The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Because I was stupid and sent my editor a Word 2007 documents, today’s TWID is a little late. Sorry!

1. The new Guitar Hero No Doubt songs are HARD, even on medium. Of course when you have serious tendonitis in your right arm, it makes the game that much more difficult.

2. Happy Birthday to Revolution striker Taylor Twellman, who turns 7 today. Well he’s actually 28, but he’s born on a leap year. LOL.

3. Speaking of footy, nice to see Philadelphia get a MLS team. I love the East Coast rivalries.

4. Wow, I guess I’m weird because I’m enjoying Turning Point…but not many others are…

5. I love, love love, Konami’s Basketball game on the DS. It rulez.

6. How about that Lost. That show should be called WTF becuase I never have a clue as to what’s going on.

7. Hey, for those of you who don’t like snow, there’s snow. Another Jonah-sized amount of snow is coming tonight and tomorrow. I cannot tell you how @#$%ing sick I am of @#$@#$ing snowblowing. If any communities affected by drought would like to come up here and take this crap out of my front yard, I’ll give it away.

- Something makes me think that if Brett Favre is going to retire, there will be more of a story than “Text”

- I got an email from 2k letting me know that the the first 50,000 people that buy MLB2K8 will receive a Jose Reyes bobblehead (via mail.)   If you’re a Mets fan, probably not a bad incentive for you to pick up the game early.

- The Brewers won their first pre-season game, 7-1… so the press around here will want to start printing playoff tickets.  The team does look like their built for a playoff run, but they do have Gagne…. so there is that.

- C’mon Bucky, beat Izzo’s Spartans.  I hate that guy.

Yes, it’s game 1 of Spring Training and expectations are at an all time low for the Orioles, but today’s 16-3 loss to the Marlins was atrocious.  I think that 16 was the number of HBP by the Orioles. Oh boy….

Sad news that David Edwards, the inspiration behind the book/show Friday Night Lights who was paralyzed when trying to tackle has died at 21. Full story by clicking here.

As mentioned last night, UBO (Ultimate Baseball Online) has been relaunched as Cal Ripken’s Real Baseball. The new URL can be found by clicking this magical link.

2K Sports let us know that MLB 2K8 has gone gold for multiple platforms and should be available March 4th.

The Wii version will have Wii-specific motion controls.

In other news, I’m so damn tired of this snow, I think I may go insane. And now we’re supposed to get another 8-10 inches on Friday. This is un-fn-believable. Now my right forearm is in a lot of pain. I don’t think it’s broken, but I think it may be some form of tendonitis. It hurts to type, play games, and hurts like a b!itch to shovel. Guess I’ll Aleve myself to death…

Forgot to let you know we received a press release from 2K Games yesterday announcing Major League Baseball® 2K8 Fantasy All-Stars for Nintendo DS.

“Utilizing the functionality of the Nintendo DS touch screen, Major League Baseball 2K8 Fantasy All-Stars will provide fans the unique opportunity to control the power and technique of their swings and the speed and accuracy of their pitch by performing specific gestures and intuitive usage of the stylus.  Fielding, baserunning and other controls will also utilize the DS touch screen, as players drag and trace lines to execute these specific baseball actions.   ”

 Sounds interesting….

“Adding to the addictive gameplay experience, players will also have the ability to obtain special “power ups” to complete incredible batting, pitching, and fielding performances.  Players can force their opponents to chase after the “chicken ball” that runs away from fielders once it’s on the ground, or confuse them with a “crazy ball” that takes an unpredictable flight path. Pitchers can throw amazing new pitches such as a “super splitter” that splits the ball into two pieces to confuse the batter or a “fireball” that screams over the plate at rocket speeds while engulfed in flames. Fielders can join in the power up fun with the “brick wall” that causes a wall to instantly rise out of the ground to stop the ball in its tracks or the “super jump” that allows them to jump incredibly high toward the ball in flight.  “

Just received word that Ultimate Baseball Online is retired and that it will be re-launched tomorrow 2/28/08 renamed after Cal Ripken. Unfortunately, I lost the press release…but I don’t think I dreamt it. I’ll post more tomorrow when I’m more awake.

We got storm #2390489085 today, causing all kinda of snowblower fun. So much snow I had to get out the shovel to plow out the mailbox. Good times. Not.

Picked up a few more games today — Fall of Liberty, Destroy All Humans (wii) and Patapon….stuff to keep me busy. LOL.

“Suck” doesn’t begin to describe the American Idol girls tonight. Blech.

In other news, that Konami classics DS game — that Basketball game is just as I remember. It is awesome. You are great!

No need to bore you with the details, but I’ve been sidelined again with a relapse of the flu. The doctor at the Urgent care gave me a few more drugs and sent me on my way.

I’ll try to make some more posts tomorrow.

Sony today announced that the Dual Shock 3 will be released in North America on Tax Day, April 15, for the low price of $55…or you could just buy it now from NCS….whatever.

Picked up Frontlines today at GameStop as I’m the reviewer for the 360 version of the game. While I was there, I also picked up the Konami arcade classics game for the DS because a) it was $14.99 and b) it has Super Basketball, one of my most favorite arcade basketball games ever. You are great!!

EA announced that NFL Head Coach 09 will be released sometime this year. It will have Tony Dungy on the front cover, and will be designed by Tiburion. That’s really all we know at this point.

1. Got the phone call to let me know Frontlines Fuel of War will be instores today. Yay!

2. Following up on the EA/TTwo conversation, as we mentioned here on the podcast, no one figured out until yesterday that it wasn’t GTA IV that EA wants but in fact the sports licenses. Duh. Gaming industry pundit Michael Pachter spills the beans.  Suffice it to say I think exclusive deals suck. I think it restricts innovation, limits competition and becuase of that we get turds like Madden. Oh but the new guy at EA will fix everything, for example, Madden will now come out in April. LOL.

3. Sega sent over Bass Fishing for the Wii. Should be interesting to compare and contrast that version of the game to the 2000 fishing game on the Dreamcast. I’m guessing they are close, except did the Dreamcast have SegaNet support? LOL. Oh wait, I have the game here, no it did not, but it did have fishing controller support.

4. I saw Vantage Point last night. Interesting movie to pass the time. Not Oscar worthy but interesting.

5. I also went to Outback Steakhouse for the first time. Very expensive for what you get. Food was ok, but not sponge worthy.

6. Getting ready for yet another storm of the century tonight. Great!

Thanks to ex-blogger Bill Abner for pointing me in the direction of this hysterical website called eataketwo.com.

It is funny. You know if I’m a TTwo shareholder, it’s tough to say no to this one because no way that stock is going to be that high again. The company has been up and down for some time.

As a gamer, it’s easy to say no to this deal. Here’s a Q&A taken right from the FAQ:

Would you kill 2K Sports?
Any integration starts with our respect for the teams and people that make great games. Beyond that, it’s too early to discuss plans for managing Take-Two.

Hahaha. Oh god that is funny. For those who are unfamiliar with corporate speak that means “yes, we’ll kill them”. It’s kind of like when two banks merge and they say “we don’t anticipate any layoffs,” followed by a press release laying off 3,000 employees.

The bottom line is that every development house that EA gobbles up makes it more likely that every game we buy will be an EA game, and I have a problem with that. However if you apparently have the unlimited cash that an EA or Microsoft has, it’s tough to say no…

Well, Dan and I are finally back on track with Riding the Pines.   In this week we cover the following….

– MLB 08: The Show demo for the PS3 and PSP
- MLB2K8 Conference Call
- EA locking up the NFL until the 2013 season
- EA trying to buy Take 2
- The death of HD DVD (Seriously… do we need another link to this?)

Enjoy the show.  As always, feel free to comment here, or in the forums.