Tuesday AM Thoguhts
According to the non-game buyer, there’s an MLB 09 The Show patch released already.
I bought a bluetooth headset and a Slacker G2 from Best Buy yesterday. The headset was $129, and its $75 at Amazon. WTF?
The Slacker G2 is really nice thought. Since I have the G2, anyone want to buy the G1 off me? It’s a really nice system.
Sunday notes
For those of you that didn't already know, Dan is an evil man.
I'm trying to avoid buying games to give the money to charity, and Dan is trying to get me to buy games. I haven't caved yet, so I hope that will continue.
- I've been playing quite a bit of The Show over the weekend and while the RTTS mode is good, there are still plenty of annoyances there. Most of my issues have to do with the advancement model.
For example, as a closer you have to improve certain ratings in a set amount of time in order to improve your standing, but in the case of closers...if you don't get any chances to pitch...you get hurt by that. I don't think it to be fair that you should lose advancement potential because your team can't get a win.
Other than that...the game has been very solid.
- I picked up a Blackberry at the end of the week, and am posting from it right now.
I have to say that it's communication options are a great deal better than the Windows mobile phone than I had previously.
We'll see how I feel as time goes on though.
Saturday Night Thoughts
First off, in my ongoing effort to make Glen buy games, the Target clearance bin is back in full effect. Fracture for $10, Rock Revolution for $10….
Nice to see that Target is really making cables very expensive…seriously, $10 for a 3.5 mm male/male audio cable? It’s 0.97 at Monoprice…
Scene It is a fantastic trivia game on the 360 if you like movies.
I am still digging MLB The Show, as well as the new U2 album.
On TV, although the US version of Life on Mars in cancelled (no big loss, aside from Christopuhh), the UK sequel called Ashes to Ashes debuted tonight on BBC America (rebroadcasting a zillion times until next week). This is a great sequel – everyone is there, except Sam Tyler…show looks very promising.
What do you think of the new Depeche Mode single / video?
Quick Friday notes
- Killzone 2 = awesome.
I could have told you that from the Beta and the demo... but my thoughts have been confirmed. It's just a terrific shooter with spectacular visuals.
- Riddle me this... why do doctor's come to talk to you after you're just waking up from having been sedated?
Here's my exchange with my father-in-law after I woke up.
Me: "How long have you been here?"
FIL: "For the third time.... about 10 minutes."
Me: "I've already asked you that twice?"
FIL: (Mildly annoyed) "Yep."
Me: "Has the doctor been in?"
FIL: "Yep. You asked him a bunch of questions."
Me: "Great... I just wish I could remember them."
Thankfully, my father-in-law took notes on what I asked... I have no recollection of the conversation and that annoys the hell out of me. Oh, well.
The Show Thoughts for non-Geeks
I know there have been many posts on forums about the Show ranging from "Why is Manny's scarf white" to "Oh my god, can you believe fake player in season 23 only hit .298?"...while I certainly understand and respect people who are interested in that , I am not.
Let me give you my rundown:
I started up RTTS (Make sure you download the latest roster update). I created my player as a Closing Pitcher. After editing everything and assigning my initial allotment of points, I named the guy after me. You see, way back last year, they did a recording session of everyone who wanted their name added to the game. No guarantees they said, but I actaully was excited when I saw that both first and last name were in the system. I love the fact you can also do your own entrance music. Very cool.
Now I start off as a non-roster invite (as you always do) to a team you choose or a random draft. I went with the Orioles. I had 9 saves in 10 opportunities with an ERA of 0.76...didn't matter, I was sent to AA Bowie.
As soon as I started playing for real the manager put me in the setup role rather than the closer. I seemed to only enter the game after it was a blowout or a non-save situation. It sucked. I was not happy. Then in one game, a starter is out in the 3rd and I'm put in, and I'm given the win. Now I'm awesome.
Goals are done much better this year. Before you'd see "get a ground ball out" and if you K'd the batter, you'd fail even if that was a better result. Now you get points for a "positive result" even if it's not the result they were looking for. You don't get the full number of points, but I'm okay with that.
I promised myself I would go to bed at 11 last night, but instead I just kept playing 'one more game' until 12:45. I'm pretty tired.....but the game is very addictive.
Late Thursday night notes
- The Baseball Mogul 2009 for $2 deal is still going on. Just wanted to let you know.
- So, the procedure went as well as it could have... Now I just have to wait on the results. Fun.
- Hopefully I'll have my copy of The Show tomorrow. People just seem to love it... can't wait to give it a go this weekend.
Quick Wednesday night note
Just before I head to bed, I was thinking about this...
Normally, I would want to post about a disappointing finish to the Wisconsin game tonight, but all I can think about is pulling for Northwestern. They're 8-9 in the Big Ten and have 17 wins at this point.
If you're a fan of college basketball, you should drop everything and start cheering for this team.
They have never, repeat... NEVER, made the NCAA tournament.... and they're getting close... really close. Probably closer than they've ever been to making the tourney. I figure 2 or 3 wins should get them a very real shot to be in.
If it came to choosing between Wisconsin and Northwestern at this point, I wouldn't hesitate to give it to the Wildcats at this point, even as a Badger fan.
Come Sunday at 4:00, I know what I'm going to sit back and watch Northwestern play against OSU.
Let's go Wildcats!
Why do people not buy games on the PS3
Because every goddamn game has to “cache data to the HDD”…seriously…if I wanted to run an install, I’d buy a PC game. Unbelieveable. So right now I’m waiting 7 minutes (approximately) until the data is ‘cached"’…and by “cached,” I mean “the speed of a blu ray drive sucks so bad that most games need to install to the HDD on a PS3”…cached..that’s a good one.
I took advantage of the best trade in deal of the year at GameStop..trade in 6 or more games, get 40% bonus trade in credit, and the 10% Edge credit. This means a game like NHL 09 gets $27..I had it for the PS3 and 360….and it’s still selling remarkably well I’m told and hey $27 isn’t shabby. I also got $27 for Tiger 09 for the Wii (!).
My total trade is was $257, which is huge by GameStop standards. Of course, I bought Eat Lead and Hawx…but hey you can’t beat the price of “free,” right.
Glen’s upcoming adventure
Well, it's been an entertaining last few weeks and it all culminates tomorrow with a colonoscopy procedure in the afternoon.
I've had some ongoing medical issues over the past few years and they've not had any luck diagnosing why I'm such a pain in the ass, so they're going in to figure out if the reason is in there.
Hopefully I'll at least finally get some answers as to what my issues are, but this will delay my game playing for a bit.
I should be back and posting again on Friday or over the weekend.
Baseball Mogul 2009 – 90% off
For those of you that missed the deal last week, Clay at Sports Mogul is running a 90% off promotion off of Baseball Mogul 2009. It's not the free deal that he was running last week, but paying $2 for a game is still a great deal.
The link is at the top of their home page.
Early Wednesday Morning notes
- So, I try to fire up Killzone 2 tonight... and get an error when trying to download the patch that is essential before you can start to play the game. That just pisses off the Easter Bunny.
- I'm sending Puzzle Quest: Galactix back today as well. I had my fill of the game when trying to unlock a few Jump Gates. For those of you that haven't seen the game yet, those segments are timed... so if you get a chain of gem matching, the game punishes you for getting lucky. You lose time that you need to unlock the gate by the sheer randomness of the game.
Maybe I'm just in a crappy gaming mood of late... but that annoys the hell out of me. Losing 10 seconds off of the game clock because I had a string of good luck? Yeah, that seems like fun.
MLB 09 The Show
Since everyone and their brother has given thoughts about the PS3 version of the Show and MLB 2K9, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the PSP version, since I got it on sale from Amazon at $29.99 with free release day delivery.
MLB 09 The Show PSP has one big huge gigantic feature that makes it worth the price – ingame saves! About frickin time.Also new are online friendly quits or concessions, the sounds of the show mode and a few other things.
I’m liking it, although it’s definitely more ‘enhancements’ than “new game”…but hey, if it’s not broke, right…?
Tuesday notes
- Thank you Gamefly...
They're really making this whole, "I'm not buying any games this year-thing" a non-issue. Last week, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and Killzone 2 shipped. Today, MLB09: The Show shipped. If I could get them to send me a copy of Pro Yakyuu Spirits 6 when that is released... that would make my year.
- So, I got my copy of Killzone 2 last night, but I was out playing hockey and didn't get a chance to start it up... tonight for sure. If the beta and demo are any indication though... the game will be the cat's meow.
- I've not played much MLB2K9 in the last few days as I wanted to take a break after hearing that there would be a release day patch. I figure, why spend the time hunting for bugs until you give them a chance to correct things.
- As for Puzzle Quest: Galactrix....I've played a bit of it, but I'm just about to be done with it. One of the things that I dislike about it, that I liked about Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, is the fact that the "puzzle" element is pretty much gone.
In Warlords, to earn spells to use against your opponents, you were given a puzzle that you had to complete. It was a good challenge and made you think about what you had to do.
In the case of Galactrix... it's been replaced by crafting and mining levels that are completely random and, quite frankly the random-ness annoys the hell out of me.
Warlords had some very challenging battles, but if you planned them out well, you could make a wise decision and play defensively or offensively based on the pieces that you would choose.
Galactrix just seems to throw that out the window. The pieces on the board can move in any of 6 directions. My character is at the 10th level and I've been beaten at least twice due to massive chained combos unleashed by the CPU. It wouldn't be as annoying if for the fact that they were entirely random. One instance of this occured when the CPU made a chain of 3 red gems in the middle of the board, which happened to set off a chain that seemed to bring in damage gems from every single direction. My ship, which was completely healthy before the turn, lost 60+ hit points because every piece that came onto the board started off another chain of matched gems.
Now before you say that it's just sour grapes, I've done the same thing to the CPU as well, and it's just as frustrating. I guess the game wants to randomly reward or punish you, which just isn't something I'm looking for in a game.
Oh, my last complaint is that the DS version has loading times of about 5 to 10 seconds whenever you start a mission,complete a mission, or move to another galaxy. That gets old in a hurry. Oh, well. Maybe I'll give it another look in a few months and change my mind.
- Back to the grind...
Old Farmer’s Almanac vs Real Life
March 1 –6, Snowstorm then Sunny and cold.
For real forecast, March 1-6: Snowstorm then sunny and cold.
Wow…
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