Co-Op Critics

January 21, 2014 In Uncategorized

The Minecraft Effect

I first picked up Minecraft when it was released on Xbox 360 in 2012, and for a few months, it became an obsession. Whether in co-op or alone, I would often lose hours at time to the timeless nature of the game, where sessions are not measured by minutes in our world, but by the day/night cycle of the world you become immersed in.

For me, Minecraft is equal parts LEGO and Dungeons & Dragons. Creating a base of operations, equipping my character and then venturing out into the world to hunt monsters hearkens back to my tabletop roleplaying game days, and it’s easy for me to fall down the rabbit hole whenever I fire up the game.

What has consistently surprised me though, is how easily causal and non-gamers are drawn into Minecraft. In the past two weeks alone, my 7-year old son, my ten-year old daughter, my 15 year-old nephew and my thirty-something brother-in-law have all been captivated by Minecraft.

For my son, the simplicity of the basic mechanics and the similarities to LEGO building (which is his favorite pastime) hooked him immediately. While the crafting menus can get a little complex, the core concepts are really clear, so the learning curve for him wasn’t steep. Not to mention, the ability to turn off the appearance of monsters in the game allowed him to build without worry, and then begin adventuring when he had a good feel for the game. My daughter also liked the building aspects, but what really drew her in was the notion that you can just keep digging deeper into the world, and you never knew what you’ll find behind that next block.

This past weekend, my brother-in-law and nephew watched my son play, and then jumped in themselves. My nephew bought the game on his Macbook and literally sat next to his father playing on his laptop while my brother-in-law played the XBox 360 version. For my nephew, it was the crafting that hooked him, while my brother-in-law found the game reminded him of Zelda, the one series he’s really gotten into despite not being a frequent gamer. When the two left our house at the end of the weekend, they promptly went home and bought the game for XBox 360.

My son and daughter have both now gotten Minecraft on their iPods, and it’s been a blast watching them explore and build. What I love the most about Minecraft is that despite their being some monsters in the game, it’s completely appropriate for kids of almost any age. Heck, even my wife enjoys watching the kids play, and she hasn’t been into games since Pandemonium on the original PlayStation.

The game really reinforces all of the things I love about games, and I can just let my kids dive in and play. Seeing them enjoy it so much has actually rekindled my love for the game, and I just picked it up for PlayStation 3, so I expect I’ll be writing about it more in the coming months.

December 31, 2013 In Uncategorized

Taking GRID 2 Out for a Spin

Racing games have never really been my thing. I mean, I always played racing games, whether it was growing up in arcades with Pole Position and Out Run, or marveling at the night driving in Rad Racer on NES. I like racing games–they’ve just never been a genre I was really into.

The racing game I probably spent the most time with in the past twenty years has been Burnout Paradise, as it was the perfect blend of arcade-style fun and simulation for my driving game tastes. It was basically The Dukes of Hazzard: The Game.

So when I saw GRID 2 was free on PlayStation Plus this month, I decided to check it out, as I hadn’t spent any time with a racing game in while.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well GRID 2 drew me in with its story, which sort of pits you as a YouTube sensation who gets recruited to help organize a world series of racing by attracting the top drivers from around the world. To do this, you need to race them and show them you’re worth teaming up with. It’s a simple premise, but the presentation is slick, and it’s enough of a story that it added an interesting layer to the game.

The learning curve of the actual driving was more fun than frustrating. Granted, it took me about ten tries to place in the top three on the first track–a winding road through the California mountains–but I made progress each time. And the ability to rewind the last few seconds of a race lets you correct big mistakes (although I used it less than I thought I would). I am a terrible driver, and it will take a long time for me to master drifting and cornering, but I never finished a race without knowing exactly what I could have done to place better, which made me want to jump right back in and try again.

The bottom line is that GRID 2 makes a really good first impression, and I’m inclined to spend some more time with it. If you’re a PS Plus subscriber, it’s definitely worth a download.

October 26, 2013 In Uncategorized

‘Return to the Nexus’ Community Event Starts Today at 4PM EST

YouTube user Peeve Peeverson has set up a pretty cool community event leading up to tonight’s late night server test of Dark Souls 2. At 4PM EST, he’s inviting Demon’s Souls players to come back to the game and start a new playthrough. The event is called Return to the Nexus, and he put together a cool video to promote it. Check it out:

Peeve will be live streaming some of his playthrough over on Twitch TV at http://www.twitch.tv/peeve.

I’ll be jumping in and starting a fresh playthrough, as I will take any excuse I can get to keep playing either of the Souls games.

August 20, 2013 In Uncategorized

Defenders of the Faith–Part 2: At Home in the Catacombs

Ahh, the Catacombs. An area of Dark Souls I previously hated, but have grown to love playing through them with my Faith build. I’ve spent more time in the Catacombs during this playthrough than with my previous two combined.

For those unfamiliar, the Catacombs are a potentially frustrating area of Dark Souls because the skeletons that populate the area can reanimate if they are not killed with a divine weapon. There are necromancers (six of them, I believe) scattered throughout the level, and until they are killed, they keep bringing the skeletons in their area back to unlife.

Those not playing divine characters often build divine weapons just to play through this part of the game. As a Faith build this time around, I looked forward to tackling the Catacombs with a character uniquely suited to them. By the time I made it to this area, I had upgraded my divine Claymore to +5 (halfway to max), and my Faith stat was in the low 30’s. So for the most part, I ripped through this area without much trouble, decimating dozens of skeletons along the way.

Unlike previous playthroughs though, when I beat Pinwheel (the area boss), I didn’t just move on to the next area–I went back for some co-op. I ended up playing through the second half of the level several more times, helping people through. I also went back and forth through the area a few times, exploring it in a way I had never done before.

With my Faith build, I felt like the Catacombs were almost made for me. It’s yet another reason why Dark Souls is a game that you should play through multiple times. Every approach gives you a new appreciation for the game world.

Here’s a cool video by OreoYifu that features some good co-op in the Catacombs, including a few great invasions.

August 6, 2013 In Uncategorized

Defenders of the Faith–Part 1: Harnessing the Power of the Sun

My first Dark Souls character was a magic-based one. The second was primarily a melee character, with some Pyromancy spells thrown in. For my third Dark Souls character, I decided to go with the Cleric class and make a pure Faith build, which meant I had my toughest playthrough ahead of me. That’s because from a spellcasting (or Miracle) standpoint, Faith magic is mostly defensive and supportive in nature. Healing spells, buffs, shield spells and utility spells make up most of the list. In fact, the only real offensive miracles for Faith builds come from joining particular covenants. Because I wanted to focus on my Faith stat and use spells as much as possible, I knew I had to join covenants.

As soon as I was able, I joined the Warriors of Sunlight covenant, for a couple of reasons. First off, Warriors of Sunlight are focused on helping other players through co-op, and the rewards of that covenant come from helping others successfully defeat bosses. I like that, as I prefer co-op as opposed to PvP in Dark Souls. Secondly, joining the Warriors of Sunlight gives you access to two offensive Miracles fairly early in the game: Lightning Spear and Great Lightning Spear. These are decent ranged attack spells and are very helpful early on.

In order to get Great Lightning Spear, you need to have successfully helped ten players in co-op. So, many of my early hours with this character were spent in co-op, which was really fun.

Two offensive spells wasn’t going to cut it, though, so I needed to get myself a decent weapon. Once again, Faith builds kind of get the short end of the stick, as there aren’t a lot of great weapons that scale well with the Faith stat. I settled on the claymore, as it has a good move set and is fun to wield. As soon as I could, I began upgrading my claymore through the Divine path. While faith weapons don’t scale as well as many other types in the game, it’s enough to give me a fighting chance in most boss encounters.

So, a good portion of my first 20+ hours with this character spent in co-op, and all of the souls I earned went to increasing my Faith stat and upgrading my claymore.

Next time around I’ll talk about how the Catacombs went from one of my least favorite areas in the game to one I love playing through with my Faith build.

July 5, 2013 In Uncategorized

The Last of Us–Combat Takes Away From a Great Story

I recently raved about how amazing the opening to The Last of Us is. In fact, the storytelling and voice acting has been consistently great in the several hours I’ve put into the game so far. The story elements of The Last of Us actually transcend what we are used to as “video game stories.” I genuinely care about the characters, and when I’m playing through an area, I am constantly looking forward to the next little tidbit of story that I’ll get to watch.

And that’s kind of the problem. In my experience so far, I’m not really enjoying the actual gameplay of The Last of Us. More specifically, I kind of hate the combat systems altogether.

The Last of Us teaches you to approach combat in a certain way–avoid it whenever possible. Your character (Joel) has a kind of radar sense, where he can listen closely to an area and discern where the enemies are. By using objects in the environment (bottles, bricks), you can distract enemies and lead them away from the path you need to take to escape an area. In general, it is preferable to do this, both because of the lethality of enemies, as well as the scarcity of weapons and ammunition. Certain enemies can one-hit kill you. You’re basically taught that if you do have to kill, do it stealthily (shiv to the neck), and only kill who you have to to get away. Guns attract enemies and are really only a good option when you’ve already screwed up, or you’re being attacked by large numbers. When you do use your gun, it’s inaccurate, as Joel’s shaky hand means you’ll be missing your target around a third of the time. Not good when you’re already low on ammo.

So, to summarize–your goal is to get Ellie (the young girl you’re protecting) from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible. Avoiding combat is the best way to do that.

Sadly, the game spends a lot of time teaching you this golden rule, and then violating it on a frequent basis with unavoidable combat against large numbers of enemies. These moments are scripted, and you must kill all enemies before the game will move forward.

Every time I have died in The Last of Us has been during one of these unavoidable combat encounters. The clunky mechanics and lack of ammo combined with swarms of enemies that are designed to be taken one at a time result in a frustrating experience that takes me right out of the narrative. There’s nothing worse than a great character moment followed by having to repeat a maddening encounter several times.

I can’t imagine the combat systems will improve as the game goes on, as this seems to be the pattern so far, and I a decent ways into the game. If I wasn’t so interested in Joel and Ellie as characters, I’d have stopped playing by now. I almost wish someone would just pull out all the great story bits and moments of dialogue and string them together in a movie I could watch on YouTube.

June 24, 2013 In Uncategorized

The Opening of The Last of Us Is Amazing

I started The Last of Us over the past weekend, and I’m about 25% through the game at this point. While I’ll certainly be writing about my overall experience when I’m done, the opening of The Last of Us deserves to be written about on its own.

Quite simply, it’s superb. Not only does the opening provide an origin story for the lead character Joel, but it introduces us to the world of The Last of Us at a point that makes everything that follows that much more impactful. The only other games that come to mind with openings of this caliber are Half-Life 2 and the original Bioshock. Like with both of those games, The Last of Us gives the player just enough interactivity to feel immersed in the world, but not so much that you miss what the game is trying to show you.

For me, The Last of Us actually rises above those other games because of the emotional punch the opening has. As a player, you’re not only seeing the defining moment of this world’s creation, but the defining moment of the main character’s creation.

I was actually tempted to embed the YouTube video of the game’s opening here, but you should experience it in the game. It’s that good.

In fact, the opening for The Last of Us might actually be too good, because it sets a bar for the game that’s almost impossible to live up to. It was one of the few times in gaming where I actually put the controller down and had to take a breather to process what I’d just experienced. The last time that happened was at the end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

Whether the overall experience lives up to the game’s opening, I have no problem recommending people check the game out. In the time I’ve spent with it, I’ve already gotten my money’s worth.

April 30, 2013 In Uncategorized

Return to Demon’s Souls–Part 2: The More the Merrier

Probably the biggest difference in my current playthrough of Demon’s Souls as opposed to the original is my participation in the multiplayer aspects of the game. The first time I played Demon’s Souls, my multiplayer experiences were limited to being invaded by the occasional Black Phantom.

Having spent over 200 hours with Dark Souls (many of them in multiplayer) has really changed my approach to Demon’s Souls this time around, though. Because Demon’s Souls doesn’t have Humanity like Dark Souls, reviving to human form is a little more precious. You do find stones that will revive you to human form, but they’re nowhere near as abundant as Humanity is in Dark Souls. The most consistent way you revive in Demon’s Souls is by beating bosses.

One huge difference between Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls is that in Demon’s Souls, if you have the necessary stone, you can revive at any time. In Dark Souls, you can only do this at bonfires. So, in Demon’s Souls, I can battle my way to just before the boss, and then revive and summon another player or two in. In Dark Souls, when I revive, I have to make it from the bonfire to the boss without dying, and if I’ve summoned in other players, they do as well. This is a huge tactical advantage the Demon’s Souls offers over Dark Souls, one of the handful of areas where the original is better than the sequel.

I’m about a third of the way through the game now, and I’ve summoned players in a handful of times, making boss fights much easier. What I’ve done a lot more though, is made myself available for summoning into others’ worlds.

What’s cool about the summoning in Demon’s Souls is that you actually rate the other player after you beat a boss. When someone looks at your summon sign later on, they see how many matches you’ve participated in, and what your rating is. So far, I haven’t seen anyone really abusing this by trolling people with low ratings, and the system is a great way to thank someone for coming in and helping you through a difficult part of the game.

Outside of summoning, I have had my share of invasions so far, and I’ve had some amazing battles. The other day I was invaded in the Shrine of Storms level (luckily I’d cleared out the steel skeletons before that happened), and the ensuing battle was about ten minutes long. We both switched back and forth between spells and weapons, each getting the other near death several times. I ended the battle with a well-timed roll and sword attack, finishing the invader right before they landed a blow that would have taken my last sliver of health. It’s these kind of battles that make the Souls series so memorable.

That brings up another big difference between Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls–the ability for summoned or invading players to consistently heal themselves during co-op or PvP. In dark Souls, players have to use Humanity or miracles to heal when summoned or invading–Estus flasks don’t work. In Demon’s Souls, you can use the healing grasses to regenerate health as much as you want. This makes for longer PvP battles, as well as an increased chance that a summoned player will survive a level or boss encounter with you. It’s another area where I prefer Demon’s Souls over Dark Souls.

Next time I’ll be discussing some of my favorite locations in Demon’s Souls, especially the mind-flayer populated Tower of Latria.

April 9, 2013 In Uncategorized

Return to Demon’s Souls–Part 1: A Rude Awakening

My love affair with Dark Souls is well documented her on Co-Op Critics, but I spent a great deal of time with its predecessor Demon’s Souls as well. So, when Demon’s Souls became free for PlayStation Plus members at the beginning of April, I decided to return to the game for a new character and a new playthrough.

Back when I originally completed demon’s Souls my first character was not very well defined. I hadn’t done a lot of research going in, so instead of having a build in mind, I just kind of built a “Jack of All Trades” type character. That worked okay in terms of beating the game the first time around, but as soon as I stepped into New Game+, my lack of specialization really started to become a weakness.

For this new playthrough, I’m focusing on spellcasting, primarily magic, with a few miracles for healing thrown in. I started with the Royal class, as the Soul Arrow spell (basically Magic Missile) is very useful when you’re at low levels. In terms of physical combat, I’m really trying to focus on dodging and parrying, so I’ll be wearing little to no armor, and sticking with my rapier, or a similar weapon.

After creating my character, I jumped into the tutorial and then fought was is essentially the tutorial boss, Vanguard. The fight is designed to kill you, as that is the means through which you travel to the Nexus, the home base of Demon’s Souls. You can allegedly defeat Vanguard, but it’s damn near impossible, and I didn’t last more than a few moments before getting squashed.

That encounter was a great wake up call to the differences between Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls (and there are many). I had been spoiled in my 200+ hours of Dark Souls, especially by the checkpoint system. While there are definitely shortcuts you unlock as you make your way through levels, in general, you have a lot more ground to make up in Demon’s Souls when you die than you do in Dark Souls. On the combat front, the lack of “poise” in Demon’s Souls means you get stunlocked with a lot more frequency. Overall, Demon’s Souls just seems much less forgiving to me than Dark Souls.

There are a lot of things I like better about Demon’s Souls, though. The story is much more coherent than in Dark Souls, and the world of Demon’s Souls feels more alive to me than Dark Souls does. The enemies are more interesting, from the number of actual human beings you see, to the Mind Flayers in the Tower of Latria–there’s so many cool enemies in Demon’s Souls. Some of the boss battles are really memorable as well. One of my favorites is the Tower Knight which I’ll talk about in another post), because it takes place on multiple levels and features a few different elements.

All in all, I’m excited to be jumping back into Demon’s Souls, and I’ll be posting a few more times about this playthrough. That doesn’t mean I’ll be neglecting Dark Souls, however. Between these two games, I may not have time to play anything else.

March 26, 2013 In Uncategorized

Gaming Stories: Video Game Championship Wrestling IV

Tonight is not the night, but that shouldn’t stop us from checking in on what is happening in the world of Video Game Championship Wrestling.

When we last checked in on Video Game Championship Wrestling, Phoenix Wright, Nappa, and Solid Snake had exposed Baz McMahon’s involvement in covering up the vehicular assault on Little Mac. Baz McMahon had kidnapped Luigi, a witness to the vehicular assault, and brainwashed him to believe that he was Mr. L, a violent and vicious fighter who created havoc on the January 28, 2013 show by attacking Locke Cole and Sabin Rene Figaro after they won the Co-Op Championship, Shinya Arino after he won a first blood match against Dante, and Ganondorf before his VGCW Championship match against Raphael. Mr. L’s rampage continued on the February 1, 2013 show by attacking Gabe Newell, Segata Sanshiro, Vegeta, and Zangief backstage. Fortunately, Mario returned from his leave of absence from Video Game Championship Wrestling to break his brother from Baz McMahon’s mental conditioning and become the heroic Luigi once more. In a touching but surreal moment, Mario, Phoenix Wright, and Nappa were able to cast the Mr. L identity to the depths of hell.

This was an unusual moment even for Video Game Championship Wrestling, which considers real people like Gabe Newell, fictional characters like Donkey Kong, and personalities portrayed by real people like the Angry Video Game Nerd as all real. However, in the context of professional wrestling, the occasional foray into the supernatural world isn’t that strange. Putting aside companies like Kaiju Big Battel, which accept the supernatural and the outlandish as common, professional wrestling has had a long and extensive history of using the supernatural to spice up its masculine soap opera.

The most prominent and famous example would be WWE’s The Undertaker. The Undertaker first appeared in the WWE (then called WWF) in 1990 as a walking undead man who was impervious to pain. He was famously managed by Paul Bearer, a pale and portly man whose voice sounded like a ghost’s wails. Paul Bearer carried an urn that he would use to revive The Undertaker’s strength whenever The Undertaker fell victim to his enemies. The Undertaker would place his defeated opponents in bodybags and carry them backstage; it was never made clear what The Undertaker and Paul Bearer did to these opponents, but the intimation was always menacing. When The Undertaker was seemingly defeated decisively at the 1994 Royal Rumble after some villainous wrestlers sealed The Undertaker in a casket, the announcers acted as though The Undertaker was dead and were shocked when The Undertaker appeared on the arena’s video screen to warn them that his spirit would return.

This was only the beginning of The Undertaker’s infusion of the supernatural into professional wrestling as presented by the WWE. Over time, The Undertaker would found the Ministry of Darkness, a professional wrestling stable that was dedicated to unleashing evil on the WWE. In The Undertaker’s pursuit of his unspecified but evil agenda, he kidnapped Stephanie McMahon, daughter of WWE’s owner Vince McMahon, crucified wrestler Steve Austin, kidnapped and converted various wrestlers using incantations and magical rituals to join his cult, and fight his brother, a wrestler named Kane, who demonstrated an ability to control pyrotechnics, had an affinity for fire, and was sometimes portrayed as a monster rising from a hellish inferno from beneath the wrestling ring. Meanwhile, The Undertaker demonstrated that he was a ghostly figure who was able to command lightning and fog. Around this time, The Undertaker was featured in a comic book published by Chaos! Comics, where he was portrayed as a ruler of an infernal dimension known as the Hell’s Prison Realm.

The Undertaker and Kane, supernatural wrestling brothers.

The resolution to the Mr. L storyline was reminiscent of a storyline that featured Kane from 2011 and 2012, when he returned from a leave of absence in a costume seemingly inspired by the incisions of a portmortem human body after an autopsy. Kane attacked another wrestler named Zach Ryder by dragging him through a hole in the ring to “hell.” These similarities are not coincidental; Video Game Championship Wrestling is, after all, performed in WWE ’13, so it would naturally use storytelling elements that WWE wrestlers like Kane and The Undertaker would use.

Video Game Championship Wrestling has entered its third season, and the overarching storyline so far has involved a league-wide tournament to determine whom the new General Manager of VGCW will be after Baz McMahon’s departure. Of course, unnecessarily confusing and complex organizational hierarchies and almost meaningless authority figures is another common professional wrestling trope, so it brings a smile to my face to see Bazza87 embrace it in Video Game Championship Wrestling too. The current tournament favorite seems to be Ganondorf, who along with Zangief forms the team of Gerudo Skies, the current Co-Op Champions. Ganondorf’s next opponent in the tournament is Adam Jensen; if Charles Barkley defeats Gabe Newell to advance to the finals, he will be all that stands between Video Game Championship Wrestling and Ganondorf’s second 1000 years of darkness.

The Chaos Dunk vs. The Triforce of Power.

Indeed, Barkley might be all that stands between Video Game Championship Wrestling and Ganondorf’s second 1000 years of darkness.

A possible dark future for Video Game Championship Wrestling?

Tournaments are another common trope in professional wrestling, and almost wrestling promotion has held a tournament at one time or another. From WWE’s King of the Ring to WCW’s Jim Crockett, Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament to TNA’s World X-Cup among the major wrestling companies to Chikara Pro’s King of Trios, East Coast Wrestling Association’s famed Super 8 tournament to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament, companies have used tournaments to introduce new wrestlers, highlight the talents of wrestlers already on contract, create new rivalries, reignite old rivalries, and introduce high stakes into what could be an otherwise dull period.

Tournaments have been held in Video Game Championship Wrestling the past, but they didn’t have the stakes involved in this tournament, which started on the February 18, 2013 show and has been featured in each show’s main event or semi-main event since. Rivalries have been renewed, such as the simmering feud between Charles Barkley and Vegeta, and great moments were revisited, such as when Gabe Newell repaid Nappa for the time Nappa suplexed Newell from the top rope and collapsed the ring.

The field has been pared down to its final four, all crowd favorites: Adam Jensen, Ganondorf, Gabe Newell, and Charles Barkley. Newell has seemed unstoppable; his patented Wallet Squeeze bear hug has devastated his opponents. Similarly, Ganondorf has dispatched Wailuigi, a former Casual Champion, and the Angry Video Game Nerd, a tournament dark horse. Jensen defeated M. Bison and Mike Haggar in tough bouts, while Barkley triumphed over his nemesis Vegeta and countered Dr. Wily’s dastardly designs on his path.

The tournament field as of March 21, 2013.

With all the focus on this tournament, it would be easy to overlook some of the changes to the roster that have taken place. Since we last checked in on Video Game Championship Wrestling, Phoenix Wright, one of the heroes of the Baz McMahon/Mr. L saga, has hinted that he is considering retirement from fighting. Simon Belmont was dispatched by Dracula; he hasn’t been since that match. Woody and Ash Ketchum have been repackaged as Voody and Red, respectively, while Tingle, Geno, Ryo Hazuki, and Groose have joined the roster. While Groose had a divisive debut, I believe that his adorably clumsy entrance, if nothing else, will win fans over to his side.

Groose will represent the Zelda franchise in VGCW about as well as Link did.

Independent wrestling companies like Ring of Honor or the now defunct IWA-Mid South often faced the problem of audience burnout because their shows would run almost four hours, which is a lot to ask of an audience. The shows’ run times, combined with the time commuting to and from the venue, often meant that I would need to dedicate five to six hours to professional wrestling, which isn’t sustainable in the long run. I had similar concerns about Video Game Championship Wrestling because its shows would sometimes run for four hours because of the long matches and the loading times in WWE ’13. Combined with the frequency with which Bazza87 held shows, audience burnout was a strong possibility. Bazza87 addressed this problem directly on his Twitter feed, and he has held firm to the commitment to limit shows to two to three hours long, which has made it easier for fans like me to keep watching.

Shortening the shows has also allowed me to pay more attention to the undercard matches, where sometimes the most entertaining moments of Video Game Championship Wrestling happen. For instance, take Dan Hibiki’s super taunt of Barrett Wallace from the March 19, 2013 show:

On the March 7, 2013 episode of Giant Bomb’s Thursday Night Throwdown (subscriber access only), TwitchTV’s Jared Rea and Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann spoke enthusiastically about Video Game Championship Wrestling; Gerstmann followed it up with a brief article on why he finds Video Game Championship Wrestling so entertaining. Hopefully, Gerstmann and Rea directed even more viewers to Bazza87’s Video Game Championship Wrestling feed; something this delightful should be experienced by as many people as possible.