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Here Is 9 Minutes Of Rage 2 Gameplay That Will Blow Your Mind

Rage 2 is the AAA game that tops my anticipation list for 2019. I have a soft spot for iD Software games and was a fan of the original Rage so much so that Rage 2 will be a day one purchase. Rage wasn't the biggest hyped game when it came out and thoughts on it today aren't negative as much as fuzzy memory around it coming out entirely. All that said, I really enjoyed the shooter mechanics, think the game nailed driving around in your car, dug the wingstick and loved the co-op. A new nine minute gameplay trailer dropped today focusing on combat, driving and ... flying. Yeah, it seems that you can fly around in Rage 2 something I didn't know was coming and it looks... Read All Rage 2 is the AAA game that tops my anticipation list for 2019. I have a soft spot for iD Software games and was a fan of the original Rage so much so that Rage 2 will be a day one purchase. Rage wasn't the biggest hyped game when it came out and thoughts on it today aren't negative as much as fuzzy memory around it coming out entirely. All that said, I really enjoyed the shooter mechanics, think the game nailed driving around in your car, dug the wingstick and loved the co-op. A new nine minute gameplay trailer dropped today focusing on combat, driving and ... flying. Yeah, it seems that you can fly around in Rage 2 something I didn't know was coming and it looks quite fun.

Rage 2 Looks To Mix Up The Best Open World Games

I don't want to lose the fact that Rage 2 has some very deep callbacks to the original. The shooting sounds and looks like the original, the wasteland looks HEAVILY influenced by the original game with more of a bright neon focus making Rage 2 something fresh. The game really looks to take the best parts of Rage and turns it up to 11 while adding a whole slew of new stuff that makes Doom 2016 look tame.

It seems Avalanche studios has taken open world elements from the modern Far Cry and mixed it up here to produce something really fun. Some people have wondered how far Rage 2 gets to the Borderlands series and it looks from this gameplay likes it's nothing really obvious. Rage 2 has a bombast feel but it looks to pull more elements from Mad Max Fury Road than Borderlands. And frankly, if you're shooting for that post apocalypse wasteland feel you should be borrowing more from George Miller than 2K anyway.

I Am Excite

Not sure I can be more excited for Rage 2 but I am. One big aspect of fun for me with the original was Mutant Bash TV and I hope Rage 2 goes all in on that. There were only two Mutant Bash TV levels in Rage and one was tied up in DLC. Hopefully Rage 2 goes deeper here and Bethesda has stated they plan on dropping even more Rage 2 gameplay and I hope they focus on the ol' Mutant Bash. I know I did.

Riddles In The Dark

So this Gameplay footage is all crazy and great but it doesn't show the games HUD at all. I know that's a work in progress but it gives a bit more open feel than the actual game will have. iD isn't known for bad HUD's I just noticed it wasn't included and wondered what they might land on?

I also really wanted them to show a "(T)alk it out" option in gameplay where instead of punching people to human pulp you can sit down and calmly talk out a non-violent solution. The end of that might not be well but at least you could start things off with something a bit more diplomatic than a hello rocket blast to the face. Still, hello rocket blasts to the face can be fun in video games and watching people debate the merits of water rights might not make the most entertaining time.

The Future Of Cheerful Ghost - Our First Game Is Coming!

Travis and I have been working over the last two months and finally happy to announce that Cheerful Ghost is in development of it's first game! In 2018 we launched our games BBS featuring the best open source web games you can play as the first step in us getting to the point of creating our own games. Each of the games we launched on our BBS so far are single player games and we think that what makes Cheerful Ghost great is hanging out with other users so each game we create ourselves will be multiplayer at their core.

What Are You Making?

We're not quite ready to drop the full details of our upcoming game yet, but I do want to talk about a few things. Firstly, as I... Read All

The Future of Ray Tracing and Nvidia RTX In Quake 2

Nvidia focused heavily on its new ray tracing technology during its RTX showcase. When the technology is ubiquitous enough ray tracing will allow some incredibly impressive lighting that until now was limited to show floor demos and a render farm but recently someone modified Quake 2 to support ray tracing and the results are impressive and you can try right now(assuming you have an RTX video card). Since iD Software released the source for Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Doom, Doom 2, Doom 3, etc anyone can take that source and modify it and someone did to retrofit it to support Nvidia's new RTX tech. As always, Digital Foundry has an analysis video and if you are... Read All

The Playstation Classic Is Tried In the IUPG Courtroom

I think we were all very excited about the prospect of a Nintendo Classic styled Playstation that contained the best games of that era. When Sony dropped word that one was coming and that one launch title would be Final Fantasy VII the excitement was very palpable. As someone that missed the Playstation era of gaming I was excited to get one and learn what some of the best games from that system were. That said, when the final list of titles was released it was as if the air was let out of the fan excitement balloon and when the Playstation Classic dropped it didn't land well.

I've decided to not write about the Playstation Classic launch until now because I haven't... Read All

Nintendo Announces Dr Mario World Game on Mobile

Nintendo is partnering up with mobile developer LINE to make a new entry in the Dr. Mario series for mobile called Dr. Mario World. We do know that the game will support iOS and Android and be free to play with in-app purchases. As a long-time fan of Dr. Mario this is great news and if LINE can translate the awesome puzzler elements to phones Dr. Mario World could be a perfect fit. I'm still very curious how the Mario Kart free to play smartphone game will turn out that's coming out this year and am optimistic about that but if i'm being honest, Dr. Mario seems like a better fit to me. After the amazing success of Mario Kart 8 and then 8 Deluxe on the Switch a... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 02/01/2019 at 03:31am

I'll check out Mario Kart and Dr. Mario on mobile, but as soon as I hit a wall where I have to wait for a recharge or pay microtransactions to keep playing I'll uninstall them.

However if that's how they're planning to monetize it, if they have the opportunity to buy the game outright and skip the free-to-play trappings I'll buy it if it's fun. Super Mario Run is probably my favorite mobile game of all time, and I gladly payed $10 for it and would do the same for these if the option is there and I won't have other microtransaction blocks.

Travis Admin wrote on 02/01/2019 at 03:50am

That's pretty much my rule for any mobile game.

1. Play it
2. Have I hit any artificial progress blocks that I *must* pay microtransactions or wait to continue? If so, uninstall
3. If there are microtransaction blocks but you can pay a one time fee to move past them, is the price worth it for the fun? If not, uninstall
4. If I have gotten this far, I let the game sit for 24 hours and if I kinda don't care about playing it, I just uninstall and forget about it.

I know the gems/coins/other fake currency to get past wait timers is like the bread and butter of mobile free-to-play games but I'd take loot boxes over that predatory crap any day, and you know how I feel about loot boxes.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 02/01/2019 at 03:51am

Yeah, I do.

I think it could be a lot like Candy Crush or Bejeweled Blitz you have some kind of energy and can wait or pay to continue. It's not too bad and usually if you play it for a handful of minutes it's fine. I played a bit of Bejeweled that way and it wasn't bad at all.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 02/01/2019 at 05:11pm

I am hopeful. I agree with you @Travis, Super Mario Run is one of my all time favorite mobile games. Well worth the $10.

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 48 : The Glass Is Half Split

In this episode we tackle the conclusion to M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable trilogy, Glass. If you haven't seen the film yet, beware, the last half of this episode is full of spoilers, but we'll warn you about them when we're done with our monthly playing/watching segment. Spoiler alert: Mr. Glass sees dead people! David Dunn was a ghost the whole time!

The Latest Playstation Indie Bundle Is A Fun Mix of Games

The Humble Bundle has released a lot of great game bundles and the latest Playstation Indie Games bundle is a must buy if you own a PS4 and wanted a few more games to play. It's a pretty wide mix of titles such as Grim Fandango Remastered, The Bards Tale remastered, Inner Space, Broken Age, The Talos Principle, Wasteland 2, Layers of Fear, Shadow Warrior 2 and Killing Floor 2 and is $15 to get them all. $15 is a great price for just one of these games and considering some of the proceeds go to charity, even better.

The Gaming Historian Takes A Look At The Mario Land Trilogy

I've only recently discovered The Gaming Historians channel and wanted to share one of his new videos covering the Super Mario Land trilogy on Gameboy. Starting with the offbeat Super Mario Land the Mario Land trilogy is unique and nothing Nintendo has quite replicated recently. I'd love a new take on these old games with the strange mechanics and new characters as Wario was first introduced in Mario Land Six Golden Coins and later featured as the protagonist in his own game.

"The Super Mario Land series was Nintendo's attempt at bringing the Super Mario franchise to the Game Boy. But it was also the first time Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto would not be involved.... Read All

The Nintendo Wii Shop Channel Closes Next Week

https://media.nintendo.com/nintendo/bin/Ukc0nycDCrFmMwZAbz_ZJ3Um6jgORFp-/eCstgHqgT4n3siSK2-6cSoLSuYWcdSHj.jpg

If you still have Wii Shop points, spend 'em while you can. On January 30, it will no longer function.

Along with this any video-on-demand services will stop functioning on the Wii.

This brings up a topic we've discussed a lot on the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable, and now on Cheerful Ghost Radio. When will digital games be preferable to physical? For me, it's when I can have some guarantee that I can come back 20 years later and play these games.

Nintendo has gotten much better about their online services in recent years but they still aren't quite as straight-forward as their competitors were even last generation. But that said, we don't know when Sony, Microsoft, or... Read All

I'm still playing Fallout 76. Should you? Short answer: I have no idea.

Travis gives this a solid "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

Travis gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

This is fun, with very few issues, and is well worth your time.

I said in one episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, that Fallout 76 is probably the best game I've ever played that I can't easily recommend people buy. I think that still holds true. Fallout 76 is problematic, but depending on what you're looking for there's a lot of fun there as well.

I'm not playing it nearly as much as I used to but I still pop in a few hours a week. I ran out of fresh content a long time ago. In fact that's my biggest complaint as the game stands now. Once you've launched a nuke there's not much left for you to do that you haven't done before. So you wander nuke zones and fight the scorchbeast queen to get better gear and level up to refine your... Read All I said in one episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio, that Fallout 76 is probably the best game I've ever played that I can't easily recommend people buy. I think that still holds true. Fallout 76 is problematic, but depending on what you're looking for there's a lot of fun there as well.

I'm not playing it nearly as much as I used to but I still pop in a few hours a week. I ran out of fresh content a long time ago. In fact that's my biggest complaint as the game stands now. Once you've launched a nuke there's not much left for you to do that you haven't done before. So you wander nuke zones and fight the scorchbeast queen to get better gear and level up to refine your build. That's basically what I'm doing now, in hopes of having some new content to work toward.

There are many aspects of the game that don't work, but many that do, and they work very effectively. If you're into Bethesda games for their environments, world-building, and exploration, Fallout 76 may be the best title yet for that. And when I see people say that Fallout 76 is just a quick cash grab that they clearly didn't care about making well, I can't help but think that those folks don't care about those aspects. The world is just beautifully done, and so much care has been put into the design of this massive world. The Whitespring resort is the centerpiece for this: a very faithful reproduction of the Greenbrier (you'll be coming to Whitespring a lot, because like its inspiration, The Whitespring also houses a government bunker that plays an important role in the game).

Aside from the design, I think the quests work well until they dry up. I said in my first impressions post on this game that the gameplay loop I fell into was getting quests, getting distracted from those quests by all the neat stuff you come across, make frequent trips to camp because you're carrying too much, and eventually completing quests and getting new ones. It was really satisfying. The quests themselves were essentially just vehicles to get you from point A to point B in a lot of ways; the depth previous games' quests is missing entirely from this entry due to the lack of any interactive dialogue. You'll run into robot NPCs and one friendly super mutant but while they can talk to you, you can't talk to them, so there are no narrative choices here and the quests are a bit shallow. Each quest will play out the same way every time (for the most part).

So no, this is not a typical Fallout game. How does it play as a survival game? Well, I don't know. I don't like hardcore survival games. It seems people who do *loved* Fallout 4's survival mode and dislike Fallout 76's survival aspects. I'm the opposite: Survival-lite is fine with me. Essentially what survival means in Fallout 76 is that you have to eat, drink, and watch out for diseases, and other players can come wreck your stuff. You don't lose anything meaningful when you die, just junk items (though if you've been farming for screws and you lose them all, that hurts).

Like I said before, the endgame kinda dries up. Nuke zones were supposed to be the endgame but they're ultimately a little lackluster. It seemed like we were sold on drastic changes to the environment in nuke zones, but the changes are minor. Functionally, the flora that grows in the area changes to nuked flora that you can use to make crafting materials for advanced items, and the enemies are higher level and give more loot, and you get a ton of rads that you have to manage. But aside from that it's just a yellow haze over everything. It's still fun to run in because generally about 3/4 of the 24-player servers show up to participate and wreck a bunch of glowing ghouls. It's mayhem and it's glorious, but even that can get boring if you do it enough.

Before I bought Fallout 76, other players were my biggest concern, but I have yet to meet a jerk in-game. I've read some horror stories, and it seems like as the content dries up, some high-level players get a kick out of destroying camps. The anti-griefing measures aren't up to snuff, really. Thankfully it's nearly impossible to grief with nukes (you get a 3 minute warning when a nuke is launched) and it would be a stupid waste of a nuke anyway. But the other big anti-griefing measure is bounties. If you attack a player enough without them attacking back, or if you break items at another player's camp, you get a bounty. However, all you need is a teammate to kill you. You lose your bounty, they collect some caps, and can give them right back to you. There's a minor cap loss because it isn't 1:1 for caps lost:caps gained, but caps are fairly easy to come by, so essentially there's no penalty for being a dick. There's currently no way to fully turn off PvP. A new unrestricted PvP server option is coming "soon" so hopefully they'll go there instead, but if they enjoy messing with other players it may be more fun for them to stay on the normal servers because they aren't changing how PvP works in normal servers. At least, if they are planning to, they haven't said so.

As it stands now, the game is less buggy than it ever has been but there are still some doozies. Scorchbeasts are supposed to be the big, bad, fun enemy to take down (like dragons in Skyrim) but it seems like their sonic energy wave (or whatever it is) is bugged more often than not, so whenever one sees you, your screen is just filled with blue and nothing else until you blindly run away. When they work properly, they still aren't great fun but they're manageable.

In addition, item duplication is rampant, and the most recent methods used involve doing something that tanks the server stability. Every time one is patched out, it seems like a new method is discovered. They're starting to do ban waves, but to add to the troubles this game is facing, it seems like some legit players are getting caught in that (but it's worth noting that plenty of dupers would claim to be legit, so take that with a grain of salt).

But even after the issues, I'm still going back in for more because the good stuff outweighs the bad for me. It may not do the same for you. It's hard to rate this game. I want to give it a Must Play for the fun I'm having, and Skip It because of the issues, so I think I'm going to average it out to a low Rad, but don't take that as an endorsement.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/11/2019 at 12:07am

https://www.polygon.com/2019/2/10/18219293/fallout-76-vault-63-location-inside-dlc-cut-content

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 02/11/2019 at 11:17pm

Yeah I think it's a little disingenuous for Polygon to call it content cut before launch, it seems like this stuff is their future content. There are three vaults aside from 76, and people have managed to clip into the others, but I don't think anyone had gotten into 63 yet.

While I'm here I should also comment on the fact that a patch a couple weeks back was a doozy. They managed to not notice a merge failure, so a ton of bugs from older versions cropped up and nobody caught that before the update was released. They patched up a few but I think right now it's buggier than it's been since early December.

This game is a bit of a mess. I just hope they can clean it up because I DO love it, despite its numerous flaws, some glaring.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/12/2019 at 09:01pm

> Yeah I think it's a little disingenuous for Polygon to call it content cut before launch, it seems like this stuff is their future content. There are three vaults aside from 76, and people have managed to clip into the others, but I don't think anyone had gotten into 63 yet.

I didn't read that. I agree, it's not easy to know what was planned, cut, etc. Unless they have some source saying so, it's just a guess. As an Engineer who likes releasing stuff, it's a good thing to cut scope to meet a deadline.

> They patched up a few but I think right now it's buggier than it's been since early December.

Yowza. F76 didn't land in spot where most people thought it was high quality from go so it's hard to hear they are still dealing with that sort of thing. Hopefully they can end that narrative and deliver something everyone enjoys.

> This game is a bit of a mess. I just hope they can clean it up because I DO love it, despite its numerous flaws, some glaring.

Me too.

jdodson Admin wrote on 02/12/2019 at 09:02pm

My point in sharing that was really a tip that more stuff might be coming later, but it seems you know about this Vault, which makes sense.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 02/13/2019 at 03:04am

Oh yeah definitely, I got that. I didn't think you came here to trash it, or take any stance at all really :D

But yeah they have a new, more dangerous PVP mode coming out in the spring (if it isn't delayed due to focusing on the bugs at hand... which it should be) and then they're opening the vaults as group raids.

Something *everyone* enjoys won't happen but they have a sizeable group of people who want to love it. They just have to drive it home.

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