Accident Prone

One of my old pet-peeves was walking around the house wearing headphones/earbuds and getting them yanked off my head when I would inevitably catch the wire on a door handle. I thought I solved this issue with the invention of bluetooth headphones and the like.

My NEW pet-peeve now is wearing my wireless earbuds whilst walking around the house and soothing my four-month to sleep at 3:30am, and him yanking them out of my earholes with his angry arm flails. The circle of life.

Yeah I really liked the amount of effort that all four women put in. There were some great visuals, some great highspots and there was a general feeling of unpredictable recklessness (always a massive plus in my book).

It was much better, and more memorable, than the Baker/Abadon match and all four came out with elevated footing in the roster. I'd say the only negatives were the meandering during the break and the typical Rampage post-production. 

4, 7, 9, 16, 17 

I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than spend Christmas with this lot.

Oh happy day! I might even sub to the Patreon to get first dibs. Cheers, SB!

THE GOOD
Best Women's Wrestler - Jamie Hayter, Thunder Rosa, Kris Statlander

Best Men's Wrestler - Bryan Danielson, PAC, Fenix

Best Tag Team - Young Bucks, Lucha Bros, Moxley & Kingston

Best Non-wrestler - Taz, Brandon Cutler, Alex Abrahantes

Best Event - AEW All Out, AEW Full Gear, AEW Double Or Nothing

Best Wrestling Show - AEW Dynamite, AEW Rampage

Best Feud or Angle - Page vs Omega, Punk vs Kingston, PAC vs Andrade

Best Heel - MJF, Britt Baker, Bryan Danielson

Best Babyface -  Adam Page, Eddie Kingston, Bryan Danielson, 

Best Podcast -  Voices Of Wrestling Flagship, GRAPPL Spotlight, POST News

Moment of the Year - The climax of AEW All Out (Cole and Danielson debuts), Adam Page surprise entrant into the Casino Royal ladder match, Moxley & Kingston's entrance at AEW Double Or Nothing

Match of the Year - Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros (All In), Bryan Danielson vs Kenny Omega (AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam), Bryan Danielson vs Minoru Suzuki (AEW Rampage #10 - The Buy In

THE BAD
Biggest Letdown - The big explosion planned for the end of Moxley vs Omega's no-rope barbed wire match, the first post-Punk episode of Dynamite (25/08), the NXT reboot

Worst Wrestler - Effy, Allie Kat, EVIL

Worst Match - Effy vs Gregory Iron (GCW rSpring Break), Billy Gunn vs Darby Allin (AEW Rampage #15), Britt Baker & Rebel vs Nyla Rose & Vicky Guerrero (AEW Dynamite #92)

Worst Event - AEW Dynamite #99 (25/08), WWE Crown Jewel 2021, WWE NXT 2.0 #472 (14/09)

The thing that fucked me off about Far Cry 5 was the impromptu cut scenes and set-pieces. I'd be making my way to a particular location, or doing some hunting and gathering to get stocked up on supplies, or just having a grand old time arsing about when I'd be forcibly kicked into some storyline bullshit with no prior warning. I was fucked over the one time when I was real low on ammo and health packs, and I was on my way to refill the inventory when one of those fucking things triggered mid-way to the shop. I had to do a mini-boss battle with next to fuck all on me and no option to run away and do it later.

Other than that, it's a fun by-the-numbers action game. After going through 4 and 5 in the past five years though, I'm probably going to sit the sixth edition out.

Me and my mate got into a heated argument around martial arts film, 'Ong-Bak'. This is around 2008/2009.

The front of the DVD has the tagline, "No computer graphics. No stunt doubles. No strings attached". Obviously, this is to sell the incredible fight scenes and stunt work.

Near the end of the film though, there's this edit where an animals eyes are layered on top of the protagonist's eyes (a tiger's eyes or a lion's eyes or something) to signal "OH SHIT, HE'S MAD NOW, HE'S GOING TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF ASS KICKING, LET'S FUCKING GO!" and it sparked this stupid, endless fucking argument about whether or not the DVD tagline had lied to us.

I was on the side of "No c'mon, don't be a pedantic dick, it was alluding to the action scenes",  and he was on the side of, " This film sucked because it couldn't hold up it's guarantee!". Either way, we were in a foul mood with each other all fucking night, straight through to the pubs and clubs afterwards and back to his place in the early hours where I slept on the sofa in drunken rage.

On 11/15/2021 at 4:33 PM, Mr_Danger said:

Listen to The Back Page with Matt Castles and Samuel Roberts two game mag vets. They cover everything from old games to new and often do retrospectives on magazines, game series and all things gamey. Start with some of the magazine specials if you want to go back a bit, it’s only a year old so not been going ages.

I heartily approve of this recommendation! I started listening to this pod based on Mr_Danger's preview and I'm really enjoying it. The console draft and Best Of 20XX episodes are a great starting point. Wonderful stuff.

1 hour ago, Max Power said:

Be Here Now is probably my favourite album of all time. Lasts for three and a half hours and has literally 500 guitars overdubbed on each track. But that's why it's brilliant.

Anyway, see you in a fortnight when my suspension is lifted.

Well you're going to want to watch this during your two weeks in order to change that.

54 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Basic bitch Candy Crush Soda or Solitare if I am just on a train. If I am at home, been playing a lot of PGA 2K20 as it was the PS Plus game recently and one you can easily zone out the commentary on. 

This was my gateway drug to Everybody's Golf. I fancied something a bit simpler but still with a decent amount of depth, and EG was highly praised by GameSack so I thought "fuck it". Golf is one of those sports that I have no desire to watch, play or follow (hell, I barely understand all the terminology and techniques) but there's something so satisfying about parring a particularly difficult hole (attn: UKFF Out of Context).

46 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I've actually just bought this game on the Switch sale. I must admit, I'm not typically a fan of deck-building games, but the praise for this one has been so universal, and the price was so reasonable that I've decided to give it a go. Some of the other games you've mentioned leaves me feeling our tastes match up reasonably well, so I'm feeling even more optimistic about it. I've never really gelled with Binding of Isaac, though. 

Slay The Spire was the only deck-building game I'd ever really played, so I'm somewhat of a novice when it comes to having a voice on the genre. I've played others since but none are even half as accessible or half as fun as STS. It was never something I thought I'd enjoy but, like yourself, people with tastes very similar to mine enjoyed the hell out of it so I gave it a try during a PS sale. It has that "Just one more go..." factor, which is murderous for sweeping through your spare time.

Excellent idea for a thread!

Rogue-likes/lites and Metroidvanias are my go-to's (Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy, Slay The Spire, Darkest Dungeon, Binding Of Issac, Hollow Knight, Steamworld Dig, Spelunkey, CastleVania:SOTN), but really I can play anything with the sound turned way down and the podcast playlist on. Grinding or doing collecting side quests in open-world games is a good option too (most recently with Horizon: Zero Dawn, Fallout 3, and Far Cry 4 & 5). If you're after something a bit more easy-going, then anything from the Everybody's Golf games.

Unpacking looks PERFECT as well, I can't wait to try this out.

On 11/20/2021 at 10:21 AM, BigJag said:

 Hi, @Accident Prone what's the issue with the PS4 fan? Is it similar to the PS3 fan issue? My PS3 had to be retired as it made an horrendous noise despite the rest of the PS3 working fine. I've read recently that hacking the PS3 has become relatively easy. I wonder if that will eliminate the fan noise?

 

I thought it was clogged (it was) and that opening the fucker up and cleaning it out would solve the issue (it didn't). Apparently the next step is to strip the console down even further and replace the thermal paste, but with a 2-month old taking up my time these days that's a no-go. I've just accepted the console's grim fate as some fancy collectible sitting next to my TV now.

I don't know how it's possible to have played enough new video games over the space of one year to curate a list. Takes me usually more than 6 months to finish one single AAA game just due to how massive they tend be, and there's so many buzzworthy indie games released per month that I just can't commit to many of them. Here's a sizable list of what I have been playing this year though;

- Slay The Spire - Man, this was good. I'd still be playing it now if it wasn't for my PS4 fan being fucked beyond belief. The perfect podcast game (being able to turn down the sound and listen to podcasts is a HUGE tick for me). Hours and hours and hours and HOURS plunged into this one, and that's always a sign of a successful rogue-like.

- Blasphemous - I really wanted to love this but the Dark Souls gameplay put me off after a while. I'm a hack'n'slash kinda guy and that does not mix well with the strategic parrying, blocking and dodging nonsense here. Other than that though the artwork, atmosphere and general mechanics were great. Maybe I'll give it another crack if I ever get a new PlayStation, but for now this is one of those rare Metroidvanias that didn't hit with me.

- Ys Origin - Cracking isometric hack'n'slash fun. Also, another great game to grind'n'podcast to. 

- Spiderman - I really tried, guys. Really I did. Spiderman is the first time where I feel like AAA videogames have passed me by; the controls and mechanics are way too complex for me to handle, and I've been beaten by the random street gangs more times than I can admit. A skill tree, upgradable gadgets AND customisable suits?! Layered on top of action and set-pieces that move so fast that I can hardly process what's going on?! It's sensory overload of a formula that the Arkham games perfected. This game was not only way too much for me to handle, it was way too much for my PS4 handle. That fucking fan.

- Dear Esther - Eh, this was alright. I'm definitely too set in my ways to really get into these walking sims/visual novels. I missed most of the spooky stuff because I'm just not built for these sort of games, I guess. Maybe I was trying to navigate my way through a complex plot and that's why I missed all the ghosts, but then again I don't play video games to dissect the material like a Year 10 English Lit essay. 

- Horizon Zero Dawn - Started this a couple years back and finished the majority of it this year. I really enjoyed it for the most part. I've already posted about it elsewhere in the thread;

On 6/11/2021 at 12:18 PM, Accident Prone said:

I completed Horizon Zero Dawn this week after buying the game a couple years back and losing interest a third of the way through. I picked it up again when the pandemic Winter began last year. Really beautiful game albeit with a slightly boring/ convoluted story. The writers could've easily binned a massive chunk of the warring tribes stuff and just stuck with the mystery behind the machines and Aloy's mother as the major storylines, but I guess they wanted to impress the world-building nerds and people who love reading gigantic text walls of lore.

The world feels empty but that works to it's merit considering the plot, and it feels fresh compared to other, more-overwhelming open-world games. It's the perfect podcast game too, especially when hunting for animal skins/machine parts, the hunting challenges, the various errands and all the collectibles. It's just a shame that my PS4 has all but given up the ghost, so the last 50 hours or so were spent with the extremely loud WWWHHHHHHIIIIIIRRRRRRRRR of a struggling console trying to circulate it's hot air. By that point I had lost interest in most of the story though, so it wasn't a big loss.

Oh, for anyone yet to get so far in the game, here's a warning; I 100%'ed the game and didn't get a trophy. I collected all the datapoints and books and weapons and outfits, and got fuck all for my efforts. Not getting a trophy for a large part of the collectibles is understandable. However, not getting a trophy for 100%'ing the game is deplorable. I was kicking myself for not checking the trophy list first before heading out to collect everything, because otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. I LIVE for those satisfying achievement sounds. At least I got a Platinum, so there's that.

OH AND ANOTHER THING; the level cap is 50, and I maxed that out right before I hit the last quarter of the game with tons left to do. Apparently the DLC increases the cap so be sure to grab that if you plan on playing that ( a shithouse move, in my opinion). 

 

- Manual Samuel - Fun art style, fun writing, but the game got tiresome incredibly fast. The plot was also...how can I put this..too zany? Even for such an out-there concept? Felt like the game relied on the weird plot developments to help get it past the frustrating gimmick. Could've been something special but just comes across as an over-priced flash game.

- Hollow Knight - Another game that I started last year but "finished" in March. What a fucking game. Perfection. The only reason I stopped playing is because the game got too difficult for me to carry on. I got to a point where I had to defeat a few bosses on various paths to progress and I just couldn't beat any of them. So I gave up, and took my own ending as saving all the cute little grubs...and then being horrified at their future. A wonderful game.

- Timespinner - Just your typical Metroidvania here. Nothing new or exciting or particularly ground-breaking, but a nice playthrough never the less. Hits all the points and ticks all the boxes that you expect. 

I'm currently playing through Ys VIII and CastleVania:SoTN, and both of those are tremendous. They'll most likely be included in next year's list as Ys is loooonnngggg and I'm finding less and less time right now to jump on the Xbox and smash Dracula's reverse castle. Here's to 2022 and playing Hades, CastleVania: Advance Collection and Halo!

1 hour ago, Gay as FOOK said:

The way the publishers have pursued modders in the lead up to this is up for debate, and the collection is priced too high, but a metacriric average of 0.5 just screams bandwaggoning of the worst kind and a sort of entitled fervour to recreate the Cyberpunk debacle because it makes for good internet drama, along with the requisite endless EVERYTHING WRONG WITH videos from hack YouTubers. 

Of course they're entitled, they paid for a game published by a AAA-developer that should fucking work correctly and not look shit. Don't blame the consumer when a product falls massively short of the mark and people make (extremely entertaining) videos about it, and don't blame the modders for fixing bugs and ironing out issues that should've been dealt with by the developers before shipping. 

Big fan of that lad. He gives honest critique and praise where it's due, and the videos are straight to the point. I'm after a nicely priced handheld that can emulate Dreamcast, N64 and Saturn with no issues, and his reviews have been great in making a choice. I'm currently holding out for a handheld that can balance both performance and playability, which will hopefully come around soon. No point in spending money to play Virtua Fighter 2 on the shitter if the d-pad is shite, and I'll know what that machine will be based on his review.

I think JohnKringler doth protest too much.

12 hours ago, hallicks said:

A tallish couple (everyone’s tall at gigs when you’re 5’6) came and stood in front of me during the first song of the main act at a gig. I managed to get them to leave quite quickly by screaming along with the instrumental bit at the end of the first song with the most obnoxious caterwauling I could manage. It was only fair. I stopped as soon as they left. 

As a tall bloke myself, this fucks me off. You know what you do when someone taller than you stands in your way? Find somewhere else to stand you passive-aggressive knob. Being tall doesn't relegate you to standing at the back like a school photograph.

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Probably my least favourite was a guy sat in front of me at a CHIKARA show, who spent an entire match telling the guy next to him about other matches he'd seen one of the wrestlers in. He's in a match now. Right in front of you. Maybe focus on that one instead? Any variation of that kind of fan who feels the need to be the smartest guy in the room all the time - whether it's through Not Using Slave Names, starting shit chants or heckles that rely on knowing what a wrestler Tweeted about last week, or a match they had in a different promotion two years ago, any of that shit.

Reminds me of a CHIKARA show held at Aston Uni in Birmingham. Chuck Taylor was doing the gimmick where he wasn't allowed to use his name, so he'd have a different name on every event (my favourite being 'This Is' Howie Dewitt).

Anyway, his name for this show was Stewie Scrivens or something like that, but it definitely had 'Scrivens' as the surname. Around this time, Scrivens of the 'New Gen Podcast' had just had a new baby, which prompted these weirdos sat in the opposite row to myself to start chanting "BABY SCRIVENS! *clap clap clap clap clap* BABY SCRIVENS! *clap clap clap clap clap* BABY SCRIVENS! *clap clap clap clap clap*" at a confused Chuck Taylor and a confused crowd who didn't go along with it. None of the NGP lads were even at that show as far as I'm aware, not that it would make the chant any less cringe.

On 9/5/2021 at 6:57 AM, Only_The_Strong_Survive said:

Love the idea of the back to back stages, hope Download do something like that one day. Always something going on. 

Download are much like WWE in a way, even down to them not using ideas that aren't there own or don't have their own spin. People have been hankering Download to have a rotating stage schedule since Sonisphere's short-lived run, but they'll still stick to their bread, butter and long-wait times.

3 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Golden Eye for me. I would have liked to play that during the hype, obviously it's shit now.

This but also extended to other N64 mainstays such as Mario 64, No Mercy, Banjo-Kazooie and both Zelda games. I never had an N64 growing, so when I started playing around with emulators years later I just couldn't get into them. I've even tried the remastered versions on other Nintendo consoles, but I usually give up within an hour. It's passed me by, and the only N64 game that I really enjoy is Mario Kart.

Similarly, ALL Zelda games have passed me by too. I could never get along with the genre or the setting or the characters. I've tried a bunch of them, old and new on a variety of different platforms, and they just do nothing for me. I think it's to do with not getting into them early on, like during their SNES and N64 forays.

These auctions are set to end this evening, everyone! Get the bids in while you can!

17 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Tribute by Tenacious D or just the band in general, they're not remotely fucking funny.

16 hours ago, The King Of Swing said:

Yeah Tenacious D can fuck right off. Shit even for a novelty act. 

13 hours ago, King Coconut said:

I'd like to mention at this point in the proceedings that, what with musical taste being a very subjective thing and everything, you are all cunts.

SKY was an unobtainable luxury for myself growing up, and was the height of "posh" around the parts I grew up. Oh you've got SKY and a hundred other channels (which are obviously better than the four channels I have)? You posh bastard. I remember popping round to a friends house when I was in primary school to pick up a SNES game, and I caught a five second glimpse of some virtual reality Transformers knock-off with a rapping robot that I then convinced myself was incredible despite having never seen it since.

There was another similar encounter shortly after when I caught five seconds of The Simpsons (the scene from 'Homer And Apu' where Bart and Lisa marvel at tinned cream corn), and because it was a cartoon that WASN'T on channel 3 or BBC, it felt like something exotic and truly special.

We never got SKY until the early 00's, and after a weekend of SKY ONE'ing the shine wore off and SKY just became a vehicle to watch SMACKDOWN and HEAT on a Saturday morning. I had clearly missed the boat on SKY, as all the quality programming I'd heard about for all those years was either on terrestrial TV now or just didn't exist. It didn't take long before the channel that once had so much mystique and luxury about it, became a normal TV channel that I'd regular skim over whilst channel surfing.

RIP SKY, I hardly knew ye.

I am within the first three Google image results when you search "Father Ted Cosplay". Sometimes I'm even the first result.