DE.

Oh yeah I love NXT and the Takeover events were my favourite things in wrestling before AEW came along. I still enjoy NXT although not as much since it moved to Wednesday, admittedly. It's easily the best thing WWE puts out regardless. Whilst I agree WCW at the end was a clusterfuck (albeit a somewhat entertaining one in retrospect) people forget that there was some very bad stuff on Nitro during the 'golden years' as well. Jim Duggan, M. Wallstreet, Glacier, Jim Powers, Public Enemy (good in ECW, sucked everywhere else), The Amazing French Canadians, Kevin Sullivan and the Dungeon of Doom... the list goes on but there was a lot of crap on Nitro even during the good times! However it was balanced out by the amazing cruiserweight division, and the nWo storyline before it became stale. I can't really watch WCW past mid-1998 as it becomes really difficult for me to pay any attention to - especially considering how long the shows are by that point. The 2 hour Nitros were just about right.

I watch current PPVs on the network , but primarily classic Raw/Smackdown/Nitro/Thunder shows, pre-2003 PPVs and the documentaries. That's about it but still a hell of a lot of content there alone.

Just beat Airbuster and fell down to the Sector 7 church. I'm starting to get used to and even appreciate the new battle engine. It's quite chaotic, especially during boss fights, but once you know what you're doing it's fine. It's incredible how much they've fleshed out the story so far. The slums are now huge, fully rendered areas rather than a screen with a smattering of houses and shops. They really focus on establishing who Avalanche are and you get much more insight into the members, as well as some added story elements which weren't there before. There's also a darts minigame which is kind of fun for a little while. Speaking of the story, it isn't exactly the same as the original. The core elements are all there, but the dialogue and certain scenes are shuffled around or changed entirely. Also some of the music is different (overworld theme is playing in the slums, for example). The bombing run to the Sector 5 reactor is now a full blown dungeon with a lot to do. Admittedly I found some of these annoying, and it felt like they were just trying to stretch out the time you were spending there rather than doing anything enjoyable. The graphics though, just wow. There are times when I stop and just pan the camera around in appreciation. There are some stunning sights. One thing I will say it that whilst aesthetically the game does obviously borrow heavily from the original, it doesn't feel atmospherically (to me at least) like the original game. The colourful quirkiness of the original is replaced by a more gritty realism. I don't think there's any way to really avoid this with the updated engine and graphics, but it's noticeable regardless.

There is that, although ITV got a lot of shit early on for cutting stuff out. I have no idea if they are still doing that.

I think the weird thing about the Cody/Spears Figure 4 pin was that Spears was clearly still conscious and moving around. It looked like it should have been easy for him to lift a shoulder up, and if he was in so much pain that he couldn't why wasn't he tapping out? It just didn't look right, although I give them credit for the creativity if nothing else. I believe the FITE AEW pass is something like $4.99 a month which is pretty reasonable. I wouldn't be without the Network though!

I have to admit they've done an incredible job fleshing out Biggs, Wedge and Jessie in the FF7R. They were minor characters you didn't know much about in the original, but they're fully fleshed out main characters in this one. Good effort.

I spent a lot of time on Elite using my Rift, it was an amazing experience for sure. Only problem was I couldn't work out how to be effective in combat. I'd always die in a few hits and nothing I did seemed to fix it. There was a cool little app I downloaded as well which allowed you to play YouTube, browse Facebook etc in the cockpit of your ship. On those looong trips to certain places it was great to be able to watch something. Although admittedly it's a lot more comfortable to just take the headset off and use the laptop/TV!

PCVR is still very expensive so yeah, not something to buy just for the hell of it. PSVR is certainly a cheaper option if you have a PS4 but it's pretty much exclusively game based. There are some flying games/experiences but I don't think any of them would come close to a proper flight simulator.

That sucks man. Part of the reason I bought my PS4 was for the FF7 Remake actually. When it was announced way back in 2015 my most recent console was an XBOX 360, so I figured once the remake came out I'd upgrade to a PS4. Obviously I was naive in thinking it would be out within a year or two! As it turned out Sony released PSVR and I ended up buying a PS4 for that anyway around October 2016, but I was still expecting FF7R to be out by 2018 at the latest! I can't believe it's taken this long - just when the PS5 is around the corner. If future instalments come out on PS5, which I am assuming they will be, I guess I'll be upgrading again!

Yeah, Jericho on commentary was a riot, and Tony was great too. Jericho could have gone all out heel as some wrestlers do and just bury the faces and praise the heels, but he was very clever in giving plenty of compliments to the faces whilst still rooting for the heels. He never felt obnoxious or annoying, which just shows how intelligent he is and how much he gets the business. I can't remember what documentary it was but I can remember a wrestler saying that if all you do is bury your opponent in promos and make them out to be pathetic then it doesn't do you any favours. if you beat the guy then it doesn't mean as much because you've spent the entire time beforehand saying he sucks anyway, and if you lose then you look even worse. If you give your opponent his dues then either way you come out of the match with something. Overall I thought the episode was good, AEW are still doing really well without the live crowds. Putting wrestlers around ringside definitely helps with that. Tony Schiavone's "ohhh, hentaiii" commentary line will go down as a meme for sure. I thought Matt Hardy's promo was another miss though. I'm really not into what he's been doing so far. Also Shawn Spears getting pinned with the Figure 4 looked really weird. I can't remember that ever happening in the time I've been watching.

I played Microsoft Flight Simulator X back in the day, it was quite fun but I could never land the bloody plane. Always crashed! I'd love to play a game like that in VR though. Tip for anyone playing PS5 Royal and who happens to stumble across this thread for some reason - for the Okumura boss fight put the difficulty up to merciless. It sounds ridiculous to suggest increasing the difficulty to the highest setting but it's practically the only way to beat this guy. Merciless increases damage you receive but more importantly also increases the damage enemies receive. For enemies that run away after 2 turns and then respawn, such as this fight, you need to kill 'em fast and merciless is almost the only way to do it. This boss fight is really broken though, way too difficult and no way should you be required to switch the difficulty up to win. Thank god I got it done after only two attempts, have read it has taken people literally hours to get past this point. None of the above is relevent to the original game as it's nowhere near as hard in that one. For some reason Atlus decided to make it virtually impossible in Royal for just bants I guess. Up to Sector 7 in the FF7 Remake. The game truly is stunning visually, undoubtedly will go down as one of the best graphical games in the PS4 library. Gameplay is decent enough, reminds me of FF15 so anyone who enjoyed that should like FF7R as well.

Just finished the bombing mission and it is basically identical to the demo. There is a longer opening and a brief flashback scene that wasn't in the demo but that's all.

I'm mainly just hoping I can have Japanese audio with English subs. I was listening to the English voice acting in the final trailer and it sounded awful to me tbh. I thought it sounded OK in the demo but a lot of this sounds really bad and robotic to me. Even if it's just dubtitles I'd still rather have the Japanese VA's on as to me they always sound more natural. Probably because I technically can't understand what they're saying anyway.

And it's here! Just got to wait an hour for it to install 45GB from the disc and however much from the first patch now ?

As a kid I can remember being baffled by the Brawl For All. I knew wrestling was a work so I assumed the Brawl For All was as well - but it was mostly wrestlers people didn't really care about and they looked worse than when they were wrestling. Plus the crowd clearly hated it. It just confused me. It was cool seeing Bart Gunn and Butterbean's perspectives on their WM15 "match" as well. I watched that show recently and you can see Butterbean looks a bit embarrassed once the fight is over. Definitely one of if not the stupidest idea in wrestling history. You can put pretty much anything that's a work into a creative context and come up with some form of justification, but there is really none when it comes to the Brawl For All. I thought Vince McMahon got off a little lightly to be honest. They focused a lot on Russo and had Cornette bashing him as per - but that idea goes nowhere without McMahon being fully behind it. The fact he greenlit and continued on with it despite it clearly being a horrendous and poorly thought-out idea certainly doesn't paint Vinnie Mac in a very good light.

Looks like my FF7 Remake order has shipped, so should be getting that this week... that and Persona 5 Royal will definitely be filling my free time for the next few weeks at least.

There's a lot of really cool directions they could have gone with the Fiend character, but instead he's just some unhinged supernatural being with no obvious purpose who can only be beaten by Goldberg. Honestly I may even have gone to the extent of not having him wrestle - kind of like Crow Sting in 1997 - or only have him wrestle on very rare occasions and for very specific reasons. Wyatt isn't particularly good in the ring so limit his time there and instead focus on the things he excels at - namely promos and creative segments. I've never been big on the Matt Hardy stuff and I don't think the Broken character fits into AEW very well. I am willing to give it a chance but it really doesn't mesh with the more reality-based product they are trying to portray.

Also I just watched the Wyatt/Cena thing again and the thing that makes it difficult to accept as a serious piece if how hammy and silly some of Cena's acting is. The "ruthless aggression" part especially comes off as trying to be funny rather than disturbed or unstable. Wyatt plays his part well but Cena hams it up to make it come off as goofy.

In small doses it's okay, but they always have to go overboard with it. That's true for almost everything they do though!

They tried to kibosh the whole rematch clause thing a while back by saying it didn't exist anymore, but then started referencing it again in storylines shortly afterwards because it's WWE and they think we're all idiots who forget everything after a week has passed. IMO Wyatt should never have been given the title. It doesn't suit his character much like it never really suited the old-school Undertaker character. Most wrestlers should be there to win whatever title they're going for, but sometimes it's okay to have a guy (or girl) who is there just to wreak havoc or wreck people. That should be what Wyatt's character is all about. That's not to say he couldn't have had a title run at some point, but it didn't have to be so soon. In typical WWE fashion they hot-shotted the belt onto him because he got over big and then didn't have much of an idea about what to do afterwards. Wyatt didn't need the title and shouldn't have been given it. Also shouldn't have been beaten at least until WrestleMania, if not even longer than that. The thing I hate the most about what they've done with the character is the hocus-pocus, supernatural bullshit. It's exactly the same fuck up they made with Bray's original character. He was originally a creepy cult leader who used his words to entice and frighten people. Then he started gaining magic powers just because, and the whole thing became ridiculous. Obviously not helped by him losing practically every feud he ever engaged in. This new character started off as a creepy children's TV show host with a sinister and evil split-personality which was extremely vicious and almost impervious to pain. Cool. Now they're doing the supernatural powers thing again and I'm facepalming again.

If WWE was something other than WWE it would have been great - but unfortunately what they presented doesn't fit in with their universe in any way, shape or form. Even Undertaker and Kane at their wackiest never went to those levels. You never saw Undertaker literally taking Stone Cold to hell or some kind of demonic realm of existence. The matches were always based in reality - casket matches, boiler room brawls, buried alive matches, etc. Even when Taker was crucifying Austin and trying to embalm him it was all within current reality - albeit totally ridiculous for obvious reasons. The most you ever got in terms of outlandish stuff was lightning bolts every so often which was silly but still existed in our actual plane of reality. We are meant to accept here that Bray Wyatt not only has access to an alternate reality but that WWE cameramen were there filming the whole thing and broadcasting it. That kind of shit only really flies if you're a kid - yet the relative complexity of the segment in terms of what it was conveying is beyond what a child could make sense of. I'm always so-so on hokey stuff in wrestling, but this reminded me of the Dungeon of Doom type bullshit that infested WCW in 1995. Remember Hogan teleporting to the Dungeon's realm and the classic "it's NOT hot" line? This was just as bad, but people are so desperate for something, anything different from WWE that this nonsense is embraced rather than ridiculed. It's a bit of a sad state of affairs in truth but at the same time if somebody genuinely liked it then that's cool. It just wasn't for me.

Agreed, the match itself was good (although I'm not sure why Tamina was there) but it can only reach a certain level when the characters aren't interesting enough to be invested in. All of the wrestlers except Tamina have a big upside and the potential to be great, but WWE aren't giving them the opportunity to deliver that at the moment. I can give the Boneyard match a pass as it was at least based in reality - everything that happened there was plausible within the context of the WWE universe. The problem with the Funhouse "match" was that it was based in a fantasy world completely seperate from WWE. It was so far removed from normality that it became unrealistic to the point of taking me out of the moment and unable to suspend my disbelief in any way. It was like something out of a weird skit show or an Adult Swim feature. I give them credit for trying something different and a lot of people seemed to enjoy it, but for me it was just... weird. The idea isn't a bad one but the execution was too much for me to be able to take seriously. I guess part of the problem is that Cena isn't around for long running programs anymore, so they have to squeeze everything into a few short weeks and just one match. I do appreciate their attempt to think outside the box and be creative, but personally I felt it went overboard into absurd territory. When you consider this was all taped and there was plenty of opportunity for editing and retakes, it came across as lazy and formulaic to me, similar to the Goldberg/Strowman match which was basically the exact same thing. A bunch of finishers and a pin. I get that in a live setting with limited wrestlers you may need to do that, but you don't need to make it so simple in the type of environment they were in. Just very disappointing. I am glad at least that the title is off Lesnar now.

I think that was the intention, Hogan was 42 when he turned heel and Cena is also 42 at the moment so it kind of ties in. Reading more about the match (on reddit, obviously) it seems like it was meant to be a psychological deconstruction of Cena's fears and doubts. In a bubble it's actually kind of cool but still way too out there for me to take seriously.

https://streamable.com/2waocj - 8 seconds of total insanity. John Cena coming out cosplaying Hollywood Hogan on a ripoff WCW set, whilst a buzzard puppet representing Macho Man and a parody puppet of Vince saying "such good shit" are watching. WTF.

My thoughts on night two... Rhea Vs Charlotte - good match, as expected. I don't think Rhea suffered by losing, and I imagine she will eventually get the title back from Charlotte and look great in doing so. Black vs Lashley - a Raw match. Hard to care about it considering the lack of build up. Ziggler Vs Otis - if you've enjoyed the Mandy Rose storyline then I guess this was fine. Nothing special. Edge Vs Orton - should have been cut by at least ten minutes - overstayed its welcome but could have been very good if it wasn't so long. The ending was really good though. Street Profits Vs Theory & Garza - a Raw match. Whatever. Total time filler. Women's 5 Way - again hard to care about any of the participants considering how little they've been effectively utilised in the past year or so. Bayley's title reign has been awful. Cena/Wyatt - I don't even know what this was. I thought the Boneyard match was enjoyable, but this was just weird and stupid. There is suspension of disbelief and then there is total nonsense and this was on the total nonsense end of the scale. It will have people talking because of how utterly out there it was, but it went way too far into absurdity imo. With that said I did laugh out loud at the "such good shit" line from Vince. Don't tell me WWE doesn't pay attention to the IWC. What was up with the WCW/nWo flashback sequence? The rest of the segment kind of made sense in a warped way, but the WCW part came out of nowhere and I didn't understand what the point of it was. This was just a bizarre acid trip with way more misses than hits. Lesnar Vs Reigns, er, McIntyre - we've seen this before. The whole Lesnar experiment went stale a very long time ago. Judging by this match they have little to nothing left creatively for him. I hope he is kept away from the title for a long time. There are still things that can be done with Lesnar but he's run his course as champion. Match overall was basic and underwhelming. Would have been better in front of a crowd but even then the above criticisms would still be there for me. I think I preferred night one overall. WM without a crowd was, as I expected, tepid and lacking energy. I feel bad for Edge and Drew especially for having their 'big' moments in this kind of environment.