The Blog for the Sports Gamer

If you have children under 8, you have at one point or another, watched the Wiggles or gone to a concert or both. That’s why you’ll probably know the shocking news today out of Australia: Greg, aka the Yellow Wiggle (the lead singer) has retired from the band due to health reasons.

It’s a bit of a shock. I mean, I had to listen to their music over the past 3-5 years more than I listen to my music, so I’m probably more affected. At least he wasn’t dating Yoko.

Well, it kinda went as I thought it would (see below). Not enough depth and we got really gassed the final 8 minutes.

But.

This proves that it is possible to be smiling ear to ear after a loss.

Add Oden to that lineup and Ohio State is going to be disgustingly good. These teams better get their shots in while they can because to lose a game like that on the road with Oden in street clothes…

I cannot wait to see this team at full strength.

Yes, I know a few posts back I didn’t href the tag. Oh well, find it yourself, I’m lazy.

In other news and quite amazing, I read at Kotaku that they had a post at SportsGamer.com (what a great name for a blog), that says that tomorrow 11/30 there will be free downloadable NCAA and Madden jerseys.

Here are the jerseys, pasted from this link:
Alt Uniforms - Big 10, Pac 10, Notre Dame: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan St., Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Arizona, Cal, Oregon, Stanford, Washington, WSU

· Alt Uniforms – ACC: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest

· Alt Uniforms - Big East, Conf. USA: Cincinnati, Connecticut Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, USF, Syracuse, West Virginia, Marshall, UCF, Houston

· Alt Uniforms - SEC, Mtn. West: Florida, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Colorado State, UNLV, San Diego State, TCU, Utah, Wyoming

· Alt Uniforms - Big 12, WAC: Baylor, Colorado, Iowa St, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma St, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Boise St, Hawaii, LA Tech, Nevada, Utah St

Nice. And for Madden:

Madden NFL 07

· AFC East Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Bills, Jets & Patriots; alternate uniform for the Dolphins.
· AFC North Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Steelers & Browns; alternate uniforms for the Bengals & Ravens.
· AFC South Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniform for the Titans; alternate uniforms for the Colts, Texans & Jaguars.
· AFC West Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Broncos, Chargers, Chiefs & Raiders.
· NFC East Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Cowboys, Eagles, Giants & Redskins.
· NFC North Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Bears, Lions & Packers; 2005 season uniform for the Vikings
· NFC South Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Bucs, Falcons & Saints; alternate uniform for the Panthers.
· NFC West Throwback Uniforms: Throwback uniforms for the Cardinals, 49ers, Rams & Seahawks.

Ah yes, who can remember the good old days of 2005 and the Vikings and sex cruises, eh? Again this content is FREE. No points! Grab it before they charge!

Tonight’s game between OSU and North Carolina will go a long way in finding out if the OSU team can handle a tough crowd, and the notion of being ranked #1.

That’s it.

I expect OSU to lose tonight.

The Bucks are a strong team, vastly overrated at #1, and missing Greg Oden. Oden’s absense makes this whole thing seem a bit weird. The OSU team that takes the floor tonight will not mirror the team that takes the floor in January when Oden returns. (Some are saying he’ll be back in December, but who knows). When you remove an athletic 7′1 dominator like Oden from the lineup…it’s hard to really get a feel for how good OSU will be until he’s back. Even though OSU has rolled its early cakewalk opponents, every Buckeye fan (that I talk to) understands that we’re a team in waiting. The new Freshmen are playing lights out (Cook and Conley are scary good), but tonight when the 6′9 NC center has his way with Matt Terwilliger, I’ll be thinking: Oden.

I hope for a win; I expect a hard-fought loss.

On Monday I finally tracked down a local rental for College Hoops while I wait for Gamerang to get a copy out to me (probably Thursday). Right now I’m just sitting back and playing the game. No full season sims to check stats and slider tweaking. I’ve jumped right into a closed legacy (Brown), playing a couple of games per season and simming the rest. (I’m dead set on getting more mileage out of my legacy this year and am simming much more than I play until I build up my coach and land a more posh assignment.)

So far, after two seasons at Brown, I’ve moved on to North Texas. After going about .500 after two season, season number three resulted in 23 wins and a tourney birth; my first birth and North Texas’s first in 20 years. (I haven’t played out the tourney game yet.)

At this point, on all-conference (10 min halves) I’ve noticed the following:

- I have yet to win a game (played about eight). (Much of my problem has been inability to stop the AI’s 3-point game, as explained below.)
- There really are too many missed inside shots. I finally broke down and bumped the human layup and inside range sliders (five points each, I think) and the one game with those settings was a huge improvement (maybe too much).
- I don’t know what Bill is seeing (he’s hinted otherwise), but the AI has loved the 3-point shot in the games I’ve played. Again, on 10 min. halves, the AI is averaging putting up around 20 attempts per game (including 24 from Penn when I played them as Brown). And they’re hitting them. Not an ungodly number, but when even small schools are hitting 40-50% of 20 3-point attempts it’s too much. I finally took down the AI 3-point tendency slider and bumped the inside tendency slider (I think by 10 each, but I’d have to check). That seems to have helped a lot, but I’ve only played a couple games that way.
- Free throw shooting seems better this year. Last year I really struggled with that, but I’m having no problems right now and it’s so nice that there’s just one camera view for free throws (as opposed to NBA 2k7’s changing the view between each attempt).
- There are far too few fouls called (maybe it’s better on a higher difficulty). At default I’ve gone entire halves without getting a whistle called on my player. From reading the OS forums, I’m seeing a lot of custom slider sets that up fouls across the board to the 80-90 range and getting *much* better results.
- Because I’m lazy, I’ve paid almost zero attention to what the AI has been doing outside my conference so I really can’t comment on sim results, NCAA seedings, etc.
- Recruiting seems much improved this year. I haven’t looked too deep yet, but
the recruit pool seems much more balanced and I haven’t noticed the high talent level of recruits causing small schools to dramatically improve their overall talent levels over time (I need to look more closely at this to be sure, though). Recruiting to Brown was basically me hopeing to land a few two star recruits. Recruiting at North Texas (Sun Belt Conference), I’ve been able to consistently land either two or three star recruits, but have had almost zero luck drawing any interest from any four star recruits (and those who show interest have still gone elsewhere). The recruiting model appears to be pretty tight.
- I love that you can finally manage the order of your target list (if you could do this last year, I never figured out how). This finally makes leaving the fine details of recruiting to your assistants a plausible strategy. I basically set my targets at the start and do the heavy lifting for my top tier targets (those for whom I hope to offer scholarships) and let the AI handle the rest. When the initial signing period ends, I reasses and repeat. Same for the end of the season. Once I get hired at a school where I intend to stick for a while this should make for a much nicer balance of playing games vs. time spent in the UI.
- That said, the horrid NBA 2k7 UI has been ported here and it’s just as annoying in College Hoops. You can get used to it and make effective use of it, but it’s still frustrating as all get out to use.

So far it seems pretty clear this is the best edition of College Hoops to date. (Not one crash in legacy mode either!) That said, it’s not so different from previous versions that if you didn’t like those, that you’ll end up doing a 180 on this one. The core gameplay is the same and there are still details that can irritate, like getting stuck in animations, or games having a just slightly scripted feel to them. (I’ll never be able to prove that theory. It just seems like the ease of getting buckets or stops at certain points throughout a game is predictably easy/hard depending on the balance of the matchup. It really could be my imagination, though.) But if you really liked or were at least luke warm to past editions, this one should work out quite nicely for you.

Having already stated my belief that USC deserves their shot at the Bucks (assuming they win out), I thought I’d point out this very good analysis at the M Go Blog that basically says the same thing… except that he backs his assertion up with a *whole lot* of evidence to support. Well worth a read.

Is a patch! Yes! A patch for Texas Hold’em. I will say it does look like it’s a pretty good patch — the only drawback being Live Vision support is still NOT included! Click here for the details, courtesy of Major Nelson.

I just read the Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot. I’m officially old now. I remember pretty much all of these guys when growing up. What’s scarier is that you have to be out of baseball, what, five years before showing up on this ballot? Damn.

I still remember going to Memorial Stadium in 1983 (aka the last Championship season), watching Storm Davis, Ripken, Murray…damn….good times.

Now it’s twenty-freaking-three years later and the big thing O’s fans get excited about is when their ex-players make the HOF ballot.

Well I guess the O’s just signed Baez. Great. Here’s a guy that wasn’t great with Tampa Bay, but I’m supposed to get excited. Um, ok. If you say so.

1. If you didn’t watch How I Met Your Mother last week, you have to see this parody video by “Robin Sparkles” called “Let’s Go To The Mall”…nice Tiffany/Debbie Gibson memories there. Now if she’d only do a nude pictorial like Tiff and Deb.. heh..

Nice to see the Pats win one despite the referees trying to let Chicago win. That first pass interference call was horseshit.

Last night I had chip n dip while watching the Pats game…I guess it didn’t go down too well as I had it come back up around 1am. That’s always pleasant. However, after that vomit episode, I felt a zillion times better. Aren’t you glad you know that.

I did my first and last attempt to get a Wii on eBay. They were selling Zelda and the console and it went for $410. I bid it up to $405..but even then I was hoping someone would out bid me. A $110 premium is just too much for it at this point. I have enough games, ya know? Yes I want to play it but I can wait.

In the meantime, I have been using the FF wheel and wireless headset on my 360. Now that is fun. I need to get NFS Carbon soon for the 360 as it supports FF as well….

This is why I take the bafoonery of the Browns in stride. The Buckeyes are playing for a title and the hoops team is ranked in the top 5. I cannot with a straight face complain about my other team.

Today I saw a very sad sight. Braylon Edwards shoving QB Charlie Frye…because Frye isn’t a very good QB. Edwards, at Michigan, had a reputation as a guy who was the best teammate - when things were going well. When they weren’t, well…

Things are not going well in Cleveland.

Today Bryalon snapped and went off on Frye, a kid who is doing the best that he can behind a porous Oline combined with his very average skills as an NFL QB. Players like Edwards are a dime a dozen in the NFL. He’s not the next Jerry Rice. He’s more likely the next Charles Rogers unless he starts catching the ball.

Edwards has rolled several teammates under the bus this year, including safety Brian Russell after his vicious hit on Chad Johnson early in the year. Bryalon Edwards: Teammate extraordinaire.

Here’s the real problem: Romeo Crennel let Edwards back on the field without saying a word after his unprofessional outburst. Crennel might be a great X and O defensive coach but he has offcially lost the team. He has to go. TOnight. Th efact that he didn’t at least show some emotion after Edwards verbally attacked his QB..then shoved him — if THAT didn’t get Crennel out of his shell, nothing will.

As a Browns fan, I kinda wish they had stayed gone. My fertile memory of Brian Sipe, the Pruitts, Bernie Kosar, Byner, Mack, The old Dawg Pound before it was turned into a marketing tool — that is the Browns I choose to remember. I have no idea who those dudes are in the orange helmets today. Certainly not the team that left Cleveland back in ‘95.

I updated the sidebar this morning with the link to the NWN2 review as well as linking to the homepage of CGM as the latest issue has a lot of my stuff in it including PC reviews of NBA Live 07 (mega-crap) Tiger Woods 07 (re-hashed from ‘06; literally a $40 patch); Total Pro Golf (good start for text golf) Dawn of War Dark Crusade (awesome stand alone expansion…a 40K Orgy!) and an article written by me as told by Ashley — another Kids Game Round Up.

Still a busy time for me, work-wise. I’m working on the CH2K7 review as well as the HoMM V expansion, Stronghold: Legends, and finishing up Mark of Chaos. I turned in my FoF 2007 review on Friday (4 stars for those curious), and will finally get around to doing a very late review of Sid Meier’s Railroads as soon as everything else is done.

On the boardgame front, I dusted my dad and Mary (twice!) in Railroad Tycoon over the Turkey Day break. Woo hoo. I am Vanderbilt! I gloat because I rarely win.

I have a lot of boardgames on my Christmas wishlist:

Marvel Heroes - Because Super Heroes are cool

Arkham Horror - Because Cthulhu is ever cooler

Memoir ‘44 - Because Fast Paced Wargames are easier to play. I may also try to get Battle Lore in this same series)

Fury of Dracula - Because I played the original and I hear this one is better. Oh, and Dracula is also very cool.

And Finally, Chicken Cha Cha Cha - Because Ashley will love it.

If you haven’t seen it and want to try out Video Marketplace, try out Season 10 Episode 8 of South Park called “Make Love, Not Warcraft”. Hysterical. Not bad for $3. Yes I know you can find a torrent for free. But this way it’ll never be deleted. Yes, it’s almost the same price as Sneak King…but you gotta try the marketplace.

Oh and for Abner, if you missed Studio 60, you can catch up via the marketplace..

Y’all know I’ve been a huge fan of TiVo every since 2002 when my ReplayTV became incompatible with my cable company service (IR blasters suck). I have 2 Series 2 boxes with lifetime.

I was contemplating biting the $800 bullet and getting the Series 3 HD unit because from now until the end of the year, TiVo will let me transfer lifetime service to a Series 3 for $199.

It is very tempting…especially since now TiVo has decided to rape monthly users of the service, charging $19.95 a month instead of $12.95 a month for those opting to go month to month. In order to get $12.95/mo, you’ll need to commit to three years of service. What’s more annoying is that no one seemed to notice this, instead they are focusing on the fact that you can download stuff to your TiVo. Big Whoop!

While my Series 2’s aren’t going anywhere, they sure are doing everything they can to make sure I keep my Echo Passport Cable DVR…

What a letdown. A 54% monthly increase means they are trying to get out of the industry I think…

Yesterday was not a great day for me. First off, some idiot (me) decided to open at 7am for Black Friday. This meant getting up much earlier that I normally do. Then, afterwards (we closed early) I went out with my 3 high school friends that are home for the holiday that I’ve known for 20+(!) years. Of course that involved drinking and going to bars that were smoke filled and I hate smoke.

I get home and Verizon has a DSL outage. There’s also a note from my wife saying we don’t have heat or hot water (the room temp was 59 and falling). I went downstairs and tried to reboot the boiler but no luck. It’s going to have to wait until morning so I don’t pay triple time for the service. No internet, no heat, no hot water. Good times.

There was some good news — Overstock.com did deliver the Xbox live wireless headset and the Xbox 360 wireless force feedback wheel. While I haven’t used the headset yet (No DSL until today and I’m dead tired), I Have tried the wireless wheel. One word: WOW. The wheel comes with the force feedback version of PGR3 and it’s a whole different game. Overstock had the wheel for $125 and if you don’t have PGR 3 yet, it’s a fantastic deal, especially if you like wheels. You can play other driving games with the wheel, but just in ‘wheel’ mode not in force feedback mode. Rumor has it Test Drive Unlimited will support an FF version at some point, but we’ll see.

I’d write more but I’m so damn tired..we now have heat and hot water. Yay!

First off, anyone looking for PS3/Wii thoughts from me will be waiting quite a long while. I dunno what it is, but my desire to get one/both of those consoles — there is literally zero drive to buy them. I have my 360. I play it on a semi-regular basis, but with that and my PC gaming there would be zero time for other stuff and I have plenty of work to do as is, so I’m staying pat with the cards I have. It does feel kinda strange, but I never even gave buying a PS3 any real thought.

Anyway, College Hoops 2K7, after seveal games, is proving to be the best in the series. Really good stuff. I may bump up CPU 3PT attempts (this has never felt right in this series) but each game feels different, which is the sign of a cool sports game.

Anyone played the original Xbox version?