The Blog for the Sports Gamer

I’m one of the 50 million cable subscribers that will get MLB Network starting tomorrow — however you can get a taste now, and I’m already hooked. This is going to be a great channel

The demise of 2008 can’t come fast enough for me. While I have been fortunate overall in relation to the economic disaster we have courtesy of that wonderful President Bush, it just wasn’t a wonderful year for me sports wise.

Starting with the Patriots demise at the Super Bowl, things were on a bad note. The Celtics did win the NBA, but I’m really a bandwagon fan on basketball. The Orioles continued to suck and in a shocker, all the marquee free agents went to the Yankees, and we apparently can’t even sign someone like Kevin Millar. Go figure.

Over in MLS, the Revolution didn’t even make it to the semifinals, which was a disappointment , but hey when 6 of your starting 11 are injured, it kind of makes it difficult — same deal with the Patriots this fall …although they made it to 11-5 which isn’t good enough ; however the incredibly shitty Chargers got in at 8-8. No I’m not bitter.

Gaming wise, it was the year of the sequel. Not a whole lot of originality out there…It was Guitar Hero 4, Rock Band 2 in 10 innings. Grand Theft Auto 4, Gears of War 2. Fallout 3, Singstar 2.

Games that were original were very much underrepresented with the thongs of the gaming public. DeBlob came out for Wii and although based on a PC flash game was quite fun. Naturally it didn’t sell. Boom Blox also has suffered a similar fate. Indie games like World Of Goo got a lot of press but still didn’t sell as much as I would have liked to see. Wii Music sucked for adults, but is great for kids, but even that wasn’t great at the sales chart. However, make a controller out of a mat and put some Mii’s on it and you have a million seller. Also, if you include a shitty game with a controller, the shitty game will sell quite well, even 2 years after release.

Downloadable content really came into it’s own this year. I love Steam and their "best of" collections. Good Old Games is a nice idea, but playing a 10 year old game really makes you appreciate the strides we’ve made in that time. GameTap is still an enjoyable pleasure for me although we aren’t seeing nearly as much new content as I would like. I am constantly downloading new songs and rosters through my consoles to continue my enjoyment of games. No game has ever done so much to reinvent itself as Burnout Paradise — and another game update is on the way!

The new franchise games like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge seemed to land with a thud although they are most certainly worth playing or even buying.

With all the crapware coming out on the Wii, I just hope that we don’t ignore the issues that happened in 1983-1984 all over again. I want the videogame industry to survive, but there are only so many games one person can play or buy in a three week period. On the Xbox and PS3, we see very few weekly releases. On the Wii, you get 3-6 crap titles per week. Seroiusly, who is still playing M&M Kart racing these days?

Alright I’m done talking about games. Two quick points:

* If you have a TiVo, you can download Dr. Horrible for $4.99, which is a great deal. Did I mention how much I enjoy TiVo/Amazon On Demand and Netflix streaming?

I’ll wrap up 2008 with this. Last night I watched the DVD documentary : Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten about one of the most influential musicians in my personal life. I can’t believe he’s been gone for six years now, but in this great documentary, one of the things he says over and over again (the documentary is in his own words) is how great it is to be alive. I’ve taken those words to heart and in 2009, regardless of my economic/personal/family/home/work/ situation, I will think of Joe’s words and remember that whatever the problem is, it’s still better to be alive than not!

Happy New Year everyone!

- I just got done watching a recording of the documentary ‘Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade’ off of Showtime.  Oh, man… it’s a painful bit of viewing about the most famous arcade videogame players of the early 1980′s.  I’d love to detail more of it, but it’s really something that should be seen rather than explained.  Some of these guys just are painful to watch, not because they don’t have any screen presence, but because so much of their life is wrapped up into their gaming records.

- Thankfully my Strep throat is clearing up after I was given the antibiotics in the ER.   Man, that was one of the worst sicknesses I’ve ever had.  Hell, I was in the ER twice this year with temps over 103 (and almost a third time, when my wife just determined it was the flu.)  I can do without this much sickness next year.

- Anyone anxious to see what programming the MLB network has in store starting on Thursday, or is that just me?

- If you want to feel old today, take a look at this video on Youtube.  I don’t know why it’s so amazing to me when the kids of superstar athletes start showing up like this.

- Lastly, my copy of the DVD for Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog came in yesterday and it’s just as great as I remembered.  Also, the commentary track is another musical for the movie.  Who doesn’t love Nathan Fillion singing about how much better he is than Neil Patrick Harris?  If you liked the web series, it’s a great DVD to pick up, and it’s only $10.49 (at the moment, it has been $9.99)… well worth it.  Lots of other extras worth watching as well.

Let’s hear it for former Marlins pitcher Mark Hendrickson! It’s kind of like signing Teixiera, but not really.

Oh and kudos to the San Diego Chargers. Way to make the playoffs with the 8-8 record while the Patriots sit home at 11-5! Yes!!

NFL Fever! Catch it!

Okay I’ll shut up now. At least we didn’t trade for Favre. LOL. See ya all you ex Patriot defensive coordinator now ex-coaches!

Remember 1982, Earl Weaver’s last year, when the Orioles and Brewers came down to the last game of the season. I was so pissed because the Orioles had a better record than the AL West leading Angels, but that didn’t matter…

Fast forwarding to 2008, the Patriots go 11-5 and get eliminated from the AFC playoffs while there’s a possibility that the 8-8 Chargers get to play.

Unbelievable, but that’s sports in America. Not in say, the English Premier League where the top teams are the top teams and don’t get relegated, but whatever.

In America we will always have issues like this. On the other side, I think it’s fair to say even if the Patriots made it, it would have been a tough road to climb. We’re probably better off not having to worry about it.

11-5 without 3/4 of your starters on defense and a few on offense is nothing to cry about. If you told me we’d be 11-5 on week 1 after Brady went down, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Oh well…is it February yet?

- Around 6 o’clock on Friday night I started to get a headache, earache, and sore throat… then the temp went up.  I hit 103 on Friday, and then 104.5 on Saturday, and finally 105.2 around 10:00 last night.  At that point my wife took me to the ER.   Turns out I have Strep.  Pisser.  So, antibiotics are the order of the day.  Thankfully, my parents were able to take the kids tonight while I’m still contagious.  So, at least I don’t have to watch over them today.  That would have been nearly impossible.

- Well, the Badgers season really ended on a whimper last night as they got thumped by FSU. I think people here were just hoping for them to put a good showing together…boy did they disappoint.  Starting the season ranked in the top 10, and ending it 7-6… that’s just plain fugly football.

- Speaking of Fugly football, I’m sitting here watching the Packers and Lions.  I think that says it all.

- Oh, can someone tell the fine people at Lexus that in a massive recession there aren’t going to be many people giving out cars as gifts to their spouses… Those commercials piss me off every time I see them.

- I think the furor over Wes Welker getting a fine is rather entertaining.  The snow angel celebration has been in the books since 2006.  Is it an idiotic rule, of course… but it’s on the books.

Personally, I think that the fact that it was a “good guy” did something like that that has people so upset.  If it would have been Chad Johnson, no one would have made a fuss.

If you like casino games, check out Hoyle Casino 2009. I’ve been enjoying the game for a while and now through January 4th, you can get the game for $10!

The great thing about the game is that the online component is completely free and they have tournaments and so forth.

Click here to get the game now! PS Don’t mind the title page — the order form goes right to Digital River and it’s safe.

- Whew… another day… another game down.  Resistance: Fall of Man… done.  That game was a biatch at times, but it’s a terrific FPS title.  More checkpoints would have been appreciated… but still, a good challenge, and a good length for a single player game.

Next up, a new career in MLB 08: The Show and I’m not sure what else….

- Last entertaining holiday story here.

Wednesday, my wife and daughters disappear for about 15 minutes downstairs and my 4 year old comes running out of the room saying, “Daddy… we got you a Christmas present.”

The next thing I said to her was, “Oh, that’s very nice of you.. don’t tell me what it is…”

“Ok,” she said.  “I won’t tell you about your pajamas.”

I love kid stuff.

- I finally added the ‘Best of XM’ to one of my radio subscriptions, due to the fact that they have added the MLB channel to the lineup.  I will be so miffed if they don’t have Major League Baseball games on there, come March.  How XM gets the NFL and NASCAR, and Sirius only has NBA and NHL games to this point, is beyond me.

While browsing, I saw this headline:

Is Monica Lewinsky still single?Who would give a shit about that, exactly?

Iron Mike, putting on the pounds. Whoa!

Adult Friend Finder.com is actually putting out an IPO. No word on if purchase of stock gets you a free membership.

While we’re at the Wall Street Journal, here’s an article about minimum advertised pricing, which I’ve written about before — "$200 before $20 savings"…ugh I hate that.

The NFL truly is no fun. To fine Wes Welker 10 grand for making a snow angel has got to be one of the dumbest fines I’ve ever seen. Apparently having any kind of joy after you score a touchdown will now result in a 15 yard penalty.

- My wife got the night off of work last night, so we got a chance to wrap up “Santa’s” gift for my daughters.  Sarah picked out a plastic kitchen set thing from Toys R Us a few weeks ago… and it did not disappoint.

Both of my daughters spent a good bit of time playing with it during the day, and it was great to see how much fun they had with it.  The always entertaining part was the fact that they spent just about as much time in the box that it came in.

Who am I to stop their imagination?  I love stuff like that.

- I took a part of the day to finish up God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP.  I love the God of War series, but I’ll admit this is the first title in the series that I’ve finished.  I got most of the way through the first game on the PS2, but got distracted by… hell, I don’t know… pretty colors or something.

This is all part of my ‘not buy a game’ strategy for next year.  The problem with it?  I’ve been playing a lot of games that I just bought.  I’ll try and figure out a system that works to get through some of the massive backlog.

- Girls are in daycare tomorrow… and I’ve got about 6 hours to myself.  I’m thinking there will be a good bit of gaming going on.  Gotta like that.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas day. Around my house, my son got Wii boxers (as in underwear). And I got ski lessons. So that should be interesting. Yes I know, I live in New England but have only done downhill once in my life at Wildcat without a lesson, which is why I never did it since.

I may take some time off from the real job next week so we’ll see how that goes.

- I don’t know how anyone can be shocked by the Yankees continuing to open up their wallet.  I think the fact that there is a salary cap in every other major sport spoils us.  We forget what it’s like for a team with a new billion dollar stadium, that has nearly unlimited money to spend, to be able to buy almost any player that they want at any time.

I’m not really surprised to see that the Brewers owner is now thinking that a cap would be a good idea in baseball… although, the unions and owners would never go for it.. it’s like the idea for a college football playoff system.  Great in theory… but just isn’t going to happen.

- I’m still trying to work out all of the details for the blog contest to see how long I can go without buying a game next year.  My initial thought is that the winner would get a game of their choice, plus a donation in their name to Child’s Play.  If you have other thoughts about the contest, let me know.

- Along with the contest, I’ve decided to try and work through the backlog of games that I’ve accumulated, so currently I’m playing through Resistance on the PS3, Half Life 2: Episode 2 on the PC, as well as my normal Rock Band and GHWT efforts.  Lots of fun to work through some titles that I’ve missed over the past couple years with the kids.

- Have a happy holiday everyone.  Be good.  Drive safe.

So, Maryland native Mark Teixeira proved that he’s nothing but money hungry, but with an agent like Scott Boras, what would you think? You’ll hear it’s a business and blah blah, but unlke football, baseballs contracts are guaranteed — so it’s tough to say that $20 million vs $22 million is really going to matter that much.

He wanted to play for a winner but by my take the Yankees haven’t won anything since 2000 — which makes them a loser in my book. On the bright side, the Yankees have gone with the “we have no farm system, so let’s just sign everyone we can” philosophy. That usually doesn’t work because everyone has a me attitude rather than a team attitude.

Of course, I’m a little selfish here. Who didn’t think he’d be a Red Sox player or a Yankees player. The irony of course is that Game 1 of the 2009 season is Yankees at Orioles. Someone might be regretting his decision on that day…

Let me get this straight.  Aaron Rodgers is 0-8 in leading his team to win a game when behind late in the 4th… but the fact that the kicker has missed or had his kick blocked when they’ve had a chance to win a game late doesn’t factor into that….  Go figure.

Wow, did the Packers piss away that game tonight.  They owned the Bears for the first 3 quarters, but never did what they needed to do to put the game away.  The disappointing season continues.

If they don’t beat the Lions, I’m betting half of the organization gets run out of town.

- I’m starting to get ready for our New Years party here and it will involve Rock Band as well as GHWT and a few other games… anyone have some song suggestions?  My wife had me pick up the Country Pack last week and I grabbed a few songs that I’ve been holding off on.

I’m just looking for suggestions of songs that are fun to play for a group, any genre would work with the group that will be here.

- Just a memo to all of you that may be out shopping over the next day or so… if there is someone that cuts in front of you in line and is just mumbling and rocking back and forth… just let them go.  Best to stay away from those situations.

Yes you can hear yourself cheer in game! Great. Like anyone needs Jonah Falcon taunting your players. Then again, maybe you could have Sal & Richard taunt Jonah. That might be interesting.

Read the official news over at the PlayStation Blog