The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Any board gamers play this by chance? It came in the mail today and looks really cool in a Scottish Rebellion-Longshanks-sorta way.

After playing the game for about 15 to 20 hours between Thursday and Sunday evening, I believe that they should have just dropped the last 4 letters off of the title of the game. I was so unbelievably addicted to the game over the weekend. I can’t recall the last time that I was so hooked on a game as quickly as I was with Crackdown. Sadly, I finished up the main “story” for the game on Sunday night and as a result… there aren’t nearly as many bad guys to go after, but there are plenty more achievements to obtain.

For those of you that haven’t given the Live demo a try, please do so. Also, if you have looked at it and didn’t like it, just try it again. The only thing that I suggest is that you make an effort to get as many of the agility orbs that you can in the opening area of the game.

In my first play through of the demo, I just played it as if it was another GTA game. I ran along, stole some cars and drove around to the missions. The game is just so much more than that if you spend your time exploring the area running and jumping from roof to roof.

I spent about 10 hours on Friday and Saturday evening playing the game in co-op mode with a co-worker and we had an absolute blast with it. It was just so great to be sitting up on top of a building with a friend and wondering what strategy you were going to have to take on to get that next agility orb that would push you a bit closer to being able to jump that little bit more that you needed to get some more orbs.

There are some issues with the game. For one, you can’t climb/jump using half of the windows in the game. It gets frustrating later on when jumping to a building and figuring that you’re just going to ‘catch’ on it so you can make it up to the roof, only to find that the windows on that building have nothing for you to hold on to…. even though they look as though they do. It’s a minor issue, but when you’re getting near the end, it’s an annoyance that keeps coming up.

I can safely say that, at the very least, every 360 owner should give the game a rental. The story is definitely weak, but if you ignore that and just run and jump around the city like an idiot, you’ll have a blast taking out the bad guys that you run into and collecting every orb that you see.

Well I went to go watch my first spring training game, despite not getting the auto renewal email — I’m getting nothing but a 500 server error, and now it looks like there is no TV coverage. Wow, really getting my $119.95 worth! No biggie, I just want it to work starting tomorrow because that’s the O’s Marlins game.

I am contractually obligated to remind everyone that there’s a new Friday Night Lights on tonight. The ratings took a bath last week with American Idol — I realize it’s the girls night tonight, and the guys were made to sound better than they were (I think someone said to the judges you better be easy on them or else no one will watch on Tuesdays!), but seriously Friday Night Lights is much better. It’s dedication week on Idol, and I want to hear a lady dedicate I Wanna Sex You Up by Color Me Badd to their mom and dad for all the support they gave them or something.

And for the record from the emails, yes, I did say that right to Glen after he told me what happened at the hospital, but it was taken by him the way it was intended. Some of you really think I’m an uncaring ass. Settle down guys, Bin Laden didn’t do it and stuff. (And that’s an old newsgroup reference there, use google groups and see what I’m referring to).

Is it me or is it slow? I’m trying to download Alien Hominid, and it’s a 48MB download and it’s been 10 minutes and I’m only at 22% complete. In addition it took me 6 hours+ to get the MLB demo from Monday.

People at GameStop, on the same cable service as me, reported similar issues, so it’s either my wonderful cable or the XBL Marketplace. Please report in and let me know.

In other news, if you have no problem at all with your internet connection, there’s a demo for Winning Eleven available now. My review of the game was meh + 1. That’s one above meh.

I picked the Orioles to play Tampa Bay. I lost 6-3, which is reasonable. I would have won had I been able to handle baserunning better. What I don’t understand is High Heat made everything easy and all the other games just do what they can to make it worse. Mark Dickenson where are you these days?

The animations seem pretty jerky to me, the pitching specificially does not seem much better than last year. The players do look right and the O’s Chad Bradford does throw submarine style. I find pitching fun, hitting very difficult and fielding terrible. You just have no time to react in the infield — by the time the ball is at shortstop, you will have already committed one way or the other. I see a lot of “hits” that should have been fielded..I’m not sure if I will adapt or it’s just broken.

Play by play is great, the extra touches are awesome in the game but no active scoreboards — it’s just plain stupid to see a static out of town scoreboard at Camden Yards that shows Boston @ Baltimore. I mean seriously, if you’re going to make it static, don’t show Baltimore on it. Idiots!

After one game, I can say that I don’t hate it, but it’s definitely not High Heat. One game can tell me it’s still not the holy grail. I’m not horribly disappointed yet, so how’s that for a Simon Cowell-esque ringing endorsement?

IGN gave it a 7, so it either really sucks (ie F) or they are idiots (and the game is an A)…..they ream the rosters pretty hard, but see that’s not a problem becuase 1) you can move FA’s over to the right team and 2) you can use a player editor. Rosters are not going to be right in February.

I’m going to play with it a little more over the next few days (Bill has the review I’m told so this is on my off time) and if I still feel this way, I think we should do a small league.

I have MLB 2K5 for the Xbox in front of me and I was comparing and contrasting. Lots of “new” stuff that was in 2K5, like first person baserunning.

It feels to me like I’ll be playing this more than last years…I mean last year I hated it from game 1….so there’s a start…

PS Is anyone else getting the “Gay friendly autos” ad? I know that they take ads based on what the blog says, but I’m not sure what that came up for. Let me try something. Sex. Sex. Porn. Hot love. Toys. Ohh baby. Faster. Wonder what ad will come up now!

So, my wife and I made the journey to the hospital today as she hadn’t felt any movement from our, soon to be born, child in the last few days. While we were there she starts having contractions that were about 5 minutes apart, but they felt that she wasn’t ready to go into full blown labor (just under 35 weeks,) so they gave her a nice drug to stop the contractions and we got to come back home.

Dan, the model of compassion says, “Good. So you can pick up MLB then.”

How can you not love that guy?

All kidding aside though, things seem ok at the moment, but if I disappear for a day or so… now you’ll know why. Of course, for the birth of our first child I had photos online on our website within about and hour or so, and some emails sent out in the first hour.

Oh, yeah. I’m a geek for life. If I have my way, the kids will be too.

One last thing, my wife had a dream the other day that we were having a boy and that he’ll grow up to play defense for the Islanders. I was just happy that he wasn’t a goalie… man I’d be broke for sure then.

Joystiq has teamed up with ZDnet to give out a free year of Games for Windows magazine. Free works for me. I’m sure I’ll get some junk mail because of it, but I just give that to my 2 year old as she loves to get any sort of mail, junk or otherwise.

Although the game was out for the PS3 and Xbox 360, I opted for the 360 as I’d rather have rumble than using a motion controller for batting.

I wasn’t sure if I would do it or not, but maybe I’ll try a small league on the blog and see if this game is actually any fun. Glen has already indicated an interest. We’ll see if Bill wants in as well.

Fate intervened and since they didn’t have SSX Blur I didn’t buy it. Makes it very easy. I didn’t even preorder anything. I’m such a good boy. So basically all that’s left in my preorder queue is Guitar Hero 360, Motorstorm and Forza Motorsport for the 360. That’s enough.

I see that the show is out for PS2 but I’m going to hold out for the PS3. I figure I’ll get a month out of MLB and then if it sucks I’ll trade for the Show….we’ll see…

If you didn’t see this on SportsCenter last week, take a look at this video from an NHL game between Ottawa and Buffalo from February 22nd.

I love a good goalie fight and the look on Ray Emery’s face as he’s heading out to match up with the Biron from Buffalo is priceless.

If you read this article you get the feeling that EA CEO Larry Probst was shitcanned. However according to Larry he thought it was the right time to leave…interesting…

In other news, my cornucopia of games from Gamefly arrived today…my re-bought Rainbow Six Vegas, Virtua Fighter 5 and NBA Street all showed up. NBA Street isn’t nearly as bad as the demo was…it’s actually rather enjoyable so far. Virtua Fighter 5 was just plain awful, and not worth the install time…I enjoyed R6 Vegas and had a senior moment. The trade in value of $33 was just too tempting to pass up..then I realized how much I enjoyed the game so I rebought it. Hey I never said I wasn’t stupid.

Sonic just shipped from Gamefly for the Wii. I’m supposed to buy MLB 2K7 but now I’m not sure..the more I play the game and the more home runs I hit, the more disappointed I get…

Well, it sure does play like last year’s game, looks a ton better and the play by play is impressive. In the demo, you play 3 innings of the Cards-Mets Game 7 from last year’s NLCS.

The mechanics are very much the same as last year. I’m not sure if I like it or not…but it feels like quite an improvement over last year’s disaster. Fielding balls in the outfield is still difficult, and you have to use speed burst.

They’ve got all the details like LF and RF umpires and they call fair/foul/Home runs, which is nice. Even cute touches like fans catching foul balls are in the game which are impressive. The gameplay is fair….I don’t have the same sort of High Heat Wow feeling as I had with, say high heat, but still they seem to have done a nice job.

I love the scorecards, that is a nice touch.

So, I’m not sure right now if I did do the right thing by pre-purchasing the game (remember I did this before my new resolution started)…I’m thinking I might play SSX Blur more….but there is potential for this game. Curious to hear Bill and Glen’s thoughts on it.

One other thing that it took an insane amount of time to download. I started at 10AM and it just finished. I think it’s due to numerous school vacations and blizzards so everyone was downloading.

The graphics are very impressive…did I mention that?

Wow, I am so glad I Gamefly’d this. From the HDD install (what is this a PC), it all goes downhill from here. When you first turn on the game you see “Creating game data. This may take several minutes — do not switch off the power..” You are kidding me, right?

Well this is after all a next-gen machine, right Phil?

Update: This game installs 2.342GB onto the Hard Drive! It’s a freaking fighting game. Don’t bother with this one. What a waste.

Well I’ve been ragging on the 360’s red ring of death and console issues for a few weeks, so now it’s time to direct my attention to the PS3. First, another interview with Phil “George W Bush” Harrison from Sony. While I would concur that having supply on shelves isn’t a bad thing, the lines that this guy is spewing is just flat out hysterical. The SIXAXIS is a turd. Anyone who gets moist over motion sensors while playing Q*Bert needs some serious help because the feature sucks. Does anyone else find it ironic that one of the first arcade games with force feedback (when you jump off the pyramid, you’d feel a thunk in the coin slot) comes WITHOUT it when it finally arrives on a home console since the 2600? This guy is telling me that I don’t want rumble. Well, I think I’ll decide that, but thanks very much for shoving it down my throat.

Of course, the funny thing is that the games that I have played on the PS3 — Tiger 07, Resistance, and even Ridge Racer, I’ve enjoyed. On EVERY game, I thought, wow I wish this had rumble…in RR 7, you drive over this rickety bridge. The graphics are stunning as you can see the water underneath you — as it’s a see through bridge — but you don’t feel anything. That is stupid!!!

So in more PS3 news, I found this link from You Tube on another site. Check it out here.

Just saw over on the Major Nelson blog that the MLB2K7 demo is now available on Xbox Live for those of you with Gold accounts.

Go ahead and grab it and post your impressions.

I’ll be grabbing it later this evening, or if I’m lucky, my wife will grab it for me today and I’ll post my thoughts later.

I think Glen had mentioned this earlier, but Zelda: Ocarina of Time is today’s VC release. It’s the greatest game of all time, or something. So if need to blow $10, pick it up. Myself on the other hand, I got it free when I preordered the Wind Waker, so I’m skipping this deal.

In other news, XM reported better financials, although still reported a loss. Balance sheet trends are improving, which makes a merger the obvious choice. Not. Hey I’m all for Howard Stern and NFL on XM, but I’m not for cable tier pricing, which I bet will happen with only one satellite radio service. I still think it’s a bad deal.