The Blog for the Sports Gamer

I know it’s shocking to hear it, but the Sony Gamer’s Day deal seemed to go really well for them. Sure the PS3 is still priced too high for most gamers, but man there was a lot of good stuff for Sony to come out of that mini-expo.

It sounds like the PS3 2.0 Firmware update has all but been confirmed as well. PS2 game upscaling, XMB (Xross Media Bar) usable during games, and quite a few other features. Very good stuff there.

Also, there is talk of quite a few demos from the Gamer’s Day being available on the Playstation Store over the next week.

Not a bad day for a company that everyone loves to rip of late.

Oh, did you see that the Collector’s Edition of Stranglehold for the PS3 will come with the HD version of the John Woo/Chow Yun-Fat classic Hard Boiled? Hell, I might actually buy the game for that movie alone. Easily one of the best action movies of all time.

Edit: Also of note is the fact that American McGee will be making episodic content for Gametap next year. It will be a 24 part series covering the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. That could be a really cool series if done right. McGee seems like the right way to go after their retelling of Alice in Wonderland a few years back.

Lotsa stuff was unveiled at the Sony Gamer’s Day and it looks like the PS3 is finally getting a content push.

Today we have a preview of Heavenly Sword, which looks like a God of War-type game…without the blood. Weird, eh?

We’re working on looks at the new SOCOM, a flying dragon combat game (Lair), Ratchet and Clank, Folklore, and Warhawk, among a few others. Lotsa stuff to cover including some new Ubisoft stuff (I want to see the new Brothers in Arms game.) I hate being a bit late with this but we only had one guy covering the whole list of Gamer Day events so I gotta take what I can get.

Still, flying fighting dragons…

Dan’s review of the PS3 version of F.E.A.R. is also up today. (great game, bad PS3 conversion)

Finally we have a look at a game you can get on Steam called Gumboy. It’s as weird as it sounds.

I grabbed Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which is going to be a huge hit with Ashley because it’s co-op. In fact…she’s looking at me right now with the ‘let’s play’ stare…

Happy Thursday…

1. No one has answered the trivia question correctly. Keep guessing.

2. Halo 3 did download overnight and I played a game before work. As expected, early reports are incorrect in that the graphics looked pretty good to me and the online multiplayer was a lot of fun. I know I’m not a perfect writer, but I can’t believe the shit that passes for ‘reporting’ or ‘reviews’ these days.

3. Speaking of shit, I had enough feedback on the 1up review of MLB 07 that I had to check that and the IGN one out. If I’m reviewing, I try to avoid reviews so that I’m not influenced. Don’t worry, that 1UP review couldn’t influence the DOJ with that crap. All I can say is they obviously don’t know much about baseball….the IGN review does have seeming objective criticism, however I have yet to see myself the issues brought up. These guys seem really harsh on the graphics and I think they are pretty clean and crisp. Did I expect better? Yes. Are they bad? Absolutely not.

4. Those of you with PS3’s, check to see if you did get in the Home beta…they are adding people.

5. They are also doing a WarHawk beta, so sign up for that.

6. The free Xbox Live game is fun in an R-Type, Gradius sort of way. The solitaire game translates poorly to a controller and I don’t know why anyone would buy it.

Seems like we’re having fun with this, so let’s continue. First congrats to Ryan Connor who was the first to reply (via email) with the correct answer to yesterday’s Accolade Football question: 4th and Inches. Damn, remember when football games were all about fun and not about stupid marketing buzzwords?

Today’s question is this: In this day and age, every friggin sports game has some sort of license or celebrity endorser. What was the first sports game to have a league, team or person’s name on the game and for what console?

Well how about that American Idol…I did NOT see that coming, but that is awesome. Power to the people. Should be a good finale, with people actually giving a crap. Let’s face it, people will at least buy the albums of either winner. People would not buy the album of you know who.

Boy , was I shocked with Elliott Yamin. Not my type of music, but he sounded great, looked more mature and handled the stage well. Nice job.

Obviously I didn’t play anymore MLB becuase I have an early breakfast meeting tomorrow; in addition, I had to catch up on the Shield. My gawd that show has me biting my fingernails. It’s a great f’n show so you better be watching that.

Finally got the Halo 3 download started…already at 0.00001% complete. Glad to see no one else is signing on. LOL.

Well I lost 4-0. It was a tough game but fun. During the game I did not see the terrible AI — but I only got a runner to 2nd twice. I did steal a base and on the steal it seemed like there was no attempt at a tag and instead the 2B just caught the ball — the throw was a little off so I’ll allow it.

I did see Detroit do the ’strech by the 1B to get an out’ routine. Twice in one game was a little odd. Box scores look good and correct. I had 2 infielders jump for a thrown ball, which again, seemed a little too convenient.

Instead of the right stick, sliding is done by tilting the SIXAXIS. It’s weird to see “NEW IN 07″ on the menu because as you know the whole game is new on the PS3. The SportsConnect is trouble some so far. I just keep getting a screen where I accept/decline and getting a roster timeout error. Not good, but as I recall the Show on PS2 on relesae day had a similar problem that got fixed.

I was playing the game on the default level btw…definitely worth playing a few more games. I don’t hate it, but I see why people ream it on the graphics compared to MLB 2K7…they aren’t bad..but they are not OMG!!!!

I did pick up MLB 07 : The Show for the PS3. The game knew that I liked the Orioles (maybe it saw the PS2 save)…it does install to the HD — 2GB to be specific.

I’ve only played 3 innings of one exhibition game so far, but here’s what I see:

Graphics — not as bad as I expected. Not as good as MLB 2K7, but not bad at all #19 - Huff looks like Huff on the Orioles. The uniforms look good. The stadiums feel big. The fans aren’t looking fantastic but who buys a game for that. Play by play seems similar to the PS2.

Controls are a lot like the PS2. First play of the game I was safe and I thought I was out. Umpire calls me safe because waving his hands as though the fielder was off the bag. I hit replay and sure enough he was off the bag. Ball physics so far are just as good as the PS2 — hit a broken bat pop up that felt like a broken bat pop up. (No force feedback of course, but still felt like it was right).

On a play in the 4th (yes, I’m in the 4th now)..Detroit had a broken bat nubber in front of the plate, the pitcher charged but threw to Huff awkwardly — Huff dove for the ball in foul territory while still touching the bag and got him out. Very cool.

Now what I just saw was bad. There was a guy in a Detroit uniform rocking back and forth in the dugout. The commentator said, if someone is rocking in the dugout it can only be one guy, the Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone. They are right about the guy rocking — but they had the cutscene with guys from Detroit! Ooops. Wrong texture map fellas!

Gameplay so far has been better than I’ve read…but again, it’s 4 whole innings….. more later…

PS I still can’t get the Halo 3 beta. Nice work, Microsoft!

1. I got a copy of the Street Style MMO Basketball demo from Gamefly of all places. I haven’t had a chance to try it out though. Maybe tomorrow night…

2. Yet another person has contacted me to help with the Pro Yakyuu Spirits guide. Once more of you pick up a PS3, you’ll really want to pick up this game with it. This is really a labor of love for those of us working on it, but the game is so great that I can’t see myself getting sick of the game, or talking about it, any time soon.

3. Boy, this Trivia thing is popular in the comments… perhaps we should do something like that every week.

4. For those of you considering The Show for the PS3 and are waiting for Dan’s thoughts, as I am, take a gander over at Metacritic’s compiled review scores. 1up absolutely hammered it…. more so than sounds appropriate, but they’re entitled to their opinion. Of course they call 2K7, “the most beautiful choice.” I guess that means pretty games are better games.

1. Stern sounded like he was definding the actions of XM, saying that it was becuase of the merger. I understand that’s why XM probably did it, but I don’t understand why anyone would think that’s ok. I am very pissed at XM, if you didn’t notice.

2. I bought the PS3 version of The Show today. It dumps 2GB on your HD….at that rate, you’ll only be able to buy 30 games for your PS3 before you’re out of room. Sounds like someone was lazy….

3. I bought a Sirius Stiletto today. Should be interesting to check it out when it ships (ordered from the Sirius store)..

4. I tried downloading Halo 3 today but could not, it still said to ‘check back later’…anyone else have this issue?

Didn’t know this was going up today, but Dan’s look at the 360 Elite is online.

Our preview of the MMO Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising is up today. Even though this sounds kinda cool, I am at the point where anything that comes out of SOE, I am automatically worried about being, well, not very good. Still, any game where I can pretend like I’m the guy from Clash of the Titans, I’ll at least give a fair shake. I just want a mechanical owl as a pet.

Oh, and Todd’s LotR Online review is up as well. I’m getting closer and closer to getting this…or begging Turbine for an extra copy (which I am not above, btw). I never played the original but the Gold edition of Marvel Ultimate Alliance is out today and Ashley is begging me to get it. I would have grabbed this when it first came out but at the time, it was either freelance-gaming or no gaming. Is this one any good — particularly as a co-op game?

Finally, in personal news, Ashley’s 3rd tee ball game is tonight. 6 year old tee ball is a total riot. We also planted our first full length garden last weekend, officially making my move to the country complete.

Cory Muzyka correctly answered the question yesterday — the game that had multiple announcers was …Old Time Baseball by Stormfront Studios.

Although I thought I remembered 3 announcers, Cory said there were only two…so to clear up the confusion, I emailed Clay Dreslough, who worked on the game…Clay says:

“I remember 3 announcers. Mel Allen, Hank Greenwald, and Lon Simmons. It’s
possible that we didn’t have enough finished sound files when it was time to
release the game, and we had to cut it back to two. But we definitely programmed
it for three — I can still remember the screen where you picked which announcer
to use.”

So there you go …. Clay, thanks again for your work on this great game.

Todays trivia question: One of Accolade’s first games was Hardball on the C64…later they followed it up with a football game. Name the football game!

Again, no big prizes or anything, just for fun…

As we await MLB 07 The Show (first review over at IGN….I saw the score but promised I wouldn’t read it because I have to review it myself), Glen and I finally got our own online game in of Pro Baseball Spirits 4.

Glen won 1-6-0 to 0-6-0. As Glen mentioned, my lag sucked big time but I fixed it for our next game at least I hope so. There are also two patches for the game but your guess is as good as mine as what they do.

The game was a blast.

Following up the Idol comments of Glen..Blake did Maroon 5 proud…it’s as if they’ll be on the elimination show or something. How could Paula pick a Police song..they are harder than they look, but Blake was off on the timing. If I can get the timing right when I’m drunk singing the song I don’t get how he could miss.

I really just do not care for Melinda. She is the best singer, but I just am not a fan.

Dan and I just got done with our first online game of PYS4. The game finished up 1-0, with my Nippon Ham team winning. The game was terrific. Dan has a bit of a problem with his connection, so we got a bit of lag, but it wasn’t anything that caused major issues with the game.

I’m going to work on a guide for the online mode as it really needs it. There is a good bit of text there, but I got 2000 VP for playing a single game, so it’s well worth looking at.

Turnbow cost the Brewers another game tonight. Ugh. Hopefully he can get his head right. If he’s not pitching a solid 8th, they’ll have to look at someone else in the pen.

Idol wasn’t bad tonight, I hope that Blake and Jordin go to the finals. I’m just tired of Melinda crying all the time.

Oh, and Halo 3 comes out on September 25th. Yawn.

As regular blog readers know, I have been touting XM radio since I first had it in 2002. However around mid-2005, the sound quality started to suck, XM didn’t seem to care that they were losing NASCAR, Howard Stern and countered with Oprah. I stuck with XM..but when I saw a Sirius radio at BJ’s for $29 w/home and car kit, I picked it up. I was very impressed by the variety of music I hear and I haven’t looked back.

Of course with shock jocks, you never know what you are going to get, and let’s face it that’s why people listen. If I don’t like it, I can change the channel…today XM, ever the pussies in light of the XM-Sirius merger proposal, suspended Opie & Anthony becuase of their sex comments made about Condi Rice as well as other remarks.

The incredible irony of this is that their CBS Radio simulcast will continue. Now, I believe this is a stunt on XM’s part to get out of their contract and then O&A will be back on CBS full time, which of course is full of irony becuase they were fired from CBS becuase of their violation of moral standards. BWAHHAA.

Either way, I am appalled at XM’s way of going about this and I’m done with them. Honestly, I didn’t think O&A were that great when compared to Stern in the first place, but I’m with them on this. Say buh bye to 4 subscriptions, XM.