Ramblings of an Englishman

As 2023 draws to a close we have one final PPV from All Elite Wrestling. In a year of ups and downs sometimes in the same show it has been a weaker year for AEW. I do believe people are stupid to expect every year to hit 52 weeks of the year and considering people wet themselves over how great WWE is as Michael Cole can now say Bullet Club on TV the top two wrestling companies are not equally comparred. I do hope AEW can look at its positives from this year and build on those. With a lot of big stories coming up on this show and hopefully the reveal of a masked devil I wanted to break down match by match the final AEW show of 2023.  Zero Hour Kris Statlander vs. Willow Nightingale Wow three women's matches on one show but Twitter told me that Tony Khan hates women. Regardless of what the depth of social media have to say (and the fact I feel a lot better not having to see it since deleting my Twitter account) I do feel that the title scene around the TBS title is stronger than the ...

As mentioned previously we are close to the announcement for Pokémon Generation ten and as such my main interest is the new Pokémon we get. When you look at what has come before we have a lot of real animals that haven't become Pokémon (I mean it took nine generations to get a dolphin) so I wanted to break down a few that I would love to see become the inspiration to some new Pokémon. Obviously we have inanimate objects, fictional creatues inspired by both films and muthology but today I just wanted to look at those animals I feel could make interesting Pokémon. Racoon Starting off with a choice for what could be a Route One rodent Pokémon or maybe even something bigger. Racoon's would make sense to be in the Rattata position as an early route Pokémon with one evolution. While this would be fine I woud love to see a Racoon Pokémon get a bit more of a spotlight. I think for me it is how Racoon's are sometimes referred to as 'Trash Pandas' so I can't look past a R...

We are just over a month away from Like a Dragon 8 my most anticipated game of the year and it looks like it will be an emotional rollercoaster. One of the biggest parts of the game looks to be around Kazuma Kiryu and his cancer diagnosis leading to a lot of speculation for if he will die or not. With this post I wanted to have a look at why this could be the game where the story of Kazuma Kiryu ends but at the same time look at how this story may not end here for the Dragon of Dojima.  Yes It’s certainly being built by what we’ve seen as the last hurrah of Kazama Kiryu. Receiving a cancer diagnosis and seemingly wanting to go out with one last major quest this feels like the real passing of the torch game. It feels odd but most of the major games I’ve played seemingly are doing some sort of passing of the torch story for a new protagonist in the series. God of War has this with Kratos (another protagonist that may die or retire in their next game possibly) and his son Atreus/Loki ...

As what has been the final PPV for the AEW calander year up until this year Full Gear seems to be headlined by the idea of who is the person behind the devil mask or at least all surrounding it and the MJF and Jay White title match. Writing this the Friday beforehand my bet is either Adam Cole or Will Ospreay but a reveal like this at the top of the card needs to top act to fill the role of the person most likely to win the belt from MJF in my opinion. However, before we even get to that we have what is on paper a good night of action.  Zero Hour ROH World Championship: Eddie Kingston (c) vs. Jay Lethal (with Jeff Jarrett, Karen Jarrett, Satnam Singh, and Sonjay Dutt) Eddie Kingston being a world champion is great. A unique presence on the AEW roster and I wish he did more, give him all of the belts he deserves them. Jay Lethal is a fine wrestler but I have no interest in seeing him so was expecting a by the numbers title defence with God know about 500 interference spots in i...

Spoilers for Like a Dragon Gaiden Having just finished Like a Dragon Giaden I am now ready for Like a Dragon 8, a big story and conclusion and new beginning for the series. However, before then we needed to be filled in with the story of Kiryu up to the point where he will meet Ichiban in Hawaii. Like a Dragon Gaiden is a smaller story in hours but is still a real fun story. One character I found myself really enjoying was Kosei Shishido. He is crazy like Majima and strong like Saejima and I was very glad how his story played out. While he starts as just a strong brute we see his plan play out over time and combining him with Homare Nishitani III you get two very interesting villains. In the end of the game Shishido isn't killed much to my delight as Yoshimura captures him and forces him to become a Daidoji agent alongside Nishitani. It got me thinking, they created all these new moves and gadgets for Kiryu in this game and will likely not be used in Like a Dragon 8 so will we see ...

The timing is good for me working on this as we have just have the announcement that the second half of the Pokémon Scarlet & Violet being announced for December it leaves February 27, 2024 otherwise known as Pokémon day without a big announcement. I think this is where we will get the first confirmation of Generation Ten. While I don't know what form this will take be it the next mainline game or a new legends spin off (which if it is Unova and the original dragon please) so I wanted to cover some hopes and expectations for the next mainline game.  Hopes: A Smooth Running Game Should be an expectation but you never know. While I did enjoy Scarlet you cannot lie it was full of performance issues and could do with a graphical upgrade. Gamefreak seem to rush these games out and if they want to keep the same release schedule they should hire more staff to work on the game but a stort for another time. I do hope they have learned from the reception of Scarlet & Violet...

I saw a tweet talking about what Pokémon from each generation you would give an evolution to and I thought might as well do it myself. It is just as simple as that but with a few restrictions for myself. I wanted to not have branching evolutions so no new evolution for the likes of Poliwhirl or Slowpoke for example and no legendary or mythical Pokémon. With that being said here is my top pick from each generation which considering that generation 9 gave us an evolution for Primeape it feels like it could be any Pokémon. Generation One: Dewgong I had a few options with Arbok, Dodrio, Seaking or finally getting that Jynx finally getting its eveolution to match up with Magmar or Electabuzz but I went with Dewgong. I have to be honest, I don't really care for Dewgong it's not on my list of favourite Pokémon and I feel the design is very plain at least for me. While I would love Jynx to get its evolution to match up to its original trio I think the controversy in its design hi...

Bryan Intihar the Senior Creative Director at Insomniac Games has seemingly set a lot of minds racing with the below comments regarding the easter egg of the eviction notice for Nelson & Murdock law firm. With this I starting to think could we see Daredevil in the DLC for Spider-Man 2. With a lack of real announcements it makes me think something big is coming and a big hook to get people to buy. What if instead of a big villain we start to introduce Daredevil and characters around him as a backdoor pilot. I believe there's an unannounced Insomniac Marvel game which might be a Defenders game but would rather it just be Daredevil. I wanted to break down how I think this could be done as I think it has great potential to be told over a three part DLC which could raise hype and get a Daredevil solo game into development. The first part would be to find a common link between Miles & Daredevil and to me the best bet would be Kingpin. In the Miles game Kingpin promised to hurt th...

Spider-Man 2's release date has come and gone with many people beating the game getting the Platinum Trophy (much like myself) and now just unsure of the next move while I wait for any DLC announcement. What it leads to is my mind thinking on what could be next in this game series, the back of my mind I think that Spider-Man 3 could be the end (which would be dumb if it's making a lot of money) and with Wolverine and the potential for a Venom game before hand I did wonder who we could see in this universe. I think Spider-Man 3 has a lot of potential so wanted to run down some the Spider-Man adjacent characters we are likely to see in a Spider-Man 3 down the line and others who I think have a good shout. Green Goblin Starting with the most obvious three I think we can all see that the main villain of Spider-Man 3 will be Norman Osborn as The Green Goblin. Teased at the end asking his scientists in the phone to prepare the ‘G-Serum’ I expect he is looking for revenge on the Spide...

Spoilers for All Insomnaic Spider-Man games With the release of the thrid game in Insomnaic's Spider-Man series in 2023s Spider-Man 2 I found myself loving the universe created even more. Everything with this iteration of Spider-Man feels fresh and interesting and I couldn't quite figure out why. That was until it really hit me, has any Spider-Man iteration had Miles Morales become and then be established as Spider-Man before we even get the Green Goblin? It don't think so, even in Spider-Verse we saw that universe had a Green Goblin already established. It was thinking on this and other actions taken by Insomnaic and how I think it benefits them.  Obviously, a lot of established parts do remain. Peter Parker & Mary-Jane Watson end together, Uncle Ben has died, Peter is stuggling for money and to keep a job. However, a lot of other things have been changed, for one Insomniac let Aunt May die (and Peter didn't sell his marriage to the devil to bring her back take not...

Another week of football fixtures have come and gone with once again the taking points not being the key wins or precious points on the table but that of baffling decisions made by referees across the top two levels of English football. Once again fans and pundits call these decisions into question while the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) protect each other and hide behind blank template ‘apology’ letters. I just wanted to vent on this and why serious change is needed (again I’m aware this has been done before). Just this weekend we saw Jarred Gillet sending off Sunderland’s Dan Neil for yelling ‘that’s a fucking foul ref’ from far away having said pre game he would officiate the derby game empathetically (having previously sent of Mario Lemina of Wolves for what can only be described as waking towards him), Michael Oliver not sending Manchester City’s Mateo Kovatic for two yellow card offences despite being the same ref who sent Gabriel Martinelli off against Wolves...

It's hard to explain to those outside of wrestling bubble or even those who only watch WWE how much Antonio Inoki means to wrestling. The founder of New Japan Pro Wrestling and inspiration and idol for so many wrestler who followed him a true great. It is fitting now that AEW on the anniversary of his passing AEW puts on a tribute show to honour Inoki featuring talent from New Japan as well. I imagine this is a double edge sword for AEW testing having more PPVs and the buy rate with how an expected move to the on demand service Max will work. Either way with the card in place I felt this was a good card on paper but was up to how it would deliver on paper.  The opening tribute to Inoki really does justice to the character and legacy of Antonio Inoki and what it means to everyone to pay tribute to Inoki and what he means. A nice opening tribute from Tony Khan before and matches with Inoki's grandsons in the ring as well.  Zero Hour Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor and Lee ...

Spoilers for Mortal Kombat 1 I’ve always had a respect for some of the ways Mortal Kombat (MK) has gone about its work. Not many other studios could have a roster where half the characters are pallet swapped versions of each other and it ending up being one of the top fighting game franchises in history. With an interesting group of characters they have now had to reboot their universe twice first with MK9 and now again with the new MK1. Comparing MK1 to the storyline of MK9 through to the previous game in 11 I found myself loving this one so much more and wanted to go over some of the reasons why I felt this story has me interested in the future. Liu Kang Isn’t a Dumbass Let’s start with an easy one. You could argue the main character of the past few games has been Raiden. The plot is focused around him in large parts and he seems to be the driving force in a lot do conflict and resolution. However, the key part is conflict as he always seemed to be the one who causes it. MK9 he sends...