The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Remember how I said that I read that the polling AI in Bowl Bound gets better after the midway point of the year? Ignore that. Going into the Michigan game, Ohio State was #1 in the land, with 1 loss, a 3 point defeat at Iowa. Auburn and Clemson and #2 and 3 respectively. We all have one loss. OSU beats Michigan 24-23 — and DROPS in both polls to #3, as they are leaped by Auburn and Clemson, both of whom won their game as well. I’m so upset I just sim the bowl season. OSU beats Oregon in the Sugar Bowl 45-10 and Auburn beats Clemson 28-26. The FINAL BCS standings?

Auburn
Clemson
OSU

Needless to say, this is totally FUBAR.

In fact I see a ton of weird poll changes week to week. One week in particular Cal lost 45-35 and went from 19 to 16 in the polls. As fun as Bowl Bound is, you cannot–absolutely cannot have the polls doing this sort of thing.

I need to start a new career after I do the recruiting to test out the playoff system because using the standard BCS method just ain’t gonna fly.

Been tooling around a bit with Grey Dog’s Bowl Bound the last few days and I think the game has a lot of potential. Text based fans who want a good college sports game previously only had the option (to my knowledge) of getting a copy of FoF: The College Years.

Now that they have released the 1.3 patch — which was vital because there were way too many injuries before it was fixed, it’s a much more playable game. Still a few quirks, AI blemishes and other things that need stamped out but I am thoroughly enjoying calling the plays in my OSU dynasty. I haven’t reached the recruiting stuff as I am only in week 4 (oddly enough you don’t do any recruiting until week 8 or so other than just checking interest levels). I just went on the road and routed Oklahoma 34-13. A total blast.

Anyway, right now my concern is the polling AI. I have read that it shakes out a lot better after the midpoint of the season but right now it’s all over the map. Michigan started out #1, is currently 4-0 and is now #4. This past week they were sitting at #1 in the nation, beat Notre Dame 16-6 and dropped 3 spots. Uh, no.

After OSU throttled the Sooners, we went from #4 to #1, leaping over Michigan, Miami, and Texas, all who won their game. The Canes beat V-Tech (#12) 58-24 and lost a spot. That’s not good. We’ll see how the polls shake out as the season unfolds.

I also had a run time crash error in an OT game against TCU which was a tad disconcerting. Still, I am enjoying playing the game right now despite its issues.

I’ll sim out a season to test the stats integrity, recruiting, and poll AI. Oh, and it does have a playoff option rather than forcing you to go bowling, which is nice.

Just a quick Christmas hello to all of our blog readers. Thanks for taking the time to read this tiny slice of the Internet and I hope you have a great holiday season.

I’ll do a “loot” run down tomorrow with a note about the creepiest doll ever made, but for now, Merry Christmas to all.

Ripped from GameSpot:

Gamers may not have a choice in who makes their NFL games in the wake of Electronic Arts’ five-year exclusive rights deal with the league, but they still have a choice when it comes to the style of gameplay. The publisher is already well known for its traditional simluation football Madden series and the arcade-styled Street franchise, but today the company introduced a third pillar for release next year: the strategy-centric sim NFL Head Coach (working title).

Departing from the traditional sports sim game in a couple key ways, NFL Head Coach will not only bring 3D graphics to the traditionally static and spreadsheet-based genre, but also it will also appear on consoles. EA has announced that Head Coach is in development at EA Tiburon for a spring 2006 release on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. It also appears that EA is making a conscious effort to make the game more accessible than the average sports strategy title, beyond just giving it a coat of polygonal paint and releasing it for new platforms.

“NFL Head Coach is an entirely new football experience that every level of football gamer can play,” according to EA Tiburon executive producer Dale Jackson. “It provides the strategy that the hardcore fan will demand, but with very easy-to-use controls and assistance for more-casual fans. Football will no longer be intimidating for the casual user.”

Players will take control of every facet of the coaching position, pushing pencils, running practices, and donning the headset each Sunday. From developing and executing a team strategy to building a winning organization year in and year out, players will have to excel at it all to become a coaching legend.

****

Am I allowed to be skeptical about this? The fact that it’s also going to be on the consoles scares me into thinking it will have a console GUI and for a deep sim…that ain’t gonna work. We’ll see.

If you’ve been waiting for the actual release of the Gamer’s Tome today’s the day. It can be had from Amazon at the link provided at the top of the page, but the ship window is two to four weeks. If you’d rather have it sooner you can also order directly from Que. If you’re willing to register (name, email and zip) you’ll get a 40% discount, which isn’t too shabby at all, and it ships withing 24 hours.

Posting from me will be light (as it has been this week). I’m heading out of town tomorrow and will be back mid-week, but I may not be able to make much time to post until the new year.

On the gaming front I have been playing a ton of NBA 2k6 since I can’t seem to score a copy of College Hoops at Blockbuster (every one in my area stocks only one copy so it’s damn near impossible to find it in stock). I miss the in game coaching stuff terribly and putting up with the other team’s center guarding my point guard in half the games gets annoying, but damn can this be a fun game to play.

I think I’ve finally tweaked the Jistic sliders (from OS) to the point where I’m happy with them. There’s plenty of foul calls, although this game is too touchy about charging. Way too easy to get stuck in a canned animation trying to move laterally and have your player go barreling into a defender for a charge. Annoying, but not a game killer.

The substitution AI is just completely whacked. The game left Tim Duncan in the game with four fouls for like two minutes in the *first half* before finally sending him to the bench. It also evidently doesn’t look at your coaching lineup assignments when actually playing a game. I had Pistons reserve Lindsey Hunter slotted as a backup shooting guard and it flat refused to put him in the game unless I did it manually. It instead uses Carlos Delfino, whom I had slotted as a backup small forward, at shooting guard and PF Jason Maxiell (rookie) who I didn’t have slotted at all as the backup small forward. Evidently the coaching lineups settings only apply to simmed games, I guess.

There are some aspects of the game that begin to feel scripted, as the ebb and flow of the AI’s ability to compete is eerily similar from game to game, but that could be my imagination. It just seems like they always start strong in each quarter and then fade in the later minutes, but then maybe I just focus more late in each quarter. In any case, the playoffs in NBA 2k6 are a hell of a lot of fun. There’s some real atmosphere to them and it just takes the series to a new level.

Off the court, I keep getting crashes when trying to use the player development feature. I finally had to give up on trying to use the Triple Threat training session with Darko Milicic. Every time it crashed the game when trying to load up the gym.

I also was able to trade Pistons backups Antonio McDyess and Maurice Evans to the Bulls for not one, but two first round draft picks. It was after the season, but before the lottery, and the Bulls were the odds on favorite for first pick overall (they ended up with the second pick). That’s more than a little crazy, but then I’ve yet to play a sports game where I thought the AI did a good job of valuing draft position. I mean McDyess is a good player, but he ain’t worth the second overall pick.

…then again, it’s the Bulls. Maybe it’s not that much of a stretch.

Well, I wake up and check the online newspapers — usually the Boston Globe and the Baltimore Sun.

The Globe mentions that Tejada might be traded, so I drop everything and head over to the Sun, where I truly think they are just pulling names out of their ass for a trade. None of the trades sounds appealing to me, so either 1)Tejada is saying “trade me” still although publicly he’s saying he didn’t want to be traded or 2) The O’s Front office is so pissed, they are going to send him away.

The funny thing is that no one wants to play for the Orioles at the moment apparently. What I don’t understand is that steriod crises aside, the team isn’t bad. Losing BJ Ryan isn’t a big deal to me, because he made me stress out. You have Roberts, Mora, Tejada and the new catcher. You have Lopez at 1B. You have the old timer in LF with Conine. Matos has some good defense (as in, shitty hitter, but much better than Damon in CF). RF you can platoon. Bedard, Cabrera are 2 good pitchers with potential. You’ve dumped the drunkard (Ponson). Speaking of Ponson, how the hell can he win his grievance? I mean seriously, you’re jailed for assault, you get arrested for DUI then too? But he should be held to his contract? Come on! I hope he does well with St.L. But he screwed Orioles fans over enough. Oh yeah, you also dumped the druggies. lol.

So if we only had an owner that gave a crap, we’d be very well off. I will say that Mike Flanagan gives me more confidence than say, the two “co-GM’s” in Boston. If Johnny Damon had to deal with that, no wonder why he left.

In other news, ESPN has a photo of Johnny getting a haircut/shave with his wife looking on. Often I call Michelle Damon by her other name, Yoko. Honestly, I think Boston is better off. No more stupid NESN shows with Yoko. Maybe they can focus on baseball. I don’t think this is a great coup for the Yankees either, but I’ve already talked about that.

Anyone leave their Xbox 360 on and download the 500MB demo for Kameo? It’s cool you can download demos, but 500MB? I bought my first package of Marketplace points last night, I wanted to buy Geometry Wars.

I also played some more King Kong. I’m strangely enjoying this game. And now my gamer rep is 200 points. Yay. I think everyone’s right about this rep thing. Great idea implemented shittily. I mean really, in EA games you may get like 10 rep points, but in Kong they seem to come fast and furious. Maybe they’ll be a whole market for ’shitty inexpensive games that are horrid but increase your gamer rep’.

Alright, that’s enough for now..

Well, there’s this interesting story over at GameSpot.

Although it sounds like the NHL comes across as a hero for allowing choice in hockey (thank god becuase EA’s NHL game is a massive turd comparied to 2K6), we all know it comes down to money and how much they’ll make, right?

I mean seriously, if EA approached the NHL first before approaching the NHLPA, maybe we would be talking about another story.

I hate these contracts, 2K with MLB, NFL with EA. It’s stupid and limits our choices to the crap that they pull out. Madden 06 Xbox 360, anyone?

Well, Ashley is coughing up a lung and my throat is on fire. I’m also drowsy from taking a few shots of Thera-Flu. Whee.

On a happier note, Que sent me 20 copies of my book last night. I love how it turned out, at least from a presenatation point of view. There’s a few things I’d do differently and there are a few games in the book that shouldn’t be (Path of Neo turned out to be ass-tastic) but for the most part I’m happy with how it all came out. To actually hold a 300+ page book with your name on the cover is admittedly really cool.

That said, I think we should do some kind of contest so a lucky blog reader can score a free signed copy of the book. Show it off to friends! Impress your boss!

I’m thinking of a January 1 Bowl game Pick Em contest, which would include:

Cotton Bowl: Texas Tech / Alabama
Outback: Iowa / Florida
Gator: Louisville / V-Tech
Capital One: Wisconsin / Auburn
Fiesta: OSU / Notre Dame
Sugar: WVU / Georgia
Orange: Penn State / FSU
Rose: USC / Texas

You can submit your picks via the commemts or by sending an email.
I’ll repost this every few days up until the Bowl games. (I wish we could “sticky” a post..but I dunno if that’s doable)

Pick a winner for each game and for the tie breaker pick the final score of the Rose Bowl. Whoever gets the most wins and nails the final score of the Rose Bowl gets a copy of the book. If you already pre-ordered a copy, that’s cool, you can get a free one to give out to a friend or to use as a very effective coaster.

1. Elrod, RIP.
2. For those of you who don’t know #1, Elrod Hendricks was the Orioles bullpen coach for as long as I can remember. It was 1976 when I remember going to my first Orioles game. Elrod was the official bullpen coach in 1977 and was still there last year despite a stroke. Losing a guy like Elrod is like the Red Sox losing Johnny Pesky (thankfully he’s still around). It’s a sad day for the Orioles…the O’s have had too many sad days recently. Stuff like this puts “Johnny Damon going to the Yankees” in perspective.
3. Speaking of Mr. Damon, it headlined all the newscasts in the Boston area last night. When you see free agent moves like this, regardless of who’s ‘fault’ it was, it just reminds you never to put your heart with a specific ball player. The last time we could do that was with Cal Ripken…maybe Derek Jeter has the same quality, but we all know A-Rod wouldn’t fit there. It’s like Tom Brady and the Patriots. Seeing him in a uniform anywhere else, even in the “late bloated, near retirement” phase of the career would be blasphemy.
4. Stayed up way too late last night playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted for the Xbox 360 and some King Kong. My gamer reputation still blows.
5. Does anyone have any concern with privacy issues and the Xbox 360? I mean, if I pull up your gamertag, I know what you’ve been playing. What if I don’t want the world to know I was playing Barbie Horse Rescue? I guess since we live in a world where it’s ok to wiretap without a warrant, giving up the right to tell people what games you play on your Xbox is minor. Sure you can disable auto sign in and whatever, but then good luck boosting your rep!
6. Is it me, or is the THX intro on DVDs the most annoying noise ever created. Kids run for the hills when their Disney movie has that damn THX sound. I’m not talking about the cow one, but the regular THX noise.
7. Uh…that’s all I got today.

The 49ers vs the USC Trojans. Boys vs Men. If you’d pick the Trojans to win that game — please turn in your “I’m a football genius” card at the door. Good lord this is bat shit crazy.

Well, Red Sox fans can add Johnny Damon to the list of traitors. I think we all know that at the end of the day, no matter what, it’s always about the money, isn’t it? The bright side is that the Red Sox will get a Yankee draft pick because they offered arbitration. Not much of a plus, but there you go.

In other AL East actions — The O’s announced the signing of Jeff Conine. Way to get those 39 year olds. Jeff has always played well and does fit in the O’s mold, kinda like BJ Surhoff. However the O’s said goodbye to Surhoff and wished him well..and then sign Conine? Whatever.

The more I think about it, the more I think the O’s and Red Sox will be battling it out this year…for 3rd place. Ugh. What’s scary is that there are so many O’s with arbitration, including Brian Roberts. They offered arbitration to everyone, so that’s good.

In other news, how about that politics. Some people have asked my thoughts, and I thought it’s the holiday, so I’ll be nice. However that being said, I cannot and will not understand how this could happen. This is a blatant violation of the law. Seroiusly this guy could say, hey, I saw 200 people congregating so I ordered the Army to kill them, because Congress said I had all powers to beat terrorism. Yes, it’s a gross exaggeration, but kee-ripes, if you have a court that rubber stamps any wiretap to begin with, why wasn’t it used? I just completely do not understand this AT ALL. If someone can link or point to something as to why this could/should be done, please, let me know, because it doesn’t make sense to me….

Back to gaming, I didn’t have a chance to do any X360 gaming yesterday. I did submit reviews for Madden on the X360 to GameShark, so that should be on soon. It was another hard one to grade. Looks great, plays great, but is so crippled compared to other versions, it’s tough to give it a good rating. You might say I’m punitive, but don’t get me wrong: I really wanted to like this game…it has something going for it, and I don’t say that lightly. Fix the no huddle, the replay challenges, add the modes that were in the PS2 version and we might have something here….

For those still looking for the X360, Bill Harris gave away the super secret link. That’s how I got my Xbox 360 :).

That’s how some other people bought theirs as well. Some of the stuff in the bundles are absolute crap. I did ok with mine…although I don’t have 3 friends over at once ever, I can use it as a backup controller, right?

This is a dullsville week for gaming. DoA 4 should be out soon, it’s not around here, but in the mean time I need to get my gamerscore up from 90. It’s embarassing. Maybe I’ll buy Joust just for the points….

…how cool ToonTown Online is. I’ll post a write up here soon, but suffice to say — if you have a youngster and don’t want ‘em playing MMOs like WoW or Guild Wars, then this is a must get. It’s $9.95 per month after the two month trial.

For those of you that didn’t TiVo or see it last night, the best skit done on SNL in some time has been posted to the web. Check out this hilarious rap right here.

Last I checked the Patriots won more games in a row than the Dolphins. The Dolphins played 2 less games than teams do now. From October 5, 2003 to October 30, 2004 the Patriots lost in official games a total of zero times in 22 games. The Dolphins only won 18 times. Last I checked 22>18.

Oh and the Colts? Thirteen in a row. BFD.

Am I trying to incite? yes, it’s fun. It’s either this or politics. Your choice lol