The Blog for the Sports Gamer

This is long. Long, long, long. The movie has been in my head chewing up my brain’s clock cycles since I saw it on Friday and if I don’t write about it I may well have an embolism. So, at the risk of passing an embolism on to our readership, here we go…

This movie should’ve been titled: Star Wars: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the (What in the Name of God’s Green Earth Were You Thinking When You Wrote/Shot That) Worst of Times. I’ve never wanted to both kiss and strangle Lucas at the same time quite as much as I did when walking out of the theater on Friday. The man is at the same time both brilliant and unforgivably inept. He’s a wonderful story guy. A visionary. And the limits of his imagination appear to know few bounds. But there’s a difference between coming up with a good story and actually writing it. And George Lucas couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag. His ability to craft dialog and direct actors is surprisingly amateurish for a guy with his resume.

The thing is, I don’t fault him for being a lousy writer. Writing good dialogue is as much a gift as it is a learned skill. What I fault him for is being too stubborn to know his own limitations and get help where it is so clearly needed. He should not be writing the scripts for these movies (at least not the final versions) and he absolutely should not be in the director’s chair (as evidenced by any scene in which Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman share a camera). And he -of all people- should know it. I can only assume its pride that puts such blinders on the man, but god help him, he can’t be saved from himself.

And with that, we introduce as exhibit A: Revenge of the Sith. It’s at once both breathtaking and nauseating. And it swings so wildly back and forth in both directions it would take pages and pages of comments just to outline every example of each. So that’s what I’ve done. Lucky you.

***There are SPOILERS here. If you read on, don’t complain to me.***

The good:
- Any scene between Anakin and Palpatine. I don’t know if Palpatine, as played by Ian McDiarmid, just got the best dialog to use or if his acting chops just made it work, but this film fails miserably if he doesn’t pull off his part. And I think he absolutely brings out the best in Hayden Christensen’s portrayal of Anakin. Christensen is never better than when he’s playing off McDiarmid.

- Mace Windu’s duel with Palpatine and Anakin’s intervention. I have no trouble whatsoever with that scene or how quickly Anakin turns after choosing a side. He was forced to pick a side and given the circumstances, I have no trouble believing his choice. At that point I think he knows he has tied his fate to Palpatine and to so quickly take a knee and follow any order -no matter how heinous- is believable.

- The mask being put on Vader and the first few breaths. Simply the best Star Wars moment ever. And it’s ruined shortly thereafter (as noted in the Bad section.)

- Anakin vs. Dooku. It starts awkward, but once Anakin goes one-on-one with Dooku the scene smoothes out and plays out as a terrific parallel to Luke’s final duel with Vader in RotJ.

- Obi-wan’s “good bye” to Anakin. Ewan McGregor got very little to work with in the first half of the movie, but he works well with what he was given and he really shines once Anakin falls. The final scene between him and Anakin is just a perfect character moment. Should he have left Anakin “alive”? No, but I have no trouble believing that he would do just that. Anakin should have had no hope of surviving anyway.

- Anakin’s hate of Obi-wan at the end. When Anakin looks up and screams of his hatred for Obi-wan you see how consumed by his fear and anger he has become. He is Darth Vader in that moment and the material that gets him to this point makes it work. It is tragic in the most wonderful kind of way. (Okay, he was burned up by lava and should not have been in the dialog-speaking world, but I can get past that.)

- Everything Anakin after the scenes at the Jedi Temple (wow). This has to be why Hayden Christensen got cast as Anakin. In Clones he was just a petulant whiny bitch. Though I always thought it was poor scripting and direction, I still hated him in Attack of the Clones. Hated him. But here… He plays anger and hate note perfect. Long before he gets the mask, he becomes Darth Vader, something I would not have believed possible going in.

- Yoda vs. Palpatine (except for the unexplained retreat). A great battle that gets a little sidetracked in the senate chamber and ends far too abruptly. I’ve since read the scene was cut back and it clearly shows (and hurts).

- Obi-Wan goes to Tatooine. The last scene where Obi-wan hands over Luke to Owen and Baru and heads out into the desert is absolutley perfect. Thanks to the Vader scream, it becomes the best moment in the movie. There’s also no dialogue. Just the John Williams musical score. Go figure.

The Fair (but should’ve been much better):

- General Grievous; the dude is hard-core in Clone Wars (where the coughing thing is explained; god Lucas needs a script editor), but is turned into an action figure vehicle in this movie. Sometimes he works, but for the most part he’s completely wasted. And why does Lucas not explain he was injured in the Clone Wars and that’s why he’s hacking and coughing. How hard is adding a line in the opening text-crawl?

- The Jedi being fortune cookie spouting pricks. God help me, but at times even I was routing against these guys. In some ways, it’s a key point that makes the movie work, but I simply cannot accept the notion that the Jedi are such compassionless stooges. But at least they’re consistent. They’ve been pricks throughout the new trilogy and it’s a huge weakness. Case in point: Anakin has visions of Padme dying and goes to Yoda. Granted he doesn’t tell Yoda its Padme, just someone close to him, but all-wise Yoda basically just says tough break, deal with it. Anakin goes to Palpatine and the guy not only listens to him, but offers hope. Yeah, he plays bait and switch, but compared to the Jedi he’s a f-ing Santa Clause. Why wouldn’t Anakin side with him? I swear, if any of the Jedi showed the slightest bit of compassion or concern for Anakin’s well-being, Anakin would never have turned. Story-wise is a tough issue for me. It’s unbelievable the Jedi would be so callous, but if they weren’t, it would be impossible to buy into Anakin’s fall. Very catch-22, which is why this beef is in the “Fair” section.

- Obi-wan vs. Dooku: I’m sorry, but Dooku owns Obi-wan far too easily (and it’s the second time it happened in the last two flicks). Obi’s not some punk. Would’ve been better if he’d been given something else to do within the framework of the story while Anakin confronted Dooku alone.

- Obi-wan vs. Grievous: This should’ve been kick-ass. It kind of was for a short while when they were actually dueling. But you couldn’t see the action well and it soon degenerated into a chase scene that you know is there to cross-sell the video game. Ugh.

- The lava planet Mustafar. I swear, this whole planet exists to cross-sell the video game. I mean, what was with the platform jumping in the final duel? Visually, it was tres cool, and it’s a nice backdrop to the heated rage in Vader. But at the same time, a planet of Volcanoes? Am I the only one who thinks such a world would be too hot (never mind where the oxygen comes from) for even a couple of Jedi to just be running around dueling?

- The opening space battle. Starts out way, way cool, but got too hung up on the Anakin/Obi-wan interplay and those stoopid “chopper” droids or whatever they were called. If they’d kept it a little larger scope, like the second Death Star battle in RotJ, it would’ve been a killer opening.

- The end of the Yoda/Palpatine duel. They’re fighting. It’s cool. And then Yoda falls off a platform, gets up (with no hint of injury), grunts, and the next we see of him he’s crawling through an exhaust port. The idea of Yoda, defeated, running in such a manner is great. But he’s holding his own and then he just buggers off. Completely ruins the moment. I’ve read they cut a scene where Palpatine brings in clone troops against Yoda. Certainly, that would’ve helped explain his retreat better. But Lucas didn’t even need that. The guy just fell like sixty feet. It would’ve been totally believable for him to have been injured and forced to retreat. I mean how hard is it?

The Unforgivably Bad:

- Any scene between Anakin and Padme. Just like in Attack of the Clones, Lucas cannot write or direct a romantic scene. He can’t do it. He sucks at it. He’s so bad at it there is just no way he shouldn’t realize it and get help. His handling of the Anaking/Padme romance makes me nostalgic for the love story in Titanic. Yes, the actors are wooden as hell, but both have proven in other roles they have acting chops. It’s Lucas, pure and simple. The guy is his own worst enemy.

- Turning Padme into a weak-willed, wait at home for your man and cry about it wimp. I’ll get to her end in the next bullet, but Padme -who wasn’t exactly the best-implemented character to begin with- is completely ruined in this film. At least in the others she had some gusto, badly written as it was. In this one she’s just the jilted, crying chick waiting for her man. She was a f-ing Queen two movies ago. Now she’s June f-ing Cleaver after Ward slaps her in the face for burning the brownies. What the hell?

- Killing Padme. I’m a-okay, with letting Anakin think she died, but to actually kill her? I’m not a continuity whore, but it creates a continuity SNAFU that Lucas could easily have avoided. Have her go to Alderran and raise Leaia (sp?) under a new identity. It would’ve preserved the accuracy and meaning in Leaia’s line in RotJ when she tells Luke what she can remember of “her real mother.” I mean, the only way you can justify that line now is to say she didn’t know she was adopted, but even then casting kills you. In no galaxy is Jimmy Smits Carrie Fisher’s dad. All Lucas had to do was have her fake her death and go to Alderran. That’s it. She was a strong enough character to recognize the wisdom in splitting up the twins. It would’ve been far better than having a droid say, “There’s nothing wrong her medically. She just died of a broken heart.” What the *fuck* is that about? She just gave birth to two healthy children and tells Obi-wan that there is still good in Anakin. Does this sound like a woman so defeated that she’s just going to die because she lacks the will to live? ARGH!

- The Jedi Genocide. Here’s the thing. I loved the animated Clone Wars stuff. There are shortcomings, but you have to take it for what it is and given the limitations of the format (a series of shorts) both seasons were awesome (season 2 in particular). Between that and the fact that it leads directly into Revenge of the Sith, I treat it as canon. All well and good, but the Jedi in Clone Wars and the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith clearly have never met. In Clone Wars a single Jedi lays waste to armies of droids. They’re bad ass in all the ways I was hoping to see from the movies. In Sith there’s Yoda, Anakin, Mace Windu and Obi-Wan. The rest are pathetic. They’re the storm trooper equivalent of Jedi. I can stand a couple of them getting gunned down in the back w/o warning, but for the most part it’s shot like they forgot how to use a lightsaber. It’s pathetic. And every time one of them eats it, we see Yoda clutching his chest. That begs the question, is Yoda the only Jedi in the galaxy that can feel something is up? And if so, he sure as hell wasted his time training these dopes. In the Clone Wars they’re all kick-ass. In Sith they’re all punks with light-up swords and it hurts an otherwise gripping moment in the film as they’re eradicated.

- Vader screaming “Noooooo” like a B-rate Austin Powers villain. The best moment of the movie, Vader getting his mask is completely ruined here. He gets the mask, takes his first breaths, is stood on his feet and told that Padme has died. He gargles a bit and force crushes half the stuff in the room in his rage. That’s fine. Then he takes a step and stumbles. Hokey, but hey, he’s got two new legs. I’ll buy into it. But then he raises his fists and shouts “No” for like ten seconds. This crap was hokey on the GI Joe cartoons in the 80s. It’s the kind of thing that should get you thrown out of the screenwriter’s guild when done in this kind of movie.

- Any dialogue involving a droid. In fact the droids drag down this entire trilogy. Even R2D2. How the f-ck do you f-ck up R2D2? I mean his little bleeps and bloops aren’t even the same as the original trilogy. WHY? And what’s with giving him all these new abilities? It’s just stupid. Thank god he can’t speak. God, if there’s a line of dialog in the movie delivered by a droid, you can bet it’s bad.

Conclusions:

As Tony Kornheiser is fond of saying, that’s it, that’s the list. The thing is, this is a great movie. Or at least there’s a great movie in there. It’s just dragged down by the kind of garbage I’ve listed above. I came out of the theater for the first time really hating Lucas. And it’s precisely because he comes so close to the precipice of greatness so many times in this movie, only to turn around and jump back in the narrative kiddie-pool with shocking regularity.

I’ve gotta see the movie again before I can make a final opinion, but obviously this is way, way better than Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. Based on my first impression it’s also still far behind A New Hope and Empire. There is a lot of material that is better than anything in those movies, but those movies don’t have anywhere near the pitfalls of Sith.

Right now, I do think Sith is better than Return of the Jedi by a nose. It’s close, and I may change my mind after repeat viewings, but Sith is just so intense. As a whole these films are very similar in that they have a lot of great stuff, but are horribly fumbled far too frequently. In Jedi it’s the Jabba scenes and the Ewoks that almost derail the entire flick. In Sith it’s the droids and anything to do with the love story. But as good as the Vader vs. Luke and Death Star battle are in Jedi, only Vader’s final end and funeral pyre in that movie really grab me emotionally every time I see it. Sith is rife with moments where I was genuinely choked up over the tragedy that is Anakin’s fall and the last scene on Tatooine… I just ate that up.

In any case, Lucas does manage to deliver a quality flick here that’s a far more fitting end to the Star Wars movie franchise (presumably) than I expected after the waste of film that was the last two movies. For all the schlock, though, Revenge of the Sith has made enduring it all worthwhile for me. And for that, I am happy… and mad. But mostly happy.

I receive many magazines online, like EGM. I just started reading them. You know what I love? Self-serving magazines that say they know what they are talking about compared to the ‘internet’ but yet fuck it up anyway. Xbox 360? Backward compatible? Nope says EGM, Not true.

They also say that MLB is awful on PSP compared to MVP. Obviously this is coming from someone who is an idiot. I mean, it’s not even close. If you want a good baseball game on the PSP, MLB is it, period.

I’ll be the first to admit 1)I hear rumors and they aren’t confirmed and 2)I am speculating, but when EGM says believe us, because we know what we’re talking about, and yet they are full of shit, you wonder why print subscriptions are down. Of course they are catering to that 12-15 demographic….

Well I got the lawn done before the lovely rain started again. But it’s just in time to watch the O’s - Tigers and the Indy 500.

Now I see why ABC sucks. How can you possibly not have the Indy 500 in High Definition? Are they that bleeping stupid? Apparently so.

Well, lots of sporting events today but the sun is out so I gotta go take care of the yard. Couple of things:

1. The O’s are putting people left and right on the DL. Larry Bigbie, Javy Lopez, Erik Bedard…this isn’t good at all. At least the Sox and Yankees are beating each other up.

2. DirecTV announced their Sunday Ticket pricing. $319 dollars for the full package, including most games on HD. You can buy their ‘basic’ package for $219. You know, MLB Extra Innings is $149 and I get 6 months of games, give or take, although none in HD (except those on InHD1/2). Good thing it’s only on DirecTV….the NFL charges a premium to News Corp…the funny thing is can you imagine the subscriptions if it was available on cable? Kinda like how Madden will be $60 this year but the only NFL game around (again, rampant speculation here, nothing official). E3 did nothing to excite me about EA’s football games. I haven’t seen them, but like you I’m relying on Billy Boy and the gang, and boy, talk about underwhelming. Not that I’m surprised.

Whoops, I just noticed I changed the subject. Speaking of football, GamePro’s newest issue (July 2005) has a bunch of football previews, all done by a guy named “Brother Buzz” (I hate their pseudonymns. HATE!). What I like about GamePro is that they are platform agnostic — that is I have one source to read game reviews for multiple platforms all in one magazine. What I despise is that they take fact sheet writing to the next level. “Madden NFL 06 is going on the offensive this season” and “..EA Tiburon aren’t kicking back on the sidelines”…are just two of the quotes that make me vomit.

If you didn’t know, previews are wholly designed to get you excited about the game (check out my previews of Road To Sunday and NBA 06 at GameShark for an example). Most previews offer VERY limited, if any, hands on. Usually you are given a fact sheet and have to dress it up. I will admit, I am more skeptical than most when I write my previews — however I am not going to massage the balls while I write them — specifically, I will call bull shit if i see it. If I hear about a new feature, sure I’ll say it sounds promising, but I will also say I have to see it to believe it. I will not just suck up to the fact sheet and say it’s wicked awesome…sure it has the potential to be, but that doesn’t mean it is. Ugh.

Anyway, I don’t know who Brother Buzz is, but he has his own blog, which is right here if you care. He’s seen the game now (no way he saw it when the magazine came out, hence the “first look” designation rather than “hands on”), and may have more to offer, but I’m too lazy to look.

Time to hook up the iPod shuffle and mow the lawn.

Just a quick note that GSpy posted my Dungeon Lords review yesterday. Hoo boy….

Starting in late August, Microsoft and Mountain Dew will be giving away an Xbox 360. That’s 144 Xbox 360s a day. Click here to get a reminder to play starting in August.

Well, tonight I watched the Orioles game and even though we lost, it was quite the entertaining game. I’m very happy for Detroit fans, that team doesn’t look horrid as the O’s did in years past. What I’m not happy about is the Yankees. They need to lose some more. Ponson wasn’t on fire, the O’s added another person to the DL. Damn. But, they have attempted a comeback in every game and even if they are losing 8-2, I don’t turn the TV off.

I was catching up with some season finales off of TV this week: 24, Whoa!, Deadwood - meh…Alias..HOLY SHIT. Seeing that last scene in High Def made me jump about 10 feet out of my chair. I thought that happened to me (not trying to ruin the spoilers for those who haven’t seen it, Craig). Still waiting on Lost. American Idol, well we knew that was going to suck.

So I’ve been playing some Unreal Championship 2. Not overwhelmed. I have Forza still here and Area 51 and Gol…no I mean Hot Shots…I don’t know why I said Golden Tee. Anyone still play that game on the PC? It’s pretty fun you know, even though the graphics are meh….

Should be a fun weekend. For the first time in 9 days, I saw the sun today. It might even be warm tomorrow!

So I’m now officially going full throttle now on the 2006 Gamer’s Almanac. It’s going to be the death of me, I tell ya. It’s a lot of work. Thankfully, I am writing about games and not Quantum Physics. I’m almost done with my first “month” of topics, so it’s going well thus far. Most of my blogs for a next few months will most likely be book related (I consider it therapy) unless Todd tells me I can’t talk about specifics.

For example, I’ve penned write-ups on the History of Warhammer Games, a page on Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the Xbox 360, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, a Company Graveyard profile of Troika Games, Soul Calibur 3, among several others.

It’s actually fun just deciding what to write about, and then finding Daily Infobits relating to that topic. I’m learning quite a bit, which I guess should be considered a good thing. The idea, as its shaping up, is to really discuss the vast majority of the really good games from late 2004 and into 2005 plus the highly anticipated games of 2006 along with some potential sleepers while throwing in some general gaming essays as well. (The Warhammer thing, an essay of the legacy of Star Wars games, the Sports License fiasco, etc.) Whether or not people want to read such a book, well we’ll find out. Honestly, I’m just wanting to write a book that I like, ya know? I want to be happy with its content.

Of course, I’d like a lot of sales, too. Big sales! Bling baby Bling!

Not a lot of new info, but the game’s new GUI looks really nice. I was particularly impressed with the new stats it tracks. I liked what I saw, even though I still didn’t get a chance to see it in action. I have to make sure the dev/publisher info is fixed..damn GSpy database

GSpy Preview

Well, no one ever accused me of being psychic. Congrats to the new American Idol. That Bo/Carrie duet was pretty good, but I was really hoping they’d sing Donny and Marie. Oh well. It just proves that I’m way outside middle America, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

And my god, who writes that drivel that is going to be the new single which you can’t escape. “I wanna be inside your heaven” ? Ugh.

Well day 23,234 of rain is still here. Apparently God has had it with the whole ‘gay marriage is legal thing’ and has sentenced this part of the world to non stop rain, wind and days where the high is 40 degrees, if we are lucky. Yes, I’m making a joke there. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The O’s won, giving them a 4 game lead over Boston. Here’s a fun fact: “Palmeiro’s homer was his 210th with Baltimore, moving him past Brady Anderson into sole possession of fifth place on the team’s career list” (Source: ESPN). How odd is that?

Alright, I’m off to bed, been a long day…

Lots of work to do so my blogging will be limited for a bit. Oh, I did finally see SW: Ep3. I think the review at the San Fran Chronicle nailed it, “There’s no excuse. Watching “Revenge of the Sith,” it’s hard not to wonder if Lucas even knows how good a movie he almost made.”

With E3 come and gone, I expect there won’t be much to say about sports gaming until NCAA 2006 hits the streets (a full month or so sooner that it should). So expect most of my blog posts from here to wax poetic on whatever’s happening in my life at any given time. (This is where you get to groan.) Last night that something was the NCIS finale. Good god. What a way to close out the season.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (or whatever NCIS stands for) is a CSI-style crime scene drama, only with naval investigators. While it may sound pretty lame in concept, given all the CSI spin-offs and knockoffs, it really rises above its competition with a nice bland of heady detective work, great characterizations, and good moments of suspense/action. The show continually proves to be far better than any of its genre competition and it’s clear that the folks who wrote last night’s season finale their had mojo working.

Disclaimer: Spoilers are soon to follow so if you watch the show but haven’t seen the finale, stop reading or forever hold your peace when I spoil the ending.

All week CBS has been promoting the fact that someone on the NCIS team dies. Networks promise this junk all the time and it’s usually some two-bit character that nobody cares all that much about anyway. I mean really, does anyone care that Boon bought it on Lost a couple weeks ago? And even when it is a main character, the death is usually handled very badly. (I’ll never forgive Rick Berman for offing James Kirk by having him fall off a busted up bridge. I know that’s a movie example, but still. If you kill the guy, you do it while he’s in the captain’s chair of a starship. Period.)

So as the 8:00 hour approached last night I was actually starting to fret about this “one of the team will not survive” junk. I couldn’t figure out why that bothered me so much until I realized it was because of one of the many unique aspects to this show: There are no wasted characters on NCIS. I can’t remember all their names, but the characters of Gibbs, Tony, Kate, Ducky, Goth-chick and Probie are all consistently written note-perfect. They play off each other perfectly and honestly, I think the show would miss a step if it lost any single one of them. So I was not happy about the notion that one of them was going to take the dirt nap.

And so, with much trepidation, I hit the couch last night to watch. The first 57 minutes (or so) were the usual thrill ride of great character moments and close calls. Yeah, on some level it’s the writers jerking the viewers around as each takes their turn with a near-death experience, but these guys do such a good job at hiding it that it simply works. And then comes the end.

At the tail end of a shoot out in which the good guys have won the day (blah, blah, blah), a gunman (a remaining terrorist cell member) jumps out of a closed door and fires at Gibbs. Kate (whose character used to be assigned to the president’s secret service detail) leaps in front. Bummer, thought I. The Kate/Tony dynamic on this show is second only to the Gibbs vs. the cast dynamic. But, in the usual, boring and predictable TV style it turns out Kate had a vest on. In a lot ways I was relieved that the “character dies” promos were bogus. Like I said, I didn’t want any of these characters to bite it.

So Kate groans a bit as the others help her to her feet. NCIS’s trademark one-liners come out in full force. The audience who had sat baited breath are allowed to relax. I’m just about to say something to my wife about CBS jerking the viewers around, when in response to a jibe from Tony, Kate says something to the effect of, “I’d die before…”

BLAM

Sniper shot right to the middle of her forehead. We see the bullet hole, we see blood spatters hit Tony and Gibbs as the bullet passes out the back of her skull. We see Kate drop to the ground, eyes glazed over. No drawn-out melodrama about getting her to a hospital as she valiantly fights for life. No inspiring speeches from the cast of characters about holding on. She’s simply gone. Just like that. We briefly see the episode’s villain character from the roof of an adjacent building, sniper rifle in hand. The camera cuts back to Gibbs, eyes all of rage and then… end credits. End season.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you off a main character.

I’m up early in the morning doing the Chamber of Commerce thing, so some quick recaps while the Shield continues to record…

1. Orioles win but the horrors…Sammy Sosa is back but Javy Lopez leaves with a broken hand, the M’s pitcher nails Brian Roberts on the knee, he stays in the game only to get to second on a steal that looked excrutiatingly painful and is out of the game, then Raffy gets hit. I doubt any of the HBP’s were intentional but damn, way to take out the team.

2. American Idol: I’m still hoping Bo will win, I just prefer his overall stage presence, and the fact that on the song they both sung, he was better…but I get the feeling that Carrie will win thanks to that wholesome middle-America vibe she has.

3. Uhhh…I don’t have a 3.

Those of you using old skool VCRs to tape the Shield, don’t forget it’s a special 90 minute episode, ending at 11:30 tonight.

Also on tap: American Idol. USA Today says that the contestants will sing two new songs plus one of their favorites from the competition. Judging on the merits, how can Bo not win? He’s even leading on the ITunes download chart. Sample that American Idols album on ITunes–man there are some real turds on there. I still think Nadia sucks.

Of course, there’s also the Contender. You know, it’s too bad this show has received such poor reviews. Don’t get me wrong, I think the reality guy put too much crap in this, but the idea was neat. Tonight is a live boxing match, and hopefully it will be better than the PS3 like video’s they’ve been showing of “look how this punch hits the guys face.” Yes, we get it. We’ve watched boxing before.

How about that season finale of 24? Pretty cool.

On a non-sports videogaming note, I just got the new Unreal for Xbox. I may need to give that a lot of play. Same with Forza. When I had it for a preview, I didn’t really like it but you’re talking to someone who doesn’t often spooge about the Gran Turismo types…

Warhammer Online Returns (Woo hoo!)

Pirates of the Caribbean (Ps2,Xbox,PC)

From PC to Kitchen Table: Eagle Games Profile

Blitzkrieg II

Parkan II

Outfront II