The Blog for the Sports Gamer

- Morning all.

- Has anyone seen this?

In the Madden online franchise game that I just played, the Fight for the Fumble feature is turned off, but when one of my players recovered a fumble early, it made us do it anyway.  I ended up losing the fumble, even though my player fell on the ball with no one near him.  Weird.

Oh, well.  Still a competitive game that was won by Marc on with 1:00 to go.

- Time for the Badger game.  Have a good day all.

- So, Wisconsin is playing New Hampshire in hockey this weekend… although I’m not quite sure that UNH has arrived yet.  They were outshot tonight 51-14 tonight and lost 4-1 to the Badgers.  I’ll be there tomorrow night, so maybe I’ll post from the game… if my daughters let me.

- Here’s an interesting comparison.  Take a look at these two players statistics… they are both defensive lineman in college football.  Both have played 7 games…

Player 1: 25 Solo tackles, 13 Assists, 38 total tackles.  16.5 Tackles for Loss for 82 yards.  6.5 Sacks for 44 yards.  1 Fumble Recovered.  2 Fumbles Forced

Player 2: 25 Solo tackles, 19 Assists, 44 total tackles.  10 Tackles for Loss for 42 yards.  4 Sacks for 30 yards.  1 Interception.  1 Fumble Forced

Which player do you think is being mentioned as a candidate for the Heisman?

Player 2 is Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska.  Player 1 is O’Brien Schofield of Wisconsin.

Now I know I’m a homer, but it’s just funny to see how one player can get hype like that when other players are playing just as well as they are.

- More in sports… The Islanders finally won an OT game without having to go to a shootout.  They’re now up to 7 overtime games in their first 12.  They played a great game against the Capitals and Roloson stood on his head to keep them in it.  Great to see them pull out a game late.

- Plenty more to talk about over the weekend.

- So the Yankees won last night, which I’m ok with… as I love a 7 game series no matter the sport.  Make it last as long as you can and keep more people interested.

Here’s the most interesting stat that I saw out of the first two games though, thanks to SI.com.

In two games Rodriguez has swung at 23 pitches and put two balls in play: a grounder to third and a flyball to left field. He punched out three times in Game 1 and three times again in Game 2. Only one other player ever had back-to-back three-strikeout games in World Series history: Jim Lonborg. A pitcher. In 1967. It’s not the kind of World Series history Rodriguez had in mind. He waited his whole career to get to the World Series, and when he got here, he immediately became the first hitter, other than a pitcher with a .136 career average, to whiff three times in two straight World Series games.

Wow.  Alex Rodriguez is a great hitter, but to see something like that is astounding.  With all of the history of the World Series, it’s crazy that something like that hadn’t happened before… and from watching the series thus far… he seems to be pressing pretty damn hard.  Which is odd, considering how well he played in the first two  series of the playoffs.

- Some of you may be surprised about my not commenting on the Packers/Vikings game, but there isn’t really anything to offer.  Almost nothing being said is new… and most of what isn’t, well let’s just say it isn’t all entirely truthful.  I just want the damn game over with.  If the Packers win, they have a good chance of making a solid run at the division.  They’re getting healthy and seem to be working out their kinks against the teams that they needed to beat up on.

- More later…

It’s Friday, which means I have to finish my Financial Policy homework! Yay!

In other news, like Glen, I took advantage of the Best Buy B2G1 promotion. I have so many games, and I don’t nearly play them as much as I like, but yet I still went and got more. I picked up DJ Hero, Mario / Olympic Winter, Press Your Luck and the new Nerf game on the Wii.

Seriously, I need to stop buying games. I did have a $35 gift card and a 10% off games coupon and BB did let me stack the 10% with the free game, so that was nice. I debated Ratchet but seriously it’s not my thing.

DJ Hero is a lot, lot more fun than I thought it would be. I haven’t tried the others yet.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to do my homework and Capital Asset Pricing Model equations, let me know. haha!

- After recovering from my extremely long day (ended up being awake for 36 hours straight before I fell asleep… for 17 hours,) I’m back at it.

- Started playing through DJ Hero tonight and I’m loving every minute of it.  The mixes so far have been terrific and the game play is more fun than I have had with a music game in a while.  The controller, while intimidating at first, feels very comfortable after the tutorial and a few mixes.  The cross fader issues that people have mentioned (mainly that it’s easy to not find the middle setting) are there, but aren’t a major issue.  I don’t think there has been a time yet where it’s really impacted my score.  Now, if you’re trying for a leaderboard high score… sure, there might be an issue there… but for me… not a problem.

Who would have thought that Cameo’s ‘Word Up’ and Bel Biv Devoe’s ‘Poison’ would have sounded so great together?  I just wish there was a place to buy the soundtrack as it was put together for the game.   I’ll be devoting quite a bit of my time to this one (plus, my daughters love the controller… 2 year old was dancing like crazy when the music first started… she’s got taste.)

- Other than that, I caught up on a few Islanders games.  It’s funny that a team can come into a game with one of the worst records in hockey (although having been competitive in almost all of them – 6 games out of their first 10 have gone to OT… and they lost 5 of them,) and then really take it to one of the best teams (the Rangers.)

Of course there is that rivalry aspect that you can never account for.  The Isles played a great game tonight and came out with a 3-1 win.

I don’t think they’ll find themselves in the playoff hunt, but they played like a tough young team today… so who knows what will happen with them as the season goes on.  Either way, I’ll keep watching.

- Speaking of New York… Following with my ‘don’t hate the team’ mantra.  They’re not Cubs fans, but they’re close and I was happy that the Yankees lost for the simple fact that most of their fans left in the 8th inning.  That’s dedication for you.

Oh, and I wish someone would have told Sabathia this before he signed with the Yankees… pinstripes are not slimming…. man….

- Lastly, I started playing Torchlight tonight.  Quite an enjoyable Diablo-style game.  The music seems straight out of a Blizzard game.  I know it’s mostly former Blizzard guys making the game, and it shows.  Still, it’s great to walk around a dungeon hacking things up again all while searching for new and better loot.

Having the pet with you is a MASSIVE improvement though.  Being able to stack a bunch of items on the pet and then send them up to the city to sell the crap off is flat out awesome.  That was one of the worst parts of Diablo and it’s nice to see it done well in this game.

Been a while – sorry about that!

Today, because instead of saving money, I support my local independent GameStop (heh). I picked up Tekken 6 and Forza 3. (For the record, GameStop knows I spend a lot of money at their stores and they take very good care of me – such as allowing me to exchange Borderlands PS3 for Borderlands X360 even though it’s opened and not as a trade in, so I support them as well – it’s a two way street).

At the risk of sounding like IGN, if you like racing games, you’ll love Forza 3. The graphics are jaw dropping stunning. The racing is awesome and if you hit your d-pad, you’ll feel like you’re driving KITT with all the telemetry available. It’s quite impressive.

I continue to have goofy graphical issues with my PS3, despite the fact that I factory reset the console. I have two PS3s, but continue to have issues with both. From feedback I’ve received on twitter, I seem to be the only one with this issue, or I have a very discerning eye.

In the meantime, I am debating DJ Hero and the new Nerf game for Wii. The idea of DJ Hero is cool, I just keep thinking, do I really need yet another ginormous plastic controller lying around ? I really don’t want another one.

- At this moment I’ve been awake for 31 straight hours. I had a terrible server issue to deak with, and then had to take my kids to daycare after a 25 hour shift, then had to take my wife to Urgent care with a migrane, and now I am sitting in a parking lot after running a few errands. What a day! I am hoping to get to sleep by 5 or 6, but we’ll see how that works out.

- My first errand was to run to Best Buy to take advantage of their buy 2, get 1 free deal.

I picked out my games (Forza 3, Ratchet and Clank, and Demon Souls) and walked up to the register. The cashier knew the deal and proceeded to tell me that she had to discount the titles beforehand as the deal hadn’t been ringing up correctly. We then had to wait for a few minutes for a manager, who punched in the discounts. He walked away and then she hit the total and it re-applied the discounts.
So, I ended up with a buy 1, get 2 free. Gotta like a mistake like that.

- After that I went to a local bookstore and found the 4 Harlan Coben paperbacks that I have been trying to track down for the last few months.

- Oh, and I got my copy of DJ Hero as well, and made an impulse buy of Torchlight last night.

All in all, a pretty solid day, if you can neglect the 25 hour work shift and total lack of sleep.

- Now I just need to find the time to play the damn games.

- It would have been nice to have gotten in some gaming time today, but work stuff gets in the way sometimes.  In fact, I’m still at work.  I probably have about 4 or 5 hours left.  I haven’t a 22 hour+ shift in a while, so I’m probably due.

Lots of games coming out today.  I’m pretty excited about playing through quite a bit of DJ Hero.   Can’t wait for that.

- Thank goodness for Netflix streaming.  It’s giving me something to do while watching a server restore… Only a few hours to go.

- Oh, and Rock Band: The Who might be next?  Hmm…

- More later.

- Netflix is coming to the PS3.    No huge suprise, but it makes me happy that it’ll be available on more devices in my house than on just the 360.

- The Packers took care of business again today by beating up on a TERRIBLE Browns team.  I can’t recall the last time I saw a professional football team that looked that bad.  Derek Anderson is one of the worst QB’s that I’ve seen in recent memory.  Absolutely awful.  Still, the Packers ran the ball well, protected Rodgers (for the first time this year,) and came away with the win.

From what I’ve heard, there is a big game next week.  We’ll have to see how that one plays out.

- I started playing with FIFA 10 tonight.  Wow is this game good.  I enjoy the Be-A-Pro mode in this game more than any other one that I can recall.  I got my first goal as a member of the Chicago Fire tonight and promptly uploaded it to the EA Sports servers.  I clanked it off the crossbar and tapped in the rebound for my first tally.  It was awesome.  Tons of fun thus far.

- Also, I played more Brutal Legend over the weekend and while I think it’s a tough RTS feel to get a handle on, the game has been fun thus far and I’m enjoying all of the performances from all of the metal artists in the game.

- One thing that I did finish this weekend was Star Ocean: First Encounter for the PSP.  I’m a sucker for the old style RPG titles and this one was pretty entertaining.  It had a nice Action (button mashing) feel to it.  I think my play time for the completion of the game was about 15 hours and I enjoyed it throughout.

- Ok, we didn’t get the podcast done this weekend, but we’ll make an effort to get it done this week.  We’ll also post the call-in number to see if you’d like to participate as well.

Have a great week all.

- Pizza and beers with the wife tonight, so no podcast, but Dan and I are planning on putting something together for the weekend.  I’ll let you all know the time, because I’m going to publish the phone number for the show and take some calls this week.  Should be an interesting change of pace for the show and it gives you all a chance to add to the show.  Dan didn’t know I was going to do this… so to go all Kids in the Hall on him… SURPRISE!!!!!

- The soundtrack for Brutal Legend rocks.  I’ve had the game on pause for about 30 minutes and my wife and I have just commented on how great it is for background music.  The intro segment for the game was terrific as well.  We’ll see how it holds up long term, but I’m digging it so far.

- Badgers really took it to Minnesota State Mankato beating them 6-0 tonight.  I never would have seen that coming based off of last weekend, but it’ll be nice if they can sweep going into the matchup against New Hampshire next weekend.  That’s right kids, it’ll be Dan’s team against Glen’s team next weekend in Madison.  We’ll just have to see if we can fly him out here to witness the whupping that Bucky will put on whatever-the-hell New Hampshire’s mascot is.

- So, I’m thinking my Best Buy B2G1 deal for next week will be Ratchet, Demon Souls, and Borderlands.  Anyone else have better suggestions?

- Don’t forget to set your fantasy lineups.

- Oh, one last thing.  Congratulations to Marcus Landry for making the New York Knicks roster.  The guy paid his own way to New York for a tryout, paid for his hotel for a while when he got there and then ended up making the squad.  Great to see another former Badger making it to the NBA.

- More over the weekend…

- Still not home yet… it sucks when you make a big breakthrough when fixing something… but get stuck on little things afterward that make it more complicated.  Ugh.

- Glad to see that the Angels forced the series back to NY.  It would have been easy for them to have collapsed after giving up the 4 run lead in the 7th, but they fought back.  Kudos.

- I’m hoping to try out something different with the podcast tomorrow night.  I’ll post the details about it in the morning.

- For those of you that noticed the issues with the website this morning, there were issues with the upgrade to the newest version of WordPress and it blew away some of my changes that I had made to the site (being able to see who had made a post, oddities on the comments page, etc.)  I was able to get the changes corrected and everything should be back to normal.  I’ll be paying a lot more attention now when I do some of these upgrades.  We will have a server move happening at some point in the next few months as well, but that transition should go relatively well… I hope…

- I’ve neglected to mention it, but I’m happy to see that the Packers signed Ahman Green for running back dept this week.  Seeing as how he was just 46 yards of setting the all time record for rushing yards by a Packer, it’ll be nice to see him finish out the season here (barring an injury) and hold the record for himself.  It was odd seeing him wearing #34 though.  I wonder if he’ll be able to work out a deal with Kuhn to get his old number back.

- Hearing about Dan’s issues with his PS3 makes me wonder if his graphics processor is having issues.  I’ve heard of graphical issues like that on PC’s where the card just starts doing funky and unexpected things when it is over heating.   Hard to say for sure though.

For myself, I was stuck with issues last night where my 360 refused to believe that I was using a good battery.  I took brand new ones out of a package and they died (according to the system) after 2 minutes.  It was so frustrating that I just gave up playing after about 20 minutes.  It was a bummer too… I was really wanting to play some hockey.  Such is life.

I have had the Kindle 2 since it’s release. I didn’t buy the Kindle 1.

Now I’m seeing the Barnes & Noble Nook and I’m drooling. It looks pretty cool to me. Love the ‘lending’ feature. Wish my Amazon books could be put on the nook.

It’s a long wait until November 30th. I guess I’ll stick with my US only Kindle for now….but man, I’m drooling!

I went to pick up FIFA 10 last night and in doing so found 2 other games that interested me: Borderlands and Lips #1 Hits. Yes, I admit it I like the singing games.

Borderlands was only available for the PS3 (sold out of Xbox), so I picked up the 1 of 2 copies GameStop received.

I took it home and WTF – after the all too common hard drive dump (I don’t call it in install because I believe it is basically offloading the data off the bluray and onto the HDD), the game continually locks up. Furthermore, the graphics are awful. I see walls that appear and disappear while guys are shooting at me.

Now this is the 3rd problem I’ve had with PS3 games, both Madden and NCAA have the weird spear coming out of the guy problem I’ve blogged about before.

Every support issue is “clear the game cache” …I have 2 PS3s, both the old model (40GB and 60 GB upgraded to 250 GB). I have the problem on both.

Right now the next step is doing a full back up, format and restore. Anyone else out there have PS3 borderlands and having a problem?

I exchanged it for the 360 version today and the game looks much better!

Now in sports news, I am playing the heck out of FIFA 10 on the 360. Well it’s on my son’s 360 so I’m playing it on his, but man, what a fun game. The controls seem very intuitive and I have a better appreciation for the international game this time around thanks to my son and I watching of the Premiership and Serie A on weekend mornings. I love Fox Soccer Channel!

So far, I’m very impressed with FIFA. Oh and Lips #1 hits is fun too, but you probably don’t care