MaskedMarvel

I though WWE was getting better but its still the same crap a lot of the time. Pretty much anything that happens on the show other than wrestling is incredibly unwatchable. "HOW DO YOU THINK MY WIFE FELT WHEN.. blah blah blah". The crowd really looked rivited by the drama. Its like a bunch of cry babies who somehow talk to eachother without ever making any points. This idea of a "male soap opera" is really stupid and always has been. The kids singing was interesting for a few minutes.. after a few bars its like 'ok I get it'. And of course they show a replay of people singing immediately after. No higlights of cool moves replayed, but but your ass you'll get a replay of whatever boring 20minute peech HHH made. Its funny how in WWE if you as a fan tried to get into the ring to beat someone down security would be on you immediately. However a wrestler can come out (with music and pyro no less) tie someone up, beat him down with weapons, etc for 20+ minutes and no security or referees or anyone to try an stop them. Ah the good old "WWE Universe" where nothing makes sense and no one seems to care.

Memphis wrestling did a lot to pioneer video packages in the 80s. Some were cool: Some were... well I honestly don't mean to offend anyone, but some were really gay: Hopefully not too off topic, but regarding Daniel Bryan and WM30, the ending of wrestlemania kind of took the wind out of my sails. The man had been selling his shoulder for the whole event and suddenly he can "YES" for 15minutes afterwards? I was yelling and throwing things at the screen.

Low Ki returning to ROH (July 2004) seemingly to help Samoa Joe and the Briscoes fight off the Rottweilers... only to spit on the ROH belt and join up with the Rottweilers.

The "crystarium" is capped, but after a while you gain the ability to level up anyone in any class... which isnt that useful I like the leveling up in X, XII and XIII because it seems like you are almost always spending points instead of waiting to level up once and then waiting again. The ultimate weapons were indeed ridiculous in FFX... I don't mind admitting that I used gameshark for those I might be in the minority but I love the battle system in FFX and its really fun near the end when battles get hard.. Why couldn't the whole game be like that? The side quests do get kind of boring in XII and XIII... I never thought about that but making them have more to do with the characters would definately help. As much as I enjoy a good RPG battle I'm getting a little tired of running around gran pulse which I'm told has well over 100 treasure... orbs to find.

I hated FFXIII at first. I decided to give it another shot and 40 hours later I'm on chapter 11 an really enjoying the battles. Not my favorite but at least the fights have been mostly challenging. I feel like most final fantasies are a great RPG trapped in there somewhere. FF9 is a great example of an awesome story, amazing production for its time, interesting systems and mechanics... however there is no chance of any of the enemies killing you so all that other stuff is kind of pointless. I played FF9 a few years ago. I got to the second disc avoiding as many fights as possible to hopefully make the next boss challening only to end up beating the boss with little thought required.. and stealing all their stuff. Tried playing FFX, I'm 6 hours in and I would have literally had to have fallen asleep with my nose on the X button to have died in battle. Great stories and graphics but its either cakewalk or overpowered superboss. So for all of its flaws I'm enjoying FFXIII just because its a JRPG that actually has a good challenge without being cheap. (except for the eidolon battles which are not fun at all ). For FF 7-10 its like you have been given adamantium, freddy krueger machete gloves to cut paper with.

Its almost like one of those pictures by M.C. Escher where a staircase or something loops back to where it started. Mean Gene or Sean Mooney seemed like they were from the real, sane world like the viewer and along with the commentators they narrated and navigated the mayhem. I think a long time ago wrestling had a similar legitcimacy to what hindsight has shown us about PRIDE fighting. Where it was often real, but some matches were "hippodromes" as they might have said back in the late 1800s. Things that were supposed to generate interest for a match the way they do in UFC and boxing became so routinely staged that staging them became the art form. If one UFC fighter spat in another's face at a weigh in it would be a big deal. If someone sucker punched their opponent at the next weigh in it would be noteworthy. If at the next weigh in for a PPV something similar happens, now people who are interested in that sort of thing are just watching the weigh ins to see what sort of antics will go down. I think because every episode of every wrestling show is made out to be such a spectacle, it becomes like a spotfest match where no once cares about any of the moves. There is a fatigue of pyro entrances, ultimate title for title matches on RAW, "crazy" beat-downs and pull aparts, etc. That gentle art of self reference is lost, wrestling becomes almost a parody of itself in many cases.