Monday, May 31, 2021

My E3 2021 Predictions

It's definitely been a long time since I wrote anything. Six years has gone by pretty fast, hasn't it? My perspective on a lot of things has changed. My views have mostly stayed the same, but it's how I saw other people, including myself, that changed. I'm still me, though. It's the only person I know how to be. I can't live a double life. The ones that do are the ones you need to not get near. Anyway, I thought I'd go back to a topic that I'm still ingrained in, which is video games. I guess a lot more people have turned to them, recently; given how the world basically ended and everyone curled into a ball in their attic for a year by decree and tyrannical force. The video game mecca, formerly known as E3, is almost upon us again. I thought it'd be a good time to share some predictions and thoughts about what might be showing up there.

1 - I believe Microsoft's Halo Infinite re-unveiling will be met with mostly positive, but slightly concerned reactions. This really comes down to 343i's writing of campaigns for 4 and 5, and their focus on what Halo is. The love story between the Chief and Cortana hasn't been met kindly, to say the least. While a soft reboot may be occuring, it's possible this plot thread comes back and it won't turn heads in a good way if it does.

2 - Starfield, the next big game from Bethesda, will get a spring 2022 release date. To me, Bethesda is Microsoft's crown jewel right now. While the Chief might be their Mario, like Zelda, Bethesda is their most important tool. They're not an IP, mind you, but Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Starfield; all from Todd Howard and crew? They're the ones that will make Game Pass, Microsoft's key equalizer against Sony, shine.

3 - I don't believe the new Fable will show up. Fable is probably Microsoft's most important IP in terms of telling how the Xbox division is being managed. After years of being run on the bone, they're finally adding meat to it. I do believe it will show up in 2022, however; if not sooner.

4 - Microsoft's second tier IP's, namely Forza, Psychoanuts 2 (which is multiplatform), etc. will be surprising highlights of the show, creating more goodwill for the brand, providing a healthy bump in mindshare going into the fall.

5 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 will get a proper name, which I think will be called "Reach of the Wild." In the original, you breathed in the world, but now you will reach out and touch it. Yeah, that's pretty corny, but at least I'm telling why I think it'll be called that. There's also the part about that glowing arm having a key role to that makes me think it'll involve wordplay as well. So when will it release? September 17th, 2021. This might seem soon, but the marketing cycle has been in full on boil mode for a bit too long; it's time to turn up the heat.

6- A new 2D Donkey Kong game will be announced from the EPD Tokyo team, who previously made all 2D and 3D Mario games, as well as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. If I had to think of a name, it'd be "Donkey Kong Jungle Smash" but I don't think that's really important here. I think it will come out in March 2022 as well, since the Gen 4 Pokemon remakes and Legends Arceus are already taking up November and January slots.

7 - I believe Nintendo will announce a dual-pack remake for Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn called "Radiant Saga," at least in the west. This will likely be a vague 2022 release. I know people think Fire Emblem 4, which was only released in Japan is due for a remake here, but that recently got put on the Japanese SNES online app, which makes me think the next Fire Emblem won't be that.

8 - Nintendo will unveil post-launch plans for Mario Golf Super Rush, including new characters and courses, starting with Donkey Kong and a jungle-themed course as well as a new major update for Animal Crossing New Horizons, which will be The Roost, marking Brewster's return.

9 - I think the next Challenger Pack for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be Lloyd Irving from Tales of Symphonia.  Lloyd is the last remaining Mii costume that hasn't been put into the game, and given the release of a new Tales game this fall, despite it not coming to Nintendo Switch, makes me believe that Lloyd is going to be Bandai Namco's second character.

10 - Other No-Shows: Metroid, 2D or 3D or Trilogy.  I don't believe the rumors.  In fact, I believe the series is highly mis-managed, and hasn't been corrected.  I don't think a new Mario game will show up, whether it be Platformer or Spin-Off.  Mario needs the break after last year.  Sports Story will be absent, as will the rumored Switch revision.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to make more posts in the future.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Thoughts Before Wrestlemania 31

Wrestlemania 31 is a day away. I don't have a Network Subscription right now, and I'm contemplating getting it, but my struggle in the past month to support WWE has been hard given their current direction. With Brock Lesnar re-signing, I hope the company does the right thing and keeps him Champion going forward. Why?

Going into Mania, the thought was 'Brock's going to UFC, so Reigns will beat him and maybe Rollins comes out as Champion.' You can't have Brock leave as Champion, period. Reigns' buildup has been terrible, and crowds on TV hate him or don't care about his existence. Bringing back Bryan for the Royal Rumble when the fans CLEARLY wanted him to face Lesnar was a mistake and only did damage to Reigns and their plans in the process. As punishment for their stupidity, they've basically left Bryan hanging since Fastlane, forcing him into the Intercontinental Title Ladder Match, which has been a curse for a long time on the holder as well as having a horrific build going into the show. Without Brock Lesnar re-signing, these two matches, supposedly your top two title matches on the show, don't leave much to be desired.

For me, the two matches I've been looking forward to because of this have been Cena-Rusev for the US Title, which is a classic 1980's movie story, and Sting-HHH. The latter has Sting's first WWE match, and let's be honest, Sting has felt like a MEGA star since his debut. They had one fumble along the way with a voiceover promo a couple of weeks ago, but besides that, Sting has felt like a spark to a meandering roster aside from Lesnar. Cena doesn't feel big, HHH doesn't feel big, Reigns doesn't feel big, but Sting does. I feel like a kid waiting for his match, even though I was never a big WCW fan. It feels special. Cena-Rusev is a rematch of last month's great hoss match between the two, where Cena is expected to win despite getting the match in pretty heelish fashion to the eyes of any sane person (aka, those not in WWE). I expect a match on par with last month's, but I can't say it'll be better because I feel like they showed me so much last month.

Bray's buildup to his match with Undertaker has been...blech. Look, Taker lost last year. I don't think he should come back after losing it. He may not have only been the streak, but for the past 4-5 years, that's all he was. I think Taker's great, but this match has no upside to it. If Bray loses, it hurts him. If Taker loses, we wonder why the hell they brought him back in the first place. Additionally, I feel like it hurts the streak more, and by proxy, Brock Lesnar conquering the streak last year by doing so. I feel that Brock Lesnar should continue to be THE ONE in 21-1, and having Bray win tarnishes that legacy.

Everything else is forgettable and infuriating. But what gives me hope? Brock Lesnar re-signing. By giving him a new deal, it gives WWE the time they didn't have before to build Reigns or someone else into that top guy role. Instead of forcing him into the top spot down the throats of fans, someone can hopefully grow organically into that role over the next year or two. So I hope that Brock Lesnar wins, because like Sting, he's special. He's bigger than everyone else on the show and deserves to be on a pedestal until he decides to step down from it.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Mario Party 10 Thoughts

It's been a long time since I've put my thoughts to words, but here we are again. A surprise game, Mario Party 10. This won't be a formal review, as it won't really have a traditional review structure of mine, but it will hopefully give an impression of what I think of the game.

Mario Party 10 has 3 main modes. Bowser Party, the big draw of the game I suppose; 'traditional' Mario Party in the sense that this is the Mario Party Nintendo's adopted since the last one; and amiibo Party, the third main mode that requires you to unlock it each and every time you play, despite having already played it before.

Bowser Party is a bit unfair towards the Bowser Player I think, and while you can re-roll with a chance to get better rolls to catch players, forcing them into Bowser mini-games, it's still not an ideal situation. Against the AI, it's not unexpected for the AI to roll 20 total across 4 players multiple times in a row. Not only that, expect the AI to cheat to magically get knocked-out players back in before a single turn ends. It's frustrating to work so hard in too fast mini-games to KO a player only to have them re-appear no problem a single roll later. And yeah, the Bowser Mini-games are about 10-seconds long, while a couple don't even seem to work properly. It's like 'why bother?'

Mario Party is something that I first enjoyed immensely, but over multiple runs I found myself less satisfied with. I hated that I never had full control of what I was doing, movement wise. I know it's a race-to-the-finish sorta thing now, and it was designed to be faster, but it feels too much like Wii Party/Wii Party U, which I want to say I prefer. At least there you knew what you were up against and it didn't try to fool you into thinking you were in a better position than you actually were. Also, getting rid of Coins for Mini-Game Stars is just the dumbest thing, especially when once all 4 players take a turn, a mini-game doesn't automatically happen. You have to now land on a mini-game space to take part in one. I know this is how Mario Party 9 did this, but it's still not good because now instead of mini-games being the best part of the series, they now feel like chores. I can see why Nintendo changed the formula after Mario Party 8 sucking so bad, but it's not something that needed changing, only refined out of the melting sludge it had become.

Amiibo Party is supposed to be a callback to the original Mario Party formula but it's A LOT more convoluted. You need a Gamepad, 4 Wii Remotes and 4 Amiibo to play. That doesn't sound so bad you say? Well, Wii Remotes are only used for Mini-Games and pointing, while players move around the board by touching their amiibo to the Gamepad. This is also how you pickup and use tokens that are attached to your amiibo. See how complicated that sounds? In Mario Party 8 (and I imagine 9 as well) it's 'here's a Wii Remote, go!' I feel like Nintendo had to make amiibo more of an integral design choice here to justify them making them as opposed to how they work in Smash Bros., but ultimately those were a better solution than what is here. Players are essentially chained to the Gamepad for this mode, and it's tiring. I do like that you can have multiple board pieces make up a board the more you play, as well as being able to change it during the middle of a game, but that still requires constant use.

Another thing I find annoying about this Mario Party is the distinct lack of options. You can't make a board longer. You can't make mini-games longer. You can't even make Amiibo Party games longer. When I imagine Mario Party, I imagine 4-6 friends gathered around a TV with controllers, food and beverages having a night of playtime. With Mario Party 10, I feel like Nintendo has gotten away from that 'players will play endless nights' with a game, but I feel like that's more of a condition of how Nintendo's made games for the past decade than anything.

I don't despise this game or anything. I just feel like the people making it are missing out on why people loved Mario Party to begin with. The lack of online play doesn't help matters any, either.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Summerslam 2014 Thoughts

Pre-Show Match: RVD v. Cesaro
I don't know WHAT Cesaro did to be put in the doghouse like he did, but I hate it. He doesn't deserve to be buried like he is.

Intercontinental Championship: Miz v. Dolph Ziggler
Consider this a pleasant surprise, as I thought Miz would weasel a win out of this or retain the IC Title in some way. He didn't, and Ziggler being pushed and kept relevant is a good thing.

DIVAS Championship: AJ Lee v. Paige
I think Paige's victory here is due to her carrying this feud from Battleground to Summerslam. Night of Champions will result in a third match between the two, where I expect Paige to make AJ tap out to the Scorpion-Cross Lock, a move Paige hasn't slapped on AJ in this entire feud, which is what it's leading up to, I think.

Lumberjack Match: Seth Rollins v. Dean Ambrose
After last month's bait-and-switch along with the stipulation that the match would be a Lumberjack match made people question this feud continuing. Consider the doubters put in their place as a Lumberjack Match delivered the match of the night. Good storytelling, good emotion, good wrestling. It even resulted in the match going into the crowd as well as Sin Cara getting beat up. How can you top that? Well, an Ambrose win, but that didn't happen. I expect this feud to lead to Hell in a Cell, because right now it's the #1 feud in the company.

Flag Match: Rusev v. Jack Swagger
When they announced that this was just a regular match instead of a capture-the-flag type of deal, I knew Rusev would win. This was a good match, with great selling from Rusev. It played into the match heavily as well as Swagger's broken ribs. But in the end, Rusev won, and the USSR theme, not the Russian Federation theme played. Oh Vince, you cad, you. It sucks that Zeb got laid out afterwards, and the feud is probably ending.

Chris Jericho v. Bray Wyatt
This match was much better than last month's match, but overall there's something about this feud that just isn't working and needs to be stopped. It wasn't bad, but there's no storytelling going on here and there's no momentum behind it.

Stephanie McMahon v. Brie Bella
First off, Stephanie's outfit is something HHH must've had modified from Chyna's old outfits, because that guy definitely has that kind of taste in women. Secondly, this match was good. It started slow, but considering Stephanie hadn't wrestled in 10 years and Brie just got re-hired kayfabe wise, it made sense for it to start slow and build from there. The heel turn by Nikki at the end was predictable, but it leads to a new feud, as well as Stephanie hitting a great-looking pedigree at the end for the win/

Randy Orton v. Roman Reigns
This match was forgettable, like Wyatt and Jericho, but at least this match had good booking behind it. I felt that Orton really carried this match, and it just shows that Reigns needs A LOT of work before he's ready, like everyone thought. The last third of the match was really where the match caught fire, and it felt like the crowd wanted Orton to win, which, considering the effort he put into the match I don't blame them at all. While Reigns won, he wasn't the star of this match.

WWE World Heayweight Championship: John Cena v. Brock Lesnar
The most famous squash match of all time. For 15 minutes, Brock Lesnar dominated John Cena in probably his worst match ever. In the first 30 seconds, Lesnar hit Cena with an F5, which would've been an amazing ending to this buildup and event. As the match went longer, with Lesnar proclaiming the early pin was Cena's only chance of escape and saying he'd kill him, looking as if he'd absorbed the Undertaker's powers, it looked as if they might pull a Super Cena victory out of thin air again, but it didn't happen. Lesnar hit a second F5 and it was over. Domination. Conquered. Beautiful.

Overall, Summerslam was WWE's best PPV of the year, even above Wrestlemania. There wasn't a bad match on the main card, and overall gets an 8.5/10 from me.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Building My First PC

It finally happened. After years of wanting to, I finally pulled the trigger and bought parts to build a true PC. Sure, I don't have a dedicated monitor, speakers, video card, sound card, or a big hard drive (it crashed during early issues, forcing me to get a Solid State Drive), but it's up, running and I can finally enjoy the splendor of it. But it wasn't easy.

Roughly two months ago, I had someone help me assemble a wishlist of PC parts to buy so that I would buy and build a PC in the near future. While it took me sooner than I thought it would, two weeks ago, we did some fine tuning on the parts and I ordered them, along with a full retail copy of Windows 8.1. Putting together the PC took roughly 8 hours of labor, including opening the case, screwing in grounding screws, the motherboard and as well making sure everything fit the case. Getting the CPU in there was quite simple, actually. As was the ram. The power supply is where everything got tangled, with so many wires that connected to things. After installing it, I put in the DVD drive as well as the 1TB Hard Drive. I turned it on after plugging it, and it didn't turn on. It started, but stopped almost immediately. After some internet searching I found out that I didn't plug in a key component, and after I did that it started. SUCCESS!

Installing Windows 8.1 was somewhat effortless but a problem was apparent, the system wouldn't reboot. It would power on fine, but when it went to reboot it went to a black screen of nothingness, forcing me to power it off and turn it back on. Even after installing drives multiple times, the problem persisted. Checking with Microsoft across two days resulted in nothing but a broken hard drive and forcing me to return it. I was depressed and angry at the turn of events. I spent $500 on the stuff, built it and faced the real possibility of having to dismantle it and replace the motherboard. But I was determined it wasn't the problem. So late Saturday night I decided to use an Amazon Gift Card towards the purchase of a 64GB Solid State Drive. While I had other plans for that gift card, I wasn't willing to wait two weeks to get my other hard drive back.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday, when I got it with the standard mail, and opened it up, and installed into my PC. After installing Windows 8 upon it, the problem of not rebooting persisted. I was sad. Even after downloading various Windows updates again, it continued. So I decided that my last try would be to install all the drivers I previously installed on my old hard drive on the new one, and something different happened. After installing the motherboard drivers, the system gave me command prompt screens, something it didn't do last time when I did this very same process. Afterwards it went to restart, and a few seconds later, the black screen returned. I sighed, but then my PC stopped for a second and sprung back to life, something it hadn't done in my presence before! I couldn't believe it. Once it got back to the Desktop I rebooted immediately to make sure it wasn't a dream. It wasn't! I was so happy and relieved that after a week of trouble with this thing my PC was finally running properly. While I had no sound through HDMI on my TV for a few hours, I managed to fix it by downloading a GPU driver from Intel.

While I'm still puzzled by a few kinks on this new PC, I can at least enjoy the fruits of my labor. I know now how to build a PC, and I'm sure in the future I can build one even faster than I did this time. It's not the most powerful PC, it's not even what I want it to be, but it's a good start and I'm glad I've done something worthwhile in a long time.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Thoughts on Wrestlemania 30

Wrestlemania 30 was a very good show. It wasn't the best, there was very little bad, and all in all entertaining. But first, all the credit in the world has to go the WWE Network and MLB for having a near-flawless showing tonight when everyone thought the worst would occur. I personally only had two problems, one involving the feed rewinding before the Cena-Wyatt match and the PS3's Network App crashing on me when I tried to reload the feed because it fell behind after said match. This year's Wrestlemania had two signature moments, although there were a few other quality ones as well, but in the end, the moment we're all talking about now isn't the one we thought we'd talk about going in.

Pre-Show Tag Team Title Match
The Usos retained in a very good match. The crowd got into it, ended in a fine way and started the show off with a bang. Maybe not the biggest bang but a bang nonetheless. Cesaro turning face and swinging Swagger was what it needed, and that's what we got, so all in all a good match.

Daniel Bryan vs. HHH
After 38 minutes of talking, we finally had some Wrestling. HHH's introduction was amazing, crazy and outlandish, reminding me of Skeletor from Masters of the Universe. This match may not have been Owen v. Bret at Wrestlemania 10, but it was pretty damn good. No real botches to speak of, Bryan winning clean and HHH hitting Bryan's injured shoulder with a chair gave caution for the rest of the night. I thought overall, the post-match portion was the weakest part here, as it left Bryan able to wrestle from the get-go in the Main Event, but left little room for the imagination.

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale
This match was boring until the last 8-10 guys were in the Ring where you could finally have room to do some cool moves. In the end, Cesaro picking up Big Show and tossing him over the Top Rope for the win paid homage to the end of Wrestlemania 3 when Hogan slammed Andre. It was a perfect ending and the people were happy for it.

John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt
This match had very good psychology and storytelling to it. It was sort of slow, and perhaps needed to be faster. Cena was playing the obvious heel and Bray the face, though the crowd was somewhat muted during it. This match felt like it was in Bray Wyatt's head until the end, particularly with moments where Cena went for the Five Knuckle Shuffle, getting booed and Michael Cole saying 'this is the type of reaction John Cena is used to getting.' Perhaps it was unintentional, but it worked, especially with Cena trying to hold back his inner demons and destroy Wyatt, which he wanted to do. But in the end, Cena resisted those urges and won, which was pretty disappointing.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker
In a match with a poor build that people thought would turn out to at least be okay...didn't. This match was bad. It was slow, it was sloppy and overall uninteresting, as people were really just waiting for The Undertaker to win the match. It wasn't Brock Lesnar's fault either...it was The Undertaker, and for that, he lost. That's right, 21-1 happened. This is the moment of complete shock and awe that encapsulated the show for the rest of the night, resulting in a delayed announcement and music for Lesnar, as well as a 21-1 graphic on screen. As the crowd shots occurred, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was in shock, including myself. Was it the right decision? The Undertaker wasn't physically prepared for this match, Brock was. So in that sense, he deserved to lose. Given the moment, where no one thought Brock could win versus letting it go on forever...they pulled it out from under us, just as the Undertaker stumbles to his feet. While Taker looked disappointed afterwards and hobbled off to applause, you could tell that he was done. But to Brock Lesnar? I'm not against it, but this moment was bad and Undertaker didn't deserve to go out like this.

Divas Invitational
AJ Lee won. The crowd didn't care. They were still trying to comprehend Undertaker losing.

Daniel Bryan vs. Batista vs. Randy Orton
Until Daniel Bryan came out the crowd was completely dead. I feared the worst, and Bryan only got a halfway decent pop when he came out. You could tell when he came back halfway in the match that he was giving it his all, and so were the other 2 guys, but the crowd just wasn't into it until Stephanie and HHH came in. THEN the crowd turned it up a notch. A couple of nearfalls happened when Orton hit an RKO on Batista and the crowd nearly died at this. Perhaps the Undertaker's loss helped this out, for me...yeah, it certainly played a role in me thinking it was over. Next Bryan hit a flying knee and Batista threw out Bryan to get a cover, and the crowd almost died here too, but thankfully didn't. Bryan eventually got the YES lock on Batista and he tapped, giving Bryan the Championship he so rightfully deserved. This match was pretty good with interesting spots, and it pushed this card to a top 10 Wrestlemania, perhaps even top 5.

While Bryan won...no one's talking about it, which is disappointing. It was his night to shine and unfortunately The Undertaker losing cost him a lot of talk. I'm not sure how late the decision to have Taker lose came, but I'm sure it came before the match started, with the burning of Lesnar's casket, as if it were unnecessary. That's unfortunately where I stand on this. Taker's loss puts a stain on the whole Daniel Bryan victory party, because fans aren't talking about him, but the Streak ending. It's unfortunate and I feel bad for him. It took everyone involved in that storyline to get that crowd into the Main Event when it really shouldn't have been necessary. I recommend this show to people who want to watch it, but hopefully you won't get a bad taste in your mouth afterwards.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Wrestlemania 30 Predictions

It's been a long time since I cared enough about Wrestling to watch a Wrestlemania. Because the company cleaned up their act from the Attitude Era, along with the WWE Network to allow people to catch up on classic wrestling libraries that the company owns, I took the plunge on the Network in order to watch this year's event. Given that I write here from time to time, I thought I'd provide my predictions for tonight's card.


Pre-Show Match: Tag Team Championship Fatal Four-Way
The Usos (C) vs. Los Matadores vs. Rybaxel vs. The Real Americans
It's disappointing to think about how good this division was a couple of months ago to now be pre-showed at Wrestlemania. You have the Usos, who are hard workers and okay champions, basically getting buried at the top of the division. It's also disappointing when you realize that Wrestlemania is four hours long, but only has 7 matches. To put things in perspective, Wrestlemania 12 was three hours long, had six matches, but one of them was an iron man match. Also, Wrestlemania 17, perceived to be one of, if not the best Wrestlemania, had 11 matches on the main card in a four hour time frame. But I digress, there's not much competition for the Champions here, and I expect them to retain their titles.

Winners: The Usos


Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale
30 Participants, some currently unknown
There are too many competitors to name here, but so far, the names that come to mind are simple. The Big Show has the strongest push going into the match, getting the upper hand at every opportunity. The Miz is being pushed as a big heel here, getting the short end of the stick every time out. There's also Rusev, who hasn't appeared much on TV and hasn't been seen in a long time. Obviously, I think Rusev will win this match if he's in the match, since it will be the start of a push he gets as some kind of monster-like heel. Otherwise, I'll go with the Miz since they're going to try and get him over again.

Winner: Rusev


Divas Championship Invitational
AJ Lee (C) defends against 13 others
Some explanation is required here. This is a 14 woman match that is 1 fall for the Women's Title. Considering the skill that some women have in this division, this is a low blow for the division, because it's obviously going to have a low bar of quality. This match was made by Vickie Guerrero in hopes of having AJ Lee lose her title. So the choice here is simply AJ versus the Field. I think the field wins here, particularly Summer Rae, since she's on Total Divas, and is being played up as a heel and apparently is hated by a fair number of people in the locker room. It's a surprise win, but it does carry a lot of weight, including the continued burying of Fandango.

Winner: Summer Rae, New Champion


Six-Man Tag Team Match
The Shield vs. Kane and the New Age Outlaws
Unless they plan on turning any of the Shield members heel during this match, this should be an easy prediction, as the Shield should win this match. I don't have much interest in this match, as it feels like a 'get the Shield in a match that's not the Battle Royale' match, which is fine, but ultimately lacks a lot of punch. I think it will be an okay match, but The Shield's opponents aren't very interesting.

Winner: The Shield


Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker
If the buildup to this match was supposed to lead us to believe that The Undertaker had no chance in beating the monster that is Brock Lesnar, the WWE has completely failed. With the exception of a weak clothesline and F5 on the last Monday Night Raw, Lesnar has been physically and mentally neutered by The Undertaker. While Paul Heyman has cut fantastic promos like he always does, he is not Lesnar. If he was, I'd pick him to win this match 10 times out of 10, because Paul is that good. I think this will be a solid match, and might surprise people, even though the buildup has hurt it from being something greater. But since he's not, the Streak marches onto 22-0.

Winner: The Undertaker


John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt
The buildup for this match has been absolutely fantastic. When the angle started at the Royal Rumble, I wondered if the company had gone insane by having their top face go against an up and coming heel that could be destroyed in an instant. However, I think they've proven everyone wrong here, and going in is my most anticipated match. I think the important thing here is how it will finish. Bray Wyatt in order to prove his point doesn't have to win clean, but simply prove that John Cena isn't as clean or great as he says he is. Any other way, and the character of Bray Wyatt is tarnished forever. I think Cena wins the match, because the company protects him most of the time, but I don't think he does it clean.

Winner: John Cena


Daniel Bryan vs. HHH
This is arguably the main event of the evening, despite it not being the last match. It's clear that the winner here goes onto win the Title, no questions asked. What's important here is where it's placed on the card, which is right before the Title Match to close out the show. This leads me to believe that Daniel Bryan is going to win, since I don't think HHH can physically last for an hour plus in the ring nowadays. This will obviously make the Title Match more dramatic as it will probably leave Bryan in a weakened state and possibly out of that match at the beginning.

Winner: Daniel Bryan


WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match
Randy Orton (C) vs. Batista vs. Daniel Bryan
Batista came back, the fans didn't care. Batista won the Royal Rumble, and the fans turned on him and the company because Daniel Bryan wasn't in the Rumble. CM Punk left the company, which is why Daniel Bryan took his place. The fans essentially caused this match, and they're going to get what they want or they're going to riot, which in some alternate reality happens and is crazy. But not here. Daniel Bryan wins the Title, pins Orton clean, and leads the crowd of 70,000+ in "YES!" chants to go off the air. Hopefully he keeps the Title for more than a day this time.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Animal Crossing: Fixes and Wants

Animal Crossing is a very relaxing series that really only demands from the player what the player wants to put into it. While Wild World expanded the scope of the series with things like new characters and online play, City Folk’s attempt to add the fabled “City” to the series was received a gigantic sigh from its’ audience. Then along came New Leaf which added new items, a new mayoral system and changed how older mechanics worked, specifically special visitors and how certain items are collected. However, the world of Animal Crossing is still not ideal, with many problems old and new plaguing it that need to be addressed for the series to improve, as well as desires from myself that I’d consider a major step forward for the series.


Fixes
Online Play
- Opening/Visiting Towns
Ever since online play was implemented into Wild World, players have had to suffer through the arduous task of having to open their gates, be notified that someone was coming over to visit, the game saving, watching a slow animation of players passing through the gate and then finally regaining control. This process repeats every time a player enters or leaves a town. While New Leaf allowed hosts to end a multiplayer session, having players leave en mass, there’s still a lot left to be desired about the series’ online functionality. There needs to be an option to allow players to start games with their gates open so players can come and go as they please. Saving every time someone enters/leaves a town needs to stop as well. The game should save in the background, and not impede the gameplay of people already in town, as how it is currently dissuades people from playing online.

- Safety from Trolls/Thieves
Another issue that dissuades players from playing online is trolls and thieves. When a player enters your town, they can do anything you can do in your town, including running over flowers, chopping down trees, and taking items that lay freely on the ground. While it’s recommended that you don’t allow these people into your town, you never really know who you can trust or when accidents may happen. To remedy this, visiting players need to be restricted from destroying flowers, chopping down trees and picking up items unless they are in a designated area of some kind. While it may “restrict” some of the fun players can have visiting peoples’ towns, it still allows people to get items from different towns as well as shop, talk to villagers, catch bugs, fish and visit the island. Ultimately, this doesn’t really take away anything from anyone.

Inventory Management
- Tools
Tools are a staple to the Animal Crossing series, as well as to any player’s inventory screen, which is exactly the problem. Tools give you the ability to cut down trees, uproot fossils and gyroids, catch fish and bugs and shoot things out of the air. In New Leaf you are only allotted 16 item slots, and with new tool additions such as the Wet Suit and Megaphone to go along with the Shovel, Net, Fishing Rod, Axe and others, your inventory becomes limited very quickly. As much as 10 inventory slots can be taken up by unique tools overall. Additionally, your Tools aren’t granted protection like some items, which means they can be sold accidentally to Re-Tail and lost forever, which is painful if you accidentally sold a Gold or Silver item. So what’s the solution here? Some items in New Leaf are granted what I call “protection,” meaning that they can’t be sold, traded or let go of, like the Bingo card during the winter months. My suggestion here is that Tools and items like the Bingo card be allotted their own inventory screen so they don’t take up regular inventory space and can’t be lost by accident. They’re staple items, and should be treated differently from regular inventory items.

- Money/Fruit Stacking
In previous entries, Animal Crossing allowed you to stack money that you accumulated over 99,999 bells in your inventory space up to 99,000 bells per space. New Leaf took this a step further by allowing you to stack fruit so you could carry more. The major missing component here is that these do not stack automatically has to be done so manually, which is a chore and cumbersome to do every time. This needs to be addressed going forward by automatically stacking fruit up to 9 pieces in one slot as well as bells. This would immensely help minimize item management.

Public Works Projects
- Police Station
There are two types of PWP’s. Ones that are received by performing a set of various in-game objectives and those received at random. The ones received from objectives are special ones, such as the Dream Suite, the Reset Center and the second floor of the museum. Like these, the Police Station share the same restriction that they can’t be demolished once built. However, this one can only be received as a random request from a villager. The question is why? It’s the bane of many New Leaf players that haven’t received the request to build this, despite having played for months. It needs to be unlocked in a special way like the Museum’s second floor, the CafĂ©, and the Reset Center instead of being rewarded at random.

- Katrina’s Shop
Katrina’s Shop is earned by visiting Katrina’s Tent in the town plaza of your own town 20 times you’re your playable residents. Considering that Special Visitors in New Leaf are not on a strict schedule like in previous games, this is a major pain. It can be months between Katrina visits in your town, delaying how often you can get psychic readings from her. The fastest way for you to get her shop is to visit Katrina 5 times with 4 different playable villagers and the last visit being with your Mayor. The number of required readings needs to be reduced, Katrina needs to be put on a set schedule (like other visitors) or the chances of her visiting goes up once you’ve gotten everything from all special visitors that come on a schedule (Redd, Gracie, Gulliver, etc.)

- Dream Suite
The Dream Suite is unlocked by visiting Isabelle after a few days of playing the game where you find her asleep at her post. This place allows you to visit copies of player’s towns at the exact moment of them being uploaded and updated with the exception of Main Street, in-town shops which are closed, and villagers which still roam freely around town and can interact with them. While the concept of the Dream Suite is nice, and being able to see a large portion of villagers you may have never seen before, the one problem here is the process. Your dream town, which if damaged won’t affect your regular town, is assigned a dream code. Now if you don’t update every couple of days your code can change. But the question is why? The old code still remains, and can still be accessed by players, but can never be updated, nor are they deleted like the game says. This needs to be fixed. When your town is assigned a Dream Code, it needs to stick. It shouldn’t be change, regardless of how often you update your Dream Town. It’s a hassle to change dream codes, it causes confusion for people who want to visit the same town multiple times and it follows the same stigma of friend codes, which are simply unintuitive.

Grass Wear/Animal Tracks
Animal Crossing City Folk added a new mechanic to the series that quickly became a bane to most players, known as Grass Wear or Animal Tracks. This mechanic slowly wore down grass so dirt paths were now present between common paths players and villagers took in each town. In City Folk, the mechanic worked too quickly, making it very easy for towns to become a barren wasteland where no grass was in sight. While New Leaf improved greatly on this mechanic, it’s still nearly impossible to re-grow grass, even in matters where the best player knowledge comes into play. There’s no specific in-game trick, tool or device to allow players to grow or maintain grass levels. The fix here is simple: Get rid of the mechanic entirely or give players a tool to allow them to maintain grass levels. One thing is for certain though, grass wear is not a mechanic many players enjoy and needs fixed.

Tournaments
Every few weeks or so on a Saturday, your town plays host to a Fishing or Bug-Catching Tournament. The rules are just like you think, with limitations some of the time on what can be entered. The big problem here is that there isn’t a scoreboard available for the Tournament. You can only receive your current standing when you talk to the Coordinator, and he’ll vaguely tell if you’re first, second or third. There needs to be some kind of visible scoreboard available at all times to give you an indication of where you stand against other competitors throughout the day.


Wants
Expanded Able Sisters
The Able Sisters throughout the history of Animal Crossing has been the primary place where you purchase clothes. While the series has secondary ways to acquire clothes and City Folk introduced Gracie’s shop in the City, New Leaf brought a lot more purchasable clothes in all forms, in addition to new forms of clothing such as pants, socks and shoes. While Kicks is a place to get Socks and Shoes as well as accessories from Labelle, you’re still severely limited to the amount of shirts/bottoms you can normally obtain from the main Able Sisters shop. While Nookling Junction has been expanded many times, the Able Sisters haven’t. I think it’s a good time for this to happen, allowing you to buy even more Shirts, Dresses and Bottoms than you can normally.

Bigger Town
Animal Crossing has over 300 unique villagers. In New Leaf, at any one time, you can only have 11 (10 villagers and 1 camper) villagers in your town. Players of the series can play day-in, day-out for months and not see a single new character if they don’t play with others or visit other peoples’ towns via the internet in some way. Animal Crossing needs to expand by allowing players to have more villagers, perhaps in the form of districts where more villagers could make residence in each one. Doing so would allow people to meet more villagers and have an expanded view of what the series has to offer to fight off repetition.

Item Bank
Animal Crossing has always been notorious for item collection. It’s also been notorious for having a low amount of inventory space in each game. With the increase of items in New Leaf, as well as ones that can’t be re-purchased, item space became even more premium. One of Nintendo’s recent releases is Pokemon Bank, which allows players to transfer and keep Pokemon from older games and be able to transport them for use in newer games. The concept would be similar for Animal Crossing, but for items and clothes. It can take years for players to obtain a complete Catalog in a single Animal Crossing game let alone multiple versions. Why not allow loyal players to keep their item collection for years to come? It would definitely cut down on some of the monotony of daily window shopping and allow players to concentrate more on their town and villagers.

Statistics
New Leaf introduced the concept of Badges as proof of your accomplishments in-game. One thing that’s missing however is the simple understanding of how close you are to achieving certain goals for them. New Leaf allows you to see the number of people who’ve visited your town, but beyond that, there isn’t much. Luna should be able to tell you how many times you’ve dreamed, Leif should be able to tell you how many weeds you’ve picked, flowers you’ve planted, etc. etc. etc. It may not seem like much, but it will make those seemingly unobtainable goals seem much closer than you think they are, encouraging players to keep going.


Animal Crossing is a great series, and New Leaf is arguably the best entry in the series to date after offering a fresh entry into a series that was getting stale. In order to prevent it from getting stale in the future, these fixes need to occur, and I hope the things I want get added to the series in the future so I can continue coming back to my town for years to come.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

2013 NFL Week 11 Predictions

Here are my Week 11 picks for the 2013 NFL Regular Season.

Winners are indicated in BOLD lettering

Thursday Game
Indianapolis @ Tennessee

Sunday Early Games
NY Jets @ Buffalo
Baltimore @ Chicago
Cleveland @ Cincinnati
Oakland @ Houston
Arizona @ Jacksonville
Washington @ Philadelphia
Detroit @ Pittsburgh
Atlanta @ Tampa Bay

Sunday Afternoon Games
San Diego @ Miami
San Francisco @ New Orleans
Green Bay @ NY Giants
Minnesota @ Seattle

Sunday Night Game
Kansas City @ Denver

Monday Night Game
New England @ Carolina

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

2013 NFL Week 10 Predictions

After a solid week of picks in Week 9, I'm back at it for my Week 10 Predictions of the 2013 NFL season. This past week had some drama, which is nice after what has been a lackluster season thus far. Hopefully the quality of play picks up even moreso than it did last week, so here's my picks for this week.

Winners are indicated in BOLD lettering

Thursday Night Game
Washington @ Minnesota

Sunday Early Games
Cincinnati @ Baltimore
Seattle @ Atlanta
Detroit @ Chicago
Philadelphia @ Green Bay
Jacksonville @ Tennessee
St. Louis @ Indianapolis
Oakland @ NY Giants
Buffalo @ Pittsburgh

Sunday Afternoon Games
Carolina @ San Francisco
Houston @ Arizona
Denver @ San Diego

Sunday Night Game
Dallas @ New Orleans

Monday Night Game
Miami @ Tampa Bay