News broke from WWE this morning that former Superstar and industry legend ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin will be gracing the cover of this year’s iteration of the 2K Games series, WWE 2K16. On the surface, placing such a notable and popular face on the cover seems like a smart marketing move.
Given that professional wrestling fans tend to lapse in and out of fandom with some regularity, pandering to former viewers that haven’t seen the product since Austin’s heyday is a great way to draw eyes back on the product.
Warning: the following post promotes a product that is not safe for all audiences.
I am sure that indie comedy is a thing. Like adult entertainment, the only way to really know indie comedy is when you see it.
At its most basic, comedy is a solitary act. Double acts are rare these days, so comedians are alone on stage more often than not, talking about very personal things.
All in an effort to make complete strangers laugh.
There are few comedians who have transcended this format, but only in as much as the difference is the size of the crowd. Most comedy isn’t performed in front of sold out arenas or theaters in massive metropolitan centers. Most comedy is done in small clubs, in even smaller cities all over the world.
There is one place that I know indie comedy exists. Every August, the best and the brightest talent in all of art descend on Edinburgh, Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The comedy and art that comes out of the Fringe Festival is some of the most pure content you’ll find on the planet. When you hear about someone’s set from Edinburgh, the conversation is usually about innovation. It was in this context that I came to know about John Robins.
John Robins is an English comedian whose take on the tropes that we often see in stand up — relationships, getting older, social situations, and even about comedy — is a breath of fresh air.
What I really like about Jon Robins’ comedy is his ability to take you down a road you’ve been down before in the setup for a joke and then knock you off track with the punchline. A great many people have experienced what John talks about, which makes him instantly relatable and makes his jokes easy to follow. The direction he takes with his punchlines elicits the “I can’t believe I never thought of it that way” type of reaction.
John has built himself into a bit of a name in the UK comedy scene. There are still very indie qualities about his comedy, among them are a level of humility and self-deprecation. John uses his Bandcamp page to post his sets with the option to pay what you would like, all while asking you not pay more than the ticket price.
The Bandcamp page features 2 albums. 2014’s Where Is My Mind?, which was recorded live and is similar to John’s set from Edinburgh in 2013. Where Is My Mind? is half coming of age story and half coming to terms with being middle aged. Told through a series of anecdotes, this album is a great chronicle of John’s journey through adolescence and into adulthood, told by someone looking back and wondering how he made it.
The other album is This Tornado Loves You, which released this month and is a recording of John’s 2014 Edinburgh set. This Tornado Loves You is a show about love. I know I know everybody talks about love, but John takes it in a direction you don’t expect. Whether it is revealing how comedians get girls to the struggles of being a comedian who is in love, This Tornado Loves You looks at what love is through the warped mind of a comedian. Its only through this lens that you can see how genuinely funny love really is.
I said earlier that I was sure indie comedy was a thing but that like pornography, the only way to know it is when you see it. John Robins is indie comedy embodied. Being indie in comedy is not about being on your own and making your own thing — though it can be — but rather it’s a sensibility that comes from being comfortable with yourself.
Indie comedy is real. I know it because I have seen it.
It is my goal and my distinct pleasure to have the opportunity to use this snobbery to your advantage. I will be bringing you what I consider the best of the best of the things I love. Movies, music, comics, and anything else that comes across my browser are fair game.
It is perfectly normal while growing up to have some kind of hero or person that you look up to or idolize. Sometimes, this person is a real world influence, such as a parent. More often than not, that someone is a celebrity. More often than that more often than not, that celebrity is an athlete.
My posts on Backlog Adventures have been few and far between since the beginning of my newest venture. I became the games reporter and review for The Toledo Blade back in December, which is the largest newspaper in the area outside of Detroit.
I appreciate the opportunity given in the print space allotted to my gaming thoughts, but sometimes there is not enough space to justify my full opinion. Alas, this is one of the more difficult differences between writing online and print, and one that I must adapt to.
Regardless, I felt it best to find a space online to sum up my thoughts that weren’t fit to print for my gaming reviews within The Blade.
Nintendo’s recent financial troubles have opened the floodgates for discussion on where the gaming company went wrong. The recent stock price drop and projected decrease in sales numbers are just one of many woes in the wake of the release of the Wii-U. Nintendo’s third-party relationships have failed and a formerly strong user base has been left feeling alienated by a company that seems stuck in the past.
Where did Nintendo go wrong? The lack of first-party titles? Marketing the Wii-U as a family device and failing to show consumers a difference between the new console and the Wii?
Any of these and more are valid criticism. The biggest contributors to the failure of the Wii-U are a poor and misguided use of technology and the internet, the rise and prevalence of game sales changing how consumers view the worth of Nintendo software, and Nintendo’s outright snubbing of an independent game developer community in their own back yard.
Retro City Rampage, Mega Man 9 and 10, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, Darksiders, Guardians of Middle-Earth, Vanquish, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Demon’s Souls, Zombie Tycoon 2, Sleeping Dogs, LittleBigPlanet Karting, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Saints Row: The Third, Battlefield 3, Bit. Trip Runner Presents: Runner 2, Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection, Ico, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Shadow of the Colossus, Poker Night at the Inventory, Hotline Miami, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, Binary Domain, Grid 2, Borderlands 2, DmC: Devil May Cry, Bioshock Infinite, Resogun, Don’t Starve, Gravity Rush, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus, Plants vs. Zombies, Disgaea 3, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Rayman Origins, Sine Mora, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD, Soul Sacrifice, Sonic & All Stars Racing: Transformed, Urban Trial Freestyle.
If I were to add up the cost of each of these games as they cost today on the PlayStation Network store, the exact total–and I did the math twice–would be $862.13. You may be asking yourself what is so special about this specific list of games. Why the unnecessarily tedious math?
These are the games I have received in the one year and two months that I have been a PlayStation Plus member. The cost of that membership thus far? $85, thanks to a Christmas discount last month on the typically 50 dollar a year subscription. This doesn’t even take into account the discounts I have received on games and DLC.
PlayStation Plus is by far the greatest value in gaming and may very well be why Sony is poised to take back the console gaming crown.
I was reminded this past weekend of just how much my taste in media has changed, or at least how I choose to digest said media.
Four years ago I would have told someone asking me my favorite band to be Arcade Fire due to their large sound and bravado. In 2014 I find those same qualities to be the exact reason why I dislike that same band.
If one were to look at my gaming habits four years ago, a trail of big name, AAA titles would be on my shelf. Now you’re more likely to find my Steam library populated with smaller, more meaningful games where I feel like my time I am putting into them is being used in a more constructive manner.
Of course, people change, things change, and nothing stays the same. All of this may be a “Well, duh” statement on my part, but I’m just surprised by how my own tastes have changed right underneath my nose.
Enough quality reflection. Here’s what media I digested over the weekend.
Backlog Adventures 