iBrianEarley {dot} com
Reviews of Movies, Games, Books, and Things I Enjoy

Important Info: Fantasy Portfolio traded on Wall Street Survivor using principles learned from Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus.

S&P 500 at Year Start- $903.25
S&P 500 at End of Week – $1,091.38
S&P 500 Point Gain – +$188.13
S&P 500 Percent Gain – +20.83%

Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $136,076.64
Portfolio Total Gain – +$31,641.10
Portfolio Percent Gain – +30.30%

Transactions

None

Dividends Paid

11/19 $45.00 from 450 Shares of NAT at $0.10 per Share

Important Info: Fantasy Portfolio traded on Wall Street Survivor using principles learned from Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus.

S&P 500 at Year Start- $903.25
S&P 500 at End of Week – $1,069.30
S&P 500 Point Gain – +$166.05
S&P 500 Percent Gain – +18.38%

Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $132,471.66
Portfolio Total Gain – +$28,036.12
Portfolio Percent Gain – +26.85%

Transactions

11/9 Sell 150 Shares of BA at $50.01

Dividends Paid

11/10 $256.20 from 305 Shares of BP at $0.84 per Share

Important Info: Fantasy Portfolio traded on Wall Street Survivor using principles learned from Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus.

S&P 500 at Year Start- $903.25
S&P 500 at End of Week – $1,069.30
S&P 500 Point Gain – +$166.05
S&P 500 Percent Gain – +18.38%

Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $132,471.66
Portfolio Total Gain – +$28,036.12
Portfolio Percent Gain – +26.85%

Transactions

None

Dividends Paid

11/4 $63.00 from 150 Shares of BA at $0.42 per Share

Layin’ the Smack Down!

Some fun memories come to mind when I think about the wrestling games that THQ has come out with over the years. I was at a party for a friend’s birthday back in middle school when WCW vs NWO for Nintendo 64 came out, and we stayed up to all hours of the night playing huge battle royals against each other. Once somebody was eliminated, the next person took over for whoever the next competitor to enter the ring was. That was back in the days of Goldberg. Whatever happened to him? Anyway.

Smackdown vs Raw, the latest wrestling game by THQ, just recently came out and I have been having a lot of fun with it. Much like NBA Live 10, the game loads to a training area where you start as John Cena facing Randy Orton to grasp the concepts of the game. Orton just stands there to get beat on, I just wish it would start just the opposite. You can actually switch to whoever you want to be in the training room, so it’s possible to beat on Cena or whoever you like.

I resurrected my wrestling persona “The Duke,” as I do for every wrestling game. My character is mostly a copy of Triple H, since I don’t really get too much into editing my move sets. I did, however, create my own finisher called “The Chaos Theory,” which is much like the “Meltdown” by Atom Bomb from the golden days of WCW, or Test’s finisher which I can’t remember the name of. The finisher creation is a very neat addition to the game and let’s the player feel like their character is more personalized.

Chasing the titles was a little annoying for me, because I played through the first set of matches to win a title, and thought the game would auto save after each match. Of course, it didn’t work that way and I lost that progress and had to start over. It was alright though since the matches didn’t take very long against the jobbers of the WWE.

There are also some new features like creating your own story mode for each show. It looks interesting and fun, but also seems like it would be too tedious. Needless to say I didn’t get to that.

This is an excellent game for WWE fans and I’m going to be playing this game for a while, so Gamefly, be prepared not to get my copy back for a month or so!