Calling it a Day
Well, as they say it's been fun. Actually, I know no one who says that, but why stop using cliches now?
Over the past few months I've really had to face the fact that sports gaming just doesn't grab me the way it used to. It's not that the games are bad, but for me at least, they've grown stale. I still enjoy them in small doses, but not nearly enough to consistently jump on a blog and write about them anymore. Blogging, to do it even moderately well, requires a passion for the subject matter. And since I just don't have that anymore, it's time to hang up my blogging hat; at least for the forseeable future.
I do want to thank Bill and Dan for inviting me to write here. And my thanks to all of you who regularly come to this blog and read our ramblings. If any of you want to contact me directly I'll still be around on Xbox Live (gamertag: ubrakto) on occasion and you can get a hold of me via email, which is ubrakto at hotmail dot com. I leave you now with the immortal words of The Stranger:
I guess that's the way the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin' it-self, down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands a time until-- aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. Wal, uh hope you folks enjoyed yourselves.Catch ya further on down the trail.
Well, That Sucked
Nothing like starting off the new year with a fourth consecutive bowl loss. And this year I can't even blame the officials. I'd actually go so far as to say this game was even more disappointing than the OSU loss, being that Michigan basically just got bitch slapped. There are times that I just don't understand the coaching staff's inability to make halftime adjustments. USC did. They saw the run game wasn't working and they opened up the passing game in the second half and crushed us. Michigan stuck to the run and got stuffed at every turn. By the time they opened it up too (and go figure, it worked once they did) it was far too late. Worse, though, was the defensive secondary getting exposed once again, thanks in huge part to a USC O-line that kept Michigan's front seven at bay. They really did a fabulous job. Still a good season for Michigan (this was a 7-5 team a year ago, after all), but god what a crappy way to end it.
A Festivus for the Rest of Us
Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Festivus, Hannakah (sp?), insert holiday of choice here. It's been quiet on my front the last few weeks, very little gaming; hence no posts from me. We also had the grim death visit the house earlier this week. Nothing like sleeping through 48 hours. Anyway, we're blowing town to see family for the next few days. I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday!
Guitar Hero Injures Tiger
If you watched much post-season baseball this year you might recall that Tigers middle reliever, Joel Zumaya, was suffering from pain in his wrist that pretty much shelved him during the ALCS. Evidently it had little to do with his pitching motion and everything to do with his manlove for Guitar Hero. The team asked him to quit playing the game (which he did), and the pain went away, allowing him to pitch in the series.
I wonder if the other Detroit pitchers were similarly hooked. It would explain why they couldn't make a throw to first base.
You'll find the full story at The Detroit Free Press.
Maybe I’m Not Completely Nuts (CH2k7)
From a thread appropriately titled "A few things are starting to really concern me..." at Op Sports I'm finally finding some backup for the craziness I'm seeing in College Hoops, and at least a couple posts that backs up my theory that team unity is behind a whole lot of it.
From what I've seen and what's been described in the thread, the worst aspect seems to be how unity affects both your players' ability to defend the perimeter and the AI's ability to drain any open three it gets. Here's a post from "ehh" on page 2 of the thread:
After messing around with a ton of different sliders and options tonight, my latest fix-of-the-moment is turning off team unity. As of now I feel like this feature is total overkill ala NCAA '07's Momentum Meter.
My last straw was when I played on default starter with defensive awareness turned up to 100 and none of my players reacted at all in terms of help defense or getting out to challenge shots. It was as if I was still playing on MOP. I was playing as UConn at home against Texas Southern and they were scoring at will against me and getting open shots every time down court.
As soon as I turned off team unity, one of the first few plays their PG burst down the lane and had an apparent open layup, but Hasheem Thabeet came out of nowhere and swatted it off the backboard. Ah, it's a miracle!
From Armitage on page 3:
I've noticed, on starter mode, that if the CPU needs a three, they will absolutely make it. No ifs, ands, or butts about it.
That is exactly what I started seeing when I reduced myself to playing at Starter last week.
And from Acedeck on page 4:
They seem to apply for your own players [3-point accuracy], but not as much CPU players. The CPU manages to get wide open treys all the time. No matter how good of D you play, you will find the CPU getting tons of open treys, mainly due to the weird help AI. Sometimes your teamates will slide onto the same player in the 3-2 zone, leaving someone wide open on the perimeter. I find that if I carefully control the players on the perimeter, I can stop this most times. I still see the CPU take way too many 3's each game, even with players that have less than 60 3-point skill.
There's also some interesting results from "warnerwlf" in the comments section of my last College Hoops post.
I've now played about three games with Team Unity turned off. The aforementioned starter level blowout. Two at all conference that were relatively easy wins (about 12 points each;) against moderately inferior conference competition in which I was never really threatened. I've got an NCAA tourney game on deck for tonight or tomorrow and I'm going to bump it up to All American for that. At that point, if I feel the game has struck a good competitve balance, I may turn unity back on and bottom out the slider to just 5 or 10 and go from there.
BCS: Final Thoughts
It's the morning after and I find myself of two minds about the BCS results that put Florida in the championship game ahead of Michigan. On the glass if half empty side, if the championship game is supposed to be about the two best teams, then the result of the polls is crap. It just is. I mean does anyone think that Michigan would've dropped behind Florida in the polls had USC beaten UCLA? I don't. Florida didn't leap over Michigan in the human polls for any reason other than people didn't want to see a rematch.
As per usual, Michael Roseberg of the Detroit Free Press sums up my opinion better than I can.
As I wrote before and after the Michigan-Ohio State game, I don't like the idea of a rematch. Ohio State beat Michigan once. Why should the Buckeyes have to do it again? But voters were NOT asked to vote for which matchup they would like to see. They were asked to vote for the best teams in the country, in order.
So what we have (in my opinion) is the right matchup for the wrong reasons. And I can't even really blame the voters. In some ways they played oversight for a system that doesn't work. This is exactly what you get with this BCS BS.
On the other hand, part of me is also happy it's played out this way. In all likelihood Michigan would just lose to OSU again. We just don't have an answer for Troy Smith. Nobody does. And I don't really want to see that. Michigan has a much better shot at beating USC, and the Wolverines need a bowl win. Badly.
Also, I'll take a sort of perverse joy of seeing Urban Meyer get squashed like a bug under Tressell and Company's heel. Does anyone think Florida is going to beat OSU? I know I'm supposed to hate OSU and everything they stand for, but Big 10 is Big 10 and Meyer's schtick in the media the last few weeks pushed all the wrong buttons with me. There's a reason the cliche of, "be careful what you wish for," has stuck around. So congrats, Urban, you're going to get what's coming to you.
Does Team Unity Break College Hoops?
That post title really is a question. It seems like everybody and their goat are just having a blast with the game with Unity turned on, but here's what I'm seeing. In about 15+ games played, almost every game I've played (spanning All American, All Conference and Starter) has followed the same patterns.
Basically, I could hardly win a game (I've won two). It's not the losing but all the losses are the same. Against an equal or inferior team I always end up trailing between 3-10 the entire game. As soon as I get a small lead or tie, the AI will nail a wide open three or get an inside layup with a foul for a three point play. Literally, almost every time (creating a turnover seems to be the only exception). If I'm playing a vastly superior team (like in the NCAA tourney), I immediately end up trailing by 10-20. If I close gap at all the AI goes 3-point play crazy until I'm back down again by 10-20.
Beyond the 3-point plays, I flat out could not stop turning over the ball when trying to pass or go into the paint. I try to make what I think is a safe pass and the guy will throw it off someone's back or make a bounce pass or throw the ball on a line when it ought to be an obvious lob pass. Whatever the case, the AI gets the ball and an easy fast break. I have the steals and steal succes sliders turned down to the 5 to 10 range and it didn't make a lick of difference.
Finally, every damn team just seems to play the same brand of ball. I end up using 3-2 zone defense almost exclusively so that I can guard the perimeter with a modicum of success. Yet still, when the score gets close, the AI somehow gets a wide open three point shot whenever it needs one and it *always* makes a wide open three. In one game I was so frustrated I started deliberately pulling my players off any perimeter player with the ball. Once open the AI always take the three (fine) and when open they always made it, something like seven straight threes in this case (not fine).
I'm not one to blame the game for my own shortcomings. And I really don't know if I'm just doing something horribly wrong with this, but it's what I'm seeing. I don't have a problem with getting beat. But when every single game plays along exactly the same patterns something's not right. (And it sure as hell isn't fun.) Plus, I didn't have this problem in previous versions.
Finally I made two changes that seem to have completely changed the game. First, I have always gone with the 2k or High cam views (basically a shot from around half court, straight up to the hoops). I finally switched to the default view (Iso?) and suddenly I could mount an offense again. The key being, I was able to more easily find open players for buckets and I didn't commit nearly as many turnovers. The better I played offensively, though, the better the AI seemed to do on their end of the floor, so the net gain for me was small.
Then I turned off team unity. (Not turn it down to zero, turn it completely off.) And between the Iso view and that it's like a whole new world (only two games played, though). At this point I had dropped down to Starter difficulty and not seen it make a lick of difference. Again, with Team Unity on, I would lose the exact same way regardless of the difficulty being Starter, All Conference or All American. I honestly could not see much gameplay difference between those levels (only one game played on All American, though).
So what happened in my next game, with unity off? I won by 40 (12 minute halves). From not being able to win at all to winning by 40. I'd say that was different. Suddenly it felt like what I did on the defensive end mattered. (I really don't feel like anything I did defensively with unity on made a lick of difference up to that point.)
Given the ease of the win, I turned the difficulty back up to All Conference. I then played another game last night (it was a tourney game against a vastly superior LSU team; I was Eastern Michigan). What a fun game that was. I lost, but I carried a small lead almost all of the first half. And it was see-saw in the second half until I missed a couple threes that LSU turned into a run on the other end. I ended up losing by six, but it was more fun than any game I've played all week. I'll probably stick with All Conference for a couple more games, against more equal competition. But I suspect I'll be going back up to All American now, which is the difficulty I've settled on in the past.
It's hard not to notice that as soon as I turned off team unity, the AI stopped making every open three point shot. In fact, my defensive players made it *much* harder to get the open three. The AI also stopped getting 3-point plays on nearly every bucket in the paint, and suddenly I don't turn the ball over nearly as much. (Although credit there may be to going back to the Iso cam, as opposed to the team unity feature being off.)
I understand what Team Unity, as a feature, is meant to do. I think it's a good idea. And while I can't speak for what others are seeing, my impression is that it completely unbalances the game. I can't say that it always does so in the AI's favor, since I've been using schools like Brown, North Texas and Eastern Michigan. Maybe if I were playing as Duke the game would be unbalanced in my favor. But regardless, I think it's a broken feature and I won't be using it going forward.
I've seen only a couple of posters (at OperationSports.com) write anything similar to my experience. Have any of you run into this issue with Team Unity or am I just going crazy?
The NCAA Circus
With UCLA putting an end to the warm-up acts, the BCS circus can begin in earnest. And with that upset of USC I've had to revise my position somewhat on the whole UM/OSU rematch thing. (My thanks to USC for helping make me sound like a hypocrite.) I want to reiterate, I have no problem with Florida getting the nod in the championship game. If the rankings say they should go, then they should go. However, if the rankings do happen to put Michigan back in the #2 slot, well, that's the system we have and they should go. I still don't think there should be a rematch, but you can't blame Michigan for the BCS being inherently stupid.
That said, the MGoBlog does have a compelling argument for Michigan (the entry titled "Breakdown"). I'm not sure which point in their breakdown is the strongest, but I'm leaning towards who sided with who in the Civil War.
College Hoops Early Impressions
On Monday I finally tracked down a local rental for College Hoops while I wait for Gamerang to get a copy out to me (probably Thursday). Right now I'm just sitting back and playing the game. No full season sims to check stats and slider tweaking. I've jumped right into a closed legacy (Brown), playing a couple of games per season and simming the rest. (I'm dead set on getting more mileage out of my legacy this year and am simming much more than I play until I build up my coach and land a more posh assignment.)
So far, after two seasons at Brown, I've moved on to North Texas. After going about .500 after two season, season number three resulted in 23 wins and a tourney birth; my first birth and North Texas's first in 20 years. (I haven't played out the tourney game yet.)
At this point, on all-conference (10 min halves) I've noticed the following:
- I have yet to win a game (played about eight). (Much of my problem has been inability to stop the AI's 3-point game, as explained below.)
- There really are too many missed inside shots. I finally broke down and bumped the human layup and inside range sliders (five points each, I think) and the one game with those settings was a huge improvement (maybe too much).
- I don't know what Bill is seeing (he's hinted otherwise), but the AI has loved the 3-point shot in the games I've played. Again, on 10 min. halves, the AI is averaging putting up around 20 attempts per game (including 24 from Penn when I played them as Brown). And they're hitting them. Not an ungodly number, but when even small schools are hitting 40-50% of 20 3-point attempts it's too much. I finally took down the AI 3-point tendency slider and bumped the inside tendency slider (I think by 10 each, but I'd have to check). That seems to have helped a lot, but I've only played a couple games that way.
- Free throw shooting seems better this year. Last year I really struggled with that, but I'm having no problems right now and it's so nice that there's just one camera view for free throws (as opposed to NBA 2k7's changing the view between each attempt).
- There are far too few fouls called (maybe it's better on a higher difficulty). At default I've gone entire halves without getting a whistle called on my player. From reading the OS forums, I'm seeing a lot of custom slider sets that up fouls across the board to the 80-90 range and getting *much* better results.
- Because I'm lazy, I've paid almost zero attention to what the AI has been doing outside my conference so I really can't comment on sim results, NCAA seedings, etc.
- Recruiting seems much improved this year. I haven't looked too deep yet, but
the recruit pool seems much more balanced and I haven't noticed the high talent level of recruits causing small schools to dramatically improve their overall talent levels over time (I need to look more closely at this to be sure, though). Recruiting to Brown was basically me hopeing to land a few two star recruits. Recruiting at North Texas (Sun Belt Conference), I've been able to consistently land either two or three star recruits, but have had almost zero luck drawing any interest from any four star recruits (and those who show interest have still gone elsewhere). The recruiting model appears to be pretty tight.
- I love that you can finally manage the order of your target list (if you could do this last year, I never figured out how). This finally makes leaving the fine details of recruiting to your assistants a plausible strategy. I basically set my targets at the start and do the heavy lifting for my top tier targets (those for whom I hope to offer scholarships) and let the AI handle the rest. When the initial signing period ends, I reasses and repeat. Same for the end of the season. Once I get hired at a school where I intend to stick for a while this should make for a much nicer balance of playing games vs. time spent in the UI.
- That said, the horrid NBA 2k7 UI has been ported here and it's just as annoying in College Hoops. You can get used to it and make effective use of it, but it's still frustrating as all get out to use.
So far it seems pretty clear this is the best edition of College Hoops to date. (Not one crash in legacy mode either!) That said, it's not so different from previous versions that if you didn't like those, that you'll end up doing a 180 on this one. The core gameplay is the same and there are still details that can irritate, like getting stuck in animations, or games having a just slightly scripted feel to them. (I'll never be able to prove that theory. It just seems like the ease of getting buckets or stops at certain points throughout a game is predictably easy/hard depending on the balance of the matchup. It really could be my imagination, though.) But if you really liked or were at least luke warm to past editions, this one should work out quite nicely for you.
One More BCS Post (Till the Next One)
Having already stated my belief that USC deserves their shot at the Bucks (assuming they win out), I thought I'd point out this very good analysis at the M Go Blog that basically says the same thing... except that he backs his assertion up with a *whole lot* of evidence to support. Well worth a read.
Stories of Bo
As you may know, there was a "celebration" of Bo Schembechler's life at Michigan Stadium this week and there's a great story about the event at TheWolverine.com. Lots of former players, and coaches and such turned out and talked about stories of the old ball coach. There's some real gems in there.
On other fronts, it's been a crazy week. My son, Kyle, got sick again Monday night (apparently he wasn't as "all better" as we thought) and he ended up with a ticket to the hospital after getting way too dehydrated (he was keeping nothing down). For those keeping score at home, this is the second time this year we've run through that particular scenario. Nothing but fun from my young'ns I tell ya. Fortunately, spending the day and night on an IV agreed with him so we got to bring him home today and don't have to spend Turkey day with cold cut sandwiches in a hospital room. That would've really sucked. At least I won't have any trouble coming up with something to be thankful for tomorrow.
On a gaming front, I went out today to pick up a rental of College Hoops from Blockbuster (while I wait for Gamerang to come through) and, of course, they're not putting it out until Friday. Bummer that. Hopefully when I go back on Friday they'll have plenty of copies (last year they had one lousy copy).
And finally, I've reached down into the depths of my Guitar Hero skills and made significant progress on the Expert level. I'm just three songs removed from finishing the game on expert (Bark at the Moon and Cowboys from Hell, of course; Frankenstein's also giving me fits). I don't expect to get past those anytime soon. Maybe by the time the 360 version of GH2 comes out.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everybody!
Monday Hangover
Bo. A Michigan loss. A Lions loss (to Arizona, for god's sake). Vomit everywhere (literally). This was one of those weekends I was happy to wave goodbye to.
After having a couple days to digest the Michigan loss, I haven't changed my mind about not wanting a rematch. Some co-workers were standing outside my cube (all IU and Purdue guys) saying they thought there should be one and they were pretty shocked when I stuck my head out and said no way. Like I said yesterday. We lost so we need to step out of line and let the next guy have a shot. (Again, as long as the next guy ain't Notre freak'n Dame.)
Here's the thing about the game on Saturday from my perspectice. It wasn't that OSU was oh so much better. Yes, they led most of the way, often by at least two scores. Yes, they racked up an insane amount of total offense. And sure, you can argue OSU kept the Wolverines in it with rare turnovers. But hell, that's football. If you played that game again, what are the odds Michigan's D gives up 100+ yards and two TDs on two running plays? Both teams did things that were uncharacteristic of them all season long.
What really separated the two teams in my mind was the Buckeye passing game against Michigan's secondary. Troy Smith wasn't having to thread needles all game. Yeah, he made great plays, but he was routinely spreading the ball around, finding guys that were *wide* open. It was nauseating at how easy OSU made it look to pass the ball for 5 to 15 yards at a time. That's where Michigan really lost the game, and I don't see where it would be any different on January 2nd or 3rd or whenever the National Championship Game gets played.
Anyway, the pundits can argue all they like. Time for me to move on.
It Was That Kind of Day
Well, first of all, congratulations to Ohio State and their fans. They were pretty clearly the better team on the field yesterday. Any team that can dismantle Michigan's defense like that is worth tipping your cap to. If we could have just one play back it would be the helmet to helmet hit by Crable on Smith on that last OSU drive of the fourth quarter. From a punt to a TD. That hurt.
But like the title of this post, it was that kind of day. My son, Kyle, inaugurated the game by waking up from his nap 20 minutes before kickoff and blowing chow all over himself and his crib. He spent the whole afternoon throwing up, so I spent a good chunk of the game cleaning up vomit rather than watching. (Maybe that's why I have no idea what Bill's talking about with Mike Hart.) Anyway, starting around 11 last night it was Ana's turn (that lasted all night). And in between I was running our kitchen sink's garbage disposal when the pipe leading out of it separated (for the second time in six months) and sent water and chopped up bits of food *everywhere*. So, by the time I got to sleep last night Michigan's loss to OSU wasn't really the first thing on my mind.
All that said, I agree with the ABC postgame crew. Michigan, to me, is pretty clearly the second best team in the country. There's no shame in losing by three in Columbus like that. And Michigan's offense, despite the sputtering in the first half, really showed something, I think. That said, I agree with Bill that there should be no rematch. Michigan lost. Turn the page and let another team have their shot at the Buckeyes... just as long as that team isn't Notre Dame. No team that Michigan skunked on the road like that should be in the National Championship Game ahead of them. Right now it sure looks like USC. I think that would be a good game, but I don't see USC (or anyone, really) beating the Buckeyes. That offense... well, like I said. Any O that can do that to Michigan's D...
The Passing of a Michigan Legend
I had just gotten in my car to meet my wife for lunch when I heard the news today. Bo Schembechler had died this morning. Generally, I'm not really affected all that much when I hear about a big name having passed on. Even those for whom I had some affection. For most of us, it's not like we really know these people and it seems silly to get over-sentimental about a person you've never met. But, for obvious reasons, this one is much different to me. It's much more personal.
Bo was 77 and had a long history of heart trouble and had other medical problems in recent months. Yet I find myself shocked that he's gone. I'm not sure how much of that is because it's on the eve of one of the biggest Michigan/Ohio State battles in history. But as someone who was raised as a Michigan fan, a Michigan football fan, pretty much from birth, the idea that Bo is somehow mortal just doesn't seem possible. He's not made up of the stuff of lesser men. He's Bo. And how can Bo possibly be gone?
As I ate lunch with my wife I found myself trying to recall specific memories of Bo and I was surprised to find that I really couldn't come up with many. Considering I spent nearly all my Fall Saturday afternoons in the 80s watching Michigan football, you'd think there would've been moments that were particularly memorable, but I honestly can't name one. I just think Bo, and I think Michigan football. End of story. They're one and the same and there's just no single moment seen through a kid's eyes on TV or from atop my dad's shoulders in a distant seat at Michigan Stadium that could possibly sum up what the guy represented. Bo made you proud to be a Michigan fan and because his eventual successors both came from his staff, it's never felt like he was really gone from that sideline. At least, not to me. And now I wonder what it will be like to watch the game tomorrow. How will it be different? What impact will it have on the Michigan coaches and players? Hell, what impact will it have on OSU sideline? I really don't know what to expect, but I do know that for anyone with a passion for Michigan football this will be one of those days you will always remember. I know that thirty years from now I'll still be able to tell you I was getting in my car to meet my wife for lunch at Qdoba when I heard on ESPN Radio that Bo Schembechler had died.
Rest in peace, Bo. You will be missed.
College Hoops 2k7 Legacy Info
This was pointed out in the comments section last week and I only just got around to checking it out. There's a great thread at OS where one of the Legacy mode developers is taking questions. There's a lot of good information on how this mode is evolving (reduction in the number of seven foot recruits, better sim results based on seedings in the tourney, and a list of teams available in the closed legacy mode, for example). There's also a list of teams available in the closed legacy mode. Be sure to check it out if you're into this one. There's also a another thread in the same forum where SteveOS is giving loads of gameplay impressions. It sounds like they really nailed the college atmosphere in this one.
Go Blue!
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