Hump Day GDC Shocker!
Well not really a shocker, I mean everyone knew GoW 2 was coming out. In other news, I picked up the Club today and that new RPG for the 360, Lost Odyssey I think...I don't know why I got it...the GameStop guy was pretty excited by it and said that it's a Japanese RPG and if there's anything you know about me, I love 4 disc Japanese RPGs. God what the hell was I thinking. LOL.
I also prepurchased the Show for the PS3.
As Glen alluded to earlier, we have a phone conference with Ben Brinkman on Friday. By "We" I mean it's a conference call so who knows what to expect. One guesses that we'll get earth blowing questions like the ones GameSpot asked, ie "Will the Steroid controversy make it into the game" or "Tell us about motion capturing Sammy Sosa for his home run jog." I'm hoping well get answers to why we should buy a game that's in year 2 of a 3 year plan and so forth, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Ben can still come on our podcast anytime. 
. When doing my research when asking a question (yes I do research), one of the interviews said a demo will be up in early February....hmmm.. is 2/20 "early" February?
I need to download seven freaking games now on the new XLNA thingamajig.
So I confirmed with GameStop that they aren't taking HDDVDs anymore. Luckily I found someone there who's interested in buying HDDVDs though, so there's that. lol.
Wednesday notes
- Thanks to everyone who let us know that Solecismic is having their 'Freedom Day' sale. This is the 10 year anniversary of Jim Gindin quitting his job to work on the Front Office Football franchise. As a sports gamer, this is quite a day to celebrate. As a result of the anniversary, Front Office Football 2007 will be priced at $19.95 for the remainder of the day. Also, The College Years is priced at $12.95 for the remainder of the day, as well. Both are terrific football games and well worth your purchase.
- With all players reporting to their respective camps... I bring you, 'Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie'
- I finally bit the bullet yesterday and called DirecTV to upgrade my HD-DVR and HD receiver to get their new HD channels. I don't know why I held off on it for so long... as they gave me my DVR upgrade for free, and gave me the 2nd HD receiver for $99.... then gave me free HDTV for the year, which works out to be a $120 credit. I'm ok with that. It's getting installed on Friday, so I'll be watching tons more HDTV while I'm off my feet after my surgery.
More updates
1. Even if you love Weezer, don't buy El Scorcho for Rock Band. It is just too easy. 393 notes on Medium, and I hit 'em all.. it's just 1,2,3...2,3,4... it's bad. Not for $2 ...maybe some other instrument, but blech. What's the RB download you most regret?
2. Oh I have a question for the interview thread. How's year 5 of the 3 year plan going?
Hump Morning Musings
As I type this it's a few minutes after midnight. I just got back from the Blue Man Group's How To Be A MegaStar show in Portland, Maine, and wow, what a great show it was. I have never been to a Blue Man Group show, and came back in awe. I mean I've seen it on TV and all, but the in person effect is just awesome. I think I may have to check out the Boston 'regular' show.
In other news, kinda funny that I went to see Blue Man on the day the world is going Blu - Ray, isn't it?
Those of you sticking to HDDVD, I have posted my HDDVD collection for sale in the forum. Have a look if you're interested before I throw it on eBay.
I'll be picking up The Club tomorrow, just because it's been a long week. Heh.
Oh and Glen, nice work, but a New version of Word press is available. LOL
MLB 2K8 Dontrell Willis Interviews
Earlier today 2K Sports let us know that they have some new videos with Dontrell Willis.
[flv:/vid/MLB2K8_DontrelleWillis_Interview01.flv 480 320]
[flv:/vid/MLB2K8_DontrelleWillis_Interview02.flv 480 320]
[flv:/vid/MLB2K8_DontrelleWillis_Interview03.flv 480 320]
On top of this, I'll be attending the MLB 2K8 conference call on Friday. Let me know if you have any questions to ask Ben Brinkman during the Q&A segment. Thanks!
Some site work
I had a few minutes to work on things tonight and so I've added a few new features. The first one is obvious as you look at the page. I've re-added digg links to the posts. This allows you, the reader, to help us promote the site and the stories that we have on here. Don't think that we don't appreciate everything that you do for us.
Next up, I've made a change to the archive section... now you can see the author of the post once it goes into the archives. Not sure how that slipped by the goalie last time, but it's fixed now.
Lastly, I've added the ability to integrate flash videos into our posts here. It may seem like a minor thing, but it allows us to host some videos when we're asked to post them. It's only bandwidth... and my ISP hasn't complained yet. heh.
As always, let us know if there is a feature that you think we should add to the site. Dan and I are always looking to improve things here. Well... short of getting rid of the two of us... we're looking to improve things.
Tuesday Thoughts
What a day I had yesterday. Here's the lowdown...
- Wiped out my laptop, to get it ready for return to work. So, no access to anything all day. (In the grand scheme of things probably the least important part of my day.. but you'll get that in the moment.)
- On Sunday we got about 1 inch of ice covering anything in a storm... but the roads weren't too bad. Well, as I tried to get up my driveway... I find that that's not the case here. I took three tries, but could not get my car up the driveway. So, I had to part at the bottom and carry my two kids for a 1/4 mile up hill to the house. Ugh.
- I get in the house to find out that my wife has a 105 temp (Now still 104, the next morning). I leave the kids with her for a few minutes to try one last time to get my car up the driveway. My car hits a patch of ice... and the transmission goes out. Either the tranny is shot, or the clutch is shot... but it's an automatic... so either way, it doesn't much matter. Then sliding down the driveway the car gets stuck in a snow bank.... so my plowing company has to pull the car out.
Seriously... that's one of my worst days in a long time.
- Back to the normal stuff
- The stories regarding the Brewers are roughly the same as the ones surrounding the Orioles. Everything is great.. blah, blah, blah. They're seriously talking playoffs here for the first time that I can recall since 1992. Its just hard to wrap myself around that.
- PYS4 for $30 is a great deal, if you're not going to pick up this years version. Well worth it at that cost.
- For those of you that think that having a cover athlete on a sports game is pointless, EA has decided to let you vote on which mascot will be on the cover of NCAA 09 for the Wii. Maybe they'll take that money they're saving and put it into eliminating pinballing footballs when passes get deflected...
- Sorry for the delay on the second podcast... but it's kind of all part and parcel with the details of quitting a job. Gotta clean out the desk and the computers. We'll have our regular episode up over the weekend.
HD-DVD, RIP 2006-2008
Toshiba announced early this morning Eastern Time (3 AM) that the HD-DVD format is officially dead. Players will stop shipping now, and all shipments will cease by the end of March.
Meanwhile the worst has come true for those of us stupid enough to by the 360 HDDVD add on or a regular Toshiba HDDVD player, or even worse, both. I have 30 HDDVDs...anyone interested in buying them with a player? LOL. Let's face it, we all knew this going in that this was a possibility. What's so damn funny is around Christmas week, I had a good feeling about HDDVD...the Sony chair pretty much admitted it was a stalemate. Then boom. The beginning of the end was when Warner ceased HDDVD production, then it all steamrolled from there.
Right now the cheapest BD player is $400, and most reviews say that the PS3 has the best playback/video quality (we're NOT talking about profile 1.1 vs profile 2.0 here, just playback). That is not a consumer friendly price. Not sure if we'll see prices drop, but let's hope so.
Monday Night Thoughts
1. For any one interested, Pete is trying to sell his copy of PYS 4 on our forms...$30 is a great deal. Check it out here.
2. Sorry for the lack of posting today. Federal holiday and all.
3. James "Prophet" Fudge, former boss to me at GameShark, let me know that his new site, Crispy Gamer is giving away quite a nice treasure trove of stuff. Click here to check it out. Also, be sure to join the Sports Gamer Blog group so we can get bonus entries.
4. All Reward Zone (Best Buy) members who joined the NASCAR team, Mr. Sadler finished sixth, so that meant Triple Points for you! I picked up a 4000 pionts live card, a PSP remote for the slim model so I can use Skype and Socom Tactical Strike.
5. There is nothing more promising than Spring Training. Every Oriole player is ready, looking great, the trade was wonderful, blah blah blah. It's tough to think about baseball when the snow bank goes to the 2nd floor of your house, but it was warm today, so maybe there is hope.
6. Crap on VC today. Blech. I know nothing about that N+ game on XBLA this week. Might have to try the PC demo first.
7. There's an update for High Velocity Bowling which now allows you to turn off stupid voices. That's all I see it does. Thanks to loyal reader Glen Haag for the tip.
8. Speaking of loser, he let me know he's afk "restoring his PC to factory status" or something. Therefore, we are going to hold off on the podcast until it's regularly due in the rotation. Make sure you check out our most recent episode with John Cutter from Big Fish Games, maker of the awesome Fairway Solitaire.
Rumor: Eli Manning is 09 Madden Cover Boy
Rumors are on the internets that Eli Manning will be the Cover Boy for Madden NFL 09....
Snowy Sunday afternoon
- Are we starting to see HD DVD titles drop in price? Best Buy has the Matrix Trilogy for $44.99. Might just be a presidents day sale... but not a bad deal. Especially if you can use the 10% (or 12%) off Reward Zone coupons that have been mailed out of late. I wasn't a huge fan of the last two films... but I've always liked the first. Hmm... must think about it.
- I'm not a huge Nascar fan, but I was flipping through the channels and saw that DirecTV has the Nascar Hotpass for free for today's game. Right now I'm watching the feed and listening to Matt Kenseth's (Went to high school with him) in-car audio. The interface for it is pretty cool, as it lets you choose between about 20 different in-car feeds. Pretty cool stuff for free.
- Just saw that eTrade commercial with the Baby and the clown again... I love that commercial.
Sunday morning thoughts
- So, the slam dunk contest was pretty interesting last night. I didn't watch it live, but it certainly seems as though there was some new life injected back into it. But anything involving cupcakes and Superman has to be good, right?
- We're in the midst of a crazy storm here in Southern Wisconsin. It's a wonderful combination of Rain and Snow... which has put about 1 inch of ice on every road. My wife didn't even bother leaving work today. Thankfully, I got home with the kids last night just as it was starting. Oh, well... a day at home with the kids isn't the worst thing in the world.
- Oh, my goodness... there is finally a Rock Band DLC song that I want.
- Don't forget to grab Dream On for GH3... only one more day to do so.
Addicted to SonyStyle
Okay, so you might remember that I applied for the Chase Sony Card, only for the reason I can get the $100 off my first purchase. So I bought my PS3 (40GB) as my BD player since HDDVD is dead. I got my bill today and just as they promised I get 12 months no interest/no payments on the PS3, and there's the $100 credit -- $299 for a PS3 isn't a bad deal at all. What's even better is I still received the 5x bonus points for the purchase.
So now I keep buying stuff from Sony Style. I purchased the Componenet cables for my PSP (btw, well worth getting if you're a reviwer)...and the microphone/headset for the PSP. But what Sony Style forgot to mention is that the remote is required for the microphone to work. If you are dumb like me, you bought the PSP Slim which doesn't come with a remote, and the old remote for the old PSP doesn't work with the new PSP. So, you have to buy a new remote. Lovely. $40 for a freakin microphone that I'll use twice? I'll have to start recording our shows on my PSP over Skype just to get Glen mad. LOL.
So now my office desk is a mess becuase I went through every wire looking for that PSP remote I had....funny story is that my 2G iPod cable plugs in fine and headphones work but the mic doesn't. That would have been cool. Oh well. Guess I'll have to find a place that has the PSP headphones in stock. I guess BB does, but that would require me going to BB. Yuck!
Dream On FREE this weekend only!
Don't forget that Guitar Hero 3 owners can download Aerosmith's "Dream On" for free through Sunday ONLY. Worth getting even if you don't have the game yet. Pretty good song too -- rerecorded by Steven Tyler and co for the game.
Friday Notes
1. Can we go an episode of Lost without a WTF moment? Damn, I have no idea what's going, but I'll definitely be tuning in next week!
2. My MLB 08 The Show impressions:
- I haven't played a baseball game with 5.1 audio before. Wow. Even foul balls sound amazing.
- I had the same "wow" with the broken bats. The ball physics on this game are unreal.
- The pitcher/batter analysis screen is everything you could hope for. It's very moistening.
- I won my game in extra innings -- in the 5th -- on a wonderful slide at the plate. The runner actually tried to go around the tag attempt with his hand touching the plate...it was awesome. I don't know if I did it myself or if the system knew he had to dodge the tag...but wow.
- Oh yeah, and this is just the DEMO! Drool!
- I'm referring to the PS3 version, I didn't have a chance to try the PSP..but I will this weekend.
3. USA Today has an article about HDDVD and Blu-Ray as if they were still competing. Heh, good one. I love the comparison table (click here) It's too funny -- HDDVD looks like the clear winner in every category except the one where they aren't selling enough. It's also funny how they pooh-pooh the number of people that have a BD player with a PS3 because only smart people would by a PS3 as a BD player and not a game player. If only Sony would put a regular RF sensor in their player, they'd really do well, although the Nyko thing works well with my Harmony.
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