The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Why would VC not allow for multi-users in NBA’s franchise mode? If it’s there I sure can’t find it. I spent most of the day messing with the franchise mode and for the most part it seems OK. Nothing glaringly broken, anyway.

There’s a LOT of CPU trades, though, but nothing like the insanity that was NFL 2K5. Most player trades are for playes of equal talent. Still, if I want to control each team and manually and set everything to CPU control but do all of the drafting, it looks like I am SOL. If a bunch of buddies in a college dorm want to play a multiplayer franchise on the same machine..also SOL, unless I am just overlooking it. I wonder why they did that?

Don’t forget the NFL has moved the KC @ MIA game to FRIDAY night. Get your picks locked ASAP!

I stumbled upon two bug problems today with 2K6:

1) There is a player matchup bug that has the center guarding the point guard (actually players guarding wrong men all over the place). What seems to trigger this is when you have players playing out of position due to sub use. I have auto subs on and the first player off the bench was my backup center. The AI kept my starting C on the floor though. That caused mass confusion as my center was now manning up the Rockets PG. Ugh. This went on for most of the game from then out which really sucked. Even going in and manually changing the matchups didn’t seem to help.

Hoping to find some help I went over to OS to see if this was mentioned there and sure enough almost the entire bugs thread was dedicated to this. A VC rep even posted there, confirming the bug saying that they are “working on it.” The rep also said that it would be fixed in time for the 360 version but made no promises on any kind of ‘patch’ for the current game. Great. A small workaround is to “not pause the game” which (for some reason) increases the chance of the bug popping up. So that means I can’t check the stats or manually sub players w/o increasing the risk of this stupid ass bug showing up? $#@! that.

I haven’t read any reviews of 2K6, but surely someone saw this, right? I’ve played about 6 full games now and it’s pretty blatant.

2) Finally, the auto sub AI is Asstastic. I swear Visual Concepts, Kush, the lot of ‘em — they make these games which sit on the cusp of sheer brilliance but then never finish their games. This is basic shit, guys. If I am playing against the Rockets and Yao Ming gets 3 fouls in the 2nd quarter — he SITS. Hell, after his 2nd foul he should sit unless he’s needed. Well, in this game, Yao stayed in the game and picked up foul number 4 with 1:30 left in the half. Sometimes the AI pulls players correctly and other times it lets players play until they damn near foul out.

Even with my suto subs on I noticed weirdness. Paul Pierce sits the entire 2nd quarter? Why? This dude plays 40 mins per game unless he’s in foul trouble. T-Mac is going OFF on me, lighting me up for 23 in the first half and my scorer is sitting on the bench, taking a 9 minute 2nd quarter breather?

Of course, I’d manually sub players myself but hey…can’t pause the game now can we?

Truly amazing.

Just another quick 2K6 update as I try to nail down some sliders. I’m mainly focusing on CPU shot tendency right now. I just cannot play an NBA game that has the CPU firing off zippo 3’s in a game. I maxed out the 3 point shot tendency slider this morning and played one quarter of a Bucks/Celtics rematcn and Milwaukee shot four 3-pointers in that first quarter (9 min quarters). That I can live it. 16 3’s per game by the CPU is much better than zero. Of course that was just a one-quarter test but still — it’s a good sign. The only downside to this is that with that slider maxed out the CPU looked to shoot a LOT quicker than before. Very little passing; they’d just come down and let ‘er rip and as a result they shot 25% from the floor and I was up 33-13 at the end of the quarter. I’ll be messing around with this more today and I’ll play a full game to see how it plays out. A one quarter test isn’t enough of a sample.

This I found kinda funny. I was looking at the 2K6 thread over at OS today and found an advanced controls thread. I like all of the moves you can do in the game but it’s getting absurd with all of the combos you need to learn to pull them off.

NBA2K6 is like Soul Calibur with dunks. Check this out:

Icon Lead Passing

- Pull up the icons then push the left analog stick in the direction you want to lead the receiver when you hit his corresponding button.

Dual Player Control

- Up = Cut to basket
- Down = Spot up for 3
- Left = Come off screen
- Right = Post up

Post Moves

- Pull left trigger and push into a defender to engage in the post up
- Once you’re engaged, you can let go of the left trigger and you’ll stay engaged (pull left stick away from the guy to break out.)
- While engaged, you can do these moves:

1. Tap left trigger to do drop step
2. Shot stick up = hook (close), turnaround (far)
3. Shot stick left, right, or back = fade away jumpers (yes, you can release these shots manually this year… and no, they don’t get blocked every time.)
4. Hold right trigger + Shot stick left/up/right = Drop step dunks (power big men only)
5. Tap Shot stick left or right = up and under move

Here’s how you spin out of the post while keeping your dribble live:

1. Initiate backdown dribble, then let go of postup button (you will stay engaged)
2. Press the Aggressive modifier and twirl the left thumbstick

ISO Moves:

• Drive move = Hold Aggressive and hold Left stick at a slight angle off-line toward the basket.

• Crossover dribble = Hold Aggressive and quickly throw the Left stick in the opposite direction of your dribble hand.

• Behind the back or Spin (ability specific) = Hold Aggressive and quickly spin the Left stick in a circular motion.

• Half Spin = Hold Aggressive and quickly spin the Left stick in a half-circle, then immediately spin it back the opposite direction.

• Stutter = Quickly Tap and Release the Aggressive button.

• Stutter Drive = Quickly Tap & Release the Aggressive button, then chain into the Drive move.

• Stutter Cross = Quickly Tap & Release the Aggressive button, then chain into the Crossover dribble.

• Hesitation Cross = Hold Aggressive and throw (at moderate speed) the Left stick in the opposite direction of your dribble hand.

• In & Out = Initiate the hesitation crossover, then throw the Left stick back toward the ball hand for the In & Out.

• Step Back = Hold Aggressive and pull the Left stick away from the basket.

• Hop Step = Quickly Tap & Release the Shift modifier while dribbling (left thumbstick must be neutral or pointing toward the basket.)

• Hop Step Spin = Quickly Tap & Release the Shift modifier while holding down the Aggressive button.

• Hop Step Back = Quickly Tap & Release the Shift modifier while dribbling (left thumbstick must be pointed away from the basket.)

See? That’s not much to remember.

Messed around with the game some more this evening and I’m enjoying myself for the most part. I found a set of Hall of Fame sliders on OS that work rather well. HoF lvl is very playable this year. Right now the #1 factor, AI wise, is the lack of 3-point shots. I did see a 3pt tendency slider so I’ll see if that helps. I beat the Bucks tonight 92-85 and the CPU took one 3-pointer and that was a buzzer beater. Michael Redd taking no 3’s? Come on. Hopefully this 3-point tendency slider solves this to a degree. Even College Hoops wasn’t this bad at the lack of 3’s. If the CPU had a high rated 3 point shooter it would use him. Here, the CPU literally doesn’t look to shoot outside of 18 feet. Total bizarro. Still, all kinds of potential in 2K6 if I can get the CPU to look outside more often.

I spoke briefly about 2K6 a while back but today I am really trying to take a closer look at both games. Based on early play time, I think 2K6 plays better out of the box, but both games need tweaking.

For example, in 2K6 I played a game today Celtics (me) against Heat and the Heat took ZERO 3-point shots in a 5 min quarter game. It was a CH2K5 flashback. I just don’t get how a talented group of programmers/designers could make a basketball game where an NBA team doesn’t shoot one 3-point shot in a game. I just don’t get it. I think there’s a slider to fix that (I think) but still…why is should we need to adjust that?

One game impression: The Bucks had TJ Ford shoot 24 times, Michael Redd took 9 shots. The Celtics (me) scored 46 points in the paint on about 18 dunks. Granted this was a default slider game on All Star difficulty, but…damn. TJ Ford? I also saw the same “fouled in the act of shooting” animation about 15 times in the same game. It’s where the guy who is fouled does a desperation flip shot as he’s hammered. Cool the first 3 times — after that you get the feeling EA could have added a few more animations.

Now back to NBA 2K6 while I try to review both of these things at the same time. Whee.

Let the hate FLOW through you.

I’m playing blitz a little more. I just saw the CPU try for 2 pt conversion by doing a fake FG. I hit the guy as he runs into the end zone. He’s delcared down when on replay it not even close (I never even brought him down). Stuff like this annoys the hell out of me. But yet I’m still playing the game.

I forgot Quake 4 and FEAR came out. Oopsie.

What does everyone thing of the Colbert Report? Has potential.

I had something else to say, but now I totally forgot. I remember now. I had to watch WWE RAW when it came back on USA. I mean I know the product has sucked big time, but I like to revisit the past every now and then (come on you’re talking to a guy who gets moist when he can play Rush 2049 on his Xbox). Anyway, the whole JR gets fired angle is so dumb. Anyone with half a brain can see this from a mile away (then again, anyone with half a brain probably doesn’t watch wrestling). How many people get ‘fired’ from the company but then they still post an interview on WWE.com. I’m thinking zero. Oh and look JR has had major intestinal surgery today. Must have been from that ‘kick’. I mean come on. I didn’t know Wrestleline was back, although it’s nowhere near the glory days….Wrestlecrap is back too. LOL. Love the front page headline.

As the Gamer’s Bible tome comes to a thankful close, I have updated my work list and current article list with some new stuff. My play list is a tad outdated. Due to the book my free time gaming has been nil of late.

Wiyh all of this stuff on my plate I’m going to pass my Gameshark Blitz review off to Dan. I doubt the EiC will mind because I know Dan has played the game quite a bit and I haven’t touched it yet. Dan doesn’t know this yet to keep it on the Q-T.

The good news, for me at least, is that we break ground on the new house at the end of November. We just had our final pre-construction meeting last week, which took 4 hours. That was as fun as getting your tooth yanked out. We have basic colors picked out: Thunder Cloud carpet (fancy way of saying dark grey), burnt siena roof (light brown), Burgandy trim (dark red) and the siding is some other non-color name that really means some form of tan.

I found a picture online of the basic model we are building. We wanted to add the brick exterior but it was like $6,000 extra.

This means that hopefully we move in at the end of March or the first of April. We’re having a house warming party, complete with 61 inch HD 360 gaming. Should be fun.

Well this has been the week of doom for me. I have been diagnosed with having a double ear infection as well as a sinus infection. Fun! Then today we don’t have any heat or hot water. While I wait for the repair man, here are some musings:

Gamespot has posted a review of Blitz: The League, giving it an 8.6. I’m going to be doing a review for this game soon, and my first thought is that it isn’t an 8.6 game. I will say it’s VERY difficult not to judge this game against other football games. If you look at it as a stand alone game, it’s quite fun and addictive, however when placing it with the big question that most have — how is it compared to NCAA and Madden, it gets harder. How do you fault a sports game for a rule that you don’t know if it’s really in the game?

One of my pet peeves with Blitz is the 4th Quarter 0:00 bug. If you score a TD with 0:00 left on the clock, you do NOT get to try the extra point. If you’re betting on your game to win by 3 and that TD brings you to two….well tough shit. This same thing occurred with NFL Fever (year 1) and that really pissed me off. Then again, the Penn St/Michigan college football game never tried the PAT as they had already won. I haven’t played a game where I was down by 7 and scored that last play TD. If that happened, I would be some pissed.

I’m not sure what grade I’m going to give Blitz the league, and I’ve been playing it for a month. I’m really wrestling with it–I do know what it isn’t and I think 8.6 is too high. I should also point out that in the preview code that I have you can call audibles. This reviewer says you can’t so I don’t know if it got taken out of final code, or if he didn’t RTFM.

Well maybe I’ll go play a game and check it out again. I haven’t played lA Rush yet, but boy I really like Arcade Treasures 3. I put a shit load of quarters into Off Road back in high school and it’s still fun in a 1989 sorta way.

Using my YME subscription I’m listening to the new Depeche Mode. Love the new song, Precious….there are a couple on this album that aren’t bad, but I gotta listen to it a little more. Not much else out there for new music Tuesday. YME doesn’t give me the full Rev Run album yet, and I wanted to check that out (it is out on iTunes)….

Electronic Arts announced its first 3-D sports strategy game for the PC. The new game, NFL Head Coach will be available in stores in spring 2006, under the EA Sports brand. NFL Head Coach is in development in Orlando by EA Tiburon, makers of other NFL properties including Madden NFL Football and NFL Street. NFL Head Coach introduces the first 3D strategy football sports game, challenging gamers to build and manage a football team from the ground up. A simple conversation system and a 3-D graphical interface allow users to immerse themselves into the lives of an NFL head coach. NFL Head Coach will be available for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC-CD. Look for more details on the game as they become available.

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I have no idea what to make of this.

So, I went to visit our site today to see if anyone updated, and I typed in http://sportsgamer.blogpsot.com/ instead of blogspot.com. Check out what happens (SFW).

Just got LA Rush today..not sure if it’s any good, haven’t opened it yet but I also received Midway Arcade Treasures 3 with Offroad Thunder, SF Rush 2049 and HydroThunder. Well worth the price of admission right here.

Also got some weird security badge today. No return address. It’s from Peterson-Daniels Chemicals Facility. Any idea what game this is for?

The EA support forums say that nVidia should be releasing a new driver set today that will fix the crashing problems many GeForce users are having in Tiger Woods 2006. God I hope so because it’s been unbelievably frustrating. Fortunately, I did stumble on a “fix” of sorts. Someone on the EA forums suggested changing the 3D hardware setting to fixed instead of using the renderer. This kills the gameplay in innumerable ways because the camera is basically fixed in this mode. So I gave up on the solution rather quickly.

When I switched back to the renderer mode, however, I noticed that it turned off a slew of other graphical options. I left them off and have experienced exactly one crash in about 144 holes of play over the weekend. (Yes, I played the hell out of the game this weekend.) So whatever is causing the problem it has to do with one or more of the detail settings. Granted, the game doesn’t look as good without the swaying tree limbs and detailed grass and such but at least I can play it without spontaneous reboots every other hole.

Oh and other note. Pebble Beach is a nighmarish course to play as a hack (I ended up re-creating my golfer and starting from scratch on Friday). You don’t have enough power to even reach many of the fairways and I have a habit of hitting some nasty fades, which has put more balls careening off cliffs into the ocean than I care to count.

I have, however, practiced on every course in the game but the Greek Isles and the Pirate Cove (which the game says would be exceedingly difficult for my impotent golfer) and I really like every one of them. I’ve never been a big fan of Saint Andrews, and Pebble Beach is just not for the timid. But Coghill, Reflection Bay, etc. are just gorgeous. I especially like the course in Illinois, but for the life of me I can’t think of the name. Very picturesque.

Jeers to Lions Fans -
Have I mentioned lately that I hate Lions fans? I really do. Yeah, it’s hypocritical, seeing as I’ve been one for 20 years, but there you have it. Show me a quarterback the home crowd hasn’t booed and I’ll show you a quarterback that never played for Detroit. These people cheered when Charlie Batch took a blow to the head during a game and for all anyone knew could have been severely injured. The behavior of Lions fans at these games is even more shameful than the way the offensive “plays” football. And that is saying something because their loss to Carolina was an exercise in offensive futility that was truly painful to watch. But I don’t care how bad it gets, the way Lions fans get on QB Joey Harrington (who has been well and truly awful) is disgusting. Do any of those f@#$ers think booing the guy is going to make him play better? This is shaping up to be yet another painfully long season and I’m paying DirecTV $200 to see it… again.

Cheers to Chad Henne and Lloyd Carr -
This kid (Henne) has been only slightly behind Harrington on people’s shit lists this season. And he, too, has not played well at all. But he deserves criticism from fans even less that Harrington does. If nothing else, helping the team win another Big 10 championship last year ought to earn him something of a pass while he matures and learns as a quarterback. But no, Michigan fans just can’t seem to help from wanting to push both him and Lloyd Carr off a cliff because of a 3-3 start this season. Well, to those fans, just shut the hell up because Henne can play and there is no football coach that’s going to come into U of M and do a better job than Carr. Henne’s pass on the final play of the game to beat Penn State was as clutch as they come. And let’s not overlook the fact that he had the opportunity to throw it only because Lloyd Carr was all over the officials for not stopping the game clock right away when he had called a timeout (which coaches in college football can do now). They put two seconds back on the clock (from 28 to 30) and without them Penn State is probably still undefeated today.