IOC Axes Wrestling In Favour of Speed Tweeting for 2020 Olympics (And Beyond)

In a move that shocked many around the world, the IOC voted to drop wrestling from the Olympic program as of 2020:

"IOC leaders dropped wrestling from the Olympic program on Tuesday, a surprise decision that removes one of the oldest Olympic sports from the 2020 Games.
The IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon — the event considered most at risk — and remove wrestling instead from its list of 25 "core sports."

In a move that shocked many more (those who aren't paying much attention to our culture) they further stated that wrestling would be replaced with "Speed Tweeting" a "sport" (assuming one could consider it as such) that consists of a group of "athletes" sending out 100 character "tweets" as quickly as possible during an allotted time-frame:

 "Tweets" must be coherent and use proper spelling/grammar to be counted towards a competitor's score. 

One possible competitor for the 2020 games is thirteen year old Riley, a North Carolina girl who, when interviewed for this story, stated that speed tweeting was "really fun but really hard." When pressed for details she had this to say "Your thumbs get really sore, and so my mom and dad take me to weekly thumb massages, and I also get one day off of school a week to rest them (note: yes, she is referring to her thumbs) so that I will be injury free when it comes time to compete."

At the time of this writing, Riley is able to send out 40 "tweets" per minute. I can't say I'm excited to see what that number is up to by 2020, but judging by the people around her, I am clearly in the minority on this. Her friends and family were absolutely jubilant when they heard the news and they were clamoring to get comments published in this article. Being the nice guy that I am *ahem* (trying to fill a word count that unfortunately cannot be filled by raised eyebrows and a blank stare) *ahem* I have published a bunch of these for your (fill in the blank yourself, but I suggest smug disdain):

"Speed tweeting combines athletics and modern technology: It's the best of two worlds!" 
"It's a cool, hip sport. This will solve the problem of reduced youth viewership."
"Wrestling is outdated and barbaric. Speed tweeting is a novel, relevant and nonviolent sport."
"Sweaty men in their underwear rolling around on the floor? That's a sport?"
"The internet is the future and it's time the Olympics joined us in it."
"I feel bad for the wrestlers but it's time that these excellent tweeters get some limelight."
"What's more important than information? Delivering it quickly!"
"People might laugh at this but they don't see the dedication Riley and others put into this demanding sport."

Link:

IOC Axes Wrestling In Favour of Speed Tweeting

Personally, I'm disgusted at this but unfortunately, not terribly surprised.

WTF News: Farmville TV Show in Development

Rush Hour/X-Men: The Last Stand Director To Produce Farmville TV Show

"Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand director Brett Ratner will produce a animated FarmVille television show, according to a new report at Deadline. The show will be based on Zynga's popular online game and is in production in association with Six Eleven Media."

An animated TV show based on a Facebook game about farming.......wtf indeed.

Sights, Sounds, Feelings

Top Seven Best Sounds In the World:

-Woman having an orgasm
-Blast beat
-Slot machine jackpot
-Xbox 360 achievement unlocked sound (blop!)
-End of the day bell on the last day of school prior to the onset of summer break
-My 4 year old daughter's laugh
-The sound a head makes being decapitated in Ninja Gaiden

Top Seven Best Sights In the World:

-Woman having an orgasm, especially if another woman is involved ;)
-A litter of puppies
-My 4 year old daughter's smile
-A head being decapitated in Ninja Gaiden
-That brief period post sunset/pre-dusk with the beautiful colours in the sky
-Morning sunshine
-Campfire in a wooded area with nary a woman in view

Top Seven Best Feelings In the World:

-Pain relief
-Finally peeing when you've been forced to hold it for a long time, and your bladder is full to the brim
-An orgasm
-Being told “I love you, daddy”
-Morning sunshine
-Beating one of the modern Ninja Gaiden games on Master Ninja
-The catharsis granted by a good, old fashioned RANT

Bigfoot Silva Knocks Out Alistair Overeem! See The KO Here

....Wow. Overeem's overconfidence led him to break one of the most basic rules of striking: HANDS UP!. Keeping your hands at waist level and waiting to slip punches and counter with power shots against someone with this level of KO power? Silva isn't Brock Lesnar, Alistair.

I just hope he didn't sustain any serious/permanent brain damage in this fight.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 Initial Impressions

I have NSMB2 (3DS) rented right now and having played it for around an hour or so I thought I would post some initial impressions of the game. I'll just write this one up in bulletpoint style. Quick and easy (both to write and to read).

Story

-Princess. Plumber. Rescue. Angry turtles. About as passé as it gets. Does anyone play Mario games for the story though?

Difficulty

-I obviously cannot comment as to the difficulty of the later stages of the game, but having played through all of World 1, most of World 2, and a couple of later stages in Coin Rush mode (one from W3 and I believe the other was 5-3) I can say that thus far it seems as though this game is going to be a little too far on the easy side. I did, however, read that the secret stages are pretty tough, and some of the downloadable coin rush stages are supposed to be very hard, so in the end it sounds like the game should appease all types of gamers with respect to the difficulty found therein and how it appeals to their particular preferences. 

Three Features That Every Game Should Have But Don't

Feature One: Fully Customizable Controls

How many times have you played a game and found yourself wishing that a button on the controller did something other than what it was assigned by the developers? Ya, we all have. And that's when you check the control options to see what default control schemes they have available to use. Many times, there's one that is exactly what you were hoping for. Many other times, however, there is not. And in my experience, the  latter scenario happens as many times as does the former, if not more. So I pose a question: Why no custom controls? I'd say 5% of the games released allow the user to map the controls as they see fit (this percentage is definitely higher for PC games than it is for console games but I am talking about console games here) and all I can think is why? In what way does it harm anyone to allow the user to map the controls exactly as they would have them? If you ask me, it's nothing but positive outcomes ahead if they just start implementing this change.

Metal Gear Rising Demo Impressions (And Tips)

PlatinumGames released a demo for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance today and while the game is clearly brilliant the demo was a huge misstep that I suspect is going to cost PlatinumGames a lot of sales. Right off the bat I am going to tell you something that the demo itself does not (much to its own detriment): You can dodge back with X+A (360) or X+S (PS3) and if you add in a direction you do a dodge slash.

How can you release a demo with a tutorial that does NOT tell you how to dodge?

Brutal!

How about not telling the player that the game contains very useful combos utilizing directional inputs?

Horrible!

How about the fact that you can heal (B (360) or Circle (PS3) when prompted during Blade Mode)? The demo never mentions that?

WTF!!

It might not have been so bad if perhaps the demo wasn't REALLY hard on Normal difficulty (compared to most games released these days). They throw you into a few REALLY intense fights in the demo and you get very little in the way of practise or instruction beforehand. This is a mistake that is going to cost PG and it's a shame because having spent some time with the demo (yes, I beat it, and yes, I died several times) I can say that the combat in this game is freaking brilliant. It's incredibly different than many other hack n slash games, with a myriad of complexities that are unfortunately not immediately apparent. It manages to be  both very challenging and yet totally fair.....when you figure out how to properly play the damn thing. The demo really does not do a very good job letting you know much.

So, to any prospective players, remember these few things:

-You can heal (B (360) or Circle (PS3) when prompted during Blade Mode).
-Experiment with button input timing.
-It's hard. You will die. You learn by dying, so don't give up so easily; the game is worth it, trust me.
-You can dodge back with X+A (360) or X+S (PS3) and if you add in a direction you do a dodge slash.
-You can cancel the flying kick (Jump then strong attack when in Ninja Run mode) into a stealth attack.
-Towards, towards weak attack is a launcher
-There are also away, towards weak/strong moves as well as a towards, towards weak one (all powerful)
-Use the lock on during every fight. Forget trying to adjust the camera during fights.
-The game WANTS you to use Blade Mode, so USE it. Especially on large enemies.

There's more I am forgetting and there's also more I am sure I do not yet know. This is a game that requires effort, thought, practise and patience, just like all of the best hack n slash games. And, like those, I can guarantee that there is going to be a small community of extremely dedicated and adept players who will be putting out some incredible gameplay/combo videos over the coming years. And, just as true as that is, there will also be a large group of people who played the demo, got their ass kicked and shut the game off, forever writing it off as a bad game. I find that to be unfortunate. However, what I find to be even more unfortunate is that PlatinumGames is going to cause a lot of that themselves with a very underwhelming and insufficiently explanatory demo.

I really hope this incredibly talented development studio can iron out their issues and earn the sales I think they deserve.