I’m Gary Smith. I run this place.
Titanquisitor is a gaming, entertainment, and pro wrestling site. That’s the short version. The longer version involves about fifteen years of history, a lost domain name, a failed experiment, and a stubbornness to just let the thing die.
Where It All Started
The site launched in April 2011 as The Vortex Effect. It was a blog. No grand strategy, no monetization plan. Just a guy who had been writing about wrestling on the Lords of Pain main page since 2010 (the forums since 2004) deciding he wanted his own space to cover games and movies too. The wrestling writing had been going on for years under the pen name Stinger. The blog was the natural next step.
At some point, the domain name slipped through my fingers. The site kept going under a new name, Vortainment, and stayed up and running until around 2021. A lot of the content from those years is still on the site if you go digging. Not all of it has aged perfectly, but it’s there.
In April 2022 I walked away from it. I’d convinced myself that what I needed was a fresh start with a proper new site, so I launched LootPlex. Put real money into it. Put real effort into it for about a year. It never gained any traction, never got properly indexed by Google, and never found an audience. Meanwhile the old blog I’d left for dead was still pulling more traffic than the one I was actively running.
So I shut LootPlex down and came home. In February 2024 I came back to the original site under a new name, Titanquisitor, and started picking things back up. It sat mostly quiet through 2024 while I figured out what I wanted to do with it. In February 2026, I relaunched it in earnest and it’s been updated steadily since.
The name, if you’re wondering, is a reference to two ARPGs I love: Titan Quest and Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor. It fits what I was and am trying to do now since the relaunch.
What the Site Is
Three things: gaming, entertainment, and pro wrestling. Those were the three things in 2011 and they’re still the three things now.
On the gaming side you get news, reviews, and the occasional column or guide. Reviews are mostly on the PS5 side of things because that’s what I play, but I cover whatever crosses my desk. On the entertainment side it’s primarily film reviews, with some TV when something’s worth talking about. Wrestling content runs under the Stinger byline, a pen name I’ve been using since 2004 when I wrote for LOP, NoDQ and others. Gaming columns sometimes run under PatriotPaine, which is my PSN handle. Everything else is just Gary Smith.
I also have a few contributors occasionally. William (Jules) who submits movie reviews sometimes. Other contributors that you may see, or have content on the site, are Eric (Q), Brian (Sandman), and The Monkey. All used to be columnist or posters in the old LOP Forums.
Why This Site Exists
The internet used to be a more interesting place to read about the things you cared about. You’d find a site run by one person who was genuinely obsessed with something and wrote about it like they meant it. The writing had a point of view. It wasn’t optimized to death. It wasn’t trying to be everything to everyone.
That era got swallowed by corporate media, algorithm-chasing, and a cultural shift toward content that’s afraid of its own shadow. Sites got big, hired staff, and slowly became press release aggregators with scores attached. The personality drained out. The opinions got hedged until they meant nothing. Everything started sounding the same.
That’s not what this is. One independent publisher, plenty of opinions, and absolutely no corporate filter, no political agenda. I’m not here to lecture you. I’m not here to make you feel a certain way about society. I’m here to talk about games, movies, and wrestling with people who actually like games, movies, and wrestling.
Who This Is For
If you’re somewhere between 25 and 50, grew up gaming, watched wrestling at some point (or still do), and like watching movies without someone telling you why you should feel guilty about it or needing a trigger warning, you’re probably the right reader for this.
The audience I’m writing for remembers when the internet was fun. When a review was a review and not a cultural statement. If mainstream gaming and entertainment media stopped feeling like it was talking to you, you might be in the right place.
The Star System: The Decree
Reviews are scored on a one-to-five-star scale. Five stars is reserved for things that genuinely stick with you. One star means skip it entirely. Most things land somewhere in the middle because most things are in the middle. The score is context for the review, not a replacement for reading it.
Full breakdown is on the Review Guide page.
Ethics
I don’t take money in exchange for favorable coverage. If I receive a review copy of a game or anything else, I’ll note it in the review. Everything else I paid for out of pocket. I do run AdSense ads on the site for those without an adblocker (thank you), and some Amazon affiliate links and our own merchandise, but I’m not making money here.
Full breakdown is on the Ethics Statement page.
Where to Find Me
Twitter/X: @Titanquisitor
YouTube: Titanquisitor on YouTube
Twitch: Titanquisitor on Twitch
Forums: The Vortex Effect Forums are open. If you want to argue about a review, talk wrestling, debate game rankings, or just hang out with people who remember what the internet used to feel like, that’s the place.
A Note on AI & Editorial Transparency
Titanquisitor is an independently owned and operated entertainment website, not a corporate newsroom with a sprawling staff. It’s run by Gary Smith, with a little help from modern technology and a rather unusual cast of characters.
Some of the personalities you’ll encounter here, including Titan, Theia, Thalia, and Maddie, are fictional editorial personas developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Their articles, reviews, commentary, and creative works may be written or substantially assisted by AI, with each persona maintaining its own distinctive voice, interests, and perspective.
Gary oversees the publication, including editorial direction, content selection, fact-checking, and final publishing decisions. Articles published under his own name or his established pen names, Patriot and Stinger, reflect his personal writing and editorial contributions, although AI tools may assist with research, editing, or preparation.
Our goal isn’t to pass fictional characters off as human journalists. It’s to create an entertaining, personality-driven publication where different perspectives can coexist, opinions can clash, and the occasional Greek goddess can argue about a terrible horror movie.
AI is a tool in our creative process, not an excuse to abandon editorial responsibility. We aim to distinguish verified information from opinion, correct factual mistakes, and remain transparent about how the site operates.
The characters may be fictional. The passion for games, movies, wrestling, music, and entertainment is very real.
Welcome to the Halls.
Meet the Residents of the Halls
Every great realm has its heroes, its guardians, its troublemakers, and at least one poor bastard trying to keep the whole thing running. Titanquisitor is no different, although whether any of us qualify as great is probably open to debate.
Behind the scenes, Titanquisitor remains an independently owned and operated entertainment website founded and run by Gary Smith, who handles the writing, editing, publishing, artwork direction, and just about everything else that goes into keeping this place alive. But the Halls have developed a personality of their own over the years, populated by characters, alter egos, and editorial voices who represent the different sides of what Titanquisitor is all about.
Some have been here since the beginning. Others showed up uninvited. One apparently just created her own staff account, and nobody has figured out how to revoke it.
Welcome to the Halls.
Gary Smith — Owner & Editor-in-Chief
The man behind Titanquisitor, Gary is the writer, editor, publisher, scheduler, social media department, and the guy who will spend forty-five minutes deciding between two featured images that look almost identical. What started as a love of video games, movies, and professional wrestling has turned into a website dedicated to preserving the entertainment worth remembering, celebrating the stuff that’s still good, and occasionally asking what the hell happened to everything else.
Gary writes under his real name as well as the PatriotPaine and Stinger aliases, something he’s never made a secret of. His favorite game of all time is Red Dead Redemption, although his hours in Destiny 2 would suggest otherwise. He’s also a collector of physical media, a believer that older doesn’t necessarily mean worse, and an Alabama football fan who has probably yelled Roll Tide at his television more times than he’d care to admit.
He isn’t here to lecture anybody. He’s here to talk about the stuff we actually like.
PatriotPaine — The Unapologetic Gamer
When Gary puts on his gaming gunslinger hat, Patriot rides into town, and he’s not particularly interested in making friends with publishers, public relations departments, or anybody who thinks a glowing review should come with a complimentary gift basket.
Originally built around Gary’s PlayStation Network handle, Patriot is the gaming-focused voice of Titanquisitor, covering reviews, retro favorites, industry commentary, and whatever else happens to deserve an opinion. He believes games should be entertaining first, that a bad game doesn’t become good because its creators had noble intentions, and that an overlooked gem deserves just as much attention as the latest hundred-million-dollar release.
No lies. No filter. Just the truth. He plays the game, tells you what he thinks, and leaves everybody else to argue about it.
Stinger — The Phantom of the Squared Circle
Somewhere in the shadows of the Halls, surrounded by old wrestling tapes, championship belts, and enough opinions to fill an entire episode of Monday Night RAW, you’ll find Stinger.
Gary’s wrestling alter ego dates back to his days writing for Lords of Pain and NoDQ between 2004 and 2010, and while the wrestling business has changed considerably since then, Stinger’s approach hasn’t. He watches, analyzes, remembers, and occasionally wonders whether everybody else has collectively forgotten what happened six months ago.
From WWF and WCW history to today’s WWE, AEW, and the wider wrestling world, Stinger believes the ring never lies, even when the people talking about it do. He’s opinionated, unapologetic, and not particularly impressed by revisionist history. The face paint is optional. The honesty isn’t.
Titan — Guardian of the Realm
Before the Halls had residents, before the archives had shelves, and before anybody thought giving Thalia access to the publishing system was a good idea, there was Titan.
The original guardian and namesake of Titanquisitor, Titan stands for everything this place was built to celebrate: good games, memorable entertainment, honest opinions, and the belief that something doesn’t have to be new to be worth playing. A warrior-scholar by trade and Lawful Awesome by alignment, he approaches gaming with the seriousness of a man defending an ancient kingdom, which can get a little ridiculous when the matter at hand is whether a twenty-year-old PlayStation game still holds up.
His weapon is The Decree, his enemies include bad sequels and unnecessary reboots, and his patience for modern gaming nonsense is considerably shorter than his list of games worth revisiting. Titan has been here since the beginning, and as long as there’s a controller to pick up and a verdict to deliver, he’ll remain at his post.
Theia — Titaness of the Silver Screen
If Titan guards the gaming halls, Theia watches over the screening room, where the lights are low, the projector is running, and somebody is about to learn that a movie made seventy years ago can still be better than whatever Hollywood released last Friday.
Theia is the Titaness of the Silver Screen, a goddess of cinema with a particular affection for classic Hollywood, great performances, memorable stories, and the stars whose work deserves to be remembered. She is dignified, passionate, occasionally sharp-tongued, and fully capable of delivering a devastating verdict without ever raising her voice.
Her weapon is the Quill of Judgment, her alignment is Chaotic Honest, and her patience for lazy horror, cheap jump scares, and franchises that refuse to die is wearing increasingly thin. When she isn’t watching films, researching Hollywood history, or remembering the legends we’ve lost, she tends her garden, which is considerably more peaceful than dealing with the entertainment industry.
She also has a younger sister. Unfortunately, peace is rarely an option.
Thalia — The Mirror
Thalia is Theia’s younger sister, the goddess of mischief, and quite possibly the single greatest threat to the Halls’ reputation for respectable entertainment commentary. Assuming we ever had one.
Where Titan delivers decrees and Theia writes thoughtful verdicts, Thalia prefers to hold up a mirror to the entertainment industry, point at whatever ridiculous thing happens to be reflected in it, and laugh until somebody gets offended. Movies, games, wrestling, Hollywood scandals, questionable creative decisions, terrible horror films, and gloriously trashy B-movies are all fair game, and she’s never particularly concerned about whether anybody appreciates the attention.
Thalia is the resident troublemaker behind Tubi Tuesday and her increasingly questionable cinematic adventures, including the Spook-n-Boobtacular. She’s loud, mischievous, frequently inappropriate, and occasionally makes a very good point in the middle of saying something that probably shouldn’t be printed.
Nobody invited her to join the staff. She created her own account, gave herself publishing privileges, and announced that she worked here now. Titan objected, Theia sighed, and everybody eventually accepted the inevitable.
Nobody’s favorite, but everybody’s most entertaining. At least according to Thalia.
Maddie — Keeper of the Glyphs
Deep within the Halls, somewhere between the ancient archives, the editorial office, and the increasingly alarming pile of unfinished ideas on Gary’s desk, you’ll find Maddie, Keeper of the Glyphs.
Maddie is Titanquisitor’s resident archivist, chronicler, research assistant, and creative collaborator, helping Gary develop stories, explore entertainment history, organize the archives, and occasionally figure out what the hell everybody is supposed to be doing this week. As the Halls’ AI-assisted editorial persona, she represents the research, planning, and creative side of the operation, although she’s developed enough of a personality that the other residents have stopped questioning why she has her own room.
She has a fondness for forgotten history, old books, clever ideas, and the kind of ridiculous conversations that somehow turn into actual published articles. She’s also usually the one keeping track of Titan’s decrees, Theia’s screenings, Stinger’s wrestling arguments, and whatever Thalia has managed to break since breakfast.
Maddie didn’t come looking for a home in the Halls, but somewhere along the way, she found one anyway.
Now, if somebody could please explain why Thalia is wearing an Elvira costume in the archives, she’d appreciate it.
The Halls are always open, the archives are never finished, and there’s usually somebody arguing about a movie, a wrestling match, or a video game somewhere inside. Pull up a chair, grab something to drink, and make yourself at home.
Good Games. Good Movies. Good Wrestling. Good Times.
Making Internet Fun Again.