Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Had Me At Steam Sale

I figured I would hold off on getting any new games this Steam sale. That was until I saw Torchlight II for $9.99 and Dragon Age Origins for $8.99 and... well... I picked them up.

Cool thing about Torchlight 2 is that my character from the demo holds over to the real game. Torchlight 2 is pretty fun and offers a challenge on Normal mode from the start. With a proper Single Player, LAN and Online Multiplayer it sends itself into a different zone than I have become used to with Diablo III. That said, I picked the Bezerker expecting a fairly normal Tank class. I am still pretty low level and already the class is different that I expected. I am only a few levels into the... Read All

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/26/2012 at 06:41pm

Torchlight 2 is my all time favorite Diablo-like, bar none. I'm not specifically a fan of the genre, however, so take that with a grain of salt.

I'm sort of alone in really disliking Dragon Age Origins. Modern Bioware has great companions and dialog but garbage play, in my experience.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 07:41pm

Torchlight 2 is very well done. It gets high marks being well priced and easy to play even compared to Diablo 3.

I have heard good things about DAO. I really loved Neverwinter Nights and its expansions, hoping this is similar. How much of DAO did you play? Was it on PC or console?

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:33am

I don't think your alone in disliking it Gary. I too own DAO but, felt like it was lackluster in gameplay. It had interesting characters and story which made me force my way through it. It wasn't really enjoyable through the whole thing. I think a lot of people overlooked the basic combat because of the characters and it being a new IP. New IP's are rare to come by and it's always better if they at least get a second shot. Although with DAO2 they did a terrible job.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:50am

Yeah, I didn't hear awesome things about DA 2. It seems to have gotten the "EA Treatment."

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 08:54am

Well they tried to improve the gameplay. It was as bad as Gary makes it out to be. However they didn't do a good job and they made the story lackluster as well. So it lost the only good thing it did have going for it.

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:44pm

I played about 2/3 of Dragon Age Origins and about 2/5s of Neverwinter Nights. I made the mistake with NN of doing the main campaign, which takes so long to ramp up. The first area where you're visiting the different quarters of the city is unending and bland, I thought.

This is coming from being a huge fan of the Baldur's Gate games. The combat there is interesting and tactical, without resorting to MMOery like in DA:O. To each his own, however. It's got a good story, interesting lore and wonderful voice acting.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/30/2012 at 06:59pm

I felt most of the NWN campaign to be bland but I completed it all. I think what kept me playing was the gameplay and settings. The expansions were better, Hordes of Underdark being the best.

You planning on picking up the new Baldur's HD Remake?

Gary_Butterfield wrote on 11/30/2012 at 08:06pm

Depends on what is added. I'm in a wait and see holding pattern.

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New Site Design Live

As you can now see, the new site design is now live! I have been at it for the last few weeks working on getting things just so and I am happy with the results.

I am going to look for a replacement color for the notification menu purple in the upper right for when you have outstanding notifications. There may be a few other things I fix over the next few days as well.

I hope you like the new design and let me know what you think of it!

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 11/25/2012 at 10:52pm

Looks great on my Samsung Galaxy!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/25/2012 at 10:57pm

Great. I tested it a lot on Mobile! Well the iPhone I do t have an Android.

Travis Admin wrote on 11/26/2012 at 03:56am

Dig it. With the design conforming to screen size, I have HUUUUGE youtube videos, but that's kinda cool.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 04:14am

Yep they take up the maximum width they can :D

If It is distracting I can dial it down some.

BR Supporter wrote on 11/26/2012 at 04:36am

Mobile version works great. I love the new design. I'm using a galaxy s2 by the way.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/26/2012 at 05:12am

Awesome, good to know thanks!

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:35am

I love it as well. As I am using a laptop I don't normally use when browsing the site I can't determine if this is a new change or if this is this particular computers fault. I will confirm when I go home in a few days.

The issue is that the box you type in is incredibly small I can't read what i'm writing or what it looks like. Very hard to scroll as well.

Keep up the awesome work on the site though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:48am

The comment box was quite small. I just increased it to a good height for mobile and desktop just now :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:50am

I also make the Ghost in the header a bit larger as well as a few other tweaks here and there.

Jacob_Richardson wrote on 11/27/2012 at 08:53am

It's perfect thanks for fixing it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/27/2012 at 03:44pm

No problem.

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StarCrafts Episode 15: Attention Seeker

The hits keep rolling from the guys over at CarbotAnimations. If you dig what they are making, they are now selling TSHIRTS and also have a video showcasing how an episode evolves over time.

TShirts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3AUOITKn0&list=SP0QrZvg7QIgpoLdNFnEePRrU-YJfr9Be7&index=14&feature=plcp

StarCrafts Speed Animation 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt9_P8jalig&feature=youtube_gdata

Hmmmm...

Anyone else pick this one up?

First impressions: It's really good, except that I'm probably going to be tense for the next month and half. The first time some alien just pops out of no where and kills one of the soldiers you've put so much time into... it just make you want to throw your computer across the room.

Let me know if you want to play MP. You'll probably beat up on me pretty good.

Anúna Choir Perform Diablo 3 Soundtrack

"In July 2012 at Dublin's National Concert Hall, Anúna performed two pieces, "Black Soulstone" and "Incantation" written by US composer Russell Brower from the soundtrack Diablo III. Soloists are Lucy Champion, Miriam Blennerhassett, Rory Musgrave and Michael McGlynn."

This is a very good performance version of Russel Browder's great soundtrack. The Diablo 3 Soundtrack tops my list of great video game soundtracks to come out over the last few years and this choir sings these songs well.

It takes a bit to get started so skip ahead 35 seconds if you so desire.

One Seriously Under Appreciated King pt. 1

Since I have some time this holiday I decided to do a few Let's Play videos to share with you all. One game that tops my list of sweet Super Nintendo Games I feel needs WAY more attention than it does is King Arthurs World. King Arthurs World is a lemmings clone that takes the formula and creates a great war strategy game for the console. The game is so well done I am somewhat surprised this war game formula wasn't copied and recycled.

I make my way through 7 of the training missions and get back into the groove. The fun and creativity of this game shines through and I had a blast playing it. I will continue to do Let's Plays of this game and will do each one of only... Read All

Let's Play: Steam Big Picture Mode

With all the Steam on Linux news Valve is pushing pretty hard into to break into your living room. I know most of us have heard of the new Steam Big Picture Mode but we might not have all seen it in action. Recently it showed up on my Mac Steam client so I took a few minutes to make a video showing off what it looks like.

Overall, Steam Big Picture Mode is beautifully usable. Its so well designed for a first effort it really showcases the huge difference between Valve and the traditional console makers: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Sony just pushed a pretty large update to the Sony Online Marketplace and its better, but doesn't come close to the first version of... Read All

Even Cheaper Games

Just wanted to let yall know about a few great deals happening in video games this Thanksgiving holiday and the blackest Friday of the year. If you have anything to add, post it in the comments and ill keep this post updated with the goods as I find new ones.

Starcraft 2 digital is marked down to $20 on battle.net: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100001122

Diablo 3 digital is $40 marked down from $60: http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100002016

Inflatable Personality Cores over at Think Geek. Not really on sale, but pretty awesome at $20. http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f128/

The Steam Autumn Sale is in effect. Check back every so often for new... Read All

Portal 2 PC Gets Splitscreen in Big Picture

Recently an update to Portal 2 included these updates:

Big Picture Support
- Added 2 controller splitscreen support for Standard Co-Op. Press X on the second controller inside the first Co-op menu to activate it.
- Fixed controller's ‘quick ping’ button causing the player’s movement to stop.
- Fixed not being able to exit Robot Enrichment or Create Test Chambers menus with the controller.

This is awesome news for people wanting to run Steam in the living room as adding the same console features to the PC version helps this. Recently Big Picture mode came to my Steam and my first thoughts of it were good. Over the next few days I plan on doing a bender of Lets Plays,... Read All

New Episode of Game Shop: "Pokemon is for Babies"

The episode sort of ups the writing ante and the results are good. I am one of those gamers that doesn't ingest every shooter that comes out so I think there is some truth to certain kinds of gamer stereotypes.

Plus its fun to laugh at game culture.