The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Most will re-sign, but still worth looking over.

Linky here. PS. Return the speaker system when you get it in the mail at your local store and save $$. Just saying. Not a bad system though if you need it.

Just an FYI that I noticed today that the Tome is now being paired with Serenity: The Official Visual Companion, which has a ranking a hell of a lot better than mine. heh. With this pairing you can get both books for $27.

Although we’ve been doing this blog for some time, I hadn’t received a press release sent to our email..until now. Even though the game has been out for 4 months, and you’ve probably already read my review, since this is the first PR I’ve received, I figure I’d post it…

SEGA LAUNCHES VIRTUA TENNIS: WORLD TOUR FOR THE PSP
Critically-Acclaimed Franchise Now Available for Gamers on the Go
SAN FRANCISCO (October 6, 2005) SEGA® of America, Inc. today announced the release of Virtua Tennis™: World Tour exclusively for the PSP™ portable entertainment system . Intense multiplayer action enhances the addictive, fast-paced gameplay of Virtua Tennis: World Tour , which players can now take with them wherever they go.

Play against three-time Wimbledon champions Roger Federer and Venus Williams, and 12 other internationally-ranked tennis pros such as Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova, Lleyton Hewitt, and Lindsay Davenport . The latest installment in the critically-acclaimed franchise also serves up a make-your-own player mode, key court surfaces from around the world, exclusive mini-games and unlockable accessories. Multiplayer mode encourages up to four friends to play together.

In addition, Virtua Tennis: World Tour offers four brand new mini-games – Blockbuster, Fruit Dash, Blocker, and Balloon Smash – exclusive to the PSP system.

Virtua Tennis: World Tour has received several accolades for its visual excellence and addictive gameplay, including the IGN E3 Award for Best PSP Sports Game. Developed by the UK-based development team, SUMO Digital , Virtua Tennis: World Tour is challenging and fun whether you have just minutes or hours to play .

Virtua Tennis™: World Tour is rated “E” for Everyone and is available at retailers nationwide for an MSRP of $39.95.

So there you go!

I’m not here to take anything away from PIT. When the clock read 0:00, they won. Good for Bettis and Co..

But….
This game reminded me way too much of the NE-DEN game. SEA could’ve won, and they only have themselves to blame. Yes, the ref calls were horrid. But the ref’s didn’t make the SEA K to miss 2 FG’s (six points there). The refs didn’t decide to not kick a FG with less than 2:00 left and save the clock for the onside kick. The refs didn’t give up 2 beauty TD plays.

1. The ‘touchdown’ was hard for me to believe, but once they made the ruling on the field, I don’t think they could overturn it. If it was ruled not a TD, but then they did a challenge, I don’t think they would have overturned that either. You have to leave it to the ref’s call. It did seem weird that the linesman held his hand up as if he was down and then, oops I meant a TD though.

I don’t understand why the ref can’t explain why the call stood. If he just said “there wasn’t enough visual evidence, therefore the ruling stands,” I would have been satisfied. It would have been nice if he said this on the almost touchback in the NE-DEN game.
2. The pass interference was horseshit.
3. Was it me or did all the commercials suck? I read USA Today’s admeter, and they love the Bud commercials. I thought they were horrid.
4. Nice to hear the PIT fans boo all the Pats players. I guess I’d boo them too if I got my ass handed to me in all those AFC Championship games by the Pats.

Well that was painful to watch. Man, if these are the best two teams in the NFL, the NFL sucks. The league wants parity, and I can understand that, but gone are the days of the truly great NFL teams. This has been on my mind for years now, and (sorry Dan) I also throw in the “great” New England teams into this equation. This isn’t Pitt’s and NE’s fault, it’s just the sytem we’re dealing with, but these teams, IMO, do not hold a small candle to the teams of the past and the Super Bowl suffers a bit because of it.

Anyway, as for the game itself, I am a firm believer that the best team wins EVERY football game. All the time. 100%. Pitt deserved to win the game. Period.

That said, the Steelers got nearly all of the breaks (luck counts) and the officials made some brutal calls that hurt the Seahawks. Now, this is just one guy’s opinion but:

-The offensive PI was ticky tacky as hell. Receivers do this in the NFL every single play. Watch an NFL WR run a dig route, and watch how he extends that arm on the DB. Worse still, watch Hines Ward do this THREE TIMES last night — no call. If that’s going to be Off PI, it has to be called throughout the game. It wasn’t.

-The Ben TD was a HORRID call. I’ve heard people go back and forth on this but watch the replay, even if you think, the football may have just grazed the end zone (which is debateable) it certainly isn’t evident enough to warrant giving the QB the benefit of the doubt. In that situation, it should be 100% clear that he scores. Refs are taught, when in doubt, side with the conservative. He didn’t. It cost Seattle.

-The holding call in the fourth that negated a first and goal. WOW. If that’s a hold Popeye is a sissy. A seriously weak call to make in that situation. It cost the Seahawks first and goal which would have given them the lead with a TD.

-The spot on the 3rd down pass to the FB. Another huge call that somehow went Pittsburgh’s way.

Now, all that said, the refs didn’t make Holmgren lose his mind and choke on clock management at the end of both halves. They didn’t allow Willie Parker to run for a 75 yd TD, allow a floating 40 yard pass to set up a TD, give up a reverse pass for a TD, turn the Seattle TE into a stone handed baffoon, and make Hasselbeck throw a killer INT that lead to the final Pitt TD.

The best team won. What that says about the state ofhe NFL, I don’t know.

Some bite-sized Super Bowl Top 3 lists to kick off the week:

Top 3 Commercials (the most important list):
1. Dove - Compaign for Real Beauty. This was the one with the all the little girls who think they’re ugly for one B.S. reason or another. As a father of a 2-year old girl I think there needs to be a lot more of this sort of thing. (EDIT: The brilliance of this ad doesn’t take away from the fact that Dove is just another culturally criminal cosmetics company bent on making sure women only feel good about themselves after using their completely unnecessary products… okay, I do like their bar soap. It can stay.)
2. Michelob Ultra Amber - Touch football. This is the one where they’re playing touch football and one of the guys just lays out this hottie who was talking smack.
3. Budweiser - Clydesdale American Dream. The one with the junior clydesdale trying to pull the cart. Overdone sentimentality maybe, but it was very well executed overdone sentimentality.

Top 3 Reason Seattle Lost:
1. Stephen Alexander couldn’t catch a pass to save his life.
2. Seattle couldn’t manage the clock
3. The refs absolutely jacked them on crucial calls. I was fine with the ruling for the Big Ben TD, but Seattle had at least two huge plays negated by questionable or outright phantom penalties. (The illusory holding call and the ticky tack offensive interference that nine times out of ten probably doesn’t get called. There was also Terry Porter’s horse collar tackle of Shaun Alexander on what was nearly a big run.)

Top 3 Reasons Pittsburgh Won:
1. Better playcalling (the Randle El TD pass was just a thing of beauty)
2. They made the most of each opportunity (ie - they didn’t drop crucial passes or make big catches out of bounds)
3. Willie Parker. Only one big run, but damn, what a run it was. (That 4th and 28 play from Roethlisberger to Hines Ward was mighty impressive too.)

Isn’t this the same zebra who handled the NE-DEN game? Can’t he be more specific about why the ruling on the field stands? I would assume they couldn’t tell if the ball crossed the plane on the replay? Tell us!

Where is our pal Ed? He rules.

Being a sports blog, I guess we need SOME kind of SB post, right?

I’m gonna say…24-21 Seahwaks.

The company that owns Sam Goody, Suncoast and Media Play filed bankruptcy last month. They have now received court approval to close a ‘buttload’ of stores. View the .xls spreadsheet of stores closing by clicking here.

Thankfully my local Sam Goody is spared for now…but I think I will go use that $15 replay rewards certificate tout suite!

First, for those of you interested, EB has the ‘core’ Xbox 360 bundle now shipping. Don’t do it..wait for the full system….

In other news, IGN has the first Arena Football review up. I watched the opening week last week, and although there is no New England team (we do have an A2 franchise), I’ve often wondered how a game will play. The IGN review was meh for me, I think I’ll wait for the full game myself to make a judgement. Stupid Bill had to go and review it, so I actually have to pay for it. lol

Does anyone around here still play Blitz The League? Just wondering.

Although EA’s expectations aren’t big, the NCAA baseball game has pretty good buzz and I’m enjoying it. Hmm, should I buy NCAA and AFL for my original Xbox for the same price as shitty Madden for the 360? Yes, I should.

In other news, I have just about wrapped up my game playing session with Torino 2006. Someone owes me big time for the hours I put into this turd. There aren’t many games that make you want to fire up the C64, but this is one of them…and what’s with having a race with no multiplayer support? WTF!!!

Okay, have to go to bed, back to work in a few. Ugh.

PS Next Tuesday is a big gaming day. AFL comes out and a little known soccer game called Winning Eleven 9 comes out for Xbox. Oh and it supports Xbox Live. Consider me aroused.

Sorry for my lack of blogging. I have a nasty head cold and Mary force fed me 3 extra strength Benadryl, which usually is like taking a water pill but for some reason this stuff has knocked me on my ass. I’m good for two really good illnesses per winter, and this makes #2, so hopefully this is it.

Please forgive the delay in posting this. My house was again hit with what would best be described as the plague over the last two weeks (the same thing happened last summer). I’ve now had to clean up vomit more times than I care to count and have put so many soiled clothes into the wash that even the washing machine smells of it (okay, not really, but it seems like it). At this point I can only conclude that diapers work in theory only.

Conclusion: the grossness of dealing with regurgitated oranges, macaroni and cheese, etc. is overwhelmingly mitigated by having your little girl want nothing else but to just put her head on your shoulder and go to sleep. God bless parenthood.

Anyway, on to NBA2k6 360.

If you’ve played NBA2k6 on the Xbox, then you’ve played NBA2k6 on the 360… sort of. It’s kind of like the difference between watching the Atlanta Hawks play the New York Knicks and watching the Pistons play the Suns. It’s the same game being played sure, but which would you rather watch? (And before you answer, keep in mind that this year’s Pistons are at or near the top of the league in scoring efficiency.)

I’ve only scratched the surface of NBA2k6 so far –thanks in large part to some actual scratches on the disc (Brasso and dish soap work wonders, I’ve learned)- but it’s basically the same game. It has all the same modes of play and the mechanics are largely the same. As I understand there has been some tweaking to the ISO-motion controls, but I’ve never bothered to learn all those damn trigger combinations anyway. Beyond the obvious improvement in pretty pictures there’s just a level of smooth to the gameplay in NBA2k6 360 that takes the experience up a notch. Oh yeah, and the surround sound is just killer.

Players do have a wider variety of animations (including a couple of slick no-look passes and some nice new finishing moves at the rim) and the flow of the game seems improved as a whole. Oh yeah, and the players sweat. Not at first, but as the game goes on. I’ve never talked to my friends and family so much about athletes sweating. But damn. You don’t need a fatigue indicator anymore. Just watch for the stains on the jerseys and you’ll know which players have been getting heavy minutes.

I’m not sure what bug fixes are in this game vs. the Xbox, but in the handful of games I’ve played the center has yet to get locked into guarding the point guard, which was the biggest problem with 2k6 Xbox.

Bottom line, this is a great NBA hoops game and the potential for 2k7 is enormous. But we’re grumpy gamers here so I can’t help but whine a bit about the shortcomings. (Truly, they are mostly minor. But I think they’re worth noting.)

Substitution patterns remain the lone truly miserable low point of the game. I do think they’re tweaked some compared to the Xbox version, but they’re an abomination all the same. In fact in some instances I think they’re worse. Here’s some examples from my Pistons Association:

• The game flat out refuses to certain players (Carlos Delfino, Carlos Arroyo, etc.) even after I spent a full season abusing the overpowered player development feature to hone Delfino’s shooting skills. (Delfino is erroneously listed as a SG, btw. He can and does play the position, but he’s primarily a backup to Tayshaun Prince). Speaking of Prince, when he goes to the bench, instead of putting Delfino in (per my bench lineup settings) the game instead rotates Richard Hamilton to the small forward spot and plugs in my created PG and Lindsey Hunter (also a PG) at the guard positions. If Hamilton is fatigued or in foul trouble it goes for 18 year old rookie SF Amir Johnson (whom I had to create since he’s not in the game). The hell?

  The thing is, I don’t so much mind that the game has its own ideas about who should go in at a specific position and when, but I do mind that it completely ignores what you’ve specified in the roster management screen as far as which players serve which positions off the bench. The only time certain players see the court under auto-subs is if I have a bunch of players in foul trouble or if it’s garbage time in a blowout.

• A player with two fouls in the first quarter gets pulled, but a player with three or four fouls in the 2nd quarter often stays in the game. Huh?
• Last night in a playoff game I had a 20+ point lead over the Cavs in the fourth quarter (All Star difficulty using a slider set from Operation Sports). The game had left all but one starter in for the entire 3rd quarter, and then proceeded to leave three of them in for all but the last two minutes of the fourth quarter (then a 30+ point lead). There may be some special playoff substitution logic at work here, but it’s still just dumb.

I’m sure I’ll end up turning on manual subs at some point, but I quite simply hate having to go through multiple submenus to get to the subs screen. If only they’d have added the coach’s clipboard from College Hoops. That is a must have feature for 2k7 as far as I’m concerned.

There’s also still some issues with fouls that need tweaking. It’s not obscene and don’t make more of this than there is, because the foul sliders work great and can be tweaked so that you get to the line as much as you want (within reason). But it’s not balanced. I’m consistently able to draw more shooting calls as a human player than the AI is, so no matter where I set the sliders there’s a disparity between the teams in terms of free throw attempts (in my favor). (Keep in mind that how you play the game will have an effect here too. If you stick to a perimeter game you’re less likely to have an issue.)

I’m also a bit letdown that the most recent rosters are still the 10/21 rosters (via Live). Has no-one at 2k noticed that these are still pre-season rosters? I’m not a total junky for up to the minute updates, but I do think it’s mandatory for publishers to have opening day rosters available. I can’t speak for each team, but the Pistons have one player still on their roster whom they dealt prior to the season’s start (Ronald Dupree, I think), and two drafted rookies (Amir Johnson and Alex Acker) who aren’t in the game. Minor? Relatively. But is it annoying that in February 2006 a game released in late November 2005 doesn’t have rosters consistent with the start of the season? Absolutely. On the Xbox this was no big deal because there was always user created rosters for download, but the 360 has no Action Replay and so far as I’ve seen, no mechanism for user distributed rosters. It won’t help my Association any, but does anyone know if there will be a roster update after the NBA trade deadline?

One note about the player models. If your team is good, your starters and key bench players are scary realistic. Conversely, if your team blows or if your elite squad’s lesser players are on the court, don’t expect much. (I could care less about this, but it’s worth noting.)

Finally, and this last point isn’t a complaint so much as an observation (nothing Visual Concepts could’ve done about it), but it’s really weird playing Miami and seeing Stan Van Gundy roaming the sidelines when you know the real team now has Pro Hairdo Guy, whose team got waxed by the Pistons in the 1989 Finals, back on the court.

On a side note, the commentary is very, very well done, but it is limited and there needs to be more playoff-specific stuff in there. There’s nowhere near enough right now. I think they could also use more variation with regards to fouls. They’ve got three or four remarks for fouls that get regurgitated constantly. And all of them are of the, “You can’t hit a guy like that and not expect a whistle,” variety. I’d love to see them throw in a couple that indicate a questionable call: “Man, I don’t know what the ref was thinking when he blew his whistle. That was all ball!”

In any case, NBA2k6 360 is probably the best pure arcade hoops game I’ve played. I haven’t messed with the off the court features much (no off-season stuff yet and I haven’t attempted any trades), but the feature set appears the same. I have no idea whether or not the GM AI is any more savvy, though. Right now I’m half-way through the playoffs for season one of my association. I’ll post more on this one after I get through an off-season.

Ever subscribe to an email list at work with some question like “does anyone have a sample personnel manual they could share?” and then that’s followed by 23 people on the list who say “me too”?

Well, this is a Blog “Me Too” post. Basically I want to reiterate what Bill had said a few posts back. The MVP NCAA 06 Baseball reviews were just ripping into a game for what it isn’t (MLB) versus what it is (NCAA).

I can say that this game with certain options on (hello zone hitting) has rekindled my love of baseball games. I’ve only had it for three days, but I’m going to get it out there — this is up there with High Heat. I’m really enjoying this game. Some of the issues I had with last year’s MVP have been corrected and as long as you’re using the behind the batter cam, it looks great.

The ESPN ticker is a very nice touch.

There is one “WTF” caveat with this game, and it’s for those of you that play the game online. Some complete moron at EA decided to put the “mute” command on the left thumbstick button. As you know the left thumbstick can be pushed down as a button. Many games avoid this ‘button’ becuase you inadvertently hit the ‘button’ when you move the thumbstick.

So you’re playing a great game over Xbox live, you say hello to your competitor and throw the first pitch. You are throwing low and outside the strike zone. Then poof, you can’t hear your opponent. Your opponent who swung high on the pitch, also can’t hear you. Your opponent thinks he hit the mute button, so he hits the button to unmute you. The problem is that you are the one that muted yourself. You then hit your button to unmute, but now your opponent has muted himself. You go through this exercise on every play. Sure is fun!

At least with Madden, you had a red or green icon to show if you were muted or not, instead you have the ESPN ticker taking up that part of the screen. I do not have a manual with the game (I gamefly’d it), so if I’m missing something here, can you clue me in?

I’d love to really enjoy this puppy online!

I added a link to the review of my book by the folks at Gamer’s with Jobs over on the sidebar. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, well, there ya go.

I’m submitting my review of Civ IV today, despite the fact that the game is months old, GameShark still wants the review, and who am I to turn down a freelance fee, right?

SI is also sending me a late review copy of Eastside Hockey Manager as well as Worldwide Soccer Manager for review. So, lots to do. I’m also wrapping up my testing of Total College Basketball from Grey Dog, which is a game that I like, but I wish these text based hoop games were a bit more hands on. I’ll explain what I mean later. Right now, I need to finish up some work.