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Review: Total Extreme Wrestling 2010 (PC)

I will freely admit that, several years ago, when I did my first review of Total Extreme Wrestling by Adam Ryland, the 2008 version, I pretty much screwed the pooch. I had his series confused with a very inferior series from another company and came off sounding like an uninformed ass. It was enough to make me consider wearing a mud mask in shame.

While I corrected the review, it’s never sat right with me, so I’ve played with TEW 2008 ever since, and recently decided to upgrade to TEW 2010 to see how the series had matured. And boy, am I glad I did.

In 2008 in the CornellVerse, Australia, where I like to play, was this nice, quiet little country with only four territories where Australian Pro Wrestling was allowed to play unfettered. That meant I could book talent however I liked, because even if they got pissed and left APW for a while, they’d eventually have to return. After all, there was no one else to sign with unless they became big enough to attract the interest of a foreign promotion. It also meant that APW owner J. James McMinister could hold a grudge against one of the country’s top workers, The Comedian, and hold him off the wrestling scene indefinitely with no repercussions.

Not so in the 2010 version. Advancing the CornellVerse a couple years in timeline, Australia is now a hotbed of pro wrestling action with three promotions struggling to get over with fans. In addition to APW, two other promotions exist: Deep Impact Wrestling and Revolution Australian Wrestling: Impact.

If one begins, as I did, with APW, they find themselves a bit bigger than DIW and smaller than RAW Impact. And only if one books wisely will APW rank as the number two promotion in the early going. And yes, The Comedian, sworn enemy of APW owner McMinister, is the head of one of the new promotions.

As the game opens, all three promotions are at war; and it took about six sims for me to really notice. I had Swoop McCarthy holding my top belt, in a feud with Nathan McKenzie, and they were the top act blowing out arenas throughout primarily Western Australia.

Then, for storyline purposes and to avoid repetitive booking, I decided to have Swoop drop the title to McKenzie to add some freshness to the feud, fully intending to put the strap back on Swoop a couple months down the line. But that’s when RAW Impact struck.

Suddenly I received, with no warning, an email that RAW Impact had signed my top star, Swoop McCarthy, to a new deal and he would be leaving APW in a week. I was devastated because no one in APW is more bankable than Swoop McCarthy. I then realized there were some teeth behind this “at war” status between APW, DIW and RAW Impact.

The signing happened just before a match I’d been promoting all month that promised a three-way dance for the Commonwealth title between Swoop, McKenzie, and relatively new signee, Maurice Jackson. I substituted Boo Smithson for Jackson on the day before the match, but the damage was done and the event suffered from the loss of Swoop. I had been hoping Swoop’s final week with APW would include the event, but he left the company officially the day of the event, so I had no chance to run the original match but bury Swoop in a dominating match by McKenzie.

After my monthly event was over, I became revenge-minded. I scoured RAW Impact’s roster and looked for as many of their stars as seemed to be on level with Swoop or better. I started negotiations with Captain Wrestling II, Kerry Wayne, and Rahmel Goode and signed them all away from RAW. Then, just to be preemptive, I signed the only two good wrestlers on Deep Impact’s roster, Warmonger and Dumphrey Pinn.

So, yes, I lost one main eventer, but I gained five solid guys ranging from Main Eventer to Midcarder in return; all of them rated as well on their skills as Swoop McCarthy. I then reached into the dirty trick bag and ran some of those against RAW.

My long-term strategy now? In this more hostile Australian wrestling scene, I have to be savvier to survive, but the plan is to try to lure DIW into at least a truce since they are so small, or eventually have them become allies with APW so that we can take on the larger threat of RAW Impact together.

Sure, this is just a tiny peek into one small corner of the CornellVerse, but it should get across at least one important message: Total Extreme Wrestling 2010 took everything that worked in 2008, and ramped it up to the next level. There are new tools in one’s arsenal, just as new angles, new match types and so forth; but the biggest improvement is the the challenge level.

Also, thanks to a new roster balancing feature, even in a little corner of the CornellVerse, there is now a better balance of talent, especially additional workers like referees, road agents and so forth. One of the early tools I found helping me compete against RAW Impact, is that I signed a much better road agent than I’d had when the game started: the Original Lone Rider. He’s the best-rated road agent in Australia, including those working for DIW and RAW Impact, and so my matches are improved as a result.

It’ll be a long road ahead before APW wins a TV contract and can become tops in the great Down Under; but now there are real stakes and challenges to that quest. Top recommendation.

Inside the Park Baseball – Impressions

Many sports sims claim to have role-playing elements, but a relatively new game from the good folks at OOTP Developments, Inside the Park Baseball, have released what may be the first true sports role-playing game.

With Inside the Park Baseball, you create a character from scratch, get drafted, and work your way up the minor league system with a goal of reaching the majors. While there’s plenty of baseball in the game, other details of player life pop up, too. What kind of workout regimen will you choose? If you’re out in a bar after a game, will you allow yourself to be baited into a fight with a disgruntled fan?

There are choices to make and many of them help fill out the full game experience; fortunately, it’s not quite as detailed as expecting your player to write oxyelite pro reviews, but it’s still pretty darn detailed. There’s a demo available; it’s worth a look.

A real race, this year?

In recent years, there has usually only been one notable PC text-based baseball management sim released close enough to other titles to really compare them; not this year.

No, Wolverine Studios has already released PureSim Baseball 4 from Scott Sullivan, and very soon here, Out of the Park Developments is expected to release this season’s version of Out of the Park Baseball 12, their latest offering. While PureSim 4 will have a few weeks lead-time, the two titles appear headed to release dates close enough that they can be compared directly.

Right now, I have PureSim 4 in hand and am merely awaiting the release of OOTP Baseball 12. Will the competition be close? We’ll find out soon, so keep your Howard poc carts at the ready, folks!

Android Review: Angry Birds Rio

Well, I was one of the impatient many who jumped on Angry Birds Rio as soon as Amazon made it available with their Android App Store launch. Sure, within a week or two, it appeared on the regular Android Market, but I’ve come to love Angry Birds as a franchise, so I couldn’t wait.

I’ll admit that the new app, spun off the movie Rio, is a nice improvement on the hit original, and over Seasons. The only real complaint I have, aside from the lack of a nice set of matouk being sent to me complimentary, is that right now there are only two major levels available in Angry Birds Rio.

Sure, they’re loads of fun; but to look ahead and see the next six levels are going to be spread out to every-other-month releases is a bit discouraging today. Sure, Seasons does something similar, but you don’t see what’s ahead so you can’t really sit there anticipating much. You just hope every holiday that rolls around will trigger a new OTA update.

With Rio, you see the schedule and that makes the wait that much harder to bear. Because Angry Birds Rio rocks. It’s just that, for now, it’s simply too short.

PureSim Baseball 4 released

My old friends over at Wolverine Studios recently released Pure Sim Baseball 4, the latest entry in the storied series by Shaun Sullivan. I’ve downloaded the Lite version, which is free but kind of limited on features, to play around with and I’ll be getting my impressions to you soon. It’s an exciting release, but whether it’s worthy of taking out a checkcity.com cash advance or not is up to the individual, I suppose.

Also in baseball videogame news, Out Of the Park Baseball 12 isn’t out yet, but I’ll certainly be interested to see how the two games stack up feature for feature this season, since they are both releasing in roughly the same time frame. Whoo!

New gift ideas

The prevalence of the digital age has given birth to all-new gift possibilities, whether you’re looking for something for a spouse, a child, or even mother in law gifts.

Lately, I’ve been motivated to give Kindle books to my wife as nice, simple “I Love You” gifts. But even an Angry Bird game app could serve the same purpose, when you think about it.

Sure, one doesn’t want to go overboard on such things; it’s a nice new possibility. But one should never underestimate the value of rotating in some more-traditional gift ideas, like flowers, teddy bears, and the ever-popular chocolate.

The point? Never be afraid to mix it up.

Out of the Park goes mobile!

The fine folks behind Out of the Park Baseball sent me an interesting announcement this week. With this year’s version, OOTP Baseball 12, the company will debut its first mobile app version of the game, playable on iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.

iOOTP Baseball 2011 will debut in iTunes’ App Store, with an initial price of only $4.99. The game will operate in three primary modes; Major Leagues will simulate the current 2011 season. Fictional will allow users to customize the game to their heart’s content. And Historical will offer three historically-accurate season: 1923, 1964 and 2004. Additionally, more historical seasons will be available for iOOTP Baseball 2011 for $0.99 each.

The move signals an ever-stronger relationship between OOTP and Apple; earlier this year, OOTP held separate drawings for an iPod Touch and an iPad2. Now, with support for Apple’s mobile platforms, the company’s Apple-friendliness has reached an all-time high.

Pre-orders are still being accepted for the PC and MacOS versions of their standard desktop PC version of Out of the Park Baseball, at a price of $29.99, a 25-percent savings off final release price.

The company has not yet indicated if an Android version of the game would be forthcoming. But, at least this year, I wouldn’t bet the family’s antique atlantic furniture on it.

Review: Word Soup (Kindle)

Word Soup is my latest game addiction on the Kindle.

Sure, books will always be the main attraction on Amazon’s eReader, but Word Soup is good for a change of pace experience with Kindle. The game is well designed to take advantage of Kindle’s 16-level grayscale display, so that the game looks sharp on the platform.

The concept of the game is sort of a reverse Scrabble idea; you start out with a large grid of letters and from adjoining letters you form words. The longer the words, the higher each word scores. The object is to completely clear the board of all letters, which is quite difficult, but for which you earn a significant bonus to your score.

The game plays in relaxed or timed mode, depending on the kind of challenge one is looking for. Sure, it can’t help you buy nurses uniforms, but both of those words would score fairly well in the game.

In all, it’s a great example of targeting the right sort of game to the right sort of platform; Word Soup is a game readers will find appealing and endlessly challenging.

Review: Slingo (Kindle)

With a mixture of slot machines and bingo going for it, Slingo is an interesting game to bring to the reader-centric Kindle platform. The cross-pollination between the casino crowd and the book-reading audience is not necessarily obvious, but as with most games, if it’s fun, people will find it.

To an extent, Slingo is indeed fun. You are given 20 spins to cover an entire bingo card, and this is done through a slot-machine-style interface. There are also slot-machine style challenges to accomplishing this, such as wild-card characters, angels that bonus your score, and devils that cut your score in half.

Slingo is addictive, but only in short bursts; the game gets a bit repetitive after a fashion, so you won’t lose hours in a row on it, but you could lose an hour here and there and have it add up over time. What the game basically lacks is the intellectual challenge of most Kindle-based games, and involve word puzzles and the like.

Still, it’s frivolous fun and sometimes that can be a good thing, too. Definitely more entertaining than a roadside assistance app; in fact, it could be a good companion to that. Use the roadside assistance app to call for help in the event of an auto emergency, and then play Slingo while waiting for help to arrive.

Office Rush for Android

While it may or may not be as good a bargain as finding a decent massage therapy program online, one Android app I’ve appreciated finding of late is Office Rush. While not as crazy-deep as Angry Birds, Office Rush offers a unique visual style to another sort of cross-bred puzzle/platformer game.

The game places you in a career path where you can advance from a janitor’s position, all the way up to a penthouse-owning, jet-flying CEO. But basically it’s a maze of screens and you’re trying to navigate them to complete a task within an certain time limit. The tasks change as you progress, and the complexity grows with each promotion.

Fun little app, and definitely worth the relatively tiny price.

New To Me Review: Angry Birds for Android

I know it’s already taken the world by storm long ago, but I recently gave into pressure and decided to take a flyer on the popular mobile game, Angry Birds. Boy, am I glad I did. It’s a better value than even the cheapest life insurance, because it was free on the Android Market when I bought it. Free!

Now, typically I am no fan of platform style games, but this one’s pretty good and has even me hooked. I love that each of the birds have their own unique abilities, and the game’s puzzles get increasingly harder and harder to solve with the structures you need to destroy and the number and type of birds you are given to accomplish the task.

But really, most people already know what Angry Birds is all about, and for a lot longer than I have. What I’m doing this review for is to simply acknowledge the greatness of the game, and to stand in awe of its value.

My copy of Angry Birds has five or six different groupings of puzzles, and each grouping has something like between 85 to 135 puzzles in it. That’s just crazy depth for a game that I got for free. (My wife has an iPod Touch and got the app for $0.99 in iTunes’ App Store.) It’s a bargain either way, and a new favorite addiction.

Second-gen iPad for a pre-order? What a deal!

The folks over at Out of the Park are really going out of their way to promote Out Of the Park Baseball 12. Last month, they gave away an iPod Touch in a drawing among those who pre-ordered OOTP 12, and this month (February) they are promising to give away a second-generation iPad to one lucky winner. All you need to do is pre-order OOTP 12 by the end of the month.

And the drawing is even open to those who pre-ordered (but didn’t win last month’s drawing) prior to February. That’s pretty darn nice, right? You can find out more here.

And if that doesn’t excite you, you probably need a round of effective fat burners more than the Yankees roster does… and that’s saying something!

For those of you not in the know, Out of the Park Baseball is the gold standard of pro baseball PC sports management sims. It does it all, and better than any of its competitors; of course, being around for eleven previous iterations kind of has that effect; they’ve been at it longer than anyone else.

So if you’re thinking about getting the game at all, pre-order before the month is out and get yourself a chance to receive an iPad 2 in the bargain. What kind of no-brainer is that, right?