Firebreaker Chip

I'm getting the impression that the core gameplay's been tightened up nicely (slowed down/better AI/chain wrestling/AI finisher settings for CAWs) and there are improvements in universe mode (decisions, promo cutscenes, quality of life improvements to show organisation); but if the PC version's stuck in the CAW ghetto because they don't want Status unlocking the stuff from their lame cash grab mode and uploading it, I wouldn't even consider buying it unless it either got crazy cheap or a lot of good CAWs made it to PC CC anyway I am more interested in quantity of decent 80s/90s guys than having in game model quality versions of the same 20 AEW guys that everyone makes. I can not imagine what it would now be like to rawdog one of these games purely with the on disc roster of neverending landfill Wyatt/Bloodline shit

"custom hashtag". It's harder than it should be and that whole interface needs a quality-of-life pass. It's worth favouriting creators whose stuff you like so you can shortcut to viewing just what they've done. Bad week for Regal in my Universe mode. He fought the Giant, who'd been beaten to a pulp by Hulk Hogan in a pre-match attack, but still fell prey to a top rope chokeslam. Then on Saturday night, as all men must do, he jobbed to the Disco Inferno.

Is Bill Watterson Bret Hart? Did a notable body of seminal work entirely in the 80s and 90s that stands the test of time, always cared more about the art than the trappings around it, knew how to make you ~feel it, refused to compromise on their outspoken creative principles to their own detriment (syndication and merchandising vs putting that rat bastard Shawn over in Montreal), both have a victory over Jean Pierre LaFitte on PPV It falls down where Watterson gracefully disappeared into obscurity, whereas Bret will still be accidentally reigniting his feud with Goldberg after he's dead

I started doing a WCW 1997 Universe mode now that the DLC's out, and got it booking decent cards. Had a hilarious AI sim between pre-Flock jobber Kidman and the much higher rated Ultimo Dragon on WCWSN where Kidman threw Ultimo out, beat him pillar to post around ringside hitting three dives, loads of grapples, splatted him into the ringpost and steps three times, then got him back in the ring, completely ate canvas on the SSP, so Ultimo gets 2.9 off a running Liger bomb and immediately puts him on the top rope and hits an avalanche powerbomb for 3. Two moves. Also had the Disco Inferno pin an Arn Anderson who had gone completely hairless and bald as a result of the recent patch affecting CAW hair. Fantasy booking the Depressed Twink Arn Downward Spiral angle in my head right now.

I signed up for a month of (UK) network to watch some old nitros and the search function is so bad compared to what it used to be. You could search for the timestamps of individual matches before, now I search "Mortis" and get one random whole episode of Nitro and dozens of results about...John Morrison And they stopped uploading WCWSN at 1994! Gah! Fuck you!!

I'm definitely enjoying the game but not necessarily massively gripped by it, I guess? It's fun to dip into and explore these cool-looking environments, the combat is engaging enough. It's more of a dip into it for some vaguely meditative questing every few days thing rather than something I feel compelled to mainline ASAP. I'm still at the "lots of things are going wrong in a fairly unstructured way" part of the plot and will be interested to see it changes when it reaches the late game.

DDP's new Diamond Cutter animation is terrible. Kick to the gut (!), stalls, grabs the head, does a shitty jumping RKO without the knuckles locked. The least outta nowhere thing ever. The standing cutter that was already in the game looks way more like his version. It also needed a pin combo where he pops up to his knees doing a "bang" pose, then waddles over to them on his knees and does a casual pin

Yes! Why are you even going to let me save manually if you're just going to put me back at the autosave point and respawn everything I killed?

Haha yeah everyone's somehow mad at you for failing to save the world properly and it's like...we're just the only four guys who turned up and pushed a thing over?

Your character is unambiguouly good-aligned and you have very limited options to define their personality. Your typical ever-present dialogue options are nice good, wisecracking good or serious business good. (occasionally an option for horny good appears in the top left of the wheel). That's it. There's no facility to just do evil stuff and butcher NPCs or anything like in BG3. There's one moral dilemma you have to make a decision on in the early main quest where you can choose do something a bit edgier, but from what I've read I think these tail off quite suddenly in frequency as if Bioware changed their plans mid-development. I'm not far enough in to understand the impact of anything I've done on the plot beyond the fairly superficial, but it's pretty linear so far (with the option to do what seems to be a decent amount of exploration and side content) The RPG elements are more in building your character's skills and gear, working towards a sub-class style specialisation, and developing a bond with your preferred party members to level them up. People who were very wedded to the RPG elements of the first and third games in this series in particular do not tend to be very enthusiastic about this game. I'm definitely still into it for what it is so far though. Had a really good aimless wander through a side area last night, then got obliterated by probably the same OP blood demon as Rippa.

I died once because I reeeeally wasn't paying attention to how much stuff was hitting me, but it seems there are lots of green potion pots around and you often seem to get kind of reduced to 1hp in a last-chance kinda way that gives you time to drink one Some of the exploration sidequesty stuff you can unlock when you go back to an area seems promising. Not open world, but a bit of free roaming at your own pace with less of a pressing mission hook

5 hours in. It looks beautiful and is very effortlessly smooth so far on PC for me. Story is engaging so far. Really nice variety of cool-looking high fantasy locations to visit. Downsides: the dialogue is indeed cringey Marvel nonsense, and the combat's a bit weightless and confusing when the screen's crowded. I wish the spellsword subclass was accessed via Fighter rather than Mage. I'd rather hit a lot of stuff then get a little bit good at magic later on like in D&D, rather than the other way round. Looks like lots of depth and options for a second playthrough though.

It's basically an action game with RPG elements, designed heavily with consoles in mind. You'd be fine on XBOX imo

Yeah, the tiered seats had very good views. I Iearnt from the first Copper Box Royal Quest that I will never voluntarily sit in a floor seat at a wrestling show again Haven't kept up with New Japan at all post pandemic, colour me surprised at how insanely different 2024 Dan Moloney looks and that Dave Finlay III is hilariously American as fuck despite his risible protestations (no pun intended). (I have no idea why I'd expect the children of British wrestlers who spent the last 30 years working in Germany and the states to have their dad's accents) This one was a 15 min walk home for me so easy thumbs up despite the basic lesser-RevPro show nature of the card

Bruce Prichard is about as low as it gets, what a wretched existence

Danielson-Perry should 100% go on last, and they should do a long, moving video package about Bryan's storied career which could be about to end, and then he should win and they should also do that again for his next defense against Iron Savage #2, and for all his subsequent defenses

The ability to set 5 sigs and finishers (with optional 3-finisher deathmoves) in 2k24 has me downloading loads of 90s Japanese wrestlers and arenas and trying to basically turn it into a ASPW3 or KOC2 rerun this year. I've done a lot of compulsive tweaking of movesets to try and optimise the finisher and sigs slots to give as broad a range as possible, but with only being able to have max two in each grapple position it gets tough with guys like Akiyama and Kobashi who have lots of gnarly front grapple rarities. And you have to use best-fit proxies for stuff like Black Crush and Diamond Head because 2k are way less enthusiastic than Yukes were about putting indy and old Japanese moves in the games, in favour of Stupid NXT Neckbreaker Variant #753 The strike exchanges are quite fun, had an AI simmed one where Vader taunted Kobashi to hit him harder and promptly got wiped out with a backfist, then a second match where the climactic backfist sent Vader staggering across the ring, only for Kobashi to sprint after him and decapitate him with the Burning Lariat for the pinfall

Hate these random no-context crossover matches, Tony should have done some vignettes to build up Ollie Watkins and explain who he is and why people should be afraid of him P sure Swerve was off camera to the right and they just didn't know who he was to include him in the shot, even though the TV commentary shouted him out

The early 80s mid South women's matches are pretty surreal - months of nothing, several weeks of trailing that the Popular Girl Wrestlers will be appearing, Wendi Richter/Princess Victoria/Velvet McIntyre turn up and have a completely serious athletic contest, in the middle the wrestlers fall on top of the ref and they do a chauvinist comedy spot where they roll around and the ref gets embarrassed/horny, then the finish is something completely standard for the promotion. Like Watts' stern wrestling values and hatred of gaga led to him presenting women's wrestling more seriously than most other promotions did for decades I thought Roop was absolutely dishwater when I started watching Mid South, but there was a great guest commentary week in 82 where he was lobbying for Ted Dibiase to get fined for interfering in a match, and Boyd Pierce hulks up and cuts an angry (for Boyd) promo on him telling him he's there to commentate not advance his own agenda; Roop spends the whole thing doing this magnificent shocked/embarrassed/bug-eyed look and then spends the rest of the show doing the most exaggerated best-behaviour "these sure are two fine athletes" babyface commentary possible. So they did sort of have an onscreen reason for him to commentate so neutrally going forward. I guess he was very well cast as a creepy political manipulator who was always complaining about something

MJF tapped Danielson with the Lebell lock last year. Jericho was a big finisher stealer, didn't he finish the Rock with the Rock Bottom at one point? Of course, Rock himself also disgracefully beat Booker T with the Book End at Summerslam 2001

AEW's PIP breaks are super regimented in that the heel's control segment is often the exact length of the commercial break and you can guarantee the face will regain control within seconds of Excalibur speaking. He's even lampshaded it a couple of times recently like "ah and as soon as I say the heel was in control..." as if it doesn't happen really often All of the YOU WON'T MISS A SECIND!! stuff is kind of tiring sometimes! I like getting long PPV matches that can have a totally different structure

It sucks for people to lose their job but with some of these NXT people I almost guiltily feel relief that they won't have to work under those stupid fucking names any more Like I'm sure if Gable Steveson does get released he'll be more than happy to just be able to be known by his real name, [glances at Wikipedia] oh dear god

I'm mostly through the Steve Keirn book and it's a pretty good, easy read. His early life with his father being a POW is very interesting, and he gives a pretty good account of drifting into the business in Florida. It's fairly low on sleaze (financial impropriety/stretching marks aside) but high on ribs and tall tales. If he is to be believed, this man has done stupid things with possums, one unbelievably stupid thing with an armadillo, and did probably the single stupidest thing someone doing a tour for New Japan could ever do (short of anything involving Yakuza) .

I won't be anywhere with good enough WiFi to watch All Out for a while so I haven't actually seen the match, but if Danielson's possibly had the best strap match ever in the same year as having had the best 60 minute Iron Man match ever, after breaking an arm in between, that's pretty impressive going Likewise Khan managing to do 81k at Wembley, rave reviews for All Out, strong buyrates for the both shows, and threading the needle of moving on from Punk without pissing Chicago off too much...tough gig for Bischoff and C*rnette this week