Hey now. Back again. Been a while, hasn’t it? A bit longer than usual actually… The reason? Was sick most of this past week. Still am, apparently.
The main thing I wanted to write about next was the Watchmen movie, which I still haven’t seen. Was actually going to yesterday afternoon, with Joe Salina, but had to bail out , due to not feeling so hot. Though it’s totally my fault; I was out way too late Saturday night. But Rumbo in Dumbo 16, aka Damien Demento‘s Demented Brawl, or whatever the heck it was called (I wish I had taken a picture of the poster… which featured Damien in all white, which basically made him look like Kratos from God of War) really did a number on myself, as well as Katie and the rest of our gang, including Mooney and his pal Gavin. Primarily the battle royale at the end, which we all agreed was the worst thing ever, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.
Who Watches The Watchmen? Not Me, At Least Not Yet
I’ll catch Watchmen eventually. Despite all the negative things I’ve heard, along with how I’ve always known the film would be a massive letdown, I still want to see it on the big screen. Why? Hard to explain. I guess because I’m such a big fan, and I almost have to?
Myself along with every other longtime, diehard fan of the graphic novel have long known that any film adaptation could never fully capture the magic of the source material, which is more or less a comic book’s comic book, if that makes any sense. Salina likes to compare it to Finnegan’s Wake, which is indeed pretty apt, so something that dense and dependent on the form could never fully translate to another medium. It’s basically impossible, there’s practically no debate here. Hence why I anticipated a focus on the core action and events (as everyone who’s familiar with original comic already knows, one of its many distinguishing features is how it has a story within a story within a story), yet I also wondered how the basic tale, that of disgruntled, disaffected super heroes would fly at a point and time in which such concepts are hardly novel (whereas back in the 80s, it was pretty damn revolutionary). I also knew changes would be in order, but what I’ve heard in that department sounds completely unnecessary and totally retarded, and those that have seen the movie have pretty much confirmed this.
The funny part is how most fellow fanatics, at least the ones I personally know, had been so unusually positive up until the release of the movie. Somewhat uncharacteristic, at least for snarky comic book dorks who are ready to complain about anything at the drop of the hat. I myself tried to keep an open mind since day one, but when I first saw that teaser trailer that got everyone hot and bothered, I had to throw in the towel when I saw “from the revolutionary director that brought you 300.” lol. But I’m still going to see it, though given how piss poor I’ve been at being timely (wait to you see my assortment of game related links from Kotaku that’s at least three weeks old, if not later on in this entry but next time), I suppose my point is: I’m expecting it to flat-out suck, so I guess there’s no real point repeating myself afterwards, since I know going in what the major points of contention are. Though if I end being pleasantly surprised, I’ll be sure to make mention of it (I have zero problems eating my own words).
… So what exactly is there to speak of from the past week or so? Video games of course!
I Don’t Wanna Lose Dem B Points
First off, what’s my latest addiction? Rescue: The Beagles!
It’s a forward scrolling platformer where you move up and down and snatch up little doggies before they disappear. In your way are astronauts (very E.T.-esque) and Cruella de Vil-type women, though they can be gotten rid of by shooting owls at them. Though the real challenge lies in simply not getting yourself killed; you have to constantly move up and down, from one level to the next, which can be achieved by jumping up and down when there distance between is not too far. Otherwise you have to either rope yourself up or use a parachute to guide yourself down… and its pretty easy to not let one go as you drop down for an quick and easy death. But aside from the cute graphics and premise, it’s pretty damn tough. Though as fun as its been on its own, specifically running off my iMac, nothing compares to playing it on Dave Mauro’s Astro City cab, which is how I got introduced to the game, not this past weekend but the last one. He actually claimed to have written about it in the forums, but I never recalled every seeing anything about it…. guess I was wrong.
Basically, our buddy Jon from Boston (aka Dongle from my message board, as well as a few others, such as Select Button… lol) was in town, which meant a good reason for myself, Katie, and Joe to spend an entire Saturday night at Dave’s place, which is more or less the best damn arcade you’ll find anywhere in Brooklyn (seriously, screw Barcade). For the most part, Street Fighter 4 was the main course, where I got to hear all about the awesome antics that dorks will pull to avoid losing an online match (which has also been detailed over at you know where), though we managed to get in some Omega Five, Killzone 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4, mostly because Dave and Joe love to see me struggle with the controls. Best part here had to be Jon, who had never really seen me play a game before, in response to be my less than stellar gaming abilities, proclaim, “Dude, I thought you reviewed games and shit.” We also tried to give Noby Noby Boy a spin, but for some stupid reason, the damn thing wouldn?t download. Apparently, there’s a bug that prevents the PS3 from talking with Linksys routers from talking to each other. You know, the same router that 98% of everyone uses. Though the real hotness was, of course, Dave’s two Astro Cities in the kitchen. The first machine, because of the vertical orientation of the screen, was basically the shumps cab by default, which mostly ran DDP Dai Ou Jou and Under Defeat (long live the Dreamcast). It was here that Katie first became acquainted to the joys of bullet hell! And she she’s not half bad either; even Dave was impressed with some of her bullet dodging techniques. As for the other cabinet, because of the PC that Dave added, it more or less ran everything, starting off with Tetris the Grand Master (Jon’s a big-time fan of those dropping blocks, though he was somewhat less than impressed by Tetoris), we of coursed had some Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, which I’m sorry to say folks, is still MUCH better than SF4… at the very least, all in attendance could attest to how much better it looks, up and down. At one point, Joe and Jon fired up the Genesis emulator for some Contra Hard Corps and Streets of Rage 2, before it got switched over to the SNES emulator, where we all took turns on TMNT4: Turtles In Time. Good stuff.
Back to shumps: starting the very next day, I began to giving Katie a beginner’s crash course on the history of shmups, albeit a somewhat incomplete one (since I don’t have Radiant Silvergun handy and am far too lazy to hook up the Genesis 3 for her to play Thunder Force 4). Thus far, she really likes Trigger Heart Exelica, along with Space Giraffe (on a related note, I’m trying to get a Nuon emulator to run on my computer, for Tempest 3000 of course). Though a couple days later, she began to transition to first person shooter, mostly via Halo 3. Oh well. At least my copy is getting some sort of use.
The Greatest Bad Guy In All Of Video Games
At the same time, I also began introducing my favorite documentaries to Katie as well. First it was American Movie, then it was Bigger, Strong, Faster, and the most recent one was The King of Kong. Sorry, but I still think it’s subtitle, A Fistful of Quarters is supremely dumb, something I even told the director himself, Seth Gordon, when I interviewed him a while back, during that movie’s premier!
That last one took had to be spread across a couple of days Katie had to take a break; the people portrayed, specifically the wild and weird personalities that make up the Twin Galaxies universe, and swear allegiance to the cult of Billy Mitchell, was giving her serious douche chills. Can’t blame her. The self-professed greatest video gamers of 20th century is easily the most hate-able guy in all of video games.
The dude actually emailed me, shortly after my review of the film went up over at GameSetWatch, the dude emailed me, wanted to discuss his side of the story. I would then discover, from the grapevine, that he was doing the same with virtually ever other movie reviewer out there who noted what a jerkoff the guy was in the movie. I must admit, I do kinda regret not writing back, but the way it was written… all in lower case and with zero punctuation… gave me the serious creeps. And for what I understand from those same sources, I basically saved myself a huge headache, regardless of the wacky anecdote that might also resulted. I also forget if I’ve mentioned it before, but Mitchell also runs a hot sauce company as his day job, and actually passed along a bottle of his stuff when I him a long whiles ago. And I still can’t get over how bad (and very un-hot) it was. Bad enough to make Joe and Mike cry.
Yes, I Play A Lot Of Wii Games
Moving on… so what have I been playing? Well MadWorld showed up a few days back, but I haven’t had much of a chance to really invest much time into it’s arrival. Though I’ve enjoyed much of what I’ve played thus far… yet I gotta say, it does feel as if the game is a tad bit incomplete and rushed. Maybe it’s the rather paltry interface, but mostly because it crashed my Wii after just one brief playthrough.
Along with MadWorld, Sega was kind enough to provide me with a copy of Sonic and the Black Knight. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sonic just doesn’t work in 3D. No matter what, trying to control the guy as he speeds towards the screen, is just no fun. And add in how you now have to swing his sword around to knock out enemies and obstacles, it’s even more awkward and complicated this time around. But the best part is easily the bonkers plot. Basically, the game kicks off with a sorceress girl that’s being hunted down by this large, evil looking knight…. the Black Knight, obviously. With her back against the wall figuratively speaking, she summons a large hole in the sky, where Sonic falls right down from, who was apparently right in the middle of eating lunch back in his world. And what was he eating? Chilidogs. So big thumbs up for referencing the very first crappy Sonic cartoon, the one with Urkel doing the voice, and nice job making his penchant for enjoying chilidogs canon. Anyway, Sonic learns that the Black Knight was apparently once good, but has been terrorizing the kingdom, ever since he became by the Excalibur… actually, it’s wicked scabbard. Huh? So Sonic decides to help the check out, but unbeknownst to him is how the Black Knight’s key henchmen are all Sonic’s pals, Knuckles, Shadow (ugh), and whoever the heck that female cat from Sonic Rush is called. I wonder if Rouge, the sexy bat, is in this one? Why am I going to such details regarding the plot of a Sonic the Hedgehog game? I have no idea. Though I must say, the set-up already blows away the one found in Sonic Unleashed.
Oh, tried giving Star Ocean: The Last Hope another shot, but it’s just not happening. I’m perpetually stuck on the tutorial. Sorry, but the controls make absolutely NO sense. There’s a technique that I can’t seem to get the hang off, which especially sucks because it’s so utterly useless and seemingly unpractical. But you just know that it’ll come up, sooner or later in the game, and obviously at a crucial point.
As for stuff that’s not out yet, I managed to get my grubby hands on a PSP game that… I unfortunately can’t talk about. But all I can say is that it’s coming later this year and will be my new favorite thing for the platform, guaranteed. I might finally take the damn thing outdoors! Though I guess I can talk about Major Minor, the new Rodney Greenblat/NanaOn-Sha title that’s due very soon at last. Majesco was in town with a bunch of stuff for the upcoming year, including a near final build of the latest rhythm action game by the brains behind PaRappa. I forget if I’ve mentioned it before… perhaps I couldn’t due to an NDA… but I was able to get my hands on earlier version during a previous press junket, and pretty much instantly fell in love.
How about this for a game concept: you’re a marching bandleader that strolls around town, leading a small crew of musicians, that you try to build by recruiting new members on the fly. How? By pointing your baton at them, which is achieved with a motion of the Wiimote, naturally. But you have to keep a steady rhythm by moving your baton/Wiimote up and down, which is definitely the tricky part. As you go up hills, you’ll have to pick up the pace, and as you go down hills, you’ll have to slow things up. Another challenge is making sure your band is happy; some will want to go fast, others will want to slow down. There’s really no way to make everyone totally happy, so as the leader, you simply have to choose a happy medium. Also, toss jelly beans at the grumpier ones to keep them at bay. Oh, and there’s evil doers who will snatch members if you’re not careful, plus crappy weather can mess things up real bad.
When I first interviewed Greenblat a few years ago, I asked him why he moved away from games, and was told that they were just becoming too complicated for him, even the ones he had a hand in. And since learned that he came back because of the simplicity that the Wii offered. Which was why I found it so funny that Major Minor was such a deceptive complex game, perhaps the most ever for any that utilized motion controls. Let’s be honest, 99% of every Wii game out there can be played by just waving the Wiimote around with no real form or fashion (the only exception I can think of is Boom Blox). Not this game. You really do need to have rhythm, as well as body coordination in general.
The trickiest part was easily the mini-games that take between levels, where you have to mimic these totally wacky patterns on screen, which the band follows along in a half-time showcase format. This most recent build actually had much of that stuff toned down… so I’m guessing that test studies had shown that it was simply far too tough for everyone. Which is both a relief, but a bit of a shame as well. Though while I was able to play the core game well enough the first time around, last week I couldn’t do jack. Perhaps I was just lucky before? Anyhow, the game hits at the end of this month I believe, which is around the same time my second interview with Greenblat is published, so look for it!
And then, there’s…
Review: Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
I’ll make this nice and quick, since I know only a small handful of people will and should care about this one. It’s basically a dream come true for me: when I was in high school, I was easily the biggest Genesis fanboy in Washington State (aka Nintendo country… though I rocked the SNES as well, make no mistake). Two of my most favorite games for Sega’s 16-bitter was Castlevania Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps, two parts of Konami’s (at the time) holy trifecta. And what’s the third title? Gradius of course, and I was hoping and praying for an installment for the Sega as well…. especially since the Genesis was the place for quality, 16-bith shumps (like the aforementioned Thunder Force 4). But alas, that wish would never come true…
Till now. Basically, Gradius ReBirth is a remix of the first game, with bits and pieces from assorted sequels, including shades of Life Force. Konami decided to go the retro route, perhaps inspired by Mega Man 9, by making it look and sound totally 16-bit. Yet instead of it resembling a SNES game as one might expect, it definitely feels more like a Genesis game to me, whether it be the minimalist color palette or the soundtrack. It’s actually been pointed out that it’s very close to Gradius Galaxies, the GBA installment from a short while ago. I guess. But to me, it’s a Genesis game. Regardless, I totally love the atmosphere, though my only real gripe has to be regarding ship design; the Vic Viper looks a bit… I dunno… sorta short and stocky? In addition to updated audio and visuals, there’s now a back-story of sorts, which is actually the one same found in the original game’s instruction manual if one can remember it, put front and center, and is just as goofy and ridiculous as it was back in 1985. The actual flow of the game remains the same, though one can choose one of several possible power-up configurations at the start, a concept that was introduced in Gradius 2. Oh, and the famous Konami code works, though not to the same extent as many will recall.
One primary factor to consider is how its tough as nails. Konami did try to make ReBirth as accessible as possible, with numerous difficulty settings, going as low as “very easy”, and frequent save points. For example, if you have to stop a game for whatever reason, when you come back, not only can you restart at your last level but also from the last checkpoint. Yet just like in Gradius 1-4, if you die, you’re sent back a few steps, which is sure to frustrate virtually all contemporary shumps players (especially those that loved Gradius 5, which went away with that formula). The game overall is punishing, even on its easiest difficulty level. But there’s plenty of reasons to keep playing, thanks to the slew of unlockables, all of which screams fan service. Which basically means only the most diehard of Gradius devotees need bother. Because everyone else will either be bored stiff or flat-out hate its supposedly archaic qualities.
… Oh, and another WiiWare title that just came out, as in today, is BIT.TRIP BEAT, which some might recall me frothing over a little while ago that I’m really digging thus far. It’s like a super stylish (and very 8-bit) take on Pong.
How To Play Mother 3, The Proper Way
Another thing that’s taken up much of my attention has been the trusty little Game Boy Micro, still one of the best designed handhelds of all time. Anyone who has one loves theirs to death, guaranteed. Problem is, I haven’t been able to use it to play some of the games I’ve really wanted to play… specifically Mother 3 (which I initially hated, but I was willing to give another shot), along with Rhythm Tengoku, Densetsu no Stafy 3, plus Vulkanon 2.0. At least the way they’re meant to be played, and that’s on an actual Game Boy Advance.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting my feet wet in the wild world of flash cars. Now I fully realize that admitting to using stuff like the R4 and the M3 can really damage my reputations as a journalist. Well the truth of the matter is, I’m also a game designer as well as consultant, so I basically had to get one as part of the job, though as previously noted, being able to play old NES games on my DS is a definite perk. One can emulate GBA games as well, but it’s somewhat of a hassle. Basically, you need additional tools to allow the system to run GBA code, which often drains battery life super fast. Plus Game Boy games belong on the Game Boy, period. So it was clear that getting a dedicated Game Boy Advance flash cartridge was the only way to go. Problem was, most of those went out in fashion years ago; the DS is all that everyone cares about. Mostly because they’re far easier to manage, since DS flash cards all use SD cards that everyone knows and loves, whereas the GBA equivalent all had stuff self-contained, which upped the price, along with the hassles. No wonder nobody makes them anymore.
But after doing quite a bit of research, I discovered that there’s at least one that’s still in production. The Elink…
… It’s your basic GBA flash card from years back, but with one BIG difference (at least, none of the others had this): a USB port. Plus, the cart itself is the same basic dimensions of a standard GBA cart…
… When I first fired the cart up, I was surprised to find a GBA game already burnt in: Fire Emblem! Anyhow, as expected, the software that is used to put stuff on the thing is a real pain in the ass (again, nothing beats drag and drop, nothing). First off, my box didn’t even come with the software CD, and the official site had no downloads either. Which meant lots of Googling. And once I finally got the thing installed (its PC only, of course), the damn thing wouldn’t work! After some more research, I discovered that the primary people who bought this thing were other Mother 3 fans that wanted to play it in the purest form possible. And given how “passionate” fans tend to be, they managed to discover a solution, by creating a patched version of the software (sorry, but for those that are interested will have to find it the hard way, otherwise I’ll REALLY be accused of advocating piracy).
Eventually I got what I wanted onto the cart, though there’s really not much room. Only about six games. Again, let’s hear it for SD cards…
… The interface is pretty bare bones, but I personally prefer that. Dave some time ago passed along a GBA cart that actually supports SD cards, but it was mostly for running DS software, in conjunction with a passkey; this was before slot 1 cards were in existence. But aside from not being able to support GBA games above 4 megs, the overly busy interface was a real turn off. Granted, you can view movies, play music, and read ebooks off the Elink as well, but seriously, does anyone actually use their GBAs and DSs for such things? And yes, I have Kirby and The Amazing Mirror loaded on the card, the American version to boot, but before even more people accuse me of a being a filthy pirate, I will say that I did once own a physical copy of the game, which I lost with a slew of other GBA carts a couple years back. They fell out of my backpack while waiting for a flight at SeaTac airport, mostly because I was too busy flirting with this one girl.
Moving on, once you finally get the damn games on the cart, it’s pretty much all smooth sailing. All games behave exactly as if they were actual GBA carts…
… The only thing that appears to be messed up, or which I can’t manage to do, is the soft boot back to the main menu. But turning the thing on and off two or three times seems to do the trick. So to sum it all up: if you really want to emulate GBA games on the proper hardware but don’t want to pay and arm and a leg for legacy options (I guess I should mention the Elink is pretty affordable, around the $20 mark), and don’t mind dealing with cruddy Chinese software, then it’s definitely a great option!
A Possible Idea For My Cable Access Show
So this past Friday, I was talking to my buddy Bill, who like myself works around the clock (he’s a PR dude). Which means he also goes to bed around five in the morning and wakes up around 1 in the afternoon (which I recently tried to “fix” by attempting to adopt a “regular” sleep schedule, similar to Katie’s… epic fail). And he came up with seriously the most brilliant idea for a television show: a morning show for people like us, who get up in the mid afternoon. So imagine something like Regis, with hosts sitting around, drinking coffee, but catered to people of the night just getting up… specifically bartenders, late night security guards, and hookers. Oh, and freelancers as well.
And the name of the show is equally ingenious: “Good Morning, Good Afternoon!”
Despite The Cursed Dildo Getting More Laughs, I Preferred The Coffee Pot That Shot Bullets
Later that night, I hooked up with Joe Simko, who btw just got a book deal! Congrats Sweet Rot! Anyhow, we both ventured into Queens for yet another Horror Night, this time hosted by Richie Rheingold, of the Beer Drinking Fools/Scum City. The first film of the evening was Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust.
The first flick was shown a few Horror Nights ago, which I came late to, so I basically missed the whole thing. Thankfully the beginning of part two details all the happenings of part one in precise and lengthy detail, covering about 30% of the original, literally (the first was like an hour and five minutes). In part one, Gary Busey plays this psycho that falls in a large tub of cookie batter and his evil essence is then transferred into the one comically gigantic gingerbread man cookie that was produced from it. The ending had some guy eating the bad cookie as a means to foil this plans and protect the girl, but then he became evil himself, for perhaps obvious reasons. But then he ends up falling in yet another tub of batter, one that produces a whole slew of gingerbread dudes.
Cut to some time later, and onto the set of a movie set where nothing but pure schlock and shit are produced. The one guy who runs the family studio (whose name I forget, doesn’t matter at any rate) calls all the shots, which means he’s overseeing twenty movie productions all at once, all of them putrid of course. But one night he gets an unexpected visitor: some disabled “kid” that looks like Jackass’s Steve-O in a wheelchair being pushed by a cute girl. Seems like the boy is dying and his dying wish is to spend a day on the lot where all his fave movies memories were produced, and the girl is a rep of the Make A Wish-like foundation that’s helping his dream come true. How does the Gingerdead Man get thrown into the mix? The studio’s sexpot sneaks him in via the night’s delivery of baked goods. Basically, I have no idea why. So throughout the movie, you have this little, mean looking Gingerbread man looking puppet, going around killing people, and spouting cheesy one-liners. The only negative here is how they couldn’t get Gary Busey back, so there’s this other dude who doesn’t even try to sound like the man. Back to the story: by the end, we discover that the happy go lucky kid is actually a bitter, pissed off blogger, the studio’s most ardent critic online actually, who is livid about the piss-poor quality of the movies being produced… though more so, how all the scripts he’s sent in are totally ignored. So the cancer boy shtick was all a ruse to infiltrate behind enemy lines, leading to a tense showdown, and blah, blah, blah.
The film is by Full Moon Entertainment, a name old-school horror fans should know be more than familiar with. They created some of the all time great direct to video fare of the 90s, including Puppet Master, and Gingerdead Man 2 is basically the studio poking fun at itself. In the beginning is a fake horror film production in which a bunch of inanimate objects pose a thread to that movie’s protagonist, including an evil looking coffee pot and a dildo wearing a tuxedo and googly eyes. When it was revealed that they weren’t really part of the movie, we all had to let out a huge cry of disappointment. Thankfully they all get brought to life “for real” at the movie’s climax, as they become the Gingerdead Man’s slave, who then all turn on him, to the point that they literally crucify the little baked guy, similar to the image above, in a scene that was pretty awesome, simply because the whole movie had been a snoozefest up till that point.
The second feature of the evening was My Name Is Bruce, starring everyone’s favorite, Bruce Campbell. It’s more or less a love letter to his fans, where plays himself as a down and out actor, who might actually deserve to be in crappy movies because he treats everyone around him like garbage. One day he gets kidnapped and sent to a sleepy mining town that’s being terrorized by an ancient Chinese ghosts, and they expect him to help them out, because they thought the Evil Dead movies were real or something. It was… Okay. Hey, I’m a Bruce Campbell fan and find him just as infinitely entertaining as the rest of the word…. he’s easily the best part of this latest flick, especially when he’s just being himself… but I suppose in the end, I’m just not that much of fan. The rest of My Name Is Bruce was pretty boring. Not offensive or annoying, just boring.
Oh, on the subway ride home, while myself and Joe Simko were casually chit-chatting, some guy on the not so surprisingly crowded train, at least for a Friday night, came out of nowhere and began playing with a rubix cube. But in a way in which it was crystal clear that he wanted everyone to take notice of his mad skillz. Which were genuinely impressive; he was able to “solve” in less than a minute flat. Though his desperate cry for attention was simply both hilarious and douchey. But you know, everyone is a precious snowflake these days, etc.
Musketeer Vs Zombie!!!
The next day, this past Saturday, Katie and I hit Chinatown for late lunch/early dinner at my fave eating spot, the Koluck diner. I’m afraid I was too chicken to try out the kimchee chicken curry rice cake with hot dog chunks. Maybe next time. Stopped by the underground mall to pick up yet another Mecha Musume figure (the one in the middle actually). Though I’ve recently come to discover that the ones they sell in Chinatown are fakes, which is a pretty big bummer. But they seem pretty indistinguishable to the legit ones I got in Japan two years ago. I then took Katie to the Chinatown arcade, which was her very first visit! Didn’t smell nearly as bad as it has in the past. Two new machines caught my eye: Tekken 6 and BlazBlue (that new ultra high res 2D brawler by the folks behind Guilty Gear). I spotted Arcana Heart 2 as well, but that’s been there for a while I think. Katie’s opinion of the place? ?Not enough shumps.”
Afterwards we went to Brooklyn, to Dumbo to be exact, for the aforementioned World of Unpredictable Wrestling show. Now that I think about it, I really should have written a report immediately afterwards, because the whole thing is a blur now. From top to bottom, it was the biggest trainwreck ever, even by WUW standards. The thing kicked off fairly late, even for them, and there just all this time between matches. For some, the announcer kept screwing up who was coming up next, and in some cases, ruining the ending or surprises. And don’t get me started on the officiating, which was atrocious. The ref would constantly hit the mat three times but then say it was only two. Given how all of it is fake, and he knows who is gonna win and when, theoretically, shouldn’t he already know in advance when to pull his arm away?
Still, there were a few decent matches, all of which were in the first half of the night. Like the one featuring Chris Minion, who was previously just Minion, a dude that was all silent and stoic, plus had wacky face-paint, but who I guess decided to drop said gimmicks and become more of a regular dude. Which I guess works since the paint would just wear off halfway through a match anyway. I personally enjoyed the opener, which featured The Unknown Masks, those two luchadores that wear quits for capes and who also can’t wrestle. Actually, I thought this past outing was their best, though I’m mostly just a sucker for their manager, their social worker, who unfortunately didn’t look nearly as hot because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. But she still managed to get in the action a tiny bit, by helping her clients win with a little bit of interference, like all good heel managers.
Still, the definite highlight of the entire evening was the Musketeer vs the ECW Zombie match! I brought my camera with me but hardly took any pics, since the last couple of times haven’t netted all that many great shots, but I just knew I had to try and capture this particular showdown…
… So WUW’s Tim Arson played a wrestling zombie for the very first episode of the new ECW on Sci Fi Network a couple years back. He was supposed to be the first of many sci fi themed wrestlers that would appear in the coming weeks, followed by an alien and the invisible man among many others, according to a few sources. But the zombie thing was a GIGANTIC flop, hence why he only appeared once (not sure if that wasn’t the plan all along, but whatever). I love pro wrestling in general, but mostly when it’s totally fantastical. Why would a dentist want to put a tax accountant in a headlock? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Anyway, the Musketeer vs. the Zombie match was fairly short, but totally sweet, as well as a stark contrast to later on in the evening. The only thing that could have topped such a spectacle was a Brooklyn Jeff match, who alas, was absent the entire evening. At least I finally have his MySpace page, courtesy of Mooney.
Oh, coming in at a close second was sitting dead center of the smarmy, hard to please wrestling nerds, who are perhaps the funniest bunch you’ll at any arena or shriner’s hall. It’s pretty pointless to repeat some of the absolutely brilliant one-liners from that night; you both had to be there and know a LOT about pro wrestling in general to know what the hell is being actually said. Though coming at a close runner up as the worst part of the evening was the gaggle of hipsters that showed up around the halfway point. And just before I was noting to Katie how one major reason why I love going out to Gleason’s Gym is how it’s one of the few hipster free sections in Brooklyn (and dead in the middle of Dumbo, I know). These folks were there to cheer their friend in the ring, which is totally cool and all, but they were just so lame. Christ, they didn’t even know how to cheer properly! Though it was pretty awesome watching one of the wrestler try and mack on the girls.
The absolute low-point of the show was the extremely lame battle royale as noted at the top of this entry. Aside from having the most ass backwards structure imaginable (I’ve seen my share of matches with idiotic rules, but at least I was able to follow along after about five or ten minutes), it just went and on and on and on. It was nothing more than a chance to give a bunch of green, totally inexperienced workers some ring-time in front of a crowd, which is can be fine, but everyone was going so fast and furious and therefore sloppy that it was beyond dangerous at times. Not helping is how virtually everyone was indistinguishable from each other; as Mooney noted, what the hell is the point of being a wrestling if you’re going to use your real name? Why not be inventive and create a totally off the wall persona? As silly as a wrestling zombie might sound, he was clearly the most exciting thing of the entire show and the biggest hit. And the best/worst part was how everyone kept screwing up such simple moves, like this one dude who wiped out in a hilarious fashion, right in front of his cheering section, mostly comprised of his parents. Once it was over, which took FOREVER to get to, there was still another match. But we just couldn’t take it anymore and actually left before the show was over, something I thought I would never do. Though still, even totally shitty indie wrestling is pretty awesome.
Afterwards we all went back to the city, to Typhoon Lounge, to soak our sorrows in some Japanese booze and bar food, as well as explain to Katie how much myself and Mooney miss the Uptown Badboy.
… Well, I was going to top things off with that also aforementioned long list of old yet still notable game related links, but I’m sure I’ve scared away the last remaining few of you with my love for pro wrestling, so I guess I’ll just end it here. Plus I’m supposed to meet Wilkes for drinks later tonight, or something like that.
