The Blog for the Sports Gamer

All of the EA titles that were $34.99 for the weekend are on sale for that price at Amazon.  You can find them through our search box.  heh.

Also, Left 4 Dead 2 is included at $34.99 for the 360 and $29.99 for the PC.  I’ll pass on that one.  Played the first one and just didn’t have that much fun with it.

Hope you’re having a great weekend.

- Only ventured out to a few stores today, but didn’t really get anything of note other than some stuff for the girls.  When you wake up in the morning and find the 2 year old trying to cut up a Kiwi with a steak knife… you focus on getting everything childproofed better.   It’s amazing, because our 4 year old was never that bad at doing things like that.  Thankfully Lexi (the 2 year old) hasn’t ever hurt herself.  I don’t know what I’d do if she had.  Ugh.  Anywho…

- I like it when the Packers play on Thanksgiving day, but then it stinks for the rest of the weekend, because you don’t really have any football to pay attention to.  Sure, I can watch some other things, but Alabama and Auburn doesn’t really hold much interest for a Big Ten guy like myself.

- Today’s gaming revolved around three games

DJ Her0 (There is one song that I just cannot 5 star, even on medium, and it’s pissing me off.  I finally gave up on it today after struggling with it for an hour or so.  The difficulty in that song is just so much different than any of the others… it’s just plain bizarre.  Oh, well.)

Flower (What an amazing experience that game is.  The sound and feel of the game are just amazing.  For $5, it’s well worth a look for those of you with a PS3.  This is a game that I know my wife will have to try out at some point.)

Borderlands (Just started the game and I HAD to stop myself from doing ‘one more mission.’  I’m sure that would have translated into ‘just one more hour.’  I chose the Soldier for my first run through with the game.  I have some friends playing it on the PS3 as well, but when my character is 40 levels below theirs, there might be some issues there…)

- Tomorrow I’m planning on spending a good portion of the day outside with the girls.  It’s due to hit 50 degrees here and you just have to take advantage of those days when you have the chance.  Probably not too much gaming, but being outside in November (when nice) is a great thing as well.

- The Tiger Woods story is just bizarre.  The first thing my wife thought is that he might have had some sort of seizure, as they are saying that alcohol wasn’t involved in the car crash.  Just so damn strange…

- Hope you’re all having a great weekend.

- Happy Thanksgiving day everyone!

- I might be one of the first people to say it, but Charles Woodson is starting to deserve consideration for the MVP award.   Today’s game, 2 INT’s (one returned for a TD – Nice Heisman pose,) 1 sack, 1 fumble forced.  The guy is just dominating play from the defensive side of the ball right now.  In my opinion, the best player on the Packers roster right now.  It was only Detroit, but he was a total stud today.

- Picked up a few Blu-ray movies today over at Amazon.  They haven’t matched a few deals that I was interested in (Rock Band: Unplugged and Monsters vs. Aliens being the main ones,) but it’s been a pretty slow Thanksgiving day here.

- Just about to head to my parents house for dinner, so enjoy the rest of your day!

Remind me never to buy any games except at Thanksgiving. The deals that are out there are OMG good and you don’t even have to leave your house to start playing TODAY.

First, there are two “f’n incredible” deals on Steam – every LucasArts game, $49.99. That’s not each—that’s the WHOLE PACKAGE.

Also, a massive THQ collection also for $49.99. It includes Saint’s Row 2 and Red Faction 2….again, pick this up NOW.

The EA Store is offering 30% off all downloadable PC games – so now’s the time – Dragon Age is $35, FIFA 10 is $28.

Finally, Amazon’s deals are constantly changing so I can’t keep up. Just go to the site and click on Black Friday deals – go to the site by clicking our link (please)…

- While I’m sitting at work waiting for a server to finish its processes, I figured I would make a few quick notes.

- If you’re thinking of partaking in Amazon’s Black Friday sales tomorrow, may I suggest using our search box to take you to the site?  Every time you search and buy there, we get some cashy-money.  It’s not much, but it helps the site a bit and keeps us in prizes for our contests that we run here.  It’s always appreciated.

- Speaking of the sales, I haven’t seen a ton of games that I’m looking to pick up this year.  Maybe Rock Band: Unplugged for $7.  Assassin’s Creed for $5.  A few Blu-Ray’s here or there.  Just no huge game deals that are blowing me out of the water.

- I started playing NCAA Basketball 10 on Monday night and am 4 games into it.  I don’t want to say too much about it, but there is some good and bad in what I’ve found thus far.  My dynasty with West Point should prove to be pretty challenging, I can say that for certain.

- Oh, another game deal.  Plants vs. Zombies is $4.99 on Steam.  You have to get out there and pick that one up.  Awesome game.

- Ok.  Back to work.  More gaming later tonight, I hope….

Because I didn’t want to wait, I picked up Madden NFL Arcade for the PS3 last night – at $14.99 it’s one of the steeper prices for a downloadable game, but hey it’s football, right.

The game has limited options – you can play now, or play online. There’s no league, no tournament; it’s strictly a one-off game, which is too bad.

The good news is that cooperative play is allowed so you can have multiple players on the same team.

You play a 60 yard field, no first downs, so basically it’s 1st and goal. You have four plays to choose from on offense or defense: run (blitz on D), short pass, medium pass or long pass. You can control any player you like on offense or defense.

What is interesting is the slot-machine esque “game changer” award that is given before each play – you could get a dud, you could get nothing, or you could get a “gamechanger” like a turbo, a fast pass, a score flip, a molasses power up that slows down your opponent, or something along those lines.

There are no penalties, so while on D, make sure you hit those WRs before the ball gets to them – that is always fun

There is no depth to the game, but it is absolutely fun to play. Limited replay value, online is fun, and so is cooperative play. I enjoyed playing this game with my son a lot more than the regular Madden.

$15 seems high – I think if it were $10, it would be a very sweet spot, but I would much rather play this game than their really crappy NFL game they put out some time ago, whose name eludes me, mainly because it was complete crap.

- What a difference a year makes.  I’ve been watching the Badger basketball team for the last two nights, and while the season is early, it just doesn’t look like a Bo Ryan team.  They shoot free throws poorly, they take a ton of outside shots without trying to enter the ball into the post, and they seem averse to trying to get the other team into a position to make fouls.

The Badgers, on the other hand, seem to reach a ton and get called for a lot of silly fouls when the opponent is in deep.  They were pretty lucky to pull out the win over Arizona on Monday night and they got beat pretty handily by Gonzaga last night.

It’ll take a while to see where this team is going, but they do have a lot of work to do.  After all, no one thought they would be undefeated this year.

- Started playing a bit of Modern Warfare 2 tonight.  Wow.  That’s an incredibly polished first person shooter.  The first few missions were incredibly intense and the gameplay is frantic, yet balanced.  I didn’t even bother with the multiplayer, but I can see how it will be a lot of fun in the long run.

- Don’t you just love it when you discover that a server is taking a crap… at around 9 at night.  My co-worker is handling the first shift of it… and I’m going to spell him in a few hours.  Always fun when things go wrong…

- More later today…

I’ve been getting an error, 80022A07, every time I try to sync trophies on my PS3. No one else I know is getting this error, but I emailed Sony support and got this message:

“We apologize for any inconvenience the ‘Trophies’ are currently causing you.

We have been made aware some small number of users have been receiving an error, ’80022A07′, while syncing trophies.

This has been associated to something we will be hopefully resolving with a maintenance, in early December, 2009.

At this time, it is our best estimation, we will have this update completed by 12/10/2009.

The trophy information is kept locally on your system and then synced up to the server when you sync or view trophies. You will not lose your trophies due to this issue.

Please keep trying to ‘Sync’ your trophies, as it may still work for you, or wait until this maintenance has been completed to try again at that time.

You should verify the required ports are all opened and your connection is not causing any connection issues.”

Interesting…

DJ Hero Renegade edition is today’s Amazon Deal of the Day — save $50 off list — get it for $149. Great deal and you may have heard me and Glen rave about it.

- Just got back in from Chicago earlier in the day.  Had a lot of fun down there.  Got to some nice clubs and got to stay at an after bar until around 3.   Definitely a good time.

One of the nicest places down there was a Badger bar on the North side.  The serve up free brats and burgers during Badger and Packer games and had quite a nice turnout.  Bummer that the Badgers lost, but Northwestern played a great first half and did what they had to in the second have to win.

- The Packers looked dominant in the first half today against the 49ers and hung on late to get an important win.  They have a chance to be 7-4 if they can beat Detroit in the Thanksgiving game.  It’s a bummer that they lost Harris and Kampman today, and that will make a large impact on the rest of the season, but they seem to really be picking up their game play over the last two weeks.  Now we see if they can keep up the intensity after those injuries.

- No real gaming done over the weekend, so I hope I can spend some more time with Dragon Age, Basketball 10 (once I get it,) and DJ Hero.   Any other new games out there that everyone here is playing that are worth a look?

- Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I have been busy as can be at work, plus getting ready for my trip to Chicago today.

- I should have my copy of NCAA Basketball 10 by next Monday. The demo was very promising, I always wonder how mucha title can improve when you have no one making an alternative title. Of course Madden was quite a bit better this year, so perhaps that way of thinking is out the window.

- This week has been a good bit of Dragon Age and DJ Hero for me. Dragon Age got brutally difficult in a hurry and I had to lower my difficulty just to keep going. Hard to believe that they wanted the mage to be that hard to play, but maybe everyone is having the same issues.

As for DJ Hero, I just played through the Daft Punk mixes last night and they were awesome. It was cool to see how quickly the learning curve increases, but how easy you can adapt to it. Still loving the game, I think the music is terrific.

- Man does Chicago traffic suck. How do people do this every day?

..is buy a 120GB PS3, get your choice of an EA Sports game free..

- Ever have one of those games where you feel like everything you do, the CPU just pulls the rug out from under you?  I just finished up my Madden league game between the Rams and the Lions.  Detroit returned a fumble for a TD and a kickoff for a TD in the game.  I was down by 9 points midway through the 4th, managed to put together a TD drive, then forced a 3 and out to get the ball back with about 2:15 to go.  I drove down to the 1 to kick a field goal with :01 on the clock.  I popped up the kickoff and they proceeded to return it to the 13 yard line with the last man I held back managing to make the tackle to save the game.  Crazy game.  Never seen a game of Madden like it.

- So, the next PS3 firmware is adding the ability to notify people on Facebook as to when you purchase something from the store or get a trophy.  Like my friends don’t know that I’m a big enough geek, they need play-by-play to know how much time I waste on my PS3?  Um, no.  I’ll be passing on that feature… same goes for the 360.

- As for the Belichick call… Personally, I thought it wasn’t the right time to make a call like that.  It seems to show that you have little faith in your defense being able to stop Manning if you punt the ball away.  Even if the percentages are in the 60+ range of getting the first down… there was too much at stake in the game to take that chance.  The way it is now, they’re 3 games out of homefield throughout, plus with the Bengals most difficult part of their schedule behind them, I would think that they would be difficult to catch as well.   (Speaking of which, there is a good chance of the Bengals being 10-2 going into the matchup with the Vikings.  That could be an awesome game.)

- Go Islanders.  They are really starting to put together a solid start to the season and are playing very well at home and on the road.  It was nice to see them (in HD, thankfully) put away a close game in the 3rd tonight.

- I’m heading to Chicago for the weekend and am debating taking in the Badger game against Northwestern.  Anyone ever see a game in Evanston?

- Ok.  Time for sleep.  More gaming time tomorrow night… hopefully.

- Dan gets quote of the day from me…

“wow, I didn’t know Bill Belichick played Madden online.”

Going for it on 4th and 2 from your own 28?  Ballsy…. It didn’t work and they end up losing a 13 point lead in the last 3 minutes of the game.   Crazy stuff.

- Lost my Madden league game to loyal blog reader Joel tonight, but it was a fun game.  He tolerated my needing to pause the game due to the fact that my youngest ran up to me saying she had to pee.  Fun game, even with the pee break.

- Nice to see the Packers decided to show up for their game against the Cowboys.  I wouldn’t have thought that they could pull out a defensive effort like that after the last game against Tampa Bay, but there you have it.

- Add that with the Badgers moving up to #16 in the BCS standings after their thumping of Michigan.  I don’t think they have a chance at a BCS bowl (both Iowa and Penn State would have to lose,) but they have put together a nice season and have a good chance at a double digit win season.  Those things don’t happen very often at Wisconsin, so it would be sensational to see.

- I keep going back to Torchlight and Dragon Age.  One annoyance that I’m dealing with in Torchlight is the fact that I’ve done so many of the ‘side missions’ that I’m just waltzing through the ‘normal’ levels.  Boss battles don’t even really generate much damage on me and I haven’t died yet… and I’m on level 29 of the game.   A bit disappointing, but perhaps that’s just what you get on the normal difficulty.

Dragon Age is still a lot of fun as well.  I’m about 8 hours into the game and just left the first city.  There is a ton of content to work with.  I did like how the DLC is worked into the game though.  A person comes up to you and talks about a place where he’d like to you to go, and then it prompts you (as one of your conversation choices) to see if you’d like to download it.  I’m not going to be doing it, but it’s nice to see it integrated into the story in that way.

- Just scanning through the Black Friday Ads for Best Buy and Walmart and there are quite a few quality video games and Blu-Rays to choose from.  Being able to pick up Gladiator and Braveheart for $10 seems like a great deal to me.

Wow. I didn’t know Belichick played Madden online. How else do you explain going for it on 4th down on your own 29?

How many games have you seen a bullshit pass interference call plus the “bobble” rule affect a game?

That pass interference call was complete crap. The bobble, it sounds like they made the right ruling and when you blow two timeouts in a lame drive, you get what you deserve.

You know, I actually agree with the going for it on 4th down. It made sense because you know he would have scored anyway, so you might as well let them score and get the ball back. However, someone thought it would be better to tackle them at the 1.

At the end it’s a major bummer for Patriots fans, but hey, if they converted, it would have been awesome.