Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Rage: The Scorchers Giveaway!

Greetings Friends of the Ghost,

You may remember our Borderlands 2 Haiku Contest & Torchlight 2 contest from last year. The new year is upon us and its time to bring you the next best thing. I love Rage. Recently jdodson completed the new Rage expansion: The Scorchers and we want to share the love with all you awesome people. The game is beautiful and a really exciting addition to an already great game. A bit about what to expect with The Scorchers:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/899

We are giving away a copy on Steam Gifts as per usual to drop in one lucky person's Steam account on January 30th. No strings attached. Head over to SteamGifts to enter that... Read All

Dat Firehose: Free Bundle & Doom Gangnam Style

If you had a problem with The Humble Bundle costing money now there is a solution in The Free Bundle. Right now The Free Bundle is collecting a few interesting Indie games such as Nitronic Rush, Ascension, Celestial Mechanica, Imscared & Abobo Big's Adventure.

http://www.thefreebundle.com/

This week in GoG, a weekly YouTube short showcases what was released and other GoG awesomery. This episode features Cultures 1+2 release, Kings Bounty Crosswords GoTY & more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXfP9VJl0BQ

To showcase what is possible with the new HTML5 Cavas technology some enterprising souls wired up Doom 3 and Gangnam Style. The Demons dancing does seem quite... Read All

Interview with CarbotAnimations Jon Burton

For quite some time I have enjoyed the Starcrafts series of animation shorts. I was able to reach out to CarbotAnimations, the creators of Starcrafts and they agreed to do an interview. Right now CarbotAnimations consists of Jon Burton with contributions from his brother. Its pretty amazing to consider how awesome it is to go from zero to a few million views in such a short amount of time. I imagine the fact that the videos are awesome has much to do with it.

This was a really fun interview to do and I want to thank Jon Burton for taking the time to talk to me.

jdodson: The characters of Starcrafts have very distinct personalities. The Zerglings, Zealots & Colossus... Read All

We Now Support Embedded Podcasts!

Download this podcast.

Since we have a few Podcasters on Cheerful Ghost I decided to spend a bit working on support embedding Podcasts into posts. Basically for any browser that supports HTML5 you can put the URL to your podcast mp3 and it will embed right in the post now. Most browsers support it and for the ones that don't we have the "Download podcast" fallback link.

Should work on Safari, Chrome, iPhone, iPad, Android & IE9. Let me know if you run into any quirks.

The linked podcast is Watch out For Fireballs Episode 25: EarthBound (Part 1).

http://duckfeed.tv/woff/25

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

Recently I watched a neat documentary called "Minecraft: The Story of Mojang." Essentially its a documentary that follows the rise of Minecraft and chronicles the journey. Notch, the owner/original developer of Minecraft is featured heavily as are other employees as they join Mojang. The documentary features other notable gaming luminaries musings about Minecraft such as Peter Molyneux and Tim Schafer.

The documentary is tonally similar to Indie Game: The Movie in how its shot. I was completely engrossed in the film start to finish and to me the movie didn't suffer from any pacing problems.

The creators of the film are employing a pretty interesting distribution model.... Read All

Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt Drops Today

DLC drops today and it looks like more awesome Borderlands 2. You planning on picking this up or do you have this as part of the Season Pass?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/213250

The Blockheads: First Impressions

I love Minecraft. So when I saw Minecraft on phones and tablets I snapped it up in a second with dreams of endless farming every second of the day. I will give Mojang a hand for making Minecraft on the phone, it works just about as you would expect. That said, something about playing it on my phone I don't love. The game feels cramped and its not easy to do things the desktop game makes easy. That said, its a fine port but I don't play it much. No mobile farming for this guy.

Occasionally I troll through the top apps on the iTunes store and I recently noticed a new game called The Blockheads. It is a side scroller similar in style to Terraria but built for mobile. The... Read All

New Podcast Announcement

http://images.vg247.com/current//2011/03/32980DS-8.jpg

I don't write on here as much as I'd like (work/podcasts/class!) but I wanted to pop on and announce a new show that we're doing. If you are interested at all in the game Dark Souls (and you really should be), we have the show for you:

http://duckfeed.tv/bonfiresidechat

Have any of you ghosties played it? What did you think?

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/14/2013 at 07:30pm

I have not played it, but plan on getting around to it. Bummed to hear its sequel is PS3 bound only.

I like the idea of a podcast to do a deep dive on a game. Will this be Dark Souls only or will it deep dive on another game at some point?

BR Supporter wrote on 01/14/2013 at 07:38pm

I tried to play it on the computer but the terrible controls made it almost impossible to play. I'm going to give it another try on the ps3 eventually.

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/14/2013 at 07:53pm

@BR: You more or less have to use a PS3 controller or an xbox controller. Solves all the issues, however.

@Jon, we're doing the souls series. So it goes Dark Souls, Demons Souls, Dark Souls 2.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/14/2013 at 07:59pm

Cool, that should be plenty o content then :D

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/14/2013 at 08:36pm

We're comfortable with it being a limited run, like seasons of a tv show. If we wanted to go back further, we'd end up in King's Field territory and we're not quite comfortable with that yet.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/14/2013 at 09:06pm

That makes sense. Adding it to my podcast client thingy. Ah, doesn't show in iTunes yet, so ill wait a bit then.

vdogmr25 wrote on 01/15/2013 at 06:21am

This is one of my favorite games primarily because it doesn't hold your hand. A lot of games do the whole "GO HERE!" or "FOLLOW THIS GUY!" This game nearly does a full 180 and tells you just the controls, and very little about an area. What info you do get is left by other players. It's a bit refreshing in that regard.

Gary_Butterfield Post Author wrote on 01/15/2013 at 08:50pm

@vdogmr25, we are going to go into that IN DEPTH. Check out the show!

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The Scorchers: My Playthrough pt. 2

I finally beat The Scorchers. Its not the longest bit of DLC ever but its fun as hell. Its also pretty as anything I have seen in a game so far. I took a ton of screen shots of the jaw dropping visuals and will link to the really impressive ones in this post.

I would say that each level in The Scorchers is different in visual and stylistic tone. You go from a cave level, to a new epic Mutant Bash TV level to a killer Warehouse level to the last series of sewers to the final Scorcher end base that is a kind of Pyramid/Mayan themed area. The Scorchers ends with an epic boss battle and it wasn't entirely obvious to me how to win at first so I will help you out a bit, if it... Read All I finally beat The Scorchers. Its not the longest bit of DLC ever but its fun as hell. Its also pretty as anything I have seen in a game so far. I took a ton of screen shots of the jaw dropping visuals and will link to the really impressive ones in this post.

I would say that each level in The Scorchers is different in visual and stylistic tone. You go from a cave level, to a new epic Mutant Bash TV level to a killer Warehouse level to the last series of sewers to the final Scorcher end base that is a kind of Pyramid/Mayan themed area. The Scorchers ends with an epic boss battle and it wasn't entirely obvious to me how to win at first so I will help you out a bit, if it glows blue, rocket that shit.

After The Scorchers was over I wanted more Rage. Its so pretty and The Scorchers does what iD does best, gives you some bad-ass shooter mayhem. After you have completed the final Scorcher boss you get a trophy room in Wellspring. Its pretty cool as certain events and secrets unlock certain trophies you can look at and it gives Rage a bit more depth to it.

I like the addition of the new Casino even though I am not the luckiest Rage casino patron. The Scorchers also gives you the option to buy a few new Rage Frenzy cards but I haven't tried them out in a game yet.

Overall, The Scorchers was extremely satisfying and left me wanting more. I hope iD pulls out a few more packs just like this.

A few screenshots:

An example of how awesome the lighting effects are underground: http://imgur.com/5IESk

A long sewer corridor to the outside: http://imgur.com/FZwpZ

Right before the final Scorcher area, a merchant awaits: http://imgur.com/Lb0s0

Dusk in the Scorcher Base: http://imgur.com/utJmb

Two Scorcher Cars: http://imgur.com/Sh7O8

The first glimpse of the Scorcher Boss: http://imgur.com/RzIxP

More of the boss: http://imgur.com/Vikpk

Dat epic sundown: http://imgur.com/RHg5e

An Indiana Jones style pedestal: http://imgur.com/rw5g2

One of my trophies in the room: http://imgur.com/sEYCT

I back tracked and found the secret iD developer room: http://imgur.com/NEK90

More dev room: http://imgur.com/WBABc

More dev room: http://imgur.com/6jM0w

Update:
We are having a Rage: The Scorchers giveaway contest, more on that here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/panickedthumb/posts/907

BR Supporter wrote on 01/14/2013 at 03:24pm

Never played rage before. Those screenshots really do justice for it though. They look amazing

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/14/2013 at 03:30pm

Yeah, I was happy with how they turned out. Up close se of the textures are a bit fuzzy but overall look good.

BR Supporter wrote on 01/14/2013 at 03:34pm

Honestly don't think my current computer could handle it. I'm saving up for a new one though and when I get it maybe I'll try this game out.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/14/2013 at 03:49pm

That might not be a bad idea as during the last holiday Steam sale it was only $5.

BR Supporter wrote on 01/14/2013 at 04:15pm

Wow that is really cheap. Guess I'll pick it up on the next sale

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/14/2013 at 04:55pm

Yeah its back at $20 now and the Scorchers DLC is $5. I recommend getting them both in one go if you can.

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NES Complex Demonstrates Universal Game Cases

Just found an awesome how-to video by NESComplex on creating universal cases for your NES Collection. He goes over design, to print to how to construct the cases for your NES library.

"In this update video I demonstrate the storage system I use for many of my NES games: Universal Game Cases UGC and printed box art covers from www.thecoverproject.net. I show how to print them from PowerPoint, and modify the game cases for NES games using a multi tool. I also address using DS Cases for GBA games and the problem with doing this if you live outside the states. If you know of any websites abroad, let me know and I'll add them to the description! I hope it helps!"

... Read All