Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Heart of the Swarm Beta

Hello Friends,

I totally dig Starcraft. So much so that I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. The collectors edition packs in the game soundtrack, making of DVD/BluRay, art book and other digital bits. A week or so before the launch of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm I plan on doing a video un-boxing of all my Collector Edition's to share with everyone.

That said, since I pre-ordered the game I was given access to the beta and decided to take it for a spin. They are only making the multi-player aspect of Heart of the Swarm available for Beta customers so I won't be able to comment on the Single Player until game launch in March. That... Read All Hello Friends,

I totally dig Starcraft. So much so that I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. The collectors edition packs in the game soundtrack, making of DVD/BluRay, art book and other digital bits. A week or so before the launch of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm I plan on doing a video un-boxing of all my Collector Edition's to share with everyone.

That said, since I pre-ordered the game I was given access to the beta and decided to take it for a spin. They are only making the multi-player aspect of Heart of the Swarm available for Beta customers so I won't be able to comment on the Single Player until game launch in March. That said, I played two matches as the Zerg, my race of choice.

The two new Zerg units I played around with were the Viper and Swarm Host. The Viper is a flyer that can move enemy units closer to you. So if an enemy ship or unit is hitting you from a distance you can pick it up and lift it closer to you. It was fun using the Vipers to bring enemy fliers inside my Hydralisk swam and watch them die. Allowing the Zerg more methods to mess with an enemy is an awesome thing. The other new Zerg unit is the Swarm Host which is a siege unit that when burrowed spawn Locusts that spit acid. While interesting, I never found the right formula to use Swarm Host to the point where I loved it but I imagine I just need more time with the unit.

Heart of the Swarm doesn't seem to add any new structures or change any of the other multi-player game mechanics that I noticed.

Looking forward to talking more about the single-player of Heart of the Swarm when the game is launched in March. Speaking of, are you planning on picking up this expansion?

Pre-Order the Game on Amazon and get early Access to the Beta:
http://goo.gl/6uCOl

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/unit/viper
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/unit/swarm-host
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/heart-of-the-swarm-preview/
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/ (section on the new units to Heart of the Swarm)

Hunting For Steam Game Easter Eggs

The other day I wondered what hidden bits of rad one would find by looking through the files Steam installs for the games I played. What I found was pretty interesting as some games install some cool files and stuff they don't advertise. Understand that all I did to find this information was click around in in my Steam games folder for this information. I recommend you do the same and post your findings to this post or make your own post about it.

Together lets find all the awesome stuff in our Steam games.

But first the steps to finding Steam game Easter Eggs:

Open Steam

Go to your game Library

Right click on a game and select Properties

Select the LOCAL FILES tab

... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 01/21/2013 at 11:01pm

A lot of this has to do with what you have bought. The AC3 special edition, for example, has a Bonus/ folder that has the soundtrack, but if you bought the standard edition, that's not there.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/21/2013 at 11:04pm

That makes sense. Ill note the difference fow show. :D

Travis Admin wrote on 01/22/2013 at 04:52am

OH! I just remembered this one. Lots of games have secret music and stuff you can find, or some games have unencrypted images or text you can sort through, but how many games have secret *games* for you to find?

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/03/awesomenauts-on-pc-includes-hidden-roflnauts-mini-game/

Awesomenauts does! It's a retro-styled Smash Brothers style brawler.

hardeyez wrote on 01/22/2013 at 05:09pm

Also, the gcf files in there are packs of files browse-able with tools https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/GCF e.g. you can extract all the sounds from Portal 2 and use "Are you still there?" on your phone :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/22/2013 at 05:13pm

Awesome, thanks for sharing people ill get these into the post above when I continue on through my Steam games!

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Mew-Genics Update: "We are Rediculon" CAT FIGHT!

After watching this I am WAY more excited about Mew-Genics than I was as this soundtrack seems totally level 50 max level awesome-rad.

CAT FIGHT, CAT FIGHT! So very catchy.

Yeah, this will be a day one purchase for me and I have no idea what the game is about yet.

A Glimpse Into The Future of Next Gen Consoles

One of my friends on Twitter @groveronline asked me what I thought of a recent Reddit post by KR4T0S, an industry insider with some knowledge of the next generation console hardware. Its a really interesting read and I recommend you check it out.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/16tttt/orbis_unmasked_what_to_expect_from_the_nextgen/c7zfgtg

I want to respond to a few points he brings up:

"If both the 720 and PS4 are running AMD CPU's then that is a revolution, what that means is every developer working on consoles and PC will have a grip on the architecture of all three platforms. The 720 is a Windows PC, the PS4 is a Linux PC. I was wondering how Valve were going to... Read All

Another reason I love the PS3: The Unfinished Swan

So I had just wrapped up The Unfinished Swan, and I gotta say that I wish all games told stories this well. Granted it's short, sweet, and looks to be for a slightly younger audience, but it's still fairly engrossing. Also, the game is simple in a good way. You simply walk, jump, and throw globs of paint, or water to interact with the environment and progress through each level. What gets thrown changes from level to level giving each area it's own mechanics without really changing the game feel. My only real complaint with the PS3 exclusive is the $15 price for something as short as it is. It took me around 2-3 hours, and the replay value isn't fantastic. At the same... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/19/2013 at 11:37pm

Is this a download game or on a disc? Looks awesome though but yeah 2-3 hours for $15? Thats kind of steep.

Its this a pretty story driven game?

vdogmr25 Post Author wrote on 01/19/2013 at 11:59pm

It's a downloadable title, and the game is like a child's story book in story, styling, and overall ease of play. The main character goes through the game chasing a swan through these different landscapes, and as he goes, the charter learns the story of the places he explores. There's more to it than that, but I'll start going into spoilers if I say more. It's simple, but done very well, and sadly, just a bit expensive for what it is.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/20/2013 at 05:17pm

That sounds pretty cool but yeah, a bit much for the time. I am not really sure PSN has pricing options at $5 even if the game creator wanted that price point. Steam it ain't.

SignalWarden wrote on 01/22/2013 at 06:59pm

I actually wasn't a fan of this game. As fresh and well executed as the concept was I had a problem with the fact that it had such a story book style narration. The demographics of the game falls heavily into the adult crowd and yet the game feels like a golden book. That in itself turned me off to what should have been a really wonderful experience.

vdogmr25 Post Author wrote on 01/25/2013 at 03:58pm

Fair enough. I'll admit that the storybook style kinda puts the game in a small niche.

On another note, however, I wish to make a footnote on my point of "$15 is too steep." My lady-friend gave it a shot and absolutely loved it. So now that she entered the mix, the game magically became worth every penny.

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Community Interview with Will Owens

The next entrant in the Cheerful Ghost Community Interview series I have been doing is Will Owens. Will is the creator of Backlog Killer, a blog dedicated to completing his large pile of awesome games.

jdodson: You are playing through Ultima Underworld right now. How is that going?

Will Owens: Slowly but surely. Ultima Underworld is actually one of the two or three games that motivated me to begin writing the Backlog Killer blog last year. The problem of too little time and too much to play remains, but I now have a system that allows me to focus and not be distracted by other games that may be laying around, too. I usually only have the opportunity to play games three... Read All

Steam Guides: Player-created guides come to Steam

Steam now has a section for player-created tips and guides on the Community Hub. It's similar to what you might find at a site like GameFAQs. For example, here's one about how to find the Minecraft easter egg in Borderlands 2: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121138540

These guides are accessible in the Steam Overlay, which means that you'll be a little closer to your guides now. They seem a little more full-featured than GameFAQs' offerings as well.

For more: http://steamcommunity.com/guides

Skyrim: Dragonborn Feb 5 for PC, PS3 DLC coming!

http://cdnstatic.bethsoft.com/bethblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dragonbornsony-2.jpg

On February 5, the Dragonborn DLC is coming to PC finally.

In bigger news, all three DLCs for Skyrim are coming to PS3 in February, each for 50% off in their first week!

Full story here: http://www.bethblog.com/2013/01/18/the-dragonborn-comes-in-february-and-hearthfire-dawnguard-too/

Dungeon Siege: In The Name of the King

Recently I watched Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King on Netflix. I know many would immediately dismiss this film as a terrible Uwe Boll film but in a fit of interest I decided to watch it. First off the film is not great but I reject the notion that its as bad as people make it out to be.

As I was watching the film I was wondering if it was intentionally funny because this film is very campy. Truth be told, I love camp as I consider films like Time Cop and Soldier to be really fun movies. How could the film not be knowingly campy casting Burt Reynolds as the King? When I first saw him on the screen I laughed, it just seemed such an odd choice.

That said, this movie... Read All Recently I watched Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King on Netflix. I know many would immediately dismiss this film as a terrible Uwe Boll film but in a fit of interest I decided to watch it. First off the film is not great but I reject the notion that its as bad as people make it out to be.

As I was watching the film I was wondering if it was intentionally funny because this film is very campy. Truth be told, I love camp as I consider films like Time Cop and Soldier to be really fun movies. How could the film not be knowingly campy casting Burt Reynolds as the King? When I first saw him on the screen I laughed, it just seemed such an odd choice.

That said, this movie did do a few things right. At times some of the shots in this film look quite good. Seriously, some of the shots are really pretty. The final battle between the protagonist and Ray Liotta was fun. At one point the protagonist and his compatriots are in the forest and meet up with some women that travel entirely by swinging on vines. Its really comical as the vine travel is so entirely unrealistic they might have well just not removed the stunt cranes they were hanging on from the shot.

Jason Statham takes the lead role in this film and provides one of the better performances. I only had a few problems with his character and it really just involved some poor dialog choices and that his name was "Farmer." The reason for that is that you start as a farmer in the original Dungeon Siege game. The film attempts to explain this by stating that Jason Statham calls himself Farmer because that's who he wanted to be.

So how does this film stack up to the Dungeon Siege game? Since I loved the original game so much, it was interesting to watch the movie and stack it up to the game. The movie is loosely related to the video game in a few ways. First Jason Statham starts out as a farmer, like in the game. Second off his village is ransacked by The Krug right away which again, fits with the game. But as the movie gains some steam it starts going off in a different direction. The Krug really only serve to provide the protagonists things to kill but you know, that's really what they were in the game too. In the end I would say for what little story the original Dungeon Siege game did have, the movie keeps tabs on it reasonably well.

If you wore out your VHS Tapes of Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme then you should give this movie a shot. It isn't perfect but it has its moments and some of them are actually pretty fun. Oh right, its available to watch entirely on YouTube and is linked above, for the Kingdom of Ebb!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Name_of_the_King:_A_Dungeon_Siege_Tale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_%281998_American_film%29

The Game Chasers Sin City Shenanigans Part 1.

Found an interesting YouTube series called Game Chasers. It is a reality TV style show of a couple of dudes that hunt down awesome Retro Styled games and systems.

Let me know what you think of it, I find these kinds of video game shows really interesting.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 01/18/2013 at 08:06pm

This is the sort of thing I like and it's possible I'd end up watching more but this guys really seem like dbags to me. Nothing personal to them but a little charisma would go a long way towards making this show a lot more watchable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/18/2013 at 08:07pm

Fair enough. Sometimes the line between humor and actually being a d-bag is fine :D

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 01/18/2013 at 08:11pm

I would do terrible things to that toy store but I wouldn't say nerdgasm or make fake humping motions. I don't know. I'm being a judgmental jerk.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 01/18/2013 at 08:13pm

It's actually a good example of like an aesthetic that's like a "nerd-thug" that I've always been irritated by.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 01/18/2013 at 09:13pm

I think there is something there. Personally I don't hump my video games, even the ones I love. Wherein I get why people think its Hil-freak-arious, I sort of side with you Gary. That kind of thing is pretty cringe worthy.

Now I could hug something, like a power glove, but you know.. thats sort of different and all ages. :D

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 01/21/2013 at 06:56am

I'd love a version of this that wasn't fucking obnoxious. I'm interested in hunting for old games. Just don't be such dumb thug meat heads about it.

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