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

Sunday notes

Just sitting around watching the Brewers try to go for a sweep against the Pirates today and I realized that I haven't posted all that much this week.

- I took a look at the NFL Head Coach demo that's on the PS3 store.  It lets you prepare for, as well as coach, week 1 for the Colts.

I don't know that I agree that they give you enough of a feel about the total depth that the game offers.  Not a bit about the draft, Free Agency or anything like that.  It would have been better for them to let you play through the preseason, rather than a single week of the regular season.

That's just my opinion though.

- Considering that I'm talking about Head Coach, Target has marked down the Madden Collector's Edition for the PS3 down to, as low as, $44.98 in some stores already.  It's a YMMV type of deal, as some stores haven't dropped the price yet, but it's been reported at that price (or $60 something) at quite a few stores nationwide.

- Dan and I haven't been able to get our schedules together for a podcast over the past few weeks.  I'm hoping to get one done early this week... so stay tuned.

- Gamefly finally shipped me NCAA Football, so I should get that sometime in... September... judging by their recent speeds.  Hopefully the patch has improved the gameplay to make it worth some time now.

Politics

First, there's still one draft slot remaining for fantasy football....email me if you want in.

Second, I have to talk politics. I am rather surprised that Joe Biden was Obama's pick. Don't get me wrong. I've met Senator Biden and love his in your face tell it like it is attitude; however with everything focused on "change" it seems odd to pick such a long time senator.

That being said, it's not like there were a ton of options...picking a one term governor isn't a great idea, there's no way he could have picked Hillary, so in that way it made sense.

And oh look there's John McCain going negative again. I think that's why people like Obama -- his message is pretty positive, and not doom and gloom like McCain. I think we've had enough of the scare tactics. Of course McCain's PR team must be pretty dumb. "Hey I have an idea for an ad -- throughout the ad, we'll have people screaming Obama's name" ...yeah that does well for your candidates name recognition.

Eight years ago when McCain ran against Bush, I really liked the guy; the straight talk was refreshing and heck even his SNL skits were funny. Now however, I'm not a fan at all. He has changed his mind quite a bit and anyone who thinks anything Bush did in the past 8 years was good really needs a refresher course. Perhaps he can start with knowing how many properties he owns.

Seriously, I know my investment accounts and approximately how much is in them. I deal with hundreds of millions of dollars at my real job and I know where it all is. How the hell do you not know what you own? Either he's not good at accounting or he's starting to lose his mind. Either way it's not good.

Okay, that's the political rant.

4 Fantasy Slots left

All emails have gone out. If you haven't received and invite and you asked, check your spam mail folder. If you didn't ask but want in, email me. Four slots are left in our 12 team league.

We use Simmons' rules for scoring but my rules for playoffs and draft.  This means you have a 10th utility offensive player to use. The EA scoring system is the first one I've seen that let's me do almost everything to Simmons' rules so kudos to them. It just won't restrict the number of times you put a QB or RB in the Utility position.

Fastasy Redux

People will be getting their email invites later tonight. The draft will be auto and done Monday morning. You need to queue your top choices. We can never get everyone together so this is the fairest way...

Thursday Thoughts

1. Yay! SingStore Update! 27 New Songs!
2. Ratchet & Clank Future for PS3! Yay!
3. Jeanne D'Arc downloadable for PSP. Yay!
4. Kratos in Hot Shots Golf! Yay!

5. Why did Head Coach 09 get such a shit rating in Game Informer? I was SHOCKED. Oh wait, it's good, that explains it. Never mind.

6. Because of my physical pain, I haven't been playing many games, but it's starting to feel better, so I'll get back into Madden.

7. It looks like if you want live scores using EA Fantasy football, each player has to pay $1. Seems bearable...we have a few people, so if you're interested and want to play EA fantasy football email me at the usual place and I'll invite or give you the password. Remember 12 people can play in this league (more than 12 means you'll have really crap RBs) and the winner gets...uh...Glen, what's in the Prize Closet?

Quick Thursday note

More later... but there is a demo for NFL Head Coach 08 on the Playstation store.  No word on it being released for the Xbox yet.

Add that to the Force Unleashed demo and you should have some happy demo time tonight.

Hump Day

I've been having some nasty back issues so between completing a work merger and my back pain, gaming/blogging time has been limited.

Anyway, I've received a few emails about fantasy football. I'm debating whether or not we want to do it this year. Every year we do it, and there are a few fans that stick with it, usually by week 3 everyone has dropped off the planet. Last year was difficult because I was limited to what draft times were available and it seemed all the players that had auto-draft got the good guys while live-drafters were left with crap.

I was thinking about just doing an auto-draft this year, and then leaving it up to the group to trade and claim free agents as they see fit. There's never one time that everyone can do -- and I was also thinking about trying out the (gasp) EA Fantasy Football because it would be cool to import your team into Madden.

What are your thoughts? If there's enough feedback, I'll consider it....

Quick Wednesday notes

- Man, this week is just flying by.  Sorry for not posting over the past few days, things have just been crazy.

- I have a ton of new screenshots to post today for MLB Power Pros for the DS, NHL2K9 (360, PS3 version and Wii version,) and NBA2K9.

As I said the other day, I played the demo for NHL2K9 and came away liking it quite a bit... my daughter is driving me nuts talking about the Zamboni mini game for the game though.  She asks me at least 3 times a day when she can play the Zamboni game.  Who doesn't love a young hockey fan?

- As a Brewer fan, I'm a bit worried that Ben Sheets is only 1-5 since Milwaukee acquired Sabathia... He's not getting a lot of run support, but his ERA is 1 run higher since then.  If the team is going to make a run, they need both of those guys to be winning their games.

Trackmania United $19.99 on Steam

Title says it all, very good racing game if you're interested.

Just FYI

I bought All Pro Football for the Xbox 360 at Best Buy for $3.56. Not a bad deal!

Early Sunday morning thoughts

- Ok.  I'm really trying to like Madden... really trying.

Can someone who has the game tell me why passes to the sideline cannot be thrown anywhere near as hard as the passes over the middle.  I'm rifling shots over the middle, but every pass near the sidelines is a pop fly that every DB can get to.

Besides that, the CPU throws way too many picks.... CPU controlled defenders get juked out of their pants by any move by the computer... and the center of the field seems to be almost undefendable against the pass.

Oh, well... I'm going to keep at it... I just don't want to think that I'm not giving the game a chance to surprise me.

- I played through the Tiger Woods demo earlier today... and it's pretty much exactly what I remember from when I played Tiger Woods 07... except with a Golf Coach segment now.

- The NHL2K9 demo was a good amount of fun though.  The controls don't seem overly busy and I didn't see any traces of "Super Goalies" in the 3 games that I played.  Each game had legitimate scoring opportunities where a player hit the post, or put it away.

My daughter heard me mention the Zamboni driving mini-game and would not stop talking about it for the rest of the day.  I'm going to be hard pressed to keep her away from it.  (Not that I can complain about that.)

- Went for an 18 mile bike ride with my wife and kids today as well.  I pulled the Burley with the kids and even though it was a trail ride, I was pretty wiped out after that.  I haven't done a ride that long in 5 years... and it showed.  Still, it was fun and it was good to get outside with the whole family.

- The Brewers managed to break their mini-losing streak tonight... despite some odd decisions and poor fielding in the 9th, winning 4-3 in the 10th.  I'm just happy they picked up a game on the Cubs.  4 1/2... is still a lot of ground to cover though.

- The Packers on the other hand looked awful tonight.  Dropped passes everywhere.  I will really be shocked if they don't look at a veteran QB to back up Rodgers soon... the young kids just don't look ready for the NFL.

- Phelps won his 8th tonight... Last nights race was still one of the most amazing I've seen.  Pulling off a .01 second win... when you're behind with 5 meters to go... is just nuts.

Time for bed.

Quick Saturday Night Thoughts

• Tropic Thunder is a great comedy movie. One of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. Go see it!
• When I was at Best Buy today I saw a nice little USB keyboard for the PS3 that reminded me of the Xbox Communicator. The only problem is that it actually uses it's own usb dongle and for $32.99, I think I'll just stick with a full size keyboard. The Xbox Communicator is perfect...
• Speaking of Best Buy - Little League World Series was $51.99 for the Wii -- $2 more than standard Wii pricing...WTF?

Early Friday morning notes

- I spent the better part of the evening tonight working on a document that I hope to post in the next day.  I just need to get some help with my statistical work.  It's just something that I noticed today... so, I hope that no one else scoops me on it.  heh.

As a result of my work, I didn't get a chance to do much except have the Olympics on and punch numbers into Excel.

I'm hoping to get a podcast done with Dan either later tonight or Saturday evening.  We should have plenty to talk about.

- Brewers 8 game winning streak was snapped today.  As I told a friend the other day, if you can win 2 out of 3 in every road series, you'll be a good team at the end of the year... and that's just what they've done over their last 3 series.

- Thankfully, despite the constant insistance of the commentators, the scoring didn't come into play for the Women's Individual All-Around Gymnastics competition.  The top two performers throughout the events were the American women, and they took the Gold and Silver.

Oh, and Michael Phelps just happened to grab his 6th gold and world record... words don't really describe what he's doing in swimming right now.

More later.

Quick Thursday notes

Two demos on the agenda for today.

Tiger Woods 2009 for the PS3 and 360, and NHL 2K9 for the PS3 are both online today.

Also, Sony announced that Burnout Paradise will be available for download off of the Playstation online store for $29.99 later this fall.  I picked Burnout Paradise up recently and it's a ton of fun.  Dan and I have both spoken highly of it in the podcast and recommend it very highly.   One of the best features that it has going for it is the fact that they continue to put out large updates to the game, for free.  That's not something we see often in the days of micro-transactions.

More later tonight after I check out the demos and try to play some Madden.

Thursday Thoughts

• Sorry for not posting. I know you all keep hitting refresh to see if I posted. LOL
• Let's see, of course since Madden came out and I bought the Wii and 360 versions of Madden, I've been playing Pub Games and Bionic Commando for the 360. Shocked, I know.
• Okay, I actually did play Madden for the Wii and the "Test" for the 360. There's no test for the Wii version (yay!) and the mascot gamen isn't the first option on the screen (YAY!). They also have downloadable rosters on the Wii (Triple YAY!) While the game is fun, I will tell you that in the first 30 seconds of the game it was tied 7-7. Not really a defensive struggle....but did I mention it was fun? The game actually levelled off after that, and as had been mentioned, the call your shot is an AWESOME feature.
• Remember how I mentioned how much I enjoyed ABC Monday Night Football on the PC -- one of the things about that game how you could click on an WR and change a pattern. It was great. Well Madden Wii takes it one step further with call your shot: you press a button, point the Wii mote on a WR and hit another button. Then you move the Wii mote and create a route for him. Zig Zag, post, slant, deep, some bizzare combination of both -- you can do it. It is way more fun than you think it should be.
• I haven't tried Head Coach yet -- I'm very curious but it's not my genre
• Little League baseball for Wii is still a favorite game
• I just caught up with Sunday's Mad Men episode. I love this show, although recently it seems to have gone Sopranos...but that's not a bad thing.