Category: Musings

You Know… There's This Other Show Too…

This is a wrestling-related musings, but not quite a wrestling musings. Hence the regular Musings label and not the Wrestling one.

A few weeks ago, my brother and I had a bit of a talk, where he had expressed surprise that Kane was wrestling in Australia despite being the current mayor of Knox County. I suppose for someone who doesn’t watch or even closely follow wrestling anymore, it’s understandable… and I never did bring up Jesse Ventura’s WCW stint where he was mayor of some town. What I did bring up was the Saudi shows, which left him shocked because they don’t allow women on there.

Yep… not a fan of that deal.

This Saudi deal has been something of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly the most “modern sensible” society to put it in nicer terms… but on the other hand, a ten-year deal and all that sweet, sweet Saudi money means WWE can sign them big deals. Possibly sign big free agents and even entice old guys long retired to do a couple matches since the prince is a fan of 90s wrestling and doesn’t give a shit about the current crop.

My guess is the prince is actually a WCW fan and just wanted to watch old guys wrestle at the speed of light… that’s an old joke.

So for those not following the news, a journalist who was a critic of the Saudi government was murdered and allegedly assassinated by someone working for said government. Right now, all of this is suspicion and speculation, but with this kind of controversy in the limelight, it puts WWE in a very fickle position. Do they cancel the event and risk damaging a valuable deal with Saudi Arabia that would’ve brought a substantial revenue stream? Or do they continue with the show as planned despite the urging of U.S. senators and prominent officials telling them to not go ahead with the show.

So… like I said, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I honestly don’t have an opinion on whether they should go through with the show or not. I sure as hell wasn’t thrilled with the deal when it was initially announced and certainly some folks would (and have) argued that they should never have made the deal to begin with for a variety of reasons – not the least of which something like THIS possibly happening being a good reason not to go along with it – but when it comes to this upcoming Crown Jewel show… I would suspect there’d be an uneasiness among the talent for taking such a trip.

But you know… if they do end up cancelling the Saudi show, there is another show that they have on the calendar that they can move all this shit to that’s been booked since the dawn of time.

You might’ve heard of it too… it’s called Survivor Series.

Just a thought.

Some Folks Want To Make A ColecoVision Clone System…

Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1408938247/collectorvision-phoenix-an-fpga-colecovision-conso

CollectorVision, a company who produces homebrew games for older systems, have recently launched a Kickstarter to fund their Colecovision clone system, a smaller system that plays Colecovision systems on modern days and with semi-functional parts. They have a working prototype on hand that hasn’t been debunked by anybody as of yet, so this one looks somewhat promising.

I am hesistant to throw my hat into this thing; one because so far pickings have been slim – though there’s still 27-ish days to go – and the last time there was a Coleco-related crowdfunding campaign, it didn’t exactly turn out the way people were expecting or even hoping.

Regardless, all the best to these guys and if this gets legs, maybe I’ll chip in a couple bucks for the cause and possibly get one myself.

No More Stage 9

A couple weeks ago, I post a quick little video showcasing some gameplay from the amazing Stage 9 fangame, which was a nice little interactive simulator that let you run around the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D and do a bunch of little things… like phasering everyone in sight like a crazy man and blowing up a small research outpost with a photon torpedo. It was a fun time and I wanted to do more of these little videos to showcase what I thought was a pretty cool little fan project.

Little did I know that a couple weeks prior, CBS sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators, prompting said project to shut down, never to be seen again.

So… yeah. Terrible timing on my part, I suppose.

I understand the CBS mindset here; they’re just protecting their IP and I think the whole Axanar thing has put them on a bit of an edge that some would consider the brink of madness. It’s sort of the same way Nintendo is with fan games and rom sites. I’m not mad or sad or anything like that because that’s just the way things are. I’m just happy to have been able to sample this slice of Star Trek fandom before it went away forever.

And perhaps most importantly, I wish the creators of this wonderful project all the best in their future endeavors and offer a thank you for their brief moment in the sun.

Decisions… Decisions…

The end of October and the beginning of November is going to be a tough call for me as far as wrestling material is concerned. On the one hand, there’s that women’s PPV featuring a bunch of women on there in a bunch of matches I don’t care about… with the possible exception of perhaps the Kairi Sane/Shayna Bazler match that might not be enough incentive to sit through four hours of women’s wrestling that I don’t care about… thanks largely to the lack of incentive TO care about any of these women.

There’s also the second WWE show from Saudi Arabia which promises an AJ Styles/Daniel Bryan Danielson match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, which also might not be enough incentive to sit through an entire show that also comprises a Red Belt championship match that I don’t care about as well as a tournament for a world cup WWE pulled out of their asses and thus have no real reason to care otherwise.

And then there’s Bryan Alvarez attempting to wrestle a mop to a two-and-three-quarter star match at the upcoming Black Label Pro show, a promotion that I know little about and only saw one show they put on… but that was actually a pretty good show, so…

Also, there’s that NWA 70th Anniversary show… which I’m actually quite intrigued by all things considered…

Decisions…. decisions…

Yep.

On the flip side of things, I think I might stick with the shorter form DTM-Cast episodes for the rest of the year; the sole exception being possibly the Winners And Losers of 2018. Just as a bit of a bonus, I might do an additional episode recapping last year’s Winners and Losers since I didn’t do an episode last year and I figured it’d be nice to revisit this list with a fresh perspective. If nothing else, doing this now might provide some hints as to what to expect from this year’s list.

Welp… that’s all I got for now. Later.

For Those Wondering…

Yes, I did get zee Mega Man Elevenz on the Steamz.

I’m saving my extended thoughts for the end of the year (a.k.a. the last video review of 2018), but I can say this much. This did a far better job of recreating the classic style of Mega Man than the two non-8-bit entries in the series… at least in terms of the feel and the controls. The new Double Gear gimmick is helpful for certain spots, but I’ve been able to clear a couple levels with little to no use… which is nice for those who would rather do it old-school… though the gear helps in weapons boostage. It’s not a whole lot to go on for the moment, but from what little I’ve played thus far, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Oh, I will say this one other bit. This 2018 release runs way the fuck better than 2016’s Mighty No. 9 did.

Think about that for a bit.

Not Enough ATGames For You? Have A BLAST!

Source: https://www.hi-techchic.com/atgames-digital-media-announces-blast-gaming-series-and-legends-flashback-console-available-october-1st/

So… yeah… ATGames has BLAST things. A shit ton of plug-and-play things.

This page also has more details on that Legends Flashback thing that I mentioned an hour-ish ago.

ATGames To Release The LEGENDS FLASHBACK Console

Source: https://www.newswire.com/news/atgames-announces-legends-flashback-console-20649045

Ordering Page (includes game list): https://www.atgames.us/products/legends-flashback

So apparently, now that ATGames is out of the Sega Genesis cloning business, they’ve decided to announce the release of an upcoming plug-and-play system which will contain 50 classic video games spanning multiple systems! A brand new direction in the world of ATGames… and they’re still using their old Sega Genesis clone casing and controllers… but now there’s no cartridge slot and the included controllers are wired.

On the one hand, it’s good to see ATGames still managing to put out product. They might not produce the best stuff on the market, but you never want to see businesses go tits up regardless. And maybe this will see wider release to larger retail stores such as Walmart and whatnot, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing. In terms of the hardware itself, the 50 games they have on there are all licensed “real” video games from various companies like Capcom, Namco, Data East, and the like. No need for Mr. Balls in this court. Also, not having a cartridge slot of any kind means they can focus on making the emulation a little better… just a bit. Tiny Bit. Please?

That having been said, ATGames have had issues with emulation in the past and I do have some concern over how these games will turn out. Sure, the Sega Genesis Flashback console was an improvement – barely – over its prior output, but still not the greatest. Not to mention, I don’t know how well this would be received considering there was the Retrobit console released a short time ago that also has its share of classic games. (I’m not talking about the Generations one, either; that one is kinda subpar.)

Oh well…

So I Saw The Newest AVGN Episode…

These intermission bits with the special effects are kinda stupid, the actual “review” portion is the usual nitpicky shits and giggles type of thing that usually makes for good comedy if the execution came off as more natural rather than ham-fisted overacting that has since become a detriment to the past few years worth of Nerd videos, and then the ending just hurt my brain.

On the flip side, I give credit to Nerd for being able to use those original giant-ass Xbox controllers. I’ve only used those things once or twice a long time ago and that was more than enough for me.

So I guess there’s a Tomb Raider-related episode coming up… that should be interesting to watch… I guess.