08/04/2013

Baywatch, Brotha




There was a time when American drama series/quick-perv-before-teatime show Baywatch was officially the most watched television show on the planet, we like to call it "the 90s". During that time, David Hasslehoff (pre-obnoxious self-awareness) and his crew of red-suited beauties solved crimes, stopped drug dealers, reunited runaway children with their parents, dealt with earthquakes, found hidden treasure and won volleyball tournaments every week for eleven seasons.


Occasionally, they prevented someone from drowning. Y'know, their actual job.

I remember the show being on Saturday evenings, just before dinner and followed by a solid run of Blind Date, Gladiators and You Bet! Good times.
I didn't particularly care for the show as a must-see, but as a just-hit-puberty teen I had a bizarre need to tune in every week. For the same reason. Always:

Bleeth, in happier times.

At the shows series 5-7 peak, an abundance of cameos and special guests stopped by the Malibu shores, more often than not peddling some terrible product placement. Richard Branson even showed up to shill that Virgin Cola that you never bought.
In 1996, WCW had an idea to run a PPV event live from an actual beach, and somewhere the idea was formed to tie this event in with an episode of Americas favourite L.A lifeguard show.

All well and good so far, show some matches, bit of bad comedy, have Pamela Anderson stand around, fun for all, right?
But wait, what if we made the wrestlers an intricate part of the episodes storyline? Better yet, what if we juxtaposed it with a really serious storyline featuring one of the shows most important characters?

Let's take a look at Baywatch: Season 6, Episode 16: Bash At The Beach.

You're not watching Thunder in Paradise.
It starts off innocently enough, Wrestling legend and all round mega-ego Hulk "call me Terry" Hogan engages with the late, great and insane "Macho Man" Randy Savage in a "WaveRunner" race (jet-ski to you an I) complete with non-stop ADR dialogue. Things go awry however when Hogan is thrown from his WaveRunner and bangs his head, knocking him unconscious, this possibly being the only time Hogan has ever sold for anything.

We find out why when it requires no less than SIX babes to rescue him and drag the orange monster to shore.


The girls are stunned to realise it's Terry "Hulk Hogan" They all stare on, mouths agape.

Derp.

Even these three "Too unattractive to get dialogue or an individual closeup" girls.

I wonder why the lass in the middle got the role?

Savage makes it to shore and chastises Hogan for "checking out the babes" without him, this apparently being a euphemism for having a near-death experience. C.J (Pam Anderson) reveals that she is a "closet wrestling fan" So closet in fact, that when she was paid a fortune to appear at the 1995 WWE Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania events, she acted like a moody bitch for the entire duration of her meagre screen time, despite the oodles of dollar paid out to wheel her in.

Back at the beach, Caroline (Yasmine Bleeth) is forced to actually act turned on at the possibility that Hogan and Savage are gonna fight.
Wrestlemania V sister, I got the DVD if you wanna come over for an education?

This looks set up to be a fun episode. Ok, probably a bit campy but good for a silly laugh and forty minutes of carefree fun, right? a casual storyline and a bit of corny wrasslin' lulz.

Further down the beach mainstay character Stephanie (Alexandra Paul) is having a romantic picnic with her Doctor boyfriend, ah, I see, so a bit of a romantic sub-plot for the ladies to add to the wrestling action.


Dr. Gary Busey then finds a possible tumour on her leg.

                                                                  
..Oh.




Hogan and Savage are hanging down at the beach gym IN THEIR RING GEAR, Hogan explains how the gym saved his life, apparently it was this "or the streets." They then get down to pumping some serious iron and tuning those not-at-all-built-by-steroids-bodies.

Speaking of unnaturally built:

Jesus Christ Pam.
Hogan finds out from the overly Jewish stereotype owner that the gym is to be closed as the land has been bought by a greedy developer, who conveniently happens to turn up right then and there in his limo. Hogan tells the owner not to worry as he says he's gonna "talk to him a little" because apparently legally binding development contracts can be broken by having a wrestler shout at the signee.


Well, the wrestling angle of all this might be a bit hokey, but at least we have an antagonist now, and as long as the guy playing the land developer is slightly less histrionic and cheesy then hopefully we can get th....


...oh, for fucks sake.

So we got Flair, Kevin Sullivan in his full-on "Evil Taskmaster" gimmick and monster heel Vader who apparently all felt the desire to buy up a small beach gym so they can build "condos" (that's flats to you and I) in its place.
Imagine being the guy in charge of that deal, waiting in your boardroom office to draw up a contract  and these three fucking waltz in.


Kevin Sullivan constantly rubs his hands together and laughs throughout this entire scene, like he's a bad guy from Wizard of Oz or something.

Sadly, Kevin Nash doesn't make an appearance.
C.J informs Hogan that Vader is "a psycho", Vader himself proves this by performing a textbook psychopathic activity, popping a child's ball.

Move over Ted Bundy
Hogan challenges Flair to a match, with the winner getting the deeds to the gym and the WCW heavyweight title, because that's how life works. Somehow this becomes Hogan vs Vader and Savage vs Flair. We are sadly denied a Kevin Sullivan vs Pamela Anderson battle for the ages.

Sullivan expresses concern to Flair that Hogan will beat Vader, based on the fact that, get this, "Hogan's too agile" AGILE.
Flair reveals he'll secretly make it a cage match to aid Vader. This makes Sullivan laugh and clock the camera for the 345th time this scene.

Sullivan, planning Benoit family murders #ConspiracyTheoryBelievedByIdiots

The next morning, We are treated to Caroline applying Coppertone to her legs in extreme closeup.
This is the best bit of the episode, and makes me sob actual tears that widescreen television wasn't more prominent in 1996.

Damn you, 4:3
Stephanie comes out and severely chastises her younger sister for using a low factor sunblock. She doesn't however commend her for her excellent Cate Archer cosplay #truegamerreference


Stephanie then proceeds to reel off a bunch of torn-from-the-headlines statistics about the dangers of the sun, and the proper use of sunblock, with literally Quincy M.E levels of "the shows producers just read all this up at the weekend" statistics.

Hrmph. I guess this shot will have to do..

Stephanie reveals to her little sister that she may have cancer and how she isn't strong enough to deal with this situation at all, just wanting to scream and cry.


Caroline offers her support and says she'll be brave as she can be for the both of them. The sisters embrace.


More importantly, Hogan and C.J save some kids from some polystyrene rocks.


Wear it, WEAR IT DAMMIT!

Stephanie is having a hard time. Covered up to almost OCD levels by Baywatch standards, she patrols the beach laying into everybody about sunblock and sunscreen, hitting them (and the audience) with facts and statistics. Just to help the audience understand she's having a hard time mentally, they play not-at-all-offensive "crazy sounds" in the background.

Unfortunately, it's all for nought, Dr Busey/Dafoe comes back with the news that Stephanie's tumour is indeed malignant, and that they need to perform further tests to find if it has spread.



Naturally, showing a real command of dramatic direction, this leads to a three minute music video where Hogan works out to his excruciating WCW entrance theme.
This involves him pumping iron like he's about to lay a brick.


And ripping off Rocky II.


Meanwhile Randy Savage cuts a typically inexplicable promo where he uses the term "funky like a monkey" During this scene I noticed how natural lifeguard Cody looks as an interviewer, its like the wrasslin' business is his calling. Which led me to wonder, have he and WWE referee Charles Robinson ever been seen in the same room together?

Referee Charles Robinson?
Cody from Baywatch?
And now, NINE YEARS into this episodes run-time, we've come to the big showdown. Thousands of people have showed up to watch the battle for the tiny gym, and hopefully they're wearing full factor sunblock and reapplying regularly.
SEE? I learned something.

Flair takes to the ring looking like a million dollars.

Savage takes to the ring looking like a man who locks his wife in the dressing room during his matches, carries a gun in his locker, released a rap album when he was fifty years old and allegedly banged a pre-teen Steph McMahon.


Flair and Savage do battle. To add to the drama, the producers add kung-fu sound effects to the punches and kicks. No, really.
Despite no pinfall taking place, we are informed that Savage has won the match. Because that's how wrestling works.
Now its time to put the belt and the gym on the line. Hogan's doing some bad squat exercises when C.J notices that a cage is being assembled around the ring.

Anger? Fear? Joy? Gas?
Not just any cage, THE SLIM JIM CAGE: (Peperami to you and I)


Vader enters the arena/beach marquee, wearing his fanny-kicking, steam-spewing helmet. It totally works for me, despite what that mark on the right thinks. I bet he doesn't get The Wrestling Observer and therefore is no quantifier of what's good and bad. I bet he's one of those evil John Cena fans today.

Sorry son, It's Vader Time.



Well, Hogan does what he does best, rips off his shirt and beats the ever loving shit out of his opponent no worries. Hogan slams the monster to the mat, recreating the famous moment he slammed the 7000 ton Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III.
It's a bodyslam the editor loves so much, he uses it again later in the montage.



Hogan drops the big leg, and wrestling purists the world over are disgusted as they realise that it's not the finish to the match!! Did this editor know nothing??

As before, we are simply "informed" that Hogan has won, and the crowd go absolutely home.


Hogan raises the belt and actually says: "We did it for the kids!" without a trace of irony.

He also says he did it "for the youth centre", now I'm pretty sure it was a small beach gym, so I'm just guessing that, in true Hogan fashion, the story gets slightly more embellished with each telling. If you asked him about this show tomorrow, he'd probably say it was a shoot and it was for the deed to the whole of California.

As Hogan leaves the ring, we catch a glimpse of basketball freak Dennis Rodman with him, for the uninitiated, this is one of a few appearances Rodman made for WCW shows, where he would turn up, get paid millions, and, just like in this episode, add little of interest and do nothing whatsoever.

"Check the script! Santa With Muscles is happening Brotha!"
Backstage, everyone laughs at Flair and Hogan grabs the deed to the gym and hands it to the owner who should say "Oy!" but sadly doesn't.
A ton of fans then invade the backstage area, breaking kayfabe way before Shawn Michaels and The Clique ever got the chance to.

All the faces run out to the beach and celebrate in the hot summer sun. (Terry) Hulk "Hogan" saved the gym, the youth centre, the WCW title, the kids, the world and ran off the evil wrestling land developers.


And they all lived happily ever after.
...
...
...
...oh, and then Stephanie finds out that her cancer has spread.



Now, we had a lot of fun today (results may vary)
But I wanna point something out, I don't think Cancer is funny. I think it's terrifying. I also think the topic should, especially when used in entertainment, be treated respectfully and carefully.
That's the fucking point.
If you are writing an episode of a TV show where one of your long term regular characters finds out she is terminally ill, why on earth would you co-promote that episode with some beyond hokey pro-wrasslin' storyline that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Rock 'n' Wrestling?


Let's take a quick look at the amount of screen time given to these scenes:

Wrasslers arguing at the gym: 3:15
Stephanie finds out she has Cancer: 1:40

Stephanie finding out the tumour has spread: 1:10
Hogan's match: FIVE FRIKKIN' MINUTES

Didn't one person in the script meeting put there hands up and say "This is a terrible idea" Did Baywatch even have script meetings?
Why didn't they just shift the cancer storyline to the next episode? they could have replaced it with any other storyline, or just more footage of Bleeth rubbing down her legs.
I wonder what Alexandra Paul thought when she watched the episode back. To be fair, she works really hard to convey her fear and helplessness in the wake of the discovery, I can't imagine what it must be like to watch your performance back, only to have it cut to Kevin Sullivan's gurning face and pantomime villain acting.

Personally, I think it's one of the single most awkward, and ill-conceived pieces of television writing I've ever watched. Even if it is "only Baywatch"
Then again, maybe I really am asking for too much in the way of sensitive, logical writing, after all, if you want to talk about a show that really loses its mind, then we have the prize pig right here.
Who knew demon fighting, alternate dimensions and resurrection would get involved?

..But maybe that's a story for another day.

In any sense, I'd assume the producers probably learnt their lesson from this escapade and hopefully they stayed well clear of featuring pro-wrestlers in Baywatch storylines ever again..


Oh, for fu...
If that's his smile, I now know why he lost it.

05/04/2013

The People's Bond


Active: 1995-2004
Appearances: Goldeneye (1995) Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) The World Is Not Enough (1999) Die Another Day (2002) Everything Or Nothing (2004) (Videogame)

2012 saw the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond movie series, coincidentally, it was also ten years since the fifth actor to portray 007, Pierce Brosnan, had last appeared on the silver screen in the role.

I grew up watching Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton ply their trade as Britain's top secret agent/murderer on home video (remember that?) but Brosnan was the first Bond I ever saw at the cinema, and the moment is permanently affixed in my cranium.
I distinctly remember seeing the trailer for Goldeneye, (one of my favourite movie trailers of all time) and despite its hyper kinetic editing and soundtrack, it was all but confirmed there and then that Brosnan was the man for the job.

It had been a tough time for Pierce. Brosnan had been originally cast to debut in 1987s The Living Daylights, but a literal last minute renewing of cheese-fest Remington Steele crushed his hopes and the role went to Timothy Dalton instead. Then a few years later in 1991, Brosnans wife and former Bond Girl in her own right, Cassandra Harris, sadly passed away.
Around this time, the Bond series was in a dangerous hiatus, and for a while it seemed that Licence To Kill was to be 007s swansong.

Fortunately, one day word came back to Brosnan, it was on and he was in, and the rest is history.

Pierce Brosnan debuted as James Bond in 1995s Goldeneye, and with a gritty determination to prove the series was still relevant and bankable alongside with a good cast and a director (Martin Campbell) who had made it a personal mission to make the movie a complete success, Brosnan instantly took to the role he was born for and brought it blazing into the modern age. Goldeneye was an incredible critical and financial success.

"Campbell said to me: 'You better be fucking good, you better be good, you better be fucking good. Sharp as a knife' "
After Goldeneys runaway success, Brosnan went on to star in a further three films in the series. Unfortunately none of which received the same critical acclaim as his debut film, but this is where the Brosnan magic shows. Y'see, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough are both flawed Bond entries, and Die Another Day may be the worst Bond film of all time, if not just the worst film of all time.

But Brosnan never sucks.

Fully understanding the characters psyche, wit, emotions, skills and mindset, Brosnan coasts through the films with an excellent portrayal of Bond despite, not because of, the flaws in the surrounding movie. Brosnan is a fantastic 007 in bad 007 movies.
Whats more, his personal portrayal of Bond has less of an "armour" than the other versions of the character. Brosnan is likeable, amiable, and witty. Brosnan's Bond is without a doubt the most relatable to the man in the street, appearing to be real enough that he could be your drinking buddy, but still maintaining that untouchable air of sophistication, class and arrogance that are the characters trademarks.

Physically, Brosnan is spot-on. The right age for the role but still great looking, he has a very believable physical presence in fight scenes and I've gone on record to friends that no-one in any movie ever "Runs-whilst-wearing-a-suit-and-firing-a-gun" better than Pierce. When it comes time to bed down with hot dames like Famke Janssen and Sophie Marceau, Brosnan is totally believable as a man that women would be head over heels for. As opposed to Tanya Roberts going gooey-eyed for 57 year old Roger Moore. Brosnan is arguably the best looking and most stylish 007 actor to this day.

Bond and megabitch Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) A great villainess and the best thing in TWINE.
Whilst a lot of the above could be construed as opinion, there is one level of Pierce' performance that's pretty much unarguable.

In those films, Brosnan clearly loves being James Bond. He is having an absolute blast, he is proud of the character he is playing without being too po-faced about it,. He's busting his ass to make the character and the film work despite some of the horrible dialogue and scenes he is working with and not once do you get the feeling that he's bored or regretful of the role. Brosnan, more so than the previous actors, cares what the fans think about Bond himself.

A trademark flash of glee from Brosnan in TNDs great car park chase.
James Bond is a dark, vicious, arrogant and aloof son of a bitch. Brosnan manages to display these qualities whilst still being an approachable, sympathetic and vulnerable hero.
Even when he's fucking kite-surfing with Playstation-era CGI.

Oh shit, son...

Brosnan revealed in recent documentary Everything or Nothing that he was let go for numerous reasons, one of which being a need to reinvent Bond to fit a post-9/11 society. The producers feeling that people couldn't really buy the sneery toff with a fucking battlesuit as a modern day villain in the wake of real world terrorist atrocities.

Brosnan explains what a hard call it was to take, and you can read that between the lines, he really would have liked to get a couple more Bond films in the can. I personally believe that he would have adored and jumped at the opportunity to segue into the brutal, conflicted Bond we see today in Daniel Craig, but sadly for Brosnan, this wasn't to be.


Pierce Brosnan had a tough run as Bond. The films weren't terrible (apart from DAD) but had a lot of terrible things in them, but Brosnan always rose above these flaws to make sure his mark on the characters legacy was indelibly stamped, and surely it was.
Brosnan's 007 was a cool-headed, warm-hearted, sexy motherfucker of a Bond who harnessed the best aspects from his predecessors and amalgamated them into his own personal portrayal, one to be remembered fondly throughout the next fifty years.

As a fellow Bond fan once said:
"Six men became Bond but it was always Pierce Brosnan’s destiny."




04/04/2013

Street Fighter Cross Gamers



(Or: How following the wacky rules led me to CRIME. Or: Capcom? whut happen?)

I love fighting games. They're my favourite genre. I'll give them all a go, even if I'm really not taken in by the style or presentation of a new game, I'll always log it, because who knows what untold joys you could discover, and for every Rise of the Robots, there's a Skullgirls.
As a huge, life-long fan of the Street Fighter and Tekken series, I was surprised and intrigued by the announcement of Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken, which planned to take beloved characters from two very, very different games and present them in the same scrap, on an even battlefield, in a bout of fisticuffs surely for the ages.
My interest went through the roof when some of the roster was revealed, I knew some of my Tekken faves were on board, like Lili and Asuka, along with Juri and Ibuki on the Capcom side.

For moar dollar, you too can have your favourite characters look like other characters. If you like.

The reveal of Poison, my favourite Capcom character of all time, took this to eleven. They stuck Cammy and Nina in for my good buddy, and with that, a really exciting game was on the horizon. I would not get my dream Zafina vs Rose fortune-teller wars, but I was good to go.

It had Poison. POISON.

Oh yes please.

Oh, but how it all went so very wrong, like, mind-screwingly bad in so many departments. SF x Tekken would turn out to be the first shot in 2012 that would secure Capcom a standing in the list of "Most-spectacular-tumble-from-the-top-in-a-single-year-by-any-company-not-called-WCW.
It was such a mess of a product that it's almost satire, and for those who didn't experience it, a quick opinion hunt online will tell you all you need to know.

I didn't make this.

The game was released, and I wasn't really feeling it, it wasn't bad per se, it was bright and colourful, had cool character models and somehow managed to make the full contact, hand-to-hand based Tekken fighters stand toe-to-toe with the cowardly, fireball-tossing Street Fighters. I've played much worse fighting games.
But it all felt like such an anti-climax, it was all so low-key, vanilla and bland.
I didn't like the lack of stages, some badly overpowered characters, nasty infinite combos, strict time limits and a dull, go nowhere storyline.
But way beyond that were the horrendous sound issues on Xbox, the terrible Pandora mechanic, the tacky costumes and, above all, the offensive, game-breaking Gem mechanic, where you could essentially pay to have ridiculously overpowered teams. With so many variants available it single handedly ensured you left your audience exasperated, bored and rolling back to their tried and tested fighting games where your opponents skill level didn't vary based on the amount of money the player had spent bulletproofing their characters.

On top of all this, the gaming community turned viciously on Capcoms ridiculous decision to lock an abundance of characters away on the disc, along with costumes and even edit colours, as if Ono has a copyright on Blue (the colour, not the circa 2003 boyband.)
The fans spoke with their wallets, or more accurately, on whiny forums, and Capcom eventually apologised for the abortion of a marketing disaster that was On-Disc-DLC. They made comment about the DLC having a different "Value" to the rest of the data which is why it was locked away. This would be hilariously right for the wrong reasons, as we'd find out when the PS Vita version was released.

Now that's the negative overview, and its a much-told and ancient story that you likely already know. But here's a more amusing, personal aside, and an incredible sign of how badly modern day publisher practices play out in teh reel wurld.

As I've mentioned, I love the characters in this game, and I like the games concept and can enjoy the fights themselves sans Gems/Pandora, but after trying the Xbox version and seeing the bugs, along with hearing how many characters were locked away on the £40 disc I did not own (apparently)
I decided to try and get the full experience, fairly, but as cheaply as possible, as any individual might.

Push on a year and the PC version of the game finally gets the extra character DLC, months and months after the console owners. As an apology for the delay, Capcom offers this PC DLC at a reduced price, but for two weeks only.
I can roll with that. I'm thinking, if I can get the game and all the DLC for about £15-18, then its worth the price.
So, I'll buy the PC version of SF x Tekken at a good price, add the cheap DLC and I'll have a fun, good value fighting game with a great roster that I can dip into a couple of times a year.

But the best laid plans of mice and men never encountered modern videogaming.
 
Firstly, I go to Steam, I cannot afford the base game at the time, but I reckon I'll pick up the DLC now whilst the offer is on and then get the base game in a couple of weeks when I can afford it.
Steam however, won't sell me the DLC because I don't have the base game.
Ok, so I buy a brand new copy cheap off teh intarwebz. When it arrives I sync it to Steam.
Except I don't, because the Games For Windows version isn't compatible with Steam.

Guess I've got to buy the DLC from within the game itself then? Fair enough.
Except, when attempting that, I find that going that route does not include the discount.

By now, I've spent way longer than I cared on the whole debacle, so, I go to a great Street Fighter modders site, download a couple of patches, break the game, and get all the characters and costumes free of charge.
Because in the face of all the hurdles, and despite trying to do things "the right way" they have made it so consistently difficult to actually go through the proper channels that I give up and just go down Hackers Boulevard.

Me and the guys, I'm the one with the bowlcut.

I was presented with so many fucking hoops to leap through, after they already had my money, that I was exasperated with playing within their wacky circus and eventually resorted to the generic "warez" culture that so many people live by daily when it comes to all their videogame consumerism.

So, to summarise:

-I bought the game brand new on 360, but it had bugs and missing features, plus Capcom wanted nearly 50% of money I'd already handed over for the game AGAIN to give me characters that were on the disc I'd already purchased.

-Nearly a year later, Capcom released those characters for the PC version at a cheaper price, provided you bought the DLC within their time limit.

-I tried to buy the DLC from Steam, but I wasn't allowed because I didn't own the base game yet.

-I bought the base game from Amazon (My second new purchase of the product)

-I then find I can't sync it with Steam. This deprives me, and anyone else who purchased a hard copy of the game, the DLC discount.

-I try to buy the DLC from within the game itself, but it's full price.

-I cheat and hack the DLC.

I'm not a hack/warez guy. All my games are legitimate copies, I've spent an abundance of money on games, accessories and occasionally DLC, so, regardless of how you view my decision, theres no arguing with the fact that I tried several times to do things by their ridiculously convoluted bullshit ways, but they just kept throwing up more barriers.

The mad irony is, I don't really care about SF x Tekken as a game. I just like its roster and can't turn down the opportunity to have my favourite Chick with Dick at my beck and call. Gawd knows I waited long enough for her playable debut (Not counting that unbearable Final Fight game for the Sega Saturn)

Oh no thanks
So, if I didn't even care that much about owning this game, and even I was turned off by all the barriers and BS, then how the hell are publishers expecting casual fans, newcomers or just "Oh, I'll give this a go" impulse buyers to make the same effort?

This is just one story, and its a totally unimportant one in the bigger picture of life, but I like it as a sign of how all the barriers put in place to prevent hacking and to make more money directly caused the opposite of said activity to take place.
As such you may see it from a different viewpoint than mine. Maybe you feel I've committed a crime, or maybe you feel that I should have just gone without, and yes, you would have weight to an argument as such.

Me, gleefully enjoying my HUGE saving of £4, despite paying twice for a game I feel so-so about..

But this isn't a tale about the grey areas of piracy, DLC, hacking or any of the above.
It's simply me suggesting to Capcom, if you had put all those costumes and characters right there, ready to play, for all to enjoy, on all formats, on day freaking one, you might not have looked liked total bastards in the eyes of the gaming community and maybe SF x Tekken would still be a semi-interesting game played in the Fighting Game Community today, instead of it being this dead-in-the-water, nothing niche title that is only referred to in mocking tones and pointed at as an example of everything thats wrong in modern day game marketing.

In the past I bought Capcom's Street Fighter IV, then I upgraded to Super a year later and then I purchased the Arcade Edition upgrade. This isn't about my financial commitment to Capcom, a company I've supported with my voice and my wallet on a variety of formats for over fifteen years.

People were sold a game at full price, had a huge, huge chunk of content locked away from them, got different characters in different versions, received DLC months apart from each other at differing prices, were given the option to pay money to make winning easier and, in the case of the Xbox version, had to suffer horrible bugs and even features listed in the manual that weren't actually available in the game.

These characters have no monetary worth in handheld form apparently
The ultimate hypocrisy faceslap was when all the characters came unlocked on the PS Vita release of the game day one, essentially calling shenanigans on the previous claim that the DLC has a seperate value, as clearly Capcom weren't losing out by having one format fully unlocked.

So the DLC is worth X on consoles, but a differing X on PC and is worth a big fat zero for Vita??

Want to have an issue with my morals??
This one, I see what they did.


This one, not so much.

Capcom have been playing sneaky games with the fans for a few years now, but 2012 was the year when the fans called them on it. The Marvel vs Capcom "Ultimate" upgrade, On-Disc-DLC and Pay-To-Win tropes all contributed to Capcom losing their "A" ranking on the Better Business Bureau website.
How can this be the same company that a few short years ago gave us Street Fighter IV with at least eight free, unlockable characters?
Last year we saw Capcom butcher a franchise, rightfully considered by many to be the company's crown jewel, with the abhorrent Resident Evil 6 and Raccoon City games.
The once mighty developer/publisher that was a flag-bearer for quality and excellence for so long has fallen hard from grace, and has been shit-listed along with internet favourite targets EA, Activision and Ubisoft.


The worst part is, I like Capcom and I love so many of their games, worlds, and characters, my youth was spent with Mega Man, Muscle Bomber and the Street Fighter series.
Final Fight is one of my very favourite games of all time. Same goes for Resident Evil II. And Rival Schools.
If you're reading this and thinking I'm just another Capcom hater then you're very, very wrong, I've always liked Capcom and I think they've produced some amazing games with incredible longevity to their franchises and great service to their fans.
And that's the problem.

How in the blue hell did we end up here?

I really hope that Capcom can step it up for the next generation and reclaim the throne, hit some real humdingers out of the park and restore the fans faith in both their games and their reputation as a solid, trustworthy company.

To be fair, given recent announcements, they might be off to a good start.....

I guess they can relate to this guy.