Eoae

Developers used to be able to patch games without it turning into a media event. Prior to the advent of online services, consumers usually weren't aware if a game got patched or not. Unless different batches of cartridges were different colors or the game happened to have the ver number stamped on the cart or title screen, players usually couldn't tell. Now players and media know when patches are released and it's become std. practice to expect them frequently. as far as why the gaming press reviews unpatched games, I've been told by a couple of people that work at two of the largest gaming press sites that when they can't get a review up as soon as the embargo ends, or the day of release or whatever, traffic goes way down. Apparently, if you tell viewers "we just got the code. Our review will be up by Friday", said viewers go looking for reviews elsewhere and don't come back to the site on Friday to read your review. As said, the problem is completely on the developer. If you don't want reviewers reviewing buggy, unpatched builds of games, don't send them the codes to the unpatched version of the game. Although, maybe the real problem is that fans read about performance problems and take the reviews as gospel even though they know a patch is on the way. I enjoy reading reviews, but I don't give them that much weight, particularly if the reviewer is griping about performance issues or game-breaking bugs. In 2020, how many games don't get performance issues and game-breaking bugs patched out? I've been playing a lot of Switch ports lately. Several of them had fairly severe issues at release (Rime, A Hat in Time, Bloodstained, etc.). But, by the time I've gotten to them, they've all had at least a few patches released and whatever issues were there are gone now.

I’m still trying to decide if the gif below is Hale doing a piledriver wrong - of if he’s doing it right and everybody else is doing it wrong. Whichever, it looks devastating (too bad nothing else about Hale looked good).

Whoever's booking the feud is going to have their work cut out for them making Swann seem credible next to Kenny. Kenny Omega vs. Rich Swann feels like it should be a three-week undercard feud on Dyamite (along the lines of world champion Chris Jericho having short feud with Scorpio Sky a while back).

Same. I feel like the PS4 sandbox games were interesting, but I've never been able to get into the earlier games and I bounce off the PS4 games if I try to play them straight. I feel like the series is generally well-made and i should be a fan, but I'm really not (a fan). I really only enjoy the games while setting up wacky, over-complicated kills. I guess what I really want is for Io Interactive to develiop a Spy vs. Spy or Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote game.

Correct on both counts. Kenny taped something (interview?) that's going to be inserted into this week's show. Unless they planned this well in advance and somehow kept Kenny's participation quiet, Omega isn't going to appear "live" on Impact for at least a month.

Heeling 101:

What is a pre-day one patch anyway? Apparently, Cyberpunk has a pre-day one patch that runs around 43 gb and a separate day one patch. Not sure how that works. Is there some advantage to uploading two separate patches or am I not understanding how the pre-patch works. Review embargo must be over. I'm not paying much attention (Cyberpunk is barely on my radar, so it will probably be awhile before I play it. Possibly years.), but apparently the early reviews are very positive. I will be playing Pixeljunk Eden 2 Thursday, if anyway wants to discuss that.

Well, if they really want to get Kenny Omega over as a heel, they should have done a vignette where Omega blindsinds Mox with the V-Trigger knee at home or while he was walking down the street, stands over Mox while he's down and drops a pair of pink baby booties on Mox's prone body, then screams "It's a girl!!!". Ruining gender reveal = nuclear heel heat. Thank god Russo and Bischoff didn't know that. We would have gotten pregnancy storylines with Flair four times a year in late 90's WCW. Edit: I just reminded myself of the awful David Flair-Stacy Keibler "Who's the daddy?" angle, which I had someone managed to block out of my memory. Ugh.

Mobile and desktop version of the board have been laggy for me for a couple weeks now. Not every time, but more often than not.

How is Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Switch these days. The Switch release had some fairly serious performance issues when it was first released, but it's been updated numerous times since then. Did they patch out the issues? Curious. I have it for PS4, but have never finished it. I'm thinking i might get back to it over the holidays and would prefer to play on Switch if performance is mostly comparable (to PS4).

Liked the Moxley-Omega match well enough, and the right guy went over imo, but I wasn't feeling the "screwjob". Mox broke the gentleman's agreement and basically tried to murder Kenny with the Paradigm Shift outside the ring, then went after Callis and the refs when they tried to help Kenny. Hitting Moxley in the face with a microphone was a fairly reasonable response. If this had been a normal year, the full crowd would have been insane the entire last hour of the show. Really curious to see where the TNA stuff goes, but AEW's roster is bloated as is. They aren't wanting for guys who need/deserve more TV time. Still, there are a lot of matchups I'd like to see. Sami Callihan has to be the guy who jumped Moxley into the entranceway, right?

I feel like Tom King gets a bad rap. Batman's been up and down, though for me, it's mostly been up. A lot of outstanding single issues and a lot of good character work. I feel like King does his best work with shorter books. A regular monthly gig that's going to go on for years and not have a definitive ending isn't really his thing, and he's only tried that a few times. IMO, his best works have been self-contained single-issue stories and limited series. I loved Mr. Miracle, Omega Men, Vision, and Sheriff of Babylon. Strange Adventures seems like a winner so far. I didn't love Heroes in Crisis, but I thought it had a lot to recommend it. The actual scripting was solid. I wasn't a fan of the way it gaslighted readers with false leads and it necessarily required several characters (Wally) to act way out of character. Given the way Joshua Willamson retconned HiC in Flash, I'm curious if that was the plan all along or if the Zoom connection was spitballed later to retcon bad story ideas and rehabilitate the characters. I also don't know if Wally's heel turn was King's idea or editorial's. There's a lot of stuff I personally like about his Batman run that hasn't gone over with the larger audience. The War of Jokes and Riddles, for example. I haven't minded the Cat/Bat romance except that it's probably unworkable for both characters in the long run. It's a no-win situation for King. If he splits them up, he'll take flak from fans. If he puts them together for good (which is basically the direction he's gone so far), editorial will probably have the next writer blow them up. I didn't mind the non-wedding except that Selina calling it off didn't seem organic. I would have preferred it be presented as a compatibility issue between the couple, not overly-complicated super villain plot #113,034. Looking forward to Rorschach and Bat/Cat.

Did Wingo just want out of ESPN? The rumor going around in late summer was that Wingo informed management that he wasn't going to sign a new contract for Golic and Wingo because he didn't like the hours. The other rumor was that he was going to be part of the new morning show with Keyshawn, but that didn't happen. When the dust settled, Wingo was the one left without an on-air spot (though Golic's Twitter has given the impression he expects to be leaving ESPN for good when football season is over).

This thread makes me sorry we can't have a Stan Hansen-Kenny Omega tag team. I mean, the backstage skits alone would be gold. Kenny could try to explain to Final Fantasy to Stan. Stan could then try to explain to Kenny that if Kenny didn't stop talking, Hansen would beat him within an inch of his life and lariat him back to the womb. License to print money. Build a time machine and book it, Tony Khan.

Yeah, I have no idea how this is supposed to work. I keep expecting her to win matches through flukey "opponent slips on a banana peel" type finishes and they won't even give her that much, She's presented as completely inept against fair competition, to the point she looks grateful and relieved when someone like Asuka steps in to protect her. Oh, and she seems to be fighting back tears a lot. Ugh. The spot they've done several times lately where her tag partner starts to whomp on the heels, only for Lana to tag herself in and immediately get her ass kicked sure is something, On that topic, how was end of the women's tag match not a dq? Shayna gets Lana in a submission, Lana looks ready to give up, so Asuka runs in and clocks Shayna hard enough to not only break up the pin, but give Lana time to roll on Shayna and get the three count. All of this in full view of the referee. I mean, that's basically begging for a dq.

I completely forgot Fox had an afternoon game that day and NBC had the night game. I was thinking Fox was supposed to broadcast the 8 PM game like usual. I watched the Dallas game too.

What console do people think is better for indies? Switch or PS4? I don't really mean in terms of the library. Bigger indies/better promoted indies end up on both consoles (though Switch often gets indies titles first if they're not published on both platforms simultaneously). I'm more curious which platform people think is more indie-friendly? I've been told by a few people in the industry that indies don't sell well on PS4 and Sony isn't that interested in promoting them. Is that true? I don't pay much attention to sales data. I've also heard that (some?) developers/indie publishers prefer working with Nintendo. As much as people gripe about Nintendo's e-store, Nintendo seems to do a fair bit to promote indies. Amy opinions?

Why is the game on NBC to begin with? It was originally scheduled for a Thursday, so it should have been part of Fox's package. I'm curious why Fox isn't televising it tomorrow (Isn't Masked Singer on Wed? Are it's ratings that much better).

I'm almost certain Hansen's SSP was a lot uglier.

Vice just got added to our cable package about six weeks ago, so I watched all of season 1 and 2 over the course of about four days (long weekend). Really dug almost all of it. I wish Cornette had been more of a presence in season 2. There are lots of valid complaints about him as a person, but there aren't many people more qualified to talk about wrestling history and, in a setting like that, he comes across as knowledgeable and articulate. I suspect it's a combination of being tightly focused on one topic, being able to edit out his off-topic rants and bile, and being outside the wrestling bubble in a a professional setting where he's not surrounded by people who are going to nod while he spouts his craziness. Is there any particular reason he wasn't in season 2 much? Between drugs, sloppiness, and apparently not really giving a damn, it's fortunate Jack didn't murder anyone in the ring.

When I read the Black Bears press release yesterday, I wondered if the subtext amounted to "Good news. We weren't dropped by MLB entirely." I dunno that comparing to the NBA G League does it any favors. Do many guys make it from the G League to the Show? I don't pay enough attention to be sure, but it generally seems to me that relatively few guys make it onto a roster from the G League. Am I wrong?

Thank god there will be something new to play next Thursday. I wonder if anything else is releasing on the 10th.

Is this a big deal or no? I couldn't really gauge it from the press release. I'm curious because one of the six teams is the WV Black Bears located in Morgantown, WV. I lived in Morgantown while I was in college (West Virginia University). The Black Bears were a Pirates farm team (Single A, short season) and drew rather well for the size of the area, Kinda concerned not being affiliated with the Pirates will kill interest,