Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

LucasArts was more than Monkey Island...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/LOOM_Cover_Art.jpg

This is just a quick, nostalgic sendup of a fantastic adventure game of a bygone era: Loom. It's blowing my mind that this game is over 20 years old; when I got my hands on it for the first time it was already a classic.

Loom is not a particularly challenging game; this was right about when the industry was overcorrecting a bit for the mind-punishingly difficulty of the early adventure games. That's alright, though, even if the puzzles are not particularly stumping they're fun to play with and solve, and though the graphics and sound are definitely dated, they have aged well. Loom would probably be right at home next to some well-polished "retro" indie titles of... Read All

A Winning Build

I finally made it through FTL! Once. On "easy" mode. But let's not dwell on details, shall we? :) Spoilers ahead!

The winning build was, at the time of the Big Fight:

Redtail Kestrel layout
6 power in shields (3 dots)
6 power in engines
3 power in cloaking
4 power in drone control
Anti-Ship Drone II
Burst Laser I
Basic Laser
Basic Laser
Small Bomb
7 crew members

Sensors, Doors, Oxygen, Medbay weren't really relevant, but for the record Medbay and Sensors were each upgraded by one point.

I think the two biggest pieces here were the Cloaking and the Small Bomb, both of which were *critical* to the second round of the boss fight. Without cloaking you will have a hard time surviving... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/04/2013 at 07:07pm

This is awesome, thanks for sharing this.

I am thinking that doors and O2 upgrades might not be as useful as I think. I haven't nabbed a cloak yet, but since the cloak comes standard with the Kestral Layout 2 I think I need to work on getting that upgrade. I can live without the missile by default and frankly don't use it that much as is.

CapnCurry Supporter Post Author wrote on 04/04/2013 at 09:32pm

Actually, the cloak is not standard with Kestrel's Plan B Layout - I had to pick that up somewhere on the way.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2013 at 01:12am

Oh. Ok that makes sense, thanks!

CapnCurry Supporter Post Author wrote on 04/05/2013 at 07:36am

Got my wife playing FTL as of this evening. On her third-ever jump she wound up in front of a too-close sun with her Oxygen and Doors on fire. We switched to my machine and paired for a sector after that, then she fired up her own game again. This game is brutal, I tell ya. :)

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2013 at 05:53pm

It really is. Not as brutal as some Roguelikes i've played though. Like I said in an earlier review of FTL, it dares to be fun.

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Starbound Releases Awesome Roadmap

Totally can't wait for Starbound to drop later this year. Heralded as a spiritual successor to Terraria in space with quests, planet exploration and a ton more awesomeness this game looks to be completely bad-ass. Recently Chucklefish released the Starbound Roadmap as well as added lots of information about its current completion level with all the games features.

Some of the larger features are mostly complete such as World & Universe Generation, Dungeons and Villages, Items & the User Interface. Many of the remaining items with much to go have quite a bit complete already.

When a more formal date drops for Starbound ill let you know. Can't wait to try this... Read All

Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia

Doom: The Board Game is my favoriate board game of all time. So when I saw Plaid Hat Game's upcoming Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia I was pretty interested. The goal of the game is to build an army to fight booker for ultimate control of Columbia. It looks like you and the other players can have control of Elizabeth in some fashion but the details are a bit sparse as of now.

The game pieces and overall build look fantastic to me. I imagine ill see this in my local game store pretty soon and want to give it a shot when it does.

Have you picked up a board game for a video game before? If so how did it turn out for you? What do you think of Bioshock Infinite: The... Read All

Disney Closes LucasArts

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles."

Can't say as this is really surprising. Making games is hard and LucasArts really hasn't had a home run in some time. They did create some fantastic games of the retro era in Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, Tie Fighter and a ton more.

LucasArts was working on Star... Read All

Terraria on the Playstation 3

I have been pretty excited to try out Terraria on the PS3 and today I took it for a spin. Its a fairly small download and it was running in a few minutes. The demo has Tutorial mode available and as such, played that.

The tutorial is fairly interesting as it runs you thorough a few game basics from mining to crafting a few pieces of starter gear. I never realized how much stuff Terraria packs in to the PC version. The console version has to make sense of all that and as such, its a very dense system of menus to navigate through and is a bit overwhelming at first. That said, after a few minutes I was fairly acclimated to things and didn't have a problem crafting and... Read All

Enhanced Game Platform Support

Today I launched the first pass at "ULTRA DELUXE SUPER-ENHANCED PLATFORM SUPPORT HD!" Which is to say, Game Platforms on Cheerful Ghost are now first class citizens.

Click around on the site and you will not see platforms as clickable tag links. Clicking a Platform tag will take you to the new Platform pages. Each Platform has its own page and a few bits of interesting data on it like a Wikipedia reference link as well as the most popular games the site has in reference to it.

Some platforms have a ton of games and some are very new and have only a few. Ill be working over the next bit to flesh out these pages even more with a description and other bits.

... Read All

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:34am

Is there a way to set a game to a certain platform? There are a few games on my list that are for Mac or PS3 but don't give me the option to change it to that.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:37am

Yeah, hit me up with the games and ill add them as options!

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:48am

"AwesomeNauts" and "Portal 2" on PC are also for Mac. There are a lot of other games on PC that are for Mac as well, so I'll tell you if I find anymore.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:49am

Also, there's a cool 2D pixelated online multiplayer game called "King Arthur's Gold" (KAG) that's for PC and Mac, and I was wondering if you could add it to the game list. :)

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:56am

Realm of the Mad God is also for Mac since it's a browser game, which got me thinking it would be cool if there was a platform option for "Browser" games. But technically the platform for browser games is actually just "Computers". So could you just add the "Mac" platform option to Realm of the Mad God? Haha.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:56am

And I also realized I still can't delete games from my games list. :(

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 12:58am

Wow, I think this is the most I've commented on a post, like ever. :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:11am

Added that stuff.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:13am

Yay! Thanks! :D

Blue_Element wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:17am

Also, "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" is only listed for xbox, but it's for PC and PS3 too. And Crysis 3 is only listed for xbox as well.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 01:56am

Added.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/03/2013 at 02:56am

PS King Arthur's Gold is awesome. Thanks for letting me know about it.

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FTL Wins GDC Awards & More

FTL recently won the GDC Audience Award and Excellence in Design. Both awards are very well deserved and FTL is the game I am playing right now. Each one of my games lasts an hour or less. I have made it about 75% of the way to the end on Easy and am currently refining my strategy to go further but I heard there is a boss battle at the end that I am kind of nervous about. Ill have a party when I beat this one.

Gamasutra recently posted an Interview with the FTL devs about the games design.

“We started with a very vague idea for a concept and used that as a guiding light for the entire project,” said Davis. “By having one singular focus we were able to abandon... Read All

Cheerful Ghost purchased by CBS Interactive

Hello all,

We come to you today with some awesome news about the future of the site. Effective immediately Cheerful Ghost has been acquired by CBS Interactive. In the coming weeks, we will be moving the site over to CBS Interactive’s server farm, and a few of us will be moving into the Gamespot offices.

We will be incorporating many useful features from Gamespot’s network, including the awesome reviews and GameFAQs forum integration! This will push the Cheerful Ghost community forward with trusted reviews and the friendliest forum around.

We do need to point out some other changes to how we operate.

Non-paying customers will be limited to two comments per day.

The... Read All

Blue_Element wrote on 04/02/2013 at 12:33am

Wow, that seems like a horrible decision. I'm done with Cheerfulghost, forever.

Blue_Element wrote on 04/02/2013 at 12:34am

XD APRIL FOOLS!!! Now I got you! Funny post by the way. :D

scrypt Supporter wrote on 04/02/2013 at 12:39am

I'm a huge fan of micro transactions, and I think the charge-per-comment is an excellent way to move that idea forward, while narrowing the comments to serious posters only. Who says freedom of speech has to be free?

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/02/2013 at 01:08am

I agree, honestly its just a way to allow people to realize the awesome value of transactional content.

I really appreciate CBS Interactive for this because it allows us to focus on bringing value to shareholders!

Blue_Element wrote on 04/02/2013 at 01:25am

I can't wait to pay $1 to enter contests! That seems like a great idea! And I totally didn't notice the sponsors in the last post at all!

scrypt Supporter wrote on 04/02/2013 at 02:09am

I almost forgot about the shareholders! And now I feel guilty, because I should have been thinking of them this whole time. They do so much to bring us the experiences that we never knew we wanted, and really what do they get in return? Money!? Psh... money grows on trees these days. I just planted two money trees in my backyard last summer, and they should be ready to harvest come Autumn.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/02/2013 at 03:24pm

Bills must be paid and investor value must be..... /shoots self

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Bioshock Infinite Review: part 1

Let me just start by saying this game is visually stunning. The graphics really pop on my Sony Bravia 3D TV. I think we've now gotten to the point in gaming where the graphics improvements in future generations really won’t change the industry as much as they have in the past. I can’t imagine a higher polygon count making this game any prettier. Sometimes I just had to stop and look at the beauty in this game. This gave me a great opportunity to take a break for some Doritos and Pepsi while I sat back and enjoyed the beauty that the game could push through my Sony Bravia TV before jumping into the action.

The gameplay is solid. The shooting mechanics feel basically... Read All