Wednesday, March 10, 2010
-Howdy! I know, it has been forever since I last updated. To tell you the truth, I have no idea if I will still be running this blog by the end of the year. It seems most things lately I use to mention in the blog, I save and expand on in articles I write for other sites. Regardless, I still have another blog in store for you!
-My lease is up in a couple of months and I have been seriously debating on renewing it for awhile. I have been in my current apartment for nearly six years now. Other than the cruddy windows, I love the place. It is an awesome neighborhood where there are not many little kids running by since I live near the edge of campus housing, and I always indulge in long summer walks without too much trouble in the area. On the other hand, I recently started paying back student loans and want to pay them off sooner than later and thought a perfect way to put more money aside for that is to get a roommate and split living expenses. My brother, Joey and I almost got a place last year, but I decided against it in the end since we both are on different work/sleep schedules. We'll see what happens.
-Got a chance to hang out with my buddy Jarrod for the first time in quite awhile, we caught breakfast and shot the breeze for awhile. I still have been doing my almost weekly RAW parties with Matt, which usually follows with long sets of LEGO Rock Band. Some weeks Dave and/or Scott will join us too. After numerous attempts, Dave, Matt & Danielle and I finally got the achievement where all four of us perfected a song on any difficulty. We all happened to be playing on Super Easy difficulty on the shortest song in the game(Colbert's "Charlene" which lasts just over a minute) in order to get, but it will rank close with the "Bladder of Steel" achievement as one of the achievements I am proud of the most.
-Time to shill some of my latest podcasts to go up. Dave, Scott and I recorded an episode of The Cheap Pop recently. We had a blast sharing our favorite moments of WWE's now defunct ECW, and Scott had some awesome stories pertaining to his days as a referee in an indy wrestling league. Right click and give it a listen. On the latest On Tap, I review Heavy Rain, Chris & Lyzz and I review a pair of gaming-reality movies with Death Race & Gamer and finally Chris & Lyzz talk about their renewed addiction to Lord of the Rings Online. Download the latest On Tap here. Speaking of Heavy Rain, just a couple of days ago I recorded a near-90 minute podcast with Glenn of the PSnation podcast and Travis of Interactive Distractions, the show was dedicates solely to spoiling the hell out of one of the most story driven console games of all time. Since all three of our shows are part of the VGevo Podcast Network, look for it be posted on the vgevo.com homepage any day now!
-In a just a couple of weeks, it will be that time of the year again for the Midwest Gaming Classic! So expect the next blog to be my annual mammoth recap of the event! MGC is going to be held at a bigger venue this year in the Milwaukee area, and as a result VGevo will be having a bigger presence too with each podcast network member having their own table. Needless to say I am psyched. I got an On Tap banner made for our table from the screen printing shop in town last week, and plan on doing a live recording of On Tap at MGC where we plan to record our NES retrospective! Only thing that sucks about this is that MGC is the same weekend as Wrestlemania. This happened two years ago also, and I ended up leaving MGC a day early in order to catch the Super Bowl of wrestling, but I do not want to put myself through that much hell again. I found a sports bar in the Milwaukee area that is showing Wrestlemania 26, so I may wind up catching it there.
-What's been happening in wrestling lately. As I mentioned above, ECW has folded and has been replaced with NXT. I am going to miss ECW, seemed like WWE's equivalent of a AAA minor league team, where rookies test the waters of big screen television and competing in huge crowds before graduating onto RAW/Smackdown. It existed in its own unique universe for the past four years. Definitely check out the aforementioned episode of the Cheap Pop where Dave and I mention all our favorite feuds and moments from WWE's ECW. First couple episodes of NXT have not let me down yet. If you have not caught a show yet, it originally looked like a version of Tough Enough, but WWE is portraying this more of its own brand instead of a reality show where 8 rookies are teamed with 8 WWE Superstars. I highly recommend watching this just for Daniel Bryan alone, as he has been the king of indy wrestling this past decade and is finally getting his shot in the big time.
I am over halfway into Hulk Hogan's new autobiography. The first quarter of it was interesting talking about childhood, and breaking into the business. However once he gets into the WWWF and AWA, he shifts focus from his wrestling career to detailing the downward spiral of his marriage with Linda. With each chapter it keeps getting far more intense on how their marriage fell apart. Guess I don't mind that there is not much of a focus on wrestling this time around since his first book covered most of his in-ring memories. I got around to finishing a couple DVDs from my growing wrestling backlog. The Best of Saturday Night's Main Event is an awesome collection when Hulkamania and Rock 'n Wrestling were running wild in the late 80s and early 90s. Plenty of good matches in there too. Other DVD I finished was Pro Wrestling Guerilla's Holy Diver Down, an event which saw some sick spots and highlighted by El Generico winning PWG's World Title over Human Tornado. I think I prefer PWG to Ring of Honor when it comes to indy wrestling the more I think about it. I like that PWG is a little more laid back and prefer their style of in-ring humor, plus the lighting is league's better than RoH and the commentary is hilarious.
-Lots of good shows happening on cable right now. I am having my usual love/hate relationship with Lost in its final season as each show barely answers a previous mystery, but also raises a couple more questions in the process. BullRun is back, and I highly suggest you watch it! Thank you so much annonymous commenter a couple blogs back for notifying me of the upcoming season! It is one of the few reality shows I can get into where 12 teams bring their souped-up rides and compete in a several thousand mile race and in intense closed course challenges. Plus Bill Goldberg is the man for hosting this contest! Now please put the previous seasons on DVD! 24 is the same nonstop action that I crave, with an interesting hook every week. Matt also turned me on to the new Sparticus show on Starz. It is available through Netflix streaming, and if you dug 300/Gladiator, then you will probably like Sparticus. I have been lagging on my Entourage and Veronica Mars DVDs lately with all the latest from cable distracting me.
-Caught three flicks I can think of since my last blog:
The Foot Fist Way - Matt brought this over the other day. It was Danny McBride's indy flick that caught the eye of Will Ferrel and helped spring him into bigger roles on Pineapple Express & Tropic Thunder. I loved Eastbound & Down, and Danny's character here as a Tae Kwon Do black belt instructor made me think that one Kenny Powers use to have a secret persona as a karate master somewhere. If you like Danny McBride's work, than this is a must watch! 9/10
The Blind Side - For those that know me, I am a sucker for sports films, and this one reeled me in like the rest of them. If you need one of those feel good stories, then definitely add this to your Netflix Q. 8.5/10
Copout - Never thought I would see the day Kevin Smith direct a film he did not write. I guess it should not be a big surprise knowing how big a fan Smith is of Bruce Willis. For being a formulaic buddy cop movie, this is easily one of the better ones(it demolishes Showtime!). Tracy Morgan is awesome, and Sean William Scott steals every one of the few precious scenes he appears in. It took me a little while to get into this because they tried opening with a few too many zingers than I cared for, but soon enough I was hooked for the rest of the flick. 8/10
-Game Updates
-Resident Evil 5 - Beat the Lost in Nightmares DLC that was released a few weeks ago. Fun little one hour diversion that detailed what happened leading up to Chris & Jill's encounter with Wesker that was referenced in a RE5 flashback. Got to download the new DLC episode that was released now.
-Turtles 89/ReShelled - Matt, Dave and I plowed through both of these in about 40-45 minutes each. Got to love the old school TMNT beat-em-ups! TMNT 89 is still where it is at, that remake of Turtles in Time is decent, but lacking the awesome levels from the SNES edition takes away a memorable chunk of that game!
-Heavy Rain - Please check out that spoiler-cast on VGevo when it goes up. This was the game I got a PS3 for initially nearly two years ago. I loved Indigo Prophecy and knowing that it was the spiritual successor to that made it a must buy! Heavy Rain easily surpasses Indigo, the sci-fi hi-jinx from Indigo are thankfully not present here, and instead we are treated with a serial killer mystery for the ages. I plowed through this within a day and recently started a second playthrough, and also completed the downloadable episode, The Taxidermist within an hour. I can already say this is a high contender for game of the year for me.
-BioShock 2 - Another game I completed within a few days. I am entranced with the world of Rapture, and I like how you are the Big Daddy in this game and get to use the drill right from the start! Hard to top the awesome narrative and twist the original BioShock brought to the table, but the sequel did not hold anything back with just as good of a story and a mind-boggling twist of its own! Multiplayer is also no slouch and a few friends and I really got into it.
-Dante's Inferno - I have not spent more than 20 minutes with any God of War game before, so maybe I am a little higher on this game than most. But if you like your God of War, and need a fix or do not own a PS3 yet, than this is a worthy substitute. It reminded me how Saints Row was the first awesome GTA-clone. Conan and X-Men Origins: Wolverine are decent God of War clones, but in my view Dante's Inferno is the only one to give God of War a serious run for its money.
-I will wrap up this blog with my updated games beaten list this year. I am not even halfway through March and I am making record progress so far! I feel a little dirty including DLC mini-campaigns and the TMNT beat-em-ups, but they have a definitive beginning and end and thus they make the list! Without further ado:
1) - 1/10 - inFamous - PS3
2) - 1/10 - Kirby Super Star - SNES
3) - 1/10 - FallOut 3 Broken Steel DLC - 360
4) - 2/10 - BioShock 2 - 360
5) - 2/10 - Army of Two: The 40th Day - 360
6) - 2/10 - Family Feud 2010 - DS
7) - 2/10 - Resident Evil 5 Lost in Nightmares DLC - 360
8) - 2/10 - Heavy Rain - PS3
9) - 3/10 - TMNT 1989 Classic Arcade - XBLA
10) - 3/10 - TMNT Turtles in Time ReShelled - XBLA
11) - 3/10 - Dante's Inferno - 360
12) - 3/10 - Heavy Rain Chronicles: The Taxidermist - PS3
-That wraps up this blog, later!
-My lease is up in a couple of months and I have been seriously debating on renewing it for awhile. I have been in my current apartment for nearly six years now. Other than the cruddy windows, I love the place. It is an awesome neighborhood where there are not many little kids running by since I live near the edge of campus housing, and I always indulge in long summer walks without too much trouble in the area. On the other hand, I recently started paying back student loans and want to pay them off sooner than later and thought a perfect way to put more money aside for that is to get a roommate and split living expenses. My brother, Joey and I almost got a place last year, but I decided against it in the end since we both are on different work/sleep schedules. We'll see what happens.
-Got a chance to hang out with my buddy Jarrod for the first time in quite awhile, we caught breakfast and shot the breeze for awhile. I still have been doing my almost weekly RAW parties with Matt, which usually follows with long sets of LEGO Rock Band. Some weeks Dave and/or Scott will join us too. After numerous attempts, Dave, Matt & Danielle and I finally got the achievement where all four of us perfected a song on any difficulty. We all happened to be playing on Super Easy difficulty on the shortest song in the game(Colbert's "Charlene" which lasts just over a minute) in order to get, but it will rank close with the "Bladder of Steel" achievement as one of the achievements I am proud of the most.
-Time to shill some of my latest podcasts to go up. Dave, Scott and I recorded an episode of The Cheap Pop recently. We had a blast sharing our favorite moments of WWE's now defunct ECW, and Scott had some awesome stories pertaining to his days as a referee in an indy wrestling league. Right click and give it a listen. On the latest On Tap, I review Heavy Rain, Chris & Lyzz and I review a pair of gaming-reality movies with Death Race & Gamer and finally Chris & Lyzz talk about their renewed addiction to Lord of the Rings Online. Download the latest On Tap here. Speaking of Heavy Rain, just a couple of days ago I recorded a near-90 minute podcast with Glenn of the PSnation podcast and Travis of Interactive Distractions, the show was dedicates solely to spoiling the hell out of one of the most story driven console games of all time. Since all three of our shows are part of the VGevo Podcast Network, look for it be posted on the vgevo.com homepage any day now!
-In a just a couple of weeks, it will be that time of the year again for the Midwest Gaming Classic! So expect the next blog to be my annual mammoth recap of the event! MGC is going to be held at a bigger venue this year in the Milwaukee area, and as a result VGevo will be having a bigger presence too with each podcast network member having their own table. Needless to say I am psyched. I got an On Tap banner made for our table from the screen printing shop in town last week, and plan on doing a live recording of On Tap at MGC where we plan to record our NES retrospective! Only thing that sucks about this is that MGC is the same weekend as Wrestlemania. This happened two years ago also, and I ended up leaving MGC a day early in order to catch the Super Bowl of wrestling, but I do not want to put myself through that much hell again. I found a sports bar in the Milwaukee area that is showing Wrestlemania 26, so I may wind up catching it there.
-What's been happening in wrestling lately. As I mentioned above, ECW has folded and has been replaced with NXT. I am going to miss ECW, seemed like WWE's equivalent of a AAA minor league team, where rookies test the waters of big screen television and competing in huge crowds before graduating onto RAW/Smackdown. It existed in its own unique universe for the past four years. Definitely check out the aforementioned episode of the Cheap Pop where Dave and I mention all our favorite feuds and moments from WWE's ECW. First couple episodes of NXT have not let me down yet. If you have not caught a show yet, it originally looked like a version of Tough Enough, but WWE is portraying this more of its own brand instead of a reality show where 8 rookies are teamed with 8 WWE Superstars. I highly recommend watching this just for Daniel Bryan alone, as he has been the king of indy wrestling this past decade and is finally getting his shot in the big time.
I am over halfway into Hulk Hogan's new autobiography. The first quarter of it was interesting talking about childhood, and breaking into the business. However once he gets into the WWWF and AWA, he shifts focus from his wrestling career to detailing the downward spiral of his marriage with Linda. With each chapter it keeps getting far more intense on how their marriage fell apart. Guess I don't mind that there is not much of a focus on wrestling this time around since his first book covered most of his in-ring memories. I got around to finishing a couple DVDs from my growing wrestling backlog. The Best of Saturday Night's Main Event is an awesome collection when Hulkamania and Rock 'n Wrestling were running wild in the late 80s and early 90s. Plenty of good matches in there too. Other DVD I finished was Pro Wrestling Guerilla's Holy Diver Down, an event which saw some sick spots and highlighted by El Generico winning PWG's World Title over Human Tornado. I think I prefer PWG to Ring of Honor when it comes to indy wrestling the more I think about it. I like that PWG is a little more laid back and prefer their style of in-ring humor, plus the lighting is league's better than RoH and the commentary is hilarious.
-Lots of good shows happening on cable right now. I am having my usual love/hate relationship with Lost in its final season as each show barely answers a previous mystery, but also raises a couple more questions in the process. BullRun is back, and I highly suggest you watch it! Thank you so much annonymous commenter a couple blogs back for notifying me of the upcoming season! It is one of the few reality shows I can get into where 12 teams bring their souped-up rides and compete in a several thousand mile race and in intense closed course challenges. Plus Bill Goldberg is the man for hosting this contest! Now please put the previous seasons on DVD! 24 is the same nonstop action that I crave, with an interesting hook every week. Matt also turned me on to the new Sparticus show on Starz. It is available through Netflix streaming, and if you dug 300/Gladiator, then you will probably like Sparticus. I have been lagging on my Entourage and Veronica Mars DVDs lately with all the latest from cable distracting me.
-Caught three flicks I can think of since my last blog:
The Foot Fist Way - Matt brought this over the other day. It was Danny McBride's indy flick that caught the eye of Will Ferrel and helped spring him into bigger roles on Pineapple Express & Tropic Thunder. I loved Eastbound & Down, and Danny's character here as a Tae Kwon Do black belt instructor made me think that one Kenny Powers use to have a secret persona as a karate master somewhere. If you like Danny McBride's work, than this is a must watch! 9/10
The Blind Side - For those that know me, I am a sucker for sports films, and this one reeled me in like the rest of them. If you need one of those feel good stories, then definitely add this to your Netflix Q. 8.5/10
Copout - Never thought I would see the day Kevin Smith direct a film he did not write. I guess it should not be a big surprise knowing how big a fan Smith is of Bruce Willis. For being a formulaic buddy cop movie, this is easily one of the better ones(it demolishes Showtime!). Tracy Morgan is awesome, and Sean William Scott steals every one of the few precious scenes he appears in. It took me a little while to get into this because they tried opening with a few too many zingers than I cared for, but soon enough I was hooked for the rest of the flick. 8/10
-Game Updates
-Resident Evil 5 - Beat the Lost in Nightmares DLC that was released a few weeks ago. Fun little one hour diversion that detailed what happened leading up to Chris & Jill's encounter with Wesker that was referenced in a RE5 flashback. Got to download the new DLC episode that was released now.
-Turtles 89/ReShelled - Matt, Dave and I plowed through both of these in about 40-45 minutes each. Got to love the old school TMNT beat-em-ups! TMNT 89 is still where it is at, that remake of Turtles in Time is decent, but lacking the awesome levels from the SNES edition takes away a memorable chunk of that game!
-Heavy Rain - Please check out that spoiler-cast on VGevo when it goes up. This was the game I got a PS3 for initially nearly two years ago. I loved Indigo Prophecy and knowing that it was the spiritual successor to that made it a must buy! Heavy Rain easily surpasses Indigo, the sci-fi hi-jinx from Indigo are thankfully not present here, and instead we are treated with a serial killer mystery for the ages. I plowed through this within a day and recently started a second playthrough, and also completed the downloadable episode, The Taxidermist within an hour. I can already say this is a high contender for game of the year for me.
-BioShock 2 - Another game I completed within a few days. I am entranced with the world of Rapture, and I like how you are the Big Daddy in this game and get to use the drill right from the start! Hard to top the awesome narrative and twist the original BioShock brought to the table, but the sequel did not hold anything back with just as good of a story and a mind-boggling twist of its own! Multiplayer is also no slouch and a few friends and I really got into it.
-Dante's Inferno - I have not spent more than 20 minutes with any God of War game before, so maybe I am a little higher on this game than most. But if you like your God of War, and need a fix or do not own a PS3 yet, than this is a worthy substitute. It reminded me how Saints Row was the first awesome GTA-clone. Conan and X-Men Origins: Wolverine are decent God of War clones, but in my view Dante's Inferno is the only one to give God of War a serious run for its money.
-I will wrap up this blog with my updated games beaten list this year. I am not even halfway through March and I am making record progress so far! I feel a little dirty including DLC mini-campaigns and the TMNT beat-em-ups, but they have a definitive beginning and end and thus they make the list! Without further ado:
1) - 1/10 - inFamous - PS3
2) - 1/10 - Kirby Super Star - SNES
3) - 1/10 - FallOut 3 Broken Steel DLC - 360
4) - 2/10 - BioShock 2 - 360
5) - 2/10 - Army of Two: The 40th Day - 360
6) - 2/10 - Family Feud 2010 - DS
7) - 2/10 - Resident Evil 5 Lost in Nightmares DLC - 360
8) - 2/10 - Heavy Rain - PS3
9) - 3/10 - TMNT 1989 Classic Arcade - XBLA
10) - 3/10 - TMNT Turtles in Time ReShelled - XBLA
11) - 3/10 - Dante's Inferno - 360
12) - 3/10 - Heavy Rain Chronicles: The Taxidermist - PS3
-That wraps up this blog, later!
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