Holy $#!^. It really is a challenge to clean up your mouth after playing Saints Row: The Third. It’s not because you are going to say the game is $#!^ or a waste of your &@*%ing time, but because there are so many moments where you burst out with, “Did that $#!^ really jut happen?” that the game’s foul mouth and your own just get blended together.

Saints Row: The Third is the end of a trilogy of progressively more extreme satires of the original Grand Theft Auto experience. The first Saints Row was somewhat grounded in reality while the second added a more fantastic storyline and more head scratching plot twists and more “Can they really get away with that?” moments.

Saints Row: The Third is like the Spinal Tap of the series. Take everything they have built… and turn it up to 11.

Gameplay:

Saints Row: The Third controls much like a standard third person open world action game on the surface. Players punch, shoot and carjack their way through various missions or just reign chaos upon the poorly defended denizens of Steelport. What Saints Row: The Third has done to change things up is a constant stream of mix and match gameplay mechanics to keep the player constantly feeling like they are doing something new.

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Whether it’s the customization or the ability to play as your favorite wrestlers, something keeps drawing an audience of people into buying the newest WWE or TNA wrestling game year after year. Now fans are getting the chance to use more than their thumbs in the digital squared circle with Hulk Hogan’s Main Event.

From Majesco, the game is set to release on the Xbox 360 and utilize the console’s Kinect system by integrating the moves and motion of the player themselves into the game’s mechanics. Here’s a breakdown.

In Hulk Hogan’s Main Event, players will learn the ropes from the man himself as Hulk Hogan schools them on delivering the best show for the crowd by emulating famous Hulk poses and performing more than 30 punishing combos.  The Kinect sensor tracks players’ every move; the more dynamic the motion, the more high impact the wrestler’s performance is.  Players will create their own unique wrestler personality through a robust create-a-wrestler feature including many choices for face, hair, tattoos, outfit, ethnicity, body type, and entrance music.

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One of the most interesting aspects of THQ’s WWE game’s is their presentation and their storylines. Some have ultimate wrestling nerd nostalgia like when Edge and Christian reunited in SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 before they did on real WWE programming.

Others are completely out of the realm of reality (We all remember the video of Kurt Angle being magically transformed into a woman by Candice Michelle from a few years ago). With the completely over the top style of WWE All Stars, there is certainly some intrigue in to the presentation of its story modes.

Each of the three modes will consist of a 10 match tournament for the player, much in the style of fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Marvel vs. Capcom 3 where players will eventually reach their championship match against either the Undertaker (Legends path), Randy Orton (WWE Superstars path) or D-Generation X (Tag Team path). Here is what we know so far about these three different paths in WWE All Stars:

Path of Champions, WWE Legends – Undertaker

The World Heavyweight Championship is on the line at SummerSlam. Can you defeat 10 of WWE’s battle-hardened WWE Legends and defeat Undertaker? Paul Bearer welcomes you to his funeral parlor, as Undertaker emerges from a standing casket. He has a message for the player – “Rest in Peace!” There are plenty of surprises and more cutscenes along the way as you move your way up to face “The Phenom!”

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In just over a week, THQ releases its newest WWE game, WWE All Stars. Departing from the realistic, television style of the SmackDown vs. Raw series, WWE All Stars chooses a more over the top style in both its animations and graphics. The beefed up Superstars and Legends more closely resemble Zangief from Street Fighter IV than their real life counterparts. But that certainly isn’t a bad thing.

WWE All Stars gives a good change of pace to the WWE video game brand without getting in the way of their top selling annualized franchise. Included in WWE All Stars will be a host of WWE Legends and current Superstars including friends of the Flickcast Kane and John Morrison.

Two somewhat surprising additions to the roster are Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Hogan, despite being known as a WWE icon is currently on the payroll of TNA wrestling, WWE’s closest competition. Randy Savage only recently just came back in to the WWE fold after a long absence where not even his name was mentioned on WWE programming for years since his departure from the company in the 1990s.

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Who wouldn’t want to see a movie starring the dream cast of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine and Maggie Smith, with cameos by Ozzy Osbourne, Dolly Parton, Patrick Stewart and Hulk Hogan? They had me at James McAvoy.

Throw in some Shakespeare source material and music by Elton John, and one would think we were set. But Gnomeo and Juliet does the seeming impossible—takes all of these phenomenal elements and churns out a movie that’s only sporadically entertaining and completely forgettable. Unlike its durable garden decoration characters, this movie will wash out of your brain with the first drizzle.

Gnomeo and Juliet’s first and biggest problem is its lack of original, engaging characters. Gnomeo, Gnomeo, wherefore art thou, Gnomeo? Who knows, but he’s just your standard love-stricken youth determined to prove himself to the world and win his girl, while Juliet is your standard spunky heroine who’s trapped in a narrow female role but has the ninja skills to fight out.

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For the first time in nearly nine years, WWE’s Monday Night Raw went head to head with opposing wrestling programming. TNA, who’s normal timeslot runs on Thursday night from 9 to 11, has made the jump to Monday nights in hopes of going head to head with Monday Night Raw much like WCW Nitro did for the first time back on September 4th, 1995. This rivalry lead to some of the greatest programming in wrestling history in the eyes of its fans.

TNA Impact’s first weekly Monday night episode drew a 0.98 cable rating and drew 1.4 million viewers. This rating was down 12% and it’s viewership down 6.1% compared to the preview week’s Thursday edition of Impact. Surprisingly headlined by some of the very same performers from Nitro like Sting, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, it is likely that TNA and Spike TV officials were not thrilled with only a 1.0 rating.

On the other hand, WWE’s Monday Night Raw counted in a 3.4 cable rating and 5.1 million viewers based on the overnight reporting. Raw saw a 7.4% drop in ratings and a 4.2% drop in viewership showing that TNA’s move may have affected Vince McMahon and USA Network’s Monday night programming staple.

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