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What Are You Playing During Quarantine?

Hope all of you are having a safe quarantine. With that I was curious what everyone was up to while we are all locked away in our houses. Since I have a 4 year old most of my weekend time is spent with him but I have been making time to play some Super Nintendo Classic and focusing on Earthbound and Star Fox. I nearly beat Star Fox yesterday but Andross shut me down on my last life.

"Dude Is Satan in this Game?" Jack Black Plays Doom Eternal

Jack Black: Dude it's getting biblical talk about the mark of the beast!
Sammy Black: It's about hell.
Jack Black: Dude is Satan in this game?
Sammy Black: Uh, not exactly Satan.
Jack: No spoilers.
Jack: Sumpin' tells me we gonna battle Satan!

It's a Jack Black playing Doom Eternal. Just click the button already.

The Outer Worlds: From Concept to Creation - Documentary

If you come to Cheerful Ghost from time to time you have noticed that share all manner of video game videos and documentaries. One documentary channel on YouTube I quite enjoy is Noclip, a YouTube channel that creates excellent video game documentaries constantly. Their latest deep look is at Obsidians latest Triple A hit The Outer Worlds. It's a fun peek at one of the coolest takes on the Fallout formula and well worth a click.

"In the first video exploring the design of The Outer Worlds, we sit down with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky to discuss how a team of fewer than 75 developers collaborated to create their sci-fi RPG."

Sharing Some Doom Stuff!

I’ve seen some videos lately about Doom and wanted to share them, so I’m writing this post. The first (embedded) video is from the YouTube channel called Today I Found Out. Simon, the host, explains the origin of the game, including how it got it’s name. I think the video is worth watching, even funny at times, so I thought I’d share it.

I’ve also been watching some videos on the YouTube channel called Gaming Bolt. They’ve gone over the lore of Doom and some of the creatures. If you like the game, you should check these out as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/GamingBoltLive/search?query=doom

I also want to make you aware of Doom the Rogue-Like game. I found out about... Read All

Minecraft: Dungeons A Beta Look

Minecraft: Dungeons recently released a closed beta version. People could sign up at https://dungeons.minecraft.net/ to join, but since it’s a closed beta, not everyone who signed up will receive a key. From what I’ve read, it also seems that keys were sent out and no more would be given, so if you didn’t get one to start with, you’ll probably not be able to join in the beta. That’s ok though as the game is going to be released on May 26, 2020. There are two editions already available for pre-order including the $20 Standard Edition and the $30 Hero Edition. The latter, “includes a Hero Cape, two player skins, and a chicken pet usable only within Minecraft Dungeons.... Read All Minecraft: Dungeons recently released a closed beta version. People could sign up at https://dungeons.minecraft.net/ to join, but since it’s a closed beta, not everyone who signed up will receive a key. From what I’ve read, it also seems that keys were sent out and no more would be given, so if you didn’t get one to start with, you’ll probably not be able to join in the beta. That’s ok though as the game is going to be released on May 26, 2020. There are two editions already available for pre-order including the $20 Standard Edition and the $30 Hero Edition. The latter, “includes a Hero Cape, two player skins, and a chicken pet usable only within Minecraft Dungeons. It also includes two DLC packs, when they become available” according to the Minecraft: Dungeons website. I plan to get the latter as I like the game and feel like even the extra special edition is still relatively cheap and a good bargain value that can’t quite be denied.

Minecraft: Dungeons is basically a Minecraft version of Diablo or other similar RPG dungeon crawler games. The player or players traverse dungeons fighting enemies along the way to reach the end goal. There is of course a story tied to this. Combat is quite simple, just point and click (on the PC). You can use a melee weapon such as a sword or sickles, but you can also use a bow with arrows. Basically, by default on PC, you click the left mouse button to attack with the sword and then click the right one to shoot an arrow. There are also other items you can use, with the 1-3 keys on PC, called artifacts. These give different power ups. One of them summons a wolf, which will fight with you. It can die, but can be summoned again after a cool down period. There’s only one piece of armor, but there are different kinds of it that are more appropriate for what kind of character you’re playing as. Some armor will boost ranged attacks, while some will boost melee attacks, and more. You don’t really chose a class type as you would in Diablo, it’s pretty much the armor piece that takes that role.

While playing, you’ll run into many familiar pieces of Minecraft including enemies like zombies, skeletons, chicken jockies, and illagers. Enemies can drop goodies like food, which are used instantly for regeneration, but they can also drop potions, which give different kinds of buffs. For instance, there’s a swiftness potion and a shadow essence potion. You’ll notice that spiders actually act differently in that they’ll shoot web at you, which will make you stick in place for a few seconds. Some enemies, like zombies and skeletons have armored versions and some can even be enchanted. Some times a TNT block will be dropped and you can use it, with the right-mouse button on the PC. It will light a radius around it, so you know the range of the area of affect and can try to avoid it. Some arrows can also explode on enemies.

There are many levels of difficulty, but you’ll start with the default one and advance from there. The higher the difficulty, the harder the enemies and the better rewards you’ll get for completion. You can die in the game, but it seems you get three lives. Right now, in the beta, there are only three mission areas available, but they’re all procedurally generated. Tied with the difficulty scale, this creates a great level of replayability. Each mission area has secrets, like chests or mini-dungeons you can find. When finishing a mission, you’ll get a screen that shows you how much you healed, your ranged accuracy, secrets chests found, etc. You’ll also get a chest that contains some loot. Along the way, you’ll also collect emeralds, which you can trade to a villager or stationary travelling villager at your camp for armor, weapons, and artifacts. While on a mission, you can, by default on PC, press Tab to reveal a map overlay, which will stay on your screen and help guide you around, so you can try to check every area. I find this to be a little distracting, though. I think perhaps if the overlay were at the top corner of the screen or lighter then it would be better.

One other point to note is that you can play multiplayer. It’s up to four players. The game will be available on Xbox One, Windows, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4.

So far Minecraft: Dungeons looks fun and enjoyable. There are a couple of YouTube channels I subscribe to and was able to watch the game being played and it seems as those content creators were enjoying the game very much. I anticipate that it will be a popular game, since it’s Minecraft and fun and enjoyable, as I mentioned, but also because it will be so widely available for a good price.

Let me know what you think about the game if you’ve seen anything about it or have beta access. Is this something you’ll pre-order or get a launch? Which edition would you get? Let me know in the comments!

And thank you, Jon, for giving me a code, I greatly appreciate it!

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2020 at 11:29pm

I might write some first thoughts on this but from a high level Minecraft Dungeons is incredibly well polished and brings a very focused simplicity to the Diablo game genre.

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/05/2020 at 11:30pm

I’m fairly certain I’ll pick this up on Switch.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 04/06/2020 at 01:44am

Yeah, I agree. It did have some issues, but they have been patched AFIK. The game used to freeze or lock up, but I'm not sure if it still does that. You're absolutely right about "focused simplicity to the Diablo game genre," that's quite exactly what it is. It's a simplified version of a game like Diablo, but it's Minecraft and fun. I think I'll pre-order the Hero Edition next month as that's when it gets released.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 04/06/2020 at 05:07pm

You guys got into the closed beta? My son has been wanting to play this!

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/07/2020 at 02:23am

Greg did you get more invitations? Curious if people I invited get invitations to share 😀

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 04/07/2020 at 05:32am

No, I just got the link you provided, nothing from Mojang. I'd be happy to share if I got some.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 04/10/2020 at 04:30am

Check out this video from IGN "4 Things We're Loving About Minecraft Dungeons" for a quick look at the game and some of what I've described. You'll find the video at https://youtu.be/5P8aO9xVJ68 One of the main reasons I wanted to share this with you is so that you can see what I saying about how there are no classes in the game, it just depends on the gear you have and use. You can always switch gear.

I didn't see the Redstone level that was described, it's not available for me. I also didn't see every mob that you see in the video. I think it's a great game and I do strongly recommend it. I'm looking forward to pre-ordering it and it's release next month.

Azurephile Super Member Post Author wrote on 06/12/2020 at 09:03am

So, I decided to get the game and my experience with it turned upside down. I enjoyed the beta and was looking forward to more, but the game itself is a different story. Really, there's no difference between the two, just that the beta had limited dungeons to explore, less content. But, I had fun in the beta, not so much with the full release of the game. From what I see on the Internet, people are liking it or finding it to be very easy, that is not an experience I am able to share. This is a case where the Internet makes me feel bad, because I'm pretty much not "good" at the game. I find it a little more difficult than I want it to be. I find the loot drops to be much more random than I want them to be. I also find myself unsure exactly how to use everything or what everything does. I often would like to get a better weapon, like a better sword, but I have to spend thousands or hundreds of thousands of emeralds just to get one that isn't as "good." It's so much easier to get exactly what you don't want than it is to get what you want. There are power level stats, which seem arbitrary and meaningless. It's a confusing system (see link at bottom for more detail). The dungeons have power levels based on difficulty and the game suggests you be a certain power level to take on that dungeon at that difficulty. The game will show you a green arrow pointing up that tells you one piece of equipment is more powerful than another with a red arrow pointing down, but if you look at the stats, you may find that one weapon does more damage than another. I don't know, it's just confusing. I'll share a link below that offers some tips. You may want to search the source for more of their articles as I have. Maybe, if I didn't play this game alone I'd enjoy it better, I'm not sure. I hate to say that my feelings for this game have drastically changed, but I'm an honest person. I'm conflicted in that I think it's not just a hack-and-slash and I think that's great and yet, I kind of want it to be that. It does seem smart, though, throwing you a curve ball every now and then. Not every enemy or boss can be defeated in the same way, so it takes strategy or simply knowledge of an enemy's attack. I'm not saying don't get this game. You might have a different experience than me. I'm just sharing my honest experience, to follow up with this post.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-dungeons-beginners-guide-9-essential-tip/1100-6477683/

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Tale of the White Wyvern Season 2 Starts Today, Plus Some Neat New Member Benefits

Tale of the White Wyvern Season 2: The Plot Quickens starts today! This one is going to be intense, and loads of fun. It's all about bonuses to increase the pace of the game. Here's what we have in store for this season:

50 Forest Fights per day, before other bonuses like partnership, bard songs, and washing your hands

5 PvP fights per day

10 fishing turns per day

You can eat up to 3 fish per day

+70% gold find and experience gain!

500 starting gold

This season will be over on June 1, so get in there and enjoy all those bonuses!

In addition, members can now head over to their user preferences for a new feature: user flair. This let you style up your name with some... Read All

Help Fight COVID-19 With One of the Best Humble 100% Charity Bundles

The COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing and most of us are housebound doing what we can. If you are finding yourself with a bit more free time to play some games and the want to donate to charities that can help fight COVID-19 The Humble Bundle is here!

"This special one-week bundle features $1,071 worth of games and ebooks for just $30. 100% of the proceeds from your bundle purchase go to support organizations responding to COVID-19. For example, delivering protective gear to safeguard healthcare workers and providing medical care to infected patients."

The charities you will be supporting are Doctors without Borders, Partners in Health, Direct Relief and International... Read All

90's Nostalgia: The Doom Family

The 90's was a great time for PC gaming, at least for me. Oh I got a bit of 90's nostalgia recently thanks to the LGR channel on YouTube, which I found from Jon. I recently found some videos there that I absolutely loved and I've decided to share them and write this post.

Before we got our first Windows PC in '95, my family had a Commodore 128D. I was 16 and so happy to get that Acer PC! I became a "download demon" downloading all kinds of shareware games that I could. At this time, I wasn't new to the BBS scene. Our PC had a much better modem, so I was able to see a BBS in all of it's glory. I even ran one of my own at night for a time. A friend and I used it to play... Read All The 90's was a great time for PC gaming, at least for me. Oh I got a bit of 90's nostalgia recently thanks to the LGR channel on YouTube, which I found from Jon. I recently found some videos there that I absolutely loved and I've decided to share them and write this post.

Before we got our first Windows PC in '95, my family had a Commodore 128D. I was 16 and so happy to get that Acer PC! I became a "download demon" downloading all kinds of shareware games that I could. At this time, I wasn't new to the BBS scene. Our PC had a much better modem, so I was able to see a BBS in all of it's glory. I even ran one of my own at night for a time. A friend and I used it to play Legend of the Red Dragon.

It was about this time that I was introduced to Dune 2, Command & Conquer, and Warcraft I &II, but those would be better suited for another post. At this time, I also was a subscriber to PC Gamer, the cool gaming magazine that sent not only a magazine every month, but also a CD-ROM which contained demos. I remember Final Fantasy VII being among them, though I never played it, I'm not sure why. I did later play it when I was at college years later.

It was around this time, too, that I was introduced to what I'm calling the "Doom family." I don't know which game I first started with, but by release chronologically Wolfenstein 3D was the predecessor of Doom. I recently watched the LGR review of Wolfenstein 3D (https://youtu.be/vy78U9pRLiE). It was great! It reminded me of the sounds and music I remembered from playing it. I also remember trying to play with a keyboard and mouse and getting motion sickness.

Then, came Doom and Doom II (https://youtu.be/pNtHwWVXbDI) along with their expansions. These two (perhaps more so the latter) were at the top of PC gaming. Everyone was playing them and talking about them. The sounds, music, and game play were awesome for the time. There was, of course, plenty of controversy over the game, but maybe that only helped it gain popularity.

Then there was Quake (https://youtu.be/m0XOKSat57Q). It was awesome! I remember one little bit about that was that the shareware version actually contained the entire game. Someone found a way to hack it and unlock it. I think this was fixed later on. The sounds, music, and game play were again awesome. The soundtrack was created in part by Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails. It was also cool to see that piles of ammo for the nail gun had the Nine Inch Nails logo on them. You could actually still play the game while listening to other music, I found out.

Quake II was next and I remember it, too. It was cool and more modern than Quake, although Quake eventually got an OpenGL version that made it much better looking. You can actually now get a copy of the RTX version of Quake II, but you'll need a compatible graphics card if you want to see some decent FPS. While you don't have to have an RTX card, you might not be able to play the game on highest settings and get 60 FPS. I tried it with my GTX 1660 Ti and with some modifications to the settings, I was able to get some decent FPS, maybe in the 40's. I think that's correct, it's been a while since I've tried.

Quake III Arena just didn't bother with a campaign mode, but it was still fun. You could play the game in single player mode against AI bots and still have fun. This, however, is where my memory of the "family" ends, except for 2016's Doom, which was awesome! I've seen a lot about Doom Eternal and I really want to get it. I'm not sure when I will though. Most of the games listed here also received bonus or extra content like expansions or mission packs. There were a lot of levels created by the community for Doom and Doom II. It is now interesting to remember how much modding was going on back in those days. I think perhaps we may take it for granted now.

Some day, maybe soon, I think I'm going to get those games on Steam and try to play them again. Anyway, check out the videos I've included links to here and let me know your thoughts in the comments section. Feel free to share your story and nostalgia with the "Doom family."

So Many Games Coming To Switch In The Latest Nintendo Direct

There were a lot of games announced for Switch in the latest Nintendo direct and I wanted to highlight that 2K games is bringing some essential classics such as The Bioshock Collection, Borderlands Legendary Collection: includes Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and The XCom 2 Collection to the Switch on May 29th. The good news is these versions will come with a physical game releases but they are so large that they couldn't include everything on the 16 gig game cart.

I love Borderlands and had fun playing it on the PS3 and hopefully the Switch version is faithful to these games. As they don't require the most cutting edge of hardware... Read All