Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Half-Life 2 Anniversary + Documentary + Updates

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 Valve has released a ton of new content for the game as well as releasing it for free in it's entirety for a limited time! There is also a Half-Life 2 documentary that I've embedded here for you to view, I haven't seen it yet but plan to watch it as soon as I can. Seems like if you haven't played Half-life 2 yet or wanted to get back in, now is a great time.

Some of the changes in the new version:

* Episodes One and Two are in the box. Half-Life 2 now includes the complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions along with the base game. They’re accessible from the main menu, and you will automatically advance to the next... Read All

Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest

When I turn around at my desk and count the number of Blizzard PC boxes on my shelf I hit nine. When I think of the amount I've bought digitally plus physically I get a bit woozy. Prepare thy pocket book as there is another Battle Chest that just launched today that looks worth buying.

The Warcraft Remaster Battle Chest includes updated visuals and more for classic Warcraft Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II & Warcraft III. The games look to push things into the new age with 4K visuals and a ton of update to Warcraft III that look to sate fans that criticized the release some years ago. At $40 this won't break the bank, even if you already have these games in a much... Read All

Alarmo: Nintendo Is Listening!

"Introducing Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo, an interactive alarm clock that’s out of the ordinary! Alarmo responds to your body’s movement with game sounds, so you can feel like you’re waking up in the game world itself. Set an alarm inspired by five Nintendo games, with more alarms on the way as free updates as they become available. "

So Nintendo is making an alarm clock and as the kids say, I'm here for it. I'm not sure who asked Nintendo for this, seems like folks are more interested in the Switch 2.... that said, if you needs some help and want to wake up with Nintendo themed fun, this is for you. Alarmo is up there with strangely lovable Nintendo stuff like the... Read All

The Origin Story Behind Counter-Strike's Most Iconic Map

"Jeremy Jayne reveals the remarkable tale of how a teenage hobbyist (Dave Johnston) accidentally made one of Counter-Strike's most iconic maps. And then accidentally did it again."

Counter-Strike is the reason why I originally bough Half Life. Dust was and is one of the most iconic Counter-Strike maps and perhaps one of the most popular multiplayer maps of all time.

Elder Scrolls Castles: A Good Follow Up To Fallout Shelter

The Elder Scrolls: Castles launched last week on iOS and Android and I've been playing it a bit each day since. It's a good tippy tap phone game that Bethesda boasted is a spiritual sequel to Fallout Shelter. And yeah, they were totally right, it's the same basic gameplay of Fallout Shelter but with an Elder Scrolls theme. It's not just a reskin as they've improved upon many of the game mechanics in that the time passes differently and there is a bit more to the game to keep track of. Still, it's a very similar game and they launched with a bit more than the original Fallout Shelter had but already after a week I'm not sure what may keep me playing it? Is it a fun... Read All

Do You Want to Visit Japan Just To See The New Nintendo Museum?

On October 2nd Nintendo will open it's first museum in Kyoto Japan. When I finally make it for a visit to Japan this will be one of the places on my list.

Travel Around Hyrule in The New Zelda Echoes Game

As I was watching this video with one of my friends we decided that this game looks like a mashup of Ocarina of Time + Breath of the Wild. Echoes of Wisdom drops September 26th and I can't wait to play it when it does.

A New Elder Scrolls Is Coming Soon: Castles Drops September 10th!

"Castles is the spiritual successor to Fallout Shelter, the popular vault-building mobile game that puts you in the role of an Overseer. In Castles, you’ll take on the role of the right hand of the king (or queen) and manage your kingdom. You’ll build the castle of your dreams, rule over your subjects, and make critical decisions about your kingdom’s future as you build your dynasty. "

I love Fallout Shelter so a new free to play game from Bethesda sounds incredible. Fallout Shelter started on phones and eventually was ported to everything including PC so I hope the same thing happens here. Also.... Fallout Shelter 2? This may be the next best thing.

DOOM+DOOM II: Hellish Perfection Comes To Earth, Again!

In 2019 iD Software re-released Doom to nearly all the modern systems. It was a solid release, yet didn't have LAN or online multiplayer and it wasn't as configurable as it could be. During this years 2024 Quakecon iD Software partnering with the incredible team at Nightdive Studios released the definitive remake of Doom in Doom + Doom II. What does this re-remaster include? A whole lot and by default includes all the levels from Doom + Doom II as well as Master Levels for DOOM II, TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment, No Rest for the Living, Sigil & Legacy of Rust (a new episode created in collaboration by individuals from id Software, Nightdive Studios and... Read All In 2019 iD Software re-released Doom to nearly all the modern systems. It was a solid release, yet didn't have LAN or online multiplayer and it wasn't as configurable as it could be. During this years 2024 Quakecon iD Software partnering with the incredible team at Nightdive Studios released the definitive remake of Doom in Doom + Doom II. What does this re-remaster include? A whole lot and by default includes all the levels from Doom + Doom II as well as Master Levels for DOOM II, TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment, No Rest for the Living, Sigil & Legacy of Rust (a new episode created in collaboration by individuals from id Software, Nightdive Studios and MachineGames).

DOOM FINALLY INCLUDES ONLINE MULTIPLAYER and an all new Deathmatch map pack featuring 25 maps! I've spent quite a bit of time playing Deathmatch online and it's a really fast paced wild cacophony of shootery goodness. Right now, it's not hard to jump in and play with people so jump in while you can and enjoy the 90's deathmatch glory. I also appreciate that it's VERY easy to play with anyone on any platform. While I don't pay for online for the Switch or XBox, when I'm Deathmatching on Steam it's neat to see Switch & Playstation people Dooming alongside me.

Oh and, they've released a WHOLE NEW OFFICIAL DOOM CAMPAIGN! I've wanted this for quite a while as I consider Doom to be one of the, if not the greatest game of all time that deserves new regular releases. I know there is a vibrant community of incredible maps and mods created, but I hope with this release we see iD Software making an effort to release a new official campaign from time to time.

"Created in collaboration by individuals from id Software, Nightdive Studios, and MachineGames, Legacy of Rust is the newest episode for DOOM, and the first official episode since DOOM II to feature new demons and weapons."

Like many of these iD + Nightdive re-releases if you previously owned Doom on any platform this is available for free. So if you bought it on Switch, you can search for it and download the new version which is side-by-side with the old iD version.

Coming back to Doom with this new release I have a new goal and I don't care how long it takes me to achieve. For quite some time I've wanted to play all of the official Doom + Doom II levels and now I will be. I consider all of the content added in this new Doom + Doom II release to be official and I'll be going through it all. Not really focused on completing it in any particular order, just going through all of the hellish Doom goodness! So far, I've started with Doom II and have been having a great time going through it on my Steam Deck & PC.

If you want to dig in to all what's included in the Doom + Doom II release check out the official notes below or watch the Quakecon stream on YouTube where they go over it and show off the new campaign Legacy of Rust and Multiplayer.

https://slayersclub.bethesda.net/en-US/article/doom-doomii-release-notes
Quakecon Day 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThQd_UJaTys&list=WL&index=46
Quakecon Day 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o58IzkTV144&list=WL&index=50

Even though this release is as close to perfect as it gets, one suggestion is for a feature to DISABLE weapon switching on pickup. It's not the worst but annoying in multiplayer. Also, bots. Bots would be lovely for when there aren't as many people to frag with you online as we'd like.

Alex Trebek Was Never More 8-Bit!

Recently I was retro game thrifting with one of my friends Will and I spotted Jeopardy! on NES for $4 on a discount shelf. Young Jon Dodson would never have picked up Jeopardy! and would have always preferred Zelda, Metal Gear, Mario or nearly anything else to a classic game show game. Not to say I haven't enjoyed game show video games, I have very fond memories of Wheel of Fortune on DOS, I just wasn't a big Jeopardy fan when I was young. Times change and as luck would have it I've been watching a fair amount of Jeopardy on Pluto.tv. I've also really enjoyed watching Jeopardy with my girlfriend. As we watch we try and answer the questions and the good news is we both... Read All Recently I was retro game thrifting with one of my friends Will and I spotted Jeopardy! on NES for $4 on a discount shelf. Young Jon Dodson would never have picked up Jeopardy! and would have always preferred Zelda, Metal Gear, Mario or nearly anything else to a classic game show game. Not to say I haven't enjoyed game show video games, I have very fond memories of Wheel of Fortune on DOS, I just wasn't a big Jeopardy fan when I was young. Times change and as luck would have it I've been watching a fair amount of Jeopardy on Pluto.tv. I've also really enjoyed watching Jeopardy with my girlfriend. As we watch we try and answer the questions and the good news is we both can answer a fair amount, but she nearly always gets more answers than I do. Date smarter people folks, it's not a bad strategy! With that, between us were a fair trivia pair and because of this when I saw NES Jeopardy! on the discount shelf, I bought it.

NES Jeopardy! came out in 1988 and contains questions forever frozen in time from that area. Good news is my girlfriend and I do know quite a bit about that time or earlier, so we're not too bad as a pair up against the computers. I think my only negative thought on Jeopardy! for NES is that because of the limited way you can enter data into the NES at times you have to hunt and peck to type in the answer and that can take quite a bit of time. The good news is they give you A LONG time to answer the question, but answering questions on a d-pad when it's long is annoying. Still, it's not too bad and the game is very quick and the character graphics are charmingly campy.

So far we've played Jeopardy! a handful of times and haven't gotten any duplicate categories yet, but at some point I expect to. Because we've had so much fun playing Jeopardy! I plan on buying out the rest of the series on the NES through Super Nintendo. These games don't seem to be any kind of rare so if you wanted to play it on retro hardware it's only going to cost a few dollars.