The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Ok, I got a few more codes and posted them over at the radio show site.

Enjoy!

• My Velocity Micro PC died yesterday. I shut it off last night and went to turn it on. No juice at all. It is under warranty but why would I want to replace a crappy power supply with another one. I bought a new 750W Corsair power supply, everything is working and it is much quieter. Very cool!
• I used the preorder code to finally unlock the classic stadiums in MLB the Show. After watching some Orioles games this year, I’m scared that last year was a good year. Very scared.

- So, I started to try out the newest DLC for Borderlands tonight and was terribly disappointed.  Not in the quality of it, but the insane difficulty of it.  I died 3 times in the first 5 minutes of it.  Having a 50th level character and jumping into the addon that allows you to finally move on beyond level 50 should mean that you would have some decent enemies for a bit before you would get whomped on.  There is no need to stomp on you right from the get go.  Crazy.   Oh, and it locked up on me twice.  I certainly hope I’m not running into a situation like Dan did.

- Other than that… it was a very slow news day.  Some conference tournament upsets… but that’s about it.

- Badgers v. Illini: Part…um… Trois tomorrow at 1:30.  I’ll be at a company lunch during it though… so I’ll have to watch it on my phone.  Priorities and all.

- Then Badger hockey tomorrow night as they take on AK-AK for the start of the WCHA playoffs.

- I got a few Blur beta codes for the 360.  I’ll be posting them over at my radio show site tomorrow.   Grab them and comment on it if you take them.  Thanks!

- I would like to play some games tonight, I really would… but man am I tired.  Only 4 hours sleep for each of the last two nights.  I’m going to head to bed as soon as I’m done with the post here.

- The radio show is getting more and more comfortable every day.  I find the time for the show going by faster with each episode and find that I am becoming a good deal more comfortable talking about nothing in particular.  It’s riveting stuff.   Hope you’re all enjoying it.

- No idea what to think about the Playstation Move controller.  I love my PS3 (s) but I’m not entirely sure that I want to spend $100 on more controllers for it.  It all comes down to the software for it.  If there are some great games, I’ll pick them up eventually.  That’s just the way it works for me.

- Rock Band 3 was officially announced today and I heard a collective… meh.  I used to love playing Rock Band, but I’ve just lost my interest.  When I used to play the drums, and I use the term play loosely, it was all about playing the songs that you loved, but playing them in their own way.  What I’ve found after playing the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games for as long as I have is that… I don’t want to be led through a song… I want to play it myself.  I don’t see them going in that direction with the series, but I often am wrong.  Hopefully that will be the case here.

- On-Live is going to charge you $15 a month to pay for the right to rent games?   Heh. Good luck with that one.

- Ever wonder why you pay so much for Cable or Satellite?   Thanks ESPN and Fox!

It is Wednesday, right? I lose track of time.
I haven’t been doing much gaming this week, between work and school, it’s been tough to keep up.
I received my coffin for my borked PS3 on Monday via UPS 2Day, and Sony pays (well I paid $29 for shipping but it’s included) for 3 day select. That means they’ll have my borked PS3 on Friday.
So it looks like I’ll have my PS3 slim next week. At least I’m hoping.
So that means in this generation of consoles, the only one that hasn’t borked is the Wii. Go figure.
Last generation, my Xbox had to be replaced, but not my PS2…

- The Sports Gamer Blog Madden 10 league has ended the regular season and it couldn’t have finished with a better offensive game.  Neither team punted during the game as my Rams beat the 49ers, 35-28.  The last score came with :16 seconds on the clock, so it was right down to the wire.

No playoffs for either of us, but it was a great game to finish the season on.   3 league teams made the playoffs this year… here’s the list.

Joel’s Indianapolis Colts finish the season at 14-2 and have home field throughout the playoffs.

Craig’s Seattle Seahawks finished 13-3 (two losses to me… thank you very much) and earned the #1 seed in the NFC.

Last, and certainly least, Joe’s Arizona Cardinals finished 10-6 and grabbed the NFC #5 seed.

The league was a great deal of fun this year and I can’t wait to watch the playoffs and start the off season.

- It certainly didn’t take long for NHL2K11 to go from people thinking that the game was cancelled, to announcing the newest cover athlete.  This year it will be Ryan Kesler, he who scored the game tying goal in the gold medal game for the U.S.   Not a bad pick… but as a hockey fan, I would have been happier if they could have gotten Crosby.

- Wow.  St. Mary’s is putting a hurt on 14th ranked Gonzaga.  Didn’t see that coming.  Who doesn’t love March Madness?

So, Dan and I were talking and we thought… “Hey, why not do a show?”

Here it is… Episode 36 of the Riding the Pines Podcast.

What did we cover?

- MLB10 and MLB2K10

- Heavy Rain

- Our thoughts on the Oscars

Enjoy the show.  You can access it via the links on the side of the page.

Glen and I recorded our podcast last night, and it turned out pretty good if you can get past our collective yawning.

We have a spirited discussion about MLB 2K10 vs The Show 10, comment on Jonah Falcon being on the Daily Show, Heavy Rain and more.

Moving back to sports games, Amazon.com is offering Release Date Delivery on Backbreaker football when it releases in May. I’m in for one!

- Man, the minute I talk about NFL free agency being slow everything starts to happen.  Dansby to the Dolphins, Anquan Boldin gets traded to the Ravens, Nate Burleson goes to the Lions (um… ok,) and the Packers resign Chad Clifton… whew.   Oh, and don’t forget Dominic Rogers-Cromartie going to the Jets (which should give them one of the best CB tandems in the league.  I’m biased, but I still think that Al Harris and Charles Woodson are pretty damn good together.)

Plenty more still to happen though.

- Just put MLB 10 in the PS3 and found out that they’re already up to patch 1.06.  Nice to see quick patching, but a 343MB download before you can even start the install for the game.  To quote Gob Bluth, “Oh, Come on!”

- Still playing a ton of Heavy Rain.   I need to stop calling it a game, because it isn’t.  It’s an experience.  I can’t recall a time in the past where I watched a film or played a video game (there I go again) and became that involved in the characters I was dealing with.  Each of them feels like a real person with their own flaws and foibles.  Based on the number of chapters that I’ve played through, I think that I’m just a bit over halfway through it…. and I’ve already made a major (really major) mistake with one of the characters.  How it plays out will be amazing to see.

- Home with a sick kid today, so I haven’t had much time for anything… save for now when she’s taking her nap.

- Really starting to dig into Heavy Rain and the game is just stunning.  You really need to try this at some point.  It’s more an experience than a game though, so be warned about that.  It’s about as far from traditional gaming as you will see on a console.

- Hopefully my copy of MLB10 should be delivered today.  I’d like to delve into that over the weekend as well.

- Sony posted a video today about the inclusion of Nascar in Gran Turismo 5.  Not too much footage, but still… it’s something to be excited about since EA killed off the franchise a few years ago.

- Portal 2 has been announced as of today.  Woo!   For release later this year.

- No real major moves in NFL free agency yet… but the Lions make a minor splash with Kyle Vanden Bosch and the Bears picked up Chester Taylor.  Oh, and Gary Brackett re-signed with Indy.  Strange to see a re-signing on the first day of free agency, but strange things do happen from time to time.  (Edit: DAMN!   Bears sign Julius Peppers.  That’s a shock.)

- Lastly, EA launched the NCAA Football 11 site.  There is a blog there to check out that talks about some of the additions.  Refs on the field, multi-player tackling, and the return of formation substitutions.  The game is slated for a June launch, so plenty of time for more information to sneak out.

The good people over at Joystiq are giving everyone access to the Blur beta if you go ahead and do the registration dance after getting a key over at Joystiq’s site.  I had a bit of an issue creating an account, but all seems well now.

The beta launches next week, so maybe I’ll see you online.

So as many of you know I have a few Tivos, and I record the Daily Show. So tonight I put on Monday night’s daily show and my jaw dropped.

That’s because the Daily Show did an expose on Jonah Falcon. You have to see it to believe it…click here if you dare. Warning: this is TV-MA material.

- A patch has been released for MLB10 already.   I’m already having to prep my hard drive to clear enough space for the install.  Damn 60GB drive.  I really need to replace that drive soon.   Too many games with large installs right now.

- Nice to see the Badgers roll again tonight.   Iowa really looks terrible.  It’s amazing to see how far Iowa and Indiana have fallen.   Just crazy.

- I picked up Personal Trainer: Walking for the missus today at Target for $12.   She’s been looking for a pedometer for a while, so I figured it was worth it.  Plus, it’s a game that I get Nintendo rewards for.

- CNNSI has an interesting article about 3-D TV and sports and how much of an impact it will have.   I’ll keep saying it as often as people will listen… when everyone just went out and bought an HDTV… it’s going to be hard to convince them to buy a different TV just for the 3D aspect.   It may be amazing technology for sports… but for the cost… I just can’t see high adoption for quite some time.

- Anyone else following the Portal stuff with as much interest as I am?  I’m not going to play in their reindeer games and BBS work, but it’s great to see them using Steam to patch a game to tease (what I hope will be) the impending sequel announcement.

- Just a reminder that I’m still doing my daily show over at the new site.  Nearly done with the first week and still loving doing it.  The show is on iTunes, so it’s easy to find.  Also, it should be on the Zune marketplace for those of you with one of those type things.

2K Games announced today that NHL 2K11 will only be released for the Nintendo Wii. I’m okay with that, because I thought 2K10’s best version was the Wii. It was fun to attempt a shot!

Today Super Laser Racer is $2 on Steam, by the makers of New Star Soccer, it’s definitely worth picking up.

In other news, I started playing around with MLB 10 the show. The game starts with a required HDD install. Boo! The load times still are there (boo!), but the game is still great. They’ve really added on the features – the top ticker shows things like game time temp, the L3 swing analysis is great and the gameplay is still top notch.

There’s already a roster update available (nice!), and there was one thing I did notice, I play as the Orioles, and rosters are right there (Tejada is playing at 3B for example). But the 1B Base coach has a #8 jersey…of course #8 is / was Cal Ripken…and what’s even more amazing is that #8 bears a striking resemblance to Cal as well.

I was supposed to be getting MLB2K10 direct from 2K but nothing has arrived yet. I can keep playing the Show – I’ll live!