| . . . : : : Backyard Wrestling 2: Press Release - 6/15/04 : : : . . . |
I knew that my long-time homie, TwiztidSlim, and I would be reaching the airport at around the same time. Besides the flavor of being able to test out the game and enjoy the surroundings of the Backyard Wrestling event, I would also be meeting TwiztidSlim in person for the first time. Very fresh. So I woke up at 3:30 AM on Tuesday, June 15th, and headed out to the airport to catch my 6:10 AM flight. I thought I had it bad, but TwiztidSlim had to drive 1-1/2 hours to the Chicago Midway airport from Niles, MI just to catch his 6:00 AM flight. But again, we knew it would be worth it. Twiztidslim took some scenery shots from the plane because...well...because it was a 3-1/2 hour flight. lol. So while this may be boring to some of you, here are a few pictures via 35,000 feet high:       Click the pics to enlarge!   Click the pics to enlarge!   Click the pics to enlarge!            Click the pics to enlarge!  Click the pic to enlarge!        Click the pics to enlarge! This portion of my review is for those of you who are clearly only interested in what the outcome of the game is. If you have not yet seen trailers, interviews, and screen shots from the game, your best bets are the official site: BYWGame.com, and This Link to GameSpot.com, which has a lot of exclusive interviews, reviews, screens, and more. Those are the spots that you go for the ultra-technical reviews. Now for the "I'm no gamer, and could give a fuck less about technics, but I know a fun video game" review, you're at the right place! First, Kevin Gill hit the stage (video of this coming soon!), and went through almost every aspect of the game that was criticized the first time...and said that they had ALL been addressed. This goes from anywhere to the "funny looking" graphics, to the "heat-seaking" objects, to the leaps and bounds of an improvement on the Create-a-wrestler, which Kevin called a "Band-aid" for the first edition of BYW. Here are a few shots of Kevin speaking to the press:   Click the pics to enlarge!        Click the pics to enlarge! But that's besides the point. In the backyard level, when you throw your opponent into the RV, it actually shows the damage there, rather than shattering into a thousand pieces, which makes the gameplay that much more realistic. One of the highlights of my short time playing, was the fact that you could lay your opponent's head inside of the tool shed, take the 2 metal doors on either side, and continuously slam the shit out of their head. The controls stuck to their simple nature. You've got your standard punches and kicks, and a whole other array of grappling moves! We didn't get to figure out a whole lot of the special moves that are available in the game this time, but even the most simplistic one may make your rival rethink getting back up! The submission holds were easy to work too. Just tap the buttons if you are the one applying it for a longer and more severe hold...or if it's being applied to you, you better get your fingers moving to break it! Obviously, the game was in it's preliminary testing phases. TwiztidSlim and I had to restart our machine a few times due to the background graphics blacking out, or one of our players just floating up into mid air. We later found it that it was just an issue with the burned copy of the demo we were playing, and not the game itself....but it was actually pretty funny to see Mad Man Pondo just float off into the clouds while we were playing! Most of the options for the create-a-wrestler on the PS2 version were still in the works, as far as I could tell. I went in and began to create a new wrestler, and there are a TON of new options for head, body type, thousands of customized colors, tattoos placed anywhere on your wrestler, and a lot of new wrestling attire as well. I wish I could say more about it, but the first wrestling match was about to start, and they had to start tearing down the PS2 and X Box stations. So what's the final verdict of this game? It's really hard to pinpoint it with it being in it's prelim stages. These little glitches that I mentioned will NOT effect the gameplay once it's ready for release. Don't worry, the heat-seaking objects are history, you CAN re-use weapons (they don't just disappear), and the scenery is EXTREMELY interactive! Even if you thoroughly despised the first attempt at a BYW game, you have GOT to give this one a shot! Though Backyard Wrestling: There Goes the Neighborhood doesn't have the huge Akklaim budget, or big-name WWE wrestlers, this just might give the WWE game enterprise a run for it's money! The release date isn't set in stone yet, but it's looking like a Mid-September to Early October release! Pre-order yours today: PS2 :: XBOX GAMESTOP.com PS2 :: XBOX .:: END GAME REVIEW SEGMENT ::. I don't know how else to sell you on that game, but it's the shit. But let me get on with what took up a majority of our time at The Pound on that fine Tuesday night. We headed back outside so that they could get the venue set back up for the upcoming performances. So I busted out the video camera, while TwiztidSlim took care of the digital photos! The first thing we came across was both New Jack and Mad Man Pondo SCREAMING into a cell phone! I didn't know what the hell was going on, but you'll see everything that happened once we get the video posted! Here are a few shots we captured:      Click the pics to enlarge!  Click the pic to enlarge! Soon afterwards, the wrestling matches started. Now with these, I'm not going to sit here and give you a play-by-play, because the videos of every match will speak for themselves. But I do have quite a few pictures for you to check out! The special guest ring announcer was Andrew W.K., who was entertaining in the fact that you knew he didn't know what the hell he was talking about up there. TwiztidSlim made a comment that I thought was worth mentioning: The next matchup was between 2 unheard-of guys who called themselves the Psycho Surgeons, and those lovable Wicked Clowns, the Insane Clown Posse! If you haven't seen the full match already, you can do so by clicking Right Here! (Thanks to GameSpot.com!) TS took a ton of pictures of this match, so feast your eyes on 'em:                         Click the pics to enlarge! Next, it was time for a few mini-concerts! The bands T.S.O.L., Kool Keith, and Insane Clown Posse all got to play some short sets...no longer than 30 minutes a piece (and about 15-20 for ICP). The pictures didn't come out great at all, due to the stage lighting. But I guarantee that the video will MORE than make up for it! How hard is it to get a bootleg of a Psychopathic show? I mean even if you could get a video camera into the venue, who would want to risk ruining it from all the Faygo being thrown? This time, with the event being 95% press, there was no Faygo, whatsoever. So guess who was all up in their face with the mini-DV? Hell yeah! But for now, here are some sorta-stale pics to tide you over:         Click the pics to enlarge!     Click the pics to enlarge!    Click the pics to enlarge!  Click the pic to enlarge!        Click the pics to enlarge!    Click the pics to enlarge!    Click the pics to enlarge!        Click the pics to enlarge! It was rolling around to about the 1 AM mark, and we had to be up by 3:45 AM that morning. So we got on the bus to take us back to the hotel, and every wrestler who had a match that night ended up on there! There was New Jack, Pondo, Supreme, those 2 guys whose names I can't remember, and then some reporters from Hustler magazine, and some gaming website. New Jack had us completely ROLLING the whole way back to the hotel! That guy is fuckin crazy! I mean he was talking from WAY outta left field about some of the 40 foot jumps he's made, how much he gets paid for doing the crazy shit he does, walking around his house with nothing on but a sock and a flip flop...and so much other random shit! He even tried bribing TwiztidSlim for some pain meds! I got it all on a voice recorder, but it wasn't exactly with his permission. lol. So I'm gonna email the MP3 to him once we get it made, and then we'll see if I can post it or not. Other than that, we got back in at around 1:30 and were hungry as hell. So we ordered a pizza that was gonna end up costing us 25 bucks. When it actually got there at around 2:45, it ended up being free. So we were full and had a whole hour to sleep! A taxi ride that morning from the hotel to the airport was 40 fuckin dollars...but now I'm just getting into some petty shit. The fact remains solid: Eidos, Interactive knows how to throw one hell of a party! I mean the video game was set up for maybe 2 hours....MAX. The rest was eating, drinking, concerts, and wrestling. Now how fresh is that? So once again, much props to Eidos, Kevin Gill, Kjell Vistad, Sam Tehrani, and anyone else there who hooked us up PHAT once again! What up to all the Cali Juggalos/Juggalettes that I met while I was there, Tim Grube of GamingHorizon.com, all of the crazy fuckers who got into the ring and got sliced and diced for our entertainment, Tylene for looking so damn good (and her big ass boyfriend for not beating my ass for looking a little too long!), J and Shaggy themselves, all of the other bands that performed, TwiztidSlim for providing all of the pictures you see above, and anyone else out there who I forgot to mention! As with last year's review, I hope you found this one entertaining, and somewhat informative! Watch for some video of the event coming soon! Thanks to everyone who took the time to read all or part of this....and as always, I can be reached at ScottieD@Faygoluvers.net!                              Click the pics to enlarge!
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