The Blog for the Sports Gamer

First off, Kevin Mosley’s first GameShark article is online today and it’s about Madden 07’s franchise mode. Worth a read.

My review of Vanguard should be online any day now. I gave it a B-, fyi. Closer to a C+ than a B…but a B- nevertheless.

I’m knee deep in PitchCar and BattleLore right now and seriously…if you have a kid anywhere from six to …18. Get PitchCar. Man, that game is addictive and a whole lotta fun. What a simple idea turned into a cool game.

BattleLore, perhaps the most popular board game going at the moment, has some weird rules that I’m having trouble wrapping my head around, but for a lite-wargame that tosses in fantasy units and spells, it’s definitely filling a void for me.

Before Dan goes insane about this: I watched American Idol tonight with Mary and that had to be the worst two hours of singing since the Osmond’s did that Christmas show back in ‘78.

Hey, if 8 of the last 12 shots that you take in a game are three pointers and you miss every one of them…you’re going to lose the game.

As one of my friends said, “If you’re going to lose a game.. this was probably the one to lose.”

I guess that’s true, but man… I’m stunned that they just fell apart down the stretch like they did. That hasn’t happened the Badgers all year long.

The Big Ten title was going to come down to the OSU v. UW game on Sunday… and judging by the first game, that should be one everyone should be watching.

I had a few emails asking what I thought of the whole Tom Brady thing, and I really don’t think about it. Wow, he had sex. How incredible! Although if she is three months pregnant, that would put her as having conceived in early November, right when the Patriots were in the middle of back to back losses vs the Jets and Colts. So I’m guessing it was either pity sex (ie I’m sorry you lost back to back games, let’s do it and make you feel better) or it was the reason for the losses because she was that good. I’m hoping it was the latter because if Tom only got it for pity’s sake, what message does that send to all men in America? It means that I truly have no hope. Oh wait, that already is the case. Never mind.

Speaking of sex, how about A-Rod and Jeter? According to A-Rod they slept over each other’s house five days a week. Uh….what more can you say here, exactly? I think the words speak for themselves.

Another try, another no dice for Crackdown at GameStop, although I did get the woman to admit they did have them but they can’t sell them under threat of termination. At least they follow directions, so that’s good. I’m off tomorrow, so I guess I’ll go do that at 10AM with all the kiddies on February vacation. Damn that store is horrid when there’s vacations, based on today’s trip there. Ugh. I feel bad for those workers dealing with forced babysitting.

Anyhoo, lots of new games this week; first I’m debating about picking up Donkey Kong Country on VC…one thing I enjoy about the first party VC titles is that I never really played them if they are on SNES or N64 in the early years, so I like to try those out. TG16 games are only picked up if they are awesome like R-Type. Genesis games I have no need for since I still have all my carts and a Nomad and GameTap for the PC.

Then in “real” releases, there’s NBA Street, Crackdown, Virtua Fighter 5 and Sonic & The Secret Rings this week and next week there’s SSX Blur. I may buy VF5 just so I can say I have 2 PS3 games, although I hear it’s a massive turd and I probably should just play VF2 on GameTap for my fix. Of course the Sonic game on the Wii — who knows if that’s going to be good or ass…

In other news, as Mr. Glen mentioned earlier, Sirius and XM announced a merger but I’m guessing the chances of this happening are slim and none. You see when the FCC granted them their satellite radio license, one of the conditions was that they could never merge, so it’s going to have to really be an incredible case for them to get the greenlight, and I doubt it. Nice thought though and it did help my XM stock, so that’s nice..now it’s only $12 under where I bought it.

As I type this my son is playing Destroy All Humans on the 360 in original Xbox mode. This game sure looks fun, I missed it the first time around…

I can’t say that I have any complaints about this. As long as they don’t mess with the radios in order to add the other content, I’ll be a happy customer.

Considering Sirius has the NBA, NFL, NHL, and Nascar, XM owners must be ecstatic about this. I’m happy that I’ll be getting the MLB coverage now as well. That’ll make it one attractive package to pay for each month.

Wisconsin - #1 in the AP poll, Ohio State - #1 in the coaches poll.

I can’t wait for Sunday.

Here’s the skinny….

- Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
- Streets of Rage (GEN)
- New Adventure Island (TG16)
- Legend of Kage (NES)

I’ll be grabbing DK Country, as I’ve never played any of the SNES DK titles. That should be it for me this week though.

I’ve read some rumors about what will be coming onto Xbox Live this week, but can’t seem to find anything solid. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.

Oh, and we’re getting Q*Bert on the PS3 this week. Um… yeah. Oh, wait… the PS3 will also be getting FlOw this week as well. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Xbox 360 has been working, and according to Kotaku, many places are breaking the street date and you can buy it now. I have not been so lucky however. Some people on my friends list have been lucky however..grr…

I can’t seem to download the Resistance update, I keep getting “network error,” whatever that means. Not that anyone at Sony can help me..grrr..

Reading the Baltimore Sun’s Roch Blog and it sounds like Aubrey Huff has been impressive in the 2 whole days of spring training. Fingers crossed…

Hard to believe that six years ago today, I was at Daytona. Sierra has released or was about to release their latest NASCAR racing game for the PC. Yes, I was there the day that #3 died. My first (and only) NASCAR race. Go figure.

Time to earn some review money…

On the 22nd, I am taking part in a conference call for MLB 2K7. I am supposed to submit a handful of questions prior to the call, so I wanted to open the floor up to you guys to see if there was anything specific you wanted to know about re: the game. So, fire away. I can’t ensure that your question(s) will get answered, but if it’s a good one, I’ll ask it.

No, not on the football field or basketball court. We already tried that.

But this video…is priceless.

Unless Ohio State suffers a major brain fart today, Wisconsin and Ohio State will be playing next weekend in Columbus ranked #1 and #2 in both the AP and coaches polls.

It’ll be really interesting to see what the voters do tomorrow, considering Wisconsin has already beaten Ohio State in Madison, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Buckeyes ranked number 1. The funny thing is that #2 will be the highest ranking in Wisconsin basketball history.

It’s been great watching this Badger team ascend to these levels. If anyone votes for anyone other than Bo Ryan or Tony Bennett at Washington State, for coach of the year, they should have their credentials taken from them.

In gaming news, I really hate that I’ve gotten hooked on World of Warcraft as much as I have. Not being able to play it for 4 days really stinks and I feel like I’m neglecting my mage. The nice thing is that I’m accumulating a nice amount of rest and will be moving through the next two levels very quickly.

I should finally start playing some games on my PS3 when I get home tonight as well. I’ve played a bit of GTHD, which is very, very good… but I’m anxious to give Resistance a bit of my time this evening.

Maybe I’m officially getting old…what’s the VH1 of videogame sites? I think IGN is the MTV. They’ve posted a review of the new NBA Street game, where the first three paragraphs just talk about the ‘game’ that was being played.

From now on I guess I will write reviews like this, if this is what the people want. You could actually write that same review with any basketball game , take out the gamebreakers and it could sound similar. For all I know, that game could be NBA Jam. Does it give you any interesting information? Does it help you decide whether or not to buy the game?

A quick peek at their Zelda review for Virtual Console made me laugh even more — “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the only Zelda game ever made.” Huh? I think they were going for the Randy Cross analyst job, you know “that was a true interception” as opposed to the fake ones. He meant you take the ball out of the air or something, and I guess they meant it was the true Zelda game, or whatever.

Yes, I still check out what is being written, but man. I think I should start a site that reviews the reviews. Not to say I’m awesome here, but what does the style guide at IGN say? Is there a style guide? And what’s with the UK/AUS/USA reviews? Is the game different over there? Why do they have an Australian review but no Japanese review? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the Japanese take on stuff? I mean aside from their hatred of the Xbox 360 for whatever reason I can’t comprehend.

And seriously, how many DS Lites can one country purchase? Japanese consumers are buying over 225,000 DS Lites a week! Do you go into a bank there and get a free DS lite when you open a checking account? Do people use them as toilet paper? WTF?

Okay it’s 2.45 am, and I really should be sleeping, but after a great, fast download of the full auto 2 demo, it took 2 hours to download Destruction Derby to my PSP and it’s now taking forever for the Resistance patch (this is the old one, I reformatted my hard drive remember).

I am still convinced that the problem is with Sony’s Network….

Remember the Seinfeld Summer of George? Well this is the Weekend of Dan. Things came together for me today. I was able to exchange my defective Xbox 360 at the store, thereby avoiding the 2 week delay (but my Xbox 360 was made after December 2006 but I didn’t get the new spiffy quiet drive, but hey I’ll live), tonight my attempt at downloading Full Auto 2 has only taken 3 hours for a 586MB download, which while slow by 6.0 MB down standards, is wicked fast for my PS3, and I’m out of the real job until Wednesday. The only minor drawback is that Crackdown comes out Tuesday and GameStop is near work, so I may have to wait until Wednesday to get it.

Anyhoo, I did pick up something today that every Xbox 360 owner needs especially if they have a PC. It’s the Microsoft gaming receiver for the PC. I’m surprised that no one is talking about this. If you have a USB 2.0 port on your PC, this $19.99 beauty allows you to use your Xbox 360 accessories on your PC! Note that I said accessories — not controller — because the wireless headset and the wireless whell BOTH work as well as the controller. Audio off the headset is Radio Shack AM Flavoradio quality — ie don’t listen to Yahoo! Music with it…but it should be perfect for teamspeak. Wheel works fine and I haven’t played a game with the controller yet. What’s the catch? Right now, it looks like you have to re-sync your controller on the pc and the 360 when you switch back and forth. Not that difficult, but still annoying. I guess if you hit the guide button and both the PC and the 360 went on that might be annoying also…so I guess it’s a happy medium or something…

I’m going to be shortly using it for a GameTap session, now that one of my favorite PC games, Interstate 76 is now on GameTap. I know you’ve heard me rant about this but Gametap is hands down the best deal on a PC. 800+ games for like $5-$6 a month with their annual plan is just obscenely great.

If you’re buying Virtual Console/Xbox Live Arcade games, I know you’ll love GameTap. I’m going to try Uru Live tonight..hoping it’s awesome..because there’s no additional monthly fee with it!

While I’m typing this I’m listening to the Police’s Greatest Hits. Right now Message in Bottle is playing and I’m having bad Guitar Hero flashbacks…sending out an SOS…god they keep saying that over and over….okay, not playing Guitar Hero..must focus…lol

Hey, the full Auto 2 download is done in under three hours…2 hours and 57 minutes….it’s a Festivus miracle!!!

I don’t know what you do, but when it gets cold… my wife and I take vacations in Minnesota.

Just can’t get enough of the cold, I guess.

Have a great weekend everyone.

That’s the latest news about Dan and Glen’s favorite game rental service.

Just go to the search ring and enter Skyranger and you can grab one of the best turn based strategy games of the 90’s.