The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Thursday night notes

- First things first, the Microsoft DRM utility is out (about time.)  Let me be the first to tell you that if you are an average user without a lot of DLC, it wouldn't be a big deal to run through the website to get your new 360 authorized for the content.  The issue becomes re-downloading the content.

I had over 50 items that had to be redownloaded, one after another on my new 360 to allow me to use them without being on Live.  It's just a hassle.  They can see what you've downloaded... they've run you through a web wizard to authorize your content for that console, why do WE have to redownload everything, even if we already have it on our hard drive.  It's just a pain in the butt.  It took me about 45 minutes to grab everything again, one item at a time until they were done.

Dan will vent to you all about this later, but he's got 100's of items that he has to redownload... not a happy camper.

- I grabbed the Top Spin 3 demo earlier tonight and gave it a whirl.

What I enjoyed:

• Impressive graphics.

I saw red clay dirt that appeared on your clothing when you play at Roland Garros.  It really looked like a guy who had been playing a match on clay.

• Nice animations.

I mis-timed one of my shots with Federer and he hit a behind the back shot to compensate for it (I only saw this once in 20 points, so I'm hoping it's not over utilized, but still cool.)

• Tons of different shot options

Three face buttons equate to shots, as well as multiple shot types with the right stick.

What I didn't care for:

• Learning some of the new shots

In the training area of the demo, they attempt to teach you all of the shots you can use, including 'risk' shots.  This part of the demo took far too long as I seemed to have perfect timing on every shot, but couldn't ever aim my return to the location on the court that it wanted.

When I played an exhibition later, I found myself going back to just using the face buttons as the drop shots and other shots just seemed to have too much risk to make them worth while.  Perhaps that's what's intended, but when I abandon the new shot types as soon as I learn them... I don't think that's a good sign.

• Some slowdown

When I loaded up the exhibition, the camera that was panning around the court was a near slide show.  Hopefully that's just a demo issue.

I did play the PS3 version, so your mileage may vary.  I should have the Wii version soon, so I'll let you know my thoughts on that version when I receive it.

- I usually don't fall for the pre-order gimmicks that they include with some games, but I do get a kick out of this one for We Love Golf for the Wii.

- Thanks again to the Orioles for taking 2 out of 3 from the Cubbies this week.  I think the Cubs had only lost 8 home games all year before that series.  Perhaps losing Soriano and Zambrano is affecting them a bit.  They do still have a 4.5 game lead on the Central though.  Plenty of time left though.

I am getting tired of hearing about what the Brewers need to do to get C.C. Sabathia.  I'd like to see them stay out of that race.  We already have one starting pitcher, Sheets, that wont be coming back next year.  I'd hate to see them spend a ton of prospects to rent a starter for a few months.

- Anyone watch the NBA draft tonight?  Any interest there?  I turned it on for a few minutes and nearly fell asleep.  Even with 5 minutes between picks it seemed to drag along.

The Bucks made a trade, I guess that's something.