The Blog for the Sports Gamer

- Finished my first Madden Franchise game tonight and pulled out a win… and even had a 91 yard kickoff return.  I do have to say that my defense absolutely stinks… so I’ll have to rely pretty damn heavily on Steven Jackson.. and if he gets hurt… it’ll get ugly.

- My fantasy team flat out stinks.  It doesn’t help that Romo is either throwing interceptions or handing off.  That doesn’t help when your QB doesn’t get you any points.

- Anyone have any experiences they care to share with the newest demos out there?  I’ve been pretty busy lately so I haven’t had a chance to give them a go.

- I see that there is one company that is offering some pretty good discounts on their PSP titles for the launch of the PSP Go.  Wonder if any others will follow.

Mario Power Tennis

Mario Super Sluggers

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics

Not the highest rated titles at Metacritic, but for $15 shipped (or $13.50 for longtime members) they aren’t the worst deals.

- The NBA2K10 demo has been released on the 360 Marketplace.  I’ll give it a look tonight.

I’ll be doing the conference call about the game on Friday and posting the recording after that.

Also, Dan and I have our interview scheduled for Thursday afternoon and we should have that up that night or Friday night as well.

More later…

Yay! The Orioles lost their 11th consecutive game and are now a mere 4 games away from 100 losses! Woohoo!

Seriously, I mean I knew it wasn’t going to be a good year, but this was really, really bad. It’s like they stop playing in August. I mean if you sucked that bad, I probably would as well. I don’t think I’ve turned on MLB.TV since Wieters and Matusz got called up.

What a depressing year. Or as I like to call it, any year since 1997. The curse of Jeff Meier still lives. What a prick.

- Well, if today’s game was any indication, the Packers still need a lot of work.  Their first three drives ended with FG’s (two drives stalled in the red zone.)  The defense looked lethargic at times (can someone tell me why Desmond Bishop isn’t on the field more.)

Ugh… it’ll be a fascinating week leading up to the Vikings game, but even if they lose, I think the team can keep improving and get better, but they certainly don’ t look like the team that the pundits were picking at the beginning of the season.

- NFL Sunday wrapup…

The Giants look very good.  The Jets look very good.  The Saints look very good.  The Vikings look very good.

The Browns look awful.  The Steelers are no where near as good as last year.

The Bengals… continue to surprise.  One badly tipped pass away from being 3-0.  Marvin Lewis deserves a good year.  Hopefully he gets it.

- I’ve started the prep work for our next interview, which will happen later this week.  It’s a new game and from my early impressions, it’ll be worth your time.

- Two Wii sports titles come out this week.  Baseball Blast from 2K Sports and Family Fun Football from Tecmo.  I’m very curious about both, as I’m always looking for more fun games to play with friends.  Baseball Blast has Bob Uecker doing play-by-play…. how can you not want to hear that in a video game?

Family Fun Football is the evolution of Tecmo Bowl that was being developed for the Wii and for the $19.99 price point, it might be worth a gander… even if it does look more like a kids title.

- Best Buy has Need for Speed Shift for $39.99 this week for all platforms.  If you pick up the pre-order kit for Uncharted 2 at the same time, you’ll get $5 off Need for Speed (and get the pre-order for free.)  (There is a free gold weapon code in the Uncharted package.)

- I’m really debating the NHL Center Ice package this year… I really want to see how the Isles do with Tavares… and since DirecTV dropped Versus, this will be the only way to get some hockey…

- I got freakin’ crushed in Fantasy this week.  Ugh.

- The Madden league will start up this week.  6 of the 8 owners have signed up already.  Hopefully we can get going this week.  Should be a ton of fun.  My Rams, are going to get crushed, but it’ll be fun either way.

I wish I got this email like 4 days ago . Reebok’s website is giving away AFL codes for the PS3 version of Madden.

Here’s one:

BFAT-JRBC-TQ6L

If you want your own, click here:

- I’m hunkering in to watch the Badger football game today and had a few moments to post…

- I played through the rest of Uncharted yesterday.  Quite a good game.  There are more than a few frustrating moments, and while I did enjoy some of the story… let’s just say that some of the developments at the end gave me a few “Oh, c’mon” type moments.  Still an enjoyable game.  I’m very interested in playing through the sequel soon.

- I’m grabbing the Forza 3 and PES demos right now and look to try those out later tonight.  I’ll have to dust off my Microsoft wheel for Forza.  It’s been sitting in storage for months.  Glad I only payed $20 something for it at Target when it was on clearance.

- I was laughing when looking at the Fantasy standings last night.  I have the most points scored, but am still 1-1.  I made a few lineup tweaks last night (surprised to see Mario Manningham on the free agent list after his start to the season.)   I’m playing against my best friend this week, and he was asking for some trash talk… so, um… he’s a loser.

- I’m planning on upgrading my PS3 hard drive in the next week.   Looking at drives, I can get a 160GB 7200 RPM for $59, or a 320GB 5400 for the same price.  Anyone have any experience with faster drives and did it make a big difference?  I would guess that since I have an original 60GB system, heat can be a factor.

- Madden League should be starting up next week.  I’ll post more info once we have all of the teams chosen and have the rules set.

You probably already know there’s a Forza 3 demo, and an NBA 10 demo on the PSP, so I’m just being redundant.

Speaking of Forza 3, Amazon currently has what I refer to as the OMG I wish I had enough money to get this bundle:

For the low low price of $392.48 you get: the most awesomest video game driving chair ever, Forza Motorsport 3 and the wireless racing wheel. The seat itself is normally $350, so basically you’re getting Forza 3 for free and paying $40 for the wheel.

Hopefully this URL will work:

Playseats Limited Edition Forza 3 Evolution Racing Seat

Last night in between homework assignments I played Williams Pinball Hall of Fame for the 360 (even better than the Wii version) and Madden with the AFL pack and the new patch. Post patch I’m seeing less graphic issues on the PS3 version of the game. I just wish I could restart my franchise with more up to date rosters. I mean I can, I just don’t want to start over. Too bad there’s no way to import a current roster file with your current franchise…yes I know, people move around, injured, yadda…

- Ok, it looks like we have enough to get the Madden Franchise league going.   I’ll look at some of the details for it today and send out a post to all of the participants.  I’m thinking that we’ll do a random pick of divisions, so that we can get at least 10 games in.  If we go more than one season, we’ll only get six for the next year, but that’s a minor consideration.

- You can tell that  cold/flu season are starting up.  I fell asleep last night at 8:00 and woke up at 7:00, because I had to go into work for a few hours.  Fun, fun, fun.

- Speaking of fun, what I did do before I went to bed last night was to play Uncharted.  I never got a chance to finish the game and I’m really enjoying getting through it.  It seems like (judging from the progress completion meter) that it won’t be a long game, but it’s certainly entertaining to play.

- More later…

There’s a Forza 3 demo, a Madden patch and the AFL pack for Madden NFL 10 that came out today. Phew. No time to play or download though – I’m looking forward to the weekend!

Well since I don’t see Glen online, I’ll post for all to see. I am currently pursuing my Master’s Degree in Finance and doing it all online.

The workload is pretty intense – I like a challenge but I will tell you my expectations were that of Tom Brady going in against the Detroit Lions, a pretty easy W. It’s definitely not a walkthrough.

The challenge is good, I’m learning a lot. I would just make gosh darn sure the college you are going to is accredited regionally. Hint: University of Phoenix for example is not accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which means your credits there are transferable for a cup of coffee at a NEASC accredited school. Blech.

Meanwhile…The new Pearl Jam album is pretty darn good. I haven’t played Halo yet, but Need For Speed Shift is in a word, awesome.

- Ok.  We could use at least 1 more person for our Madden 360 franchise league.  Just drop me an email if you’re interested and we’ll get the ball rolling.

- If you’re thinking of picking up NBA2K10, you can get a great deal on the PC version at Amazon. They have it for $19.99 and if you pre-order it, you get a $10 credit to apply to future games.  Great deal there.

- I’m going to start taking some online classes, beginning first semester next year.  Anyone care to share their online class experiences with me?  I’m not sure what I’m going to be taking, as I only got through “a bit” more than a year during my first attempt at college… so I need to get my GPA back up a bit before I can try to transfer to a different school if I want to really go back and get a degree.

I’ve been playing the new Pinball FX table. Fun stuff.

While we are on pinball Williams Hall of Fame just was released on 360 and PS3 with new tables. I am a huge fan of this game.

Back to sports, I do have to say I am enjoying NHL2K10 for the Wii more than I thought. I still think it feels slow and doesn’t look great but it sure is fun.

Remind me to not talk about the Brewers again this year.

Ugh.

- Man, what a bummer it was to watch the Indy/Dolpins game last night. My fantasy team has just been rolling, but Indy’s d just couldn’t get off the field.

Hope you are all having as much fun with the league as I am.

- It looks like we have the next two podcast guests lined up. I really enjoy efforting the guests for the show and hope to keep adding more guests to keep you all coming back.

- More later, perhaps….