Category: Home Video Reviews

(A portion of this text is taken from Episode 41 of the DTM-Cast, with some additions made afterwards.)

So about a couple weeks ago, I finally received the Best of Classic Game Room 15th Anniversary 2-disc set that was supposed to be out in December in time for Christmas, but that didn’t happen; it showed up in April and I’m guessing for those who didn’t donate, it’ll be available for purchase sometime this month if it isn’t already; I haven’t checked. I already got my copy; signed and delivered by the man himself. And also as part of the package that I had selected, I also received the Classic Game Room mockumentary film that was put out back in 2007 and personally, this was the big reason for my wanting to contribute. Not only because I was getting the new DVD, but if it came with the old DVD too, I’d figured; “Kill two birds with one stone and get them both.”

So I did a video showcasing my quirks that week and, you know, I don’t need to repeat what was said there, which wasn’t much; it was just showing off the printed materials and the coasters and the DVDs itself, but what I thought I would do is give some quick thoughts on the productions themselves and… I don’t want to call it reviewing because it’s not really that.

I want to talk about the 2007 documentary first because, well, that came first.

Classic Game Room: The Rise and Fall of the Internet’s Greatest Video Game Review Show was basically a humorous lookback at the history of Game Room, the show’s original 1999-2000 incarnation. And there’s a selection of Game Room episodes on display; some you’ve seen before, such as the Ninja Golf episode and the Seaman episode, and there’s a couple that are “officially” exclusive to this DVD, such as the Duck Hunt and Alien episodes. And in between the episodes, there’s the mockumentary portions which feature Mark narrating the history of Game Room and one has to decide for himself how much of it is legit and how much is over-exaggeration, but there are some bits of behind the scenes stuff and outtakes scattered about and it’s not bad.

Extras include a couple video blogs regarding the development of the documentary film, which are already on YouTube. There’s an alternate commentary track with Mark where he talks about the film and also some insightful and sometimes over-exaggerated observations regarding Game Room. But on a whole, it’s a fairly good mockumentary with a selection of choice Game Room episodes for good measure.

Now, regarding the Best of Classic Game Room… yeah, let me just set you up as to what to expect; you’re getting 50+ reviews worth of Classic Game Room episodes spanning from the original Game Room days in 1999-2000 to last year. Most of these reviews are already online, but there are a couple of them that are exclusive to this video. You’ve got an audio commentary with Mark Bussler, which is actually quite entertaining and informative in its own right. At one point, he even pokes fun of his monotone delivery during the HD era in 2008 when the show made its official comeback. There’s some behind the scenes content, some outtakes, and a conversation between Mark and former Game Room host David Crosson, which was a highlight.

So, speaking as a backer for this thing and speaking as someone who has enjoyed Classic Game Room since the resurgence of the show back in 2008, I have to say that I was satisfied with The Best Of Classic Game Room. In terms of the content on disc, there’s some good stuff there, some good choices for reviews to represent the show’s best, and presented in the highest quality possible on DVD format, the extra bits were pleasant, I enjoyed the segments between Mark and Dave – that made the DVD worthwhile in my book – but at the same time, there were bits of it that left me underwhelmed.

For one, I would’ve liked to have been able to skip to specific reviews rather than have to scan for them, I would’ve loved for some of the stuff, like the Mark & Dave conversional bits, to have been their own thing rather than scattered throughout the main program. And also, it would’ve been nice to see some reviews exclusive to this DVD; I know they advertised Super Metroid and Shenmue as DVD exclusives at one point, but those eventually made it to YouTube before the DVD’s release and so it just blows the wind from the sail. You’ve got a couple on there, though, such as the reviews of Arkanoid as well as Mark’s Broken Game Boy Advance SP that still works.

But, no, other than those minor bits, I’m quite happy with the way the DVD and the product turned out.

So here’s a thing; another Bret Hart compilation set is upon us and this one is less about recycling the classic matches we’ve seen a billion times before and opts to present rare stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day in years – decades, even. This is nothing but matches and the occasional interlude by Bret Hart, who shares some thoughts about some of these matches. And the Blu-Ray also includes some additional interview bits with Bret sharing some thoughts on stuff.

There’s a couple things that the potential viewer needs to bare in mind. Firstly, don’t expect any top-tier classic matches. The focus of this Dungeon Collection is on rarities that haven’t been seen in ages. While there are some PPV matches here and there, a lot of this is taken from house shows or live events not normally featured on the Network. Another thing to bare in mind is that the quality of the footage is going to be inconsistent. Some matches are presented in pristine quality, while others will look like they were transferred from heavily degraded videotapes or Youtube downloads. Some of these matches lack commentary altogether, which makes me assume these were fancam recordings. This is essentially the equivalent of tape trading back in the day, where you’d get tapes of various matches in various levels of quality.

With that in mind, there’s some fun stuff to see here. A rare encounter between Bret and ANDRE THE GIANT of all people, a match from Japan that… wasn’t all that great, frankly, but there’s the Bret/Austin match at the Sundome, a fun Bret/Bam Bam match in Italy… a bunch of good stuff to find here, even if it isn’t the best stuff there is, the best stuff… you know the rest.

Bret Hart fans and fans of obscure WWE stuff should definitely give this one a shot. I went for the Blu-Ray since it has slightly more stuff and that’s probably the recommended version I’d steer you towards. Unlike a Triple H match, this set ranks higher than a 4/10.

WWE just put out a Best Of WCW Monday Nitro DVD set… I’m sure there’s also a Blu-Ray version, but I don’t have that. I have this, so… yeah.

I find it sad that they had to condense six years worth of history onto a single 3-disc set, but for the most part, I actually liked this one and thought it was a pretty good compilation. I’ll probably go into further detail in a VLOG or something, but there’s quite a bit of good stuff here. Some stuff I can recall watching back in the day (the Lex Luger World Title win, the Bret Hart/Goldberg encounter in Toronto, the dreaded Fingerpoke Of Doom being a few examples) and then there’s stuff that I missed the first time around that I’m actually surprised they put in, such as the whole “reboot” segment in 2000, the Sting/DDP World title match where Sting would have a one-hour title reign before dropping it back to DDP on the same night, and the other Triple-Decker Cage Match.

If there were any complaints with the content, it’s that three discs isn’t enough to showcase some of the amazing stuff that WCW Nitro had produced during its tenure, and even during its final, limping days, there was just some good stuff hidden in there.

All in all, this is a nice little set. Here’s hoping they do a second set.

Yeah, this was a thing I stumbled across somehow once upon a time; a 3-DVD set compiling the entire Adventures Of Super Mario Bros. 3 series, which was basically a continuation of sorts of the old Super Mario Bros. Super Show, but without the live action bits and with an almost entirely new voice-cast, save for Harvey Atkin, who still does a solid King Koopa.

Sadly, the ol’ King of the Koopa has been sullied with his annoying, obnoxious kids whose names have been changed from the games to more… weird names that may have been drawn out of a hat. I don’t know why they changed the names; maybe the original names were too “on point.”

(Fun fact: the original Koopa Kids were play on pre-existing people. Morton Koopa Jr, for example, named after shock jock host Morton Downey Jr… which might explain the needless name change.)

The rest of the new voices are alright. I thought the guy who voiced Mario was pretty good, but Lou Albano was the more “iconic” voice. You folks can keep your Charles Martinet for all I care. Captain Lou is mah Mario.

(Fun Fact: The guy who voiced Mario in this and the Mario world cartoon is Walker Boone, whom I later found out had played Leland T. Lynch, one of a billion chief engineers on the Enterprise in the Star Trek: The Next Generation first season episode, “Skin Of Evil.” Yes, the man who voices Mario was the chief engineer on the episode where Denise Crosby’s Lt. Tasha Yar was killed off by a tar monster. The more you know, I guess.)

Of the three Super Mario cartoons back in the day, this was the one I was least familiar with because I missed out on this one completely during my younger years. So this was a chance to finally catch what I was missing out on… which turned out to be not so much. Unlike the previous Super Show but much like the later Mario World cartoon, SMB3 stays true to the game it’s based on and doesn’t try to go for parodies of popular movies and such. The problem is that the show itself isn’t all that interesting otherwise. The episodes are your typical kids fare; there’s a minor problem that needs to be solved, our heroes need to solve it, and there’s a musical number that plays at some point. The songs have aged poorly and some of them seem to have been replaced with some bad generic rock tune of sorts.

The series is contained across two discs, with the third disc reserved for what the box calls the series bible, which has you navigating a bunch of things. It’s a bit of a fluff piece and anyone wanting something deeper is probably not going to find it here, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose, and considering the cheap price, it’s more than I would’ve expected out of a set like this.

For those wanting a piece of their childhood, this is worth it for the nostalgic value. I don’t know if it’s aged particularly well and the DVD set itself isn’t all that impressive, but it was fairly cheap, so I’d say go for it.

Before there was the Naked Gun trilogy of movies (with missing sequels and all), there was the short-lived Police Squad television series. Released back in the early eighties, Police Squad was cancelled because the networks were afraid of a show that people actually had to watch. Hearing that makes me wondering what the point of television was if you didn’t have to watch it. Maybe all those classic shows are classic because you didn’t have to watch them. It just boggles my mind.

What doesn’t boggle my mind is that Police Squad is a pretty decent show and it’s such a travesty that the show was cancelled for such stupidities on the network’s part. The show is essentially a parody of all the other cop shows of the times, making fun of the obvious cliches and gimmicks that are used in those shows. A number of these gags would eventually be recycled in the later Naked Gun flicks, but that sort of adds to the enjoyment of the show. So yeah, you do have to watch the show to appreciate what it has to offer.

Although the show only lasted six episodes, it’s still a good way to kill three hours. Chances are if you liked the Naked Gun flicks and never got the chance to see the show that inspired it, you’ll probably like Police Squad too. The DVD extras aren’t all that special, but they’re serviceable and not necessary worthless. Recommended.

Because we needed another Austin retrospective set…

The Legacy Of Stone Cold Steve Austin is a 3-disc DVD set (also available on Blu-Ray) that once again spotlights one of the biggest names in WWE, but this one is different because it’s mostly a compilation of matches with some occasional interview bits from Steve Austin himself. So it’s less a documentary and more a collection of some of Austin’s best matches. Not only his WWF stuff, but also some of his WCW and ECW stuff.

Continue reading “DVD Review – The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin (3-Disc Set)”