The Blog for the Sports Gamer

The Post Office gets a lot of bad publicity, but I have to give it to them today. I’m taking a vacation in a few weeks where I’ll need my first passport and I sent it via the post office. I got some bad advice from the place where I sent it from and a result they sent back my app asking for a certified birth certificate. I went to another branch today and they sent the whole thing via Express to get it there at 10 am tomorrow…and charged me nothing for it. That kind of thing can make your day.

More later.

The punch detection is better without the balance board, but it’s still not as good as you’d like to see it.  One of the first things that you do in the story mode (Note to those of you that played Prizefighter, it’s the exact same story) is to go through a training for how to play the game.  Jabs (left hand) and Straights (right hand) work pretty well.   Keep both hands in a thumbs up posture and punch straight out with both hands and you’ll do very well with those.  Hooks and uppercuts are not great though.  As you’d figure with a hook, you’ll sweep your arm out a bit and then back to the starting spot, or so it says.  Uppercuts are supposed to be an upward motion with the Wii Remote or the Nunchuck.  What you end up with, and you’ll see this in the tutorial, is hooks that end up as uppercuts and uppercuts that end up as hooks.

When you add the fact that you get frustrated when the punches never seem to match up what you’re doing, you start exagerating your motions… then the cord connecting the two starts to whip around more and more.  Eventually I found myself getting closer and closer to wanting to actually start punching… probably not a good sign.

The one reason I’ll keep at the game is that it’s actually a really good workout.  The training modes really do get you moving and while it doesn’t work up a sweat, it feels like my arm and shoulder muscles are getting a different workout.

I think the game really could have benefitted from the Wii Motion Plus, but as it is… I can’t really recommend it.  I’ll see if I figure out any tricks to the game that make it more playable though.

- Re: Netflix.  It sucks.  Really sucks.   This is really making me think about Blockbuster… even though I’ll be giving up the online watching.   The price difference between Blu-Ray and DVD isn’t enough to justify this increase.  It’s a money grab plain and simple.

At this point, dropping Blu-Ray for a while seems like a good option though.

- I got a copy of Don King Boxing for the Wii late on Friday (I didn’t find out about it from my wife until after I posted.)  I played around with it and while it’s a good workout the controls didn’t work well for me when I tried to use it with the balance board.  Uppercuts were almost flawless, I never missed them… but jabs and hooks almost never registered in any of the training modes.

I’m going to give it a bit more time tonight to see if it plays better without the board… or if there is just something that I’m missing.

All joking aside though, if there was one boxing game that I’d really like to play tonight though, it would be Super Punch Out on the Virtual Console (YAY to not needing to worry about Wii storage space again!)

- If you missed the NCAA hockey action this weekend, you really missed out.  New Hampshire’s goal against North Dakota with 0.3 remaining was one of the most exciting things that I had seen in hockey in years.  (Jack Skille’s goal to put the Badgers into the Frozen Four has a special place for me there.)  Add that to Bemidji State (I can hear next year’s cheers at the Kohl Center already… BEMIDJI IS NOT A STATE) making the Frozen Four and you have a spectacular tourney weekend.

In regards to Bemidji, they were the #16 seed out of 16.  It would have been one thing if they just eek’d out a few wins, but they just dominated the two teams that they played, putting up 9 goals and allowing only 2.  It was an awesome thing to see.

- Over the weekend I started up Grand Theft Auto 4 again.  I’m pretty sure I figured out right away why I stopped…. the motorcycle levels nearly drove me to drink…. it made me glad that I have the PS3 version and don’t have access to the Lost and the Damned.

- Funny thing I heard on the radio today.  Michigan State scores 64 and holds a team to 52 and it’s a ball control game.  Hmm… whenever a game like that is played between two Big Ten teams, it’s called an ugly game.  Interesting….

For the 4 out program, your cost is only going up $4 ($1 from before + $4 new = $5)…Phew.

An extra $5 a month on the 4 out plan? Yikes…..now is that an extra $5 over the extra $1 we’re paying now? Or does that mean an extra $6? Yeouuuch.

Super Punch Out for the SNES hits the Wii’s Virtual Console this week, which of course is a must buy, now that the Memory Card helps out with the storage. The transfer to Wii memory works quite well, ironically much faster than when you copy from the Wii memory to the SD card – go figure.

Too bad about UNH Hockey losing with 0:14 left..but that’s the way the puck bounces.

I broke down and bought a Kindle 2. I don’t know why, I am addicted to technology, what can I say.

I enjoyed Monsters vs Aliens in 3D yesterday – cute movie, great 3D effects.

1. Hey, Bill Abner, OSU sucks at Hockey, just thought I’d point that out..8-3? holy crap!

2. Revs tie NY in the 90’…wow!

3. UNH ties UND with 0.1 seconds left. They then win it at 0:25 of OT. Holy Crap!

4. USA draws El Salvador in the 87’. Holy crap.

5. Oh yeah and there’s some basketball tournament too…

- Man… what a week.  Kids got strep over the weekend, and the youngest got the flu the next day… which they shared with me for Tuesday and Wednesday. As a result I’ve been pretty much out of it this week.

- Well, my brackets are done.  Who would have thought that Memphis would score 91… and lose by 11.  Crazy.  Good luck to the rest of you.  I’m thinking I’ll be bringing up the back of the pack this time around after losing my champ before the elite 8.

- I’m loving the NCAA hockey tournament right now.  Two 4-seeds win in the first day.   You’ll never see that kind of parity in the basketball tournament…. it’s terrific for the game.

- Best news of the day… I got the sling player working on my Blackberry 8330.  Being able to watch TV on my phone anywhere, is awesome.

- I’m loving the Wii SD card channel.  I’m just shocked that it took them this long.  The 2 GB card that I have should last me… um… forever… according to how much space I’m currently using.  It’s just nice to not have to worry about where to move my games around to if I want to play a title that I’ve already bought.

- As for gaming… I’ve gotten bored with MLB09 and am about to send it back.  I think I just want to see if I can get a cup of coffee with my reliever at some point this season… otherwise, I’m ready for him to rest until I try the game again later in the year.

Well, did anyone know that Mario Kart Double Dash for the Gamecube is insanely expensive? Guess Wii fever carries over to GameCube games, eh?

This is the end of my ‘spring break’ which means back to Graduate school and work – I can’t believe this week went by that fast. I don’t even remember it!

I am looking forward to seeing Monsters vs. Aliens this weekend….and playing games….how about you?

The NFL,  not content to limit choice to one football video game, extended the DirecTV monopoly for Sunday ticket yesterday by extending the exclusive DirecTV deal until the end of time (well 2014).

The NFL really can’t be any more stupid than this. Take a look at what MLB properties has done with their online channel – MLB.TV is even better than Extra Innings and it’s less expensive.

On the other hand, with the new agreement, NFL is allowed to offer games via broadband only to those who can’t get satellite TV. I wonder how you’ll have to prove that. Blech.

Either way it sucks but for me there is a good thing – it is more money I can spend on other things.

Well it’s Wednesday and if ti means one thing; that thing means ti’s Wednesday.

I’ve been playing MLB 09 the Show on the PSP and I’m finding it very difficult – from a challenge perspective as well as a control perspective. Using that dumb analog stick on that thing to pinpoint pitch location seems very difficult.

At least they are doing roster updates and you can do in game saves which is awesome.

In other news, after reading this month’s Wired magazine I realized I had never played Catan. Now that is a fun game. I bought it on XBL last night and was up way too late playing it; now I’m extremely tired and needing to inject myself with caffeine.

Great to see Brian Roberts go yard against Dice-K. Yet again more proof that the Red Sox will blow this year.

Also, great to see Jeter ground out. Typical Mr. Clutch. Oh wait that’s A-Rod.

Wow, Japan is looking like crap early. And what’s with the lack of US Fans? Is this soccer?

-Congratulations to the Wisconsin women’s hockey team as they won their 3rd national championship in 4 years. Quite a feat to accomplish.

- The Badger mens basketball team ran into one of their stretches where they just couldn’t score in the 2nd half against Xavier. It’s too bad, but it’s one of the issues this team has fought with all year. They were never able to find that one go-to guy to get the points when they really needed them.

Still a pretty good year, and they gave fans a great game on Friday night to remember.

- So, just to recap…. Fridge is broken and can’t be fixed until Tuesday, and now my wife has Strep for the 4th time in the last 3 months. Oh, and my daughters have it for the 2nd time each.

Thankfully I didn’t get it this time, but they still have me on antibiotics anyway. Fun, fun, fun.

- Last night I got a chance to play the newest version of Axis and Allies. It’s so entertaining to play a game for 8 hours, and still have no consensus as to who was going to win.

The game is much more entertaining than the previous edition and I’d recommend it to those of you who are board game fans.

- Resistance Retribution for the PSP is entertaining but it can’t really hold a candle to the PS3 Resistance experience. Even with the Dual Shock controller capability, the game just doesn’t have that quality FPS feel.

It’s too bad really. I love that game universe.

- I know that you’re looking for another podcast and Dan and I have been working on coordinating or schedules to try and get it done. We’ll keep trying though.
- Have a great week.

K-Mart(!) has a 12 month LIVE prepaid card for $29.99, which is an awesome deal.

If you buy the Collector’s Edition of Pearl Jam’s Ten at Best Buy you get 3 free Rock Band downloads.

Best Buy Reward Zone Gamer’s Club members get 50% off a PS3 game when they buy Killzone 2 at regular price.

Enjoy!

When I filled out my brackets, I picked the Badgers to get to the Sweet 16, but I wasn’t ever really confident that they could get through their first game.

The one thing that I have to say is that the last 30 minutes of the tourney coverage tonight were absolutely awesome.  2 overtime games, and one of them being a double OT event.

I do have to say that I wouldn’t have been nearly as excited about the Wisconsin game if I wasn’t a fan of theirs, but still… it was a sensational basketball evening after a pretty ‘chalk’ first two days.

Add that to a dominating win for the Wisconsin women’s hockey team, and we’re going to have a great sports Sunday here in Madison.

Ok…. I’m not going to be able to sleep for a while.  Heh.