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.

WCW Super Slow-Down (Australia House Show)

So World Championship Wrestling has made their long-awaited return to Australia and they’ve gone with the successful formula of young, talented guys in the undercard while the main event comprises two old guys who can’t wrestle a lick worth a damn and has to resort to smoke and mirrors to put on a “compelling” main event.

Yep, sounds like a WCW show to me.

My attention was largely fleeting for this one since this is just background noise for the sake of background noise… but I did watch a good chunk of the show when it was interesting, so you’ll have some thoughts in some places while in other places, I’ll be brief.

Continue reading “WCW Super Slow-Down (Australia House Show)”

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.

So I Spent Some Time Playing The Mega Man Evelenz

And I’ve been making this nasty habit of playing through the levels without making much use of the new Double Gear system that’s supposed to help out. Turns out that the levels are entirely playable without ever having to rely on the Double Gear system to help in a crutch. Note that entirely playable doesn’t necessarily mean easy peasy; some split-second timing and memorization of certain patterns, such as the laser traps of Fuse Man’s stage, are essential to conquering these challenges barebones.

About the only real use I’ve found for Double Gear is in offensive capabilities, as the gear can power up your master weapons much like Mega Man X’s arm upgrades… and speaking of which, a Gear-Powered Charge Shot lets you shoot two in a row much like in X2. There’s actually a few neat little touches here and there that are somewhat subtle callbacks to past Mega titles and those in the know will get a little more out of it, I think.

As I’m playing this newest Mega Man game in the wee hours of the night, learning and relearning some of the bits and bobs that makes this newest game tick, a sudden realization dawned on me… I’m eventually going to have to play that other game… you know, the “better than nothing” game.

Welp.