Salads

Transformers Devastation reminds me of those old licensed games where they'd throw a license drape (or three) over whatever game template they had ready to go. In a good way. It doesn't really fit (why are the Autobots using swords?) but I bought it for 'Transformers + Platinum' and that's what I got. High sequel potential with I think only about five controllable characters which won't happen due to licensing, but can't fault Activision for having the license in the first place and putting their money on 'like Bayonetta but with vehicle form hit and runs for wicked weaves'.

As someone who had an accusation made of them at work involving a colleague of the opposite sex comprehensively debunked later down the line but still gets soul-chilling moments when considering there may be people out there who only knew of the first part, it's scary how absent the developments from late last year are when this topic comes up. Teflon above deciding against trusting it is fair enough it's not like we can be 100% either way, but considering the level of Britwres sleaze we've seen I'm disappointed seeing Will widely described as a Scurl-tier offender based primarily on an individual tweeting something which they later walked back as an 'opinion' when information came out to the contrary. It's clear at this point that Will's stupidity isn't something that can be masked by interviews so in my head canon that's his gimmick, that David Finlay tweet was kayfabe and him attacking his girlfriend to make a point that no one gets isn't surprising. He's not unhinged stupid, or too-trusting Sting stupid he just repeatedly makes life hard for himself by saying the wrong thing and making bad decisions. You've got to take your real-life qualities and exaggerate them. I've always liked NJPW having IWGP titles with the suggestion of an independent governing body lending wider credibility rather than the 'this is the best guy we have under conract right now' vibe you get from championships named after the promotion itself. So a shame that this governing body is toothless and always goes along with whatever the holders want with promos about how challengers will mess with the titles in the event that they win.

Okada is also a colossal dork, but his game face is firmly on when the show starts. Similarly when most people find out Misawa was a big Kamen Rider fan they are surprised because Kamen Rider Fan was most definitely not his gimmick (though dressing as an anime character in-ring for several years should have been a clue). It seems that Kenny doesn't have the right dork flavour to resonate with fans the way Hangman can, but isn't able to mask it like the biggest names can. At least I enjoy the stories Kenny tells even if I don't buy them. I remember people not being able to get into the Rock in his prime because they thought he was too goofy, and in-ring is where Kenny is likely ironing over the cracks for the kind of readership we have so I can see that alone being enough reason for some. I soured on Kenny for a bit after his behaviour surrounding him leaving New Japan. I put it down to me committing the crime of being a Lion Mark with my sentence being not appreciating one of the great modern day workers. While I've since eased on that stance I've been trying to work out why it was so easy to me to do a 180 on him with only the slightest of prompts. Partly this was because his stuff was easy to buy into if you want to which explains why he's super popular in the wrestling bubble but not so much in the mainstream, but also because I was the co-runner of an e-fed in the noughties. Every now and again he gives me flashbacks to the kind of character I would see all the time and always hate: Cool cocky heel? Check. Leader of nWo rip-off stable? Check. 'Best wrestler in the world' gimmick? Check. Almost certainly using the above gimmick to hide that it is their actual opinion? Check. Extensive fued / storyline ideas exclusively involving their RL friends? Check. Snarky shoot comments when they don't get what they want? Check. Finisher that no one is allowed to kick out of? Check. Career long rivalry with a frenemy which we know about because they and they alone keep on bringing it up? Check. 'You're stifling my creativity! I'm starting my own fed!' Check.

Suzuki (currently 52), Tanahashi (44) and Ishii (45) are the 'gotta be up there' 2021 entrants to this topic from NJPW's side.

If it weren't for most of the library managing to later find a larger, more appreciative audience I'd probably be bitter and raving about the Wii U on street corners. It was always destined for failure which made the press assasinations seem needless. Right now it's primarily a great way to grab virtual console (esp GBA, DS and Wii) games digitally, affordably and permanently possibly for the last time.

Using the extensive research method of looking at what I have, I'm surprised how little there actually is on the download side once the virtual console is taken out of the equation. - Mighty Switch Force and The Gunman Clive games are good stuff but have since been ported to Switch. Similarly, I have Fast Racing NEO in my backlog but I think Switch's Fast RMX is an expansion of the same thing. - Severed is available on other systems, but I would think best played with a stylus. - The NES Remix games have some content not included in the later 3DS compliation port. - Star Fox Guard should be on anyone's 'making use of the gamepad' checklist. - Would've grabbed Mario vs Donkey Kong Tipping Stars if it were on sale, and Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails was tempting.

In my experience, I have it on decent authority that just about any controller can work with PC, but they won't. Spent far too much of my life pissing around buying adapters, downloading drivers, configging everything button by button etc and I think the best I managed was 'my PC knows the controller is there, and if I run this program in the background beforehand I can use it without analogue control but only if I bought the game on Steam'. Obviously my failings don't mean you won't have great success but for peace of mind just grab any Xbox controller (well, 360 and newer) and it'll always work.

I used to be irritated with how revered his ratings were until he broke through the five star barrier making it clear he agreed. I forgot all about him handing out a seven, which remains tremendous. Surprisingly I only count 4 for the Bucks. There's a list on wikipedia with a handy league table of the top ***** earners at the bottom. Appropriately it goes up to 11.

I was thinking that being in five star matches on consecutive days has to be a first, but thanks to rating escalation over recent years this is by my count the fourth time and the second for Ibushi. Speaking of escalation, how's this for a five star rating scoreboard: AEW - 6 The 2000s - 7 Ospreay - 13

'Near or at the end of their careers' can get confusing in the world of pro wrestling where a career can have multiple endings or cameos extending decades beyond full-time activity. WOR Dave recently described Minoru Suzuki as having the best year of work by a 52 year old in history. I thought that sounded like a cool spin on the wrestler of the year debate format - 'Wrestler of the Age'. Competition would be too crowded in the middle of the bell curve, but working in from the edges might be interesting.

This is great stuff but is spread across many pages (one per week), so not easy reading. And it's chronological so people may not get past the 'tell us about your childhood' material, so I've broken it down a bit. Childhood 'This is kinda embarrassing but I went back to visit Gifu recently, and my old school friends told me when I was a kindergartner I would constantly be trying to lift up girls’ skirts. ' Love life Discovering Pro Wrestling Including his favourite match as a fan. Being a fan 'No, we just wore costumes. I took a sharpie and wrote KENTA KOBASHI on a white T-shirt, but for some reason I drew a (Masahiro) Chono goatee on my face (laughs).' Student Pro Wrestling College Go to law school, focus on your Ultimate Warrior tribute act. Graduation Love of pro wrestling and buffness costs jobs and gfs. NJPW Dojo Trial I had forgotten that Wataru Inoue existed. Passing the trial Before joining Dojo life 'It was (Yutaka) Yoshie, then (Togi) Makabe, (Kazuyuki) Fujita, (Wataru) Inoue and (Katsuyori) Shibata. Then Masakazu Fukuda transferred in from Dream Factory in January ’99, then it was me and Suzuki. There were a lot of us in that dorm, and we were all big guys, too.' More dojo Getting naked with Kenzo Suzuki, and why I couldn't sleep with Shibata. Assisting Muto Assisting Choshu Debut Starting out Mad facts about Kazuyuki Fujita Being a young lion Hashimoto leaves for Zero One Graduating himself out of young lioning Also, nights on the town with Hashimoto and some Otani/Choshu goss. Tagging with Kenzo I should've seen the explanation for their tag name coming. Moving up Working in AJPW, first main events and American influences. Also, an unlikely choice for his favourite match of his from that era. Muto leaves for AJPW Choosing between NJPW and AJPW. Also, not going on excursion 'Well if you think of Japanese wrestlers who made it right to the top without that experience overseas first, it’s me and Kenta Kobashi really' Thinking the same about Inoki as we all did

Hope this hasn't been posted but I stumbled across the following picture showing some G1 stats for this year's entrants. The bits that stood out to me were EVIL already having a positive win/loss record going in, and 50/50 booking giving all five men who debuted in last year's tournament identical results. Also of interest (to me at least) are the previews NJPW are putting up on their site (like this) showing the singles and G1 singles record for individual match-ups. Every match on night 6 has someone who has yet to beat their opponent in a G1, for example.

Out of context it would sound like the work of some kind of sinister COVID-spreading cult if they weren't so well behaved. Thousands of people attend a public event and at one previously-coordinated point expel the virus into the air with the full force of their lungs and the words 'become the wind'.

I thought the Xbox One name was confusing because of how the Xbox became retroactively referred to by some as the Xbox 1 after the 360 came out (like the 'PS1'). I thought it was some kind of brand reboot to simplify things going forward, but without an Xbox Two why stick the word One after your third of four systems? 'XBox Series' should logically refer to the series of XBoxes that have been released, of which the first one has no name that can refer to it by itself and the second one has a 3 in its name. It's all mental.

Clearing the slate at the end of every year is actually a great way of avoiding WK influencing the booking like it does the G1. In the same way it also enables its crowning to be something of note for the tail end of the calendar when they are usually treading water (sorry tag league).

I had the exact same plan. I don't really do tv so I set myself a target of about one per working day. I'm currently up to episode 23 and there may be another pandemic before I finish.

Infamous 2 popped up in my backlog roulette and a couple of hours in I'm still struggling to not be amused by how Cole the superpowered movieman handles the same as Sly the thieving raccoon. Congrats to Sucker Punch for breaking a twenty year habit assuming the same is not the case for Ghost.

The IWGP so transparently having to change trajectory in early 2019 after Kenny neglected to mention his plans to leave makes it easy to forget how much of a let down his 'me against my friends' 2018 reign was after being so hot chasing and how badly the dome main event was sabotaged. The US expansion could never have existed and AEW turning Kenny's ear would still be looked back on as the point when New Japan's recent golden age came to an end. They've yet to regain that lost momentum.

Best bit was him pointing out that his down-throw was from Fatal Fury: Wild Ambition just to out-dork everybody who thought they didn't need a lesson. Never thought I'd see a Pic-a-Pix Color mention here! It was my pre-bed chill for a bit. First puzzle reveals the picture, then the second is a desperate few seconds trying to work out what the hell the picture is meant to be before the punchline of the game telling you.

They add more characters / modes etc like usual fighting game expansions and mix up the mechanics a bit too. Story-wise they pick up where the previous one left off, but be aware that the story is extensive. Leans into visual novel territory at times. I was intrigued by the story side when I played Calamity Trigger, but when I picked up the second in the series and saw that it takes four hours to 'play' through the canonical recap of Calamity Trigger's story as a prelude to the new one I was happy to skip to the final game. The final game was described as the end of its 'arc', suggesting that if sales kept up they would've kept on going through to games eight / twelve and God help you if you were planning to keep up with all the novels / animes / VN tie-ins to get the full picture.

I can't say Darius Gaiden is in my personal top tier of games, horischmups or otherwise, but that operatic YMO-like soundtrack is enough to cement it in the memory and warrant a return trip down the line.

Doors opened at 4, scheduled to start at 6. Sat down at about 5:20 and just when I was wondering how I best to kill the remaining time Emerson, Lake and Palmer tickles my fanboy nerve to start the show. Had a seat to the side of the video wall so there were plenty of segments that consisted to me of people randomly cheering indecipherable Japanese audio. My consolation was a bit of behind the curtain peeking. Seeing performers moving into position before revealing themselves gave a bit of surrogate performance anxiety, and while most provided bonus selling after disappearing off-camera, one of the Bullet Club guys (I think Hikuleo) chose to simply stand and repeatedly crotch chop to fucking nobody. Hadn't seen Aussie Open before but they looked good. Odd to see Sanada come out for the title challenge after the show, both because that matchup has been done and because he came across as a clear second hand to Naito in the earlier match where they were tagging. Terrific to see everyone get good reactions. Found out quickly I didn't need to explain who the big names were because they come across as such live even from a distance through swag alone. I'm not much of an emoter when watching wrestling, but I was grinning through the main event seeing Minoru Suzuki: Superface geeing up the crowd. Adding to the specialness of the match was the fact that googling for reactions today makes it seem that thanks to same-day competition no one outside the building watched the thing. I missed the 'if you hate Boris Johnson clap your hands' chant but 'Fuck You Brexit' came across loud and clear. Had a guy behind me contributing entirely appropriate commentary in the form of sweary responses to vicious strikes and a JR style 'stop the damn match' rant about concussions in the middle of KENTA / Ishii (KENTA was out of it for a stretch in the middle, and was hospitalised afterwards). Also fun going with a New Japan newbie who thought the policy was to put the good wrestlers on first, which I think was due to Juice / Ibushi coming across great and Ospreay being their favourite performer of the night. They found ZSJ/Tanahashi 'boring' and was firm in the view that ZSJ didn't know what he was doing and needed more training.

Suzuki is Palpatine now.

Archibald making a reference to this show a couple of weeks ago reminded me that this show existed and I grabbed a couple of tickets , so big thanks to them. I think when the show was announced I couldn't think of anyone who I could go with. Turns out the answer to that question of who would attend pro wrestling with me is my girlfriend who doesn't know what pro wrestling is. First live wrestling event for me but seeing as I've followed New Japan since 2003 this seems like the time to start sampling the atmos. Not sure how well the main event and Zack's tekkers will translate to the cheap seats I'll be in but needless to say I'm thrilled with the names they're bringing over. Taguchi, Tanahashi and Suzuki were on the first full New Japan show I ever saw!