Category: Musings

Street Fighter II SNES Cartridge (And A Fire Hazard) For $100!

Source: https://store.iam8bit.com/products/street-fighter-ii-30th-anniversary-edition

Capcom and iam8bit have teamed up to produce a limited edition Street Fighter II Collector’s Collection, which includes a freshly-made reproduction cart of the original version of Street Fighter II for SNES, as well a “premium” instruction book, a box, and some other “random” goodies. All of this for a hundred bucks.

So for those bitching about a new version of Street Fighter II on the new Nintendo Switch system costing too much money… well, here’s an old version of the game that cost way the heck more.

I love the additional warning the site gives regarding the cart;

“WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire. The SNES hardware is deemed a vintage collectible, so please exercise extreme caution when using the Product and make sure there is fire extinguishment equipment nearby. Use of the Product is at the sole risk of the user. The Product is sold “as is”.  Neither iam8bit, Inc. nor Capcom Co, Ltd. make any representation or warranty, express or implied, of any kind, including any warranty of merchantability of fitness for a particular use, or that the Product is safe to use, and iam8bit, Inc. or Capcom Co, Ltd. shall have no liability for damage to property or persons arising from use of the Product. Nintendo of America is in no way associated with the release of this Product.”

So, there you go, kids. Not only are they offering an old SNES game for a hundred bucks – an old SNES game that you could probably get for way cheaper used – but they’re also offering an old SNES game that can kill your console for a hundred bucks. See, if I wanted to kill my console, I’d just get a hammer from the Dollar Store and smash it with that. Less hassle.

Anyway… that’s a thing that’s being offered now. Not sure if I want to actually go out and get one for myself, since I already have a perfectly functional copy of SF2 for my SNES that won’t cause my machine to explode… or maybe I’m just holding out for something similar to be done with ol’ Blue Boy… wait, not happening? Oh, okay.

Sooooooo……. have fun.

Pick-ups tomorrow.

Double Dragon IV Coming To Nintendo Switch

Source article can be read here.

I only bring this up so I can find an excuse to re-post my Double Dragon IV review from earlier this year. My thoughts on the game itself can be found there. Still, nice to see Nintendo getting another NES-inspired retro demake style game thing onto their console. I sure wish more people got on that bandwagon. (Looking at you, Capcom.)

Is Seth Rollins A “Real-Life Power Rangers?” (No, he isn’t.)

(You know what? I might consider making this into a video… just to gauge some kind of reaction to this reaction.)

WWE sometimes comes up with the stupidest shit. Not just in terms of their on-screen feuds and storylines, but also their website content. Not a major media event goes where WWE isn’t doing some stupid thing like photoshopping lightsabers into action shots or having wrestlers fight dinosaurs in poor mock-ups. Sometimes, stuff like this is cute, but then there are times when you just roll your eyes.

Case in point, WWE.com’s most recent article in which they try to sell readers on the idea that WWE Superstar, current RAW tag-team champion, former WWE World Champion, and Wrestlemania 31 savior Seth Rollins is a real-life, honest-to-goodness Power Ranger.

No… really.

Continue reading “Is Seth Rollins A “Real-Life Power Rangers?” (No, he isn’t.)”

No Celebration On My End

I don’t dwell into politics here… but I want to provide a quick comment.

40 years ago, my home province passed a law designed to protect the integrity of its mother tongue.

It’s since been used to treat anyone that isn’t born here or French-speaking like the enemy.

It is, for all intents and purposes, legalized bigotry and prejudice.

This is not a condemnation of the people. People are good-natured folks.

This is a condemnation of the lawmakers who give good people the means to turn into bigots.

That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

COMIC REVIEW – Star Trek: Deviations (IDW, 2017)

IDW is at it, again.

They’re doing another round of their Deviations event – one-shots of various licensed properties being subjected to “What If?” scenarios. We’ve sampled a couple of these last year and this year… well, there was only one that piqued my interest and that was the Star Trek one. Took me a little longer to gather my thoughts on this one because… well, let’s be honest here. I’ve read three of these Deviations so far and we’re one for three at the moment.

Yeah, this isn’t very good, either… but this time, the blame falls on the premise, which seems to be all over the place.

The premise of this Deviation seems fascinating on paper; what if, instead of the Vulcans, it was the Romulans who were Earth’s first encounter with extraterrestrials. It’s an idea that has potential to be explored and possibly spin off an interesting alternate take on Star Trek lore before we get to the eventual “everyone dies” ending that a lot of these things fall back on because we’re uncreative hacks or something.

So what happens when the Romulans land on Earth before the Vulcans? They turn the planet into a Romulan colony and enslave the human race. Jump ahead to the 24th century and an eyepatched Will Riker leads a ragtag band of freedom fighters (who, coincidentally or conveniently, happen to be some of the old TNG crew in similar altered states or worse) to find a man who may or may not know the location of a Federation base… wait, what? A Federation base? How could there be a Federation base if the Romulans enslaved the human race shortly after Zefram Cochrane’s warp flight? If the humans never had a chance to develop space flight, how could there be a Federation? Hell, that Delta on the cover shouldn’t even be there if that were the case.

So IDW either lied about the deviation or nobody had a fucking clue. I’m leaning more towards the former because IDW has been doing Star Trek comics for years now and they’re usually on the ball with this stuff. I’d have to assume that, at some point, the Federation and the Romulans got into a war, the Romulans won, took control of Earth and enslaved the humans. That would make more sense and less questions would be brought up that we’d never get answers to. Approaching the story from THAT context rather than the premise it was sold on… eh, it’s not so bad.

For what it’s worth, it’s a fast-paced piece of business that doesn’t waste time on exposition since we don’t have time to waste in a one-shot book. The action bits are well-done and it was interesting to see the different takes on these familiar TNG characters. Would it have been nice to get more emphasis on the main players and how things have changed? Sure, but given what’s there… it was fine.

It’s just unfortunate that for all the good bits that this issue offered, I am left with more questions regarding anachronistic aspects of the story, including the final big reveal, which – had this been following the original premise of the series – should not exist in the first place. I don’t know… this feels like a sampler of a much larger story and if there’s more to come, I’d look forward to reading it.

As a one-shot, however, Star Trek: Deviations leaves much to be desired.

WWE 2K18 Coming To Nintendo Switch

Now this is good news. WWE 2K18 will not only be brought over to the usual suspects of Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC, but it will also be gracing Nintendo Switch this fall. Reportedly, it was retain all the new features of the latest edition despite the lower specs of the Switch; among them matches with up to eight Superstars at a time… took ’em over a damn decade, but they finally managed to get TWO more people on screen. I’m amazed by their great accomplishment here.

Now, details on the new edition of the game itself can be found elsewhere; I’m not going to dwell on that too much, but in either case, this is good news for Switch owners who have been clamoring for more third-party support that isn’t just indy titles. And… say what you will about the WWE games; they may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when you consider that the last WWE video game to grace a Nintendo console was WWE ’13 on the Wii – not one WWE game ever graced the Wii U throughout that system’s life span – seeing one on the Switch has to be a nugget of encouragement.

Now, all that being said… when is Donkey Kong making an appearance? We’re not that far off after the ridiculous PPV name.

A Sign That The Manga World Is Out Of Ideas…

At a local Tim Hortons restaurant late at night, I’m having coffee with a buddy of mine and we talk about a whole bunch of stuff. At some point, he brings up the news that there’s a new manga called Daigo: The Beast coming out soon. I don’t keep up with manga news, so I ask him what’s so special about this manga.

He tells me that it’s a manga-ized biography of that Street Fighter pro player person.

I look up and stare into his eyes, looking for any sign that he could be pulling my leg or making some ridiculous claim. I’m waiting for him to cut the air of silence and tell me what this manga is really about. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was being completely serious.

“Somebody’s making a manga about some gamer?” I ask him.

My bud nods slowly.

I slowly shake my head in disbelief. Of all the things you could make a manga out of it and you go with some gamer’s life story. This was a sign that the world is running out of good ideas.

“Is there a reason why anyone would want this?” I ask. “I’m not sure why anyone would want a manga about a guy whose claim to fame is that he’s very good at Street Fighter.”

My buddy just shrugs, unable to give me an answer that would satisfy me. I take a couple more sips of coffee before we change the subject.

Just to clarify, I know about Daigo; that guy who did fifty parries to a crowd of lifeless zombies heard around the world. Apparently, he’s one of the best SF players in the world. You know what? Good for him… that doesn’t mean the world needs a manga about this guy. Not when you make more magical girl comics instead that borderlines on hentai or whatever the proper venacular happens to be.

For people who care about this sort of shit, the Daigo: The Beast biography manga is due out in December, but early copies are available at the EVO event this July.

Later.