AndrewTS

Nope. "If all of the dogs in your neighborhood refuse to turn their backs on you, you might be a sex offender!" "If you are neither a pothead or a pornstar, and everyone calls you 'Woody,' you might be a sex offender!" "If you go to Chuck E. Cheese's to meet women, you might be a sex offender!" "If you think a 'roofer' is a guy who is going to help you get laid, you might be a sex offender!" "If you're older than 12, male, and regular visit Hillary Duff fansites and chatrooms, you might be a sex offender!"

"the first half of Xenogears is magnificent" No, not at all. "You can blame that on Square taking away the resources from Xenogears and tossing them towards FF8." Yet nobody has any proof of that at all. Maybe the development team had no friggin' clue how to budget it correctly? "Furthermore, there are hints that Xenogears was rushed in production; but there is no credited source. The major basis of such being the particular gameplay (or lack of it) found in the game's second disk where players watch the characters recap the story rather than play through it; though a good possibility also exists proposing that this was intentional (Evidence: The second disc of Xenosaga Episode II, Xenogears: Perfect Works). Rumors say that it was going overbudget, or beyond production schedule. Others say that Square lost interest and confidence in the financial value of Xenogears; as portrayed by the founding of Monolith Soft - a company which is mainly composed of ex-Square employees, most of whom worked on Xenogears. Monolith Soft has been developing a series of prequels to Xenogears, branded Xenosaga, which are published by Namco. These games take place many centuries before the events in Xenogears, but use the diagrams and mechanics outlined by Perfect Works." -- wikipedia The budget rumor seems common sense, but common sense is not always compatible with game directors expressing their "vision" for a game/series. RPGs were, are, and will remain the more grave offenders of "too much movie! *snarl*", but there are also plenty of big-budget games that place more emphasis on production values and storyline than proper game pacing and gameplay. However, that doesn't mean it's going to leak into genres designed and loved for their pick-up-and-play feel. Remember that it could have been far, far worse--Sega and their utterly ****tarded vision of "full motion interactive electronic entertainment experiences," naturally.

"visioned not having to go to the hospital after being hurt by a 'future' WWE superstar who may look good but have the wrestling ability of a dead walrus. " Who injured Spike?

Maven and Kidman are shockers, because we'd have expected them cut a long time ago. With TE apparently over for good, they didn't want to bother keeping Maven around. I guess Kidman's bomb of a heel run was the final straw. David Heath? Isn't that Gangrel? I thought he was only for those couple of appearances, and neither he or Visc were contracted. Moore cut = Matt's definitely not coming back. These cuts aren't surprising consisting Heat/Velocity is going to be gone soon. But without Akio, Kidman, or Moore--who are going to make the hosses look good? Considering she's one of the few Divas that has a name to most of the fans, and still pulls in $ for her shoots and mag spreads, no. The appearances of Divas such as Dark-Haired One with Huge Tits who Spins, Brunette One who Makes Snotty Facial Expressions and Walking Racial Stereotype with 'Tude gives one a new tolerance for Torrieberg (of course, not having a major program or extended match in a hell of a long time helps too).

"On wrestling games, I owned Royal Rumble for the Genesis" It's amusing that Ric Flair was exclusive to the SNES version, and Hogan was exclusive to the Genesis version. I guess their egos were so huge no game could contain them both until WCW vs. the World. The Arena/LJN and Acclaim wrestling games ranged from totally horrible (Super Wrestlemania) to the awesome WWF Raw. I actually rented Raw for SNES back when I hadn't watched wrestling since I was a little kid. The game was just so damn fun I started watching the shows--and even though it was during 1995 (one of the worst WWE years ever), I'd wait through the crappy shows to catch the occasional HBK or Bret Hart match. Raw was pretty much the same game as Royal Rumble, but each character had a unique moveset (though wildly inaccurate--Diesel with a DDT? 123 Kid with a big boot off the ropes, which Diesel doesn't have?). It had Mega Moves (super moves, which were ultra-powerful; to this day I can not do Diesel's, where he's supposed to stand behind you, toss you waaaaaaaaay up in the air and then you come crashing down), which I'd often have memorized--like Doink's--left left left A, and HBK's--down, right right, tap A...which I'd just pretend is the superkick since they still had him listed as using the Back Suplex for a finisher. You could toss guys into the corner, and do the ten shots. However, against the computer, I'd mercilessly pound them to the count of 8 or 9, do a running shoulder ram into the corner twice, then repeat. Muhahaha! Plus, you could smash people over the head with a chair or a bucket. The chair could be smashed overhead--after which is was useless, or be used to jab somebody in the stomach. If you laid it down on the ground or smashed it over somebody's head, you couldn't use it anymore, but it was respawn when you left the screen. The ref couldn't do anything if you did it out of the ring--you could eye gouge and choke your opponent. You couldn't take weapons into the ring, but you could punch the crap out of the ref to knock him out (or just run over him). Abuse the ref enough, and he motions "screw this" and leaves the ring--then whoever gets their energy meter drained first loses. It was one of the first 4-player wrestling games to come out in the US. You could do tags, Royal Rumbles, Survivor Series matches, a standard season where you'd beat all of the other wrestlers/teams, and it had the "Bedlam" mode. Stupid name, but it was a TORNADO TAG match. There was also Gauntlet matches (Raw Endurance Match). The game took into account "attributes" (not everyone had the same stats), but you could change them. The total number of points was fixed, but you could redistribute them to make 123 Kid a lumbering mini-hoss with massive strength, or make Yoko a nimble guy who could attack quickly, etc. Obviously, I've played waaaaaaaaay too much of that game for my own good, but I still enjoy it here and there. It's a button-masher, so anyone can play it. Too bad that the 32X version didn't really add much, except for the Raw sign (as a weapon), and KWANG! KWANG didn't really even have a special, unique moveset either. However, before Raw, the Sega CD got Rage in the Cage--a version of Royal Rumble souped up to the nth degree. More play modes than the regular 16 bit games, I think it had 30-40 wrestlers (even if only their finishers were different), you could watch (grainy) video of a wrestler doing his finisher, ring introductions by Howard Finkel using actual voice samples (height, weight, hometown), and SUPERSTAR VOICE OVERS ("Everybody has a price for the Million Dollar Man, and I bet I could buy you really cheap." *DiBiase evil laugh*; Kamala: *usual grunting noises and belly slap*). It had a pretty cool intro. Naturally, the star attraction was the STEEL CAGE match, though. Too bad they didn't put it any of the Raw games.

Well, in Mercury and Halford's cases, it wasn't very shocking at all.

HCTP sucked hard. But it had a good story mode. SvR sucked moderately hard, had a weak story mode, and had online play. I got Day of Reckoning for 10 bucks--and I still feel ripped off.

Actually Jingus, the X-Box Ninja Gaiden isn't made by the "same people" as the original Ninja Gaidens. It was more of a tribute. Tecmo published both, but the teams were totally different. I don't think the X-Box version was really any easier than the older games (and the original was the most infamously hard one, the others and certainly Shadow on Game Boy weren't quite so hard). And none of the recent Draculas have been hard. SotN one with Shield rod? My ass. Galamoth is the hardest boss in that game. Circle? Harder by not really that hard. Harmony? He's not quite fully resurrected--cake. Aria's...um...Dracula-like boss is pretty easy to beat without getting hit even once. Pitiful. He's not the final baddie, though. Heck, the N64 versions of Drac are the most challenging ones in a while. Bloodlines wasn't a terribly hard game, especially with Lacarde (sp?), who kicked ass. The warping room in IV was annoying as hell, but the rest of the game wasn't quite so bad. I'd love to contribute more 8-bit suggestions, but they'd be limited by stuff I emulated, since I was a child of the 16-bit era. So I wasn't really weaned on insanely-difficult 8-bit fare like Battletoads. Then again, I've known a couple of people who swear to me that they've manhandled that game as youths, and now they've lost most of their skillz. So go fig. Kid Chameleon didn't really seem very hard, despite its rep. I think I got through level 5 or so without any prior experience, any walkthroughs/hints, and despite playing it on a lousy 1/4 of my computer monitor. If it weren't for the fact I got bored of it quickly, I might have gone further in later playthroughs.

Oh my God that is too much. Finally a gimmick that is so fucking stupid, I love it. They had Chavo turn into a white guy, just great. They forgot to change the "Chavo Fact" though. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Plus they changed all the mentions of Chavo to "White" in his profile. Just like WWE/F. Next week: "I was born a poor white child." He'll come to the arena in an SUV with an easy-listening station blaring.

I wonder if this character will have a huge, muscle-bound enforcer and bombard us with plant puns.

"Isn't this along with Robotech the most altered/edited show in the history of mankind?" Didn't Robotech get different seasons randomly spliced together without regard to continuity? So I don't think it would be anywhere near that bad. http://images.google.com/images?q=Gatchaman+Alex+Ross&hl=en Ross made some posters for the series that probably will end up as DVD covers.

Season 3 of TTZ is coming out on DVD. Although I hope Night Gallery gets the DVD treatment soon.

*flips over to Twilight Zone marathon on Sci Fi*

And we have our heel.

Apparently the Diva in the Hungry Puppy costume didn't make it.

"Cory Ledesma: Well, in the adrenaline meter from last year the negative boosts didn't work the way we wanted them to when playing through a match (as in, you never got any). It was just way too limited. Also, if you went on a streak of building your adrenaline meter and got close to using your finisher, no matter how much your opponent beat up on you, your status was unaffected. Now all that has changed and the momentum meter is reflective of how you're doing at all times. This means that just because you were successful in the beginning of the match, it doesn't mean that you'll continue that later on." " It's cool because we reward you for pulling off the finisher at the right time." IOW = "We've made a few baby steps towards being like the AKI games."

You don't think HD TV is going to catch on very quickly? I think sooner or later it's going to be commonplace. Nintendo's decision to not bother with any special HD support worries me.

Mars Matrix Ninja Gaiden (X-Box) It's annoying when a sequel comes out, and it's structured in a way to assume that you've played and mastered the previous game, with no attempt made for a normal learning curve. On the other hand, there's also those countless, annoying hand-holding tutorials that make up plenty of others.

The HHH quote "I'm 'bi' lots of things, but 'lingual' isn't one of them" comes to mind.

Oh, and I've played or owned every version of WM: TAG in existence. Yes, even the 32X version.

Yeah, but almost all of the superstar-themed arenas sucked. Bret's was allegedly the Dungeon, but it looked more like a tiny arena, with paneling on the walls, weight-benches, and an actual ring. So not really. I think just those ten wrestlers were in the game, but there was also an "In Your House" arena, which was one of the best, even if it was still ugly as hell compared to WM: TAG's one arena. The other arenas mostly had a few badly-digitized people standing around. The IYH one had a full crowd actually cheering and reacting to moves. Wrestling games with no crowd reaction really feel lacking.

Isn't Bravo already the unofficial gay network?

Yeah, saw a review or two a while back. The verdict is--i's awful, and the sun will rise in the morning. But, it's going to probably be hilarious, so I'm going. the Loken sex scene won't hurt, either. Perlman probably doesn't feel he "stooped to" this. He's always mentioned about his roles that he likes acting, but it's a job. He's never going to be the lead in any big-budget hits other than the Hellboy series. However, as long as Hollywood needs a big, freakishly ugly guy who can act well, he's going to get plenty of work. I don't know/think Loken can act well, since she'd been a model primarily before T3, but Hollywood's apparent bias against tall women hurts her (she's 5'11"). Uma's one of the rare exceptions that gets plenty of varied roles. He only made a cameo appearance.

I love Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, and I still pull it out when friends are over. I bought my PSX primarily to play the "best" version, although it clearly is a massive downgrade visually, and is missing things from the arcade version. For example, the music, some of the bonus flags they'd award you, and some voice samples. The game was in production so long, by the time it came out, Bam Bam, and Doink were all gone, I believe (perhaps more). There was a rumor about Adam Bomb in the arcade version, but it's gotta be a hoax since nobody has ever even posted a screenshot. The sequel, In Your House, was developed in-house by Acclaim--so of course it sucked. Yoko was unquestionably the best character in WM: TAG--insanely overpowered. IYH I think Vader would also take the crown, but Hunter and Goldust were both pretty damn tough. While inferior in almost every way, IYH did have a few things over WM: TAG--4-player matches, Warrior's insane rambling (and it was the last WWF/E game with him in it), more "realistic" moves for most of wrestlers' movesets, the awful "super pins," a hilariously awful opening movie with a cheesy rock song, and "endings" that were little more than the wrestlers' intro videos, but for the time were cool.

Well, aren't you special? The slimlines are overrated, BTW. You've probably heard of the issues with it--you get a built-in network adapter, but no cooling fan. I have it on my entertainment center on the bottom shelf--about 4 inches off the floor. If you play a game for more than about a half hour, just about every time suddenly the machine starts making loud noises as it plays the game. No problems otherwise, but it gets really annoying. I miss the on/off switch, and having to hold the reset button in to put it out of standby and to put it back in standby every time you want to play the game/remove the disc is annoying, too. I wish EBs/Gamestops would sell refurbed (original model) PS2s with the flip tops already installed. It's not like there's many good games that you can play online with the PS2 anyway.