Today's Notes 8/13/21: WWE Crash Hour Is Proof Of Vince McMahon's Insanity

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was a triple feature of video games, Star Trek Online, WWE Crash Hour and Tripe Play 98. 

Star Trek Online was its usual fair of grinding out the endeavor quests that happened to be active on the day of streaming, but I did have to 're-roll', one because of a particular issue. You see there is a  endeavor quests that calls for facing the Tzenkethi on the ground, and there is only two ways to do that. One is to replay a story mission, and the other is to play Dranuur Beach Assault which require 10 players, making it one of the toughest endeavor quests to complete because no one plays it willingly. Which is a shame because it really is a stand out Task Force Operation that I actually won't just be going through the motions playing (i.e. Bug Hunt)

Once STO was done, we loaded up WWE Crash Hour for the PlayStation 2 and boy do I have opinions about the concept of this game. First off, it plays fine, the controls are easy to learn and of the characters / vehicles I used (Trish Stratus, William Regal and Steve Austin) everything seemed very responsive to my mad cap way of getting around the arenas. But the actual idea of WWE Crash Hour was actual foreshadowing into what Vince McMahon has done in the 19 years since it's release.

You see McMahon's desire of making the WWE about everything other than wrestling has certainly become more prominent over the past 19 years, with the WWE Studios Divisions, the WWE Network, Camp WWE the XFL revival, the Tough Enough revivals and so forth. He wants to have great influence over entertainment in general. Hell the WWE has become more of a badly over produced day-time soap opera at the expense of actual good decision making that it basically drove me away from being a fan. (Note: AEW is even worse)

But as the title of this blog indicates, WWE Crash Hour of Vince's insanity, because guess what someone had to pitch this idea to him at some point, and much like the WWE City in Scooby-Doo WrestleMania Mystery, you could tell that McMahon love the idea of controlling all of television and having his hand picked Superstars featured on everything because that has been his objective since the true peak of the WWE in the 1980s, because hey, he drove every other wrestling promotion out of business in the United States, certainly he (in his mind) could do the same to every other form of entertainment right? Thankfully the answer to that was no but as I indicate it came at the cost of driving long term fans like me away.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoy the WWE video games, but the actual product on TV... that can fuck right off.

Anyway, after WWE Crash Hour, we switched over to Triple Play 98, and after figuring out how to navigate the menus because it seems better formatted for Windows 98 (and I do have the disc for that version of TP98), we got into a game between the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. It took me a a few innings to figure out pitching, as I gave up 3 runs to the Mets in the first, and then figured out the timing for hitting to rally back to a 4-3 lead, then gave up a game tying home run in the top of the 8th before going a head 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th... and then somehow worked my way out of a 2-out bases loaded game. Needless to say it was an intense game. 

In comparison to Triple Play 97, Triple Play 98 is a lot better in how it feels to play in terms of executing hitting and pitching... base running is still FUBAR, but hey, it's a near 25 year old baseball game.

 Anyway here's the list of clips from last night.

• Just Chatting: My Memories Of Rampage World Tour
• Star Trek Online: A Fury of Strikes 
• Star Trek Online: Random Quoting Of Robin Hood Men In Tights is Random 
• Star Trek Online: The timing to catch her 
• Star Trek Online: Take Down The Flagship
• Star Trek Online: I am here everybody can relax!
• WWE Crush Hour: Trish is all about Talent & Ability 
• WWE Crush Hour: The Trash Talk Is Real 
• WWE Crush Hour: DUUUDE!!!! 
• WWE Crush Hour: Regal Has Control! 
• WWE Crush Hour: We Smacked Their Stupid Little Face! 
• WWE Crush Hour: A Win For Austin! 
• Triple Play 98: Olerud Makes Me Go Uh-Oh... 
• Triple Play 98: Iceman Would Be Pleased 
• Triple Play 98: A 2-Run Hit For Mickey Morandini! 
• Triple Play 98: It's way back! 
• Triple Play 98: Will It Drop In?! 

Yesterday we added Rampage World Tour for the PlayStation to the collection. Now this is a game I've only ever played in an arcade... sorta. You see there was a convenience story a few blocks from where I live now that often had two arcade machines, one was Mortal Kombat 3 (and later Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3), and the other would rotate in and out but at one point it was Rampage World Tour. I figure this will be a fine game to feature on a random Thursday.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 428 kcal. The exercises for today were Hook Combo #2, Beginner Combo #1 and the Front Back Step Combo. We are now up to 83 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. 

Over on Twitter there was something about posting your four 'mains' from fighting games, and it actually took me a bit of time to come up with four. Obviously Sakura is my main in any Capcom fighting game she's in, going all the way back to Street Fighter Alpha 2... Cassie Cage was my main in Mortal Kombat 11 from earlier this year, Pai pretty much is my main in the Virtua Fighter series... but to come up with a fourth was a bit tough... so I went with Ragna The Bloodedge from the BlazBlue franchise because we used him a lot in the story modes.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Street Fighter V, in particular, it's story mode, and I did forget we did play Mortal Kombat 11's story mode this year. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the story of SFV is better done than Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's. 

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!