1. The Balance Board. The Wii Wheel. The Zapper. The Vitality Sensor.

   Nintendo has a long and storied history of releasing numerous peripherals for it’s consoles over the years since it first stepped into the home video game market, and GamesRadar has a look at the most-failingest” of them all. It’s a shame some of these didn’t garner more support, though.

   I’ll always have a soft spot for R.O.B., who lives on today on the other side of the screen. And I miss my Super Scope. I would love for Nintendo to bring back its titles, as well as those of the Zapper on the Wii. And the DK Bongos’ games, while few in number, were all pretty cool.

2. Via GoNintendo is a Zelda Informer debate of particular interest to me, wherein they try to determine whether the zenith of the battles with Ganon, the original Legend of Zelda, truly marked the end of the King of Darkness.

   This actually reminds me of something else I plan to write about in this space soon…

3. Yet another GamesRadar article, this time looking at the history of everyone’s favorite lovable loseWeight Exerciser, Archie Andrews– er, I mean, Dan Hibiki of Street Fighter fame.
4. Here’s one from Old Wizard, and it’s only two and a half months old. Go, me!

   Few other series outside of Mario can have a top 30 list list of its various baddies and yet still feel like the surface has only just been scratched. Some of these characters have been pretty scarce, however, and unfortunately so. Thankfully, at least spin-offs such as Paper Mario have helped to keep characters such as Ninji and Shy Guys firmly in the spotlight in the time since their initial appearances.

   On the other hand, I think some of the bigger bosses who aren’t named “Birdo” or “Wart” should pop up now and then, too. Granted, Wart has pretty much been out of action since Super Mario Bros. 2, save for a cameo in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, but everyone always picks him first. And while I too would like to see him make a triumphant return, some of his lieutenants, such as Mouser, Triclyde, and Fry Guy would be equally welcome back… at least, for as long as it takes for me to send them falling off the screen again.

   Nothing personal, guys. It’s just business.

   As for ones who do appear, I think Goombas and Koopa Troopas are my favorites, as is the big bad himself. Bowser just has such an excellent design for a villain, it’s hard to get tired of seeing him standing atop the world as his evil schemes are carried out.

   Oh, and props to Nintendo for finally giving us the Koopalings back.

5. And now, a little something different.

   Professional wrestling is not a competition in the strictest sense, short of when competitors attempt to outdo each other with bigger moves or better matches. It is a performance of sorts, whose setting is based in the world of sports as if the events going on were part of an athletic competition. To this end, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon has even, to a degree some might call infamous, rebranded professional wrestling as “sports entertainment.” Which, in my opinion, is fair enough, though I still call them wrestlers and refer to what they do as wrestling.

   However, over the years, it feels that WWE has kind of lost the sense of what it means for their entertainment to be of the “sport” variety. To that end, Lance Storm has put together a list of wrestling rules that he believes that companies should abide by when presenting their product. And for the most part (if not completely), I agree with him.

   I enjoy the product, but the titles so often feel meaningless, as do wins or losses. I’ve heard Jim Ross talk about the way to move up in the WWE is to win matches, but really, it never seems like there is any particular reason to. It feels like guys such as Edge or Cody Rhodes can just leave a match of their own volition without any negative consequence, unless it’s a title match. And even then, the titles don’t feel like they have the meaning in the company that they once did.

   Sometimes, it feels like the goals are ill-defined. Sure, Face A wants to beat Heel B because the latter wronged the former somehow, but then what? Sure, it’s all for show, but even so, internal consistency can be an important part of the product. Why are any of these guys here? To simply draw a paycheck? Some say that having the World Title means everything to them, that it means they are the best in the world, but I just don’t feel that significance from the belt. Something feels missing.

   I believe one thing that would help, and be assisted greatly by the internet, is some sort of rankings of each athlete on each brand. A guy wins a match, he moves up; a guy loseWeight Exercises, he moves down. Sort of like in the video games, where you’re working to reach certain championship goals. Give it a real feeling like every match, whether or not there’s a story behind it, has some kind of meaning to it.

   It’s kind of funny, too. Before I read Storm’s article, I wound up watching some openings to old WWE shows (from when they were the WWF, at that) via Retrojunk and YouTube, and it was funny how much more “sports-like” those openings and setups made the show feel (albeit in an 80′s/90′s sort of way), versus what we have today.

   Long story short: I think WWE needs to put more of the “sport” back into “sports entertainment.”

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Points of Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.