The Blog for the Sports Gamer

First off, sorry for the lack of posting over the past week. I didn’t want to comment on the GameShark thing until I was finished with my final GameSpy article, which I submitted today.

I’m looking forward to diving back into the editor pool. I’ve been freelancing full time since 2001, so the time is right for a change. Of course CGM closing shop sort of pushed me in that direction, but this move is a long time coming. I’ll be editing, writing, staff managing, and working with James Fudge with a rather large redesign (which is badly needed).

There is a lot I want to do: regular columns, features, and other stuff to help make it a better and more unique place to visit that offers more than the usual review/preview/screenshot trifecta. All in good time. I think the trick is to not try to be IGN/GameSpot/IGN but to instead try to latch onto a certain niche and then try and fill that niche. Without oodles and oodles of loot you are not going to compete head to head with the “big” websites. My job is to help find GameShark a solid foothold.

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OK so I bought a copy of Memoir ‘44 recently; I found it online for a good price and since I enjoy BattleLore I figured I’d give this spin on the Command and Colors system a shot. I dunno..but it’s just not grabbing me yet. I WANT to like this game — I like wargames and I love the theme, but it’s feeling a whole lot like BattleLore Lite right now. Not sure what I expected from it, but it’s basically a ranged version of BLore without the Lore cards. I just think I want my World War II games a wee bit more complex than this. I’m looking at getting Combat Commander: Europe. CC:E has received pretty much universal praise across the board as a game that isn’t ultra complex (some wargames can bet stunningly bogged down with rules) but a logical step up from Memoir ‘44.

The problem, and I hate to say this, is that I like how Mem looks. It’s like playing with little plastic army men but with cards and dice. Combat Commander uses “chits” which is much more old school. Yep. I guess I like my boardgame eye candy more than my videogame eye candy. I have officially lost my mind.

I’ll be writing a Command and Colors round up article soon that discusses BattleLore, Memoir ‘44 and Command and Colors: Ancients (which I also own and I think will be a better game than Memoir based on a rule reading).

Finally, I snagged the #2 PitchCar expansion; I’m still on the hunt for the 1st addon with the jumps and turn chicanes, but making the tracks bigger has made the game even more fun. This is just an amazingly simple and addictive game.

Well the good news is the weathermen weren’t wrong about this storm. The bad news is everything is a disaster around here.

My wife woke me up at 6am and informed me we now have lakeside property. Our backyard has about 6 inches of rushing water in it and there are downed trees all over the place.

We cautiously traversed into our basement and hoped that we didn’t have 6 inches down there…and we didn’t—it was dry at the time and then the power went out…and then the water came in. My basement is finished (or was finished) so the race was on to bring everything upstairs..which was not very fun in the dark.

The power just came back on around 2pm, and we’re back but now we are cleaning up the mess. I rented one of those industrial fans to dry the carpet — we didn’t get any standing water in our basement but the carpet is wet to the touch. The water seems to be receding, which is a good thing.

It’s going to take a while to clean up, if everything stays the same…my fingers are crossed, but we are supposed to get rain until tomorrow. In a word, this sucks.

Yes, this is an editorial and yes, it’s in Pravda, the Russian newspaper, but here’s a theory that says Imus was fired because he was about to reveal 9/11 secrets. Now I know where Weekly World News gets their information. Link here.

While watching the Revolution throttle Toronto FC last night 4-0, I picked up on something interesting: the Toronto FC kits did not have Toronto FC on the front — instead they were shilling some company I had never heard of before — but I believe this is a first for MLS. This is huge, I hope other clubs adopt this — just becuase it’s a European thing…anyone remember the Dreamcast kits? LOL

Well as we get ready for super storm or whatever the hell they are calling it this time around, I did get to enjoy an Orioles grand slam for the second consecutive day. Yes, it was against the Royals but still nice to see the Orioles get to .500 for the first time in like 23 years.

The weathermen around here are really running for their lives with their forecasts…I don’t know whether or not they are crying wolf because we’ve been through their hysterics so often and usually the storm is nowhere near as bad as they say.

In other news, I have to tell you this credit card story. I Have a Discover card and my credit score is well over 700, never having missed a payment. Discover gives me a pretty high credit limit, and I never really used it. Then they did one of those great balance transfer deals so I take advantage of it. Right after I do I receive a notice that due to the fact my card balance is high, they are increasing my APR from 15% to 24%. Discover Financial definitely wins the asshat of the year award, and of course I will be drafting letters to the FDIC and OCC and my congressman just becuase of these bullshit terms. I’ll also be closing that account and moving it elsewhere. The credit card insanity has to stop. I can certainly see if I missed a payment then they can apply the penalty rate but being penalized for using their card has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Not a bad sports day in my world. Islanders win to tie up the series with the Sabres (plus the game was in HDTV. Bonus!) and the Brewers win over the Cardinals.

In blog news, I’ve added a section on the right side of the page that includes the number for the Folding@Home team. You don’t have to be a PS3 owner to participate in the project. If you have a PC that’s on all the time doing nothing, go ahead and throw the Folding client on there and use those spare CPU cycles for a good cause.

In gaming, I’m still loving Super Paper Mario in my limited play time. The game just has a terrific feel to it. The gameplay is almost, relaxing, if that makes any sense.

Also, I’ve heard word that there is a patch out there for Guitar Hero 2. I’m going to give it a go to see if it resolves my issues with my whammy bar. If not, I’m going to be exchanging it soon.

It took a LOT longer than I thought it would, but I have finally gone over the 10,000 mark on my public GameTag’s GamerScore. Yay!

Okay back to regular programming.

Another day, another snowstorm. Lovely.

In other news, Super Mario still continues to be fun. It was the first night I didn’t play Guitar Hero, but I need a break, besides I have reviews to do.

Nice to see the Orioles again only give up 1 run, but this time they won in extra innings…even if it was against KC. Ugh.

Well, I can’t say it’s really a preview as they didn’t actually play it, but it covers some of the new Create a Player features.

Here’s the details from over at Gamespy.

The features sound interesting, but it’s also bound to be typical EA fare as they’ll implement new features that most of us weren’t asking for and still have some of the same problems that last years game had. We can always hope that this will be the year things will change though, right?

Ok, I work in the IT department of an insurance company and we have guidelines about how long we have to keep all documents, whether on paper or electronic. I do believe that some of our policy holders would go totally fucking bat shit insane if we lost, what is rumored to be, up to 5 million emails over a period of two and a half years. I do believe that they would be exceptionally upset if those emails were written by the main decision makers in our company and those emails may have been about activities that caused issues for our company.

Now, being an IT professional that works with an email system, I know the efforts that we go through to make sure that we have backups of our email system and all of the data contained within. To make it clear though, it isn’t brain surgery. You have email software, you have backup software. You make backup tapes, you verify that the tapes are good and you send them away for safe storage in the event of a disaster. This is IT basics people. You make sure your stuff runs and you create backups of it so that if something goes wrong with the systems that you can restore them to before the issues.

For the official statement from the White House to be, “OOPS” just pisses me off to no end. Either the IT department that they were relying on was a group of irresponsible screw-ups or someone made the effort to remove those emails. There isn’t much ground in between there.

You’re going to tell me that you either knew that you were letting people delete all traces of the emails that they sent, or that you didn’t have backups for some of your email systems for 2 1/2 years and you didn’t do anything to try and rectify it? To quote Jack Nicholson in ‘As Good As It Gets.’ “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.”

Major Nelson posted the Xbox Live Video Marketplace rankings for this week: #1 is the Departed but #2 is Poison Ivy 2…the skinemax-esque “thriller” starring Alyssa Milano. It’s not even in HD people!!!

Well if you needed any evidence that the 360’s demo is hardcore gaming males, there you go :). I’m embarassed. Even I didn’t buy it from MP. I already have it. Just kidding :).

It’s Chris from American Idol dressed as a Cup of Soup. Yes, I’m kidding it’s not Chris. But it’s hard to tell. Except for the better singing.

Well, I have gone through about 45 minutes of Super Paper Mario. Once you get through the endless stream of text, the game is enjoyable. I certainly understand that in a semi RPG, the game will has text, but in 2007, they should have voice overs, you know? My only other gripe about the game is limiting the amount of time you can ‘flip’ in the 3D World. Seems like a dumb limitation.

One of the other games I’m reviewing is Burnout for the PSP. You won’t be disappointed with the game, although it doesn’t add a whole lot of new..the ‘burnout meter’ feels rather tacked on this time.

Now we are in the dregs of new releases. I need to update my review links and now playing but not at the moment. I will soon, really. Looks like 5/15 is the next good day with Forza 2 and MLB the Show for the PS3…until then, play what you got..

SPOILER!

Well in a results show that shocked no one Haley and her legs were sent packing…and Sanjaya was safe once again. Country night next week…and look at me caring…

The Orioles pitched 11 innings of 0 run ball. But the 12th inning they gave up 4 runs, so it’s game over. The O’s pitching has been pretty good (except for that A Rod slam on last Saturday, but their hitting has been complete crap). This is pretty damn frustrating for me.

Just watched Friday Night Lights and it was kind of a “we think we are being cancelled show” so they tried to tie it together but still left it out there. Uncle Jerry linked me that 6 more episodes were bought by NBC for next year, but seriously…not sure if that’s even worth it. Love the show, hated the whole way they ended it….but you wanted some closure just in case, right? I guess….

I hear we’re getting another superstorm, so I can hardly wait for that.

In other news, I’m a huge fan of the Keurig single serve coffee system, and today they released Hot Cocoa in K-Cup form. Unfortunately, it tastes more like diet hot chocolate or chocolate flavored water, so I won’t be drinking anymore of that.

The 10% Green Mountain Kona and Espresso blends are very good though, so there’s that. And who needs ex-lax when you have Espresso, anyway, right? File that under TMI…lol.

Kotaku is reporting that the EA development house behind NCAA football is now taking over Tiger Woods, which of course is a great idea, because the last thing we need is less development time for the same number of games. Fantastic!

Oh and the 20GB PS3 is dead. Shocking!