The Lost Musings

RAW (August 3rd, 2009) – Ban The Hangover

(2022 Update: Gather round, kids. The long lost RAW musings on what may be one of the worst episodes of Monday Night RAW ever conceived and think about how many dull and terrible episodes of RAW you’ve seen over the years to be worthy of THAT lofty accolade. I wasn’t even remotely aware that I had this originally, but there you go.)

So a couple days ago, I sat through one of the worst episodes of RAW that I’ve seen in a long time. Oh, don’t get me wrong. There have been some really bad RAW shows at times and sometimes, WWE likes to push the envelope on how bad their booking is, but this was really bad. Unbelievably bad. As in “who writes this stuff and why are they allowed to live” bad, if I may pull an Ashens.

So they got a couple new stars from that Hangover movie that I’m never going to watch because it looks stupid. Jeremy Niven and Dr. Ken, I think their names were. They were fucking awful. You know those guys who try so hard to be funny and they end up being the most annoying and unfunny part of the show to such a degree they take the whole show down by their mere existence within it? That is these two assclowns. They were annoying. They were not funny. The Dr. Ken guy, in particular, makes Jar Jar Binks sedate by comparison. They were awful. I did not even any satisfaction from John Cena beating these guys up at the end (after he beat Miz to banish him from the Summerfest, whatever that is).

If this is what we got to look forward to in the future when it comes to these guest GMs or whatever they’re called, this is going to be a long and hard road ahead.

Meanwhile, Hunter gets beat up by Cody and Ted Jr… he shrugs it off and decides to bring back DX… except when he calls Shawn, Shawn is busy with a job. This sort of limp dick humor is not lost… nor is it all that funny… and DX is usually better at the cheap laughs. Also, Big Show gets DQ’ed in a match with Kofi for punching him too many times or something. Chavo gets killed by Mark Henry in the eternal struggle between himself and a short fellow.

This took me a couple days to process and chances are I may never recover from some tripe. This show was terrible, I’m never going to watch it again… is what I would be saying if I wasn’t already watching this tripe on a regular basis, so… see you next week, I guess.

Did I mention that this show sucked?

Mega Review #1: Mega Man (NES)

(2020 Update: So, in what seems like a really random spur of the moment idea, I’d figure it’d be interesting to repost some older writings from the old DTM Blog and expose my less-than-stellar ramblings from ages ago to a modern audience. Part of it has to do with wanting more content. Another part has to do with trying to preserve some of that stuff.

Originally posted on December 8, 2008 and the overall 1064th blog post, this was my initial barebones “review” of the original Mega Man game from 1987; intended to be the first in a series that would’ve eventually covered the mainstream classic series at least, to say nothing of the various sidegames. As I recall, I never got beyond Mega Man 3 in this series before it was eventually and silently abandoned. I’ll eventually get around to posting the other entries down the line.

As it would turn out, it took me a few years to cover all six main Mega Man games on NES, albeit in a different format than this. But that’s another story for another time…)

Released in 1987, the original Mega Man game for the Nintendo Entertainment System was known for its horrible box art. I mean, seriously, if I was a working father back then and my kid wanted this game for his birthday, I’d have his brain transplanted. It’s no secret that the game’s box art was one of the most horrible pieces of art ever made. Never mind the fact it had nothing to do with the actual game, but just as its own independent piece, it makes you want to puke.

Okay… so to be honest, when I saw the box art for this game back when I was a kid in 1991, I had wondered if that’s how Mega Man started off with… around that time there had been three Mega Man games available with number 4 looming ahead. I was still a relative newcomer to Nintendo games, oblivious to all the wonderful franchises out there… but not oblivious that I didn’t know what everything was. I’ve heard of Mega Man, I’ve played Kid Icarus and stumbled across one of those weird passwords, I’ve played through Castlevania 1, 2, and 3. I’ve touched on these more than enough times back then.

But then I look at this and wonder… “Mega Man had a gun? He wore yellow? I thought his hand was a gun?”

Anyway, all the stupid childhood memories aside, several months after that rental, my parents bought the game and I got a look at the funny instruction booklet… which had told the story of Dr. Light (then known as Dr. Wright – not Dr. Right) creating seven robots, Dr. Wily reprogramming six of them, and Mega Man being declared defender of the universe. Yeah, that’s right. DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE. Don’t believe me? Here’s some of the story taken from the original NES manual (faithfully translated by someone else whose link I regretfully forgot):

It’s MEGA MAN versus the powerful leaders and fighting forces of Monsteropolis — that strange multi-faceted land of robot-like Humanoids. Brilliant scientist Dr. Wright conceived the construction of fully-operational human-like experimental robots to perform specific everyday duties. Dr. Wright, and his assistant Dr. Wily, encouraged with their very first near human robot — MEGA MAN — proceeded to develop six additional Humanoids, all programmed to perform prescribed rituals.

But, with the exception of MEGA MAN, all of Dr.Wright’s near-human robot experimentation went awry. Assistant Dr. Wily turned disloyal, re-programming Dr. Wright’s Humanoids, now bent on destroying opposition so Dr. Wily could control the world and its resources.

Resisting re-programming, MEGA MAN is chosen the defender of theuniverse and its inhabitants. MEGA MAN dares to single-handedly penetrate seven separate empires of Monsteropolis, eliminating the leaders and followers of these sovereignties.

Neat-o.

Mega Man is a fairly simple platform game that gives you the option of choosing the order of six initial stages you wish to progress through. Nothing special now, but back in the day, this type of thing was rare for an action game of this style; only RPG or adventure games would feature this kind of open-endness and flexibility. Not only that, but you get their special powers too. Yay.

USELESS TRIVIA: The first boss I ever killed was Fireman. The method was just to shoot and take the heat.

Being as this is the first game in the series, Mega Man has very limited abilities at first. He can run, jump, and shoot. That’s it. It sort of pissed me off when I realized he couldn’t duck, but eventually I got used to it. Once he defeated bosses, he gained their weapons.

Bombman’s weapon is the Hyper Bomb, which is a classic bomb that explodes after a short delay. Doesn’t really do much damage and never saw much use for it because it never blew anything up.

Gutsman’s weapon is the Super Arm, which allows you to pick up blocks and hurl them at enemies. Other than that, you have nothing else. No heavy earthquake landings or anything cool like that… you just pick up blocks when they flash and you chuck them… lame.

Cutman’s weapon is the Rolling Cutter, a scissor boomerang. This weapon is actually kinda useful and it can be used to take out a few enemies at once from the right angle.

Elecman’s weapon is the Thunder Beam, which allows you to shoot electric beams in three directions. This is pretty much the strongest weapon in the game, as far as I know.

Iceman’s weapon is the Ice Slasher, which freezes stuff… and that’s it. Doesn’t do any damage to anyone except Fireman… a damn shame.

Fireman’s weapon is the Fire Storm, which allows you to shoot a fireball… kinda lame considering he shot fire waves. On the other hand, every shot summons a temporary shield which defends against enemies (but not projectiles).

Along the way, you’ll find something called a Magnet Beam, which allows you to create platforms you can climb on before they fade away forever… let’s just say that after playing with this thing, I was more than happy to get something better like a Rush Jet with limited maneuvering abilities.

Once you clear the initial six stages, you get to face off against Dr. Wily… provided you clear three more stages comprising of Yellow Devil rock monsters, Mega Man clones, and those weird things in the bubbles that roam around the room and shoot pellets at you.

Some of these bosses will give you a hard time… in fact, Elec Man and Ice Man are most dangerous considering their attacks can kill you in three hits… that hurts. No other bosses will be that damaging… ever. Don’t even get me started.

USELESS TRIVIA: I never knew about the Pause trick until much, much later… that is to say, when I first stumbled across the Mega Man page or something similar. For the most part, it didn’t really bother me since I never needed the Pause trick to beat the game.

With ten levels total, Mega Man is the shortest of the main titles, but even so, it’s a pretty hard game. None of the later extras can be found here, you have somewhat poorer traction here than you do in the sequels, and perhaps most frightening of all, the spikes will kill you… period. Doesn’t matter if you’re flashing or not. You land on a spike, you die. That simple.

USELESS TRIVIA: The soundtrack kicks ass. Not one lousy tune in this entire game.

So now that I’m done rambling…

Mega Man is worth a try if you want to see where it all started. While it is generally difficult and not that refined, it’s still a decent title and is only a sample of great things to come out of this franchise.

STORY: 6/10

GRAPHICS: 8/10

SOUND: 7/10

GAMEPLAY: 8/10

CHALLENGE: 10/10

OVERALL: 8/10

WWF Buys WCW… And Somehow Loses.

It’s over.

After a long, hard-fought battle, the World Wrestling Federation has outlasted its rival promotion World Championship Wrestling and bought off its remains, putting an end to the storied rivalry in years and giving Vincent K. McMahon the sports entertainment monopoly he’s always wanted.

It was tight in the beginning. WCW Monday Nitro started in 1995 and went head to head with WWF during a time when the show was an hour long and ran a bunch of bad matches and stories featuring largely cartoonish gimmicks.

And then Scott Hall and Kevin Nash jumped ship to WCW, wrecked havoc (in more ways than one), and formed the New World Order with a Hulk Hogan who had gone bad in an effort to change his stale act. And for the first time in a good long while, WCW was on top of the world, beating the WWF in the ratings, pay-per-view buys, and other areas that the geeks would consider important. The WWF struggled, but couldn’t quite nudge.

But WCW proved two things; they had one good idea and most of their top stars were old guys from the WWF’s prime years in the eighties. Eventually, people got tired of the nWo gimmick and clamored for something new… and that something new came from Stone Cold Steve Austin feuding with Vince McMahon. Suddenly, people were hot for WWF again to the point where WCW was suddenly feeling left behind.

In an effort to gain back their dominance, WCW made stupid mistakes. They ended the streak of their hottest star, Goldberg, and went back to the nWo well one time too many. They hired one of the creative minds behind the WWF’s recent run and they ended up with the same stuff that was on the other show, which begs the question why anyone would want to watch second-rate WWF television on the WCW show when they could just watch RAW. They let four talented wrestlers leave for the competition. They brought back the two guys responsible for the company’s woes to try and liven things up again, only to fail miserably and harder than before.

And these are just scratching the service.

Eventually, the heads at Time Warner decided to sell the thing off and then someone else decided to cancel all the WCW shows, leaving Vince to come in and buy his competition. He might not have the shows, but he has the trademarks, the titles, and some of the stars… but not the big guns. No Goldberg, no Steiner, no Jarrett or anyone like that… well, they got DDP… that’s something, I guess, right?

So this is it… WWF is the only show on television right now… and how do they celebrate this big milestone?

They make Shane the new owner of WCW and have Steve Austin turn on the Rock to join forces with Vince McMahon.

The next day, a friend of mine who had been watching wrestling since the 80s was so upset by this turn of events that he swore off wrestling forever. We’ll see if he actually means it… but if that’s the case, then I wonder how many other people would feel the same way. More to the point… how many people who used to watch WCW until the very end – still feels funny saying that – are actually going to make the jump to WWF?

I was not the biggest WCW fan in the world; the old guys and the constant nWo stuff killed it for me… but it was the place for great wrestling. And there used to be this mentality that WWF was more focused on the entertainment aspects while WCW was more about the sport… something that wasn’t readily apparent the first time around when you had a bunch of old guys in the main event.

So two shows with two different styles… and one goes away… does the one show get the other audience or do they go away?

One thing’s for sure; this acquisition could very well make this whole WWF vs. WCW thing a reality… even if it feels half-assed

Revisiting THREE: A New Generation of Street Fighters

I remember going to the local arcade by the shopping mall, looking to see if there was anybody occupying the popular fighters during the day. And there it sat: THREE.

Why they went with THREE on the arcade banner and not Street Fighter III baffled me at the time, but looking back, I realized that the banner was a joke that Capcom went along with.

For years, people have been clamoring for a Street Fighter III and for years, we got anything and everything BUT that elusive game. In that time, there have been many countless jokes made about Capcom being unable to count to three when it comes to its Street Fighter games. The funny thing is that nobody at Capcom had a problem counting up to and beyond 3 when it comes to its Mega Man series. Maybe the problem is with Capcom’s arcade side of things, as now we seem to have a problem counting to 4.

Or maybe this is the last Street Fighter game for a good while… not counting the updates, of course.

I remember popping in a token into the machine, which had seen only a couple people play at most. I’d pick Ryu and then was astounded by the option to choose one of three Super Arts. Prior Street Fighter games and spin-offs gave fighters more than one super that were available at all times, so to restrict players to one out of three seemed like a step backwards, but then again, this was a “new” take on the property.

Other than Ryu and Ken, you have a cast of eight new characters. In a way, I was annoyed because that meant you had no old favorites to fall back on other than Ryu or Ken… but in a way, it actually makes sense. Street Fighter II had only three fighters making a return from Street Fighter I and this third game is supposed to denote a new generation. Shouldn’t there be more new faces to introduce to the pack?

So I play this new game and in a way, it’s familiar territory almost back to basics. Moves works as well as they did in past games, air blocking is gone, air hurricane kick is gone, only one level of super energy, and… wait a minute, why does that girl have three levels of energy and a much smaller meter? What’s going on here? Hold on, they’ve got a meter that shows me how many hits it takes to stun someone? Why would… HOLY SHIT! DID THAT SUPER SHORYUKEN JUST EAT UP HALF THAT GUY’S HEALTH?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

Street Fighter III was the same old Street Fighter game with a new cast of characters, a somewhat more fluid artstyle that was rougher looking and carried more grit than the anime-esque Alpha visuals, and a new parrying mechanic that takes a while to master, but changes the dynamics of the game greatly. And I’ll be honest; I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It was nice to see a different looking Street Fighter game that didn’t just recycle the same Alpha sprites over again and there was a vibe to this one that I kinda dug.

The typical single-player experience gave you six random opponents for you to conquer before facing off against the final boss, Gill; a tall dude with blue and red skin wearing nothing but a loin cloth. This fucker was tough; his moves hit fast and hard, his reaction times were quick, and if he had a full super meter after getting KO’ed, he’d spring right back to life. Clearly, this guy was an asshole that was hard as nails… but eventually, he was conquered and a high score was achieved… back when we cared for such things.

And then a year or so later, that SF3 machine was replaced with something else. I don’t remember what, but the game didn’t last long. I never did get to play the 2nd Impact upgrade in arcades, but I did play the Third Strike iteration during my wilderness years. A drastically different experience that no doubt felt like a considerable upgrade… but I’ve always had a fondness for the OG Street Fighter III. It might not have gotten the warmest reception at first glance, but I was just thrilled to get a different Street Fighter that actually felt somewhat different.