Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

Wine 4.0 Released!

https://appdb.winehq.org/images/skyrim_specialed.jpg

Wine 4.0 was released today, bringing a ton of enhancements and bug fixes to make playing games on Linux even better. Most notably:

Vulkan support.

Direct3D 12 support.

Game controllers support.

Some of this was already possible using extra utilities to get vulkan going. DXVK would translate DirectX calls to Vulkan. But now it's native to Wine itself.

This is after months of progress in other areas of Linux gaming. Tools like Lutris have matured quite a bit, to help you get the precise Wine setup you need to run specific games, and Steam's Proton (a distribution of Wine) is getting better and better, with more successes than failures in getting Windows games running... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Branded 1UP Cards And The Portland Video Game Swap Meet 2018!

In Oregon we are all lucky to have the Portland Retro Game Expo which is a fun event in the later summer for everything awesome in retro games and trading. Cheerful Ghost has a booth each year, which is something you should check out if you haven't yet. In the new year the Video Game Swap Meet is held at the Portland Double Tree and put on by the Portland Retro Game Expo and The GameFather and I wanted to write a bit about the event and some of my pickups. Spoiler alert, Will got quite a few more games than I did.

The Portland Retro Game Expo is a very large event with a wide reach including a huge free to play arcade, game tournaments, retro game vendors, toy... Read All In Oregon we are all lucky to have the Portland Retro Game Expo which is a fun event in the later summer for everything awesome in retro games and trading. Cheerful Ghost has a booth each year, which is something you should check out if you haven't yet. In the new year the Video Game Swap Meet is held at the Portland Double Tree and put on by the Portland Retro Game Expo and The GameFather and I wanted to write a bit about the event and some of my pickups. Spoiler alert, Will got quite a few more games than I did.

The Portland Retro Game Expo is a very large event with a wide reach including a huge free to play arcade, game tournaments, retro game vendors, toy collectables, geek swag (think Yeti style shirts) and various game creators and game sites and podcasts like Cheerful Ghost. The Video Game Swap Meet is more focused around vendors selling and trading games and it's a really focused one day event. I really enjoy it because it's easy to take in and go through each booth a few times to make sure you've picked up anything you want. The swap meet had a lot of people there but less folks than PRGE which is a nice change of pace.

I wasn't coming to the Swap Meet with anything in mind to get, I really just like hanging out with the Retro community and I also wanted to handout some of our new Cheerful Ghost branded 1UP cards. If you don't know, 1UP cards are a great way to clean your old retro NES, SNES, Genesis, 64, etc carts without blowing into them. Think a simple two sided cleaning card that has no downside of spitting into your carts, which you should never do to clean them. I've seen branded 1UP cards in the wild and have wanted some Cheerful Ghost cards printed so I contacted 1UP and had some made up. If you want to see what they look like hit the image link below.

https://i.imgur.com/qIN8dfv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/UGtTWN3.jpg

Will and I were one of the first people in line and as such I was able to hand out the cards, some stickers and a podcast handout to the first 10 or so people easily. People seemed to dig the new 1UP cards so I'm going to do a similar giveaway at Portland Retro Game Expo this year as well as sell them at our booth. I'd like to get some Cheerful Ghost shirts printed this year too, but we'll see how it goes.

As to the stuff I picked up this year I finally was able to round out my collection of Just Dance games on the Wii with the original Just Dance 2009 game. I've got the others and it's a fun series and one reason I still have my Wii hooked up to my TV. I also picked up two DS games in Plants VS Zombies and Zoo Tycoon. Both are PC ports that landed in various forms and I've only played a bit of Plants VS Zombies DS so far. I want to do a more formal review of Plants VS Zombies DS but i'd say if you were a fan of the game and wanted to collect a version of it on DS, get it. I aim to collect all the Zelda games and finally added Oracle of Ages and Seasons on Gameboy Color to my collection after finding them both for a good price. I also saw Link to the Past in box and in great shape but I think i'm going to save that pickup for this years Portland Retro Game Expo.

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 47: Mega Man 2

In this episode, we review the best Mega Man game on the NES Classic, Mega Man 2! In Mega Man 2, the Blue Bomber learned most of the tricks that would carry him through TONS more games spanning multiple series.

In the next few NES Classic reviews, we're playing the Super Mario games and we want you to play it too, and let us know what you think. We'll share your thoughts in the episode. Come on it's time to go do the Mario!

https://cheerfulghost.com/Travis/events/168/cheerful-ghost-games-club-super-mario-bros

Spider-Man: Far From Home Trailer Hits Spoiling Avengers Endgame

The official teaser for Spider-Man: Far From Home dropped today spoiling Avengers Endgame... a bit. But then again did anyone think all of the snap was permanent? Looks like Spider-Man is back and this time IN EUROPE! Originally I thought Far From Home would be a story where Spider-Man was out there in space somewhere trying to get home. You know, a cosmic "road trip" movie but apparently it's Spider-Man in Europe. Which is... kind of neat but if you consider where he goes in Infinity War, Europe isn't really that far from his home. More like Spider-Man: At Least We're On Earth This Time So It's Cool.

All that said, trailer looks fun, same tone as Homecoming which is a... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Game of the Year Awards 2018: The Winners!

Your votes have been cast, and now it's time to reveal the winners!

Best AAA Game: TIE between Red Dead Redemption 2 and Spider-Man
2018 saw many great games, and many of our nominees were worthy of this award, but these two inched out past the competition.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece, an experience that anyone who's into cinematic, character driven games should not miss. The follow-up to the original Red Dead Redemption (2010) improves upon its predecessor in basically every way imaginable.

Spider-Man is an open-world game with a much tighter focus than RDR2, but adds another dimension (literally). Insomniac took the superhero game formula that Rocksteady... Read All

Dragon's Lair Trilogy Coming to Switch eShop

The classic Don Bluth animated video game Dragon's Lair Trilogy is coming to the Switch eShop January 17th! I had a love hate relationship with Dragon's Lair as I really enjoyed playing it but found it was of the more punishing arcade games I've played. Playing on the Switch without having to pump in quarters sounds like the best way to play it and I hope the Dragon's Lair Trilogy does well and gets a physical cart release (it got a Wii physical release).

"In Dragon's Lair, you play the heroic Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess from the clutches of an evil dragon!

Space Ace will have you take control of Ace - Defender of justice,... Read All

New Super Mario Bros Wii U Deluxe Is Out - The Blue Toad Controversy

New Super Mario Bros Wii U Deluxe is out on Switch and the reviews are coming in that seem to indicate its another great Wii U release. I love the New Super Mario Bros games and plan on picking this up as soon as it makes sense (not at the moment as I'm playing a few other Switch games). New Super Mario Bros Wii U Deluxe comes with the original game PLUS New Super Luigi U and allows you to play as Toadette and Nabbit in both games. There has been some controversy that Nintendo wouldn't include blue Toad but it seems Nintendo did include him. The problem is that Blue toad is a color option and you HAVE to select one of the easy characters (Toadette and Nabbit) if you... Read All

Do You Love Legos and Want To Build a Retro Pie?

LGR has a new video where he builds a NES themed Retro Pie out of Legos! It's a really fun hack you can build yourself from a kit that doesn't seem to be too expensive.

Gaming Life With The Nintendo Switch: My First Thoughts

The jolly old Loot Elf gifted me with the Nintendo Switch for the holiday this year alongside Mega Man 11, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze as well as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. After I opened the Switch and started playing games on it I was in love because for where I am in my life, it's just about the perfect game system.

The Biggest Strength Of The Switch Is The Hardware

Nintendo knows how to make a kick ass console and the Switch continues the tradition set with such greats as the Super Nintendo, Gameboy Advance and Wii. The Switch build quality is solid and the default mobile joycon setup feels good in the hand. The Switch isn't too heavy at about 10.6 ounces which... Read All

Watch And Support Awesome Games Done Quick 2019!

Sorry I'm a bit late with this BUT Awesome Games Done Quick is still going strong and you should watch it and donate to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Right now Mitchflowerpower, Jabem and Gaiden are doing a race of Super Mario Bros. 3MIX which is a fun ROM hack mashup of all the Mario Games. At around 8pm PST they will start a run of Super Mario RPG where they estimate the run to take about 3 hours and 30 minutes. As always, Awesome Games Done Quick is an incredible charity event and afterward i'll be creating a few wrap up posts that highlight my favorite runs.

If you watched and saw something you want to highlight, drop it in the comments!

... Read All