With Power sourced nearly all of it's Mario 3 content directly from the ol' Super Mario Brothers 3 Nintendo Power Guide. It's nice to see them reprinted here and lots of the book contains art and articles from old Nintendo Power guides and articles and the original game manuals.

Playing with Power also contains some really fun technical articles about how the original Nintendo worked and it goes into pretty large detail about it in such a way that I learned quite a bit about the NES and it's game carts. For instance, did you know that to get the upgraded effects of Mario 3 they employed MMC3 to get the stationary menu and smooth dual background scrolling effects? Apparently Nintendo kept upgrading the MMC chips all the way through NES production to keep pushing games further to finally end up at the MMC5 which could address a whopping 8 megs of memory!

Master Using This And You Can Have It

Look, we all have access to the Internet and looking up what to do in The Adventure of Link isn't hard. But, as a collector and someone that enjoys having fun stuff I can say there is something special about reading through a Nintendo guide about awesome games in 2017. If you got an NES Classic and need some help on some of Nintendo titles included with the NES Classic, Playing With Power is something you should look into.

Recently I went to the Portland Retro Games Expo & Northwest Classic Games Enthusiasts Retro Game Swap Meet. It was a pretty special time as this was the first full fledged video game event I took my son Finley to. He's seven months old and I had him attached to me in a baby carrier the whole time, but i'd like to think he was impressed with all the old retro games and systems. The swap meet was fun and I didn't have as much time as I wanted to due to heading in a bit late because earlier we were at the Portland Women's March. That said, I arrived in the events final hour which was enough time to check out each table and pickup a few games that i've wanted for some time.

I picked up NBA Jam on Sega, Super Mario Land on Gameboy and a box for New Super Mario Land DS to put my game pak inside so I can set it next to the other DS games I own.

Super Mario Land Is a Strange Mario Game

Super Mario Land was one of the launch titles when the Gameboy hit the market in 1989. I remember it fondly because my brother bought a Gameboy and Super Mario Land was one of the first games he had. If you are familiar with Mario games, Super Mario Land is very similar but contains some strange elements that haven't been repeated in modern Mario games. First off the traditional fire Mario super ability is replaced with a super ball variant. Mario shoots the superball and if it doesn't hit an enemy it bounces off walls until it hits an enemy or gives out. This allows you to collect coins in hard to reach areas and occasionally you can bounce a shot to hit a bad guy but most of the time it's just weird. I like that they tried something different and it's possible the super ball power was easier to program back then but I prefer the traditional fire flower power as it's easier to rely on and time the shots of.

Super Mario Land contains the same tight platforming of nearly any Mario game except, at times, I missed certain jumps by falling through a platform. It's rare but since i've never seen it in a Mario game, when I happened I was surprised. Again, I imagine this is due to the early nature of this Gameboy title and it's lack of horsepower even compared to the NES but it's something I noticed.

Super Mario Land keeps up the strangeness in that it also contains auto scrolling levels. You can control Mario in a Submarine and Airplane and beyond the levels being a bit easy they are also pretty fun. Auto-scrollers aren't something you see in a Mario game and having them here is so odd it feels like some kind of extra bonus game.

Even though Super Mario Land contains some gameplay elements not seen in any other Mario game the strangest part of all is the story written in the game manual.

"Once upon a time, there was a peaceful world called Sarasaland. In this world there were 4 kingdoms named Birabuto, Muda, Easton and Chai. One day, the skies of Sarasaland were suddenly covered by a huge black cloud. From a crack in this cloud, the unknown space monster Tatanga emerged to try to conquer Sarasaland. Tatanga hypnotized the people of all the kingdoms so that he could control them in any way he liked. In this way he took over Sarasaland. Now, he wants to marry Princess Daisy of Sarasaland and make her his queen. Mario came to know of these events, and he has started on a journey to the Chai Kingdom where Princess Daisy is held captive, in order to restore peace to Sarasaland. Can Mario defeat Tatanga, release people from his interstellar hypnosis, and rescue Princess Daisy? It's all up to you and Mario's skill. Go for it Mario!"

I picked up the Super Mario Land game manual at this years Portland Retro Game Expo and laughed as I read the games backstory. At the time I did wonder why Bowser and Princess Peach weren't in the game but I figured Mario went on other adventures and maybe this happened while Mario was on vacation? The story seems so arbitrary and whipped up it borders on parody but as someone that loves campy stuff, I also love it.

Super Mario Land is a really unique entry in the Mario-verse and one I don't mind coming back to. I think my most beloved Mario games are some of the strangest and i'd put Super Mario Land up there with Mario 2 as some of the ones I enjoy coming back to reliving over again.

Bethesda is shipping a couple updates to Fallout 4 next week. PC users are getting a 58 gig download option in the form of a HD high resolution texture pack. If this is anything like the Skyrim update, this should offer up an incredible visual upgrade to Fallout 4! Bethesda has released the recommended specs on the HD pack and i'm not sure I know someone that meets the minimum spec GPU wise.

• Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
  
• Intel Core i7-5820K or better


• GTX 1080 8GB


• 8GB+ Ram

Love to hear how well this texture pack works for you on your current rig so make sure to come back and let us know your specs and how it runs. Bethesda is also dropping an update to Fallout 4 on the PS4 Pro with native 1440p resolution, enhanced draw distance for trees, grass, objects and NPCs and enhanced Godray effects. This is a nice bonus PS4 Pro users might enjoy but I wonder how well this sits for people with the normal ol PS4? I wonder how PC-like consoles will get before the next generation or will we simply just make incremental upgrades to this current generation? As seen with Nintendos handhelds it's not a bad strategy and might turn out well for Sony and Microsoft.

https://bethesda.net/en/article/52I2HyPCAowWG2ye8MKGU2/fallout-4-free-updates-high-resolution-texture-pack-and-ps4-pro-support

As the wait for the new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Netflix continues(i've heard rumors of a March release) I am continuing my journey of watching each original episode in order. I just finished season 6, which to date is my least favorite season. All that said it does contains some great episodes like Code Name: Diamond Head, Kitten with a Whip and High School Big Shot. The season 6 finale is Samson VS The Vampire Women and is the last episode to feature Dr Forresters assistant TV's Frank. Samson VS The Vampire Women is a crazy movie and Frank leaving the show adds a more somber tone to the episode. In the MST3K timeline MST3K The Movie came after season 6 which makes sense considering TV's Frank isn't featured in it(always wondered why it was just Dr. Forrester as the single Mad). I just started season 7 which features Dr. Forresters Mom Pearl who later takes over sole Mad duties after Trace Beaulieu(the actor that plays Dr. Forrester) leaves at the end of Season 7.

I doubt i'll finish watching all 10 seasons of MST3K before season 11 drops but I still want to have finished all the seasons this year, which is a quite a feat considering each episode is an hour and a half long.

The Prey reboot has received a new trailer that showcases a bit of the story as well as the new release date. Apparently you are in a science space station where they are experimenting on aliens and are also a testing subject/scientist. The tone of the game seems very Bioshock, Portal and Alien-esque with a very clean and polished look that is fairly impressive. I'm intrigued by this game but am still not certain i'll be picking this up at launch. To help entice people to pre-order Arkane Studios is offering special DLC bonuses and if you like cosmetic shotguns(oh my!) then you're going to be very happy. I mean, unless you don't like that sort of thing, then it's not a big deal.

But the new Prey might be and if you're going to get this at launch let me know in the comments. Prey comes to PS4, XBone and PC on May 5th.

As I continue watching the many speedruns from Awesome Games Done Quick I have a couple I wanted to share y'all could watch. The first one above is the Fallout New Vegas run by progamingwithed that took 24 minutes! It uses a strat I haven't seen before in that you can exploit a reload animation to travel very fast and jump incredibly high. If you like pacifist runs this is very close to that as progamingwithed needs to only kill a couple people making this one of the most peaceful Fallout runs i've even seen.

Contra Race

This years AGDQ featured a lot of great races and this one is a must watch. Themexicanrunner and toad22484 complete Contra in 10:40 and I don't want to spoil things with whom won but needless to say, it was a very close race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9WsLufaigE

It's now 2017 and the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable is here to ring in the new year! We always start things off talking about what we're playing which is a fun mash of the new Nintendo Classic, Ocarina of Time 3D & Let it Die. Moving quickly into the fresh news of the day being the reveal of the full title of "Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi." What does this new title mean, why is the title red and will Jar-Jar be finally revealed as a Sith? Finally we end things off with our discussion of the Nintendo Switch dropping our thoughts on the new system and if we will be picking it up.

This is a special episode in that Scrypt and I stayed on longer at the end to have a bonus discussion about a 2016 sc-fi film Arrival. This episode went way long because of that and I encourage you to watch Arrival before you listen to our discussion of it because it contains spoilers from the top of beginning.