Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (02-19-20)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

AEW has done a great job of building up its shows; not only by actually letting us know what’s coming up in the week head but by planting the seeds of big ideas long before they get around to doing them.  We heard about that Cage Match WEEKS ago and they kept reminding us of it every episode, so now that the day is finally here, well I found myself getting REALLY excited to see it for myself which is exactly what you want in a wrestling show; a reason to come back to it!  Does the match live up to the weeks of hype, and is the rest of the episode just as good?  Let’s find out!!

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Tag Team Battle Royale

Starting the show off in highest gear possible, we’re not even a minute in before the Battle Royale is on and like twenty dudes are beating the crap out of each other in the ring.  It is a RIDICULOUS amount of guys that are in here taking abuse and doing wacky spots that are pretty much all great but is far too much to try and recap in its entirety, but I’ll hit the highlights.  The first one for me was when Evil Uno, Stu Grayson, and that turtle neck guy in those Dark Order promos started to taunt SCU which was enough of a distraction for John Silver and Alex Reynolds (representing The Dark Order in this match) to knock them out of the ring and eliminating them from the Battle Royale.  Don’t worry though!  The Young Bucks IMMEDIATELY Superkick the both of them out of the ring, just in case you thought The Dark Order were gonna win at some point, though they WERE the two clear jobbers of the group.  SCU start brawling with Stu Grayson right after they’re thrown out of the ring who manages to hold his own, so while The Dark Order may not have had MUCH success, they’ve been doing a good job of building up its key members with Evil Uno as the brains behind the operation and Stu Grayson being the one always ready for a fight.  Later on in the match, Cima of Strong Heart (yes, they’re in this too!) gets tossed out and Evil Uno offers him a mask to join The Dark Order.  It LOOKS like he accepted it, but we’re left unsure as to what’s going on there.  Other big standout moments include Orange Cassidy saving Trent from being eliminated by carrying him on his shoulders, some REALLY fun spots with Luchasarus who unfortunately gets eliminated with the combined effort of four dudes, and of course Santana and Ortiz as the heel group refuses to get in the ring for the first few minutes.  This is a really common thing with Battle Royales and frankly I’m wondering why they can’t just institute a ten count for those who didn’t go over the top but are outside the ring as a way to prevent these shenanigans.  So they all fight and fight and fight until it’s down to Santana and Ortiz alone with Matt Jackson.  The dude is getting a beating on both sides within an inch of his life, but he manages to take out Ortiz with a Superkick leaving just him and Ortiz.  Sammy Guevara, sensing a need for his particular set of skills goes into the ring, climbs to the top rope, and jumps at Matt like a missile, before Matt Superkick’s him out of midair; leaving him a crumpled and presumably DEAD mess on the mat. In the confusion Santana is gasping for air on the ropes and Matt charges at him with a clothesline; knocking him over the ropes and winning The Young Bucks their shot at the Tag Team Titles at Revolution.  This was a really great match in terms of Battle Royales which are always a bit messy and all over the place, but a lot of the spots really connected and they managed to tell a few stories within it to build up a few matches in the following weeks; not the least of which being The Young Bucks getting a shot at the Tag Team Title at Full Gear.  The only thing that’s kind of disappointing about it is that they start it off so quickly when I really would have liked a roll call; especially when teams like Strong Heart are back for this which should feel like a big deal.  Other than that, it was a great way to start the show!

Continue reading “Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (02-19-20)” →

Cinema Dispatch: Sonic the Hedgehog

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Sonic the Hedgehog and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Fowler

Remember when that first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer came out with the horrifying monster design?  Good times!  I do wish that design stuck around a bit longer though because I REALLY wanted a plushie of that ghastly version of Sonic so he can sleep with me in my bed and devour my nightmares, but then again the redesign looks pretty good and will surely add a lot to this movie!  Yeah, it could almost be an inspirational tale of a studio realizing its mistake and actually taking proactive steps to correct it if it wasn’t for the fact that the studio that made the new design a possibility crunched to do it and closed down as soon as the work is done!  Sounds like Paramount should have gotten a visit from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, but in any case the story of this film has finally come to its conclusion and we’re all on pins and needles to find out how it all ends!  Was Sonic’s face lift enough hto save this movie from being a total train wreck, or is there only so much that you can polish a turd before you’re just wasting perfectly good polish?  Let’s find out!!

Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwartz) is a happy go lucky blue alien that calls himself a hedgehog for some reason who was teleported to Earth to escape from bad guys when he was but a wee lad.  Now that he’s grown up to the ripe old age of… sort of teenager, he’s starting to realize that spending all his time hiding in the woods just outside the town of Green Hills is leaving him with a lot of emotional scars and abandonment issues, and one day he has a super powered moment of angst that knocks out all the power on the West Coast.  The super power blast is enough for the US government to call in Doctor Robotnik (Jim Carrey) who wants to track down whatever caused the anomaly and uses its powers for his insidious and tax payer funded ends, so now Sonic has to escape from this planet to go to ANOTHER planet where I guess he’ll be even safer.  To transport himself there he has a bag of magic rings that open ports to wherever it is he needs to go, but through wacky happenstance and poor timing his rings get lost in San Francisco which he has no idea how to get to.  Fortunately the local sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), after being somewhat responsible for Sonic losing the rings decides to take this strange creature across state lines to the city of San Francisco so he can get the rings and get the heck out of Dodge.  It shall not be a straightforward road trip however as Robotnik is hot on their heels and is ready to not only dissect Sonic in the name of Sonic but ruin Tom’s life as well in pursuit of his prey.  Can Sonic and Tom make it to San Francisco before Robotnik and the US government find a way to stop them?  Will Sonic learn valuable lessons about friendship along the way and perhaps find a true home instead of just jumping from place to place on his own?

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“AM I PRETTY ENOUGH FOR YOU NOW!?  WILL YOU FINALLY PUT A RING ON IT!?”

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Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #25

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Sonic the Hedgehog (the comic book series) and all the images you see in this recap are owned by IDW and SEGA of America

Honestly, I’d much rather be talking about that Sonic movie right now than force myself through another issue of Sonic of the Living Dead.  Heck, I’d rather watch that movie with the ORIGINAL DESIGN than have to read any more pages of these characters being miserable rather than doing anything fun, but this is the storyline we’re stuck with and we’re getting ever so close to the end of the arc; so screw it!  Let’s put on our game face and make get through this together!!

The issue begins with what PROBABLY should have happened eight issues ago which is the remnants of The Restoration (and the survivors) going to Angel Island to crash at Knuckles’s place until the main characters sort this all out.  Sure it’s more dramatic for them to go through all those tragedies instead of going to the safest place possible, but there needs to be a REASON why they didn’t try that right off the bat and one is never given.  It wouldn’t even be that hard as Knuckles could have said that they couldn’t risk exposing the Master Emerald to the virus, but that’s simply not the case since Sonic is right making himself at home!

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“Some would say overly long and pedantic, but let’s worry about one thing at a time.”

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Cinema Dispatch: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Cathy Yan

I was probably on the kinder end of things than most people when it came to Suicide Squad; the DCCU’s attempt to be fun and wacky that ended up having all the edge of a limited edition holo-foil issue of Spawn from 1994.  In its own tacky cobbled together way it did manage to eek out a bit of charm, but what people mostly remember from the movie was the performances; namely one Harley Quinn played with gusto by the phenomenal Margot Robbie.  Now that we’re more or less in DCCU 2.0, it makes sense for this character to be given another shot away from the baggage of the movie that came before; even from the studio itself as Robbie basically put this thing together with Warner Bros maintaining a mostly hands off approach.  Is this the breakout hit that Warner Bros has been hoping for yet could never make themselves, or is this a desperate Hail Mary that misses by a mile?  Let’s find out!!

Harleen Quinzel (Margot Robbie) has had a rough go of it lately.  She grew up with scary nuns, she had a string of bad relationships, she did at least get her college degree and became a psychiatrist but even THAT didn’t work out when she met some dude in clown makeup, and on top of that she had to fight a an ancient demon witch person or else have a bomb explode in her neck!  Fortunately she’s out of prison and she even dumped the clown dude so she’s ready to start her life anew!  A new pet, roller derby, and COPIOUS amounts of alcohol to deal with the unresolved feelings that she’s left with now that she’s single and away from the clown that made her life miserable.  BUT ENOUGH ABOUT DAVID AYER (Ba-dum-tiss!), with the Joker in her rearview mirror it has given her a lot more freedom but also the ire of ALL the people they screwed over in the past, and as the one on the short end of this breakup some of them are ready to take their vengeance!  One such vengeance taker is Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) who’s a mid-range mob boss with a hot temper, enough toxic masculinity to smother ALL the adorable baby ducklings of the world, and an alter ego just one step below Taser Face; BLACK MASK!  Complete with second rate Die Hardman cosplay!  Him and his associate Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina) are not only after Harley but ALSO after a diamond that somehow ended up in the hands of a young street hustler named Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) and so perhaps there’s a way to kill two birds with one stone there, and on top of ALL that we also have a singer at Victor’s club named Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) who’s looking for a way out of the life, a mysterious crossbow killer (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who’s hunting down gangsters, Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) who’s stuck trying to untangle all these messy knots.  Will Harley Quinn escape the payback that’s owed to her after working with the Joker for so long?  Why is Roman so intent on getting this diamond, and who else may be gunning for it?  Why DO they end up calling themselves the Birds of Prey anyway?

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“What, you don’t think it sounds cool and intimidating?”     “Hey, as long as you don’t put a bomb in my neck, I’m fine with anything!”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” →

Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (02-12-20)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

We’re back with another episode of The Revolution Pre-Show as the next few weeks will be all about building up the Pay Per View at the end of the month!  Will we get some good matches and decent storylines in the buildup, or are we merely setting ourselves up for disappointment?  Let’s find out!!

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Hangman Adam Page & Kenny Omega Vs. SCU (Kazarian & Scorpio Sky)

SCU is accompanied to the ring by Christopher Daniels

Before the match begins, The Dark order hacks into the big screen and delivers a cryptic warning to BOTH teams about how they’re closer than any of them realize.  This threat is SO terrifying that Christopher Daniels decides to leave ringside to go “investigate” and we’ll see how well that goes soon enough.  Anyway, the match itself is REALLY good with Omega and Page being PHENOMENALLY over with the crowd as both get huge pops for everything they do; and credit to SCU for playing the heels here just to give them that much more of a pop.  I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work with them being the light that keeps their partner Daniels from going to the dark side, but for the purposes of this match it worked out great as Kenny and Page both got hot tags which led to them showing off their super moves to get the crowd in a great mood for the rest of the show.  It ends as it should with Kazarian eating both a Buckshot Lariat and a V Trigger at the same time, and since there was zero friction between the two in this match they may have just kicked Page’s heel turn WAY down the road.  What kind of soured the ending just a bit is that Kazarian grabbed the rope at the very last second of the pin which you really only want to do to justify a rematch, but the thing is SCU already HAVE a rematch of sorts lined up because whoever lost THIS match is going to be part of a Tag Team Battle Royale NEXT week where the winner of THAT gets a title match at Revolution!  So… what did this accomplish other than confusing the finish?  In any case, Kenny and Page are happy with their victory and quickly leave the arena presumably since The Dark Order comes out not three minutes after the bell rang.  This was great as The Dark Order surround the ring like usual, but then ALL the freaking tag teams (who will presumably be part of the Battle Royale) come out as well; The Best Friends and The Young Bucks backing up SCU while The Butcher, the Blade, and The Bunny as well as The Hybrid 2 come out to get in on the action too. Good job by the way on the part of Christopher Daniels!  While he’s in the back presumably walking around with a flashlight and a magnifying glass, The Dark Order managed to give him the slip and end up right where he had left ten minutes ago!  I don’t buy the theory that Daniels is secretly the leader of The Dark Order, but this ridiculous little ruse might just be a point in its favor.  It all devolves into a pull-apart brawl with The Young Bucks stealing the spotlight after a few well-placed Super Kicks, and even if it is mostly chaos it at least does a decent job of selling us on the upcoming Battle Royale.  However, despite how good ALL of this is it does end on a sour note; one we’ll be hearing throughout the episode.  The picture in picture during the commercials has always been something of a mixed bag as it at least gives you something to look at while being advertised to, but whenever something IMPORTANT happens there it can be really annoying because it’s super tiny and there’s no audio.  This was the case here as the picture in picture had ORANGE CASSIDY come out to confront Evil Uno and Stu Grayson who were walking up the ramp when all the fighting was going on.  Cassidy does his classic HANDS IN POCKET maneuver which the crowd always loves, and this is a big enough distraction for The Bucks to land simultaneous Super Kicks on them!  Yes, this is the first time Evil Uno and Stu Grayson have legitimately been bested since their reimagining, and it happened during a commercial.  Not only that, but Orange Cassidy is given a Young Bucks headband for being such a good sport; all of this would have drove the home audience wild but instead comes off as an afterthought due to the way it’s being presented!  WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT!?

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Cinema Dispatch: Gretel & Hansel

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Gretel & Hansel and all the images you see in this review are owned by United Artists Releasing

Directed by Oz Perkins

Sigh… a gritty reboot of the Hansel & Gretel?  Did you happened to catch that tagline; A GRIM Fairy Tale?  Yeah, something tells me this isn’t going to be good, AND YET there has been a decent amount of buzz surrounding this which surprised the heck out of me!  It’s not like February has a much better reputation for movies than January does, especially when it comes to horror, so if they really did have something here wouldn’t they have saved it for a better time?  I don’t know, maybe studios think that Get Out being the exception to this rule means it’s the new strategic time slot for quick horror bucks.  In any case, is this the surprise gem that people having been saying it is, or is this yet another chance for me to be a Grumpy Gus at a mediocre horror film?  Let’s find out!!

You know the story of Hansel & Gretel?  Well then you know the story of Gretel & Hansel!  Two kids are kicked out of their home because medieval times sucked for the working class and they get taken in by a witch who gives them food but has a hidden agenda.  Naturally there’s more to it, but it’s all about adding details than going off and doing its own thing as Gretel (Sophia Lillis) is the older sister taking care of her younger brother (Sam Leakey) and the witch (Alice Krige) is a more complicated presence in the movie.  At first she appears to be benevolent if a bit cagey as she not only feeds the kids bellies but their minds as well with meaningful chores, games of chess, and even teaching the little boy how to sharpen an axe so he can live out his dream of being a woodcutter.  Hey, at least it’s better than being a YouTuber or god help us a Twitch Streamer!  As the two stay at the house and learn more about her as well as the history of this house, things might just be going in a sinister direction that will force them to flee for their lives or perhaps it’s all a giant misunderstanding and they will end up being the aggressors in this story against an innocent and charitable older woman.  Will Gretel and Hansel become victims of a scheme that the witch is COOKING up for them?  Will Gretel perhaps be tempted down a dark path by the small TASTE of magic that the witch offers to her from time to time?  Do I have THYME to do OLIVE the food puns in the world before I get to the TOAST POINT!?

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Frankly, I don’t think there’s MUSHROOM left for jokes in this BERRY serious review!

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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (02-05-20)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

We’re back with another episode of Wednesday Night Modern Warfare with a particularly spicy bout between NXT and AEW!  For the most part, AEW has been leading NXT in the rating EXCEPT when a SmackDown or RAW superstar graces the Full Sail arena, and with Charlotte Flair’s victory at The Royal Rumble she might just be challenging Rhea Ripley for the NXT title.  Sounds like a pretty hard act to compete against, but AEW has put on some amazing shows in the past and from the look of the announced card they may just have a shot here as well!  Let’s find out!!

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Jon Moxley Vs. Ortiz

AEW has found a winning formula and by god they are going to stick to it!  Jon Moxley once again kicks off the show by working his way through the crowd to his music while wearing an eyepatch, though instead of getting on the mic and talking smack towards Jericho, he instead is here to face Ortiz in a one on one bout.  Well… about as one on one as you can get with Santana skulking outside the ring AND the rest of The Inner Circle butting in on commentary!  This was a great match with a lot of great moves and smart storytelling which is what you want from the biggest angle they have going right now.  They play up the eye, they play up Ortiz’s ego, and they even play up how much of an asset Santana is being outside the ring and covering Ortiz’s back.  Moxley is still flying solo on his quest here and I hope they find a way to work that into a genuine fault for the guy rather than just a self-imposed restriction to make him look more badass which frankly seems to be what they’re going for.  If I could say one thing about Moxley that’s negative, it’s that he’s just SO unflappable that he becomes a BIT hard to take seriously; especially when it comes to selling other people’s moves which he struggles with just a LITTLE bit.  Sure he can stumble and look a bit groggy, but he never screams, flails, or holds body parts in pain despite the amount of damage his opponents lay on him.  I was paying attention to the pin falls in particular and he looks like he’s WAITING to kick out rather than nearly incapacitated, so that’s one place where things could be a BIT better here, but like I said it was a great match overall and one heck of a way to start off the show!  It comes to an end when Jon Moxley avoids a running strike from Ortiz who then accidently hits Santana off of the ropes (this will be something of a running theme by the way) and so  Ortiz tries to rush Moxley again, but Moxley is prepared for it and lands a Paradigm Shift for the pin.  After the match Santanta tries to rush Moxley as retribution for the defeat of his tag team partner but ends up eating a Paradigm shift just like Ortiz, and then Moxley pulls out the car keys to the Ford GT that Jericho “gave him” as a gift for joining The Inner Circle which he ultimately didn’t do, and Jericho is great here as he freaks the heck out on commentary yelling about how it’s his car and that Moxley is a THIEF!  A THIEF I SAY!!  If that wasn’t bad enough, Moxley sticks the key between the fingers of his hand as he makes a fist, he picks up Santana who is still dazed from the Paradigm Shift, and then jabs the poor sucker in the eye; taking his revenge for what The Inner Circle had done to him a few weeks ago.  The Inner Circle rushes the ring at this point but Jon Moxley is long gone; having made his escape in the crowd.  Moxley is second only to Cody as far as people over with the crowd, and while this definitely feels more like a heel move than anything a face would do, the crowd was into it and cheered him endlessly for his Eye For An Eye stunt here.

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Cinema Dispatch: The Rhythm Section

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Rhythm Section and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Reed Morano

One of the unique selling points of this movie is that it’s produced by EON productions, and this is pretty significant considering they’ve only made four other films that weren’t in the Bond Franchise since its inception way back in 1961.  Now I love me a good Bond film and they have certainly been some really good ones in the recent past (Spectre notwithstanding), so seeing their logo on a film is intriguing if nothing else; but sadly the reason I can focus so much on a production company is that there’s simply not much else about this movie that’s catching my eye.  It looks way too much like other films I’ve seen in the last few years like American Assassin and The Foreigner; all of which span the range from nothing particularly impressive to outright terrible.  Can this latest spy thriller manage to rise above its peers with the help of the Broccoli family, or is this yet another dime a dozen spy films that won’t have even half the shelf-life of the worst Bond film?  Let’s find out!!

Stephanie Patrick (Blake Lively) has gone through a rough patch in her life.  She was doing alright, but then her entire family died in a plane crash that may or may not have been terrorism (pretty sure that’s the first thing the government would figure out, but whatever) and has spent the last months in a spiraling depression.  No home, no job, working as a sex worker because I guess that’s what grieving people do (did she not have friends or even second cousins that didn’t die?), but an unspeakable rage has built up inside of her that must be satiated by VENGEANCE!  Fortunately a reporter (Raza Jaffrey) comes along and tells her exactly who the bad guys are and where to find them, so she tries to shoot the terrorist in the face but blows the opportunity instead of his brain matter; leading her to be in even more danger and getting the reporter killed in the process.  The only hope left is the reporter’s source which is an ex-MI6 agent known as B (Jude Law) who begrudgingly agrees to train her so that she can take revenge PROPERLY next time.  Will she be able to train her body to be a perfect killing machine and finally exact vengeance on those who murdered her family?  What twists and turns will throw her off her path as she learns more and more about the complicated network of spies, extremists, and opportunists that facilitated the attack in the first place?  I mean I’m PRETTY sure she can pull this off!  She already fought off a shark, so how hard could this be!?

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“Wow!  This is SO much easier with a gun!”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: The Rhythm Section” →

Jumping the Soapbox: Games of 2019 (Part 3) – VR-A-PALOOZA!!

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Back in November I finally took the VR plunge and got myself a (VERY EXPENSIVE) Oculus Quest.  Now sure, it may not be the BE ALL END ALL of interactive experiences, but it’s definitely the most interesting new gimmick for the medium in a while.  The best way I’ve been able to describe it is the difference between beer and hard liquor.  Both are unique in their own way with pros and cons to each, but there’s no doubt that one is a more POWERFUL experience and that you can’t have as much of it without getting sick.  It’s amazing to be immersed in the virtual world in a way that no other gaming console can adequately replicate, but the weight of the hardware itself as well as the strain on your senses trying to understand the disconnect between what you’re seeing and what’s in the real world means that it’s best for short bursts rather than longer sessions.  In any case, we’ll take a look at many of the games I’ve played for it as well as any other impressions I had of the hardware.  Some games are from the built in Oculus store, some were side-loaded to the console through other means, all are worth talking about today!  Let’s get started!!

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Beat Saber

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Develop by Beat Games

Alright, I’ll admit it!  I mostly bought this ridiculous headset just to play this one game!  ARE YOU HAPPY!?  I’ve always been a huge fan of rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution, and after playing this at a convention a year or so back I knew I had to get it as well.  The gameplay is ridiculously intuitive with the many slash patters becoming second nature after a surprising short amount of time; though some of that might be due to my experience with other rhythm games.  I don’t want to BRAG and say that I’m an AMAZING arm waver, but over time the connection between the visual cues and the body movement become more and more abstracted and the thought process between seeing a block on screen and knowing what to do with my arms became instantaneous and I was racking up high scores in no time; even if I STILL can’t do a good chunk of those absurdly difficult EXPERT+ songs, and that brings me to something worth discussing about this game.  The big elephant in the room is the custom songs you can add to the game through mods with very little effort; even on the Quest which is designed to be much more self-contained and therefore harder to mod.  Look, I love the game play on its own, but if I couldn’t play Shut Up And Dance, You Get What You Give, and Eating Food In The shower, my interest would have faded away almost instantaneously.  People uploading tracks that they do not have the right to upload is frankly the lifeblood of this game and the paltry tracks that come with your thirty dollar purchase as well as the small handful of downloadable tracks are simply not enough to sustain interest.  I don’t know if Beat Games has said much on the use of unlicensed music in their game, but they sure haven’t fixed the “problem” yet and I’m curious if this is a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.  Until it does though, this is easily the most fun experience there is to find in VR, and the first thing you should buy if you get a headset!

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Continue reading “Jumping the Soapbox: Games of 2019 (Part 3) – VR-A-PALOOZA!!” →

Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (01-29-20)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEWDYNAMITE

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Shahid Khan, and TNT

The vacation is over, the beach has been thoroughly bashed, and it’s time for AEW to get back into the swing of things!  With their next PPV revolution just a month away, we’ve got a lot storylines to set up, expand upon, and pay off before then, so let’s get started and see what they do!

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Jon Moxley Promo – Preparing For Revolution

Not even five seconds into the show, the dude’s music hits and he comes out through the crowd wearing an ACTUAL eyepatch this time instead of just a bandage, so I’m gonna start calling him Big Mox for the rest of this episode.  After his win against Pac last week, it’s now official that he will be challenging Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship Revolution and the man is just GIDDY at the prospect!  He calls Jericho out for being a coward and a Jabroni who got through his career with guile and manipulation rather than heart and honor, and he straight up calls him out to have the match RIGHT now instead of waiting for the big show.  Surprising everyone, Jericho DOES come out from the back to confront Moxley, but he stays nice and safe on the ramp rather than go down to the ring.  After all, what’s the point of having these really nice microphones if they’re not going to talk to each other from nice safe distances?  Jericho goes in on the insults and calls him a pirate, he talks about how he wants to bang his mother, all the heel classics, but there is one thing that hits home and is a genuine mark against Big Mox; Jericho calls out the Inner Circle because he’s GOT those teammates who will be there to watch his back.  Moxley on the other hand, has no one.  He’s got a bigger chip on his shoulder than anyone and certainly is one of the most skilled guys there, but without eyes in the back of his head and only one eye working on the front of it, he’s a bit out of his depth which is a great bit of characterization for the guy and it kind of reminds me a bit of the end of Moxley’s run at WWE where his final storyline was about him wanting to go it alone but realizing he’s a part of The Shield and is at his best when he’s with his bros.  Sadly he doesn’t have Roman Reigns or Seth Rollins here to join forces with, but I’m curious if anyone here will try to befriend him in the next few weeks.  Things get a bit weird here as, for whatever reason, Santana & Ortiz have brought a bunch of dudes from the Bronx with them (the show is in Cleveland, did The Inner Circle pay their bus fare?), and so now Moxley is EVEN MORE outnumbered than usual.  Moxley’s not perturbed in the least however because he’s in his home town, but this still seems like a bad guy no matter how brass his balls may be, and sure enough he’s SWIFTLY overwhelmed by the numbers and has to retreat before they take out his other eye.  This was a really great way to start the show and I really hope they develop Moxley beyond just the trash talking super badass, but only time will tell if they make good on him being the lone wolf who needs a pack.

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