Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

The Last Guardian Review

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.

In The Last Guardian, you, playing a young boy, awake to find yourself in a cave with a giant dog/cat/bird thingy (let's just call it Trico). With no way to escape this cave, and with Trico looking hurt, you sympathize with Trico and help him/her. After feeding Trico and tending to its injuries, Trico warms up to you like a wounded animal would. It ends up following you through caves and castles as both of you try to escape this world filled with danger around every corner.

Oh how I wanted to love The Last Guardian. The developer of this game made some of my favorite games (Ico and Shadow of the Colossus). But by the time I finished this game, I had mixed feelings... Read All In The Last Guardian, you, playing a young boy, awake to find yourself in a cave with a giant dog/cat/bird thingy (let's just call it Trico). With no way to escape this cave, and with Trico looking hurt, you sympathize with Trico and help him/her. After feeding Trico and tending to its injuries, Trico warms up to you like a wounded animal would. It ends up following you through caves and castles as both of you try to escape this world filled with danger around every corner.

Oh how I wanted to love The Last Guardian. The developer of this game made some of my favorite games (Ico and Shadow of the Colossus). But by the time I finished this game, I had mixed feelings about it.

The things that I love about this game are the environments, the story, and the bonding the boy and his Trico have.

The environments are grand. You really get a sense of the place this game takes place in. At times you can be in tiny corridors and other times you can be jumping and running around in big open areas. The designers did a great job designing this world.

The story and the bonding between the boy and his Trico go hand and hand. As you go through the game, not only do these two characters grow to feel for each other, but you do too. There is a great dynamic here. While this bonding develops you are also given some background on both the boy and Trico, not too much to overwhelm you, but just enough to fill in some backstory and draw you in a little more.

While all that pulled you into the game, the controls and frame rate pull you out of the game. This is what made me have mixed feelings about the game.

First of all, the controls are very frustrating. I found myself fighting the camera almost all the time. I also found myself having a hard time directing Trico. Maybe the developers were trying to be too realistic with how Trico responds to your commands, but for a video game it just does not translate well. You sometimes spend minutes trying to get Trico to do simple commands. It got to the point where you just hold down a few buttons for a while and hope Trico does what you want him/her to do.

As for the frame rate, it varies. Sometimes it is pretty smooth, but other times it gets very choppy. On a PS4 I would not expect this. It feels like the developer should have spent some more time here. I hear it works better on a PS4 Pro, so maybe they left it in as an upsell?

Overall this game had a lot of promise, only to let you down with a choppy frame rate and frustrating controls. I am on the fence between a Meh and a Rad, but will lean towards Rad as the environments and story made me finish the game and somewhat enjoy it.

The Steam Link App Streaming Coming Soon To iOS and Android! Is Valve Getting Ready For a Steam Handheld?

"The Steam Link app, slated to launch the week of May 21st, allows gamers to experience their Steam library of games on their Android (phone, tablet, TV) and iOS-based (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV) devices while connected via 5Ghz network or wired Ethernet to a host system (Mac or PC), with Android access initially offered in beta. The Steam Link App will feature support for the Steam Controller, MFI controllers, and more across both platforms."

It's a good thing when you can play your games in more places and soon we'll all be able to stream out Steam games to our phones and tablets. I have a crazy fast 5G wireless router and a wired PC and when that's streaming to the... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 05/11/2018 at 08:53pm

“and now the ability to stream games that are not on Linux over WiFi”

What do you mean there? I’ve streamed plenty of non-Linux games over WiFi for years on the Link and in-home streaming before that.

But yeah this is solid news. Though I doubt they’d make it easier to play games on the handheld devices you already have if they plan on making a handheld themselves any time soon.

But as much as they’ve pushed the Link in sales (I bought a couple for five bucks a pop) and now this, they definitely want to make sure you can access your games easily. If they implement a way that you can play them over the Internet (like PS Now) and you aren’t tied down to your home network, you can play them anywhere.

I definitely look forward to trying this on my AppleTV. That device is getting more and more useful. I already can’t imagine TV without it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/11/2018 at 11:10pm

> What do you mean there? I’ve streamed plenty of non-Linux games over WiFi for years on the Link and in-home streaming before that.

Yeah, that was a bit odd there. I meant that Valve started with Linux ports of games and then they add in home streaming. At least I think that was the ordering there. So now they have a pretty good ecosystem to support a handheld built, if they want.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/12/2018 at 12:25am

Ah I see what you meant. The “now” was throwing me off.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2018 at 01:01am

I wonder how they are going to allow you to use the Seam Controller on iOS? I thought it requires an attached USB dongle to your PC?

Travis Admin wrote on 05/12/2018 at 03:00am

They seem to indicate that you can. Maybe the Steam Controller hardware can do MFI with a firmware update?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2018 at 03:14am

Yeah or the Steam Controller is bluetooth and they have the drive in the iOS app.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/12/2018 at 04:36am

https://steamcommunity.com/games/353370/announcements/detail/2503317299191608387

Here we go then

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2018 at 01:28pm

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/12/2018 at 05:05pm

Hmm. Given that it will work on the AppleTV, I will give it a try. If Bluetooth mode hasn’t made it out of beta for the steam controller, I wonder if my existing appletv game controller will work.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2018 at 06:11pm

The Valve announcement said they were going to support MFI controllers!

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/12/2018 at 07:30pm

Dammit Jon, you made me look up MFI.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2018 at 10:14pm

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/25/2018 at 06:07am

And Steam Link app isn't coming to iOS.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17392470/apple-rejects-valve-steam-link-app-store-ios-game-steaming

The walled garden of Apple rears it's head.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/25/2018 at 03:43pm

Hmm... with a company like Valve I’m hoping they can make some progress here. Surely someone high up the flagpole at Apple would talk to Gabe about it and figure out exactly what’s going on.

I would love to know what business process they’re referring to. It should just be treated like a Remote Desktop app.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/25/2018 at 04:33pm

Maybe they think it will eat into game sales on the App Store?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/27/2018 at 03:31am

It should be like that but I think that Apple is thinking that Valve runs a huge app store and that those games can now be played which might mean some games you might not buy on iOS which is partly true as some games are on both systems. That said, Apple should allow it anyway.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/27/2018 at 03:46am

It's hard to find any concrete info about this specific case but a theory is that the issue could have been that Apple doesn't allow any apps to be used to purchase digital content. Thus, you can't use the Amazon app to buy Kindle books, etc.

But according to some sources, Valve disabled the ability to buy games when using Steam Link on iOS and resubmitted it so maybe something will come of that?

Travis Admin wrote on 05/27/2018 at 03:50am

Ok here’s a more concrete source on that:

https://www.engadget.com/amp/2018/05/26/apple-works-with-valve-on-steam-link-ios/

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 06/22/2018 at 04:38pm

Another steam link sale. $2.50 right now + $7.99 for shipping. I ended up just ordering one instead of waiting for the ios app.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/22/2018 at 07:27pm

That’s a crazy deal. I wonder how much of a loss that is? Shipping is more than the price.

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Breath of The Wild on The Gameboy Color

What if The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched in the ‘90s on the Game Boy Color?

If Nintendo released a Gameboy Color demake of Breath of the Wild i'd buy it immediately and even if it doesn't come to be (it won't) it's still fun to think about.

The History of Speedrunning The Legend of Zelda

The original Legend of Zelda on the NES may be one of the most influential adventure games of all time. Because of this legendary status it has a very competitive history in the speedrunning community. That said, lots of time has gone by with some of the original speedruns not being broken and this video by YouTuber Summoning Salt explains why.

Michael Biehn Confirms Blood Dragon 2 In Reddit AMA

Recently I read a Reddit AMA with Jennifer Blanc-Biehn and Michael Biehn because i'm a big fan of Micheal's films. A fan asked about a follow up to FarCry 3: Blood Dragon and his Jennifer had this to say...

Question: Have you been approached about Blood Dragon 2? The first was one of the best pieces of content I had ever played and a lot of it was because of your deadpan performance as Rex Power Colt.

Answer: He Did the sequel

As well as...

Question: Hi Michael Biehn! Any news on Blood Dragon 2?

Answer: He did the sequel it’s digital

I was surprised that a Reddit AMA could drop such a huge news bomb and so far this doesn't seem to have been picked up in the games press yet.... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 22: Avengers Infinity War

EXPECT MAJOR SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS!!

Marvel Studios Avengers Infinity War is the latest Marvel Super Hero thing to punch the box office right in the face. If as a kid you wondered if there could ever be a comic book movie with all your favorite heroes this is the answer. Infinity War is the follow up to damn near every MCU film but more sequentially Thor Ragnarok and Black Panther.

This one is coming quickly after the last episode but we wanted to get it out early while it's still fresh in everyone's minds.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 07:08pm

Ok, I'm like 10 mins in, and I need to comment before you get to Infinity War and I forget lol

I'm not sure if I'm digging Westworld as much. I think it's second season is suffering the same way Legion's second season is, in that the first season of both were AMAZING and it's hard to live up to, and then exceed those expectations.

Also, John Mulaney might be my favorite comedian ever. He's probably not, as there's a ton of comedians I love, and I just recently watched his most recent Netflix special "Kid Gorgeous" (which is amazing). What I'm saying is: Jon is wrong to not like John Mulaney ;)

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 07:44pm

As far as needing context from the other movies, one of my daughters completely uninterested in Marvel movies (I did talk her into Spiderman and the first Guardians of the Galaxy movies), but for some reason she wanted to see Infinity War (pretty sure she was sucked into the BIGGEST MOVIE EVENT EVER hype around lol). She had an idea who most of the characters were, but no backstory nor investment in them, and she was crying at the end of the movie. So whilst seeing the other movies defentely makes this a deeper experience, it can be enjoyable walking into blind. (My wife also couldn't really care less about the MCU, but we dragged her along and she liked the movie as well).

(My other daughter is into nerdery and all (Star Wars, MCU, etc, and she loved the movie, just fyi lol)

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:18pm

As far as "How does Marvel top this?" I think they totally keep going with the Phase 4, 5, 6 plans. I don't think the next few years needs to have a movie this "big," but eventually that's totally possible. There are some insanely powerful characters, that done right, could be really good for a huge team up movie.

Marvel needs to work on a few X-Men movies that exist in the MCU, then bring *everybody* together (and the Fantastic Four) to fight someone like Galactus.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:43pm

Hmmm, thinking about the Top 3 Marvel movies, I'd have to say Infinity War, Spiderman and... maybe Iron Man. It's been a while since I've seen that one.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:44pm

I am as into season 2 of Legion as I was in the first season. Maybe not as much for Westworld but I kinda feel like it’s building to something and may just have a slower burn.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:46pm

Recently, I *loved* the Legion episode about Sydney.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:48pm

Great idea about Ant-Man's end credits! I wonder if he or Wasp start disappearing, and they somehow evade it by shrinking down into the quantum realm?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 08:49pm

I feel like I live tweeted about this discussion as I was listening. Sorry that that makes it hard to respond to me lol

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/07/2018 at 09:56pm

I think "Subverting Expectations" is just a RLM (specifically Mike) comment on the movie.

PS, I listened to your discussion about the movie before the RLM discussion! Feel honored!

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/07/2018 at 10:32pm

I loved Infinity War. I haven't been this jazzed for a Marvel movie since Iron Man 1 and Avengers. I have really enjoyed all the MCU movies, but they have begun to fell a little bit derivative with there being no stakes in the movies for the main heroes. I felt this movie flipped that. They set the tone right from the start on what this movie would be like. I also enjoyed Thanos and thought they did a great job giving him dimension rather than being a one-note villain.

I would love to go into spoilers, but I don't want to spoil it in the comments.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/08/2018 at 12:08am

*Major Spoilers*

When Starlord shot Gamora (or at least tried), Thanos said "I like you." One of my main complaints with Infinity War was everyone's reluctance to sacrifice for the good of the universe (especially Cap and Crew with Vision), but Starlord was willing to sacrifice his love to save the universe, which, in Thanos's eyes, is the same thing he was willing to do.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/08/2018 at 01:30am

I just added a spoiler warning to the post. Feel free to spoil away!

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/08/2018 at 05:46am

> What I'm saying is: Jon is wrong to not like John Mulaney ;)

Happy to be wrong about that With that, he is quite funny just wasn't my style in that moment maybe it's more than that? I don't know.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/09/2018 at 03:40am

Anyone have any thoughts where they are headed for Infinity War 2? I've heard the directors talk about some stuff that is major spoilers for the next movie, so I won't mention that but I think they are going to wrap things up well enough. I also hope that for the Avengers that won't be coming back, at least in the near future, that they send them off well. No idea who that is but it seems people think Cap and Iron Man might be departing this life.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/09/2018 at 06:13am

Captain Marvel will join the team. I like a fan theory that Captain America will sacrifice himself to save Tony Stark. Hawkeye will be back to kick some ass. We will find out why Hulk doesn’t want to join the party. Movie ends with Tony and Pepper getting married.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2018 at 12:54pm

I like the theory you mention Will. I could absolutely imagine that happening, and it would be a good out for Tony to pass the torch and still leave it open for guest appearances.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 05/09/2018 at 02:16pm

Not only does it leave Tony open for guest appearances (Robert Downey Jr. got $10 million for 8 minutes in spider-man, he doesn’t want to turn down that scratch) but it also wraps up the Captain America/Tony Stark story line really well.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/09/2018 at 04:35pm

I really like Will's theories. I'm thinking Adam Warlock will likely be a part of the movie. In fact, it would be cool to mirror Infinity War, which was Thanos's movie, with Avengers 4 as an Adam Warlock movie.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/09/2018 at 04:40pm

Actually, since the directors have said AW isn't going to be in this movie (I'm still holding out hope that he is), it's probably more likely he's coming in Gaurdian's Vol 3.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/11/2018 at 03:46am

I like that Will and hope something like it happens. I'd love for Tony to keep kicking around the MCU even if he only shows up a handful of times or practically never. But if Cap dies does he really die? What if in 20 years he doesn't mind coming back does someone clone him? I comic book movies for doing whatever they want.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/11/2018 at 08:58pm

In the comics Bucky took over as Cap for a while, maybe until a reboot? I’d imagine they could easily do that as long as Bucky sticks around. And if he wants to come back on 20 years, we have a few characters and devices that can literally rewrite reality so there are plenty of options.

Nobody is ever really dead in comics and the same probably holds true for comic movies. But they may be replaced with different actors when they come back.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/11/2018 at 10:14pm

Yeah, you can always find the character from another dimension lol. Then you can have the exact same actor play a different version of himself/herself (my favorite example is all the Harrison Wells in the CW show Flash: http://arrow.wikia.com/wiki/Harrison_Wells ) or another actor playing a similar version of the character (who doesn't want to see Throg? A frog version of Thor).

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/11/2018 at 10:16pm

https://youtu.be/9cIr4Cml-kg
An example of multiple Harrison Wells' lol

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/11/2018 at 10:54pm

I have many problems with The Flash, especially this season, but Harrison Wells is always a delight.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/11/2018 at 10:56pm

The Flash is the last watchable DC show for me, but I hear ya. (Not counting Black Lightning. I think I really like it, but lost track of it and need to pick it up again on Netflix sometime)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2018 at 04:32pm

We are going to watch that John Mulaney special today. I don’t know much about him honestly but he did one of my favorite stand up bits ever:

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/plvv4v/comedy-central-presents-what-s-new--pussycat-

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2018 at 07:15pm

We watched John Mulaney’s new special and adored it. I am right there with you, Adam, I’d put him in my top tier of comedians. I can absolutely understand how people might not like his style though.

We also watched this year’s Hilarity for Charity and it was mostly ok the whole way through with a few highlights. It took a while though. The sketches fell very flat for me, especially the prolonged 10 minute dick joke at the start. The only sketch that worked for me was Jeff Goldblum’s but I mean... it’s Goldblum. I’d be shocked if it didn’t work. Mulaney was my favorite part by a long shot. I’m normally kinda hot and cold on Sarah Silverman but I loved her bit. And Tiffany Haddish is funny just by existing.

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/14/2018 at 01:44am

> It took a while though. The sketches fell very flat for me, especially the prolonged 10 minute dick joke at the start

Yeah it took a couple of watch sessions to complete. I liked most of it but some of it dragged a bit.

> Mulaney was my favorite part by a long shot. I’m normally kinda hot and cold on Sarah Silverman but I loved her bit. And Tiffany Haddish is funny just by existing.

Mulaney had a great couple minute set there. Maybe I should watch his new special, my comments were about the old one that didn't really work for me.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/15/2018 at 05:48pm

https://twitter.com/McJesse/status/996198724723527680
A video of Dr Strange at a waterpark lol

jdodson Admin wrote on 05/16/2018 at 01:23am

#worthit

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/15/2018 at 03:21am

I'm necroing this post because Legion just finished up and we're in the home stretch of Westworld. I think the first part of Westworld was a bit of a slump to get the new plot moving but boy has it ever picked up.

Legion.... eeeehhhhhhhh I'm mixed on it. It was ok, but I felt like the first season had the perfect plot-to-weird balance and this season slipped further into weird at the expense of story. The finale left me wanting more but a little disappointed in some lazy writing choices.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 06/15/2018 at 02:03pm

I agree. There have been some really interesting individual episodes of Legion, but I have trouble getting reinterested enough to watch the next episode (I've still not watched this week's episode. I didn't realize it's the finale)

Westworld has been good, I agree that it's taken some time to really ramp up, but it's a great ride :)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/15/2018 at 02:57pm

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts when you get done with it.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 06/16/2018 at 05:34am

DUDE, I just finished it. I loved every second of the finale! The beginning fight was comic book perfection, then the end is kinda what I've been waiting for for the entire 2 seasons lol. Some of these episodes probably could have been condensed, but wow. That was a great payoff And cliffhanger lol. I take back what I've said before and TOTALLY recommend everyone watch Legion.

(I had the added benefit of watching this on my phone. I had the brightness turn up to the max and my headphones on, so all the trippy parts we amplified lol)

(I'm going to go watch that beginning fight again now!)

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 06/16/2018 at 05:50am

There are three things I don't like about the ending and I'll be as vague as possible to avoid spoilers.

1. That one person who was present at the end who reeeeeally shouldn't be out and about.

2. It's just a bit tropey. There's a good guy who is a bad guy... or is he? Yes, he is... ooooooor is heeeee?

3. There was a bit of a lack of tact in the writing for what he did to Sid.

1 and 2 at least could be machinations of a certain character influencing people. A lot of how I feel about the finale will depend on how next season tackles it.

BUT overall I definitely agree with you about it and yeah, that initial fight scene was some of the best trippy stuff we've seen!

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Did You Know There Were Two Versions of Donkey Kong Released on The Commodore 64?

When Cheerful Ghost Radio recently reviewed Donkey Kong I noted that the version I played the most was on the Commodore 64. What I didn't know was that there are two C64 versions of Donkey Kong and I had only played the first one. Nintendo licensed Donkey Kong out to a few different companies over time to bring the game to different computers and because of this two companies made entirely different Commodore versions. Ben Paddon of PortsCenter (a FilmJoy show of the Movies w Mikey fame) takes a peek at both versions and talks a fair amount about Donkey Kong's history along the way. Paddon and Ports Center are great and if you haven't watched one of his videos, now's... Read All

Battle for Wesnoth Is Now On Steam!

If you have spent much time in Open Source gaming Battle for Wesnoth is a project you are familiar with. Battle for Wesnoth has been going strong since 2003 and the developers have released big sets of updates including large graphical overhauls, extra campaigns and features. As the game has evolved over the years it's been a pure cross platform game and playable on Windows, Mac and Linux long before Steam released a Linux client opening the floodgates to more cross platform games. Recently the Wesnoth project dropped on Steam which means that it's available, for free, on Steam to play right now.

Battle for Wesnoth is one of the most refined 2D turn based strategy... Read All

Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 21: Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger is a classic RPG originally released in 1995 by Square-Enix back when they were still Squaresoft. It is considered by many as one of the greatest video games of the 16 bit era. Visitors to Cheerful Ghost have probably read Jon’s post about having recently played the game for the first time. This is one of Tim’s favorite games of all time, so the two of them sat down to discuss how they see the game coming at it at very different times in their lives.

Happy Tabletop Day!

Happy Tabletop Day, everyone! In honor of today, I want to hear about your favorite tabletop games!

I'll start. One of my favorite games lately has been Betrayal at the House on the Hill. You and your other players are a trapped inside a haunted house and have to find a way out by exploring the manor and finding items and weapons to help you survive. There's a twist though, at some point one of the players will betray the group! Who that is and why they turn are randomly decided based on the Omens you find during the first half of the game.

One thing that's great about the game is that the play is very simple to learn. Most of the complexity comes from the cards you... Read All