Thursday night notes
- Funny that Dan mentioned the Zombies in NFL Blitz. I was pretty sure that we spoke of them in the interview. To me it didn't seem like any connection to Mutant League Football. It just seemed as if they were throwing in random strange teams, such as the mascot teams that they've done with NCAA and other games. I guess when Owen Good reports it, it's a story, but when I report it... hehe. Just kidding.
- Getting a chance to go ice fishing this weekend. I only get to do it a few times every year, but love it each and every time. Getting to yell, "Tip Up!!!!" and run across the ice to try and bring in a Northern is always a great time. Plus, I get to do it with a few great friends. Definitely one of my favorite weekends of the year.
I'd say that it takes the sting out of the fact that the Packers are not in the NFC championship, but the funny thing is that the loss really didn't bother me all that much. To be honest, I'm much happier that they lost last week than to lose in the NFC title game or the Super Bowl.
Two of the three worst defenses in the league lost last week... will New England go down this week?
- Hope everyone caught the season 3 premier for Archer tonight. Tape 'em up.
- Ryan Braun's appeal began today at the league office. I have absolutely no doubt that he'll get suspended for 50 games. It'd be nice to hear what their explanation for the test is though. Certain it will be bunk though.
- Grabbed the Resident Evil Revelations demo off of the 3DS store today. Absolutely no idea why I did so....
- After a bit of a lull, a few more sports games are starting to come out next month. Grand Slam Tennis 2 for the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360. UFC Undisputed 3 for the PS3 and 360. And SSX for the PS3 and 360. Nice to see that we'll have some new sports games to talk about very soon. I'm efforting interviews on each of them.
- Lastly... I tried out the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo last night on the PC. It seems like the combat could be fun, but two things bothered me. Really long loading times for a demo, and Quick Time Events that give you experience bonus on certain kills. QTE's are just about the most annoying thing that I can recall in games.
For $60, I'll be passing on the game for now. Maybe when it hits the $20 price point in a few months.
Thursday notes
- I'm slowly recovering from a flu/cold bug going around the house. Had a bit of a temp last night and just generally felt like crap. Thankfully, the Mrs. let me get a good bit of sleep last night and that seems to have helped things a great deal. don't feel 100%, but I'm getting back to full speed again.
- So, weith all of the SOPA stuff that is going on, I'm looking to move my domains from Godaddy. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking at Namecheap.com right now and they look like a reasonably good place to move the domains to.
- Thanks to some of Best Buy's sales over the last few weeks I was able to get the Nyko Power Pak for the 3DS. I have to say I'm impressed at how nice and easy it was to replace the battery on the unit and double the battery capacity for $8. The battery adds a nice feel to the bottom of the unit as well. Very happy with that purchase.
- I was able to get a chance to see 'Attack the Block' the other day and I was stunned that I haven't heard more about this movie to date.
I don't want to give too much away about the movie, but a group of street kids find an alien, kill it, and then have to deal with the issues that come up as a result of that.
Quite a fun sci-fi film and well worth your time if you can track it down.
Tuesday notes
- Hope that everyone had a nice and relaxing holiday season.
Nothing too eventful happened on my end, just played some open hockey and spent time with the family.
No real gifts to speak of either as my wife and I have completely bailed on the concept of buying each other gifts. I prefer to just get stuff for the kids and let them have their fun.
- Congratulations to Howie's Bleacher Bums who won the 2011 SportsGamerBlog Fantasy Football championship.
I'll be contacting Howie today to determine what game he wants as a prize for winning.
- As far as gaming goes, I spent a good deal of the holiday weekend working through Steam Achievements for their holiday sale.
One of the items that I won was a 50% off Bethesda software coupon and was able to trade that for a few games.
Between the Steam deals and Amazon's daily download deals, it's been a fun holiday season for picking up more games that I'm not all that likely to play soon. heh.
- The Packers got back on track with a nice win over the Bears on Christmas night.
Thankfully that stopped people from talking about how everyone has an answer to how to beat the Packers.
There are some very good teams that will have to come to Lambeau in the playoffs this year, and every one of them should be a fun game to watch. I think the Packers can beat all of them, but you never know if they'll have another bad game like the K.C. one. Hopefully the bye week will give them that extra time to get Clifton, Jennings, and Pickett back for the run to the Super Bowl.
- Lastly, post your 3DS friend codes if you have them. Dan is the only person I have on my friends list on there and it's depressing to see that one person on there, especially when it's Dan.
Monday notes
- Please, please, stop telling us that you need to retire to spend more time with your family, then come back one year later to a much bigger contract.
If you don't want to work at that place any more, just say you felt that it was time to move on. I'm so damn tired of hearing these guys lie all the time about putting their families above their jobs, when it's quite clear that their families are clearly playing second fiddle to the job they are trying to attain.
Urban Meyer may be the nicest guy in the world, and I'm sure he'll do incredibly well at Ohio State, but I just hate crap like this.
- Speaking of Big 10 football, with the divisions shaking out as they did, I think this game has to be the one rematch that people would like to see most this year for deciding who will go to the Rose Bowl.
Couldn't ask for a better game to end the year in the Big 10.
- Big college basketball game coming up this week for Wisconsin as well, as they travel to North Carolina as part of the Big Ten/ACC shootout matchup thing.
The Badgers played well against BYU the other day, but I'm worried about a team that relies on outside shooting as much as they do. If they have a day where they don't shoot well from the arc, they will lose ugly. I have a sneaking suspicion that will be the case on Wednesday. Just a feeling.
- In gaming, I'm still powering through The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. My daughters sat by me on Sunday for an hour while I struggled with a puzzle in one of the dungeons in the game. You know you love your kids when they say something like, "Daddy, why are you here again? Can't you figure it out?"
All you can do is breathe deeply and ask them to walk away.... heh.
- Speaking of other humorous kids moments, my eldest daughter woke me up on Sunday holding a clump of hair in her hand. She informed me that our 4 year old decided to start cutting her own hair.
When I asked our youngest about this, she informed me that her hair was getting in her eyes and she wanted to fix it.
The sad part was that she actually did a really good job. She wet her hair down and had cut a straight line across her bangs. When my wife got home she did a bit of touch up to finish it.
It's so hard to punish your kids for something when they actually do a good job.
- Speaking of dealing with children, Dan was complaining to me about the scoring system in the fantasy football league again...
For a guy in 1st place in the league, he sure complains about his team quite a bit.
- Lastly, the NBA is coming back. Um, yeah.
- Have a good Monday
Black Friday notes
- Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.
As for me, I spent it at my parents house watching the Packers/Lions game, going for a run, then having dinner.
- First things first, the Packers/Lions game. People keep saying that Suh is a very smart man, but I just don't see it. So, he pushes a guys helmet into the ground 3 times, the gets up and stomps on his arm, then goes to his press conference after the game and apologizes to the fans, but not the guy he kicked? Then he tells us that we all saw it wrong. He was being held on the ground and had to get out of the situation?
I respect the guys ability and talent, but man... someone has to get a hold of him there and make him actually be accountable for his actions, because he's just not going to figure this out on his own.
Anywho, the Packers go to 11-0 and have until next Sunday to get ready for the Giants in New York. Should be a good test for Green Bay.
- One other thing on the Packer game, I have no idea when it happened, but my mom is a crazy football fan now. She yells at the tv and gets so upset at certain calls that she has to leave the room. The woman was never like this when I was growing up, in fact she never even watched sports back then. It's funny when you have to settle your mom down because she's getting too worked up about a penalty call in the 1st quarter.
- Sweet Zombie Jesus can an email program come with a pop up that notifies family members that they're sending out 5 to 25 mb of photos via email? I have unlimited bandwidth and all that, but good lord... look at the size of the file before you send it.
- So, my big purchase for the Black Friday season is this...
Dean Vendetta XMT Electric Guitar
I have never played guitar before and am about to start the learning process with Rocksmith and through the help of some friends.
Being a drum guy (sort of,) I've always been interested in giving the guitar a shot. I can't wait for it to arrive and start making horrible, horrible noises with it.
- Just started season 3 of Dr. Who and I have to say that I really like Martha already. She's just the right kind of sassy to be with the Doctor.
- Can't wait for the UW/Penn State game tomorrow. I had tickets offered to me, but couldn't go... bummer. Still, I'm sure the crowd will be crazy tomorrow since a win for the Badgers sends them to the Big Ten championship game next weekend.
- Have a great weekend!
Wednesday notes
- Is it just me or does it feel like Friday? That feeling is going to suck because I actually have to work on Friday, so it'll be like there are two Friday's this week... and I'll only be able to get drunk for one of them. (kidding.)
- Last night I finished up the 1st part of Super Mario 3D Land with 104 free guys in the bank. Judging by the first of the special worlds that you gain access to after beating the game, I'll be needing more than a few of them.
One other thing about SM3L (man, that's an ugly acronym,) the 3D effects on the final level of world 8 are terrific. The fireballs seem to be coming right through the screen at you, and it makes for an incredible effect.
- With all of the Black Friday deals coming up this week, I figured it was worth mentioning that there just isn't much that I want to grab this year. Usually there are some terrific game prices, but outside of Yakuza 4 for $10 and Dance Central 2 for $15 (both at Walmart,) I'm really not seeing much.
Any of you notice anything worth grabbing?
- So, the Stanford coach is upset about his teams ranking in the BCS. Isn't this a yearly event? There is a terrible system to pick the national champion and this year it looks like it will be picked between three teams in the same conference... and the same division. Woo! I'm sure that no other team in the country could beat the winner of the SEC West. Glad that's resolved.
- Don't forget to set those fantasy lineups tonight or tomorrow morning as we have plenty of Thanksgiving games to account for.
Every team still has a shot at the playoffs with 2 games to go, and Dan is in first place in the power rankings. Everyone should want to see him lose, right?
- Packers/Lions tomorrow. Should be a lot of fun. Rodgers plays very well in dome games and there is all this talk of how the Packers lost the 11th game of the season in 1962 against the Lions on Thanksgiving day.
I'll just think that won't be happening.
- Have a great Thanksgiving all. Enjoy the day.
Monday notes
- If you still own a Wii, please, stop what you're doing and go out and pick up Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Does the game have a minor issues? Yes, the Motion Plus support is a bit off from time to time (but can be reset quickly.) Outside of that, the game is absolutely terrific and is a tremendous amount of fun to play.
Also, it's a game that your kids can sit and watch without having to explain why daddy is cutting a bloody swath though a battlefield. My youngest daughter sat next to me yesterday and laughed hysterically every time Link fell down or hurt himself due to my actions, and that's something that most games don't give me now.
They have also made the game a bit simpler due to the fact that there are save points inside of dungeons now (blasphemy to most hardcore Nintendo fans,) but they do make it easier to step away from the game from time to time rather than forcing you to finish a dungeon/temple once you start it.
I highly recommend the game.
- So, along with Zelda, I had one of my more fun gaming weekends in memory as I was able to power through a decent amount of side quests in Skyrim and play through a good number of levels in Super Mario 3D Land.
In Skyrim, I have barely touched on the actual story of the game, spending more time solving little issues that various local towns have had and delved into mines to work on my smithing skill.
I wouldn't have thought that I could possibly like a crafting portion of a game, but I find myself going into mines, so I can acquire ore, then smelting it, and making new jewelry and weapons, so that I can continue to enhance my own weaponry. It's time consuming and pointless, and strangely fun all at the same time.
- Mario 3D Land? It's just one of the best platformers that I've played in memory. Some of the 'big coins' are a pain in the ass to obtain, and some of them are hidden in ways that just seem nearly impossible to access, but the game is fun in a way that I just don't see much anymore.
Frustrating at times, but an absolute blast to play.
- Oh, and NBA2K12 has come out for the iPad. Since I don't have one of those tablets, Dan will be taking a look at the game and posting some of his thoughts in the near future.
- One of the funny things to witness when a team is playing very well, as the Packers are, is how people seem to want to find fault in every victory. Hardly any of the fans around the area want to seem to enjoy the fact that the team is 10-0, all they want to do is discuss how close they have come to almost losing games.
Sure, there are things that the team needs to improve on, but enough with the negativity. Enjoy the run while it lasts...
- Lastly, I watched 'Beats, Rhymes, and Life' on Friday. The documentary covers the history and issues that 'A Tribe Called Quest' has gone through in the last few years.
ATCQ is one of my all-time favorite groups and it was sad to see all of the issues that they went through as the group broke up. I can only hope that they're able to get back together for a U.S. tour again at some point in the near future, as they are on top of my list of groups that I want to see live.
Thursday notes
- As a reminder, there is a game tonight (Broncos and Jets,) so if you have a starter for any of those teams, make sure you set those rosters today. 3 games to go in the season and every single team has a chance to make the playoffs. You have to love parity like that...
- I'm not sure, but is ESPN done with their love fest for Coach K yet? The amount of wins that he was able to put together was remarkable, but (as Deadspin speaks of) didn't he already set this record?
- This just in, the NCAA makes a lot of money... and doesn't have good security on their Sharepoint site.
Remember, these aren't slaves, they're student athletes.
- Dan and I were chatting last night and we both agree that Super Mario 3D Land is terrific.
Not once in my with the game last night did I experience any sort of eye strain or issues with the 3D effect in the game. It is easily the best implementation of 3D on the platform, in my opinion.
The first thing I realized was how much "out of the box" type thinking that I needed to do while playing. Typically when you play a platformer, you're entirely reliant on the camera showing you the places where you can go, but when the game can use the 3D effect, it can trick you into thinking you're at the "front" (for lack of a better word) of the screen, when you can still move closer to the nearest part of the screen.
One thing that didn't surprise me though was the fact that extra lives are quite easy to obtain. After a few playthroughs of the first few levels, so that I could obtain all of the "big coins," I found that I had over 30 free guys.
I know that the greater challenges will come later, but the game has been incredibly good to this point.
- Also last night, I started to mess around with EA Sports Active 2. I've been feeling like a total slug of late (outside of hockey,) so it was time to start trying out a new cardio type exercise program for home.
The nice thing about this one is that it uses 3 different sensors so it can detect both of your arms and one of your legs while you're doing your workouts. Along with that, one of the sensors functions as a heart rate sensor, so you get a good idea of how much you're pushing yourself during your routine.
As far as a console based exercise routine goes, I felt like it did a good job of varying the types of exercises and working on various different muscle groups. The mountain bike segments are especially awful as you alternate from doing squats, to jumps, to running, and then back to doing squats and jumps again for about 2 minutes. That really wears your ass out after a time.
The greater challenge for me will be sticking with the software and really dedicating myself to exercising... when I could be playing games.
- So, Houston is moving to the AL in 2013. Any thoughts or concerns about that?
- Have a good rest of the day.
Thursday notes
- Thanks to Dan for keeping the site flush with content while I was busy this week. I've had tons of stuff going on with work and it kept me from doing much in the way of posting.
Also, we had some server issues last night, so hopefully none of you hit any ugly wordpress error pages. Oh, well. We're back up now.
- I also missed the fantasy draft last week, due to the fact that I couldn't get into the draft site on my tablet. Looks like my team went together pretty well without me though.
I see that there is already a trade waiting for approval, so it's good to see some movement between the teams already.
Should be fun to see how much action we get in a 16 team league.
- Now that the Nintendo Ambassador program is in effect, I grabbed my 10 NES games for my 3DS last night (after the silly amount of effort that is required to do so,) and proceeded to play NES Open golf for an hour. I can't get over how much I still love playing that game after all these years. It's been 20 years since it was released and I still enjoy the gameplay as much as I did back then.
It'll be nice to have a way to be able to take the game (legally) with me anywhere and be able to play it without an emulator.
- Well, it's been a long time (since near the end of July) that the Brewers lost 2 games in a row (since July 4th and 5th since they lost two in a row at home,) so needless to say the fan base here is pretty nervous. As for me, I think a win today will cause all of those worries to go away. Plus, they get to go on the road to Houston for the next three games, so the ship should be able to be righted very quickly either way.
I did see that Pujols was a nice guy yesterday and went to offer a ball to a fan, and when they tried to take it, he pulled it back. Classy move there, guy. Hope that new contract situation really works out for you.
- Deus Ex is still taking up a good portion of my time, but I have run into the most frustrating part of the game...which are the boss fights.
Why would you have a game that would give you the option of playing the entire game without ever having to kill anyone... and then force you to kill the boss characters? It took me the better part of an hour to beat the first boss because of the fact that I had never killed any of the characters up to that point. I hadn't used anything other than my tranquilizer gun and a knock out blow to take out anyone, and was having a great time doing just that.
Then they dump you into a boss battle that forces you to throw exploding barrels and shoot the dumbass over and over again.
Hell, I distinctly recall finding a rocket launcher a few minutes before that and disregarding it because of how I was trying to play the game. That's just a horrible design decision. Why they wouldn't let you beat the guy by hitting him with 10 Tranq darts is beyond me. It would be hard as hell to do just that.... grrr. Way to take an excellent game and really make part of it a painful experience that almost made me quit playing it.
- I'm anxious to see the first college football game of the year tonight as the Badgers take on UNLV at Camp Randall at 7:00 p.m, as I'll be there in person. There is a ton of hype about Russell Wilson, the former NC State QB, so I'm very interested to see if all of the hype about him is true.
I would have loved to have gotten a few pictures of the game with my new camera, but it's just too awkward to take good shots from the stands, especially at a night game, at Camp Randall. I guess I'll have to see if I can get a press pass at some point (yeah, right...)
- Lastly, my daughter lost her 8th tooth the other day and the tooth fairy forgot to come during the night. It took a good 30 seconds to get her to stop crying and then convince her that because she lost the tooth so quickly after the last one that the tooth fairy didn't know that they would have to come back so soon.
Thankfully, the tooth fairy had arrived and left her the normal amount of compensation by the time she got home from child care at the end of the day.
It's amazing to see how much joy she gets from finding a single dollar (a 50 cent piece and two quarters this time) each time she loses a tooth.
What amazes me even more is that she never talks about spending the money. She just wants to save it. Hopefully that will stick with her throughout the years.
Monday notes
- If you didn't guess it, I was on vacation last week, but was trying to post as much as I could from the road. Cell service was terrible, so I was pretty limited with my postings. Basically, I had to hold my phone up to the door and stand on one foot... so I just gave up after a few days. Anywho....
- I have created the Fantasy Football league for the group. If you want to sign up again for this year, just send me an email and we'll get you added. We need 6 0r 7 people at this moment. So, if you're interested drop an email very soon.
The draft will take place on August 27th and 9:15 EST. Last year we podcasted the draft and it was entertaining to me at least... We might do it again.
- Big series starting up tomorrow night as the Brewers and Cardinals match up for 3 games in St. Louis. Milwaukee has a 3 game lead coming into the series and both teams have been playing pretty damn well. (Brewers have won 11 of 12, and St. Louis has won 7 of their last 10.)
A sweep would be awesome and the way that the Crew are hitting, it's highly possible... but 1 or 2 wins would be fine by me.
- I still don't get the point of the EA Sports Season Pass. I've thought about it for almost a week now and I can't see any reason why you'd pay $25 a year to play games 3 days early. Sure the 20% off on DLC will be nice, but something makes me think that we're going to see lots more DLC now that this season pass is available. Wonder why I think that?
- Lastly, as a reminder to you 3DS owners (such as Dan and myself) we only have 3 more days to log into the 3DS shop to make sure that your system gets the 20 free games.
Also, it's been reported that Costco has already dropped the price of the systems to $169.99 in store, so if you want to get the 20 free games and the new price point, do that in the next few days.
Monday morning notes
- In honor of the IT Crowd...
God damn these electric sex pants.
- Moving onto the Brewers...
and let's move back away from them.
What a horrible weekend series from them. I began to wonder if they could try to give up more runs by the time the weekend was up. Two first innings where the starters averaged 45 pitches?!? That's horrible stuff. Thankfully, Wolf had a great outing on Saturday night to salvage something from that series.
Still, they're tied for 1st after a 2-5 road trip. They get to come back home today but have to go up against Tampa Bay for a 3 game set. They do get a day off after that, as they've had to play 17 days in a row (and that's the max that the union allows.) Then they run into the Twins this weekend, who are playing their best baseball of the year. Could be a really rough inter-league season for the Crew.
- In what will be a shock to no one, I picked up Ocarina of Time 3D yesterday morning as a father's day gift for myself.
The first thing that really amazes you about the game is how much effort they put into improving the visuals. It's really quite stunning how great the game looks now. I can remember how muddy some of the characters and backgrounds appeared with the initial version and all of that is gone now. The 3D effect in the game is also quite impressive, as it's the first game that I've played on the 3DS that really makes you feel like you're looking into the world that you're playing in.
The only issue that I have had with the game thus far has to do with the slingshot, and the issue is a minor one. One of the new control options allows you to use the gyro feature of the system to aim by moving the system, rather than using the control stick. The primary issue with that becomes the fact that unless you move your head as well, the 3D goes out of focus. Thankfully, you can use the stick to aim as well, so you can avoid the problem.
Beyond that, the game is just as terrific as I remember from the last time playing it. Also, I've forgotten most of the locations of items and the puzzle solutions, so that should allow me to enjoy it a great deal more. I guess that's the benefit of playing a game that you haven't played in over a decade. Also, it was funny to see Gamestop trying to sell me a $20 strategy guide for a nearly 15 year old game. Why do I need strategy guides again? I believe the internet does just as good of a job, thank you very much.
Probably the most surprising thing to me about the game is how much the music has stuck with me. Even though, as I said, I haven't played the game in a long time, the music still seems quite familiar to me. I guess that's a sign of how great Nintendo's composer is, when the songs stick with you like they do.
- Also, over the weekend I spent a great deal of time with inFamous 2. Probably the best thing that they did with the game was to avoid taking away the things that made the first game so much fun, but still add some new features that give your powers a bit more punch.
Another one of my favorite things about the game has to do with how the citizens of the city react to your actions. In my current play through of the game, I have chosen to help the citizens and be a "good guy" and as a result of that the people of New Marais try to help me out from time to time. It's always a pleasant surprise to see the NPC's trying to punch and kick the bad guys that are trying to take a shot at you, after you have "cleaned up" their neighborhood.
What really struck me about this game was how much better they handled a sequel for a "collectathon" type game such as this one. If you take a look at Crackdown 2, you see a game where a new developer was brought on and they appeared to have no idea how of how to keep the heart of the gameplay intact while adding on new features.
inFamous 2 suffers from none of those problems, and only improves on what they did in the first game. I highly recommend picking up the first game to get your first taste of the universe that Sucker Punch has created, and then buy the second game after you get hooked.
- Lastly, I'll be curious to hear if any of you watched the U.S. Open over the weekend. Usually I like to sit down on Father's Day to watch the final round, but when the event was all but decided going into Sunday, I really had no interest in tuning in.
People can talk about how Tiger Woods makes an event more interesting to the casual fan, but I could care less if he's playing. I just want to see an interesting competition at the end of an event, and sadly, this one just didn't have it.
Friday notes
- Since the Brewers have only played the Red Sox a few times in the last 20 years, this is a fun series to watch for a weekend. I just wish that they were actually going to come to Milwaukee at some point. Maybe in 6 years.
- No podcast tonight as I'm going on a date with the Mrs. We don't get many chances to do this sort of thing, so drinks, dinner, and a show are in order.
- As for gaming, I was really hoping to get some time on inFamous 2 last night, but considering the fact that I haven't slept for more than a few hours in the last month I opted for sleep instead.
The great thing was that it was the first night in 4 weeks where I was actually able to sleep in my own bed. Other than the sling, that's been the worst part of the whole rehab, never being able to be comfortable in your own bed.
I'm finally starting to feel like things are getting really better and that gives me a ton more energy to stick with everything they throw at me.
- Only other gaming thing of note is that Zelda comes out for the 3DS on Sunday. Can't wait to dig into that one again.
- Have a great weekend all.
Thursday notes
I just looked back and thought that it was Tuesday yesterday. Oh, yeah. I'm on my game lately.
- The Brewer game last night was one of the greatest mixes of emotions that I can recall in recent memory.
Started off with being astounded at the fact that Randy Wolf could pitch a game that well. Then, Prince hit a 2 run bomb and the Brewers went into the 8th inning with a 1-run lead. Shortly after that I had a total rage quit moment after Loe proceeded to blow the lead and give up 5 runs to the Mets. In the bottom of the 8th, Braun hits a double to plate two, cutting the New York lead in half, and Prince comes up afterward and crushed one into the Brewers bullpen to tie it up. Then, in the bottom of the 9th, Nyjer Morgan hits a walk-off double to win the game.
One of the more entertaining parts of the evening came afterward when Morgan did his post game interviews. Between these two interviews and other things he has done this season, the man is becoming the stuff of legend around here.
- It's clear that we have a series between the Bruins and Canucks now. Vancouver looks like a completely different team up in Boston, so they'll need to get things going again in a hurry. An early goal could do wonders to get them going tomorrow night.
Also, I have no idea why they left Luongo out there as long as they did in game 3. Nights like that linger in your head for a while.
- I finished up all of my time in the rehab chair last night. Thank goodness I'm done with that. Now it's just all of the stretching and such every day until I can get to the 6 week point when the resistance bands start. Unless I can talk my therapist to let me start on those earlier.
- As Dan said, the DSi to 3DS transfer process is a pretty painless one. It did take about 20 or 30 minutes to copy over all of my 8 games from the old system to the new one, but it worked and now I can give my DSi to the Mrs.
- Lastly, I got my copy of inFamous 2 from Gamefly yesterday and promptly put it on the shelf next to the TV. There just aren't enough hours in the day to dive into many games right now.
Tuesday notes
- Well, Nintendo sure does make a lot of people say... "Huh?" after their conferences.
I have no idea how good the Wii U controller will be because I haven't really seen how well it can be used for actual games.
I saw a tweet from Patrick Hruby yesterday wondering how good the controller could be for sports games. Honestly, the only thing I could think of was to be able to use the Wii U controller as a 'psuedo-GPS/binoculars' for a golf game where you could point it at the screen and get a view of the green to line up your next shot. Maybe in a football game it could function as your coaching interface, like we had on the VMU back with NFL2K. It's possible that you could handle defensive shifts for your fielders in a baseball game via the touch screen as well. You could use it for all sorts of pitching statistics in a baseball game (Inside Edge type data) as well. Beyond those type of applications though, it seems like it would have very limited options in sports games.
Having said all that, some of the demos did seem interesting. Since we have a year until the release though, I think we'll have more than enough time to hear about how developers are going to push the device and see if it's actually worth our time and money.
- Want to hear the most disturbing thing about E3? NCAA Football 12 isn't being shown at the EA booth. When the game has 1 month before release and almost certainly has to be hitting gold status in the next few days, and you're not showing it to the general public... you're going to have some pretty spooked fans.
I'd love to hear an explanation for this one.
- My daughter's graduation ceremony went off without a hitch, but the thing that was the most disturbing to me was seeing the sign that said 'Class of 2023.' Man, if there is something that makes you feel old.. it's seeing things like that.
- As Dan said, the ability to see videos of the upcoming 3DS games on your system is quite nice. Hopefully they'll push new videos at somewhat regular intervals.
Along with those I tried out Excitebike 3D and I'll give you the IGN review. If you like free games and liked the original Excitebike, I'd grab Excitebike 3D. For some reason, I thought they were adding something other than 3D to the gameplay... but it's just the old Excitebike. Still, it's free, so if you have a 3DS, be sure to grab it.
- Glad to see Capuano pitch well last night for the Mets, but it's too bad that the Brewers pen had to blow the game after Prince hit his 15th in the 6th inning to take the lead.
As I said in the comments section, the Brewers still have the 3rd best record in the NL, so they just need to keep pitching as they have and the hitting should be good enough to get them their fair share of wins.
Also, I didn't wear a Brewers t-shirt last night. So, the loss should be entirely blamed on me.
- Since I was in my rehab chair after the Brewer game, I had a chance to watch the 4th quarter of the NBA finals again.
I know that Lebron is a terrific talent, but I can't recall seeing a situation where a guy like that didn't want the ball in his hands to take a shot when it really mattered in a game. He passed up so many shots in the 4th quarter that it was almost laughable. Dirk looked like death and still managed to take the ball into his hands to control his teams fate but Lebron just faded into the background every time that the Heat needed a big shot, while Dwayne Wade continued to look like the stud for Miami. That was astounding to me.
Even with the win tonight, it seems like the Heat have a pretty advantage in the series. Having the last two games at home, even if you're trailing, is a big deal. I'm still pulling for the Mavs, but things look good for Miami.
- Lastly, Craig sent me a video link of a hit that Tim Thomas put on Henrik Sedin in the last game.
Being a goalie, I really disliked what he did. My main reason for feeling that way is the fact that, as a goalie, you can't be hit by other players without them taking a penalty. To be fair then, you shouldn't be able to hit other players either.
There is something to be said for playing the puck and defending your space, but he was doing neither of those. The player no longer had the puck and he just hit him to hit him. He wasn't playing as a goalie anymore, he was just a hockey player trying to hit a guy coming near the goal.
What he did wasn't a penalty, but it certainly wasn't something that I, as a (incredibly low level) goalie, would every think of doing to another player.
Hopefully Game 4 tonight will be a clean affair, but I really doubt that based on what we've seen in the first 3 games.
Tuesday E3 notes
- Well, Sony's press conference was certainly more interesting than the Microsoft one.
Getting the PS Vita for $249 is a pretty big surprise in my book. I was expecting $299 or $349 based on the hardware alone. Having AT&T as the data provider though is painful. I can't imagine many people heard that and thought that they would spend the extra $50 so that they would have to use AT&T's severely overloaded 3G network. Thankfully you don't make calls with the device. heh.
As for the games that were shown, NBA2K12's segment of the conference was a big UGH. Using the PS Move to "simplify" the gameplay really doesn't make much sense at all to me. If you're a sports guy that wants to play a basketball game, you're not looking for something that takes away almost all of the controls. That might just be me though.
Other than that, we got more HD remakes (one of which we knew was coming - ICO and SoTC,) and a few new franchises for the Move and Vita. (Ruin looks very interesting to me as it looks to follow the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance/Torchlight style of gameplay but integrated with online PvP of a sort.)
I am very curious about that 24" TV though. Having the ability for two people to play 3D games without split screen is pretty damn cool. Plus the $499 price point with a game and glasses is pretty slick as well. I'm going to have a pretty damn hard time avoiding picking one of those up.
Lastly, I like the concept of cloud saves and being able to go back and forth between Vita games and their PS3 counterparts. I've wanted that feature ever since portable gaming systems added WiFi. As long as they don't expect me to pay full price for both games, I'll be happy with that feature.
From other conferences, Battlefield 3 looked pretty damn amazing. Watching the tank battle segment video was pretty damn cool. What was also nice was seeing a demo running at E3 on a PC. I know I'm going to be stuck playing that game on the PS3 because all of my friends have that system and don't have PC gaming rigs that are good enough to handle it.
Anything else that looks interesting to the rest of you?
- I grabbed the 3DS update that went online last night and promptly downloaded Excitebike 3D... and didn't play it.
What can I say, I was sitting in my rehab chair this morning and would have found it pretty awkward to play a game with only one hand. I'll take a look at it later tonight and give some thoughts tomorrow.
- My daughter's last day of Kindergarten is tomorrow and so they're having a graduation ceremony tonight. She's excited about it, so I don't want to tell her how silly it is to have a graduation for each grade that you finish, but that's how I feel about these sorts of things. Oh, well. She gets to wear a dress tonight, so she's excited about it. I'll let her have her moment. heh.
- The Brewers got the 4 game sweep of the Marlins last night and have moved to 8 over .500 for the first time since June of '09. I have to admit that they have played some great ball over the past few weeks... even with the blow ups against the Reds. Their top three pitchers are 8-2, 6-2, and 5-1 as of right now. That's the kind of stuff you like to see for your team.
- And now Dan and Craig are very happy again since the Bruins roughed up the Canucks last night. From what I saw of the game, Boston just wanted that game right from the drop of the puck. Tons and tons of great hustle plays throughout.
Now we have a series...
- Lastly, inFamous 2 comes out today. Glad to see that the game will take your previous save state and bring some of that characters attributes into the new game. With as many sequel games as we get today, that should happen a great deal more often. Sadly, I'm just renting a copy of the game and won't be able to mess with it until Thursday at the earliest. I'll post some of my thoughts about it over the weekend though.
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