Gabriel

Don't get too hyped. End of month release dates are placeholders 99% of the time. We can safely assume that the game is set to be released within a 60 day window on either side of that date, but it's not an official release date, and I've seen placeholder dates like that get delayed by a long time. That said, next month is the first month since the original covid lockdown that I will have extra income, thanks to a promotion at work... so, if it hits next month, I know what I'm buying myself as a congratulatory gift.

The changes to free agency in MLB 22 make for interesting off-seasons. As Oakland, we missed the playoffs in year one, lost the wild card game in year two and then lost the ALDS after winning the AL West in year three. As the team wins more, the budget expands, but it's still Oakland. Off-season after year three, I have Lourdes Gurriel Jr reject his qualifying offer and my internal budget is totally capped out by the offer I make him. He gets a better offer from the Giants, and due to his importance to the team, I choose to trade away Matt Chapman to get some extra money to throw at Lourdes. He signs with San Francisco anyways. So, now I'm down both Chapman AND Gurriel, and I need to figure something out. Let's go look at the free agents left on the market... Juan fucking Soto. After a spending spree by the league, Soto (at a 92 overall) is the top name on the board and fills the vacant outfield position for us. So what's the damage in terms of the offers he's sitting on? Just north of what Chapman was making and actually less than what I had offered Gurriel. For shit's and giggles, I make an offer above and beyond what his top offer was, and it still falls well below what he was likely hoping to get, so I'm fully expecting to be outbid and have to move on... but that's part of my strategy as well, as a small market team, I like to make sure that other teams are blowing their budgets as best as I can. Sim ahead a couple of days and... Juan Soto signs with the Oakland Athletics. So, now my outfield consists of youngster Chase DeLauter, who finished in the top voting for rookie of the year and mashed 13 dingers despite not being a huge power threat... Seth Brown, who regularly mashes and gets playing time at DH, first and the outfield... Cody Bellinger, who I picked up via trade (managed to ship out more dollars than I brought in for that one)... Teoscar Hernandez, who I scored when the Blue Jays offered me a deal for someone, and I countered with a starter, a prospect I couldn't fit on my 40-man and an albatross contract in exchange for Teo alone. So I have four guys now in my outfield with 20+ home run power and a speedy young star in DeLauter. Brown gets the bulk of his time at first base, and Bellinger can spell him off there on occasion. I am having great fun with this game. Developing my prospects has allowed me to fill my MLB roster with a lot of lower priced contracts, which has allowed me to surround those guys with bigger names as our budget increases. When I feel that budget crunch, there's always a younger and/or cheaper guy I can insert into a role which allows me to deal away some heavy dollars.

2k22 DLC is on deep discount through PS Plus this week, for anyone looking to grab that. $12.50 Canadian, so probably $10 for the US.

I'm not a fan of the marathon games either, but I think there has to be a better solution. I hate the three on three overtime in the NHL and the shootout, also. I feel like "extra" time in sports should be done under the same rules as regular time. For baseball, maybe just cap it at an extra three innings. If the score is tied after 12, call it a draw and award each team a half-win. Could create some fun scenarios near the end of the season if two divisional rivals are playing and both of the teams are pushing for the playoffs. Do you, as manager, make the call to go all out and try to win the game or play it safe and risk the other team being able to keep pace with you by ending in a draw?

We've been watching Stan Against Evil on Prime, and it's been pretty solid. It knows what it is and leans into the ridiculousness well. It's basically Ash Vs Evil Dead, only without the same budget and with John C. McGinley being his charming self.

I'm not a fan of the ghost runner. I'm not sure how else you speed up the game for extra innings though. Maybe in the 10th inning, you start each count at 1-0... then in the 12th, you start each count at 2-0... force the pitchers to throw meatballs?

In Canada and some other territories, King of the Hill is on Disney+, so I'd fully expect the reboot to land there across the board. The wife and I just finished watching through the entirety of the show, and it held up quite well over the years. Mike Judge hit a homer with the new Beavis and Butt-head as well, so I feel pretty excited for the revival.

Jason X is a shit movie, but it's a fun shit movie, especially if you were a fan of any 90's or early 00's Sci-Fi on television. It feels like a really out there episode of Andromeda without Kevin Sorbo. That's probably what they should have done. Kevin Sorbo would have saved that movie. Goes to Hell has some interesting ideas, unfortunately they aren't ideas that I find interesting for the Friday the 13th franchise. The remake, while oft-criticized, is actually one of my favorites. I would have liked some explanation into how Jason is so intelligent, being that he stopped his standard learning very early in life and is likely neuro-divergent. Maybe that was something they would have explored in a sequel. This franchise needs to get out of legal hell so that we can get a proper Predator/Prey style reboot. Give the characters to someone with reverence for them and a track record of delivering genuinely good films, and let them go crazy.

The Estate, on Amazon Prime, was a good watch for us last night after the weekly heaviness of the Last of Us. Toni Collette, Anna Faris and David Duchovny are all just great in this little movie about a bunch of cousins coming together to try and weasel their ways into their Aunt's fortune. The dying aunt is played excellently by Kathleen Turner. It's nothing that is going to shake the fabric of film, but it was just a solidly enjoyable movie.

Wakanda Forever was a beautiful film. There are creative choices that I disagree with, for sure, but nothing that ruined my enjoyment of the movie. The heaviness of Chadwick Boseman's passing lingers through the whole runtime, but they did an amazing job of not letting it dictate the movie, but instead took us through a journey of the different ways that everyone was grieving. Namor was handled with great care and I cannot wait to see more of him down the line.

There is an expected franchise overhaul coming. They stated a year or two ago that the current franchise mode is based on coding so old, that a lot of what they wanted to add to it would actually break it. So they've been giving us these small little additions each year while they work on March to October, which is actually supposed to feature a lot of what they're wanting to do with the next iteration of franchise. I haven't played M2O at all, if only because I'm perfectly happy playing my franchise mode and the first year it was introduced, it was a one-season and done mode. I hear there have been some changes and you can do multiple years now, but I still haven't tried it. Anyways, long-story short, M2O is the foundation of what the next generation of Franchise will be in The Show.

I played MLB 20 until November when a PS Store sale had MLB 22 at $12.50 As a franchise-first player, I don't regret that at all. I will probably keep playing 22 until there is a sale for the new game under $20 at a time when I can afford to spend that amount of money.

No year-to-year saves this game. It sounds like the plan is for it to return at some point, but I wouldn't expect it until the major overhaul for franchise is complete.

I imagine it's probably a little of everything. The market knows the panic is setting in for the Canucks and that good players can be had. Can Horvat maintain this pace on a different team, under a different system, with different support? Is Horvat going to sign an extension or does he already have an idea of where he wants to go in free agency? If there was an extension in place, I'd say this is pretty heavy under-payment. At the risk of him being a rental though, the Canucks did pretty well here. A guy who has scored 20 goals and can play in their top 9, a top prospect who has faltered a bit since breaking out at the World Juniors, but could still easily work out to be a great player, and a first rounder. I do believe the Islanders will have to clear some money out to make an extension work though. They have something like $19 or $20 million in space for next season, but still need almost half of a team signed under that to ice a full lineup. Give a bunch to Horvat, and now they're looking at filling out the rest of the roster with league minimum bums. Not a great selling point when trying to sign a star. If Lou creates some cap space for next season, it's a good indicator that an extension is probably coming.

Great for Xbox players. Another hard slap in the face to the Playstation faithful. Between stuff like this and the cost/ease of getting PS5's or the Xbox Series X/S, it's looking more and more likely that when I do eventually upgrade, it's going to be the Microsoft system. Sony wants me to pay twice as much for a console, and the same price for a subscription service that, while good, is still lacking in comparison to its' competitor... all the while making the only game I pick up regularly free on their competitor's service, but an additional $80 if I want it on their own console.

It took us until about the three quarter mark for my partner and I to really fall in love with it, but it's not like it drags or anything in the lead-up to that. We found the same thing with Community when we started watching that. The first few episodes were enjoyable enough, but eventually something just hit and it became a favorite. Now, those earlier episodes are actually funnier to watch than on our first viewing.

Thanks. What a huge design flaw. You should be able to import a team once you've created them.

Universe question: I'm trying to set up my PWG Universe currently. I did two exhibition tournaments to crown champions, and I have Cesaro set as PWG World Champion and the team of Murphy & Cedric Alexander as my PWG Tag Team Champs. The issue I'm having is that I have created a team in the Roster Utility for Murphy & Alexander as the Blade Runners... but when I start a new universe and try to set them as champs, they're not even listed as an option. When I'm going through trying to edit the divisions, I'm getting them as options for the PWG World Title division, but not the Tag Team division. How do I fix that? Or am I just shit out of luck here?

Everyone is missing the biggest news. 2k23 will feature the first appearance of LEVIATHAN. There better be some kind of cut scene of him walking out of a lake or some shit.

Random fact: the starting roster on the game has 37 alumni from Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. That's going to be my universe when I get it set up. PWG, baby.

Has anyone watched the Interview with the Vampire series yet? I'm intrigued, but I am also a massive fan of the novels and the original film, and am worried that the changes made may not be for me.

I get a lot of value out of PS Plus Extra (or whatever it's called). The games library is pretty solid. Nothing mind-blowing like the Game Pass day one releases, but it's giving me stuff to play consistently and there's a varied selection of titles available. If you're into the PS Classics, I imagine that Premium is probably a worthwhile investment.

Sounds like Cedric has been doing some studying under the great Jon Moxley. I'm playing through a quick little MyGM right now. It's alright, but way too bare bones to keep me going back to it. I have read that Universe doesn't have promos anymore, which could be a good thing, because I found them more tedious than anything else... but, that leads me to questions. Are there stories that run through Universe mode? Are there specific ways I can trigger them? Or is Universe now just a lesser version of TEW where you can play the matches and need to use your own creativity to fill in the stories completely?

This is now available through PS Plus Extra, which means I am currently downloading it. How is Universe mode, this time around? Does it work any better than previous versions? I'm excited to go and start building my AEW roster.

The problem I have with that, is 1899 dropped in November. So 68% of the people who started watching it, did not complete the series. What's the percentage of people who have it on their list, but hadn't had a chance to watch it yet? Maybe instead of cancelling shows that quickly, you put them on the back burner for a bit. You don't commit to a second season until numbers improve, but you don't just outright cancel it either. I've said it before, but the sheer volume of content available means that you cannot be reacting that quickly to trends. There is plenty of shit that sits on my list for months, years even, before I get around to watching it... and then I absolutely fall in love with it. Full disclosure, I don't even know what 1899 is, but it's the example being used, so I went and found out that it's only been available for two months and already been axed.