Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

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

Travis Admin wrote on 05/03/2018 at 05:38pm

Sweet now I can get incredibly frustrated by RNG on Steam too!

I jest, it’s a solid game. Back in the day it was this and Tuxracer if you were on Linux.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/04/2018 at 03:19am

Yeah and everything iD ported as well. It's cool to see the project keep going and that it's living on and hopefully this gives it a wider look.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/04/2018 at 03:20am

So, not sure if people knew, but Travis and I were admins on ye olde Ubuntu Forums. Travis, did you partake in any of the gaming events we had where people got together to play Wesnoth and Quake 3?

Travis Admin wrote on 05/04/2018 at 03:30am

I know I was in some Wesnoth events yeah. And I think a weird open source game in the quake 3 engine that had you playing as toys in someone's room? I can't remember it clearly but I remember playing with jdong.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/04/2018 at 03:34am

OpenArena if memory serves. But what you describe sounds like the Counter-Strike map Rats to me.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/04/2018 at 04:28pm

World of Padman is what I was thinking of:

https://worldofpadman.net/en/

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/07/2018 at 04:00am

Oh yeah, I remember that game. I don't think I played it, but I remember it being rather popular with the free shooter community.

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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

What Are The Worst Mario Games?

Cygnus Destroyer's latest video tackles the age old question of which Mario games are the worst. It's an interesting question and he doesn't directly answer it but he does rate a few poorly seen Mario games as innocent or guilty such as Mario is Missing, Mario's Time Machine, Hotel Mario and The Lost Levels. If you don't know much about some of the esoteric Mario games or just want to see Cygnus rip into some really strange Mario games you need to watch his review.

Something Else To Be Angry About? Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze Switch VS Wii U Comparison

DigitalFoundry create a lot of video that compare and rate the performance of video games. In the video shared above they look at Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze on Wii U to it's freshly released Switch port. It looks like Nintendo did a good job with the port because the Switch version docked is 1080p where the original Wii U version was capped to 720p. Both versions framerate was 60FPS which coupled with the incredible visuals of Tropical Freeze is one of the reasons why it's such a highly rated platformer.

One part of Nintendo re-releasing Tropical Freeze on the Switch I don't quite understand is why this is upsetting some gamers. According to certain online... Read All

The Nerd Reviews Earthbound

It's odd to get an Angry Video Game Nerd review of Earthbound but after watching it i'm glad he made this. It's not too far into the review where he does admit that this might be one of the best Super Nintendo games of all time. I also like that he critiques some of Earthbound's lesser features such as not being able to buy multiple items and the amount you are punished for dying. The death punishment can be circumvented with a SNES Classic save state but if you are playing it the way the original creators intended you can spend 30 minutes backtracking to bring your party back.

It's a great review of Earthbound but my only warning is that if you haven't played the game... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/26/2018 at 05:39pm

I wish I could get into this game, it sounds like such a fun trip. But, I just can't get past the beginning story. Maybe because it's set it modern time, but the "You're the chosen one" story just really fell flat to me.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/26/2018 at 06:12pm

But, after watching this video, I'm glad I got to see at least some of the trip!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/27/2018 at 02:50am

Adam. Your the chosen one... to PLAY EARTHBOUND!

Oh wait.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/27/2018 at 05:40am

Lol, I'm just going to have to force myself at some point.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/27/2018 at 01:56pm

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A Very Quick Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

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

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

AdamPFarnsworth gives this a "Rad" on the Ghost Scale

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

And when they knew the Earth was doomed, they built a ship.

Less like an ark, more like a seed: dormant but with potential.

In Seedship, you are the AI of an interstellar ship carrying 1000 frozen humans and your databases are full of Earth's scientific and cultural knowledge. As a text-only adventure, you fly throughout the universe, scanning planets, looking for a suitable homeworld to "seed" humanity. As you travel, you will likely take damage, but you will also "learn" what to look for in planets and be able to upgrade your scanners. I won't get into much more detail, as it's fun to experience it for yourself.

This is a very quick, randomly generated game that I... Read All

WarCraft III Gets A Horde of New Updates!

WarCraft III finally received the 1.29 update and it's got quite a few things in it worth coming back to if you haven't played it in a while. The biggest is that the game now finally supports 16x9 widescreen! WarCraft III was made in the ol' 4x3 era and even though the 16x9 world wasn't too far away the game was never updated to support different aspect ratios. They've handled this in a few ways by adding black pillars in the menu and then allowing the in game interface to properly scale to handle the resolution. It means the actual in game experience is now properly sized and avoids you having to run the entire game in 4x3! Blizzard has also expanded support to... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/24/2018 at 04:57am

I bought the Starcraft HD remaster and enjoyed it. I've never played Warcraft III, so I'm hoping it gets a remastered re-release.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/24/2018 at 12:41pm

You can't beat Blizzard's long term support for their games.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/25/2018 at 04:37pm

No you can't and they've released a couple follow on fix updates afterward! To me, WarCraft III is one of the best Blizzard games of all time and it's in that place of having good enough 3D graphics to still be good now and it's strategy elements with heroes is pretty unique.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/26/2018 at 03:16am

Yeah I love what they did with Starcraft Remastered, but seeing the improvements they made there only made me realize that War 3 really only needed modern resolutions. It still looks really good. The cartoonish style and the fact that the models aren't pixelated like they were in Starcraft help that along. I think Starcraft used 2D sprites?

Watching some videos of this 1.29 patch, you'd think it was already remastered in some ways. Definitely not in others: the menus are still 4:3, and the character images in the bottom... toolbar? Control center? Whatever you call that. Those images are obviously aging a bit.

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Valve Has Purchased Campo Santo, Developers of 'Firewatch'

Firewatch by Campo Santo is an indie darling that released to great reviews and scored a movie deal. It's on my backlog, and I hope to play it soon. The art style and the narration in the trailers really sell a one-of-a-kind experience.

Valve was apparently sold on the game as well because today it was confirmed that Valve will be acquiring Campo Santo, and the team will keep working on their current project, In the Valley of Gods which will release on PC in 2019. This new game is an adventure game set in Egypt, where you play as an explorer and filmmaker searching for discoveries and filming the process.

It's not Half-Life 3, but it's a new story-driven game from... Read All

Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass is coming, details at E3

So far we don't know much, but Serious Sam 4 is coming and there are lots kamikazes AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-ing like you'd expect.

Croteam launched the Steam store page today with a teaser and a promo image. More info is coming during E3, according to the trailer.

The Serious Sam games are some of my faves, so I'm looking forward to seeing more.