Wednesday, January 14, 2009
-Hey YO! Christmas break is over, and it's back to class, for my final semester of college, and now that I think about it, I've been running this blog well before I started college, and I can't believe it's lasted throughout my entire four year journey. My final class load consists of Civil Liberties, American Minorities and Class Voice. Yes, I'm actually taking a singing class. It's only a four person class, and going in with very little singing experience definitely had me going in a nervous, but it's the same great instructor I had for Music History class a few semesters back, so it's not as overwhelming as I thought.
-I am saddened to see another great videogame print publication shut down with the announcement last week that Electronic Gaming Monthly will no longer be in publication with the Hearst/UGO buyout of 1up and EGM. Ironically enough, my EGM subscription was about to run up within a couple of months. At least they plan on keeping 1up going as I have enjoyed several of their podcasts over their years (1up Yours, Retronauts & Sports Anomaly were among my favorites), though it was equally crushing to hear UGO immediately layoff many of the popular 1up/EGM personalities the same day of the buyout.
As far as my own personal memories of EGM, I hate to admit it, but I never personally read it religiously to a T in its glory years for most of the 90s into the early part of this century. When I asked my parents to get me a subscription to my first videogame magazine back when I was around 11 or 12 I got Game Players for a year, and then Nintendo Power for a few years after that, and those were my gaming bibles growing up. I picked up an occasional issue of EGM here and there at the local grocery store newsstand growing up, as a matter of fact I still posses their 100th issue, which contains an amazing feature of, you guessed it, the 100 greatest games of all time (as a matter of fact, there is currently a cool feature at Die Hard Gamer re-evaluating EGM's popular 100 list and see how they stand the test of time today. I specifically recall receiving that issue from a classmate in 9th grade, as he was flipping through it, and after he let me skim over it for a few minutes he just gave it to me. I was shocked as it was their 100th issue, and to me that was a big deal to just give that away. I vividly recall reading every detail about each and every single entry, and still being surprised at Tetris getting the nod as the greatest game of all time over perennial favorites such as past Marios, Zeldas, Metroids, Final Fantasy's and more.
I did end up finally subscribing to EGM for a couple of times during the past three to four years. Even though the magazine seemed a shell of its former self by that point, and I pondered if the magazine could get any thinner with each subsequent issue, there was still some quality content in there. I'm probably in the minority in being that I wasn't a fan with the way they changed their review scoring system last year, but it was a bold move that made them stand out from the rest of the publications, and I always admired that they didn't hold anything back and had no fear for repercussions from game publishers for giving games poor reviews. At least they went out in tradition with a fighting game having the honor of gracing its final cover with Street Fighter IV, which regrettably is only going to be available online since Ziff couldn't gather enough advertising spots to cover publishing costs. EGM, you will be missed!
-Speaking of EGM, just several days after the announcement of EGM closing down, I had one former EGM'r on as a guest host on my podcast. I was very lucky to have the man that wrote under the moniker Sushi-X on, Ken Williams. It was in the works for a few months, as one of our listeners posted on our forums, hosted at vgevo.com, and suggested we do a retrospective on Sonic games, Ken is one of the administrators at VGevo and saw the suggestion and volunteered to come on to lend his Sonic expertise. We were in the middle of the RPG special at the point and Ken was thankfully patient enough to wait until we wrapped that until we focused on the best and worst of Sonic. Pretty happy with how the show turned out, and there was a ton of reminiscing on Sonic through his 16-bit glory days to his suspect recent years. What are you waiting for, sonic boom this show a listen now!
-As for what I've been playing since my last blog. I devoted several hours to Pure. Had a fun time with it for a few days. Probably the best quad-only racing game I have played in some time, but that fun quickly wore out as I spent more time performing the killer tricks to gain more boost, it usually resulted in me wasting time and letting the competition gain their lead. Also got around to putting some time into the original Fable again. I really need to just finish it, I hear it can be beaten in about 8-10 hours and I'm four hours in so far. I lent my copy of Fable II to Scott and told him he can hang onto it until I beat the original in order to motivate me to try and press my way through it.
-Last weekend, Chris, Lyzz and I spent seven hours straight knocking out the Rock Band 2 endless set list. And yes, we did it without pauses so I could unlock the "Bladder of Steel" achievement. Damn you Harmonix and making your achievements so addicting to unlock! Took forever, but it was worth it for the bragging rights! We only did it with two players though and with rotations, so yeah we didn't honorably earn the achievement the hard way, that would be crazy and near impossible. I felt bad for Chris though, turns out he rushed through the sign in process and signed in with a guest account by mistake and didn't receive the achievement on his main Xbox Live profile.
-There's been a bit going on in wrestling land I want to touch on. I finished the WWE Ted Dibiase biography. Seemed a little bit on the short side, Ted had a lot of ground on his early years that was fascinating, such as living with his father dying in the midst of a match, and going to college on a football scholarship whilst also starting wrestling under a mask to protect his identity, and that his Million Dollar Man persona was Vince McMahon's ultimate gimmick that he wanted to see get over. Though once he gets to WWF, which of course I was anticipating the most to see what he thought of his feuds he engaged in over the years, he kind of jumps around a bit, at parts seeming to skip several months up until a year into his career. This is especially apparent when he gets into his manager days. He does touch on a fair amount of key angles and moments with varying degrees of insight, I was just expecting a bit more on what made him a household name. Still a good read, and if you're into your wrestling biographies like I am, I would recommend hunting this down on ebay within a few months when you can probably find it for around $5-10.
-Speaking of old school wrestlers, I got around to finally watching a little bit of WWE 24/7 today. Just saw a pair of matches they had up for On Demand, one was a Harley Race and Hulk Hogan encounter from 1987. This was when Race was in his final stretch of wrestling before settling in as a manager, but Hulkamania was running wild and I had to see what this match delivered. It was surprisingly entertaining, this was back when Hogan had around 9 moves in his repertoire instead of the diminished four or five he stuck to for the better part of this decade. Race still kept up despite his age, and it was actually a pretty intense brawl, and I especially dug the surprise finish which saw Hogan rolling up Race after he missed his trademark diving headbutt.
The other match I caught off 24/7 was Jerry Lawler vs Curt Henning for the AWA title in 1988, initially I thought this was Hennig's last match in AWA where he lost the strap, but instead it was a rematch with Lawler defending that I never knew existed. I went into this match thinking it was going to be a bit too old school for my tastes, but how dare I doubt the perfect one as this was a great mix of an entertaining brawl and technical showcase. I also popped in the bonus disc for my Road Warriors DVD set after borrowing it to Dick and him telling me he was surprised how Hogan brought on a decent brawl when teaming up with a Japanese superstar at the Tokyo Egg Dome to face the Legion of Doom. Hogan indeed fought like a badass using weapons throughout the match and brawls into the crowd. Finally, Dick borrowed me his Ring of Honor Death Before Dishonor VI DVD and recommended me two matches to watch. The El Generico & Steen vs Motor City Machine Gunns and NWA Title match between Brent Albright and Adam Pearce. Both were awesome matches, especially Pearce and Albright.
-Last few things I want to touch in my male soap opera. Jack Swagger won the ECW Title from Matt Hardy this past Tuesday in a good outing, easily the most impressive outing from Swagger so far. I am surprised he shot up through the ranks so fast in ECW, despite its limited roster, within four months. WWE did do some more roster cuts recently, most notably of its latest round is the release of Val Venis, who has been with the company an astounding 11 years since 1998, and hasn't had a relevant role or gimmick since 2004. He's actually been injured and off television for the better part of the last year, and since about 2004 I've been always thinking he's going to get released any day now, but for whatever reason they kept him on and he only made an occasional appearance on RAW to job every two or three months. Hopefully he saved his money from all those years of employment.
-Finally, I'll end this blog with an article I wrote for Robot Panic. I finally got around to seeing a movie I've been wanting to for a while, but a damn limited release has made it a real adventure to find a theater playing it. Anywho, I finally caught The Wrestler, and the following is a review for it for the fine folks at Robot Panic.
-----------
I am a wrestling fan. This is where one would insert a witty remark about oily men rolling around the ring in staged performances. It is what I had to endure over the past decade whenever a person who happened to overhear me and my closed circle of fellow wrestling addicts conversing about the latest episode of RAW or Smackdown. Regardless of how popular wrestling has been, and how it’s been dominating the cable ratings for most of the past 15 years, there will always be that stigma associated with professional wrestling.
Maybe, just maybe some of that public perception will change with the recent motion picture release from director Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler. This film is unlike any wrestling flick before, it isn’t a slapstick comedy like Ready to Rumble or Slammed, instead it’s one of the first films to take a serious look at the business. The Wrestler showcases the many tradeoffs that wrestlers deal with behind the scenes and what they sacrifice their bodies for in the ring, despite how fake one may think the “sport” appears.
The Wrestler tells the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke). Randy was one of the top caliber stars from the 80s who headlined cards in front of sold out crowds of 20,000 in his heyday, but now finds his dwindling broken down body hanging in there in front of merely 200 people at the local Armory. When Randy isn’t swinging steel chairs at his adversaries, he’s picking up extra hours at the local market for his supplemental income.
Randy considers himself and his life to belong in the ring and in front of the fans, but there are a few people he tries to care for in the film. He’s the hit of the trailer park he resides in with the kids, and there’s a fascinating scene with one of the children where they play a fictitious wrestling game for the NES where Randy schools the youngin’ with his own character, while the kid talks about how old the graphics are and how he wishes he was playing Call of Duty 4 instead.
He also cares for and attempts to form a relationship with a stripper by the name of Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Finally, Randy tries to reconnect with his daughter that he abandoned many years ago, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Stephanie’s refusal of accepting her father into her life is reminiscent of the way Jake “The Snake” Roberts fails at trying to be a dad with his estranged daughter in the acclaimed documentary, Beyond the Mat.
The life that Randy lives is comparable to where many wrestlers are today who didn’t save their money and are still competing far past their prime. The Wrestler does a fantastic job at showing the many sufferings Randy goes through to make it another day. The low budget for the film actually works towards its benefit, as the raw gritty feel of the cinematography only exacerbates the painful lifestyle of Robinson. Speaking of The Ram, Mickey Rourke does a superb job at his portrayal of the aging star looking for one more big payday. He nails the part to a T(and has already won a Golden Globe for the performance), you’ll feel for the Ram with every slam he takes in the ring, you’ll echo his heartbreak, hell you may even shed a man tear or two.
Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of professional wrestling, even if you’re one of the aforementioned people who love to give its fans grief for watching, don’t let that hold you back from watching The Wrestler. It tells a great story, and while it may not have the ideal feel-good moment of most flicks, it also shows a side of wrestling which may have you thinking of the sport in a whole new light……or quickly going back to stereotyping it like before.
-I am saddened to see another great videogame print publication shut down with the announcement last week that Electronic Gaming Monthly will no longer be in publication with the Hearst/UGO buyout of 1up and EGM. Ironically enough, my EGM subscription was about to run up within a couple of months. At least they plan on keeping 1up going as I have enjoyed several of their podcasts over their years (1up Yours, Retronauts & Sports Anomaly were among my favorites), though it was equally crushing to hear UGO immediately layoff many of the popular 1up/EGM personalities the same day of the buyout.
As far as my own personal memories of EGM, I hate to admit it, but I never personally read it religiously to a T in its glory years for most of the 90s into the early part of this century. When I asked my parents to get me a subscription to my first videogame magazine back when I was around 11 or 12 I got Game Players for a year, and then Nintendo Power for a few years after that, and those were my gaming bibles growing up. I picked up an occasional issue of EGM here and there at the local grocery store newsstand growing up, as a matter of fact I still posses their 100th issue, which contains an amazing feature of, you guessed it, the 100 greatest games of all time (as a matter of fact, there is currently a cool feature at Die Hard Gamer re-evaluating EGM's popular 100 list and see how they stand the test of time today. I specifically recall receiving that issue from a classmate in 9th grade, as he was flipping through it, and after he let me skim over it for a few minutes he just gave it to me. I was shocked as it was their 100th issue, and to me that was a big deal to just give that away. I vividly recall reading every detail about each and every single entry, and still being surprised at Tetris getting the nod as the greatest game of all time over perennial favorites such as past Marios, Zeldas, Metroids, Final Fantasy's and more.
I did end up finally subscribing to EGM for a couple of times during the past three to four years. Even though the magazine seemed a shell of its former self by that point, and I pondered if the magazine could get any thinner with each subsequent issue, there was still some quality content in there. I'm probably in the minority in being that I wasn't a fan with the way they changed their review scoring system last year, but it was a bold move that made them stand out from the rest of the publications, and I always admired that they didn't hold anything back and had no fear for repercussions from game publishers for giving games poor reviews. At least they went out in tradition with a fighting game having the honor of gracing its final cover with Street Fighter IV, which regrettably is only going to be available online since Ziff couldn't gather enough advertising spots to cover publishing costs. EGM, you will be missed!
-Speaking of EGM, just several days after the announcement of EGM closing down, I had one former EGM'r on as a guest host on my podcast. I was very lucky to have the man that wrote under the moniker Sushi-X on, Ken Williams. It was in the works for a few months, as one of our listeners posted on our forums, hosted at vgevo.com, and suggested we do a retrospective on Sonic games, Ken is one of the administrators at VGevo and saw the suggestion and volunteered to come on to lend his Sonic expertise. We were in the middle of the RPG special at the point and Ken was thankfully patient enough to wait until we wrapped that until we focused on the best and worst of Sonic. Pretty happy with how the show turned out, and there was a ton of reminiscing on Sonic through his 16-bit glory days to his suspect recent years. What are you waiting for, sonic boom this show a listen now!
-As for what I've been playing since my last blog. I devoted several hours to Pure. Had a fun time with it for a few days. Probably the best quad-only racing game I have played in some time, but that fun quickly wore out as I spent more time performing the killer tricks to gain more boost, it usually resulted in me wasting time and letting the competition gain their lead. Also got around to putting some time into the original Fable again. I really need to just finish it, I hear it can be beaten in about 8-10 hours and I'm four hours in so far. I lent my copy of Fable II to Scott and told him he can hang onto it until I beat the original in order to motivate me to try and press my way through it.
-Last weekend, Chris, Lyzz and I spent seven hours straight knocking out the Rock Band 2 endless set list. And yes, we did it without pauses so I could unlock the "Bladder of Steel" achievement. Damn you Harmonix and making your achievements so addicting to unlock! Took forever, but it was worth it for the bragging rights! We only did it with two players though and with rotations, so yeah we didn't honorably earn the achievement the hard way, that would be crazy and near impossible. I felt bad for Chris though, turns out he rushed through the sign in process and signed in with a guest account by mistake and didn't receive the achievement on his main Xbox Live profile.
-There's been a bit going on in wrestling land I want to touch on. I finished the WWE Ted Dibiase biography. Seemed a little bit on the short side, Ted had a lot of ground on his early years that was fascinating, such as living with his father dying in the midst of a match, and going to college on a football scholarship whilst also starting wrestling under a mask to protect his identity, and that his Million Dollar Man persona was Vince McMahon's ultimate gimmick that he wanted to see get over. Though once he gets to WWF, which of course I was anticipating the most to see what he thought of his feuds he engaged in over the years, he kind of jumps around a bit, at parts seeming to skip several months up until a year into his career. This is especially apparent when he gets into his manager days. He does touch on a fair amount of key angles and moments with varying degrees of insight, I was just expecting a bit more on what made him a household name. Still a good read, and if you're into your wrestling biographies like I am, I would recommend hunting this down on ebay within a few months when you can probably find it for around $5-10.
-Speaking of old school wrestlers, I got around to finally watching a little bit of WWE 24/7 today. Just saw a pair of matches they had up for On Demand, one was a Harley Race and Hulk Hogan encounter from 1987. This was when Race was in his final stretch of wrestling before settling in as a manager, but Hulkamania was running wild and I had to see what this match delivered. It was surprisingly entertaining, this was back when Hogan had around 9 moves in his repertoire instead of the diminished four or five he stuck to for the better part of this decade. Race still kept up despite his age, and it was actually a pretty intense brawl, and I especially dug the surprise finish which saw Hogan rolling up Race after he missed his trademark diving headbutt.
The other match I caught off 24/7 was Jerry Lawler vs Curt Henning for the AWA title in 1988, initially I thought this was Hennig's last match in AWA where he lost the strap, but instead it was a rematch with Lawler defending that I never knew existed. I went into this match thinking it was going to be a bit too old school for my tastes, but how dare I doubt the perfect one as this was a great mix of an entertaining brawl and technical showcase. I also popped in the bonus disc for my Road Warriors DVD set after borrowing it to Dick and him telling me he was surprised how Hogan brought on a decent brawl when teaming up with a Japanese superstar at the Tokyo Egg Dome to face the Legion of Doom. Hogan indeed fought like a badass using weapons throughout the match and brawls into the crowd. Finally, Dick borrowed me his Ring of Honor Death Before Dishonor VI DVD and recommended me two matches to watch. The El Generico & Steen vs Motor City Machine Gunns and NWA Title match between Brent Albright and Adam Pearce. Both were awesome matches, especially Pearce and Albright.
-Last few things I want to touch in my male soap opera. Jack Swagger won the ECW Title from Matt Hardy this past Tuesday in a good outing, easily the most impressive outing from Swagger so far. I am surprised he shot up through the ranks so fast in ECW, despite its limited roster, within four months. WWE did do some more roster cuts recently, most notably of its latest round is the release of Val Venis, who has been with the company an astounding 11 years since 1998, and hasn't had a relevant role or gimmick since 2004. He's actually been injured and off television for the better part of the last year, and since about 2004 I've been always thinking he's going to get released any day now, but for whatever reason they kept him on and he only made an occasional appearance on RAW to job every two or three months. Hopefully he saved his money from all those years of employment.
-Finally, I'll end this blog with an article I wrote for Robot Panic. I finally got around to seeing a movie I've been wanting to for a while, but a damn limited release has made it a real adventure to find a theater playing it. Anywho, I finally caught The Wrestler, and the following is a review for it for the fine folks at Robot Panic.
-----------
I am a wrestling fan. This is where one would insert a witty remark about oily men rolling around the ring in staged performances. It is what I had to endure over the past decade whenever a person who happened to overhear me and my closed circle of fellow wrestling addicts conversing about the latest episode of RAW or Smackdown. Regardless of how popular wrestling has been, and how it’s been dominating the cable ratings for most of the past 15 years, there will always be that stigma associated with professional wrestling.
Maybe, just maybe some of that public perception will change with the recent motion picture release from director Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler. This film is unlike any wrestling flick before, it isn’t a slapstick comedy like Ready to Rumble or Slammed, instead it’s one of the first films to take a serious look at the business. The Wrestler showcases the many tradeoffs that wrestlers deal with behind the scenes and what they sacrifice their bodies for in the ring, despite how fake one may think the “sport” appears.
The Wrestler tells the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke). Randy was one of the top caliber stars from the 80s who headlined cards in front of sold out crowds of 20,000 in his heyday, but now finds his dwindling broken down body hanging in there in front of merely 200 people at the local Armory. When Randy isn’t swinging steel chairs at his adversaries, he’s picking up extra hours at the local market for his supplemental income.
Randy considers himself and his life to belong in the ring and in front of the fans, but there are a few people he tries to care for in the film. He’s the hit of the trailer park he resides in with the kids, and there’s a fascinating scene with one of the children where they play a fictitious wrestling game for the NES where Randy schools the youngin’ with his own character, while the kid talks about how old the graphics are and how he wishes he was playing Call of Duty 4 instead.
He also cares for and attempts to form a relationship with a stripper by the name of Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Finally, Randy tries to reconnect with his daughter that he abandoned many years ago, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Stephanie’s refusal of accepting her father into her life is reminiscent of the way Jake “The Snake” Roberts fails at trying to be a dad with his estranged daughter in the acclaimed documentary, Beyond the Mat.
The life that Randy lives is comparable to where many wrestlers are today who didn’t save their money and are still competing far past their prime. The Wrestler does a fantastic job at showing the many sufferings Randy goes through to make it another day. The low budget for the film actually works towards its benefit, as the raw gritty feel of the cinematography only exacerbates the painful lifestyle of Robinson. Speaking of The Ram, Mickey Rourke does a superb job at his portrayal of the aging star looking for one more big payday. He nails the part to a T(and has already won a Golden Globe for the performance), you’ll feel for the Ram with every slam he takes in the ring, you’ll echo his heartbreak, hell you may even shed a man tear or two.
Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of professional wrestling, even if you’re one of the aforementioned people who love to give its fans grief for watching, don’t let that hold you back from watching The Wrestler. It tells a great story, and while it may not have the ideal feel-good moment of most flicks, it also shows a side of wrestling which may have you thinking of the sport in a whole new light……or quickly going back to stereotyping it like before.
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