The Blog for the Sports Gamer

- Nice sale on the Playstation Store for the next week.  Pixeljunk Monsters, PAIN, High Stakes Poker, and High Velocity Bowling are all $4.99 for the next week.  I have all of them except for poker and can safely state that they’re all worth $5…. easily.

- I can’t believe these Brewers.  Down 3-2 with 1 out in the 9th and Braun hits a homer to take a 4-3 lead.  Torres comes in and strikes out the side in the bottom of the 9th.  7-0 on the road trip.  Man… talk about a hot team.

- Dan and I sat in on the conference call for MLB Power Pros 2008.  We have the whole thing hosted here.  I got called out as the “Geek Alert” question when I asked about 2K trying to bring over the PYS engine over here.  I don’t mind that one bit… at least the question got asked.  If you’re already working with Konami, go whole hog and bring their best baseball engine over.

- I’m still playing Top Spin DS almost every day.  I was really loving the game and then it took a left turn with one of it’s tournaments.  The event was called the Amazon Cup… I thought they were just going to be clever with the name… they weren’t.  The net was made of vines…. it took all of the great realism that the game had going for it and threw it out the window.  Oh, here’s the best part.  You had the same background noises that you get when playing on a city court… So, here I am playing a match in the Amazon… and you hear a car horn.  What a bummer…  Still like the game, just not as much as I did before that tournament.

- If you want a good laugh, take a look at Peter Moore’s blog today.  Here’s the best part…

On the EA SPORTS World forums, our producers are now regularly interacting with consumers – our games are better for it, and it improves the fan experience.  We’d love it if every game was perfect, but in all my years in the industry I’ve never seen a game with zero bugs.  Because of the fans, we’ve already addressed a handful of issues in NCAA Football and NASCAR, and if we can create an environment to continue to get our games in the hands of you, our fans, sooner, then I’m all for it.

So, you release your most bug ridden game yet, and you’re patting yourself on the back because the fans have become your QA testers?  Great….

Well, you must have seen by now Bill Harris’ list of stuff wrong with NCAA. Well according to Peter Moore, it’s just a ‘handful’ of issues, and also, in order to release games even faster, we will be doing QA from this point forward.

Don’t believe me? Read the post!

- Man, this Brewers team is starting to scare me.  Through the first 5 innings, they had 1 base runner and were down 3 to nothing.  In the 7th, 8th, and 9th they managed to scratch out enough runs to get a 4-3 win.  That was a game I couldn’t have imagined them winning a few weeks ago.  They just seem to be clicking right now.  With CC and Sheets on the mound for the next two days, things look good for the series against the Cards.  If they can split the last two, that’s a 6-1 road trip and a great way to make up some ground on the Cubs.

- I’ve gotten through 2 tournament rounds and 2 match play rounds of We Love Golf and my impressions are very mixed.  In the beginning the controls seemed really odd, but after spending an hour or two with the game, I’m finding that they make more sense.  For example, if you’re going to put backspin or topspin on the ball, you need to hold the remote with two hands.  At that point it feels like a much more natural golf swing.  Still not as comfortable as Wii Sports Golf did, but it’s just a different swing.

The one thing that I’m a bit worried about with the game, and have been told gets better as the game goes along, has to do with the difficulty.  Here are my stats for the first two tournament rounds.

18 holes …. -15 under

18 holes …. -14 under

Add that to the fact that my two match play matchups haven’t gone past the 11th hole and you have something to worry about where the game challenge is concerned.

Typically, I wouldn’t have a problem with a game that starts off a bit easy, but holy crap is it simple in the beginning.  I’m knocking down 30+ foot putts without any problems at all, and anything inside 10 feet (at least at this stage) is a gimmie.

I’ll put a bit more time into it as I’d like to unlock a few of the special characters, but I just don’t know how long I’ll stay interested in the game if it’s this easy.

Oh, and all of this is without mentioning the annoying voice that comes from your Wii Remote.  I’d give anything to know a way to turn that off.  There is a little dancing Wii Remote on the screen that is your guide for the game and it could drive me to drink before all is said and done.

- I’m glad that we’ve had a good discussion going in the comments over the last day regarding NCAA Football 09.  I think we’ve just touched on some of the major issues that the game has at this point.  Bill Harris is doing a much better job of detailing the really big problems with the game engine.  Things that go beyond mere bugs and enter into real game flaws.  Oh, and as far as stating your opinion, Loren, keep going man.  Don’t think you’re talking to a wall here.  I’ve been known to change my stance on certain things if I get enough evidence to make me waver… although this one could be a tough one for you to work on.

- As far as Forza goes, I wasn’t complaining about the game.  It’s very challenging and that’s what I expected it to be.  The loading time for the first track was over a minute.  They got better after that… so I’m just not sure what the deal was there.  No biggy.

- For those of you that aren’t on the Gametap bandwagon, today they announced that THQ is coming on board.  So, you’ll be able to get your fill of Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40k, Titan Quest, and the upcoming Saints Row II.  I’d be more happy about this if I didn’t own all of those titles (damnit.)  Still, another good reason to subscribe to Gametap.  I’ve been a customer for almost 2 years now and haven’t regretted it for a minute.  Oooh, and Fallout comes out this week.  Giddyup.

1. If you haven’t heard the podcast yet, you’re missing out on some good material.

2. One of the “good Materials” is a discussion about We Love Golf. Basically, you can file it under disappointment…if you figure out the controls you might like it more, but this is a case of why F up something like a golf swing on the Wii. It makes no sense.

3. Not sure about Glen’s Forza loading times…..whateva. How you can complain about that game when compared to say, NASCAR 09 is beyond me. Grid is pretty good though :).

4. Glen and I will be on a conference call Thursday regarding MLB Power Pros. Ask your questions in this thread.

5. Interesting discussion about NCAA. I actually posted on Mr. Moore’s blog because we’re told he reads all the comments (heh). While the posters are right that the actual ‘action’ play of NCAA is a lot of fun, I’m sorry, but you cannot defend putting things that are flat out broken in the game. They should not have been in the game if they are broken, especially if the community is excited about upload/download rosters and online leagues. Yes, the single player is fun, but we were promised customizable, downloadable rosters and online dynasties, neither of which work, and it was released seemingly knowing that was the case. If you buy a Nintendo DS but there’s no stylus, sure the console works, but good luck playing games…the EA Fanboys would say ’so what, enjoy the game, PS PETER MOORE RULEZ”…or something like that :).

- Nice to see the Brewers come back after they blew the save in the 9th tonight against the Cards.  Now they are 2 games back after the Cubs game.  A few years back, they wouldn’t have been able to come back to win that game in extra innings, but I think this team is all kinds of fired up right now.

- Got We Love Golf from Gamefly today (only 8 short days from when I sent my last title in.) I’ll take a look at it tonight and give my thoughts tomorrow.

- Also picked up Forza Motorsport 2 for $8 at Toys R Us.  Wow.  You just can’t prepare yourself for how easy it is to spin out a car.  I did mention to Dan that my loading times for the game were crazy long.  Anyone else see that?

- One last Brewers note… best line of the night.

Harden 7 IP 1 H 1 R 1 ER 2 BB 10 K…. and loses the game.  Awesome.

I’m sure you’ve seen this, but Peter Moore is going to be in EA’s new arcade boxing title Facebreaker.   Wow.  Can I think of a more useless feature in a game.  The fact that sites are spinning this as a way to get back at Moore for the poor EA Sports titles, is just stupid.

Moore is in charge of the company that just released their worst, and most bug-ridden title in recent memory, NCAA Football 09.  Punching a virtual version of him will do nothing to make EA pay for what this man is helping do to the sports game genre.  If anything, he should pull a Uwe Boll and get into the ring and take a beating from people that have bought the game.

Of course, if you look at Metacritic, you’ll see that NCAA Football for the 360 is averaging an 85 currently.  Shocking.

Since you’re reading this site, I’m guessing that you know more than a bit about sports games.  One major problem with the reviews that come out for sports games (at least over the past few years) is that it’s done by people, who don’t “really” play them.  Even the reviewer at 1up, who claims to be the “sports guy,” missed the fact that the online dynasty mode is broken.  He comments on the fact that the fact that roster editing is a problem, but disregards it with “when it gets sorted, will rule.”  He goes on to give the game an ‘A-,’ which should be evidence enough to avoid any review he ever does again.

My anger isn’t just directed at the reviewers for the game and how they might misdirect unfortunate souls into buying the game, it’s mainly directed at EA Sports.

I don’t think I can word strongly enough how frustrated I am with EA Sports right now.

One of their best sports titles in the past few years, and you’ll probably laugh at me for writing it, was Madden football for the Wii.  This year, they release the first version of the NCAA Football franchise for the Wii and what do they do?  Create the ‘All-Play’ series, which takes what was potentially a promising sports game series on the Wii and turns it into a game that focuses on Mascot Play.

It’s gotten to the point, where I don’t even know who we can blame at this point.  EA Sports keeps putting out more and more mediocre titles and people keep buying them.  People like Bill Abner and Bill Harris have been detailing year after year how the games seem fine at first glance, but get worse as you spend time with them.

What do we have to look forward to next?  Madden Rewind.  Don’t bother fixing the ‘money plays’ in the game… just put in a feature so that you can have a ‘do-over’ if you don’t like the result.

Please people, I emplore you.  Tell your family…. Tell your friends… Don’t buy any more EA Sports titles for the time being.   I’m at a loss to come up with another way to get them to start putting an actual effort into their sports games.

Of course it’s asking a lot for the man who helped drive Sega out of the console business and did his part to eliminate Microsoft’s lead in the console business for this generation, to guide EA Sports to greatness.  The best that we could probably hope for from him would be if he hired Ben Brinkman back, so that MLB2K9 has a chance of being a good baseball game next year.

* This weekend, in a word sucked. Too many tornado warnings and a 25 foot tree is now horizantal in my front yard. Oh well, who needs $550 when it can be literally put in a wood chipper?

* Further, my DCH Motorola HDDVR died for the second week in a row when trying to record “Generation Kill.” I have to wait 3(!) days to get a replacement so instead I just bought an HD Tivo and we’ll get them to install a cable card. I can’t wait to have sanity in my TV viewing life again, not having to worry if something recorded or not or if the thing reboots right in the middle of watching TV.

* Because I’m returning my 2nd HD box, I’m going to use a Pinnacle HDTV stick that has QAM cable for HD broadcasts. Trying to set that up was not easy–keep getting a weird error driver “This requires a participation window”…whatever that means.

* I have SuperLiga Fever…semifinals next Wednesday!

* The Orioles lost their umpteenth Sunday game in a row. Not very impressive.

Lock the doors, put the kids to bed, and tell your spouse you have a headache…. Dan and Glen are back at it with the 23rd episode of Riding the Pines.

Here’s what we’re covering this episode.

- E3
- Patrick Hruby’s article at ESPN
- NCAA Football 09
- Top Spin 3

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

- If there were any people doubting whether the Brewers made the right move dealing for CC Sabathia, I’m guessing those people are keeping their mouths shut at the moment.  CC had dominating stuff tonight, holding the Giants to 1 run and 4 hits in a complete game effort.  It took the Brewers a few innings to get going, but they ended up putting 9 runs on the board, including 2-3 run home runs.  Definitely a fun game to watch as a Brewers fan.

There is also something entertaining about hearing, “Let’s go Brewers” at a visiting stadium.  Gotta love that.

- Dr. Horrible has it’s final Act available at www.drhorrible.com.  I have to give Joss Whedon his due.  Just when you think you know where he’s going with a story, he takes you in a different direction.  I guess that’s why I’m such a fan of his work.

- Take a look at the comments feed this week.  We’ve had a lot of good back and forth this week… even some from Cubs fans… grrr.

- Dan and I are hoping to get a podcast in tomorrow.  We have PLENTY to talk about.

Hey nice to see the Revs in the news…well one ex-Revs, the guy that sold me season tickets in 1998, and their assistant coach. Check out this article.

- Can’t wait for the Brewers to start playing again tonight.  The All-Star break really does a great job of fueling my baseball interest again.  CC’s on the mound, so I’ll be staying up late to watch the game in San Francisco.

- Another day, another link to Dubious Quality.  Bill Harris has reported that the sliders in NCAA09 are broken.  The CPU sliders do nothing.  Wonderful work EA!  Want to kick my dog while you’re here?  That grueling 8 to 9 month development cycle must have made you forget a rather essential component in adjusting the game.  I’m just glad that I didn’t pick up my copy of the game yet.  I would have been 3 shades of pissed off right now, if I had.

- Anyone hit the midnight opener for Batman?  I haven’t seen a movie in the theaters for about a year.  Having young kids will do that to you.

- Typically, Florida State football players aren’t thought of for their academic achievements but here is one player that will have to weigh going into the NFL draft or trying to become a Rhodes scholar.

I was very excited to see that the Dodgeball game made it to Xbox Live a few weeks early…and then I played it. Eww….what a huge turd. I mean this has got to be one of the worst looking Live games I’ve played. I’d rather play a VC NES Dodgeball game if it were out — until then, i’ll stick with the DS dodgeball game. What a complete disappointment.

Since Bill Harris linked me, I’ll link him..his console posts are always insightful, without the Pachter-esque Wall Street Crap.

Bill always makes some very good points, and the new NPD numbers back up his arguments. The Xbox 360 needs to jump start console sales. Ninja Gaiden 2 isn’t going to do it. It’s amazing that with a 12 month headstart the Wii has overtaken the 360…but, what is the attach rate? I mean every Wii game is basically a controller pack in. Wii Play tops the charts — but would Xbox 360 additional controller with generic game also top the charts? I do have quite a few Wii games, but the 360 is my personal console of choice due to the ease of downloadable content and online gaming. However, if 360 is going to have the legs of the PS2 (which only sold 30,000 less then the 360..WTF?, they’ve got to move on the prices. This temporary price decrease is crap.

It will be very interesting to see what happens. Until then, we can all enjoy the games regardless of platform, unless it’s MGS 4, which is as much of a 10 as an EA Sports game.

- Warhawk’s new game modes are awesome.  Hero is a ton of fun, as it gives your character tons more health and weapons that do a great deal more damage (for a limited amount of time.)  Tons of fun, can’t state that enough.  The other mode, collection was great to mess with as well.  It’s kind of like capture the flag, but with multiple items to collect and bring back to your base.

I probably spent about 3 hours with it tonight, and if I didn’t have to work tomorrow, I would have spent a great deal more.

Oh, and the new game modes are free.  Too cool.

- 2K released some information about NHL 2K9 while at E3.  The primary thing that I noticed was the fact that the Wii version will include all of the gameplay modes, including franchise mode, that the 360 and PS3 versions have.

That was probably my greatest disappointment with Top Spin 3, as it was just a ‘lite’ version of the game compared to the others.  Thankfully, it looks as they have it right with NHL 2K9.

I’ll have some screenshots for the Wii version up tomorrow.

- If you’re just looking at the feed, you won’t see that Dan and I have added Sony’s new Playstation Network ID tags to the site.  They have quite a bit of work to do, to get caught up to Microsoft, but seeing as how the service is free, it’s nice that they keep adding features.

- You won’t hear another word from me about Brett Favre, as I’m just so incredibly tired by the whole thing.  I honestly don’t care who he plays for anymore.

Phenomenal article over at ESPN. Interestingly enough, some people to blame might be the video game buying public. Other times, it’s the developer still. Definitely worth a read.