A casual session of Super Tetris 3 for Super Famicom, played off the Tetris Forever compilation. Endless Tetris.
Also, on a side note, starting next Tuesday, the Extra Bits channel – the other Youtube channel where I upload all the extra bits that don’t fit on the main channel – will get a new video upload. There’s no set schedule on what’s coming up. Whatever comes up is what comes up and that’s the bottom line.
Happy May The Fourth. Here’s a review of an old Star Trek game.
Also, if you’re desperate for Star Trek: Legacy, get an Xbox 360. Problem solved.
Happy Star Wars Day. Let’s play some Star Trek and talk stuff, I guess…
Yeah, so real talk… this is the first real live stream that I’ve done in a while and things are a bit rusty, as it were. As it is, I’m still on the mend, I’m still… not quite up to peak operating efficiency, but I feel confident enough that I can hold up my end of the bargain for a good sixty minutes of whatever the fuck we usually do around these parts (I think we play Tetris and pretend no other game in the world exists.)
Right now, the key thing is that this thing goes off without a hitch and by the time this post go lives, you’ll have an archive of a working stream. Anything else that pops up – we’ll deal with in the future, but for now… eh…
I only played Vice City and that was decades ago.
Every so often, someone will invariably ask why I refer to “the evil art of emulation.”
Because it is the work of pure evil… and so it must be addressed as such.
In actuality, it started off as a gag of sorts from ages ago… when emulation was a relatively new thing and people were questioning the ethical and moral implications of such a deed. In fairness, that’s something being questioned today, but that has more to do with context. Emulation is something that is more widely adopted thanks to various compilations and services offered by the people who make these consoles in the first place.
I’ve dabbled in emulation back in the day. I dabble in emulation today. I will continue to dabble in it tomorrow in some form or fashion. I’m not going to tell you whether it’s good or bad. I’m not going to tell you whether you should embrace it or not. If you don’t care for emulation or think it’s as evil as they say, I won’t argue otherwise.
I just call it “the evil art of emulation” because it’s just fun to say.
Yeah, it’s that time of year where WWE drops a whole bunch of people from their employ and one of them happens to include Braun Strowman… again.
So now he gets to team up with EC3 again so they can control the narrative, right? Right?
In all seriousness, I almost feel sorry for the guy because they brought him back a couple years ago and really didn’t do much with him. I don’t know; it seems like they just wanted another big guy and now that they got some younger big guys, Strowman’s time was pretty much done. Anyway, I wish him (and all other releases) all the best in whatever they do next.
Hopefully, Miro/Rusev gets a good run before he eventually gets dropped in favor of whatever NIL-ID prospect they fish out of the Soviet Union in five years or so.
“Johnny, the Soviet Union doesn’t even…”
“QUIET!”
-_-
How about some fun behind the scenes stories or something? Because I’ve honestly got nothing else to talk about at the moment and if I do, I’m saving it for a later date.
I make no qualms about the fact that I tend to not like my earlier video stuff. Granted, I was just starting off, I was learning what I can, and I was trying to be cute at times… which took a few years for me to get out of that particular habit. So I have no real issue in getting to a point where I want to revisit a game that I covered ages ago and give a fresh new look with a fresh new perspective based on a little more insight.
The other side of that equation is that a lot of those earlier video reviews were basically video versions of what I had written on GameFAQs, only slightly tweaked so that there’s no arbitrary scoring system. Those GameFAQs reviews, written years earlier and with even less quality or care, have not aged well. A lot of those reviews are also not very relevant; if you were to go back and read those reviews, especially those posted in the early 2000s, they do not reflect my feelings on said games today. Something to bare in mind is that those reviews were written quickly and briefly – usually to satisfy some word limit imposed. And during those early days of video posting, YouTube usually imposed a 10-15 minute on how much video you can actually post until said limits were eventually removed. Since those written reviews were short enough to cover the bases, I just used those.
In hindsight, not the smartest idea, but I worked with what I have.
In some strange way, I miss the days when you were only allowed a certain amount of time to upload video. I know people prefer the more longform videos that let you people go into every nook and cranny about stuff, but the video limits often forced you to be creative in how to present your material. It’s easy to run off and talk about a game for hours on end, going into the history of this, this, and that… but to me, a review has always been and quite frankly, should always be about “What’s the product, what are the good points, what are the bad points, and who does this appeal to?”
In terms of that particular scope, it should not take you more than ten to fifteen minutes tops to get those points across. You don’t need an two hour essay to determine whether Mega Man 2 is a good game; that’s being overly superfluous. Hell, even in terms of covering something bigger like an RPG, a straightforward review does not need to be hours on end. Context can be helpful, but all I care about is whether something is worth my investment or not and why. When you had a runtime limit, that forced you to be creative and more cohesive in your thoughts. It forced you to determine what the key points were that people needed to know about something.
That’s something I try to maintain. I don’t dwell into every detail. I try to hit the points that seem relevant, I keep my thoughts as brief as possible – or at least, try to – and I try to keep it short. That’s always been my thing.
So nowadays, I write this stuff on the side. I have a lot of things written and sometimes, I give it space and leave it laying for a bit before going back to it and seeing if there’s anything that needs to be updated. I’ve had reviews that started one way and turned into another. The Symphony Of The Night review – which languished for years – became a thing that was different from its original inception, which was much simpler and much shorter… but apparently, I had a lot to say about that one.
And so, as we dive deeper into this review recycle, there may come a point where earlier reviews are revisited and we might give some of these things another look… sometimes, you revisit things that you thought were bad and years later, you’re like “Maybe I was too hard on this.” Or maybe it’s vice-versa.
Yeah, it’s usually vice-versa.
There’s an idea I’ve been toying with for the October set of reviews – a possible revisit of the Castlevania games, with some added perspective and experience tossed in for good measure. If it doesn’t happen this year, it might be next year. I’m using the time off that isn’t spent dealing with healing and family stuff to get some stuff together for the sake of having stuff ready to go in the event that another episode happens, so at least, there’s SOMETHING going on.
But on a whole… yeah, I’ve been feeling a bit better these days. The struggle continues, but one step at a time.
And on a final note… happy birthday, Dwayne. Go fuck yourself.
Later.
Hey, yo…
So this is where I normally do a thing talking about stuff happening on the blog for the next month or stuff that’s been in the works in the background, but last month has been a challenge of sorts. And if you’ve been following this blog over the past few weeks, you know why. But for those who don’t, here’s a brief summary of things.
A couple weeks ago, I was admitted into the hospital after a weekend of experiencing sudden shortness of breath and accelerated heart rates. It became difficult to climb steps, form cohesive sentences, or do anything remotely… whatever. It was discovered that I had suffered an pulmonary embolism. Basically, I had blood clots in my lungs that needed to be cleared out and after a couple days, they had cleared out the lungs and kept me in check for a few days to see if everything was stable. At the same time, I also had a Crohn’s flare up… fierce abdominal pains, very intense, became very difficult to sleep at night, went to a private doctor to get meds and tests for that. Doctor figured I had a Crohn’s flare up, we need to get that treated, but the public health system of le gouvenerment du Quebec decided they needed more tests and… well, this happened.
So after a week or so’s stay, I came home with a relatively clean bill of health. I’m starting regular treatments to take care of the Crohn’s and hopefully, that’s something that can be brought down to a controllable level with medications and things of that nature. For what it’s worth, I’m slowly on the mend. I’m feeling okay for the most part. I’m still not at the level where I need to be, but I’m getting there. I’m going to try and be patient for the most part.
Since I’ve been home for the past couple weeks, I’ve been keeping busy with stuff around the house. Tending to the dog, dealing with family stuff and other things that needed my attention. That sort of thing. At the same time, I found myself at a point where I could get back into the groove of things as far material for my little part of the webzone is concerned. Turns out there was a lot of stuff that was ready to go and just needed fixing… and so that stuff is up and ready to be published on the scheduled days.
You’re still get PPV Musings every Wednesdays, though they’ll be covering old WCW and WWF PPVs from decades ago. Video reviews will slowly but surely be back in full form and there’s even a plan to try and get a marathon going at some point to play catch up. Sunday Gimmick Tables are slowly but surely making their return, starting with stuff that I started on a year ago and never got around to finishing, along with some new stuff that’s been in the works for a while and never got around to fixing.
So the good news is that things are progressing to a point where stuff is moving forward. Of course, my main concern is trying to get better and follow up on treatments… but at the very least, I can safely say that I’m slowly getting back to the point where I can get things done. And as it relates to my little part of the web, there is a LOT of stuff being done… and hopefully, this is just the beginning.
On a side note, I’ve also been doing some behind the scene fixes for older stuff – most notably the process of replacing the Dailymotion embeds with the Youtube ones for video reviews and such. Sure, the Youtube stuff is missing some of the fun details of the Dailymotion ones due to certain content situations, but those are small losses for otherwise more convenient viewing measures on the blog… which, at this point, is all I care about. There’s also the continued quest of restoring old material from years past and I’m hoping that by the time the year is done, almost everything worth keeping will be up and we can just focus on new shit going forward… either that or the new video remaster project.
So here’s to the road of healing… and here’s hoping we get back on track sooner than later.
Regards,
Dave (DTM)
For some reason, I felt like watch WCW Battlebowl 1993 – a show that I have on DVD-R because I had recorded off the WWE Network back when it was a channel on TV in Canada. I never got around to watching this one and it sort of languished in the archives until recently… and so here we are.
Anyway, WCW Battlebowl was a thing that they did one time and never did again. The idea of Battlebowl had existed previously in prior Starrcade PPVs, but this was the first and only time that WCW had expanded the idea into its own PPV. And there’s a good reason for that.
Sorrow is the word of the day, it seems.
As a sidenote, this review of Seven Sorrows was the last one ready to go before my hospitalization these past couple weeks. I’ve got other stuff in progress and I’m going to attempt some dubs to see if I can get back in the groove of things. If all goes well, there should be “some” review content in the month of May, but I may also push things further to see if I can pick up the slack of some long overdue Gimmick Table videos for the future.
dtm666 