Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

We are giving away two copies of Torchlight II!

Updated 12-04: Contest rules have changed, please see below
Greetings friends of the Ghost,

You may remember our Borderlands 2 Haiku Contest from a few months back. Now, we're back to bring you the next thing in awesome contests. Like many people we loved Torchlight and after getting our hands on Runic's epic second take on the on the Dungeon Crawler we happily started slaying evil minions, and we wanted to share the fun. So gather round and listen to a tale of how ye will come to possess this shiny Runic gem, this "Torchlight 2!"

We are giving away a copy on Steam Gifts as per usual to drop in one lucky person's Steam account on December 22. No strings attached. Head... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 12/04/2012 at 04:12am

Looking forward to how this turns out!

Gruni wrote on 12/08/2012 at 03:37am

Captain Tightpants and the fluffy Sergeant Buttons

Martin_Kristensen wrote on 12/11/2012 at 10:07pm

General Scarx and The Fearsome DreadTooth

ZiperiS wrote on 12/15/2012 at 11:12am

Marine Division Jackson and the "fearsome" Jimmy the Bellyscratcher

PowerPuffGirl wrote on 12/19/2012 at 08:27pm

blossom heart and her cat ms. fluffy paw

Elmes wrote on 12/22/2012 at 08:49am

Monkey.D Elmes and the Fearless Janbo

Elvinas_Gurauskas wrote on 12/22/2012 at 09:25am

The Ruthless Dojo and The Peacemaker Mojo

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Goodbye Xbox

Goodbye Skyrim,
Goodbye Kinect
Goodbye Madden
It's the Red Ring of Death

I've had my Xbox since 2007, and it kept getting less and less reliable. First it just "couldn't read" perfectly good disks occasionally, then it decided that black wasn't a color it want to display and instead replaced it with pink.

Now it's finally dead.

I don't think I will replace it. My daughter loved the Kinect games, but other than that, I just didn't use it enough to warrent buying it new. Xbox will be out soon enough, and in the meantime I need a new computer ;)

Dat Firehose: Baldur's Gate, Big Picture & More

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition was recently released by Beamdog exclusive to the Beamdog game platform.

http://www.baldursgate.com/news_2012nov28.en.html

Steam has officially released Big Picture Mode. Having a sale on Big Picture Mode friendly titles to celebrate.

http://store.steampowered.com/news/9495/
http://store.steampowered.com/sale/big_picture_release

Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC is dropping on XBox 360 tomorrow. No word on if any Skyrim DLC is coming to PS3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRmdXDH9b1s

Congratulations to Mojang as Minecraft has sold 8 million copies. Someone also made a Minecraft Dishonored mod.

... Read All

A Bit of Awesomery! Welcome Internet.

A few days ago @panickedthumb posted an Interview he gave with Ryan Gordon of the amazing Linux game porting fame. Recently the interview has been picked up all over the web and as such we are getting a lot of new visitors.

If you are wondering what Cheerful Ghost is, take a peek here:
http://cheerfulghost.com/about

I am going to collect all the places on the web the Interview is being picked up in this post, if you see it somewhere let me know:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/12/02/1749251/interview-with-icculus-on-gnulinux-gaming
https://twitter.com/search?q=cheerfulghost&src=typd
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0MDI
... Read All

My New Treehouse and Sunset & Life. Always life.

I know many of you have little happiness in your lives. You come here for a few things and I imagine my life changing Minecraft videos are part of the reason. I heard your calls over the vast sea of the Internet bits and am gifting to you my latest video.

Oh right the video is also fairly short, clocking a bit over 5 minutes.

I was inspired to build a Treehouse in one of the taller trees on my farm. I am proud of my Minecraft creations thinking I am doing some impressive work until I went to a few Minecraft servers and my hopes of achieving Minecraft greatness were dashed. I seem to have less time than some Minecraft pros.

That said, existing in a world like Minecraft... Read All

Ben_Dodson wrote on 12/01/2012 at 07:42pm

I like my own world to experiment and build new things. But since I started playing on a server with my cousin (we host it) I just like seeing what things other people come up with and in a community effort put your own spin on it. Not tearing it down or anything but striking out and building your own ideas. I had a great idea come up when I was watching him add on to his castle. Now I am working on a monster maze. It is version 1. I have a large tower I plan to adapt the concept too. Playing with friends brings a whole new level to the game. We just need more people to play with.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 12/02/2012 at 08:49pm

For awhile I liked the solitude also. In my head, I came up with this sort of narrative that I was the sole survivor of the apocalypse (I started playing before NPC villages were a thing ;) ). But now I love being on a multiplayer server. It's awesome to see what other people build and to get to show off my own creations.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 01/25/2014 at 03:03am

Interesting, as I've been thinking about building a tree house in the world I last created in Minecraft a couple of months ago. I have not done so yet, in fact I haven't even played Minecraft hardly at all in the last couple of months (I blame Terraria for that hahahaha). I was really glad, when I created this world, that I spawned in a jungle. Before I created this new world, I had a house, a whole in a cave, and I was desperately looking for a jungle so I could tame an ocelot. I explored quite a bit and never found my jungle. I can't recall, but I imagine I created a new world because I died and got frustrated. I've done that so many times that that is the only reason I can think of as to why I created a new world (that and I wanted a jungle when I couldn't find one). All that said, the reason I wanted to create a tree house was because I felt that would be the best defense against Creepers (I really hate when they blow my stuff up, a point which I keep mentioning). However, I did find a nice little "floating island" in my current world, which I may go explore and move in there. I think the last time I played I was on my 3rd or 4th cave that I found trying to find some diamonds. Sadly, I felt like I could never find enough diamonds and maybe that's a small part of why I stopped playing again. However, reading and seeing more about Minecraft makes me want to go back. Oh and I did find and tame some ocelots in my new world, but some didn't last very long or I didn't. As I was chasing one ocelot kitten, it ended up drowning (very sad). While a tree house is a great idea as defense against Creepers, it would suck to have a dog since they take fall damage.

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Coming Back to an Old Friend

When Lord of the Rings Online went free to play a few years ago I created an account and started my adventures through Middle Earth. I didn't know much about the game when I created an account so I picked a Dwarf Guardian. The game impressed me with its size and it ran really well on my underpowered hardware. I told a few of my friends about it and we started playing it together. Lord of the Rings Online was my first proper MMO experience and as such it has a special place in my heart. I picked a crafting tree where I can harvest Lumber, Ore and make armor. Right away I loved collecting wood and ore and refining it into lumber and ingots. I find crafting my own armor... Read All

Game Shop: Crash Bandicoot Walkthrough

New episode of Game Shop. Really starting to enjoy this show. The first few episodes didn't really hook me, but these later ones are.

Humble THQ Bundle

https://www.humblebundle.com/

"Seven legendary titles to rock your gaming library. The Humble THQ Bundle is here with a colossal onslaught of esteemed titles. Pay $1 or more for Steam keys for Company of Heroes (and its two full-blown expansions Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor), Darksiders, Metro 2033, and Red Faction: Armageddon. And if you pay over the average price you’ll also receive the extraordinary Saints Row: The Third!"

Where to begin. First off gratz to the Humble folks, this is a pretty cool next step for them. Its cool seeing the Bundle be able to keep doing Bundle after Bundle. They have tried some awesome stuff, the Android Bundle, The Author/Book... Read All

BR Supporter wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:42am

I picked up this bundle for metro and red faction. I already had everything else but who could pass up such a great deal. Sadly, you do not get giftable copies of the games you already own.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 11/30/2012 at 04:57am

Ah that makes sense. I think I will pick this up too at some point as I really don't need any new games for the time being.... So... many... games...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/01/2012 at 12:59am

I just picked it up. Excited to crack open Metro 2033.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/01/2012 at 04:18am

Tried a bit of red faction Armageddon today. It was pretty fun but i haven't got all that far in it. I do hate the fact that there is very limited graphical changes. Made the game not run as well as it should be able to on my PC.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/01/2012 at 06:37am

I have a powerful rig and Metro 2033 is a slideshow with down resed graphics.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/01/2012 at 05:43pm

Mine is pretty crap. I can usually get games to play well if i can turn down the graphics though.

Will_Owens wrote on 12/03/2012 at 02:34pm

I got this mostly for Metro 2033. I hope it runs better than what you all are describing.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2012 at 02:56pm

If you do let me know what you did to make it work well. Eventually I need to upgrade my video card but so far Metro 2033 was the only game that seemed to need it.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/03/2012 at 03:32pm

I was talking about red faction

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/03/2012 at 04:11pm

Right, I should have used the @will. That said, @br what settings are you running red faction with? At some point I am going to install that too.

BR Supporter wrote on 12/03/2012 at 08:45pm

Lowest settings it allows, which isn't much. It doesn't really look any different on any graphical settings. At least to me it doesn't. I got a very slight performance boost from lowering the graphics.

beansmyname Supporter wrote on 12/04/2012 at 09:51pm

Picked this one up for Metro 2033 and Red Faction, as well. Ok. That and the SR3 soundtrack, so I'd own a legitimate copy of it.

Haven't seen the graphics issues you're describing in Metro 2033 and my current PC rig is a core i3 with an integrated Intel HD 3000. Of course, I had to set the graphics to low, resolution down to 1280x720 and it stutters a bit, but it's playable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/05/2012 at 02:23am

Yeah I ran it in 720p, DirectX 9 and it was a pretty bad slide show. Ill check again, maybe I am doing something wrong.

beansmyname Supporter wrote on 12/07/2012 at 10:52pm

Do you have a DirectX 10 option? I think that's what finally made it playable for me. I know Saint's Row was unplayable in DX9, but DX10 got me around 20 fps.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/07/2012 at 11:42pm

I was using DX9 and 11. Ill try 10 :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:42am

Ok, good call @beanismyname I just tried DX10 and it works SO much better. So smooth, I might be able to upscale the resolution.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 12/12/2012 at 05:43am

Yep it can totally handle the higher resolution too. Strange DX9 and 11 both didn't work well.

Oh well, thanks for the tip!

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Skrillex Quest is a Fantastic Browser Game

http://www.skrillexquest.com/

Skrillex Quest is a gamevertisement featuring his latest single Summit. The game is styled after Zelda, Binding of Issac and Sword and Sworcery. Oh right and did I mention its totally awesome? I beat it a 15 minute sitting so its not too long. The premise is you are Player 1 and The Glitches are destroying your world. Its not entirely clear what you need to do but as you do stuff, you just kind of advance. One hint, try to collect as many Dead Princess Keys as you can.

The image is of my final score after my first play through. I imagine now that I know what to expect and what to do it would be easier a second time.

Getting out into the Big Blue Room

http://debian.mcmillan.net.nz/misc/niantic_cross.jpg

Ingress is an Alternate Reality Game. I first came across this when someone on G+ commented that they "had just gone for a 20 minute walk to hack some Ingress portals before bed", which sounded intriguing so I signed up for the trial.

A couple of days later I checked my inbox and I'd got lucky! I visited the Google Play store to download the game, but couldn't find it. It seems the game is "not available in your country". Go figure. So I googled around and managed to find the APK and install it anyway, and it turns out that I live in the one city in my country with a reasonable number of 'portals' that can be 'hacked' and I was on my way.

The objective of Ingress appears... Read All Ingress is an Alternate Reality Game. I first came across this when someone on G+ commented that they "had just gone for a 20 minute walk to hack some Ingress portals before bed", which sounded intriguing so I signed up for the trial.

A couple of days later I checked my inbox and I'd got lucky! I visited the Google Play store to download the game, but couldn't find it. It seems the game is "not available in your country". Go figure. So I googled around and managed to find the APK and install it anyway, and it turns out that I live in the one city in my country with a reasonable number of 'portals' that can be 'hacked' and I was on my way.

The objective of Ingress appears to be capture these 'portals' which are sources of 'exotic matter' and to place 'resonators' on them to power them up so they can be linked to other powered up portals. When three portals are linked to surround an area that area delivers a number of 'Mind Units' to the faction you are playing for - either the "Enlightened" or the "Resistance". As you level up you gain the ability to use higher level resonators, which increase the range of your portal links and you fairly quickly realise that the real power is in portals at the edges of the cities.

As a starting out player you can feel fairly powerless, but once you get going it is possible to build power fairly quickly, especially as you capture areas, which i the action providing the most 'AP' towards levelling up.

The game is still in closed beta at the moment and the full details have yet to unfold, but so far it's been fun. Having the portals located primarily on public artworks is a great idea and I've enjoyed finding a few new sculptures and murals I wasn't previously aware of.

At this stage it is not clear to me how the game will evolve over time. Will it run for a period and some faction be declared winner before starting it all over again? Will more rules and story become apparent and this just work up into one epic battle? From the way the hype is being managed it looks as though this will all become clear around the end of the month.

Meanwhile I better head off to defend my portals...