Raw 2 on Xbox

10.20.2003

I've been stocking up on wrestling videogames without playing any of them for a while, so I've been thinking it's about time to play some of them while waiting for the latest Smackdown game for the PS2 to come out at the end of the month. I've been a little more critical of games lately now that I'm trying to make my own wrestling game (there'll be a more detailed explanation in the weeks to come for anyone interested), so I've been trying to pick out the things I like and dislike from what I play.

I hated the first Raw game for the Xbox. I think I may have played it for about 3 days before relegating it to the dusty shelf it's lived on ever since. The sequel is better, but not by much. This version does have a story mode, which I've come to enjoy the most of any wrestling game. The story mode is fairly limited. You try to pick who to befriend and who to hate, and along the course of a career it will affect team-ups and who you fight both during matches and between matches. That seems to be about all there is to the story mode. The Smackdown series has more of a scripted feel of things going on between pay-per-views, while Raw has you trying to make the world champ an enemy so you can try to get a title shot. Like I said, limited.

The graphics are better than the PS2 Smackdown graphics, but not up to the level of sophistication I've seen on other Xbox games. The sound is horrible (I think I could do better punching sounds armed with a Mr. Microphone). The move sets seem limiting, but I'm blaming part of that with my beginner level of play and not having the finger memory of how to do certain combinations yet. So far I've been winning matches with a repertoire of 4 suplexes, 3 DDTs, a Half Boston Crab and a Sharpshooter.

The best feature of Raw 2 is in designing your characters entrance. Everything is customizable. Music (which you can pick from music you've loaded onto the Xbox hard drive), lighting and pyro effects, customizable Titantron settings so you don't always have The Rock's entrance movie. I've had more fun playing with these settings than anything else.

So overall, the game is fair, but a little boring. I'll probably play the last Smackdown more than this version of Raw.

Next game to take of the shelf and try: Backyard Wrestling.

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Amazon - The Store, Not The River

10.16.2003

Last night I was busy installing some software I've recently acquired (is that ambiguous enough to keep me out of jail?) and decided I needed some books to teach me how to use everything. I'm just starting to get into the world of 3d modeling, and I can use all the help I can get. As I often do, I went to Amazon, searched for some Quickstart books, plopped some in my cart, and merrily went along my way.

Jerry had shown me before that you could look at your entire order history from Amazon, so I searched for that link and looked at what all I had gotten. The suprising part to me was my very first Amazon order. August 16, 1999 I ordered both The Matrix and There's Something About Mary DVDs. I was in shock in that not only had I been shopping online for 4 years, but that my first purchase from what was predominantly an online bookstore was 2 movies. I was such the rebel back in the 20th century (which has obviously been superceeded by me being such a dork in the 21st).

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Living in Trek Land

10.14.2003

There is a studio apartment in England that has been modeled into the interior of the starship Enterprise. My first thought, of course, was "Oh god, another crazed fan who's gone overboard." After looking at some of the pics, my second thought became "They've done a really good job with it." Granted, they've still gone overboard, but the dorky side of me still thinks it's cool.

Even better, you can buy the apartment on eBay.

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There Is No Spoon, But It's Big

10.13.2003

Jerry's been a little more excited than I'm used to about the new Matrix movie coming out in November. Matrix Reloaded comes out tomorrow out my local video retail outlet, so I know we'll have to go get it. To make life more interesting for the final installment, I just saw that Matrix Revolutions will be shown at IMAX theaters, and we just happen to have the first one listed here in town. Hmmmm, giant screened bullet time....

Dr. Blondie is also in town, which gives us an excuse to celebrate her birthday! So Happy B'Day Dr. Blondie!

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Web-full Weekend

10.12.2003

This weekend was my attempt to catch up on little web projects that have been nipping at my heels for what seems like forever. I think I finally played around with some diffeent header images for this site that I can live with for a while. I managed to finally get the redesign for Brandi's website done, although it's lacking the full database backend that I was hoping for - That database is just taking too long to get everything together.

I even managed to watch a little wrestling Sunday. Sunday Night Heat is traditionally the bottom of the barrel for WWE programming(underdone only by Velocity), but they were showing a Dudley Boyz match that was pretty good. I even got a kick out of them using the same old gimmicks. Much like "stunners and beer" for Stone Cold, the Dudleys will generally give you a "Get The Table Wassup 3-D". Sunday night they did just that, and it made me smile.

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