Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

E3 2018 Metal Jesus Edition

We covered quite a lot of E3 2018 discussion this year and with all of it I wasn't sure there was much more to learn. Metal Jesus was at this years E3 and he recorded a lot of it showcasing another side of E3 we didn't hear much about. Jesus and Kinsey first hit up a retro Japanese import store then head over to E3 to spend time with vendors selling retro gear such as RetreoN. I didn't know RetreoN was selling a new Atari remake and Jesus got a review unit so when he posts his review i'll share it. Jesus also hits up the Sony booth and it seems like he really likes the new Spider-Man game(not too surprising).

If you are finding more wrap up E3 videos or posts that you... Read All

Skyward Sword Came Out 7 Years Ago? Check Out This New Retrospective.

The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is an artistically beautiful Wii game with an interesting history. Wii owners were lucky enough to get two Zelda titles on the system with Twilight Princess and the follow up, Skyward Sword. One could argue that there wouldn't have been a Breath of the Wild if Skyward Sword hadn't received certain negative attention but sometimes you need to experience a low before you can get to better place. Or at least, the perception of it not being a great game exists in gaming paradoxically along side the Metacritic scores for Skyward Sword being really high. Still it's not a Zelda game i've played before and I do plan on picking it up to play... Read All

Quake Champions Second Look Review + Last Day To Pick It Up For Free!

Firstly I wanted to send a special HAPPY FATHER DAY to all the Dads out there. #dadsolidarity.

I wanted to get my Quake Champs second look review out a couple days ago but you know how things go sometimes. That said, i'll drop the TLDR up at the top.

Quake Champions is a solid and fresh arena shooter that strips back much of the fluff to present a very old school deathmatch shooter that does ample justice to the Quake legacy.

And this is the last day to get Quake Champions on Steam for free until it launches for real sometime this year. You can claim it on Steam right now for free by hitting the link below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/611500/Quake_Champions/

Since... Read All Firstly I wanted to send a special HAPPY FATHER DAY to all the Dads out there. #dadsolidarity.

I wanted to get my Quake Champs second look review out a couple days ago but you know how things go sometimes. That said, i'll drop the TLDR up at the top.

Quake Champions is a solid and fresh arena shooter that strips back much of the fluff to present a very old school deathmatch shooter that does ample justice to the Quake legacy.

And this is the last day to get Quake Champions on Steam for free until it launches for real sometime this year. You can claim it on Steam right now for free by hitting the link below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/611500/Quake_Champions/

Since people seem hip to note when a PC game contains loot boxes or is free to play I'll do so right away in my review. *Ahem* Quake Champions contains loot boxes and is free to play. That said, if you have the ability to not wildly spend money on stuff you don't need, you can avoid the cosmetics loot box fiesta and just focus on the core gameplay which is a treat. Not to say you can experience every aspect of this game with paying or grinding way more than you'd like, you can't. But one nice thing about Quake Champions is that you can straight up buy all the Champs and be on the same level as everyone else that bought them. Or you can play for free and have access to Ranger, and one other Champ that unlocks after you complete the training mission. There is one rotating Champ that you can play that changes about every week or so and right now it's The Doom Slayer. That said, I only played as Ranger, which everyone gets for free. Oh and one other thing, each Champ has a special ability and that ability changes up how they play. I experienced other non Ranger Champs and no one seem crazy overpowered by the difference in core ability but lots of people are way better at arena shooters than I am.

As I said at the top of my review Quake Champions feels like old school Quake. I think this is a pretty fresh approach because the hottest online shooters right now getting the most attention are team shooters like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch or the mega huge battle royale games like Fortnite and everything else that wants to be as big as Fortnite. For quite sometime I've wanted an accessible arena shooter that's simple enough to play with friends that is free so it's easy for everyone to play and Quake Champions is it. That said, I have a few irrational fears. Firstly i'm not sure there is a huge demand for Quake Champions. Will the audience for Quake Champions show up to make this game a financial success so it can live on? I'm a bit nervous that if I buy into this it might go the way of many other online only shooters that shutdown after they financially couldn't make it work. Still I worry because I love and I hope my love for Quake Champions can last a long time.

If you dig old school deathmatch shooters and want to come back and try your hand at one of the best around, Quake Champions is free right now on Steam.

Crawl Impressions

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

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

Will_Ball gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

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

The team at Powerhoof was kind enough to send Cheerful Ghost a download key for Crawl for the Nintendo Switch. After watching the trailer, I was ready to download it and give it a go.

Crawl puts you in control of a person trying to escape a dungeon, slay a beast and, in the end, freeing yourself. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well it is not. On you journey to free yourself, you are surrounded by three ghosts, who also want to make it out. Their goal is to kill you, regain human form and then try to free themselves. There can only be one human alive at one time, so not only are you battling the beasts of the dungeon, but you are battling the ghosts. Did I mention that... Read All The team at Powerhoof was kind enough to send Cheerful Ghost a download key for Crawl for the Nintendo Switch. After watching the trailer, I was ready to download it and give it a go.

Crawl puts you in control of a person trying to escape a dungeon, slay a beast and, in the end, freeing yourself. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well it is not. On you journey to free yourself, you are surrounded by three ghosts, who also want to make it out. Their goal is to kill you, regain human form and then try to free themselves. There can only be one human alive at one time, so not only are you battling the beasts of the dungeon, but you are battling the ghosts. Did I mention that each ghost/person can be controlled by another player (or AI)? Well it can. Welcome to Crawl!

Crawl is a hard game to explain, you must see it in action. It is a dungeon crawler/gauntlet-type game.

As a human, your goal is to defeat monsters, level up, get gold, upgrade your weapons, and make your way to the final boss.

As a ghost, your job is to beat up on the human, which you can do in multiple ways. One way to beat up on the human is to summon a monster from a summoning site. This is where you can do the most damage. Another way to kick some human ass is to possess some object, which causes a little damage. The final way make the human's day suck is to send slimes after them. You can accumulate slime like creatures by obtaining orbs throughout the game.

While your human levels up during the course of the game, your ghost can level up its monsters in between levels based on points you earn from humans leveling up. It is kind of confusing, but works once you play the game.

I love playing Crawl in spurts. It has a fun pixelated art style and a lot of character. On the Switch screen the gameplay can be quite chaotic, and sometimes you can lose track of where you character is. I have yet to play it on the TV, but it could help alleviate that problem. Even though it is chaotic on the Switch screen, it is quite enjoyable.

I could see this game being a great party game. If you have three other players going at it, there would be a lot of fun to be had. I originally thought the game had online support, so I could try multiplayer out, but it does not. This game is purely local multiplayer.

Overall, it is an enjoyable game, that can easily kill some downtime. I plan to keep playing this from time to time.

Crawl is available on pretty much every platform, so if you want to give it a go, you should have a computer/console ready to play it.

Valve Will Drop Windows XP & Vista Support in 2019

Valve has supported Windows XP and Vista for way longer than I thought they would so it makes sense that they are finally going to stop. I could see some gamers running older games that work great on XP get bitten a bit here but Windows XP is now 17 years old and most PC gamers have moved on and it seems Valve is too.

"Starting on January 1 2019, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. This means that after that date the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent... Read All

Watch This Grim Fandango Table Read!

At this years E3 Coliseum Double Fine presented a really special script table read of Grim Fandango featuring the original voice actors and Jack Black! The original game music composer Peter McConnell was there providing the music creating the backdrop for a very special event. The whole thing was to pitch that Grim Fandango and Broken Age are coming to the Switch and if you haven't played these games and own a Switch you might be interested.

Nintendo's Big Reveals at E3

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Smash is back in a big way with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It will have every fighter from every Smash Bros. game including Ridley from Metroid (see the video above).

You can use a Game Cube controller and all Amiibos can be used.

There are also some changes and tweaks to the mechanics that you can learn about, along with everything else about the game, in this 25 minute video: https://youtu.be/L93H7YC-83o

Super Mario Party
This one is interesting. A bunch of new, fun looking mini-games as you'd expect, but this one brings in extra functionality if you use multiple Switches. The downside being that to use it, you need multiple Switches but... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio episode 26: Apple Closes the Valve

In this episode we cover a variety of video game news. Will Steam Link ever get a release on iOS and Apple TV after Apple denied the app? How awesome does Rage 2 look? How long will Nintendo support the 3DS? Will we see an N64 Classic this year? Will No Man's Sky's Next update be everything we hope? What is the meaning of life? We dive into these questions and more in this episode of Cheerful Ghost Radio!

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/12/2018 at 10:16pm

And like last time, I apologize for my sick-sounding self. We recorded this one before the Solo review and you can kinda hear my voice breaking down in real time, so that's exciting.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 06/14/2018 at 06:04pm

I think I am one of those people that have a nes classic and snes classic and don't play it enough. I am ashamed. :)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/14/2018 at 08:37pm

I’ll buy your NES Classic ;)

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 06/14/2018 at 08:50pm

Hell no. :)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/14/2018 at 08:53pm

Worth a shot!

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/22/2018 at 04:27am

> I think I am one of those people that have a nes classic and snes classic and don't play it enough.

I think a lot of people pick it up as a collection piece and play it a bit. I get that, I just play it a bit more than that. Which is cool, because the games it comes with are great and you can add more if you want!

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For All The Grub Eaters: Sony @ E3 2018

I don't own a PS4 and don't plan to buy one but I hold a special place in my heart for Sony as I was a happy PS3 owner until mine died a couple years ago. They seem to be doing a great job of collecting the hardcore console audience and the console exclusives seem interesting to fans. I watched the conference tonight and if you are interested in seeing what Sony is up to you should too. I'll drop some interesting bits of that conference below and if you have something I didn't note let me know in the comments.

In the beginning there was Banjo: The whole stream started off with an old dude playing a banjo and it sounded awesome. I also liked how the Sony conference... Read All I don't own a PS4 and don't plan to buy one but I hold a special place in my heart for Sony as I was a happy PS3 owner until mine died a couple years ago. They seem to be doing a great job of collecting the hardcore console audience and the console exclusives seem interesting to fans. I watched the conference tonight and if you are interested in seeing what Sony is up to you should too. I'll drop some interesting bits of that conference below and if you have something I didn't note let me know in the comments.

In the beginning there was Banjo: The whole stream started off with an old dude playing a banjo and it sounded awesome. I also liked how the Sony conference featured a few musical interludes. Not sure how many other gamers liked that part but I did.

Last of Us Part II: Holy shit Part II looks crazy insane violent. I didn't play the original but if I did this would be interesting. Honestly the game might be too violent for me, which is an odd thing to say but I am getting older and way less cool so there's that. I started watching the live stream while watching my son and I thought I would be able to watch all of it but when the video switches to Ellie stabbing a dude in the neck I had to finish it after he went to be.

Death Stranding: I have no idea what this is but it looks like a cool concept movie. The video featured a woman eating a grub which was neat but I prefer snacks like peanuts. Hideo Kojima fans are excited about this and I like the trailer I saw but the game doesn't look like something i'd play. Still, a woman ate a grub in the trailer so I bet that will push some units. Press X to eat grubs.

Spiderman: The game looks like a ton of fun. To say it looks like the most Spiderman version of Batman Arkham Knight possible isn't an insult because the game is doing it's own thing and seems to speed up gameplay quite a bit. I wonder how replay-ability is with a game that seems so corridor and story beat focused? It might just be the way the gameplay was cut, it might play out very differently in the end. Either way this game looks fun.

Travis Admin wrote on 06/12/2018 at 01:56pm

The Spider-Man continues to blow me away. I can’t wait. Based on what we’ve seen before I don’t think it’s going to be heavily corridor based like this gameplay trailer may suggest. There are some segments of the Arkham games that show off the awesome grappling hook and gliding action as well.

But at the same time it could be that they needed to restrict the world a bit to make the web swinging seem believable. I remember previous spider man games that didn’t require you to be anywhere near buildings but modern gamers might balk at that.

The Last of Us Part 2 looks so beautiful. And those situational combat tricks were surprising. I enjoyed the first one, I need to actually finish it.

Anothe standout for me might be Ghost of Tsushima. That game is gorgeous and if they can pull it off it will be something I can imagine tossing s lot of hours into. An open world samurai game? That’s just such a fresh idea.

Death Stranding, man... I get the idea that you can play that game all the way through and still not have any freakin clue what you just played. In terms of plot that is. It looks compelling but at the same time offputting depending on my mood.

Control looks pretty solid. Like a freaky sci-fi third-person action game. The powers they showed look pretty unique.

The Resident Evil 2 Remaster looks great so far. If you can even call it that. I guess Remake is a better term. The graphics are done so well, and it looks like some jump scares are in our future.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 06/12/2018 at 03:29pm

To me it felt like the Sony E3 presentation catered more to solo play experiences compared to the Microsoft E3 presentation. For that reason, I am probably more excited about what Sony is bringing to the table compared to Microsoft.

Travis Admin wrote on 06/12/2018 at 05:33pm

That seems to be pretty typical. Almost all of Sony’s exclusives seem to be single player and I love them for that.

Travis Admin wrote on 06/12/2018 at 08:37pm

https://kotaku.com/swinging-through-new-york-city-as-spidey-feels-effortle-1826773221

This description of the demo involves pretty free reign to swing anywhere in NYC suggesting that the corridor worry isn’t going to be a problem.

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Steam As An Open Marketplace Is Creating Controversy

When you ask someone if they want some corporation deciding what movies, music, books or games they should consume they usually say they don't. One negative part of the Apple Ecosystem people cite is that the app store curation doesn't allow anyone the ability publish any app they want. Most apps get through but some don't and recently the Steam Link App was barred access for reasons that aren't entirely clear. One really amazing benefit of open systems such as the PC, Linux and the Mac is that you can install anything you want and I appreciate it when companies and communities build these open systems. So it wasn't a controversial topic, to me, when Valve recently... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 06/12/2018 at 03:47am

It's not like "Watch paint dry simulator 5000" is ever going to make it to the top of the charts. In general, people will have to dig for the crap.

I think, anyway.

But back in the early days of Windows 8/10 you could open the app store and be presented with just a flood of garbage. You can still get bombarded with crap but it's gotten better. I think Steam already having a massive following and full of good stuff will help keep the crap at the bottom.

I think this is a reaction to their recent attempts at curating some things (like dating sims) and getting backlash. This is the easy way out but it may be fine as long as their ranking algorithms can keep it in check.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/12/2018 at 03:50am

Yeah, that's something they've mentioned they have yet to fully address. THAT SAID, I wonder what the real criticism is because if I was in the market to buy a ton of PC games i'd say Steam does a good job finding what i'd like. Are people not seeing the latest and greatest Triple A game and only seeing two hour game jam games?

Honestly my problem isn't that I don't know about great games I just don't have time to play them all.

Travis Admin wrote on 06/12/2018 at 08:29pm

If you go through the discovery queue you will see a lot of meme games and asset swaps but if you’re browsing through they don’t show up if you click on a game genre for example.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/13/2018 at 02:51am

Good to know.

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