MiscRave

Is it finally cool to like Power Rangers?

04/06/201701/11/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

A new Power Rangers movie came out and with its release I saw many things leading up to it and even after the movie and that was media attention that the franchise hadn’t had since the fad of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers back in the early 90s. Article after article in both mainstream geek culture oriented sites to main stream media outlets which just hasn’t been the case since the birth of the franchise. So I asked myself if it was cool to like Power Rangers again.

Like most kids I grew out of Power Rangers after Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers but unlike most it became impossible for me to watch the later seasons. Trust me, if I’d had the chance I would’ve forced myself to like it no matter how far they strayed from the original formula since I was so invested in the heroes. But the forced exile on the franchise might’ve been good since it left me to enjoy other things and wonder what was happening in the Ranger universe all these years. It wasn’t until one day in the mid 00’s I was channel surfing and I found Power Rangers S.P.D. on the Disney Channel and I decided to check out what Power Rangers was doing now. I began to laugh at how stupid it was and how much they had ruined the original formula. I mean police rangers? What were they thinking? But by the end of the episode I was a bit surprised that, “Oh, snap!”. I had actually liked it and decided to check it out.

Miscrave Digiculture Podcast Ep. 115

04/05/201701/08/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Miscrave Media

In today’s episode of the Digiculture podcast I ask myself…is Power Rangers cool again?

Off-line Spring Cleaning update

04/04/201701/08/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Site

I didn’t have internet since Thursday night which explains the unfinished posts that were published automatically over the weekend and the lack of a post yesterday, but things should be fine for now so expect some type of daily update. Remember you can follow @miscrave on twitter for site news/updates/relevant articles and @0sdp for my personal account.

I’ll go ahead and fix the two updates from last weekend later tonight since they were just drafts without any text that got published. The Miscrave podcast will continue tomorrow. Also I figured for the rest of spring if possible it’ll be “Weview Reekends” were there is a new review on Saturday and Sunday as I had mentioned in the previous spring cleaning update. We are working on a new banner that looks much better than the current place holder and the production of the podcast will be improving by episode 116. You can also expect more Miscrave Media projects in the near future.

As always if you have any comments or suggestions make sure to email me [email protected] or comment.

WCW vs NWO World Tour & WCW/NWO Revenge intros on the Nintendo 64

04/02/201701/11/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Gaming Again

By the time the Nintendo 64 was on its way out EB Games / Gamestop or whatever it was called back then was putting a bunch of Nintendo 64 games on clearance. I was used to paying 50 to 60 dollars per game so when I was able to get games for a few bucks at most I got as many as I could. Many games that I wanted but found it hard to get the money or justify the cost like Jet Force Jemini and Hey You Pikachu were bought. But I also spent some money on a bunch of WCW games, by then I really wasn’t as much into wrestling anymore and I had never been a huge fan of WCW but they were the cheapest games there since they basically classified as annual sports games so I got them all.

I was surprised to find that two of them were exactly the same as the WWF games I used to love. I then found out that before they had the WWF license they made games with the WCW one. These games being released years before WWF No Mercy the gameplay is far from polished as the games eventually became, you can immediately see all the improvements the sequels made as they feel rough. Nevertheless it’s definitely the same gameplay that you loved even if it had yet to reach their best version. What really made them cool to play after playing the superior sequels was that you could finally play as the WCW roster without having to go to create a wrestler mode and make your WCW wrestlers on CAW in the WWF AKI games.

WWF Wrestlemania 2000 & WWF No Mercy intros on the Nintendo 64

04/01/201701/11/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Let's get physical

When I became a wrestling fan as a kid one of the first things I wanted was a video game were I could play as my favorite wrestlers and beat up the heels who were against them. In those preview kiosks that Nintendo had in the 90s I was able to preview two different games; WWF Attitude and WWF Wrestlemania 2000 both for the Nintendo 64. I debated for days as to which one to get based on the videos and screen shots I had seen. I eventually decided to wait for Wrestlemanis 2000 and boy did I make the correct decision as the Acclaim game is not seen in a favorable way while AKI wrestling games are still highly regarded even today.

The gameplay was great and while many features that the Playstation version of the games that I really wanted were missing from the Nintendo 64 versions like the full titantrons and special gimmick matches like Hell in a Cell, I did not care. The storylines of the game instead of featuring a fun or creative one mostly botched up the main wrestling storyline of the year which I never liked that didn’t stop me from finishing story mode. The grappling system was just so much fun and even though you could cheat the AI by spamming the taunt button you can argue the AI cheated on the more difficult settings. It didnt matter the game was a lot of fun and I spent hours playing them. I’m not here to review a game however but I’ll talk about the introductions their WWE games had since they’re definitely memorable.

Godzilla’s Revival Series in the Reiwa Era

03/31/201701/11/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Rampant Speculation

Godzilla movies have been divided into the Showa, Heisei and Millenium era’s to help represent the series that the movie belonged to. While the Millenium series ended a while ago it seems with all the new Godzilla projects in the works we’ve reached a new era. Some fan sites are already calling it the Reboot series, but is this name really appropriate?

The only thing going for it is that all previous movies always referred to the original Gojira 1954 movie as being the first and this is the first film that doesn’t acknowledge those events but even then Godzilla has gone through a lot of reboots so more than anything it seemed like Godzilla was no longer a relevant franchise until now again so it’s more of a revival so until the reboot series is cemented into the fandom I’ll just refer to it as the Revival series which started with the American Godzilla by Legendary in 2014.

Remembering.. A message from the Power Rangers

03/30/201701/11/2021 Luigi Kawasaki

Secret Movie

Public Service Announcements were a common thing in the 80’s and even early 90’s but these PSA’s kind of stopped after that. Whether they were done to fit some type of educational message in the show or just because everyone was doing it is beside the point, there were plenty of shows doing it and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers with its already controversial fighting thought it was the right move to have them. Unlike a lot of PSA’s, the “Now a message from the Power Rangers were actually packaged for international syndication giving fans around the world the chance to learn some common sense.

You would actually look forward to these since you knew after the show had finished you’d at least get some extra ranger content and hearing Jason’s voice telling you they had a message for you, you had no other thing to do than sit down and listen. There were only about a dozen or so of them so they would repeat often but you were fine with that.