The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Damn it. I thought I had extinguished the bug, but two games have pulled me back in.

World of WarCraft and Guild Wars are both getting PT right now. I last played WoW in August ’05 and Guild Wars was last played in late Sept. but after a brief period of “how do I play this again?” I’m back at it.

Not good…

Okay, when I first played MVP for some stupid reason, when I was pitching, I had it on the CF camera instead of the home plate camera. Needless to say there’s a huge difference. Sorry! Playing online now and having fun.

As an unabashed hater of ESPN, I found this spoof to be just plain awesome.

1. I received MVP NCAA Baseball 06 from Gamefly today. I put it in the system and oh my god, I think I’ve been officially spoiled on the Xbox 360. These grahpics are horrid comparied to the 360. I guess I really am a graphics whore.

2. In other news, the main reason why I had to hook up my old skool Xbox was because I was assigned Torino 2006 for the Xbox. Obviously I really pissed somebody off to ‘win’ this massive turd of a game. Seriously, I’d rather play Winter Games for the C64. That was the ‘best’ Winter games game, and it wasn’t that great. It was a lot of left/right/left/right gameplay. Real thrilling stuff. This is even worse. If you were going to buy it and really, really want to buy it, just send me the $20. We’ll both feel better.

In doing research for the book, I really liked what I read and found out about D&D Online. Despite the rather predictable rumblings from beta testers (show me an MMO without disgruntled beta testers and I’ll show you a chicken that can sing the National Anthem), I still think the game has loads of potential, especially when playing in groups.

Here is a fairly comprehensive FAQ about it.

Anyone taking the plunge on this?

Gshark posted it today.

And, no, I did not write the lead in saying it was the best college baseball game to come out in a long time. So no wise cracks. heh

If you have the hankering, you can check out up to the day college box scores right here. Another good tool for slider-guys that want to check out real stats.

The new build is coming along and I wanted to share a pic (you can click to enlarge) that we took yesterday. Things are moving right along, and the house should be ready by the end of March. I can’t believe I’m moving to the country, but I have to admit…I’m really excited about it.

Long time blog readers know I’m a big XM fan. I’ve had it since early 2002 when I then paid $400 at Circuit City to have a huge Pioneer Tuner/FM mod installed. I think although I dumped the car 2 years ago, I’m probably still paying that off on one of my credit cards..but I digress.

I now have 4 XM radios. I am a big music fan. I enjoy the movie High Fidelity. People look at me weird when I have on FRED 44 and know the words to the Smiths songs.

Anyway, the whole Stern thing makes me feel like I’m missing something by not going to Sirius. I’ve tried their free online trial but it’s so crippled you really don’t get the full experience.

I tried going for research on forums, but you know how that goes. Lots of people on xm411.com say that XM is awesome and you can guess what they say on Sirius backstage.

So, I will leave it up to our readers. Any of you out there have had both satellite radios? What do you like? “Stern” and “Opie” are not answers. Well they are, but I know them and what they do. I’m looking for more programming related stuff…

Post your thoughts. Thanks.

While watching the news tonight, something was brought to my attention. I am now old.

On this day in 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. To me this was my first ‘you remember where you were’ moment. Warwick Veterans Memorial High School, freshman year. Although Rhode Island isn’t New Hampshire, pretty much everybody in New England watches the Boston TV stations, so everyone knew (through TV) Christa McAuliffe. And of course being in high school and having a high school teacher die in the space shuttle, well it was kind of relatable in an odd sort of way.

The thought that it has been 20 years when I can remember it yesterday is just really a very depressing thought. Sure I can remember my first Atari 2600, on 12/24/1979, but I was a kid, so while it was 26 years ago, it does NOT feel like it was yesterday. This does.

I am just Mr. happy aren’t I. Dan Downer it is!

I’m getting my February ducks in a row. Some interesting titles coming out next month. I believe Dan is reviewing MLB 06 on the PS2 (due out 2/28). I’ll dig out the old console if the buzz is super good. I do like that series, though. But my PS2 is on official hiatus. Dan should keep everyone up to speed on that one. Right, Dan?

I’m scheduled to take on this month:

Arena Football – Xbox (2/7)
Fight Night Round 3 – Xbox (2/14)
Marc Ecko’s Getting Up – PC (2/15)
UFO Extraterrestrials – PC (2/18)
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords – PC (2/21)
The Battle for Middle-Earth II – PC (2/28)

So, lots to do and a short month to do it in. Even so, there are other games due in February worth keeping an eye on that I wasn’t lucky enough to score a review on. Star Wars: Empire at War, Black, Winning Eleven 9, and D&D Online are all due out. I’m hearing some disconcerting things about D&D Online, which I really have high hopes for. We’ll see.

Not a bad month. Oh, and I turn 34 on the 18th. Whee.

Yay! It’s Friday. Except now my business is open Saturdays, so Friday isn’t the orgy it once was. Well, I’m married, so it really was never an orgy, but I digress.

Anyway, big news, right on the front page of GameStop — Madden NFL 07 is now available for preorder! Look at all the new box art by clicking here. No, they don’t have box art. But good news, you will be ‘locked’ in at the price point. No worrying about Madden going to $89.99 for the 360. You’ll have locked in at $59.99!

The funny thing is, didn’t EA just DROP prices on all their non-X360 games????

Being a level 46 nerd myself I have to say this ranks in the top 5 coolest things I’ve ever seen. This is some guy’s basement home theater made up to look like the bridge of the Enterprise:

If you want to see it from other angles point your browser here.

I’ve written my MVP 06 review. When I get done writing a evaluation of a game, I usually wander around the net to see how crazy I am or how crazy other reviewers are concerning the game I just finished playing. Now, I rarely mention other reviews on the blog. People have opinions and are entitled to ‘em. Some people like Green Day. Some people think they’re a sell out former punk band, kinda like Billy Idol but without the hair. Either way, your opinion is your opinion.

On Metacritic, MVP 06 (Xbox) has a 75 Metascore. The Metascore, which I really do like (and used for my book) can still be a tad screwy because they do what a lot of review databases do and that’s take a 5 star review scale and turn it into 100% form, which doesn’t really work. GameShark, for example, uses the A-F system (which I also like) and Metacritic just butchers that when it’s translated. For example, I gave Fable: The Lost Chapters a B+, which Metacritic turned into an 83%, which is just loopy.

Anyway, just because a review on Metacritic says “50%” that could mean 50% or that could mean 2.5/5 stars. You kinda need to check. So I did.

Gamerfeed gave it a 2.5/5 saying, “Electronic Arts may have exclusive rights to the NFL license, but they missed out on the MLB license, and it hurts.“

Stuff Magazine rips it for the same reason, giving it a 6/10. “Ego-less baseball? Teamwork? No 55-kajillion dollar contracts? Uh, we’ll pass, thanks.”

Xbox Magazine said, “So while the hitting mechanic and improved ballpark creator are cool and the integration of a live ESPN sports ticker is sweet, you’ll need to think long and hard about buying what is largely last year’s game sans major league appeal.”

Next Level Gaming came with, “The game itself is pretty decent, but it doesn’t pack the punch of an MLB license. “

Team Xbox? Yeah, them too. “No matter how you slice it, the lack of an official pro license (in a sport where the following of the pro level is strong) for this year’s MVP holds this title back a bit.”

These less than glowing reviews of the game caused its rating to plummet to a 75 even after reviews from IGN (87), GameSpy (4/5;80%), and GameSpot(8.0) were published.

I guess my question is this: is it fair to rip a college baseball game apart because it’s not a pro game? Is it right to judge a game on what it’s not?

There are flaws and annoyances with MVP NCAA 06, no doubt about it, but I just cannot see the justification of giving a game like this a poor review just because it doesn’t carry the license that you want. If you really need to see a polygonal Manny Ramirez to enjoy a college baseball game, maybe this isn’t the kind of game you should be reviewing? I guess I could see the argument if this were a 100% fictional Pro game, with fake teams, fake players, etc. I’d still disagree with killing the game over that, but I think it would be a bit more justified. But this is a college game, it’s not meant to be a pro game, and I think it should be judged on that basis.

Next year, when these websites review NCAA Football 07, they better kick it in the virtual nuts because it’s not Madden.

Any thoughts on this?

Sorry for the delay in getting this stuff posted. Anyway –

I’m wrapping up my MVP NCAA review (I’m leaning B/B+ right now) and wanted to share a few thoughts. First off, I really like this game. I was always on the fence with the MVP series. While most people loved it to death, there was always one or two things that irked me to the point that I could never get into it like I did High Heat. I can say right now that I’ll end up logging a lot of games with NCAA 06. That says a lot because with sports games I either play them to death or shelf them after the review. There is rarely a middleground. This is not getting shelved.

That said, there are things I hope get fixed next year (and there better be a next year, damn it).

• If you want to show the batters screwing with their batting gloves, knocking dirt off their cleats–let me skip that crap if I want to. It’s like not being able to skip a cut scene because they do this ALL THE TIME and if you have read the Gamer’s Tome …you know that’s a big Bill No No.
• Fix the AI issues. I have seen the CPU SAC bunt with back to back batters just to put a runner on 3rd with 2 outs. Not good. I have seen the CPU steal 2nd in the bottom of the 12th of a tie game with a man on 3rd. Really not good. I have seen a runner on 2nd advance to 3rd with 2 outs (good) but on a grounder to 3rd base, the 3rd baseman tries to tag out the runner rather than throw to 1st to end the inning. Totally weird. I don’t see these things every game but I see them enough to know that they need fixed.
• Fix the sound bugs. South Carolina and OSU is not a “tough conference match-up” and a 80 MPH slider is not a fastball. Oh, and if you are going to pay to have a color man…maybe he should have more than say, 3 lines of dialogue?

  Glitches aside, I haven’t had this much fun with a baseball game since High Heat 2002. I think HH2002 (PC, fully modded) is the better, smarter, game but MVP NCAA 06 is a steal at $30.

Anyway, on to Runebound. I got a lot of mixed feedback on this boardgame from several people but after reading a lot about it, and how it’s very similar to the GW game Talisman, I figured I’d give it a go. Plus I found it, and 3 of the card expansions, on sale at the mall.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun with it. If you do like Talisman, this is a definite buy. That said, it’s not a quick game — in fact you need to clear a 3-4 block of time to play a full game with 3-4 people. There’s some downtime between turns for each player, but I found the game interesting enough to watch other players take their turn without losing interest. I’m glad I bought it, but I doubt it sees a ton of playing time simply because we need to clear an entire afternoon or an entire evening to get a game in, and without a way to keep a game on the table overnight right now…hmm…maybe when we move. Still, Mary had fun with it (she won, in fact) and she’s by no means a hardline gamer.