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Another Wrestling Podcast - Episode 3

Here is episode 3:

http://www.mediafire.com/?6bl38zwt8t56bx5

Enjoy!

TNA Slammiversary 2011 - predictions

TNA has been pretty horrible of late... the whole network angle was so dumb that Mick Foley left the company FOR REAL. We're basically at the same point in the 'they' angle that we were in October of last year. Hogan and Bischoff are in charge, and it's like watching WCW. Anyway, here are my predictions for the PPV.

* World Title Match: Sting © vs. Mr. Anderson

This match will be awful - the build-up has sucked and Mr Anderson is terrible. Both guys lost to undercard wrestlers - Anderson to EY, and Sting to Gunner. I was glad to see EY get a win, but this basically means that we know that both guys in the match are undeserving of the title.
Sting to win.

* #1 Contender's Match (Kurt Angle's Olympic Medals On The Line): Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle

Match of the night. Looking forward to this... hopefully it will be free from bullshit... I'm not sure why a normal match is the blow-off match for a feud, but I'm just looking forward to the in-ring stuff... I lost interest in a lot of the story-lines in TNA quite a few months back.
Angle to win

* Tag Team Title Match: British Invasion vs. James Storm and Alex Shelley ©

I like the British Invasion, but they haven't been on TNA for ages. Why are they number on contenders? Why not. It seems that Shelley and Storm are together in a tag team because Roode is 'injured'. And what is the name of this new team? Why, Gun Money of course... because JAMES STORM'S GIMMICK IS THAT HE'S A MONEY GUY... Such lazy writing it's not even funny. As for the finish? I smell bullshit, a swerve, something horrible... in-ring should be fun, though.
Brits to win

* Last Man Standing Match: Bully Ray vs. AJ Styles

I'm looking forward to seeing Bubba get his face kicked off by AJ.
AJ to win.


* Knockouts Title Match: Angelina Love vs. Mickie James ©
A drugged-up zombie in a championship match? TNA should have learnt from their mistakes with Hardy/Sting...
MJ to win.

* TNA X-Division Title Match: Abyss © vs. Kazarian vs. Kendrick
I hate this angle so much, it's not even funny.
Abyss will retain.

* Crimson vs. Samoa Joe
Poor Joe, jobbing to Crimson. This match needs to be short and sweet, otherwise it's going to suck.
Goldberg will win.

* Matt Morgan vs. Scott Steiner
A throwaway match that's going to be dull.
Steiner to win.

Fallout: New Vegas - Where to fucking start?

I've fallen for the same trap and been burned twice now.

The first time was Bioshock 2. New Vegas is the second.

The trap is quite ingenious, and it works like this:

1. Development Studio X makes a great game.
2. Development Studio X farms out the sequel to a shitty, lazy, talentles bunch of arseholes.
3. I buy the sequel, not realising it's not made by the same people, thinking it will be as good as, or better than, the original.
4. I rage.

The only way not to end up buying this crap is to become one of those people who know what developers make what games, the names of different programmers...a total fucking nerd, in other words. It's lose/lose.

Still, I wasn't burned as badly as those poor sods who like Final Fantasy XI (the online one) who went out and bought Final Fantasy XIV (the other online one). They didn't just farm it out to a shitty company, they farmed it out to a shitty Chinese company...and ended up with Chocobos being referred to as 'Horsebirds' in the actual release version. If that was the only problem with the game, it wouldn't be so bad, but...just watch.



Sadly, the nicest thing I can say about New Vegas is it's not quite as bad as FFXIV.

First off, the storyline is rubbish. Like, fanfic bad. If you don't want it spoilered, skip to the next couple of paragraphs, otherwise here goes. You're a courier who is robbed, shot, and left for dead. You're rescued, and follow the guy that killed you, and get your package back. The package is a chip that contains what is essentially a driver update for an army of robots. You are given control of the robot army for no apparent reason. You install the update and take over the region during a battle between two factions who were also vying for control of the area.

Think about how fucking stupid that is. Someone designs and mass-produces an army of killer machines, but doesn't bother installing the software that makes their primary fucking weapons work? That's like a story where someone makes a load of tanks, but doesn't bother putting the turrets on. Absolute arse. And why are you put in charge of them? There's no reason. They might as well just say "Oh, you're the main character...I guess that means you're in charge, eh?"

Ok, spoilers over, you can start reading again...

Considering this was written by professionals - whose sole responsibility is writing an interesting and engaging storyline - it's an insult. It's the AAA equivalent of Halflife: Fulllife Consequences.

The characters, too, are awful. There are exactly four interesting characters in the game. Three are machines, and the other is batshit crazy. I'm sure the Obsidian apologists will froth at the mouth over that statement, but bear this in mind: You know exactly which four characters I'm talking about. Every other character has congealed in my mind into an amorphous blob of dull, charmless dialogue, plastic faces, and nondescript outfits. The only real exception is the guy that shot you - and he's only memorable because you can shoot him in the head seven times with a rifle and he won't die, despite the fact that his entire set of armour consists of...a suit. Character wise, he's just as boring as the rest of the losers in the Mojave. Why does he have so many hitpoints? It's never explained.

Speaking of shooting, the gunplay outside of VATS is as bad as it was in Fallout 3, which is to say it's terrible. But at least in Fallout 3, the perk Grim Reaper's Sprint meant you could basically use VATS an infinite amount, and never had to use FPS mode - not so in New Vegas. Sprint was nerfed and is now largely pointless, forcing you to aim manually in many encounters...but the engine just isn't up to it.

The environments are dull, most of the game takes place in the Mojave Wasteland which is about as interesting as it sounds. It's just a flat expanse of brown, with barely anything going on in between the places you're forced to go as part of the storyline. They seem to have used many of the Fallout 3 tilesets, there's nothing interesting or well designed to look at. Oh wait, I take that back - in one of the towns there's a gift shop inside a fake dinosaur. So, there's one interesting thing to look at...in a 40+ hour game.

Interiors are also bad...from tiny shacks with no content, to empty, lifeless casinos, you spend most of the game wondering where the hell everyone is. In one casino, I counted seven members of staff, but only 3 customers...how can they afford to pay their wages, let alone their other overheads? Never explained.

Vegas itself is also extremely poor. Insultingly poor. It's tiny. I counted, for the sake of this article, how long it took me to run from one side of Vegas to the other...54 seconds. Three tiny zones separated by loading screens. Even Morrowind and Oblivion had bigger towns than this, I'm baffled as to why they named the game after this one tiny area. Although, in fairness, 'Fallout: Lazy Cash-in' doesn't have the same ring to it. I was actually looking forward to seeing Vegas, but the only way I can describe it is 'a massive letdown'.

Another problem is unfinished interiors. On my travels, I happened across some giant ants outside a barn. I killed them, and decided to investigate the barn...turns out it was the entrance to an area called Ant Mound. I went inside, assuming I'd be fighting hordes of ants...but no. I spent a few minutes walking down empty caverns, only to find two ants in the final room - a Queen and a Soldier. They'd clearly built this zone and intended to fill it with enemies, and then simply not bothered to place any except the boss and a solitary guard. Nearby, I found a building with about half a dozen giant ants inside - more than in an area actually called Ant Mound.

Now, that building was interesting in itself...it was full of giant ants, but all the doors were closed...and giant ants can't open doors. So, how the hell did they get there? Did someone lure individual giant ants inside a building, and then shut the doors behind them, trapping them in? And to what end? It's never explained...like most of the nonsensical bullshit in New Vegas.

As we're coming to the end of the writeup, let's talk about the end of the level. You're thrown into a battle between two of the main factions...except when I played, I was friendly with both factions, yet one of them started arbitrarily shooting at me anyway. There's a long, dull battle on a dam, followed by one of the worst boss fights I've seen in a long time. You're fighting a guy who has about as many hitpoints as the guy at the end of Operation Anchorage, except this time he spawns about a dozen bodyguards who come after you exclusively. Out of nowhere. I specifically cleared the area before I attacked the boss, but the game had other ideas. It basically boils down to a war of attrition; a race to see which you run out of first, enemies or health packs. It's utterly dull, since you're fighting waves of the exact same guy over and over again.

To top it off, seconds after you finish the last of the fuckers...your robot army shows up. I could have put my (virtual) feet up, had a nice (virtual) cup of tea, and the problem would have sorted itself out. I put myself through that abject tedium for no productive reason whatsoever.

Not to mention the fact that the best weapons in the game are only found in the last level, which you can't exit once you've entered...so you can only use all the best crap for about 40 minutes on a shitty map.

The only thing this piece of trash has going for it is VATS, and even that seems like a bit of a step backward compared to Fallout 3...they seem to have altered the way action points work, so you spend a lot more time unable to aim because you a) can't use VATS, b) the controls are shite. That may be my memory playing tricks, mind.

How this game ever got released is a mystery. I can only see two ways that anyone thought this was a product worth releasing: 1) During the entire development cycle, at no point did anyone actually sit down and play this game from start to finish 2) They just don't give a fuck. My money's on both.

(I hope you noticed the fact that I never mentioned the bugs, game-breaking as they were...this game doesn't fall down because it was badly made and shipped buggy and unfinished, it's shite anyway)

Socko likes to post videos at the end of the articles, but this sack of cack doesn't deserve one...so here's a music video featuring a decent game instead:

My favourite games

I was sent a thing on Facebook which got me thinking about my favourite video games. This is by no means a definitive list, and is probably more of a reflection of my mood at this particular moment than anything else. It is also not objective (there are a number of games which I'm sure you think are better, but this is my list... make your own in the comments section).

Anyway, here is my definitive list of games that mean the most to me when I think of games which mean the most to me at this particular time:


Chrono Trigger (SNES) - I'm a big fan of Final Fantasy games, but Chrono Trigger beats all FF games in my opinion. This game pushed the SNES to its limits - it looked amazing, it played beautifully, its gameplay and story were innovative and so much about this game has stuck with me. Chrono Trigger is my benchmark for deciding whether a game is any good - if it comes close, then I know it is a good game. I do the same thing with music, I listen to a song or album and think to myself "is this anywhere near as good as Jimi Hendrix live at Filmore East in December 1969, if it's not anywhere near as good I tend not to bother.





Micro Machines 3 (PS1) -In particular, the level Brake Fast Bends. I must have played this level hundreds of times on multiplayer mode. The level is short and perfect for competition. You could go round the track for an hour without a winner, with the victor only being decided when the other person lost his or her nerve or made the tiniest mistake. There is a real spiritual, Zen-like element to this game which most people won't realise.



Super Mario 3 (NES) - this game is perfect. I must have played this game through more times than I can remember, and each time I play it, it fills me with a real sense of joy. In terms of mechanics and gameplay, the game is flawless. But alongside this the game is witty andfull of suprises. It may not look as slick as the multitude of games being released today, but if today's games had half the playability of Mario 3, it's doubtful that I'd be married.



Fallout 3 (Xbox360) - If you've not played Fallout 3, then you are in for a treat. One of the deepest, most satirical and darkest games I've ever played, this game takes immersion to a level I've never experienced in a game before. It is not for twitchy gamers who see the FPS genre as the be-all-and-end-all of gaming. I think the sign of a good game is one which you can discuss fondly with people over a pint... and I've done this, on a few occassions... and heard about vast sections of the game I hadn't even come across. I love Fallout 3 because it reward patience and curiousity, and VATS is awesome... and because the owls are the hootiest.



Grand Theft Auto (PC) - I'm a bit old school when it comes to games. I never really got into GTA IV the way I did Vice City, and I never got into Vice City the way I got into the original top-down Grand Theft Auto. The original GTA made robbing and killing seem almost charming and daft. The game had a lot of humour and charm, the colour pallette was brighter, and damn it, the game was faster-paced and funner (shut up, funner's a word now).



Disgaea (PS2) - This little-known turn-based strategy-RPG is possibly more addictive than crack mixed with Pringles. If you were to watch someone play this game, you'd probably fall asleep in your own waste, but playing it is just brilliant. It's kind of like a complex version of chess, in which the characters evolve and develop... it also has a quirky Japanese humour running through... you might not think it's the most engaging game you've ever played, but then you notice that you have clocked up few hundred hours...



Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past (SNES) - I know that Ocarina of Time is a better game, it is. Link to the Past is the game I got with my SNES so it will always occupy a special place in my heart. Nostalgia aside, Link to the Past is still an amazing game, and judging by all of the proceeding Zelda games which have followed, it has also become the template for them (see Minish Cap on GBA for definitive proof!).



Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES) - My preference for this particular version is due to fact that this is version I had on my SNES. I had Super Street Figher II, but it never felt quite right. Although Street Fighter IV is a much better game (arguably one of the best fighting games of all time), I've gone back to SF2 Turbo again and again for almost 2 decades. That's a pretty good sign of quality, if you ask me.



Mario Kart Double Dash (Gamecube) - Mario Kart is gameplay heaven, especially in multi-player. This is a game which I've owned every version of (SNES/GBA/N64/DS/GC, not Wii, because I'm not 8), and love each version in its own way. The SNES version will always have that nostalgic thing for me, I played Ghost Valley I with my friend Kieren countless times as a teenager (the Brake Fast Bends effect), and the DS version seems to bring together the best elements of all the Mario Karts in what is technically the ultimate version. But Double Dash is a game I've played with Claire and my friends coutless times. Whether its the ambiguity of what or who a Daisy Cruiser is, or just going mental in Baby Park, this game has ended up being dug out during countless drinking sessions.




Braid (Xbox360) - I would urge anyone who has not played this game to stop being stupid and get yourself a copy. From the outset, this game looks pretty dated. It looks like a bog-standard 2D playform game, and on first play doesn't seem that interesting. But after a short time, something clicks and you realise that this might be the most innovative game of the last decade (if you see the manipulation of space and time as innovative). The game is complex and rewarding, it's a bitch at times and makes no concessions to the player. This was the first game I've ever played where I found it useful to stick post-it notes all over my TV screen while playing it, I'm not kidding... If you're idea of a good video game experience is waggling a remote control to make a balloon inflate, I'm not conviced this will be the game for you.



Bust-a-Groove (PS1) - my final official selection is Bust-a-Groove. Before music games had to have arrows for your feet or little toy guitars, there were two titles which defined the rhythm game genre (at least for me they did): Parappa the Rapper and Bust-a-Groove. Although Parapper the Rapper had better game mechanics, Bust-a-Groove was a much better gaming experience. Shorty and the EZ Mouse, a giant voguing robot, Capoera aliens and Kitty N gave this game oodles of charm. I've not played the game in years, but I can still hear the songs in my head... "I would never ever run away..." "I'm the natural playboy in town..." "very very very very very very goood..." "Everything is fine with me, if I'm with my EZ mouse..." I'm still not sure what a Bugger Dog is though....

Gaming in Asia

As some of you may know from Socko's Pro Wrestling Review, I'm currently living in Taiwan. Since I don't have anything new to say this week (it's tough to finish a game when you're playing 6 or 7 of them at once, and one of them is Final Fantasy...) I thought I'd do a repost from my personal blog on the local gaming culture.



These are just my personal observations from my time in Thailand, Taiwan and Malaysia.

I went looking for a videogame store in the 'big town' nearby, and was surprised to find that there isn't one. The town has a Subway, a McDonalds and a KFC, dozens of clothes stores, several DVD stores and bookshops - but no videogame stores. Back home, there would definitely be a Game in a town that size, maybe even a HMV, a Blockbusters etc, and buying games would be no problem, but in Taiwan there is nothing to be found.

The whole gaming culture is different here. The PC is the platform of choice, and people play mainly free to play MMOs or Counterstrike, or CS clones.

The main reason for this is one of economics. In an internet cafe, an hour is roughly $20 (40p). Or, at my local one, you can pay $100 (£2) for a 9-hour session. I'm not going to lie and pretend I've never done a 9-hour game session before, but I've rarely planned to do so in advance. The fact that enough people plan to do this ahead of time that they have special deals for them seems very weird - a little worrying, even.

Compare the cost of a 9 hour game session to a new PS3 game. Heavy Rain (which I still haven't played, dammit) is going for roughly $1,500 (£30). In order to get the same number of hours out of the game as compared to dropping $1,500 in an internet cafe, the game would need to be 135 hours long. Most games are 8 - 12 hours long, even exceptionally long games like Final Fantasy are only 50-70 hours. It's just not economical to play console games compared to going to the internet cafe (and that's without considering the cost of the hardware).

People are also a lot more tolerant of f2p (free to play) games here. In the west, most people tend to turn their noses up at MMOs. Most MMO gamers are playing WOW, as well as a sizeable migrant population that goes from new game to new game every few months, as well as a few die-hard fans of games most people have either never heard of or forgotten about. F2p games are only really played regularly by kids, who can't afford to pay for a subscription based game each month. But when the kids grow up and can afford the fees, they will graduate to pay to play. This is mainly down to production values - P2P games have much higher budgets and are far more polished than F2P, which is important in the west - less so in Asia, it seems.

Also, in Asia they are a lot more tolerant of grinding. This is a cultural thing, children here are schooled using the Confucian system where things are learned by repetition...they say the same thing over and over again until it sticks in their head. In the west, of course, we use the Platonic(?) system of writing everything down to remember it, and asking questions when we don't understand something, with comparatively little repetition. So, grinding the same mobs for nine hours is much less of a turn-off for Asian gamers than it is for Westerners. MMOs are notoriously grindy (hell, the word 'grind' comes from the MMO world...), and F2P games are even more so, which puts off a lot of gamers in the west but isn't an issue here.

That's not to say that consoles are non-existent here, in the cities there are games stores that seem pretty similar to their UK counterparts. Ok, they're a lot less dingy and the customers don't look like horrific social rejects, and they're usually well-lit...but apart from that they're basically the same. But console gaming is far less of a big deal, don't expect a small town to have the same kind of console game availability as a similar sized town in the West.

Top 10 animated comedies of all time (that you probably haven’t seen). Number 8: Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Okay, so technically Space Ghost Coast to Coast isn’t exactly an animated comedy – I suppose it could be better described as an animated chat show with real guests... who appear on monitors... in space... and are interviewed by a superhero and some aliens. If you’re not American, the chances are that you never saw Space Ghost and his chums confound and confuse their celebrity guests. But it was the supporting cast of Moltar (an evil director) and Lokar (a mantis with designs on taking over the universe). It all sounds very stupid, but that doesn’t come close. The show was chaotic, made little sense and was great late-night with a smoke entertainment. Check out some of these clips and you’ll see what I mean.