Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Check Out the Guts Of The Playstation 5 With This Inside Look!

Sony released this official PS5 teardown video and a lot of folks in gaming are excited about it. It's not quite my cup of tea and being honest, this generation of Playstation hasn't excited me as much as others but this video does serve as a good example of what you will get in terms of hardware with the Playstation 5. I did notice that they didn't say how fast the Ethernet in the PS5 was but even if it's gigabit that is still really fast.

One thing I was wondering is that for folks getting the PS5 early or later, do you have it standing it up or put it on it's side?

XBox Series X Backwards Compatability Tested by Digital Foundry!

Digital Foundry takes a peek at the backwards compatibility of the XBox Series X and the results are quite good. XBox is the clear backwards compatibility winner and these numbers seem to further solidify that. My hope is that after PS5 launches Sony attends more to compatibility but that remains to be seen.

"Rich goes hands-on with Xbox Series X and puts its backwards compatibility capabilities to the most extreme tests possible. How much more graphics power does the compatibility mode deliver? Can it deliver 60fps on some of the most challenging Xbox One X games we've looked at over the years? The answers may surprise you."

Command & Conquer Remastered Collection is Great!

Azurephile gives this an astounding "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

Azurephile gives this a "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

Command & Conquer (C&C) is one of the very first real-time strategy games. It was released in 1995, although Dune II actually came out a few years before it. C&C, however, made vast improvements and additions to the genre and was perhaps most famous for its full motion videos (FMVs). The acting, music, and gameplay were all great and lead to a very successful series that lasted over a decade. This success led to the game actually being retitled as “Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn.” After the success of C&C and it’s expansions, a new game was released called Red Alert (RA). RA takes place in a different timeline in which Einstein creates a time... Read All Command & Conquer (C&C) is one of the very first real-time strategy games. It was released in 1995, although Dune II actually came out a few years before it. C&C, however, made vast improvements and additions to the genre and was perhaps most famous for its full motion videos (FMVs). The acting, music, and gameplay were all great and lead to a very successful series that lasted over a decade. This success led to the game actually being retitled as “Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn.” After the success of C&C and it’s expansions, a new game was released called Red Alert (RA). RA takes place in a different timeline in which Einstein creates a time machine and removes Hitler from history. This put the Allies against the Stalin led USSR. Like C&C, RA was followed up with some expansions and sequels. I still own the soundtrack to RA that I got many years ago. I’ve really loved pretty much all C&C/RA music.

Most recently, some of original developers of the games decided to create the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. They actually found old tapes of the FMVs and were able to remaster them, making them look much better. You can check out Jon’s post (link below) to see a video about how this collection was made, it’s worth watching if you’re a C&C fan.

One of my first reactions to the collection was that I was surprised that it’s priced at only $20. Maybe, I was expecting it to be a little more expensive. However, Limited Run Games did have other, more expensive, copies you could get that came with a lot more extra material, such as the music on a USB drive. I still think $20 is a great price tag for this collection.

The first bug I actually ran into may have been changed by now, but it was difficult to disable subtitles. For some reason, you had to click around the button instead of on the button. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done this, though. I ran into another bug that was actually just a typo in the description of a photo from the bonus material.

The games didn’t just get a graphical overhaul, but the music and other elements were overhauled as well. One of the interesting graphical features is that you can press the Space Bar to switch between the classic and remastered graphics. This gives you a nice view of how the game has been remastered. The collection includes bonus material that is unlocked after completing a mission. Most of it is just videos showing green screen takes of the actors, which I didn’t find to be very valuable. However, you can also unlock bonus music tracks, which I found to be much more valuable.

Speaking of the music, I ran into what I thought was a bug. You can go into the game’s Jukebox, which you can find in the audio options on the main menu or in the menu during a game and create a playlist. It has some good options such as including or excluding original or remastered tracks, bonus tracks, C&C tracks, or RA tracks. One part of this confused me and that is the shuffle feature. I assumed this meant that the game would play a random music track if this was enabled, however this wasn’t entirely correct. What happens is that after adding tracks to the playlist, the game then shuffles them around and then seemingly saves that playlist. It then plays the exact same songs in the exact same order in pretty much every mission. This seemed to persist for almost every mission, although I think it actually changed some times. You can easily switch tracks w/ the “-” and “+” keys, though.

Just like in the original, sometimes there are often multiple areas you can select for the next mission after completing one. In the original games, this meant that you’d probably miss out on one, but this collection has a Mission Select menu option. Once you finish a mission, you can click on the “Main Menu” button. The game will then tell you, pretty much, that your progress is saved and you can select missions from the main menu. This way, you can play every mission. It’s very handy and helps expand campaign gameplay. You can also unlock the secret missions for both games. I couldn't remember how to do this, so I just used Google to find out how.

I was working on Steam achievements, but ran into another issue, which may just be something I was doing incorrectly. One of the achievements requires you to play 10 multiplayer matches, but includes “comp stomp,” which I presume to mean you versus the AI, pretty much like the Skirmish option. However, I couldn’t get this to start and am waiting to hear back about what I may have done wrong with this.

After finishing the C&C part of the collection, I started playing the RA part. RA included a new snow environment, which I liked very much. It also included new units including spies and naval units. One thing I liked was that if you lose a naval unit, the game will specifically tell you, “naval unit lost.” After switching from the first game to RA, I immediately began to notice how it was an improvement over the original game. For instance, in the original game, it was difficult for a tank to shoot at an infantry unit and it was just easier to run them over. However, tanks seem to have gained anti-infantry accuracy in RA. They also seem to have gotten a speed boost. You may also hear the male voice of EVA and think “oh, that sounds like Jarvis from Iron Man,” but I can tell you that they are not the same actor. They most definitely sound alike (to me and some others) though.

If you liked C&C and RA, I would definitely suggest picking this up. I enjoyed being able to play these games again, especially after being remastered. I (along with others apparently) would really like to see more of the C&C/RA games get the remastered treatment. I have these games on a DVD collection known as "Command & Conquer: The First Decade," but the earlier games aren't completely compatible with today's modern PCs as they were designed for 32-bit CPUs. However, with a bit of research and some extra steps, you can get these games to work and stay stable. I've been able to get Tiberian Sun working and am playing it again.

If you have thoughts you want to share about this, please feel free to do so in the comments!

Check out this post by Jon: https://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/4466/the-remarkable-story-behind-command-conquer-s-remastering

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/06/2020 at 11:18pm

My CE of this should be showing up in a few weeks!

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/07/2020 at 10:26pm

I agree that the digital price of the C&C collection is an incredible value. Red Alert is the stand out game to me in this collection and I am VERY eager for Red Alert 2. I think the best part of these collections is making the games much easier to play given that running these old titles involves a lot of hacking.

I want to play this, I'm not sure when that's going to happen though? Prob around the time I complete the recent WarCraft III remake 🤣

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/08/2020 at 12:57am

I may have forgotten about WarCraft III. I don't have it, yet. It'd be cool if they remastered the first two. These games (WarCraft and C&C) came out about the same time.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/08/2020 at 03:51am

Give me Dune 2 or go home!

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/08/2020 at 03:55am

You can get the first two Warcrafts on GOG. They seem to have put enough effort in to make them run on modern Windows, which is really nice.

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

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/08/2020 at 03:56am

> Give me Dune 2 or go home!

I didn't know that wasn't available digitally anywhere. Shame.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/08/2020 at 05:57am

Oh wow I didn't know about the WarCrafts on GOG. As for Dune 2, man I enjoyed that game! I tried to play Dune 2000 recently and ended up doing a "rage quit." I actually finally did the same thing to Tiberian Sun, because I felt like if I have to watch a video to see how to do every mission, then I'm not really enjoying the game. I only watched videos for a few missions in the Remastered Collection. I admit my strategy was simple and usually effective, though repetitive. I still had fun though! Now I don't know how I played these games w/out YouTube. Shoot, I barely had Internet service in the Dune2/C&C/Warcraft days, though I had friends playing them, too.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/15/2020 at 09:45am

After a small break, I returned to Tiberian Sun. It was odd that the mission I stopped on never came back up, since I restarted. I just finished the Firestorm Nod campaign, so I'm done w/ the all the campaigns. It's good that it's playable, once you figure out how to get it to work properly, which isn't too difficult. It could use a "fresh coat of paint" or remaster like C&C and RA, but after about 20 years it's still not bad, or that's what I think anyway.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/16/2020 at 08:26am

I've now moved on to Red Alert 2 and found out that my version that came w/ C&C: The First Decade works just fine w/out any tinkering. My native and max resolution for my monitor is 1920X1200 and that's what I'm used to. However, I've decided to keep the game at the minimal resolution of 640X480 (16 bit only available). This is because the game play itself looks a bit better when increasing the resolution, but I don't want to be zoomed out too much where my units look too tiny. Also, if I use 800X600, the main menu looks fine and normal full screen, but movies or cutscenes get a black border around them, which I don't like. Increasing the resolution beyond this point puts a border around the menu and increases the one around the movies. You can get "hi-res" to work and it's not hard, but nothing I found made the movies stretch. There are settings for that, but they don't work. I tried the Origin version and while it appears to be the same version number, it doesn't behave the same way. If you change the resolution on that one then colors get inverted and the menu gets put into a smaller box in the upper left hand corner. There are compatibility fixes for this game and you can enable some compatibility options by selecting them in the properties of the .exe files, especially "run in compatibility mode for Windows 7" or XP or 95, run it in 16 bit color, since it doesn't go above that, and "run as administrator." To me, it was just a quick simple search on the web of how to run RA2 on Windows 10 and instructions weren't very complicated. Still, I don't think it looks too bad and I think I've forgotten over the last two decades just how fun this game is.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Sign Up / Log In

Minecraft: Caves & Cliffs Update Coming Summer 2021

Since the last two posts have been about Minecraft, I figured why stop there? Check out the embedded video by xisumavoid to see what's in the next Minecraft update called the Caves & Cliffs Update. If you want to stay up to date with Minecraft news, his channel is definitely one of the best Minecraft channels to watch. This update enhances cave generation and adds a couple new biomes and blocks to them, including copper. There are also two new mobs you'll find in them, one is hostile, while the other is friendly. The former is blind and can only detect your movement. There are new blocks that will detect movement, even allowing for "wireless" Redstone. The latter... Read All

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/06/2020 at 04:56pm

My son is excited. The wait is too long for him though. 😄

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/06/2020 at 07:21pm

I know the feeling!

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/06/2020 at 11:17pm

He even got me back into it. :)

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/07/2020 at 12:12am

Awesome! I haven't played in a while. I watched some videos about the Nether Update, but didn't really play, maybe I should get back into it. I didn't enjoy Minecraft Dungeons as much as I thought I would, maybe I need to try again. LOL

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/12/2020 at 02:06am

This update looks great. Minecraft has always been visually incredible, this really seems to add to that and give players more things to do.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 10/12/2020 at 05:15am

There's a new video about it that I haven't finished watching yet: https://youtu.be/K53HSMBqH7Q Apparently there are going to be "tons" of cave variations. It does look great. I wish I had a RTX 3080 though, I'm sure it'd (the RTX vrersion) shine w/ that GPU. It's been stated that this update will come to all platforms at the same time.

jdodson Admin wrote on 10/12/2020 at 06:25am

Someday RTX will be everywhere. Until then we dream. 🤣

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Sign Up / Log In

Minecraft Joins Super Smash Bros.

In case you missed yesterday's big news that possibly crashed Twitter, Minecraft is joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the next DLC. The trailer looks really cool. I don't own a Switch, but I've played all the other versions of Smash Bros. and have enjoyed the game since the first on the N64. I think it's kind of crazy how many characters have been and are being added to Smash Bros, though not necessarily a bad thing. I think having Minecraft in Smash Bros. kind of speaks to just how big and popular Minecraft is. This DLC has been in the works (including "talks") for about 5 years.

... Read All

"I've Got A Bone" - Dan Bull

Now that it's October, Halloween season can begin!

This song has a fun "This Is Halloween" type vibe to it and I just thought I'd share!

Digital Foundry Reviews The GeForce RTX 3090: Spoiler Alert It's Incredible!

NVIDIA's new 30XX RTX series is here (if you can find one to purchase) and they seem to be a very impressive leap in the next step of PC gaming. With any new graphic card improvement it's important to be skeptical of how much more powerful it is over the previous generation and it looks like NVIDIA has stepped up to deliver something quite impressive. Should most people upgrade to the 30XX series? Maybe but it's hard enough finding one and affording it is another story too.

Regardless of availability and price these graphics cards are here and soon enough will drop in price and eventually the tech will be incorporated into lesser powered systems as power requirements... Read All

The Mandalorian Season 2 Comes This Halloween Eve!

I know I'm late to the game in writing about the new Mandalorian Season 2 trailer but let's do it anyway! The Mandalorian was the show that kicked off the launch of the Disney+ streaming service and became a quick Star Wars fan hit. The show was so popular that "Baby Yoda" or The Child spawned numerous memes that are still quite popular. If I had any critique of the first season it was that it felt a bit rushed and some episodes felt a bit "monster of the week" where I would have preferred them to be all threaded to the main narrative. That said, I really enjoyed The Mandalorian and after watching the latest trailer I'm excited for the new season to drop on October... Read All

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/28/2020 at 01:07am

Hey Greg, I tried to keep the post potentially spoiler free and I added a spoiler tag to note there may be potential spoilers in the comments. That said, let's keep the comments potentially spoiler free moving forward if we can.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/28/2020 at 11:29am

(Edited comment, removed previous one made before Jon's)
I saw the trailer shortly after it was released, I think. It's exciting! Thanks for posting the date, I didn't know (or remember) when it was supposed to start. I watched some videos on this were from the YouTube channels called New Rockstars (https://youtu.be/t_bKLFIGJBY) and IGN (https://youtu.be/4iR5_SxE3EY). Their speculations may contain spoilers, so don't watch them if you don't want speculative spoilers.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/28/2020 at 01:01pm

❤️

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/28/2020 at 01:04pm

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 09/28/2020 at 04:55pm

I read that Season 4 will start to answer questions. So expect more setup for seasons 2 & 3.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/28/2020 at 09:58pm

I read a leaked script for season 2. Besides incorporating a young Snoke character where you see his pre-school years it’s mostly just people asking questions the whole time.

“WHY IS THE RAZOR CREST BLUE?”

“Where did Mandos cape come from?”

“What’s Bossks back story?”

Oddly no one makes any kind of definitive statements about anything. That said it does open up ground for 20 new Disney+ shows so that’s something. I think one was titled “Investigation: Star Wars.”

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 09/29/2020 at 05:02am

It's blue, because that's the best color, of course! Though, I admit that black or purple would look pretty cool. What if it was fair and shifted between all the primary colors? That would be awesome! But, to keep it simple and to stay on budget, they selected the best and that, of course, is blue! LOL Hm, actually I think it's gray/silver, at least that's what the Lego model's color is. Though I did see a sexy blue pic of it on Deviant Art of it going through Hyperspace. It's still not as sexy as an X-Wing, but it is what it is.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.

Sign Up / Log In

Hasbro Gloriously Resurrects Hero Quest!

Hero Quest is an epic adventure board game many geeks played in the late 80's that was published by Milton Bradley. As such it was widely available until it wasn't and then was only available to play if your friend still had it or you could find it used. I've been on the lookout for Hero Quest each time I enter a thrift store but have never yet found a copy. You can find the old Hero Quest used on Ebay or Amazon in upwards of $400 and always felt that was a bit too much. It seems all of that searching has come to an end because Hasboro Pulse has just released a crowdfunding campaign for Hero Quest that looks to bring back the original game and each expansion with a... Read All

iD Adds Rekkr To The Official Doom & Doom II Ports!

When iD Software added download addon/mod support in the Doom & Doom II official ports they included some historically incredible mods available for free. They said over time they'd add more community mods and since the community has made some absolutely incredible stuff it seems like a nearly limitless prospect. Today iD added it's first total conversion Mega Wad called Rekkr that legit turns Doom into an incredible Hexen inspired Sword & Wizardry FPS straight outta the 90's.

"A total conversion of DOOM (1993), REKKR takes on a Norse-inspired setting casting you as a mighty warrior who, after narrowly surviving a shipwrecked expedition, encounters a terrible... Read All