The Blog for the Sports Gamer

My first board game session report has been posted to the forum. Hopefully the pics aren’t too big and can give you an idea of how the game went down.

Hint: it didn’t go well for me. Check it out here.

The OSU game was a relief. We were all worried about this one, not because Washington is a great team, but because OSU fans aren’t sure what kind of team we have right now. A very young one, for sure, and when you take a road trip like that, it can spell doom. But OSU is showing that they’re a 2nd half team and really dominated the Huskies from the 3rd quarter on.

1 Very saddened to hear that Colin McRae has died in a helicopter crash. Most gamers know of him from the Colin McRae Rally and just this week, the PS3 release of the DiRT videogame.

2 Not sure if you’ve already seen this via Kotaku or Dubious Quality but Andrew Bub, a freelancer writer and creator of the GamerDad website had a heart attack and quadruple(!) bypass surgery and needs assistance with finances and is asking for help. I believe Bub wrote for Bill and he wrote for me when I ran GamePen and as we’ve said many times, people aren’t writing in this industry to make big bucks but for the love of the games, and games don’t have health insurance.

3. Didn’t play many games today due to work, an insane amount of traffic (hello NASCAR race), and the Fair came to town so I went to the races. Harness racing is a lot of fun to watch and bet on, especially when a $2.00 bet returns $17.40. I only wish I bet on that horse to win. Dammit.

4. My son noticed many of the games at the fair were from Carnival Games at the Wii. He said he didn’t need me to spend money at the fair because he could play those games at home. Now there’s something for that box.

- The Badgers came out incredibly flat on defense against The Citadel of all teams and went into the half tied 21-21.  There is clearly nothing wrong with the Badgers offense at this point but you can’t say the same thing about the defense.   The team woke up in the 2nd half and took a 24 point lead, then went to sleep and held on for a 45-31 win.  The Badgers are 3-0, but in no way do they look like a team that deserves to be in the top 10.  Ranked, sure.   Top 10, not a chance.

- I need 3 TV’s in my living room right now.  I really want to watch Tennessee/Florida, Ohio State/Washington, and (Train Wreck)Michigan/Notre Dame all at the same time.    It’ll shock Bill, but I’m pulling for Ohio State in this one.  The Big Ten could really use a big win today and that would be the first good win for the conference this year.

- Oh, and regarding Notre Dame, their first game starting QB quit the team yesterday and enrolled at Northern Illinois.  Kind of similar to the Charlie Frye thing, don’t you think?

- I posted my thoughts about NHL08’s goalie mode in the forum.  Just to sum up.  I liked it, but there may be some issues that could prevent a person from playing a lot of it (collision issues with the posts, etc.)

Dan’s latest TWID notes is online. Enjoy.

After five games on default All-Star:  if this game is a 4 out of 10 then Popeye is a sissy.

- TurboGrafx CD games coming to the Wii? Um… does anyone else think that they need to get content running off of the SD slot soon?

- In more Wii VC news, here’s another sports game for Dan to buy next week.  After looking at that webpage, I could easily see myself buying that one though.  It has defensive shifts, a pennant mode, and call ups from the minors when you edit rosters.  Crazy.

- We Love Golf is coming to the US next year. I’ve been a big fan of all of Camelot’s golf games since the first Hot Shots Golf, so it’ll be fun to see what they do with the Wii controller.

Before work my FIFA 08 download on the PS3 finally downloaded. I thought the PS3 version actually looked better than the 360. Seems like there was more detail and it wasn’t as cloudy as the 360 version. Interesting, huh?

Tried the FIFA 08 demo for the 360. The PS3 was still downloading (grr). Not bad, not much different than last year. Hey, where did they get the idea for the yellow ref calling advantage. Why not just steal directly from PES….anyway, I was kind of expecting more. Not bad…maybe the AI was more refined or something.

1. Lindsey from Blast Media asked if I would be interested in checking out a new casino game that featured a live, online sportsbook (although no real money is wagered). I thought to myself, what the heck, but I didn’t have high expectations. Wow, PC Casino games have come a long way. The online play is fast and fluid and pretty much every type of casino game is in here. In addition they have their own online tournaments, which makes the game fun. The sports book is based off actual games and actual lines in Vegas, so you can play over/under, point spread, and even have parlays. I am not a hardcore gambler, but I’m learning a lot about casino gaming from this game. Can’t wait to get down to Mohegan Sun and try out my new mad skills. For more information, click here.  

1. The Orioles manager gets suspended and then they beat a 15+ game winner. Go figure.

From watching the videos of this game you would think that it’s just a Championship Sprint rip off, but it doesn’t have anything in common with that game other than a slight resemblance.

The game is, basically, slot cars like you used to play with your friends as a kid.  There are 5 different grooves on the track that your car can run in and there are 32 different race modes that you compete in on these tracks.  The races in the demo vary from passing every other slot car in the field as quickly as you can to weaving around a track full of missles trying to pass as many as you can without running into any of them.  It’s a very simple concept, but each of the modes requires their own distinct type of racing in order to complete it.

The one thing that will hold most people back from buying it is that it has a devastating bug.  It has no online multiplayer.  The sheer amount of gameplay modes and challenging tracks would seem to indicate that you could easily get your 7 bucks worth out of it without ever playing against another person online though.

Well worth your downloading time.

Explain the logic behind this to me. Explain why Tiger 360 insists on rewarding me for playing like crap? I am still building up my character, but I figured I’d try a PGA event because I am getting remarkably bored with skills training and playing games of Bingo Bango Bongo inside the Tiger Challenge. For ME — the meat of the game is playing in PGA events, earning $$, etc,.

Round 1 in Hawaii and I fire a 75. Not great but better than expected since my skills are still a bit low. I’m in 32nd place with the leaders all at around 5 under. Day two and I shoot a 76 thanks to this friggin short putting model. $#@! Anyway, after the round I look up and not one player shot below a 75. NOT ONE. The game is doing all it can to make sure I stay in contention. I’m just baffled by this. Look, if I play in a tourney and shoot 75/76 I should be watching on Saturday unless the course conditions are just brutal. But no…I shoot 75/76 and end up in 26th place. I GAINED ground. Is it like this on the hardest level?  

Along these same lines. Can I: Look at stats like % drives in the fairway? Average putts per round? That sorta thing (you may be able to I just can’t find it.). Can I see the entire leaderboard during a tourney and not just the top 5? How?

I look at Tiger and then I look at a text game like Total Pro Golf and it just continues to confuse me as to why one guy can make a golf game that makes sense and then Tiger comes out and the design is all over the map.

OK, no impressions yet. But I did get the game from 2K today. After I get through making my head bleed from playing Tiger Woods on the 360 (this game is at times laughably easy and then laughably hard) I’ll give 2K8 a spin to see if, in fact, the controls are like playing pick up sticks without a working pair of eyes. We’ll see.  

Also — are you not registered for the forum? There’s a link right over there ====>

Here it is again.   

We like to talk to people. I even went on an old school console vs. PC rant/diatribe/manifesto. How you can NOT want to get in on that?

Last night at Camden Yards, the Orioles god bad ass umpire call #9457 of the season. I mean we all know umps give the “out” if you’re close at second base, but when the guy is closer to third than second, I believe the runner is not out.

 Tremblay, the O’s manager, came out, was ejected within seconds, and then went over to second, drew a line in the dirt where the Angels 2B was, gestured to the ump to use his eyes and then ejected the umpire.

The crowd went wild and even the players were applauding. Hey, I’m not saying the Orioles would have made the playoffs without the bad calls, but I know of two calls at home plate that cost the O’s this year.

 I give the guy credit, he’s got a seriously injured depleted team and doing what he can. If 4 of your 5 pitchers in the rotation are on the DL what else can you do?!

 If you have MLB.tv, go to 1:37 on last nights game. You’ll see the horrid call and the hysterical post-ejection fun!

I missed this when it went down but now after 1Up’s scathing 4/10 review of NHL 2K8 I think it deserves mentioning.

So basically 1Up rips NHL 2K8 on its Podcast, the 2K8 team responds (read that here), going point by point as to why the Podcast was incorrect, and then 1Up gives the game the lowest score imaginable. Weird. I mean even if a site dislikes a game — a 4/10 is reserved for Deer Hunter sequels.

Now I haven’t played 2K8, as I’m still finishing up Tiger 360, but this is just odd. First off, this is why Developer Diaries and Developer Pages should never, ever be on a professional gaming evaluation website. Ever. It’s a huge conflict of interest, in my view. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the NHL 2K8 team responds to 1Up’s Podcast by posting on a site…hosted by 1Up?

I’m thinking this is the last “2K blog” we see on 1Up, eh?

We’ve decided to keep the two logins distinct for now.

The packages and mods that I would have to try and put in place are beta code, so there is no guarantee that we wouldn’t run into problems with the blog and the forum after it’s implementation.

Hopefully it isn’t a big inconvenience to you.  Plus, this way you see blog posts from Dan instead of icedcornholio.  Which is better, I guess.