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

Best Sunday Ad Deal Of The Week..

Goes to Target's Olevia Blu-Ray disc player, a complete steal at $149, but it's in store only...good luck!

Scott Boras needs to stop crying Wolf

New England Cable News is reporting the Yankees are back in the Teixiera sweepstakes. Either they really do have unlimited funds or Scott Boras is just leaking complete lies to the press...

Guitar Hero WT: The Cluster Frick Continues

So I haven't played the drums in Guitar Hero for a long time, and I decided to do so now. So I go and play and as I set down the kit, I notice that one drumstick holder is broken while the other is gone. Completely as if it fell in the drum kit. Which it did. I hear it moving around but I can't get to it. I love the kit, but the parts are nothing but trouble. Ugh.

Early Saturday morning notes

- After a meeting with "the talent" tonight.  Dan and I decided that we are going to put off the podcast for this week. Next week, we'll be recording our 'Game of the Year' episode though... so you certainly won't want to miss that.

I don't want to give any hints away... but I'm thinking Dan's title might involve cheerleading....

- I sat down tonight and played more Guitar Hero: World tour, but for the first time with the ION kit.  I'm not quite sure why they did it... but they made the Blue drum the crash cymbal for that game... It's not a huge deal... it just a bit silly.  I guess they just wanted to be different.  Oh, well.... thankfully you can just move the cable from one port to another on the kit and make it feel right... but it's just odd.

One thing that you cannot avoid though is the fact that the beats in GH are a great deal tougher than Rock Band.  Man... the first few songs took a bit of getting used to after playing Rock Band for the last week.

Ok, and the last thing I wanted to say is that the presentation in Guitar Hero, in my opinion, is so much better than Rock Band.  When you're watching the band warm up before a song... if you hit the kick drum, you see your character do it.  That and seeing Ozzy on the stage with you, just plain rocks...

- I'll probably be out for most of the weekend, but I'll get a few more posts in before Christmas rolls around.

Have a great weekend.

Friday notes

- Well, we had a blizzard hit Wisconsin in the last 12 hours and got about 12 inches of snow dumped on us.  Add drifting to that and things are a real mess.  Thankfully, I can work from home... and didn't even have to think about going anywhere.  What a great deal.

- So, a new feature of MLB09: The Show is to allow you to record your own sayings to be used as taunts for the crowd...  Really?

ESPN has a huge list of other new features... including a great online league option that lets you jump ahead in the schedule to play games out of order against others that are online.  That's a cool feature there.

Take a look at the article.  Tons of info about the game there.

- Trot Nixon?  Anyone else think that the Brewers are trying to get lucky like they did with Gabe Kapler again?

- Started playing God of War for the PSP in the last few days... Wow is that fun.  There are way too many QTE's in the boss/mini-boss battles, but the game is just too much fun.

- Movie notes:

I'll make this brief.

Indiana Jones 4: Total crap.  Just an awful film.  Dialogue is terrible and Harrison Ford looks bored throughout the whole film.  Ugh.

Tropic Thunder:  Some funny moments, but Tom Cruise totally kills in his segments.

- Going to try and do a podcast with Dan tonight... but we'll see how it goes.

Happy Friday

As we are getting ready for our 2nd storm of the century, it's a shame I wasn't able to pick up SingStar ABBA for $14.99. I did get PES 2009 for $29.99 though, which isn't a bad deal.

Oh yeah, and for those that emailed me, We Cheer isn't a bad game. I mean it has Corbin Bleu in it!

Not many great deals today, although I did get a "please trade in all your games at GameStop and we might even give you 1/2 retail value" email, so that was exciting.

I did do some shopping on the PlayStation store, that new game that Sony made wasn't bad. The Castlevania game, which they said was never before released in North America, seemed like I had played it before. Whatever!

Okay, time to get ready for the wonder that is the real job.

Amazon DOTD

Today's deal is Motorstorm: Pacific Rift for $39.99. Keep in mind today is the Amazon PS3 gold box deal, so keep checking back...

One other thing

My cable company  now offers a gamer package of 10/1 for $69.95 a month. Hey, guess who signed up for that in like four seconds. I know heard to believe, but man 10/1!!! Remember when it was great to get 1.5 down with a one way cable modem?

My kids will have never experienced the thrill of dial up modems...now I'm feeling old.

Twas the Week Before Xmas..

And it looks like the Orioles aren't getting Teixiera. Oh well. In other news...

* I'm so glad I didn't register all my Nintendo games until after Club Nintendo opened. I now have 350 coins. Yay!

* I've been too busy to play games, but I did see that you can now play your SingStar PS2 games on the PS3 version of SingStar. Yay!

* Don't forget today's Live Arcade game is FREE!

* If you saw Wii Cheer for $19.99, would you buy it? If so, you are an addict. Guess who bought it.

* I also bought the PS3 wireless keyboard. This is so NOT the Xbox keypad. Blech.

Tuesday notes

- So, I'm finally close to having my ION kit set up like I want.  I got my new pedal from Rockpedal.com on Friday and when I set it up last night, I was close to throwing it out the door... but I took a breath and adjusted it and now I love it.  If I wasn't so exhausted last night I would have spent hours playing it.  The kit is a thing of beauty.  Any missed note is totally my fault now... I love it.

- The Packers have completely fallen off the planet at this point.  Everyone around here is blaming the defensive coordinator or the GM for the failings of the team.  The most annoying topic is the fact that they have cap space to use and didn't spend it.  Teams like Tampa Bay are way under the cap... but are performing well as a team, so that's not a real issue.  If your team doesn't perform, the fact that you didn't over-spend or waste extra cap cash doesn't really apply.

The Packers have had a terrible string of injuries on defense and have lost a good majority of their games in the 4th quarter.

Sure, I'd like to see Rodgers pull out a 4th quarter comeback, but that will come with time, I hope...

- Amazon's best deal of the day is the entire run of Arrested Development on DVD for $28.99 (w/free shipping.)  This was the best show on TV during it's run... and it's well worth every cent of that cost to have the entire run.  I'm in the middle of season 3 right now and it keeps getting better with every watching.

- Can the Brewers just get the Cameron trade to the Yankees completed?  I know the Yankees have other things that they're working on... but the Brewers need that deal done so they can over pay an old pitcher such as Randy Johnson.

- My alma mater UW-Whitewater is going to play in it's 4th consecutive D3 championship football game on Saturday.  Go Warhawks.

- I just got an email from OOTP Developments that shows that they are having a holiday sale.

OOTP 9 and Title Bout 2 are $24.99 and Inside the Park Baseball is $12.99.  The following prices are good until January 1st.

Back to work....

The Ice Storm

As I write this, we have no power, its freezing (no heat) and we have an inch of ice outside.

The trees look gorgeous..at least the ones that are still standing.

Its times like these I'm glad I have a cell phone with internet.

Early Friday notes

- I won't be around for much of the day today, as my company is having it's holiday party... so that'll eat (and drink) up most of my day.

- I'm glad that CC got his deal with the Yankees.  I was never all that excited to see the Brewers have to try and invest that much of their payroll into a single player... especially with a guaranteed contract.

As far as the Cameron deal is concerned, I'm happy to see them moving him along as well.  What I can't believe is that the Yankees actually wanted the Brewers to pick up most of his salary.  As almost every character in Arrested Development said, "Really?"

Come on... you drop $161 million on Sabathia and you're going to hold out for the Brewers to pick up the check on Cameron?  I think not.

The one thing I wish that could have gotten done... and could possibly happen... is to move Bill Hall to the Yankees as well... that would make things very interesting in Milwaukee.

- Credit has to be given to Sony for making all of the Resistance 1 map packs free yesterday.  I wish that companies would do that sort of thing more often.  I can't picture that sales of old maps for games do all that well after the sequel is out, and it's a great benefit to add to the old game for those who haven't played it yet.

Wednesday night notes

- Big shock that the Yankees signed CC.   I'm actually happy that they did.  Having the Brewers tying up $20+ million on one player is just crazy talk for the market that we have here.  Hopefully they'll be able to pick up some pen help and a couple starters to fill out the lineup.

I'd be happy if the Yankees signed Sheets too.  They're due for another China Doll pitcher.

- I took a few pictures of my daughter playing the Ion drum kit for the first time.  There is a bit of pride there watching your kid start to figure out a game for the first time.  In the middle of the second song, she started noticing when she was supposed to hit which color drum when it was on the screen.  Not in time, mind you... but still she was starting to put it together.  Such a moment of "gaming pride" for my girl.

- Exclusive Home Closed Beta gear and items in Playstation Home tonight.  Let me try and hide the excitement.

- Still trying to work out the details on the contest to see how long I can go without buying a game... it'll be quite a challenge... but my kids college fund will thank me for it.

Hump Day Thoughts

* Condolences to Glen as CC Sabathia apparently has agreed to terms with the New York Yankees. Apparently money does win out over a rabid fan base. It's too bad...disappointing but not unexpected.

* Really sad to hear the AFL is 'Suspending' operations this year. That's never a good sign...and I thought they had a nice product. Oh well..

* Very happy the Orioles dumped Ramon Hernandez. While it wasn't as bad as the trade for Glenn Davis, Ramon, who was supposed to be great on offense, wasn't that great and the defense made Javy Lopez look awesome

Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff review

Hello all.

I wanted to post a link to my Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff review, so that you could all take a look at it.

As I said earlier today, if you listened to the podcast, you got a brief glimpse into what Dan and I thought of the game, but this should give a bit more insight into the title.

Enjoy!