The Blog for the Sports Gamer

They beat a very good Wisconsin team today. It’s too bad that Butch dislocated his elbow in the first half. I would have liked to have seen what kind of impact he could have had in the second half.

It was fitting that Kam Taylor missed the last shot as he missed the front end of the bonus that could have put the Badgers up by more than one with 20 seconds to go.

If things go to plan, these two teams will be playing again in the Big Ten tournament in a few weeks.

It’s hard to say this without sounding bitter, but having seen OSU play Wisconsin two times this year I have to say that they’re a very good team not a great one. Being as young as they are, they get rattled very easily and could have lost that game today if one player would have made two free throws in the last minute.

Badger fans just have to hope that the injury that Butch suffered isn’t going to keep him out for the NCAA tournament. If it does, this team’s potential this year is very limited.

First off, Dwight from the Office is on SNL. The first two sketches were funny…but then the usual downhilli spiral.

Speaking of TV, I wanted to let you know the shows that I watch..
Rome on Sunday (HBO) We know this is the last season, but this is just awesome. It’s one of those “why aren’t more people watching it” type of shows.
Monday - all the CBS comedies 24, and Studio 60 — Studio 60 is going to get canned, and I can see why. The Class is pretty funny and How I Met Your Mother can be very hysterical…everyone already knows about 2 1/2 men, right? You have to watch 24. It’s the law or something.
Tuesday - American Idol (duh), House, and The Unit. The Unit is like the A-Team on steroids. Dennis Haysbert is just the man. Of course, those of us that follow sports probably know him better as Pedro Cerrano from Major League. F You Joboo!
Wednesday - Friday Night Lights, American Idol and Lost. Lost has started to get interesting again, and you already know that FNL is like the best show ever and you need to watch it now.
Thursday - Office/Scrubs/30 Rock. I gave up on Earl although it has it’s moments. If you told me I’d be enjoying 30 Rock more than Studio 60, I wouldn’t have believed you but it is very funny. Scrubs and the Office are both awesome as well.
Friday - Uhhh..are there shows on Friday?
Saturday - Spent watching all the shows I didn’t see during the week. SNL of course but it’s not must see..

Feel free to add/subtract to the list as necessary.

Lots of work stuff going on right now, which is a good thing because we just did our taxes. I have a few things waiting to go up at GameShark and have moved on to Football Mogul and Draft Day Basketball (for Gshark and CGM respectively). After that, it’l'l be MLB 2K7 time. I’m still doing that conference call for the game but it was pushed back to Monday.

But Friday night was game night. Mary had to travel to Canada this weekend and Ashley is headed to Cincy to visit my parents. So Friday was family night. It actually started Thursday morning. Ashley insisted she help dad slap some paint on the BattleLore minis… she wanted to see her picture on the blog, so I’m caving in and adding a few pics.

Friday night, it was time to actually play the game; Ashley just watched because she wanted to see if any of her painted figs were going to die. This pic is from the 4th booklet mission which introduces the Iron Dwarves (lined up in the center.) I played the other side, with the goblins. I lost. Goblins suck. Ashley’s units survived. She was happy.

Finally, it was on to PitchCar. As I have said over the past week or so, PitchCar is a great game for the entire family because a six year old can play it almost as well as an adult. OK, well, as well as me and Mary. Ashley is either pretty good or we just suck. See the little orange “car” in last place? Yep. That’s me. All in all, a fun night.

Here’s the link.

Thanks to Cheapassgamer.com.

Well, it’s up to $29.99 now… bummer. Hope some of you got it.

Hopefully this is good news that will filter over to U.S. and European Wii consoles, but Nintendo announced yesterday that MSX and Neo Geo games will be making their way over to the Wii VC. Baseball Stars anyone?

I should state that a ton of Neo Geo titles are already available on Gametap. Dan and I will just keep on pimping that service until we get a free mouse pad from them or something.

Also, Square Enix has announced their first Virtual Console title for this year, ActRaiser. Hopefully they’ll expand that to some of their RPG titles as time goes on.

So, we’re due to get some snow this weekend. Somewhere between 6-12 inches is supposed to fall between Friday night and Monday morning, but for some reason everyone around here is treating it as if it’s going to be the next ice age descending on south central Wisconsin.

Every year that I can remember we get at least two or three good days of snowfall that add up to about this much, somehow this storm is completely different.

I’ll be putting my faith in the fine people that work for the highway departments and the person that plows my driveway and I’ll hope that they just clear the road enough for me to go play hockey on Sunday morning. Other than that, I’m just sitting at home with my daughter and gaming all weekend.

What’s on my gaming agenda for the weekend? Crackdown on the 360, Resistance on the PS3(I really need to start playing this,) and some Wii Play and Wario Ware on the Wii. Add in a touch of World Of Warcraft and I think I have a very nice winter weekend planned.

So, the web was crazy yesterday with the news that there would be a new game in the Wing Commander universe making it’s way to Xbox Live Arcade… little did we know it would be nothing like the original Wing Commander games but that it would appear to be nothing more than the bastard child of Galaga and Asteroids. The videos of this game look to me to be entirely of the ass variety.

I think that if Dan was going to name this title, my guess would be that it would be called ‘Wing Commander: Punch you in the nuts edition.’

EA, the nicest way that I can put this to you is that…. YOU SUCK!

Thanks EA, way to take a franchise that I love and then flushing it down the toilet.

Par for the course, I guess.

Just in case the 3 billion or so Wiis that have been sold didn’t emphasize the point, Nintendo officially confirmed via GameDaily that GameCubes are no longer in production. Shocker!

Oh and while we’re at it, good luck finding a Vectrex. You can’t have mine. But if you do have a 3D Imager, let me know.

I’ll always remember the GameCube for……….uh….giving me an advantage when no one else had it so I would be the default review for all the Sonic crap. Sega Soccer Slam had it’s moments. I have a shelfful of GC games….Viewtiful Joe 2 is still in shrinkwrap, that should give you a hint as to how much I played the GC. My kids love the system…especially Animal Crossing. Just remember, don’t put anything on the message board that your kids may read 4 years after you played the game. Oopsie.

This review is the funniest I’ve seen in a while. Nice job IGN. And consider yourself extremely lucky if you’ve never had to pre-order Microsoft Coffin for Xbox 360. I’ve had to order it twice now. I now have a Spare Coffin just in case and it’ll save me 4 days.

Wow, how about those 4 that got cut. Not a surprise at all. What was a surprise is that the new “Bad Day” song is “Home” by none other than last year idol non-winner in the show, but winner in album sales Chris Daughtry…go figure.

And you know what Idol can push Fantasia on me every season, I’m still not buying her albums.

Can’t wait for Bon Jovi week! I wonder if someone will do Dead or Alive!??

Microsoft announced a bunch of games entering the bargain bin..er, “Platinum Hits”..sports fans will enjoy Fight Night Round 3 and Top Spin 2 for $29.99.

Here’s a quick way to get 1,000 GamerPoints in FNR3. Turn off illegal blows and then just punch the guy in the nuts over and over again. You’ll have the points quick. And you’ll get the thrill of punching a guy in the nuts, and based on the popularity of America’s Funniest Home Videos, we all know you’ll enjoy that thrill. I know I did. You could just elbow punch until they bleed, but that’s not nearly as fun…

Hey, it’s noon and I have yet to buy a videogame today, so that’s progress; although I have to say that Fl0w and Q*Bert weren’t yet available on the PS Store this morning before work…

One game I did purchase last week was Destruction Derby for the PSP. That game is just as fun as I remember it and boggles the mind why another game like it hasn’t come out. I mean a racing game where you try to take the other guy out by wrecking his vehicle — and all the damage is caused old school — by you, not by guns or flying pumpkins or whatever…

First off, those of you wondering, what happened to Greg Kasavin from GameSpot (you may recall he quit to go into the game industry but hadn’t specified where), sources tell me that he’s working for Electronic Arts Los Angeles. You don’t actually need special sources for that, as he’s posted it on the Gamespot blog. Just wanted to keep you informed.

Second, tonights Idol was impressive..that last woman brought down the house. Lakisha was jaw dropping good, and I have dialidol working overtime for her. (BTW, fantastic program if you are an Idol watcher, it’s predicted the losers quite well, over 80 percent)..

Third, after having a long heart to heart with Glen last night, I realized I’m spending way too much money on videogames and have made a resolution to rent games instead of purchase them from now on, unless they are provided for review, which I mean, how can I not accept that, am I right? So I bumped my Gamefly up from 3 to 4 games out, immediately rented Rainbow Six Vegas, which I really regret trading in and then clicked keep it. SO I think that resolution lasted a good 2 hours. I keep saying, I will not buy NBA Street or Virtua Fighter or Sonic for Wii. Best of luck with that, right?

I noticed that IGN gave Virtua Fighter 5 a 8.8 and an Editor’s Choice award..which begs the question, what qualifies a game for an Editor’s Choice award? Why not just give it to everything with a 7 or above? Hmm?

NBA Street is getting high 7’s or low 8’s…but before you buy, read those reviews. If I’m EIC, I’m thinking the text doesn’t match the score — specifically, I think the score is lower. Now I’m just saying this as a precaution. I have not played the full game, and I really can’t say if it’s good or bad; I’m just saying that the reviews on IGN and Gamespot seem to contradict the numerical score given, that’s all.

Alright, bed time for me…

The DoW blog has been updated (for about a week now, actually) with new info re: the forthcoming expansions. Yes, BattleLore is going to be a cash cow for Days of Wonder. I like the free Epic expansion. Bigger battles. Woo. Call to Arms looks to be a more traditional boxed add-on with the standard “more stuff” inside.

The “specialist packs” is where I think they are going to make their $$$.

“Each Specialist pack will introduce a couple of new units centered around a common theme. Likely early candidates include a Goblin Skirmisher set, a Dwarven Battalion (complete with the already infamous Dwarven Bagpipers!), and a 100 Years War Battalion. Each of these packs will be available at retail, as well as on our web site, for a retail price of approximately $20.”

The possibilities here are endless. Trolls. Minotaurs. Maybe even additional ranged weapons. Elves. Etc.

Cha-Ching.

Just finished the two hour torture that was American Idol. If these are the 12 best singing guys in America, we have a serious, seroius problem. I bet my daughter that we’d hear 7 Stevie Wonder songs…I lost that bet, but it really wasn’t any better.

I thought the best guy was the beat box guy who did aiight doing a song by Keane of all things. I feel like I’m watching auditions for the next Color Me Badd. Just a very unenjoyable night.

In other news, for those living under a rock, Crackdown released today. Game is engaging so far, but we’ll see.

NBA Street comes out tomorrow and I’m trying to convince myself not to buy it…try as I might I know what’s going to happen, becuase I”m a loser. I’m still kicking myself for trading in Rainbow Six Vegas…idiot.

Microsoft did deliver the empty box today, making the turnaround time 6 days. They shipped the box three day UPS. Since GameStop was mighty kind in switching out my console, I’ll close this ticket, but I’ll save the box, as since I’m now on #3, I’m bound to use the box at some point.

All three of my Gamefly games showed up today: Tiger, Ridge Racer and Marvel Ultimate Alliance all for the PS3. The frame rate on Marvel is asstastic and should be an embarassment to all involved. Ridge Racer is, well, Ridge Racer and you gotta love the free Xevious game included while the game is loading. Tiger looks fantastic but I really haven’t played it yet, due to Crackdown. Although it is finally nice to use my $600 console on actual games, I must say, even if the frame rate does suck.

BTW, I had to fill out a survey for GameStop and they asked if I would be interested in renting games…now there’s an idea…drool.