NintendoLife’s 50 Years Of Influential Games Playable On Switch

Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/feature-50-years-of-landmark-video-games-one-per-year-all-playable-on-nintendo-switch

This past weekend, NintendoLife put out a list of the most influential games over the course of the medium’s 50 year history that are playable on Switch. Basically, they pick out the most influential game of each year and list a way you could play the game on Switch; whether it’s via compilation, re-release, or remake. It’s actually a pretty good read if you have the time and a nice little time capsule on how far we’ve come since the days of Pong and The Oregon Trail.

AEW All Out 2022

Three years ago, All Elite Wrestling was born. And with it came a newfound hope for the wrestling audience who grew tired of the same, tired WWE nonsense that they’ve been watching for years. This new promotion, comprising some new faces along with some familiar ones, would immediately make waves, be the talk of the town, and become somewhat noticeable. So much so when WWE moved their weekly NXT show off the WWE Network and onto USA in an effort to curtail AEW’s new Dynamite show, AEW’s show trounced NXT on a weekly basis, with NXT only scoring a few wins here and there. It seemed like for the first time in years, there was competition on the mainstream level and another choice on the dial for disenchanted wrestling fans who grew tired of WWE to check out.

For three years, AEW was the new hotness.

All of a sudden, Vince McMahon had retired from WWE due to some controversial circumstances and the creative reigns fall upon ol’ McSon-In-Law himself, Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Things start turning around for WWE; ratings slowly start to creep their way upwards, fans are excited about the product, reviews have been positive. All of a sudden, WWE is no longer the tired brand that it had been for years; it was a fresh WWE with gained momentum on its side. Just one night before AEW would hold its fourth annual All Out PPV, WWE held its Clash At The Castle “premium” live event and it turned out to be a banger of a show that I’ve had rather nice things to say about. And that wave of momentum continues to this day, despite the return of Vince to the WWE Board.

For the first time since its inception, AEW no longer felt like the cool kids. They were still putting out good shows, but their booking has been spotty as of late. Rumors of backstage dissention and general unhappiness had run rampant, and Tony Khan looked to be a man on the verge of a mental breakdown. One needs look towards the build to this All Out show, which did not have a featured main event until the week before. As a result – not counting any of the Tony Khan-owned ROH shows and not counting the Forbidden Door PPV, which was a joint thing with New Japan Pro Wrestling – All Out 2022 was the first major AEW PPV that I skipped due to lack of interest, which seemed almost impossible three years earlier.

Then the media scrum happened… and we’ll touch on that in a little bit, but first, the All Out PPV, which I was able to watch recently and… let’s continue.

Continue reading “AEW All Out 2022”

No, I Still Have Not Watched Andor…

So a week or so ago, I re-activated my old Ask.fm account – Ask.fm being a place where people ask questions and you’d supply answers. I’d figure that would be a nice way of inviting more questions for the Q&A segments of the DTM-Cast that I need to start up again. Anyway, almost immediately, I’ve been bombarded with two types of questions. One type involves anything involving sex and relationships – those get tossed almost immediately. Another type involve random questions involving random things; these I will pick and choose to answer while others I will toss.

And then there’s one other person who drops in every day and asks the same question over and over and over again. The question in question: “Have you watched Andor yet? It’s a good show”

I have no idea why I’m being asked this question. The only assumption I could surmise is that someone really wants me to watch that Andor show that’s a prequel to Rogue One – you know, the movie where everyone dies at the end; sorry if I spoiled the movie for everyone. I have not seen the show nor do I have any interest in the show. Asking me to get invested in a character that’s going to die in the end for a whole miniseries seems like a big ask and Rogue One wasn’t a movie where I was big into the characters.

And so for anyone wondering, no, I have not watched Andor. I have no intention of watching Andor any time soon. I’m not going to say that I’m never going to watch it because, you know, some days will leave you with plenty of time to spare, but at the moment, not interested. Maybe next time.

Old Men Take Command Of Starship… Does Not End Well

So, in our latest episode of Star Trek: Picard, my new favorite character in all of Star Trek, Captain Liam Shaw, is incapacitated by the enemy bird ship and transfer command over to Captain Riker, who subsequently takes in retired admiral Picard as his first officer. This disappoints me greatly because Shaw is genuinely one of the better characters on this show and he deservers better than to be written off in such a fashion. However, he does get to contribute one tidbit to the overall plot.

Continue reading “Old Men Take Command Of Starship… Does Not End Well”

Discovery Comes To An End In 2024

Source: https://blog.trekcore.com/2023/03/star-trek-discovery-to-end-with-season-five-in-2024/

Coming early 2024 is the fifth – and final – season of Star Trek: Discovery, the series that pretty much kickstarted this current era of Star Trek series and has been through a number of incarnations of its own. From Klingon Wars to Red Angels to 32nd century burns to DMA things or thongs or whatever, Discovery has undergone various changes along the way, but it’s coming to an end.

I dropped off the Discovery ride midway through the third season and never really jumped back. Even before then, it was a series that I’ve always had mixed feelings about. So while I’m not going to be sad by its run coming to an end, it does surprise me. And maybe there is a bit of concern if it’s the only one that’s going to get the ax.

It’s not secret that the various streaming services have been struggling. Paramount has made some streaming cuts to try and save some money. One wonders if an option being pursued is cutting down on the Trek shows since those tend to be on the pricey side of things. Maybe I’m overthinking things, but it does give some food for thought.

In any event, Star Trek: Discovery airs its final season in 2024. All the best to the cast and crew who had made that show possible.

AEW Dynamite (March 1st, 2023): So Cold That Montreal Winter Feels Like Ghost Peppers

Yeah, we’re going there.

So three things of note to place on this show. Jon Moxley cut a great promo hyping his Texas Death Match with Hangman Page, Hangman Page returned the favor with a great promo of his own despite the less than stellar mic quality, Christian Cage cut a superb promo challenging Jungle Jack Boy Perry to what he calls a “fight” – which is followed by Jungle Boy digging Cage’s grave; them fightin’ grave diggin’ – and the show closed with Bryan Danielson, with only four minutes to spare, cutting a great promo trying to sell people on the idea of a 60-minute Ironman match with MJF, even going so far as to not let Max get a word in and even threatening to kick his fucking head in, which causes the crowd to chant that very thing.

Beyond that, the rest of the show was a chore to sit through. The Battle Of The Cassidies – Orange vs. Bill – was a good opening match, but then you had the Ladder Match that saw a ladder break and half a dozen refs holding the thing up so that Powerhouse Hobbs can grab the inflatable brass ring to earn a TNT title shot next week. And then there was the tag-team battle royale, which was more like a tag-team Royal Rumble than the traditional Casino format that they usually employ. And that match was won by the team of Orange Cassidy and Danhausen.

Well, the good news is that Orange Cassidy is getting a PPV payday. The bad news is so is Danhausen.

Oh yes, there is a PPV from AEW this weekend. Despite the fact that I’ve had two posts mention said PPV – both were written some time ago – I had almost forgotten about it because this company has been cold for a while and this PPV has maybe one match (Hangman/Mox) that I’d actually want to see while the rest of the card seems like it was tossed together at the last minute. Even the 60-minute Ironman match for the World title comes across as something that has you asking, “Who would actually want this?”

I’m not one of those doomsayers that declare AEW dead every time they have a bad show, but I will say that the TV has gotten so cold that every time I take a whiff of that cold Montreal winter breeze, it feels like I’m taking three of those fucking One Chip Challenges. Sitting through this show was like sitting through a bad episode of RAW and that is NOT a feeling you should be aiming to replicate under ANY circumstances.

Yeah, not a great show on its own and not a successful push for the PPV despite a couple great promos. Looks like this is another PPV I’ll be skipping out on for the time being. Maybe ol’ TK should his company a favor and let someone else have the book for a while so he could focus on his Rot Of Honor promotion that he’s desperately trying to make people care about.

State Of The Blog – March 2023

Quick little update for the month and that’s about it.

First off, video reviews will uploaded every Tuesday and Friday for the next month. Nothing major planned on the horizon, though I’m hoping for something special to come up towards the tail end of the month. Won’t say anything until we get there, however.

PPV Musings will be posted every Wednesday, as per usually the case. This month, I’ll be covering the AEW PPVs I missed out on last year before eventually tackling this weekend’s Revolution PPV. If I end up watching an weekly show, I should have some thoughts on it a day or two later.

In case anyone cares, no, I will not be watching Ring Of Honor. Not that there was much interest beforehand, but to stick the show behind the paywall gives me even less incentive to pursue that show.

I want to try and get a Sunday Gimmick Table out this month. This one’s going to be a different beast from the usual format, because it also features archival footage that you probably haven’t seen before unless you’ve been around these parts since the dawn of time. I’d recommend lowering your expectations, otherwise.

Got a couple addition bits in the works. Might not be up this month, but could be up next month. I am hoping to expand the palette so that it goes beyond just gaming and rasslin, which seems to be the rut this thing is stuck with.

There will be a DTM-Cast at the end of the month and it’ll open with the long-awaited (not really) Q&A. I may also continue my thoughts on the Picard series going on now and by the time we reach the halfway point, I might turn that into a post you can read.

Other stuff might pop up… key word being might.

AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door (June 2022 PPV)

First off, hope you all had a fine holiday and new year. Second off, I want to give a quick thanks to my old buddy who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, for he was able to put together a sweet little DVD package allowing me to watch the last three AEW PPVs that I missed out on last year, including Full Gear, Forbidden Door, and the highly controversial All Out PPV.

So we’ll be covering these PPVs for the next couple weeks, starting with the AEW/New Japan crossover show, Forbidden Door; which took place a few weeks after AEW’s Double Or Nothing PPV. I wasn’t exactly sold on the concept, plus key people I would’ve liked to have seen on the show were out with injuries, and so my interest waned and I skipped out on the show. It turned out to be the first AEW show that I had missed, though it wouldn’t be the last.

Now that I’ve seen the show, did I miss out or not? Let’s find out.

Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki defeated Eddie Kingston, Shota Umino & Wheeler Yuta in a tremendous opening six-man contest.
ROH Tag Champions  FTR defeated IWPG Tag Champions Great O-Khan & Jeff Robb and Roppongi Vice in a Winners Take All 3-way to retain their ROH titles as well as win the IWGP titles, thus beginning a long, long, long, long, long, long, LONG road to FTR going after the AEW titles so they can hold them all. I think they are still waiting for their shots as we speak.
Pac defeated Miro, Malakai Black, & New Japan guy Clark Connors to win the inaugural AEW All-Atlantic International World Western States Heritage championship in a four-way match. Someone else from New Japan was supposed to be here, but he got injured and they slapped in Clark Connors in there. Honestly, they should’ve stuck with a three-way between the AEW guys, but someone had to take the fall and poor Clark was our victim de match.
Sting, Darby Allin & Shingo Takagi defeated The Young Bucks & El Phantasmo in a fun six-man that featured Sting doing a dive off the entrance stage on top of the bucks and that other guy.
AEW Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa defeated Toni Storm to retain the title. We needed a women’s match and New Japan didn’t have a proper women’s division (does STARDOM count? Honest question) so we got this, which looks so out of place that it stands out automatically, which is incredible. The match itself was a thing that happened. Nothing particularly noteworthy.
IWGP United States Champion Will Ospreay defeated Orange Cassidy in a pretty good match to retain the title. This is followed by a beatdown from Ospreay’s mates.
The debuting Claudio Castagnoli defeated New Japan’s Zack Sabre Jr in a good match. This was supposed to be Danielson, but he was hurt, so we got Claudio. Good pop for Claudio.
IWGP World Champion Jay White defeated Adam Cole, Hangman Page, and Kazuchika Okada to retain the title in a four way.
 Jon Moxley defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the AEW Interim World Championship – a.k.a. I’m keeping the belt warm until reigning champ CM Punk comes back so that I can kick his ass on a random episode of Dynamite.
Forbidden Door had great wrestling and was a good showcase of some New Japan guys to the AEW audience who normally wouldn’t watch that stuff – though the crossover is obviously there. This was a show that if all you wanted was great wrestling and a chance to see some New Japan guys outside of New Japan, then this was the show for you. But watching this months after the fact, I never felt that I missed out on anything more than some great wrestling. Despite the hype and the crossover, this didn’t feel like a big deal. It was, for all intents and purposes, an AEW B-Show PPV event similar to the old Fyter Fest and Fight For The Fallen shows from 2019, except those were free.
That said, if they do another one of these next years, maybe I’ll be more inclined to watch it then, but it depends on the context and the matches offered… and no more of this interim garbage, okay?