For quite some time Hearthstone players have noted that some cards are a bit overpowered. Chief among the cards most cited as massively overpowered are Yogg Saron, Tuskar Totemic and Call of the Wild. Blizzard seems to have agreed because today they dropped information about some upcoming balancing changes to the cards I cited. I never felt that Yogg or Call of the Wild were overpowered but I don't really mind the changes made to both cards. In the case of Call of the Wild Blizzard increased the mana cost to 9 still making it a very powerful late game card but it now competes with other Hunter cards like King Krush. One change I really liked is the nerf to Abusive Sergeant. Abusive Sergeant is now a 1/1 down from a 2/1 which makes it a more situational card as opposed to a card that was nearly always good at any point in a Zoo deck. The changes to Charge seem to have entirely wiped out the Warrior OTK Worgen deck which I won't lament as when the combo was achieved there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Happy Blizzard made these changes and now that One Night in Karazhan is safely behind us I can't wait to learn more about the next expansion, whenever that will be.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20303031

YouTuber Pannenkeok2012 has made one of the more interesting videos i've seen in quite some time that covers everything there is to know about character's blinking in Mario 64. Apparently not all character's in Mario 64 blink but the ones that do are somewhat diverse. For instance Goomba's have two eye states with eyes open and closed yet Mario has 3 eye states of eyes open, eyes partially closed and eyes fully closed.

You can also check out more Pannenkeok2012 videos that focus on other interesting things related to Mario 64 like in game pause buffering and what happens when you talk to Yoshi with negative lives.

Douglas Welcome and I are friends from way back in the 90’s(if you can image that far back). Our friendship shared a mutual affinity for music and various geekery so when I saw a recent post of his about his project the RetroProjecto I reached out to him to talk about it. The RetroProject is a retrofitted 16mm Craig film editor with a Raspberry Pi added in it to run retro games.

jdodson: What interested you to getting into hacking the Raspberry Pi?

Douglas Welcome: Honestly it was the price! I have always been tinkering with electronics and was doing a little coding, but when I first started hearing wind of this $35 computer I couldn’t help but get one and start dreaming how I could use it. With the HDMI capabilities, a media center for my home TV was the obvious first project. No more setting the laptop up half open next to the TV and plugging an HDMI cable into it for Netflix! The next project was setting a Raspberry Pi with an external hard driveup as a home server, which still isn’t entirely off the ground. thanks to moving a couple of times since then. Most recently was this retro arcade project.

jdodson: From start to finish about how long did it take you to convert the RetroProjecto into it’s final video game playing form?

Douglas Welcome: It probably took about 4-5 months, but that was putting in a few hours here and there, then letting it sit for a week because you have to order the next part. Then you get around to ordering ordering the next part, only to find a new challenge, which takes a few more days to figure out. Then you break the part you ordered and have to get another one...

jdodson: So you were out walking and saw the Craig Projecto-Editor lying in the street or out in a dumpster? Hard to imagine someone would throw something so awesome out.

Douglas Welcome: I know! Capitol Hill is a eclectic community. Young families, Senators, lobbyists, group houses full of interns and Hill staffers, you name it. You have these old houses blocks from Congress and the Supreme Court that as recent at 15 years ago sold for pennies. It was a pretty rough neighborhood. Now the neighborhood is in major gentrification mode and so folks with $$$ are buying these old homes up, gutting them and turning them into ultra-chic row homes. That was the story of the place I walked by. They had emptied out the basement planning to remodel it, and the previously owners were probably an older family that had been there for years. There were old corded drills and other tools piled up on the curb, a long with the Craig Projecto-Editor. A memorial to a man-cave I suppose…

jdodson: So you were out and found the Craig and picked it up, which was the right thing to do obviously but how did you get inspired to turn it into a full retro system?

Douglas Welcome: The enclosure was just dying to be some kind of computer or arcade. Originally I had plans to turn it into a synth (I am a musician as well) or some other project in the home the would require a “terminal” of some kind. But I was in grad school with little time, and retro arcades are a pretty well documented project, so it seemed like the path of least resistance. Plus everybody loves retro video games!

jdodson: Did you try editing some 16mm film on it before you converted it?

Douglas Welcome: I wish! I don’t have any old film so I wasn’t able to see how it would have worked.

jdodson: What are some of your favorite old games you like coming back to now?

Douglas Welcome: Funny how you said “coming back to!” Honestly, I was never much of a cutting-edge gamer and never have owned a real console. My parents were those kind that never let me own a Nintendo and so I would play for hours when over at the neighbors or something. I am a little younger, so the Nintendo 64 was the big console of my childhood. I remember going to Blockbuster and actually renting consoles for sleepovers and such.

You know though, it really is a small world. I realized this is the shower the other day (where I do all my important thinking), but it was you, Jon, who introduced me to emulators and roms when I was in middle school back 1997 or so. Suddenly I had all these classic NES games at my fingertips that I wasn’t allowed play and suddenly the internet was an AMAZING place. You also introduced me to Napster, but that is another story…

That said, back to your question. Obviously the classics, like Super Mario Bros., Punch-Out!, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Zelda. I also played a bunch of SNES games, and I loved NBA Jam (BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA). One of the stranger titles I find pretty hilarious is Spiritual Warfare. As a child of 80’s/90’s American Evangelicalism, it's not hard to see how something like this was made. You basically go around and throw “Fruits of the Spirit” at evil businessmen, gangsters and Hare Krishnas, converting them into little praying angels or something. The final boss is apparently Satan, which I guess is appropriate considering the context. Oh, and you have to answer annoying Bible quiz questions from a snarky, bow-tie wearing Sunday school teacher about lusting after women and murder. You know, kids stuff.

jdodson: I had that game and I honestly still have a special place in my heart for it. It’s one of the better Zelda clones i’ve played and I actually made it to hell many times to kill Satan. Honestly I don’t get how Doom got so much grief when you were essentially killing demons and zombies when I was doing it years earlier on the NES. But yeah, I don’t really believe much of that anymore either but it’s a fun game and I still have the original NES game cart. Last year at Portland Retro Gaming Expo I bought some original Spiritual Warfare and Bible Adventures stickers which was a really fun find.

Douglas Welcome: Stickers! That’s rad! Like I said, because I didn’t actually own a console as a kid, so it was less a nostalgic feeling about actually playing the game and rather more about a childhood where games like Spiritual Warfare were commercially viable because ya know, Sunday School, Jerry Falwell, etc.

jdodson: What are some of the better old game titles that play well with the RetroProjecto’s build aesthetic? For some reason Fallout seems to be coming to mind.

Douglas Welcome: Aww Man! I have yet to play Fallout on here but it is definitely on my list. Honestly, because of the resolution of the screen, anything better than 16 bit or so gets pretty rough to see, and because I am running all this on an older Raspberry Pi, it couldn’t handle the processing anyways.

Honestly anything close to arcade style seems appropriate. It's a cool thing to show to friends, so any game where you have to take turns works well for a social setting.

jdodson: Have you thought about any upcoming projects you’d like to work on now that this has turned out as well as it has?

Douglas Welcome: I really want to pick up that synth project I had originally intended. If you haven’t seen Critter and Guitari’s Organelle, definitely check it out. A really cool concept for musical instrument that blurs the line between hardware and software. At $500 though, I am thinking I can build something a lot more economically with a Raspberry Pi running PureData and still use all the patches being developed for the Organelle community. I just have to find a good enclosure…

http://douglaswelcome.com/

I think it's really interesting to see games I love in very early forms. Linked above is the first 10 minutes of BioShock Infinite shown in 2010. The game starts very differently and features a different voice cast for Booker. Columbia looks very similar to how the game shipped but the placement of buildings and nearly every story beat is different. That said, I think the final shipped game introduction is better as well as the gameplay. Some felt that the shipped version of BioShock Infinite wasn't what was demo'd and were disappointed with it but from this early footage I am very glad they made the changes they did.

What do you think, is this something you'd rather have played or do you like the shipped intro for BioShock Infinite?

The Super Mario Brothers minus world warp glitch was the first game secret I was ever taught. I say taught because game secrets were passed down from person to person back then as the Internet and even Nintendo Power wasn't a thing. When I heard about it I was really impressed that such a thing was even possible in a video game and my young mind was completely blown when a friend showed it to me. Later on I learned another Mario glitch where you could shoot fireballs while small that I loved even more than the minus world glitch. The video linked above talks about the minus world glitch and gives an in depth explanation as to how it works.

If you want to know how to shoot fire while you are small check out the YouTube video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIgTFfsL9OA

If anyone else knows of any original Super Mario Brothers secrets drop them in the comments.

Spore was one of 2008's most anticipated games and had a very rocky launch. Some people felt the game didn't quite live up to the hype and others chided it for it's, at the time, very draconian DRM. Recently it's had a sort of second-life on Steam, being one of the more popular games in various sales and today it finally comes to GOG entirely DRM free. Awesome to see EA finally open this game up to a DRM release and bundle it up at such a reduced price.

"From Single Cell to Galactic God, evolve your creature in a universe of your own creations. Play through Spore's five evolutionary stages: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, and Space. Each stage has its own unique style, challenges, and goals. You can play how you choose start in Cell and nurture one species from humble tidepool organism to intergalactic traveler, or jump straight in and build tribes or civilizations on new planets. What you do with your universe is up to you."

You can pick up the entire Spore collection on GOG now %60 off for $12 that includes the base Spore game, Galactic Adventures and the Creepy and Cute Parts Pack.

https://www.gog.com/game/spore_collection

I thought pre-ordering Borderlands 2 on the PS3 was a really good idea. Or... at least it seemed like a good idea at the time. See, back then I mostly played games on the PS3 but what I didn't realize at the time was that my tastes were quickly shifting back to the PC. When Borderlands 2 dropped, like many people I created a Gunzerker and had an absolute blast playing the game. Then the Mecromancer free DLC dropped and I created a new Mecromancer game. The Mecromancer was really fun and I swapped between both games playing a bit as the Mecromancer and as the Gunzerker. Then Travis got me Borderlands 2 on PC for Christmas and I started a new Gunzerker game on PC. I'd also created a couple other characters to try out but by the time the holiday season was over I was tired of playing the same missions over again and stopped playing the game.

After the Humble Borderlands Bundle dropped WhiteboySlim started a regular Borderlands 2 event and I started yet another character, this time as the Psycho Krieg and since so much time had passed I was having fun playing the main story again. We stopped the regular Borderlands 2 event having progressed a good ways through the game but I recently I got the itch to continue. So recently I started playing the game again continuing where I left off with Krieg and the main story.

Yo Call of Duty, i'm really happy for you, i'm going to let you finish but Boderlands is one of the best shooters of all time!

I'm really proud that we voted Borderlands 2 the Cheerful Ghost Game of the Year in 2012. Actually the top two winners that year were Borderlands 2 and FTL so yeah, double happy about that. Both FTL and Borderlands 2 are great games I keep coming back to playing every so often so they both make sense to get the top billing that year. Borderlands 2 is a great game to play with friends and contains just the right amount of difficulty, loot and progression to make it a continued friend multiplayer staple even now.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/868/2012-cheerful-ghost-community-goty-awards

Sooner or later i'll complete Borderlands 2 and do a final write up of my thoughts on the whole game. But after four years what do you think of Borderlands 2? Still good or do you think something different after this much time has passed?

Today Blizzard released a new Hearthstone game update featuring the Welcome Bundle. The Welcome Bundle is $5 and can only be purchased once per account and contains 10 classic packs and one random class Legendary. This is a really good way for new players to pay a bit and get some cards for cheap. Most free to play games have this sort of starter pack and it's nice to see Hearthstone finally get one.

I am a pretty happy doing the Hearthstone free to play thing but I really wanted those packs and a shot at a cool Legendary so I dropped some Google Play credit I had from taking free surveys through the Google Opinion Rewards app. Am I still free to play because I haven't spent any of my actual money? I think so.

The class Legendary I got was the Hunter legendary King Krush. Krush doesn't see much play but it's a great card and I've wanted to build a Hunter face deck that uses him. Krush is a fun card but Call of Wild sees more play and since it's an epic you can include two. Looking forward to building a deck with Krush, Call of the Wild and as many charge cards as make sense to include. No idea if it will be good but it should be fun to play.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/King_Krush

I figured since I have a ton of classic cards already opening 10 packs wouldn't contain much and I was happy to see that I was wrong. I opened two Legendaries from the 10 packs one being Deathwing and the other being a golden Lore Walker Cho. Deathwing is a very cool card but i'm not sure how I can use it right now. I decided to dust my Golden Lore Walker Cho and craft Tyrion Fordring instead. Tyrion is one of the best legendaries in the game and I've wanted him for quite some time and it was awesome to finally add him to my Paladin decks.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Deathwing
http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/456-lorewalker-cho
http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Tirion_Fordring

The other cards of note I opened were a Golden Doomguard, my second Earth Elemental, Lay On Hands and a golden Knife Juggler.

You can look at all the packs I opened below.

http://imgur.com/m3jCYWd
http://imgur.com/3SvjZ6H
http://imgur.com/jQtAPP6
http://imgur.com/uXcVEfm
http://imgur.com/hJWExp3
http://imgur.com/qFhsGbk
http://imgur.com/iasisqB
http://imgur.com/bXM9x5t
http://imgur.com/0Z6Kn2Z
http://imgur.com/rsSYR1g

Curious what everyone else opened after they picked up the Welcome Bundle?

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20271287/welcome-the-welcome-bundle-9-12-2016

Apparently Terraria can't stop getting better and even though this new update is small it also brings some new items as well as a desert biome sandstorm. I like the new polish they are adding the game as it will make it a bit more fresh when players return to build up a new world.

Since version 1.3 the developers have considered Terraria finished due to the "endgame boss" the Moon Lord but they are still updating the base game with new items, biome weather effects and more but after this I wonder where they plan on taking the game? I'm also wondering what would you like to see added to Terraria? As a pretty big Terraria fan it the game seems already really good to me and beyond more items things seem darn near perfect.

http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/pc-1-3-3-changelog.48916/

If you ever wanted to try your had at making games the Humble GameMaker Bundle might be the thing you are looking for. Many awesome games have been made in GameMaker such as Hotline Miami, Risk of Rain and Home. The Humble GameMaker Bundle includes GameMaker and a ton of games made in GameMaker but if you hit the right tiers also includes the source code for certain games included in the bundle. So not only do you get GameMaker but also the code from a bunch of games making your process of learning that much easier. $15 is the top tier that unlocks everything and for what you get, it's an incredible value.

If you're not interested in making games you can simply enter your email address and get 2 free games and a demo.

This bundle has been crazy popular and as such is already well over a million dollars raised for charity. This particular bundle supports Doctors without Borders so not only do you get some awesome stuff but it goes to a great cause.

https://www.humblebundle.com/gamemaker-bundle