The Blog for the Sports Gamer

- Looks like I might have a late night at work tonight.  Server upgrade ahoy!

- So, EA was sneaky and didn’t list a new version of NCAA Basketball to be released this year.  It would certainly appear as though there won’t be a college basketball title for the first time since 1996, from what I’ve found.  That would make me a sad panda.  Oh, well.  I’ll stick with College Hoops 2K8 and their roster updates.

- I’ve been surprised to see that Bioshock 2 has been getting a lot of high praise in the early reviews.  You don’t expect good things when you change development studios for a sequel, so it was a minor shock to me to see all of the good comments coming out.

It’s a minor concern for me though as I got pretty bored with the first edition of the game and haven’t felt much of an urge to load it up to play it again.   I can’t really say that I’m jonesing to try out the new edition either.  Why do I mention any of this?  Got me, I’m just writing what’s coming to my mind.

- More tomorrow.

- Quite the game.  I had my doubts in the first quarter when Indy went up 10-0, but the Saints made one of the ballsiest calls that I can recall in recent memory by calling the onside kick to begin the 2nd half.

I’m happy to see that the Saints won, but I’m just as happy that it was yet another good game.  Not down to the wire like the last 2, but still… very good.

- In case you were wondering, hockey was fun tonight.  Not as big of a turnout as we usually get, but we still got an hour and a half of ice time, which is nice.

- Best commercial I saw tonight was the Google ad.  Simple, effective, and sappy enough to make it a winner.

Most of the others didn’t generate much more than groans or “meh’s.”

The other one that jumps to mind that was decent was the Boost Mobile ad featuring the 1985 Bears.  Hadn’t though of the Super Bowl Shuffle in a while, so that was worth a chuckle.

As far as what was supposed to be the most controversial ad, the Tebow ad left me wondering why Focus on the Family would have spent $2.whatever million just to post your URL.   Of course, they got so much publicity in regards to the ad, it sure seems like they got their money’s worth.  Guess that’s why I don’t work in advertising.

- Hope you all enjoyed the game.  More tomorrow.

- Finished up Mass Effect 2 earlier today.  Lost one crew member in the last sequence, but oh, well.   I might try to save them all on another play through, but I have more than a few games that I need to play before I try and take that one on again.

- As far as the Super Bowl goes, I’ll be spending it as I have spent all of the last 4 Super Bowls… playing hockey.  We usually finish up right near the end of the game… so we almost always catch the finish, which over the last two years… has worked out well for us.

My pick for the game?  The Saints.   I can’t put my finger on why I think they’ll win…and maybe it’s just because I hope they do… but I think they’ll win the game by 3 or more.

- More after the game…

- Quite a game at the Camp Randall hockey classic.  I won’t bore you with all of the details, but when you have a game won in the final 2 minutes by the home team, you know thtere are going to be a lot of happy fans.  55,000+ in attendance all had a great time.  The ice seemed to be causing some issues, but only for the Michigan goaltender, and there were numerous delays as he kept asking them to fix the ice in the crease over and over again.

The weather was just about perfect for outdoor hockey, with temperatures in the mid-20’s at the start of the game, and dipping just below 20 by the end.   There was no real wind to speak of either, so conditions were pretty much ideal for the game.

I really wanted to get a video recording of Jump Around in the 3rd period… but I have a feeling it’ll be up on You Tube within the next few days.  There would have to be a few people in that crowd that wanted to record something like that happening.

Add that into my experience while getting to skate on the ice on the previous night and you have a sensational weekend of hockey at a very special event.   I can only hope that they will try to do something like this again, but next time against Minnesota.  That would fill any stadium Camp Randall without any problems.

- Just a few days after a huge victory over Michigan State, the Badgers beat up on Michigan in Ann Arbor today, 62-44.  They shot 61% from the field and 53% from 3-point land.  That’s just insane shooting.   I’ll go on record and say that if this team shoots that well, combined with their defensive ability, they could beat ANY team in the country.   Combine all of this with the fact that their 2nd leading scorer has been out for the last 8 games and you can see how people around here are getting very excited about what this team can do when everyone is back and healthy again.   Combine that with Michigan State losing to Illinois tonight and you have a very tight Big Ten race to look forward to.

- Speaking of the Illinois win… can we stop being so upset at fans rushing the court.  The second it began Vitale started talking about someone getting hurt (especially the referees.)  When has that ever happened?  We’ve become so concerned about the fact that someone could possibly get hurt that we want to take all of the emotion out of the sport.

Ok, they were right that Illinois is not that far from being a very good team that wouldn’t need to have their fans celebrate a signature win for the season… but for the love of Jebus… let them have their moment.  It’s not like they were throwing punches at the opposing team players… they were just celebrating with their team.  Ugh.  I’m just so tired of the coverage of this lately.

- Ok.  Time to spend some time with Mass Effect 2.

- I’ll talk about the Superbowl tomorrow.

Watch this OMG video

- Skating at Camp Randall was an awesome experience.  I’ll see what I can do to post some pictures in the next day or so, but it was great to be out there with the family.

Oh, yeah… and I got on the local news as well.  (I make a brief appearance in the 10pm video clip.) That’s my second time on NBC 15 in the last 2 years.  Apparently my face screams, useless filler quote.

- I just got done playing the Heavy Rain demo on the PS3.   I’ll let it be known that I was a big fan of Fahrenheit on the Xbox and have been looking forward to this game for a while, but I had tried to keep myself from reading much about it to avoid any story spoilers or anything like that.  Thankfully the demo doesn’t really give too much away.  Within a few minutes you get used to the control scheme, which has you holding down the R2 button to walk, without it… you turn your head to examine your surroundings.  It’s an interesting change, but as I said… you get used to it quickly.

If you want to take a look at the demo for yourself, head over to these two sites.

This one to register.

http://heavyrainps3.com/registration/signup/en_US

This one to complete a short puzzle to get the demo.

This Kotaku link has the images that you need to click to solve the ‘puzzle’ and get an access code to the demo.

- Time to head to bed.  Big day of hockey ahead tomorrow.  I might post from the game and try to upload a picture from the stands.

- Ok.  Through the loyalty missions for all of my characters (that I have… still one remaining to find) in Mass Effect 2.  Going through all of those sequences in a row really makes the game a bit of a grind.  I’m finding that I’m more anxious to just get back to the story and get the game moving again rather than dealing with the issues that every member of my crew has.  I do think that I’ve made one bad decision with Jack though… as she does not have a ‘red’ loyalty ring on the character selection screen.

One thing that I have found is that most of these characters are the most needy people I’ve ever encountered.  It seems like almost all of them need to be told, “Hey there soldier… You’re really great, you know that?”

Apparently Shepard’s second job is that of a therapist.  How bad of a counselor is that Kelly woman considering I have to do all of the work for her?  Good grief.

- My family is really excited about the opportunity to go to skating tonight on the Camp Randall ice rink.  My wife went out and bought new hockey skates last Saturday, got them baked on Tuesday and is anxious to get out there on them.  My oldest daughter was telling everyone at her day care today about how she gets to skate at Camp Randall tonight.  As a hockey fan, I’m pretty jazzed about the whole thing.  Oh, yeah… and I get to have my picture taken with the Stanley Cup.   I won’t touch it though…

- I have a few of the things set up for the new project that I’m going to be undertaking.  It’s exciting to work on all of the aspects of something new, it’s not something that will take me away from here… just something that I’ve always wanted to do and now I’m going to give it a shot.  Should be a ton of fun.  It should be starting in the next week or so.  Just some technical things to work out.

- Because it’s entertaining… a soccer commentator fainting on camera.  Seeing the eyes roll back in the head is creepy… but still funny… because it’s not me.

- I’ll try to post some pictures from Camp Randall later tonight… because… well, I think it’s going to be awesome.  Hopefully they turn out.  Plus, pictures of the kids on the ice are always great.

Amazon’s Trade in program has a deal of the day – kind of like a reverse deal of the day – where they bump up the price for a trade in. Yesterday they had PES 2010 for the PS3 for a whopping $33. I took advantage of that one.

Today it’s Punch Out for the Wii for $25. Not a bad deal if you’re done with it, and better than the $17 or so you’d get at GameStop. Free shipping too…and you get an Amazon gift card which is much better than a Gamestop one…

The second surprise from this game was the fact that the Badgers won by that much… and only attempted 4 free throws.  This team is just so much different than most of the Bo Ryan teams of the last 6 or 7 years in the fact that they love to shoot the three and don’t post up as much.  Maybe they’re being defended out of those opportunities down low… but it sure seems like this team likes to prefer the outside shot to the inside one.  Hell, they took 26 3-point shots tonight… and only made 9.   Crazy to win by as much as they did when they shot like that from outside.

- Ran into an odd issue with Mass Effect 2 tonight.  My internet connection was down, so I figured I would get in some time on the game.  Um… no.  The game refused to start due to the fact that I wasn’t connected to the internet.  I have to wonder if that’s an odd issue due to an active Xbox Live account being used to play a game.  I hadn’t heard anything about games not working for people who don’t play them online… but still it was frustrating as I had to wait until my connection was back up to play.

- I’ll have some information tomorrow about some new things that I’m going to be doing, but I want to have them in a post of their own.  Hope you’ll enjoy what’s in the works.

- Glad to see Dan keeping up on my interest in the Pro Yakyuu Spirits series.  Also, it was pleasant to see that it is being released in April.  For those of you interested, Konami has updated their page for the game.  Nothing other than screenshots, but from what I’ve read, the major additions are the “Grand Prix” mode (a card type game that seems to be all the rage lately… for some reason,) and the fact that they are releasing a PSP version of the game.

I’m very tempted by the PSP version… but who am I kidding… I’ll probably pick up both.  I’m such a sucker for this game.

- My daughter is still pretty sick and hasn’t been able to keep any food down and is running a 100 degree temperature.  It was a rough day, but she’s been a trooper and hasn’t complained much at all.  She wakes up… tells us that she is going to be sick and then goes to the bathroom with us to take care of it.   She’ll have a lot of friends in college if that trend continues.

- Big game for the Badgers against Michigan State in Madison tonight.  These teams always seem to match up well and Wisconsin doesn’t lose often in the Kohl Center (131-10 under Bo Ryan,) should be a fun one.

- I’ve been tearing through Mass Effect 2 over the last week and, at the rate I’m going, should have my first run through completed by the end of the week.

My experience with all of the gameplay refinements have all been positive ones.  From the removal of the elevators, to the elimination of the pointless driving segments of the first game, to adding the ability for you to be able to complete all hacks with a certain proficiency, the changes they have made all seem to be positive ones.

The one thing that I wish they hadn’t changed so much was the planetary scanning for resources.  It’s just so damn time consuming now.  I guess I can’t say that it annoys me a ton though, as I found myself scanning my third planet tonight to get enough platinum for an upgrade.  Such is the life of a gamer, I suppose.

National Console Support (or NCSX), the official importer of the Sports Gamer Blog, is now accepting preorders for Pro Yakuu Spirits 2010 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PSP.

It is pricey ($81 US) but you know the currency issues, the economy and yadda….I’m sure Glen will buy it so we may want to wait until we know how it is…

1. I don’t care about the Super Bowl, but I hope the Saints win. F-the Colts.

2. My TiVo records everything that has the keyword “Orioles” in it, so it recorded a 2 am showing of the 1982 Season. This was Earl Weaver’s retirement year – until he unretired, but I digress. Glen probably remembers this one well too since the Brewers were up by 3 games with 4 to play. I still remember the Orioles winning 3 games and then blowing that last game – thanks underwear guy (Palmer) – but what I didn’t remember was that the game was on ABC live and covered by Keith Jackson and Howard Cosell. What I don’t remember is that after the Brewers won, the entire Memorial Stadium stayed to congratulate Earl Weaver for one last curtain call. 51,000 people were at that game.

Of special note on that last day is that one of the umpires was Rich “I can’t see fan interference if the stupid Yankees fan literally takes the ball out of Tony Tarasco’s glove” Garcia. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

3. I haven’t had a whole lot of time for gaming with the exception of playing with the kids. My daughter is enjoying Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter games for the DS, while my son plays it for the Wii along with NHL 10. It’s tough to enjoy a sports game when your team has lost the last 23 or so games (Bruins), so I guess I’ll just count down the days until MLB The Show arrives. After all, I am sure this will be the Orioles year.

- Oh, the joys of parenting.  I got home from hockey last night to hear that my youngest had thrown up in her room.  ”No problem,” I thought.  ”I’ll stay up for a bit and see how she does.  Well, she proceeded to throw up 8 more times throughout the night, and as a result, neither of us got more  than 30 to 45 minutes of sleep at any period of time.

No idea what set this off, but she can’t eat or drink anything without it causing her to get sick.

Too much fun.

Ok. Going to try and get some sleep.

- Look at me making three posts….

Steam’s weekend deals this time around are pretty damn good…

The Complete Freedom Force and  X-Com collections for $2 each.

I have the physical copy of Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich down in my basement… but to have it and the original on Steam for $2 is a pretty great deal.

X-Com, was just all sorts of awesome back in the day.  Hell, I even had the Playstation version that required the PS Mouse (which I still have somewhere.)  Another great deal for 2 bones.

- Just got the following chat message from my wife….

Haag’s 1… Mice 0

One mouse dead.  Hopefully not many more to go.  Little bastards have been terrorizing our pantry for the last few weeks.

We tried to go the humane route and live catch them and release them, but that didn’t seem to be working very well as they ate through the boxes of about $60 worth of food in the last month.

We will never give up… we will never surrender…. the vermin must not win!