Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2049

Check Out DOOM and FALLOUT 4 in Mind-Blowing VR

We have yet to see the virtual reality space take off the way we had hoped it would, but Bethesda may be the company to take it to the next level. During their huge E3 press conference, the team finally showed off some more clips of both DOOM VFR (PSVR and HTC Vive) and Fallout 4 VR (October) in glorious VR. Devour the clips below.

While we knew both of these games were going to head to the HTC Vive eventually, I think we can all agree we were at least a little hesitant to get too excited about a platform that’s mostly unproven up to this point. But you have to give these fine folks credit: both of the clips shown off at least prove that the concept can be great if executed properly. The gameplay is definitely tailored to the virtual space.

I actually think both of these games are fantastic choices for the Oculus. When it comes to DOOM, the horror genre (I know it’s more action these days, but still) is so perfect for VR. Fighting demons will be about 1,000 times more terrifying. As for Fallout 4, gamers are already consumed in that world as is, so it only makes sense to allow fans to further immerse themselves. RIP spouses and family members of these fans.

Will you have the guts to play DOOM VFR? Are you willing to be consumed by Fallout 4…again? Will Bethesda be the first company to really knock it out of the park with AAA VR games? Drop your thoughts in the comments section below!

Why does Fallout‘s Nuka-Cola glow blue?

Image: Bethesda

AMERICAN GODS History Primer: Mad Sweeney

The Old Gods in American Gods have roots in the past and in mythology. While we might know the ins and outs of the New Gods, like Media and Technical Boy, there’s probably a lot we can still learn about their predecessors. For those of you hoping to get a better understanding of these characters before you continue on with American Gods, we have you covered. Get to know the history that inspires the characters in our American Gods History Primer series.

Who

Mad Sweeney, a.k.a. Buile Suibhne

In the Series

Oh, Mad Sweeney. When we met him the first episode of American Gods, he seemed like a boisterous drunk. The description is accurate, but he’s much more. As ever, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Mad showed off his skills at pulling gold coins out of the air; he’s a leprechaun, you see. He mistakenly gave Shadow Moon his magical coin, and Mad’s luck started taking a turn for the worst.

And then the weird got weirder (it’s a thing that happens in this show). When he learned Shadow threw the coin into Laura’s grave, he pursued the trail. The path led him to a dead Laura Moon. He’s not able to pluck the coin back; she has to return it to him. Since Laura has a mission, she refused–handing over the coin would mean her dying for real. So, Mad and Laura form an unlikely alliance because of the coin.

Mad Sweeney wasn’t always the rowdy ne’er-do-well we know him as now. The recent episode showed how he came to America, and we saw a kinder, more grateful leprechaun. Since there likely aren’t many Essie MacGowans leaving sustenance on their window sills for him anymore, he’s become more jaded, a little bitter, and weary–which I bet all too many of us can relate to.

In Mythology

We know Mad Sweeney is a leprechaun, but is being a mythical being enough to put him on the same level as the Old Gods? He seems to have more status than that–but only marginally, because it feels like Mr. Wednesday treats him like an errand boy of sorts. Anyway. Components of Mad Sweeney are pulled from leprechaun lore; there’s the association with gold coins and a mischievous and trickster nature. But he seems to be connected to another Irish folk legend: Buile Suibhne, or The Frenzy of Sweeney, or The Madness of Sweeney.

Buile Suibhne was an Irish king and star of a sad tale. Suibhne got territorial about St. Ronan visiting his lands with the intent of noting area to construct a church. He got overly aggressive about it (that certainly sounds like Mad). Rather than saying, “Hey, St. Ronan, could you please take your arse out of my neighborhood,” Suibhne threw Ronan’s psalter (a devotional book) in the lake and tried to drag him away. Ronan was understandably angry, and he lashed out at Suibhne.

Ronan’s form of retribution was to curse Suibhne to wander the world naked. I can appreciate satisfying revenge as much as the next person, but the naked part of the curse seems especially cruel. As Suibhne roamed Ireland, Scotland, and England without a home, he went mad and became known as Mad Sweeney.

Another version of the tale says Suibhne lost his grip because of the noise of a battle, and he fled away from the scene in a frenzy.

I prefer the curse version of Sweeney’s story because it shows a man at odd with social changes; it fits into the Old Gods vs. New Gods themes in American Gods. Suibhne wanted to stick to the old beliefs and ways, not changing to be part of a church. In American Gods, the Old Gods are faced with different times where people worship the New Gods instead of them. People who follow the old ways are looked down upon–just imagine what your reaction would be to a friend telling you they left a saucer of milk out every night for the leprechauns. Times are changing, and Mad Sweeney is part of the group that’s resisting.

Images: Starz, Tumblr/Starz

A Prayer for Mad Sweeney on AMERICAN GODS, Explained

Spoilers for episode 6 of American Gods follow! You have been warned.

Mad Sweeney might not be a “god,” exactly, but he came to America just the same as everyone else–and now, American Gods is showing us how. For the most part this episode is fairly straightforward so there aren’t too many juice pieces of behind-the-scenes supplemental material to get into, but just in case you got lost like Essie MacGowan on the moors, here’s a breakdown:

Coming To America: 1721

In a nice change of pace, the episode begins with a scene before Mr. Ibis begins one of his now-trademark Coming To America stories, offering an Irish Red Ale (what delightful foreshadowing!) to Jacquel as he begins his embalming work. The story Ibis has to tell this week is a memorable one in the book that deals with an oft-forgotten aspect of colonial American history: penal transportation.

“The American Colonies were as much a dumping ground as they were an escape,” the tale begins, and it’s true: according to a 2015 article in Gizmodo’s PaleoFuture, about 52,000 convicts were sent from Great Britain to the Americas between 1718 and 1775. Most worked as indentured servants, meaning that they more or less fulfilled the same functions as slaves, except depending on the length of their sentence they were often released and allowed to live out the rest of their time in freedom. It’s not something we talk about in our nation’s history very much–as Gizmodo points out, even Thomas Jefferson almost immediately tried to downplay the number of convicts in America right after the War of Independence–but it’s a well-documented fact that it happened.

The Fairy Folk

Essie MacGowen (changed from Tregowan, along with a few other details) is a low class Irish girl who, despite the fact that Emily Browning is doing double duty, bears no relation to Laura Moon–at least, she doesn’t in the original book. And while she doesn’t necessarily believe in gods, per se, she certainly subscribes to a belief in fairies and other supernatural creatures.

Nowadays, Americans (and Essie’s grandmother, it sounds like) mistakenly see most Celtic mythological figures as quaint and cutesy thanks to decades of sugarcoating. However, true Irish folklore paints characters like the trooping fairies (known in Ireland as the aos sí), the púca, the banshee, and the leprechaun as much more dangerous than you’d expect; Most people use the word “mischievous,” but that makes them sound fun and harmless, which they are not. For some, the practice of leaving gifts for fairies is just as much about protecting yourself from them as it is about asking for “blessings,” which is probably why Essie’s tales take on a darker edge when she grows up and starts telling them herself. They are, as Salim says later in the episode, unpleasant creatures.

The ritual Essie performs, tying a cut strand of her own hair around a slice of bread is straight from Neil Gaiman’s text (with an added piece of gold, specifically to attract a leprechaun), but I can’t tell for the life of me where it came from beyond that. Still, it has the intended effect for a time, right up until Essie is accused of stealing and sent to the colonies. Except not for long, because homegirl’s got a lot of tricks up her flouncy 18th-century sleeves. She quickly returns to make a name for herself as a thief (because why defy expectations at this point?), and her nightly gifts to the fairies help her out even all the way from London–until, once again, they don’t.

It’s in prison the second time that she meets Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), who interestingly enough is also down on his luck, possibly because not enough people in London believe in leprechauns the same way they do in Ireland. But Essie still does, and when she’s sent to to colonies again with her child, Sweeney comes with her as a manifestation of her belief. Perhaps it’s because of his gratitude that her life radically improves once she sets foot in Virginia–she lives out the rest of her days in relative comfort as the widow of the man who bought her servitude, until Sweeney returns at the end of her life (calling himself a ‘man of the mounds,” which is not really a phrase people use but which is fairly close to the literal translation of the word “banshee,” albeit with a general swap) to take her to the afterlife.

One quick note: Fionnula Flanagan, who plays Essie’s grandmother and elderly Essie, is the only person in the cast of this episode who’s actually Irish. Both Browning and Schreiber are putting on accents, with varying degrees of success. Hey, at least it’s better than David Boreanaz from Angel ever managed.

Laura and Sweeney

Meanwhile in the present, Laura, Salim and Mad Sweeney are still road-tripping together and stop at a tourist trap–a white buffalo, which Mr. Ibis informs us was sacred to the Lakota tribe (finally, we have a specific Native American ). It might feel like a weird choice, but as Mr. Wednesday tells Shadow in the book, roadside attractions are often constructed on places of supernatural power. Where other cultures build temples or cathedrals or “stone circles,” in the USA, people “feel themselves being called to from the transcendent void, and they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they’ve never visited.” Surely we’ll hear more about this when the characters in the TV show finally make their way to House on the Rock in Wisconsin, which we now know is where all the gods are heading.

Laura and Sweeney are still on their way to Kentucky first, though, so they let Salim go off ahead and abscond with the perfect vehicle for Laura’s particular condition: an ice cream truck. While en route, Sweeney opens up about another aspect of his mythological origins: he was once a king and fled “as a bird” from a battle he thought he would die in, and now he’s joined up with Wednesday to fulfill that destiny. It’s not exactly the way the original Buile Shuibhne tale goes, but it certainly offers an interesting insight into this version of the character.

Also interesting is Sweeney’s plan to cause an accident so that the coin will find its way out of Laura’s body by sheer physical force, with the help of a white rabbit he seems to know (anyone else get a General Mills vibe from this?). It works, but Sweeney immediately feels conflicted–because, we learn, he was the one who caused the car crash that killed Laura, and seemingly on Wednesday’s command. After screaming about it in Celtic for a while, he returns the coin and all of Laura’s loose body parts to her, and the two go on their way.

Next week is the season finale, so things are bound to come to a head in some way. In the meantime, what did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments!

Images: Starz

BATMAN ’66 Gets a Metal Cover in Tribute to Adam West

This weekend, Adam West passed away at the age of 88. Although West was an actor for several decades, he will always be fondly remembered as TV’s first “Caped Crusader” in the Batman TV series from 1966. West’s campy and even hilarious take on DC’s most popular superhero earned him a fan following that spanned generations. Now, in honor of West’s legacy, it’s time for Batman ’66 to meet metal.

Eric Calderone (a.k.a. Erock) has posted his heavy metal inspired take on the incredibly catchy Batman opening theme by Neal Hefti, complete with a few exaggerated sound effects in comic book style. “If you are from my decade (early – mid 80s), Adam West was your first Batman,” wrote Calderone on his YouTube page. “Pretty bummed about his passing but I’d say he made his mark, definitely for me. I tried not to stray too far from the original to shoot for a proper tribute. Thank you Batman.”

We have to say that the Adam West quote that opens this video was a perfect example of the humor he brought to his Batman, a hero who was so light that he could never be called a Dark Knight. It’s only been within the last decade that a whole new generation of fans has re-embraced Batman ’66, both in comics and in the complete series on DVD. West’s legacy will always live on, and this video was a great tribute to him.

If you want to hear more more music from Calderone, visit Metalyze.com or check out his frequently updated YouTube channel.

What did you think about Calderone’s on Batman ’66‘s iconic opening theme song? Rock out in the comment section below.

Image: Eric Calderone

CUPHEAD Finally Gets a Release Date (and Surprise Vinyl Soundtrack)

It’s about damn time. The most hotly anticipated indie game in recent memory has finally finagled itself a release date. First announced at E3 2014, Cuphead, Studio MDHR’s throwback platformer that evokes classic Disney and Fleischer cartoons, is coming to Xbox One and PC on September 28, 2017.

The game, which focuses on grueling combat against massive, screen-filling bosses, was originally intended for a 2016 release, but was ultimately pushed back when Studio MDHR kept making it bigger and bigger. Cuphead lets you play as two adorable anthropomorphic cups, Cuphead and Mugman, as you make your way through a gorgeously animated world to kick ass, take names, and avoid an untimely death at the hands of some brutally difficult boss fights. With both single-player and local co-op capabilities, Cuphead looks like the perfect new obsession for anyone lamenting games that feel too easy or want to scratch the nostalgia itch for Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo-era platformers. As part of Microsoft’s Play Anywhere program, Cuphead can be purchased on either Windows 10 or Xbox One and played across both platforms, so there’s really no excuse not to play this one unless you own a PS4 or a Switch.

In more surprising news, Cuphead is getting a lavish vinyl soundtrack release, too, courtesy of the creative geniuses over at iam8bit. The 4XLP set comes in throwback packaging made to look like a folio straight out of the 1930s. With nearly 3 hours of music by Kristofer Maddigan, album art by Jango Snow, and a digital copy of the soundtrack, this collection will run you $100. Honestly, even if you don’t wind up playing Cuphead, you might want to pick up a copy of this so your next cocktail party can have that vintage vibe you’re striving to create.

Will you be playing Cuphead? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: Microsoft/Studio MDHR/iam8bit

Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. Follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).

CORALINE Is Getting a New Action Figure for Comic-Con This Year

File this under “I’d never have guessed this was coming, but now I want it.” Henry Selick‘s 3-D stop-motion masterpiece, Coraline, adapted from the Neil Gaiman novel, was the first feature from Laika animation, and they have not misstepped since, what with ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings all having been creative triumphs, if not always blockbusters.

NECA made the initial toys for Coraline, in the form of several bendy figures, but none of Laika’s films have had toys since, even though all their characters are extremely “toyetic.” I’ve met CEO Travis Knight a few times, and I always ask him about that; his answers over the years have revealed that it’s been a combination of not having an established brand (Laika won’t do sequels), and his mind having been more on the creative focus than the branding side. But the last time I ran into him, his answer was “I need to get better about that.” Looks like he has.

Like their original Coraline figures, NECA’s Comic-Con exclusive is seven inches tall, bendy, and comes with a clear stand. She wears cloth pajamas and a blanket, and her box opens out to become a diorama, complete with green LED lights. In a limited run of only 3,000, she’ll cost you $40.

Here’s hoping this a test case for future Laika merch. Transforming Boxtrolls would be a no-brainer, as would that steampunk mech from the movie’s end. And let’s not forget the giant skeleton in Kubo!

Are you brave enough to enter the Other Mother’s web to pose Coraline? Do you “Laika” this as much as we do? Don’t button your lip (or eyes); tell us your thoughts in comments.

Images: NECA

 

Turn Back the Clock in LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM’s First Trailer

Two years ago, Square Enix and Dontnod Entertainment caught gamers by surprise with Life is Strange, an episodic game that placed players in the role of Max, a teenage girl whose ability to change time created unexpected consequences. There is going to be a Life is Strange sequel down the road, but at the Xbox E3 2017 presentation, Square Enix turned back the clock with the reveal of a three-episode prequel called Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

As players of the first game already know, the storm in the title of this game isn’t metaphorical. The survival of Arcadia Bay literally hinged upon Max’s decisions. Before the Storm is taking place three years before the original Life is Strange, with Max’s friend, Chloe Price, in the starring role this time around. And Chloe isn’t alone: Rachel Amber will also have a major part in this prequel, which is interesting because her fate was also one of the pivotal mysteries of the first game.

Deck Nine Games are the new developers for Before the Storm, and they made it clear in a follow up video that there will not be a time travel component with Chloe. When she makes mistakes, she won’t be able to take them back. Ashly Burch, the actress who provides Chloe’s voice, is also on the creative team for the sequel to help strengthen Chloe’s character.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 will be released on August 31 of this year.

Are excited about the chance to return to Arcadia Bay? Let us know in the comment section below!

Image: Square Enix

DOCTOR WHO’s “Empress of Mars” is Socially Conscious Hammer Horror

Throughout all of Series 10 of Doctor Who, we’ve been seeing stories where the writers are putting their own points of view and personalities–as well as social issues worth discussing–in the midst of fairly typical adventures. They’ve been great, but following the three recent Monk episodes, it felt good to go back to solid one-off adventures. To do that, the new series’ most veteran writer offered up an episode that perfectly encapsulated his sensibility and loves, as well as keeping step with the socially conscious nature of this year’s best episodes. “Empress of Mars” is a ’70s throwback Doctor Who story using trappings of Hammer Horror; who else but Mark Gatiss would write such a thing?

Gatiss is a longtime Doctor Who fan as well as an expert and scholar of horror. On top of being the writer of the very third episode of new Who in 2005 (and eight others since including “Empress”), he also produced, wrote, and hosted a BBC documentary series called The History of Horror and a follow-up film entitled Horror Europa. His cred in these departments is stacked, and his best episodes of Who in my opinion (“The Unquiet Dead” and “The Crimson Horror“) have had to do with horror. For “Empress of Mars,” he’s plumbing a particular kind of Hammer Horror–the Victorian mummy adventure–and superimposing it over a story about an alien race that he himself brought back in 2013’s “Cold War,” the Ice Warriors.

Several weeks back, I wrote about Doctor Who‘s long history with horror, and how there are, weirdly, a lot episodes that have to do with mummies. “Empress” isn’t about actual mummies, of course, but it’s impossible to look at the Martian caverns, and especially the hibernating Ice Queen, and not feel like it could easily be happening in Ancient Egypt. A similar kind of iconography was used in 1967’s “The Tomb of the Cybermen” as well, with decidedly Egyptian-looking Cybermen temples and ruins.

The difference here, of course, which sets the episode apart from both “Tomb” and others, is that it takes place on Mars, in Victorian times. Put-upon British soldiers, from a time when Imperialism was the only way, forced to live on dwindling rations on a planet that has nothing for them except the vague hope of gold, being used as a means of awakening their Ice Warrior Friday’s leader, completely out of their grasp. While using the trappings of a 1960s Hammer movie, Gatiss sets up a very ’70s Doctor Who–and British, for that matter–dilemma: just because you live in an Empire, does that automatically make your side the right side?

This is something that was touched upon a lot in ’70s Who, specifically during the Jon Pertwee years from 1970-1974. A writer by the name of Malcolm Hulke–a notoriously left-wing figure–would routinely write stories like 1970’s “Doctor Who and the Silurians” about an ancient indigenous race wanting to reclaim the Earth for their own and like 1973’s “Frontier in Space” in which some third party is trying to fire up the cold war between Earth’s federation and the reptilian Draconian Empire, who hate each other because the other is different. Gatiss has placed his story firmly in this camp, where the Doctor has the singular quandary of who to help: the Ice Warriors, whose planet they’re on but are vastly overpowered; or the British, who would be slaughtered in a fight but are technically an invading force.

Gatiss pulls from another pair of Pertwee stories here as well: 1972’s “The Curse of Peladon” and its (vastly inferior) sequel, 1974’s “The Monster of Peladon,” both of which feature the Ice Warriors. (Alpha Centauri from this episode’s finale also appears prominently in those stories.) Following their initial two stories in the late ’60s, the Ice Warriors in the Peladon stories are much more erudite, a noble race that’s part of a galaxy-wide coalition, and are not at all portrayed as “monsters.” In “Curse,” they aren’t even the villains, but the ones the true villain uses as a patsy due to perception. A tremendous revelation then, and here: while hostile, they’re much more a proud race than horrific threat.

“Empress of Mars” isn’t the first story to tackle British Imperialism, but this might be the one that does it the most head-on. In keeping with the rest of Series 10, here we get the uncomfortable image of an Ice Warrior–a native of the land where the British have arrived–being made to be servant for what amounts to a battalion of hostile invaders. Calling him “Friday” in reference to the character in Robinson Crusoe is a great way to force the reader to realize “Oh, right. It’s a beloved book, but maybe it’s not got the best socio-political messages for today.” That the most staunchly Imperialistic and opportunistic in the bunch is the despicable villain and that the one who brokers the peace ends up being a coward who somehow escaped hanging is great two-finger salute to that outmoded, offensive ideal of Britishness.

If you’d have said that this would be a series where the Doctor punched a Regency-era racist and outsmarted a Victorian-era racist, I’d probably have thought maybe they were hitting the message a little too hard, but it’s a credit to the writing and a testament to the sorry state of the world that I’m finding them among my favorites. Gatiss always zigs when you think he’s going to zag, and while I didn’t like his Series 9 episode at all (though having the Martian empress shout “Sleep no more!” to her hibernating soldiers was a nice F-U to people like me), I adore the fact here that he uses a classic alien, and horror movie tropes, to be incredibly socially minded.

Before we go, Nardole couldn’t get the TARDIS to go back to Mars so he got Missy’s help… is this the TARDIS or Missy’s doing? My vote is definitely going to Missy, since it’s never addressed fully. We’ll find out soon, I’m guessing!

Doctor Who airs Saturdays at 9/8c on BBC America. Let me know what you thought of “Empress of Mars” in the comments below!

Images: BBC America

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor and the resident Whovian for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!

STARGATE UNIVERSE’s Cliffhanger Will Be Resolved in Comics

Six years ago, the Stargate television franchise went dark with a cliffhanger in the final episode of Stargate Universe. And while the promised big screen reboot of Stargate appears to have stalled, Stargate Universe fans are finally getting a chance for some resolution.

Via GateWorld, American Mythology’s new Stargate Universe comic will pick up where the TV series left off, with most of the crew of the Destiny in hibernation as they make a desperate attempt to escape the relentless attacks of the drones that wiped out the human population of that galaxy. However, one stasis pod was damaged, and Eli Wallace volunteered to remain awake with the knowledge that he had only two weeks to fix the problem before facing his own demise. Within the world of the show, that was Eli’s moment to rise to the occasion, and the series ended with a contemplative shot of Eli watching the stars go by.

Mark L. Haynes and J.C. Vaughn are writing the new Stargate Universe comic, with Giancarlo Caracuzzo as the artist. Although the writers and creators of the Stargate Universe TV show aren’t involved with the comic (in fact, many of them are currently working on Syfy’s Dark Matter), this comic will essentially be the third season of the series. Whether the comic will actually be canon remains to be seen. It’s all we have for now, but it’s entirely possible that any future Stargate TV revival would ignore this story.

Stargate Universe # 1 will be released later this month.

Are you looking forward to the return of the Stargate Universe characters? Embrace your destiny in the comment section below!

Images: MGM TV/American Mythology

4 Reasons Why You Should Watch New Japan Pro Wrestling

This Saturday Night/Sunday morning, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) will host Dominion, the most important match in the wrestling company’s history. The main attraction is a rematch between challenger Kenny Omega and Champion Kazuchika Okada for the International Wrestling Grand Prix World Title. Whoever wins will be the champion when NJPW makes its official US debut this July in California.

NJPW is the second biggest wrestling endeavor in the world, after the WWE, but it’s a much different kind organization. Instead of pure entertainment value, NJPW treats wrestling more as a sport, something that rewards dedicated fandom and those who value athleticism over showboating. Although there are smaller organizations (Ring of Honor, Lucha Underground) in the US that offer alternatives to the WWE monopoly, no one has effectively challenged them since the Monday Night Wars of the late ’90s. So just like the forthcoming main event between Omega and Okada, we are rooting for the underdog and hoping that NJPW has the successful start it deserves in the US.

Without further ado, here are the 4 big reasons you should pay attention to NJPW before they make landfall in the US.

1. The 6-Star Match

At Wrestle Kingdom XI (NJPW’s Wrestlemania) this past January, the first meeting between Omega and Okada was honored as the first-ever televised 6-Star match in wrestling history. Since all wrestling matches are rated on a 5-Star scale, 6 stars indicates the exceptional athleticism and storytelling ability of either contender during this match. For 45 minutes, Omega tried desperately to get Okada into his finishing maneuver, the One-Winged Angel (yes, Final Fantasy fans, he DID name it after that). However, Okada achieved the victory with his Rainmaker clothesline. Notably, rather than relying on the drama and build-up of interviews and promos outside the ring, Okada and Omega told their entire story within this one match. That is nothing short of an art form.

2. Wrestling *Is* A Sport

While both the WWE and NJPW have over the top characters performing amazing stunts in the wrestling ring, either company’s values are completely different. The WWE wants you to view their matches and storylines like you were watching Game of Thrones. Will the villain get ahead YET AGAIN? Will the hero finally pull off a victory? NJPW wants you to view their product like you were watching the NBA Playoffs, tirelessly rooting for your side throughout an extended offseason. One of their biggest events of the year is the G1. It’s a round robin tournament that awards points for wins/losses/draws. The two wrestlers with the highest points fight in the finals, with the winner getting a shot at the world title. This gives fans the opportunity to follow their favorite wrestler through the tournament, much like following your favorite team through the playoffs. For wrestling fans that are more sports oriented, the G1 is the perfect way to combine two passions.

3. NJPW Promotes Independent Wrestling Organizations

While the WWE has been publicly scouting talent from the independent scene for some time now, NJPW has been working with organizations such as Ring of Honor in the US and CMLL in Mexico for years in a “talent collaboration” deal. NJPW will showcase stars from ROH, like Jay Lethal, or from CMLL, like Volador, Jr. on their shows, and vice versa. This past year at Wrestle Kingdom, an ROH World Title match was on the main card. Rather than looking at these companies as competition, NJPW sees them as a resource. It gives fans exposure to three different sets of wrestling stars and a chance to discover new favorites.

4. NJPW Is Crowning Its First US Champion

As part of the G1 Special in July, NJPW will hold a two-day tournament to crown the first ever IWGP United States Champion. Having a champion in the US signals NJPW’s dedication to reach the US audience on a more mainstream level.  It will provide new fans an entry point into the league with a hero to get behind (or a villain they can wish an untimely demise upon. It’s wrestling, remember?).

The WWE juggernaut has no plans of slowing down, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a new contender. NJPW provides a fun, great alternative for fans that love wrestling, and want to expand their horizons.

You can check out NJPW videos on their YouTube channel here, or watch them Friday nights on AXS TV.

So, what do you think? Are you going to give NJPW a try? Let me know on Twitter or sound off in the comments below.

Images: New Japan Pro Wrestling