The Blog for the Sports Gamer

I have a copy of Half-Life 2 to give away via Steam. Email me if you’re interested.

Also, Activision games are B2G1 free at Amazon, get CoD 2, 3 and get 4 free! Finally for the next 3 hours, the World of Warcraft Battlechest is Amazon’s DOTD for $27.99!

Just use our handy amazon search on the right to get these deals and give Glen more money to fund more contests!

Well after this week, it’s going to be hard to enjoy American Idol again. I mean don’t get me wrong, I never enjoyed it for singing value, but for the characters. However with absolutely completely bland characters this year, it was left to the judges and Ryan banter…and last nights was just unbelievable with Paula reviewing a song before it was sung. But good news, Ryan says Paula’s not getting canned.

Whatever. I’ll probably watch it though this season becuase I’ve stuck with it this far…but man, there isn’t any talent left and the fact that Jason Castro is still there is just plain bizarre. I mean Sanjaya had some appeal. Jason has zero. I wanted to see what Sanjaya did next. I want to FF through Jason’s performances. And Archuletta sucked too but since Randy called him da bomb, that’s obviously rigged too.

Oh well, what goes up must come down, and that’s about it for me. So for those that care, here’s Dan’s weekly TV schedule:

Sunday: Desperate Housewives
Monday: 8PM Big Bang Theory, 8:30 HIMYM, 9:00 House
Tuesday: Idol (not so much now)
Wednesday: Idol (blech), Back to You (can be funny)
Thursday: Lost, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Office
Friday/Saturday: Sports :).
Required Daily Tivoing: Letterman, Ferguson, Daily Show, Colbert

Feel free to add to the list as needed.

- I guess that’s what the Brewers needed Mike Cameron for.  3 for 5 with 2 walks.  Of course they won the game 10-7, in a 3 hour and 50 minute nine inning game.  That was just so hard to watch.  Thankfully I had games to play to keep me distracted at times.

- Messed around with the tutorials for the Metal Gear Solid Online beta early this morning and it’s just so hard to try out that game after GTA.  I’ll need to really take some time to get used to it, because you just expect your character to be able to sprint all the time and you forget that MGS is based on being sneaky.  I’ll give that some more time tomorrow night.

Time to get some sleep…

Just so you don’t think that I’m stating my opinions without putting any time into the game, I’m 11.72% done, 4:48:37 on the clock, and have completed 15 missions (one completed story arc done as well.)

The first thing I thought after playing the game for about 30 minutes was, are all of these reviewers out of their mind?  This is a 10 out of 10?  Here’s my issues with the game thus far.

- The driving mechanic is still really awkward.  Cars float back and forth across the street.  The fact that
most reviews that I saw talked about how much more accurate the driving model was is just laughable.  These cars drive nothing like they should and it’s just plain frustrating for the first hour of the game.  Once you get used to it, you can handle the driving model… even though I can’t imagine that you will ever like it.

- Language and Drug Use.  Every character drops f-bombs like it was the first word they learned growing up.  People on the street curse you out for walking near them.  The only person I haven’t heard swear is my girlfriend and considering how many times she’s performed the actual physical act on my character, I’m shocked that she hasn’t just yelled it out yet.

As for the drug use… I don’t know…. it’s just way over the top at this point, and I’m less than 5 hours in.

- Mission design.  I’ve already run into missions where you are set up for failure on the first attempt.  For example, (not a spoiler… it’s the second mission) you have to stop a few guys from beating up your cousin.  You take on the first two guys, then you have to chase some guy who is outside of a fenced in basketball court.  Of course he hops into a car right away… and you have no idea where the exit to the fenced in section is.  By the time you figure it out and get to your car, he’s probably already got away.  Jebus help you if you parked in front of the car you need to run to as well.   That’s always been an issue with GTA though, so I’m just disappointed that I saw it rear it’s head so quickly.

- Characters.  I really like the lead character.  I wasn’t sure about him in the first few minutes, but his character is pretty interesting and it’s one that I want to keep hearing more about… but there are just some idiotic things that you see pretty quickly.  For example, he’s from some Eastern European country and has a very strong accent… but for some reason he can understand the Rastafarian character without a single issue.  Hell, I had to turn on the subtitles to figure out what in the hell the guy was saying.  His first mission was a total mystery to me.  I would have really liked it if Niko just shining the guy on, saying things like, “Yep…”  “Uh-huh,” or “You know that’s right.”  But he seems way too well versed in the language… maybe he listened to a lot of Bob Marley in ‘the old country.’

- Dating.  This goes to characters, but the first girlfriend you get has almost made me lose interest in the whole concept.  The first time you pick her up she talks about how you’re wearing the same clothes, which is ok… I guess.  The next time she says, “Hey… nice new car.”  The next time, “Hey, nice new car.”  By the 7th date, wouldn’t you think she would notice that you’ve picked her up with a different car, that also happens to have a smashed out drivers side window?  If you want to put that much focus of the game on the dating aspect and keeping your dates happy, shouldn’t you be trying to confuse them about the fact that you’re rapidly becoming a notorious criminal or is the fact that you’re taking her out to Cluckin’ Bell just so overwhelming that she’s going to over look those facts?

Those are just the issues that come to mind right now, I’ve not even bothered with the multiplayer aspects of the PS3 (Which, in my location are not running right now.)

There are good points to the game, don’t get me wrong.. the graphics on the PS3 version are incredibly impressive, the story is very intriguing thus far, and I haven’t been so frustrated by what I’ve found thus far to want to quit playing… but I’m sorry, this game isn’t anywhere near 10 out of 10.  It’s not even the best game I’ve played this year.    I guess myself, Dan, and Bill Harris will have to disagree with the media on this one.

Well GameSpot (gotta get Spot and Stop right) and IGN both gave this game, GTA IV, a 10. What hookers from the game came over and blew them for that score?

How this game is a 10 and Call of Duty 4 is not is completely beyond me. In my first couple of hours with the game I really haven’t seen a whole lot of “new” here. I have seen horrendously shitty driving models that make me long for the days of Test Drive 2. Walking around is just as agonizingly slow as before. Playing “guide the car/person to the magical arrow to see the cut scene” gets boring fast. Oh but hey, this game is PERFECT!

I’m not trying to say the game can’t be fun; multiplayer has some moments. Isn’t it also great how you have to slog through the opening every time you fire up the 360 so that it can temporarily dump files to the HD? Maybe a full dump like on the PS3 is better? I dunno.

I’m not disappointed with the game, it just seems like it’s more of what we’ve already been playing than anything new and spectacular. Call of Duty 4 was a complete breath of fresh air to the FPS genre.

But hey, WTF do I know. I enjoy Battle of the Bands…well for a time. Then I finished all 30 songs…and now that’s done. LOL.

I had preordered at my local GameStop, however, because I wanted to pick up Perfect Shot, I went to another GameStop to pick that up and I figured I’d get GTA 4 there. Funny, because GTA IV was completely sold out unless I preordered. I was shocked. First time in a LONG time I’ve seen that happened.

I went to my local store and the SAME RULE applied. Glad I preordered!

Last night’s Late Late Show with Craig Fergurson had Morrissey singing a new song sporting an “American Idol” t-shirt. Seriously, this Morrissey night has to happen. Did anyone catch the trainwreck of a show called American Idol tonight?

• It was hysterical to hear Paula talk to the contestants about their second song, when they only sang once!
• Obviously the fix is in for David Archuletta to win, seriously, Randy Jackson calling his version of Sweet Caroline “da bomb” rather than “a bomb” was hysterical. Every time I see this kid, I think I’m watching some Up With People experiment gone wrong. David Cook has been impressive and how can you not like Brooke. I thought Syesha was fun. Jason Castro needs to go. The only time he’ll do well is on John Travolta “Let Her In” night. He’s perfect for that song, but that’s about it.
• This show, in a word, sucked. Neil Diamond rules, but yet this show was just horrendous.

Moving right along - I’ve been pleased — not impressed — but pleased with Battle of The Bands. It’s short, doesn’t have online play, has only 30 bad covers, but it’s quite fun.

I did fine a Perfect Shot controller! Yay!

Morrissey is on Late Late Show again tonight if you want to see him doing an older song. Maybe by the Smiths…we can hope!

Baltimore! Tampa Bay! It’s an AL East battle for First place, tonight! Yeah, that sounds freaking bizarre, but I’m not complaining, especially when it’s now, Baltimore! Boston! It’s a battle for first place. LOL.

While waiting in the waiting room for 4(!) hours at Brigham & Women’s hospital, I really came to enjoy MLB 08 The Show on the PSP. Thank god for free wireless internet so I can play against other people. I just wish I brought my microphone with my headset. :). Then I would have looked weird in the waiting area.

Hey, I have never claimed to be the inventor of the podcast, but Glen and I have been doing it for a couple of months now and people seem to like it.

This of course spurns imitators, the likes of which over at Gamespot’s Sports Gamer are pretty funny. Now I haven’t listened to it and being GameStop, they have the ability to get games that Glen and I don’t (NFL Head Coach  for example)…but From The Bleachers? Really? I dunno. Just seems a little copycat to me. Anywho, check out their “episode 3″ by clicking here. Like I said, since I don’t listen to it and hey, I’m biased, I’d love to hear feedback about your thoughts on their podcast.

Although I debated about going to pick up GTA IV last night, I figured since I had bought Mario Kart Wii and Battle of the Bands (Wii) Monday, that I should actually give them some time to play them instead. And that combined with it’s the annual April flood day (at least this year I have a sump pump so I don’t have to pay $8,000 in damage like last year), made it easy to stay home.

Now if you heard on our Podcast, we debated about games like Mario Kart if it is a sports game or not. While NASCAR is easy to call a sports game, what about Kart games? Is throwing a turtle at other cars really a sport? Well, because I want to write about it, I guess we’ll make it one. The Wii wheel feels good in your hand, and it seems like they really want you to use it because every player using the wheel has a wheel icon next to their name. Now, I’ve only been playing the beginning cup (50cc, which I completed), but I did find the wheel to be fun to use. I’ve read that in cups above 50cc, the wheel is more difficult.

I think I’ll probably end up with GTA IV today at some point, not sure if I’ll play it a lot though.

In other news, tonight’s American Idol is Neil Diamond night. With only five contestants, either we are going to see 20 minutes of filler or they’ll do 2 songs each. I’m guessing we’ll see filler.

Really good deal at eCost if you don’t mind refurbs…they have a Sony BD player for $275

In other news, can anyone find a Nyko perfect shot for the Wii? It’s OOS everywhere but gamestop.com, and I’m not paying $10 to ship a $15 item :).

Oh btw, Mario Kart Wii is the actual title of the game, not Mario Kart. Weird, huh.

- I got the chance to play hockey tonight, so I lept at the opportunity.  Just so happened that we ended up finishing playing about 20 minutes before Best Buy did the midnight launch for GTA4.  Just finished the install of the game and I’m watching the intro as I type.  Pretty impressive. Oh, and it is the PS3 version.  Best Buy had like 400 copies of the game.  Too funny that people waited for hours.  heh.

- Thanks to Dan I also have a copy of the Metal Gear Solid Online beta to try out as well.  Gotta kick off that download before I go to bed.  Otherwise the whole of tomorrow will be wasted waiting for that to finish downloading.

- Time for sleep….

- Since we covered a bit of NCAA Football 09 in the podcast, I figured I would post a link to a Youtube video for the game.  This shows off some of the new features, including what could be the most annoying feature that they’ve added in a while… messing with your route previews when the crowd is incredibly loud.  That just looks plain silly.

Online roster sharing is a nice bonus though.  You should see name accurate rosters within about a day or two of the game release.  That’s a nice feature there.

Oooh… and more Mascot games.  Seriously, have you ever played one of these?  Why do they keep mentioning these as a great feature.

They do show some interesting tipped ball animations that look less pinball-like, but I’m still waiting to see if that’s really improved.

My interest in the game has gone from ‘meh’ to ‘hmm.’  We’ll see how much more we hear in the next month or so to see if my excitement increases any further though.

Well, it’s Sunday night, so you know that means that Dan and I were working hard on recording yet another episode of Riding the Pines.

In this weeks episode we covered quite a few things…

- Are racing games considered sports games?

- Madden 09 and NCAA Football 09 new online features

- Hot Shots Golf 5

- Mario Kart Wii

- NFL Draft

- What we’re playing

Feel free to comment on the show here, or in the forums.  Enjoy!

I did have a thoguht about going to GameStop today in order to pick up my Mario Kart preorder, however, since the place is close to work than it is home, and it feels like a lazy Sunday, I think I’ll wait until tomorrow.

Instead I finished my review of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and have played some Hot Shots Golf Out of Bounds. I like playing the single player, but entering online tournaments is kind of boring. It seems like every tournament starts hours from now. I have no interest in setting my alarm clock to login at 7pm; I want to play now dammit.

Now my son wants to play so I will try the beta of Mythos. Unfortunately I keep getting “connection to server failed” errors.  Anyone else around here have HSG and play it online,

Just curious if anyone got Mario Kart for the Wii…it’s not like I’m dying to go get it, but I am intrigued…

- Wow, who would have thought being curious about which platform that I was going to buy GTA4 on would create such a fervor around here.  Here’s my thoughts just to sum it up though.

1.  I don’t play online games much at all.  I prefer single player above all other options, so if GTA4 looks best on the PS3 (less frame rate issues, less pop-up) then I’m all good with that.

2.  I prefer the Dual Shock 3 controller to the 360 controller.  I know some people think that the 360 controller just feels perfect, but I’m not one of them.

I may not be buying the “most popular” version of the game, but I’m sure we’ll all be happy with it.

- I’m going to be posting some Pro Yakyuu Spirits 5 documents today that were created by blog translator, Jesse Chen.  He’s put in some great work again this year, so I’ll get those documents up soon.

- The NFL draft seems to have gone well for the Packers to this point.  Getting Brian Brohm with the 56th pick is a steal in my estimation.  Nice to have the QB position taken care of for the next few years now.

- Picked up Mario Kart for the Wii today.  Hopefully I’ll get some time to play it before the podcast recording tonight.  I’ll give some more comments on it then.

Yes! It finally came today! No I’m not talking about Stupid Mario Kart or Grand Theft Auto, but this gem! Now I have the whole thing in my hand! Yes!!!!! Click here to order from National Console Support, the official importer of The SportsgamerBlog.