Cheerful Ghost: An Awesome Community For Gamers

3D Realms Is Back With a New Game On an Old Engine: Ion Maiden

Longing for the old days of first-person shooters? 3D Realms has you covered with Ion Maiden. Running on the same engine as Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, and others, this game aims to reclaim the mayhem of the 90s shooters. Because, basically, it IS a 90s shooter.

Ion Maiden is currently in Early Access on Steam, with the first level set playable. Reviews are Overwhelmingly Positive, with only 13 negative reviews out of 554 total.

What do you think? Are you in the mood for a new classic FPS?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Maiden/

Sega Megadrive (Genesis) Mini Coming in 2018

No doubt capitalizing on the massive popularity of the NES Classic and SNES Classic, Sega will be releasing their own famous home console, the Megadrive or Genesis depending on which part of the world you lived in during the 16-bit era.

Details are sparse at the moment, but the retro revival is still strong. I grew up with a Genesis because SEGA DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T amirite? So I'm super excited about this, because unlike some of my other classic systems, my Genesis is a little flaky, and maybe this new mini-Genesis will come with some of the games I drooled over as a kid but never got to play.

It's important to note, however, that this hasn't been announced outside of... Read All

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/14/2018 at 03:54pm

I hope this is awesome. My friends got the flash back and that would have been cool except the input lag was terrible so they returned it. I hope this is incredible and if so, I’ll buy one. These mini systems can be really great if done well.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/16/2018 at 10:27pm

I noticed in the CNet link that this is only going to be available in Japan, "for now."

I bought the Flashback, but haven't really messed with it. I do have the Megadrive & Genesis collection on Steam, although it doesn't include every game I'd like to see.

This could be cool, like the Nintendo re-releases.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/17/2018 at 01:52am

Yeah I mentioned that in the post so that it wouldn't get people's hopes up yet, but I would be shocked if it stays in Japan.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/17/2018 at 03:29am

I'm sorry, I overlooked it.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/17/2018 at 04:10pm

No worries, it definitely bears repeating!

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Terraria: Otherworld Has Been Canceled

Unfortunately, Terraria: Otherwold has been canceled. Re-Logic today announced the cancellation of a greatly anticipated kinda-sequel to Terraria which has seen many development issues over the years.

From the announcement:
"Our team has a clear vision for this game – one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement – and, in spite of all of our efforts, the current state of the game remains equal parts far from that vision and beyond behind schedule from our initial planning when we shared Otherworld with all of you three years ago. Progress has absolutely been made during that time – but unfortunately, a very thorough status review of the game versus its... Read All Unfortunately, Terraria: Otherwold has been canceled. Re-Logic today announced the cancellation of a greatly anticipated kinda-sequel to Terraria which has seen many development issues over the years.

From the announcement:
"Our team has a clear vision for this game – one that we shared with all of you with much shared excitement – and, in spite of all of our efforts, the current state of the game remains equal parts far from that vision and beyond behind schedule from our initial planning when we shared Otherworld with all of you three years ago. Progress has absolutely been made during that time – but unfortunately, a very thorough status review of the game versus its intended design showed both the Re-Logic and 505/Pipeworks teams that things were quite a bit further away from the finish line than we had imagined. Taking the massive amount of work that would be remaining to complete along with the extensive time it would take to get that done, and how that would greatly interfere with the pursuit of other projects on behalf of Re-Logic – it becomes clear that this leaves things in a very undesirable state.

As a result, we have made the decision to terminate development of Terraria: Otherworld."

I'm disappointed because it looked very interesting, but I'm not surprised. They've been open about all the development issues that have plagued the game, and it seems as though they were never quite able to manage those issues.

They also shared the next steps for Re-Logic:

In hindsight, it goes without saying that we never should have spoken publicly about this game as early-on as we did. We will fully own that error in judgement. Moving forward, we will be far more judicious about only sharing information on projects in which we are fully confident in regards to timing, etc. We can only apologize for all of the emotional rollercoaster this caused.

Trying to outsource development of such a critical title for our company – even if just in part – was not the way to go. Moving ahead, our focus for the core development of new/future titles will be more inward and will seek to utilize our own people. We will share more information there just as soon as we have it.

Re-Logic has possession of the game (design, code, art, sounds, etc.) as it exists today, and there are still a ton of amazing ideas under the hood here – many of which have never been publicly shared. These are ideas that we have not and will not forget and that you will very likely see implemented in our future titles.

Active development of Terraria continues - 1.3.6 is still very much in active development. We know that we have not shared a lot in the way of spoilers there – but rest assured that the team has been working tirelessly on our next PC wave.

This keeps our partners at 505/Pipeworks wholly focused on Console/Mobile/Switch – and there is still a TON to get done there, so that should be good.

Overall I see this as simultaneously disappointing and good news. We may never see what might have been, but we can stop wondering about it and look forward to what Re-Logic has for us in the future.

Full announcement: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/this-is-the-end-otherworld-development-cancelled.68594/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/14/2018 at 01:35am

Dang, I was really looking forward to Otherworld. At first I wasn't so sure about it, but then I guess it grew on me. I want more Terraria. I'm glad they're still working on 1.3.6, it has been a year or so since I've seen anything new about it.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/14/2018 at 02:16am

Cennxx posted some new spoilers about 1.3.6 recently. Some sort of thing that can locally change gravity maybe? And underground fossils.

https://twitter.com/Cennxx

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/14/2018 at 02:18am

Cool thanks for sharing! (I left Twitter a couple years ago or so.)

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/15/2018 at 02:55am

I don't do this for a lot of games but whatever Terraria sequel comes out, i'm going to buy it. Sad to hear this one isn't coming out but I don't think I quite got what it was. I don't think they talked much about it for it to form in my mind what kind of game it was. It seemed to be a story based Terraria open game but I'm not really sure about that.

Making games is hard and open ended games more so. Wish them well on what they are doing and if history is a guide we'll keep getting trickling Terraria updates, which is all I guess I could want. Frankly we have a great game, a sequel would be awesome but how much more awesome could a new Terraria game be? I don't know, I guess we'll see.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/15/2018 at 05:59am

@Jon from what I read it was supposed to be a Terraria tower defense game. At least that seems to be what I remember. Also, the wiki does state Terraria 2 under future projects or whatever.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/15/2018 at 03:14pm

Yeah there were going to be tower defense elements at least. It seemed like the the whole motivation was to purify the world. That was something you could do in Terraria but it’s kinda boring. The tower defense in Otherworld was about keeping the corruption from spreading.

I’d like to see some of that in a future Terraria update. A tower at the edge of the corruption to keep it from spreading would be way more fun than digging a 5 block cavern all the way to the underworld

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/18/2018 at 12:42am

Tower defense 2D sidescroller? Huh. Ok. I really wonder how far they got and sad they couldn't show more of it just to share what they made. That said, I imagine that would drive some fans a bit nuts.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/18/2018 at 01:35am

Yeah I don’t think it was like 100% tower defense driven that was just part of it

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 20: Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is an arcade platformer created by Shigeru Miyamoto when he was tasked with converting the arcade game Radar Scope, a game that did poorly, into something that was more fun. In Donkey Kong the main character Jumpman, who would later be known as Mario, needs to climb a series of construction themed levels on his way up to rescue his girlfriend Pauline. Donkey Kong started out on the Arcade and has seen ports on the Game & Watch, NES, Atari 2600 and a ton of other systems.

In season two of Cheerful Ghost Radio we are doing bite-sized NES Classic review episodes. We want to make you all part of these episodes, so head over to the events section and join in... Read All

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/12/2018 at 06:07pm

Just a funny aside, I was watching a review of Ready Player One the other day on YouTube, and one of the YouTubers referred to her first game she was really into as "Donkey Kong," but after talking more, it was clear she was actually referring to Donkey Kong Country.

Kids these days... lol

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/12/2018 at 07:24pm

You think that’s weird, I know someone whose favorite game when he was a kid was God of War 3. We’re getting old!

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/15/2018 at 02:57am

Heh. One fun thing in DKC is that Cranky Kong is actual Donkey from the original game and Donkey is actually his son.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibiNy4d4gc

jdodson Admin wrote on 04/15/2018 at 02:57am

I mean, i'm sure we all knew that but we didn't mention it in the Podcast so ... oblig factlet everyone knows to get more nerd cred.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 04/15/2018 at 04:10am

OK I had no idea honestly. That's cool

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Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 & 2 Coming July 24th!

We've known for a bit that the Mega Man X collections were coming and now we have the release date, July 24th! If you have a Switch and want every classic Mega Man game the Legacy Collection is coming and now both X Collections as well! I still have yet to take up Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo classic but after I wear out Mega Man 2, i'll get over to it. That said, I have NO idea when that will be as I honestly enjoy just replaying Mega Man 2.

That said...

"The entire X series dashes onto Nintendo Switch! Mega Man X Legacy Collection contains side-scrolling classics Mega Man X, Mega Man X2, Mega Man X3, and Mega Man X4. Continue the adventure with Mega Man X Legacy... Read All

DigitalFoundry Compares A Decade of Evolution Between Far Cry 2 and Far Cry 5

I picked up Far Cry 2 at the mid point in the PS3's lifespan. It was about $17 used at a game store and since I hadn't really played a Far Cry game yet, it seemed like a good time to give it a shot. I heard the open world gameplay was fun, but the game insisting that you had to deal with malaria was not. I completed the whole game on PS3 and didn't find the malaria aspects too frustrating. If you continue through the game at a good pace you got enough pills to keep things moving forward. I wonder what would have happened if you avoided the main story?

Now that Far Cry 5 is out Digital Foundry has a new video comparing Far Cry 2 to the latest release and it's really... Read All

I Have A Good Feeling About This - New Solo Trailer Drops!

Lucasfilm released a new Solo: A Star Wars Story trailer yesterday to a warm reception. I’d say compared to the first Super Bowl trailer this one seems more like the kind of movie I expected. Still going to watch this opening day and it looks like all the hard work to fix the movie after the original directors left the project has paid off, with a great trailer.

I know many were hazy on watching this, I wonder if this trailer has changed you mind in any direction?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/09/2018 at 02:39pm

This trailer does make the movie look better than I expected, but I still think I won't see it in theaters out of principle. After this comes out, half of all Star Wars movies will be prequels. I'm tired of prequels. I don't need anymore origin stories for characters I'm already familiar with. So, I think the trailer did make me interested in seeing this movie at some point, but I don't want to spend (much) money on it (I might see it at small theater after it's been out for a while, or rent it from Redbox).

Also, (this isn't a nitpick, just something funny I heard) but Han's voice occasionally sounded like Bill Hader's voice in the SNL Californians sketches lol (https://youtu.be/V4347ZE0NQM for reference).

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 04/09/2018 at 04:13pm

I liked the trailer. I think at this point I have stopped comparing Alden Ehrenreich to Harrison Ford. I am ready to see this.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/09/2018 at 04:25pm

(I previously posted this, but I deleted it so I could re-word some stuff and add some more)

I don’t even think about the new stuff in the sense of prequel or sequel, really. And I don’t exactly think of this or Rogue One as prequels. Yes, they take place prior to the original trilogy, so they are absolutely prequels in that sense, but they tell the unnecessary parts of the core story. The episodic films are the story of the galaxy and, specifically, the Skywalkers and those around them. But just like all the books and games have done for years, these films just fill in info that is (hopefully) interesting and entertaining but isn’t essential or may not even inform the core series.

I look at it like the Tarkin novel, or Leia, Princess of Alderaan basically. Small one-offs that can take place anywhere and give you some more character building. For me, I'm not watching the anthology films for the story as much as I am the world-building and new lore to add to the complex tapestry that is Star Wars canon.

Now, I gotta say... if you'd asked me which anthology films I would have made, Solo would not have been on my list. It at least seems more interesting than a Boba Fett film. But I'm still very interested to watch this just to add some more depth, however small, to the universe.

But speaking of prequels I would honestly adore a few movies that take place IN the prequel era. Those films are not my favorites of the saga but from what I’ve seen and read, it’s probably my favorite time period and ripe with potential for great stories. A live action siege of Mandalore movie? Oh man. Don’t even get me started.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 04/09/2018 at 05:47pm

Travis wants a Jar Jar movie. :)

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/09/2018 at 05:58pm

Nice!

Travis Admin wrote on 04/09/2018 at 07:10pm

Hahahaha, no. No JarJar movies please.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/09/2018 at 11:36pm

> Now, I gotta say... if you'd asked me which anthology films I would have made, Solo would not have been on my list.

Adding some more: I think one of the chief reasons people seem more apathetic about this one is that Han already had his character arc. All the character growth has already happened. The Han in this film will grow from a young hotshot rogue into ... an older hotshot rogue?

That's why I'm less into this than I was Rogue One, and why I'm hoping for some great worldbuilding to replace the character building.

Or hell, just Baby Driver in A Galaxy Far Far Away. :)

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 04/10/2018 at 04:01pm

> The Han in this film will grow from a young hotshot rogue into ... an older hotshot rogue?

What if he isn't a young hotshot rogue?

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/10/2018 at 05:35pm

I hope I didn't come across as super negative, I do hope it's a good movie and people enjoy it. I hope *I* enjoy it when I get around to seeing it lol.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 04/10/2018 at 05:40pm

Hopefully Will has the closest guess, and Han isn't a young hotshot rogue, and you can see what makes him what he becomes :)

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 04/10/2018 at 06:23pm

I think he is going to start out as an Imperial.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/11/2018 at 02:17am

Couple points I wanted to hit.

"I'm tired of prequels. I don't need anymore origin stories for characters I'm already familiar with."

Right. I get that. I'm at a point where what we've got so far (all the new star wars films) have been pretty good to great. I didn't want Rogue One but it's the first prequel I liked and now really like. In fact, I just rewatched it and it surprised me how fun it was watching it again. It's like nearly pure fan service and I love it for that. The cinematography is solid, it's got some grit to it and I really appreciate where it goes and the choices it makes. Not perfect and some parts are really obviously setup for later things, but it's a fun movie and I like it more than I don't.

Now if the Solo movie is that, then i'll be in. I don't need it to be earth shattering or even original. Fun enough is fine for me. Seems like it might be.

I think one reason why we're getting prequels is because the new trilogy isn't finished yet and they might want to wrap that up before new stuff comes out. My guess is that when they signed the Game of Thrones dudes and Rian Johnson for 6 more films all that will be POST Episode 9. In fact, my guess is most of Star Wars after that will be and we might get some other prequel films but the majority will be moving forward. Lucasfilm wants a new movie per year and it's easy to keep the whole STARCU (or whatever) in alignment with prequels and just one new story arc moving forward.

Just an idea, I'm sure i'm wrong.

I've heard what the new story IS in terms of his arc (not specifics just how his character will change) and it sounds interesting. Apparently Lucas and Laurence Kasdan were working on a Han Solo film prior to Lucasfilm being bought and one term of Kasdan helping with Episode VII is he could come back around to make Solo. Fun story and i'm glad it's coming out because it's been a fun movie to talk about and I hope it turns out well and if not, well, lots to talk about when Star Wars movies aren't great too.

Travis Admin wrote on 04/11/2018 at 03:22am

Well I dunno about prequels in general, but this film was made because of Kasdan. Solo wasn't a LucasFilm "lets shovel this out" kind of thing. One condition Kasdan had for writing The Force Awakens with JJ was that he'd get to pen a script for a Han Solo origin story.

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Minecraft Plus Ark Equals PixArk!

Azurephile gives this a "Meh" on the Ghost Scale

It’s not amazing, it’s not bad. This is ok but you may want to choose another title.

Azurephile gives this a "Meh" on the Ghost Scale

It’s not amazing, it’s not bad. This is ok but you may want to choose another title.

Review

Not really recommended

Minecraft meets Ark: Survival Evolved

Magic and quests

Minecraft meets Ark: Survival Evolved in a new Early Access game called PixArk. At first, I thought it was a mod for Ark, but I was wrong. Apparently Snail Games bought Studio Wildcard years ago and therefore has the IP rights to Ark. The game looks as though everything was made of Lego blocks, it actually looks a lot like a game called Portal Knights.

One of the limitations of Ark is that you can’t dig into the ground, but you can do so in PixArk, giving it a Minecraft feel. It also creates randomly generated maps, which can be troublesome because a map could be created missing... Read All Review

Not really recommended

Minecraft meets Ark: Survival Evolved

Magic and quests

Minecraft meets Ark: Survival Evolved in a new Early Access game called PixArk. At first, I thought it was a mod for Ark, but I was wrong. Apparently Snail Games bought Studio Wildcard years ago and therefore has the IP rights to Ark. The game looks as though everything was made of Lego blocks, it actually looks a lot like a game called Portal Knights.

One of the limitations of Ark is that you can’t dig into the ground, but you can do so in PixArk, giving it a Minecraft feel. It also creates randomly generated maps, which can be troublesome because a map could be created missing certain biomes. Unlike Minecraft (Java version), the maps have their size limitations. Players can also find portals that can be used to get around the map.

Magic is something not seen in Ark, but is used in this game. There are magical creatures, which can only be tamed via magic. There is a magical forest biome, where you can get materials needed for magical crafting.

The game play is pretty much just like Ark, where players can connect to servers and play with others in PVE or PVP environments. But, there is also a single player mode and players can even create their own dedicated server.

Something else in the game that’s not seen in Ark are quests. There are quest boxes around the map. They may be something such as “tame a phioma with a purple berry” or “gather 10 dirt.” Upon completion, players will be presented with a chest containing some rewards. It’s a nice addition that gives player something to do.

The game is in Early Access and is not without its bugs and issues. However, it seems pretty stable on “epic” settings. Portals and supply drops are currently missing in single player mode, so I decided to create a dedicated server to play on. Looking in the game’s guides on Steam, I was able to find instructions on how to create and run a dedicated server. Unfortunately, it didn’t work right away, but I did manage to some how get it working. This is something I imagine may get some more attention in the future.

*Update 6/4/19*
I just thought I'd add in an update here for my thoughts and feelings about this game. At first, I was kind of excited for this game. I love Ark and figured more of it would be enjoyable. However, for some reason that's really difficult to describe, I'm not really into this game. As of this update version 1.0 has been released, but I stopped caring about the game a while ago. I tried to play it a few times. I think perhaps the art style wasn't very appealing to me. It does kind of look like Minecraft, but it's not Minecraft. It does kind of behave like Minecraft, in that you can dig into the world, unlike in Ark. However, as of the last time I tried to play this game, there's no variation in how each species of creatures look. In Ark, for example, you can find 10 Pteranodons and almost all of them will look different. Some might be mostly green, or some might be mostly pink or other colors. That is not the case with PixArk, unfortunately. All creatures of one species look exactly the same. I didn't find this very appealing. I also didn't like the music of the game. I think there are some people out there that did like this game, check for those on YouTube. For me, though, this game just isn't very appealing.

Square Is Brining Chrono Trigger On Steam Back To It's Original SNES Graphical Roots

When Chrono Trigger hit Steam it was widely panned by fans for two problems. Firstly the menus were mostly ported from the mobile version and PC players didn't seem to like that and the original pixel graphics were smoothed down and don't look great on high resolution displays. Square posted today that they've heard this feedback and will release an update to add a mode for fans to play Chrono Trigger with the original pixel art graphical style of the original SNES version.

"We’re aiming to release the first of these patches in the first half of April, and the biggest change is that it will include an option to switch between the current high-resolution graphics, and... Read All

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/04/2018 at 03:47am

Awesome!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/04/2018 at 03:50am

I'm glad Square is doing this. Steam games, because of sales and bundles, can have a long lifespan and if a game is supported and is what fans want it's reputation will mean more sales over it's life than just a flash in the pan fizzle which this game seemed to get because of it's poor reviews. Well, I can't speak to it's sales but the reviews were not very good for the fact that this game is a classic and considered by some to be the best game of all time.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/04/2018 at 05:30pm

I'm glad they're doing it, even though I haven't bought it yet. I added it to my wishlist before this announcement, thinking I'd see it for myself. It's nice to know that a company is actually doing something with fan feedback.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 04/11/2018 at 02:32am

Looks like the new patch addresses many concerns and the latest Steam reviews seem to suggest people like them. Nice to see Chrono Tigger on PC getting some love.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/04/10/chrono-triggers-first-patch-is-a-step-in-the-right-direction/

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 04/11/2018 at 07:09am

Cool! Thanks for the link!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/03/2018 at 08:17pm

Chrono Trigger just received it's final major update. As you know, it was released and received some negative feedback, so the developers decided to give it a few updates. Now that all those major updates have been released, I think I'll continue playing. I'm only disappointed that they didn't add the ability to change the color of the text box, I don't like the gray, I want blue!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/03/2018 at 09:17pm

I think that was a fairly popular staple of Square RPG's to change the window style and color. Too bad it isn't included in the PC version.

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Cheerful Ghost Radio Episode 19: Borderlands 2 Retrospective

Travis gives this an astounding "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

Travis gives this a "Must Play" on the Ghost Scale

This achieves something special, and it would be a shame to miss it.

Borderlands 2 is a first person shooter RPG that was released by Gearbox Software in 2012. It launched to nearly universal acclaim and won a bunch of awards including the Cheerful Ghost game of the year award for 2012! Borderands 2 got a junk ton of DLC and was one of the first games with a season pass that got even more DLC after that season pass DLC came out. Borderlands 2 dropped on PC, PS3 the XBox 360 and was later brought to Mac, Linux, PS4, XBox One, Vita and the NVidia Shield.

We wanted to head back to this game and talk about it because we think it deserves a second look and a bit more discussion.

Spoiler alert: Perhaps it's no surprise, we love this game and... Read All