Sunday night notes
- Dan and I weren't able to get together for a podcast this week, but this week looks good for one.
- I played around with revision two of Bill Harris' Madden sliders and I have to say that I liked the first ones a bit more. There have been adjustments to the pass rush that seems to make it a bit too quick. I'll play around with it more and see if I can find some settings more to my liking.
- Speaking of my Madden 360 disc... my daughter managed to put in, a memory stick pro, and a business card into my PS3. So, an hour of my night was spent opening the case, opening the Blu-ray drive and extracting said items. Thankfully all of them worked after the repairs were done.
Damn kids.
- The Packers game last night was a blast. I couldn't have asked for better seats. Although there was a drunk woman who managed to spill two beers on my wife... and there were some pretty pathetic hecklers trying to rip on Marshawn Lynch, but all in all, my wife and I had a great time.
I'll try to get some pictures up later this week.
Saturday notes (tailgating at Lambeau edition)
- Howdy all. Kicking back at the moment and grilling up some brats before heading into the game.
- I think we have all of the league spots filled. Should be a good group. I'll try to work out some sort of trophy for the league.
- Seeing a lot of fun shirts up here making fun of Favre. I'm still partial to the 'We'll never forget you, Brent' ones though.
- Bill Harris sent me his most recent Madden sliders, so I'll give those a go tomorrow.
- I have our next interview guest lined up. If you've been playing sports games for a while, you should enjoy it.
- I'll try to post some pictures from the game tomorrow...if I remember to take some. Heh.
Madden Glitches
K otaku has posted a smorgasbord of Madden NFL 10 glitches. Pretty funny stuff—click here.
Late Thursday night notes
- I just was looking in my Netflix queue and saw that Woody Allen's 'What's Up Tiger Lily?' is available. I haven't seen that movie in years. What a coup to have it on Netflix. If you're a fan of MST3K, you owe it to yourself and watch it.
- I played through the NHL 10 demo earlier tonight and I have to say that I love the addition of board play. The only options you ever really had to control play before was to try and skate around in a circle... I really like how it played out in my early time with it though.
You also have the option to try out the first person fighting mode in the demo. I don't know if it has as much depth as I would like, but it's not bad. I'd love the option to pull the sweater over the head and 'go to town,' but it is the first edition of the first person fighting engine.
One thing I was disappointed in was the fact that the demo is restricted to only to skater control. I was really interested in seeing the new goalie controls that I heard about in the interview in the last podcast. Oh, well. I guess I'll be seeing how it turns out in the retail version soon enough.
- Not really sure on the timeline for the podcast for this weekend, hopefully we'll have something up on Sunday night.
- Still looking for a few more participants for the fantasy league. Still a few weeks to go, but I'd like to see it all filled up in case we need to make some changes.
- Ok, I can't really believe this but they're going to run the Vikings preseason game on local TV here tomorrow night. Ugh.
Whoa
I’m watching the Patriots – Bengals game and just saw Chad Ochocinco kick an extra point. Can you believe it….
Quick Thursday notes
- The NHL10 demo is now available on Xbox Live and I would think that it would be coming to the PS3 store later today.
After my interview with the gameplay producer, Sean Ramjagsingh, last week, I'm very curious to try it out.
Also, I would assume that the NHL2K10 demo wouldn't be too far behind.
- I just picked up tickets to the Packers/Bills game for my wife and myself. 50 yard line, 1st row. Visitor side of the field... but who cares... It'll be nice to have a get away day with my wife and get to see a game in Lambeau.
- I went to the doctor yesterday because my knee has been swollen for a few weeks after playing hockey. I've had all kinds of funky issues with it for the last few weeks and now they say I have to wait a few more weeks before an MRI. Fun. Missing hockey sucks.
Late Wednesday night notes
Just got done playing an awesome Madden 10 game. Packers beat the Vikings on a FG 7 minutes into OT. The game had a great back and forth feel to it. Peterson dominated the game for the Vikings in the first half and then my Packers adjusted and held him to 40 yards in the second half. I threw 2-pick 6's, but balanced it out with 4 TD passes to give my team a chance to win in OT.
I ended up scoring the tying drive after completing 2-4th down passes to keep the drive alive after I got the ball with 1:35 to go.
Just a fun, fun game.
I have noticed a few issues that I hadn't mentioned before though. The CPU logic for play calling in short yardage situations seems suspect. Quite often when it's a very short down and distance situation (2nd and 2 or less or 3rd and 2 or less,) you will almost never see them run the ball. This seems amplified inside the 5 yard line as well.
I'm going to see if I can find some stats to back this up, but in my league after 5 games, Adrian Peterson has 600+ yards on 6.2 a carry... but doesn't have a single TD. That just seems wrong for a player like him to have that many yards, but not score.
Still really enjoying the game though. I haven't felt that way about a Madden game... really... ever. I actually find myself wanting to play at least one game of my franchise each night and that's a great feeling.
- Still looking for a few more people to fill out the Fantasy league. We have a few slots left.
- I want to thank everyone that grabbed the most recent podcast. We had our best numbers ever with that episode and we're glad that you're enjoying the content that we're bringing to you with each new show.
Wednesday Thoughts
I’m excited about fantasy football..the Happy Fluffers will destory the other teams. With Brett Favre as QB/not QB, how can we go wrong?
In other news, I picked up Wolfenstein yesterday….so far, I’m finding it rather enjoyable.
Of course I continue to play Madden 10…I have been enjoying the game.
Tal more but time for work..
Last Tuesday post of the day (I promise)
- If you've listened to the podcast, or read my impressions of Madden, you would know that I think the game is a good to very good football game. I will have to revise that after my game play experience from tonight.
Play with Bill Harris' sliders. They make the game a great deal better. There are quite a few settings in the game that needed to be adjusted and once they are right (they're very close with these sliders,) this game will be very good to great in my book.
I just played an incredibly fun game between the Packers and the Rams in my franchise and it was fun to play throughout. The CPU's passing attack didn't feel completely over powered, my QB threw the ball well and the ball didn't float as much as it has been. Kick returns actually look like they are possible. (Punt returns are still not there at all... except for the cpu... but oh, well.)
Really, they are well worth trying out. It makes the game a good deal better in my estimation.
I did see my first graphical glitch in the game. I'll try and post the video, but I haven't been able to do that with the previous ones that I've uploaded, but it was a minor one. In my case it looked like Aaron Rodgers had a hip pad sticking at a 45 degree angle out of his right side. It was odd and didn't affect anything, but it was noticeable.
- Is there a rule about when you finally stop saying how far back your team is? On the radio this morning they keep saying, Milwaukee... who is 9 back in the division and 7 back in the wild card... Seriously, they're out of it. You can stop giving the numbers until they're within 5. At this point they're just playing out the string. It'd be nice to see Fielder take the RBI title, but that's a pretty empty achievement if your team isn't even above .500.
There is a lot of talk about trading Prince now to try and get pitching, and it has to be the best time to do so. You have Gamel, who is due to be your next power hitter, ready to come up... and could probably take over 1st next season. You have Escobar who is proving every day that JJ Hardy should be traded. You just need to get some pitching help. A starter or two in the off season and this team could make a nice run again. As it is though, they'll put up some runs... but can't get anyone out. Ugh.
- I don't think I mentioned it the other day, but how about Y.E. Yang? The shots he hit on the 14th and 18th were the ones that everyone would expect Tiger to make... not the 110th ranked player in the world. It was an awesome finish to that tournament.
I love watching Tiger play and just shaking my head as he makes the incredibly difficult shots look easy, but you could almost see a smirk on his face when Yang won... like he was savoring what it felt like to actually lose a tournament... something he doesn't do very often... and honestly, I wouldn't expect him to do much again in the future.
More Tuesday notes (Fantasy Football invites)
- The initial Fantasy Football invites have been sent out. If you haven't gotten one, just let me know and I'll send you one.
My hope is to get at least 12 players. We'll do what we can though with however many join.
Quick Tuesday notes
- I'm on a voluntary respite from sports games for a few days. You just need to take a break every now and again. I'm planning on trying out Bill Harris' sliders for Madden tonight to see how they alter the gameplay. Like I said in the podcast, I like the game... but I don't think it's the pinnacle of football gaming that others are alluding to.
- I wish I could post a poll on the site (well, I probably could... but what's the point... heh.)
Your bet as to which will happen first... Favre becoming a Viking... Slim PS3 coming out in the next week or so at $299.
Sunday notes
- Wow. Usain Bolt just ran a 9.58 in the 100 meter dash. It's amazing to think of how fast he could possibly be. They're talking about him not having a great start. That man could break 9.5 within the next few years. Absolutely astounding.
- I'd be lying if I didn't think that I thought Prince Fielder would taper off after the Home Run derby, but he is just hitting some mammoth home runs of late. This one from earlier in the week was one of the most impressive home runs that I've seen in a long time. He's now leading the league in RBI's as well. Quite a season for the Prince and it's nice to see the team starting to play a bit better around him.
- Talking about the Packer pre-season game last night would be fun, if it wouldn't be pointless. There were some fun things to be seen from the defense (which never really showed up last year) and there were a few nice performances (Desmond Bishop and Tyrell Sutton were standouts in my opinion,) but it's preseason... and there isn't much to find there... other than the fact that we get to watch some football again.
- As Dan said before, anything that we gain from the Amazon purchases goes straight into site stuff (such as prizes and the like.) So, using that link does help us out a bit here... and helps you indirectly as well.
- Lastly, here are Michael Vick's ratings for Madden 10. Doesn't seem like there is a huge drop off from '08, but yet his overall rating is down almost 20 points. Interesting... It's not like they can objectively say that he doesn't throw the deep pass as well... they just have to make some guesses and get him into the game.
Tiger 10 for Wii $30 at Amazon
The Amazon Daily Deal for Sunday is Tiger Woods for the Wii (Game only, motion plus sold separately) for $30.
Best version of Tiger out there, and if you bought Wii Sports resort, you don’t need motion plus….good deal – use our Amazon search and we’ll get $2 to put in our Fantasy Football game fund 
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