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.
Thursday notes
- Yesterday was my first day of physical therapy, but mostly it was just instructions on what I need to keep working on. My doctor doesn't believe that you should actively use your shoulder for the first six weeks after surgery.
What that means is that I'm stuck in my sling for another 3 weeks and 6 days, and don't think for a second that I'm not counting down the days until I can stop wearing this damn thing.
All of the exercises that I have to do are "passive" ones, meaning that I have to use my other arm, or have another person help me, to move my surgically repaired arm. It's awkward and weird, but I can see how it can help prevent tearing the sutures, because the last thing that I want to do is have any sort of setback that might push me into more surgery.
I'm just going to rehab the hell out of it and get back to playing hockey, golf, and doing triathlons as quickly as I possibly can.
The one thing that I haven't mentioned about the rehab is the chair that I have to use...
Here is the bastard that I have to sit in for 3 hours a day.
All the chair does is lift my arm (and then move it back down) at a very slow speed, up to 90 degrees... for 3 hours. Thankfully, I only have 6 more days of that left. Seeing the fact that I have sat in it for 43.5 hours to this point is incredible depressing, but from what my therapist said, it is doing it's job in helping to increase my flexibility and helping my rehab. If it hadn't, I would have been pretty upset...
- I hope you didn't miss it, but if you did... the first game of the Stanley Cup finals was amazing.
The game was filled with terrific play from both teams and as Dan mentioned... a biting of a gloved finger... which has to be one of the stranger events that I've ever seen in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Still, glad to see Vancouver jump out to a 1-0 lead. Hopefully they can grab Game 2 as well before heading back to Boston. As much as I want Vancouver to win, I want to see a long series. Nothing does the sport better than giving more people a chance to watch as many games as is possible.
- The Reds just have the Brewers number right now. The Crew jumped out to a 3-0, but then proceeded to give up 2 2-run homeruns in the last two innings to lose the game 4-3.
They're 2-7 versus the Reds this year... that just sucks. Oh, well. It'll be a month before they have to face them again. Hopefully they'll be able to grab some wins against them in Miller Park.
- The details about the big firmware update for the 3DS and the launch of their store. For some reason some sites are talking about the lack of flash support in the web browser. Yeah, that's something I really needed on a handheld game console.
What's better is that Excitebike 3D will be free for the first month and that we'll finally be able to transfer our DSi purchases over. I guess I should use up the last of my points on there...
- Lastly, the Playstation Store is back online with a metric crapton of content. No info on the Welcome Back stuff yet, but it's nice to see that I can finally access some of the DLC that I've been holding on to.
Tuesday notes
I was all set to have another snarky post about the Brewers put in place, but then I got called by my wife telling me she was in the ER.
Thankfully it doesn't seem to be anything bad and she was diagnosed with a migrane, something she has suffered from for years... but this one was really different.
Man, my wife has had a terrible run of health issues in the past year. From the kidney infection, to terrible colds and flus, to this. If it keeps up, the doctors will somehow diagnose with being allergic to me.
- As for me, I had my pre-op physical today.
Tomorrow is two weeks until my surgery date, and at this point, I just want the whole thing done and over with. By the time the surgery is done, it will have been almost 4 months. What sucks is that if I could have had it done right away, I'd be rehabbed already. Grrr. That's tough to think about.
- As for gaming, I'm still chugging through Ghost Recon on the 3DS and Final Fantasy XIII on the PS3. No big changes there.
- I saw this story the other day and thought it would be entertaining for those of you out there with All Pro Football 2K8 for the Xbox.
All Pro Football 2K8 editor released.
The game is limited to 24 teams, so you can't put full NFL league together, but creative people could have some fun with it.
Friday Thoughts
So, I heard there was a wedding today...
Apparently there was a draft last night. Craig kept messaging me about it. Until we know there will be football, I really don't care..although I did think the Baltimore - Chicago "oh sorry, I forgot I had to call in that trade" was kinda funny.
In gaming news, I am now carrying my 3DS with me for maximum pedometer coinage. I have yet to get anything street pass related however.
I continue to play and enjoy Tiger Woods online and I have created a Sports Gamer Blog group if anyone is interested. Initial play is free, but members get perks like all courses, etc.
Wednesday notes
- Trying to work again today, which is fun with a headache, earache and general crapulent feeling going through me.
Oh, well... we soldier on.
- While I spent the good majority of the last two days trying to sleep, it did give me a chance to try and catch up with the very entertaining tweets from Tony Plush.
If you don't know about it, and I don't know why you would, Tony Plush is the "gentleman alter-ego" of Nyjer Morgan, one of the outfielders for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Take a look at his Twitter link if you'd like to get a few chuckles on a Wednesday.
- Speaking of another Brewer, Yovani Gallardo was the first pitcher in the last 20 years to score the only run as well as pitch a 9-inning complete game shutout. Would you like to know all of the other pitchers who scored the only run in a 1-0 win? I'm guessing you would.
- As far as gaming... I didn't do too much over the last few days as looking at a screen for a prolonged period of time would start to cause more headaches.
I did spend a bit of time playing Top Spin 4 and am still enjoying it a good bit. I think I'll have to tweak my difficulty settings a bit more though as almost no one is hitting a serve over 100 MPH against my player, and my guy is now up to 127, which is making it a bit easier for me to beat the opponents out there.
The other game I did play, which was probably a bad idea with headaches was Ghost Recon for the 3DS. Strangely, it didn't seem to make my head hurt more... and since the game is so damn good, I just couldn't pass up playing it for an hour or so.
- In one last gaming related note... Steam has put forth the details regarding Steam connectivity with the Playstation 3 version of Portal 2.
Sadly, the Steamcloud saves will not allow you the ability to bounce back and forth between the PC and PS3 version of the game. It's nice to know that my PS3 friends that pick up the game will be able to play co-op with me no matter which version I'm running though.
Wednesday morning notes
- I'm not sure I understand Dan's rage at Lego Star Wars for the 3DS. He's complaining that someone that made software for a system did a bad job with loading times... and he blames the maker of the software? Other games have no issues with loading times, so I'd bet that they did a very sloppy job with their development.
As far as the system transfer is concerned, sure I would like to see that feature in place... but it's not something that's really holding me back. I haven't sold a console... um... ever... so I've never worried about transferring content from one to another.
- Quite an effort from Gallardo last night for the Brewers. Nothing like a Complete game, 2-hitter to bust up a losing streak.
One thing that I hate about the first few weeks of the year is that the Bucks games somehow take priority over the Brewers games. I just don't get that. So, I didn't get to see any of the game last night. That was annoying.
Oh, well. Hopefully whoever they put on the mound tonight will get a good start against the Braves. It would be nice to see them put up more than 1 run in a game as well....
Monday notes
- I didn't actually see it until now... but we have a tie in the bracket contest. Currently two people are tied with a score of 80. We'll have to see what happens tonight. If UConn doesn't win... I'm not sure how the rules will decide the winner. Probably most correct picks... we'll see later tonight.
- Well, I can think of a few better ways for the Brewers to have started their season.
Then I went and looked at who has won the central based on their record in their first 3 games. (I love baseball-reference.com)
Only 2 teams, since the Central was formed, have started the season 3-0 and won the division... the exact same number of teams that have started 0-3 and won the division.
Strangely 9 out of the 16 division winners have started the season 1-2 (which bodes well for Pittsburgh and Chicago.)
Obviously this means nothing. The Brewers just need to get their pitching healthy.. or in the case of their bullpen... functional. Anyway, the first game of the season in Milwaukee is today and while I won't be attending... I'll be there in spirit or something.
- Yesterday I spent a few hours with Tiger Woods 12 and finished up Q school.
What's funny is that even though I have the PS3 version, I haven't messed with the Move controls for it because of the fact that I had a lot of issues with that during the demo. Hopefully I'll have time to give that part a look later tonight.
One of the strange things that I noticed while playing it was the fact that there was a woman on the leaderboard for Q school. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I can't recall the last time I heard of a woman trying to qualify for the PGA tour full time. Just an oddity.
- The Madden 12 cover contest is now down to the final 8. I'm sure you're all giddy with excitement.
- What I spent the majority of the (gaming part of my) weekend with was Pro Evolution Soccer for the 3DS. If you read through my Q&A with Konami last week, you can get a feel for what sort of changes needed to be made to the game engine to provide a decent 3D effect.
The Player camera that Naoya mentioned in the interview does a great job of creating depth on the field, but it can be a bit disorienting in the beginning. The camera will spin to the back of the player that you are controlling and if you run out of control down the pitch, it will cause it to shift from one player to another due to the fact that it tries to give you the best player based on who is in the best spot on the field to take on the other player on offense. Once you settle in with the game though, and play under control, it is a great camera angle that shows off the amount of depth that they have provided in the engine.
I played a few games with Bayern Munich over the weekend and had a great time learning the game.
So far, I really like what I see in it.
Friday notes
- Thankfully there are 161 games to make up for that first loss.
Man, you start off the game with back-to-back homers and then have a pretty solid outing from Yo, only to get it gacked up at the end. Such is life. Thankfully they have today off and can come back fresh on Saturday.
- Haven't seen any really great April Fools stuff for gaming related items... or at least sports related stuff. It would be nice if EA did a NFLPA football 2012 or something like that as a labor process joke, but I don't think the NFL would really care for that.
- After a week with my 3DS, I'm still having a lot of fun with it. I haven't run into an issue with the battery running out on me yet either as I typically only play games in 1 to 2 hour stints at this point. I am a bit curious about picking up the Nyko Power Pak for it though as it is reported to double the battery life and then I wouldn't ever have to worry about it. Sadly, it doesn't work with the Nintendo dock though... hmph.
The other thing that I've heard people having to mess with was the level of 3D on the system. For me, I've had it on full depth from the moment that I got it and haven't had any real issues. Maybe certain games are just better or worse for it.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (3DS) Q&A with Naoya Hatsumi
Recently I submitted some questions to Naoya Hatsumi, producer for Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 for the Nintendo 3DS. Here are the questions and the answers that he provided.
SportsGamerBlog: Some of the other 3DS software that is coming out for the launch is limiting some of their use of the hardware (not taking advantage of the StreetPass, gyroscope, or networking features.) Are you leveraging all of the new technologies for the new Pro Evolution release?
Naoya Hatsumi: Our priority was to launch world-wide so we had to focus on some areas and features. Apart from three dimensional visual - which is a MUST for this format - we implemented local wireless so that users can enjoy playing matches against each other whenever friends get together. This is one of the great advantages of portable game hardware. StreetPass was also important for us to offer users who might not familiar with Pro Evolution Soccer, or not very good at playing action games. The feature allows users to play Pro Evolution Soccer matches in a different way without ‘rapid firing’ buttons. Ranking also changes accordingly to your performance in the StreetPass.
SGB: What game engine did you base this version of Pro Evolution off of? Did it present any challenges or is the handheld more powerful than you initially expected?
NH: Spec-wise, PS2/PSP served as a base but we needed something additional since 3DS offers three-dimensional vision without glasses. The hardware also has 2 screens with one of them being a touch panel. New features including StreetPass were also available. So it was not just a simple building out of PS2/PSP engine. It was actually an exciting development process of creating new ideas to offer new ways of playing the game.
SGB: What challenges did you run into when you were developing your first 3D game for the 3DS?
NH: Creating a soccer game in 3D on a new platform - everything was challenge and it was a long way of finding the right answers sometimes by trial and error. We had difficult times, encountered so many problems on the way but we also had times to enjoy developing a new game with a fresh mindset. It was valuable experience after all was completed.
SGB: How many camera angles are presented for the game? How much fine tuning needed to be done to allow for each of them to be effective?
NH: You can choose your favorite camera angle from five camera angles in this game. The “Player Camera” has been newly introduced to highlight the visual depth added to the game. With “player camera”, users can immerse themselves in the game from entering onto the pitch to reliving the replays since all actions on the pitch such as player collision and sending a long ball to open space develop around you. And you would feel you are being a part of the game as if playing soccer in the real world. The fine tuning of the camera angles took up until the very late stages of development.
SGB: Has the game been designed more for quicker gameplay or does it have some of the full featured season modes included?
NH: The game is designed to accommodate both demands. Exhibition matches and local wireless play are for quick play and UEFA Champions League mode and Master League are season modes.
SGB: Is the multiplayer limited to only 1 on 1 via local wireless or is there any sort of online play included?
NH: 1 on 1 via local wireless only this time.
SGB: As far as commentary is concerned for the game was the cartridge a limiting factor? How much needed to be scaled back from the console releases?
NH: Commentary was scaled back just slightly but it is still good enough to play exciting soccer games.
We would like to thank Naoya Hatsumi for taking the time to answer all of our questions regarding the game.
Tuesday notes
- My bad on not getting the newest Riding the Pines up. I got so involved in my Madden review that I didn't get a chance to edit or upload it last night. I should have it done tonight.
- In other 3DS news, I did get one of the "Black screens of death" that other sites have mentioned. It happened during a loading segment of Madden, but I reset the system and it worked fine afterward. Perhaps it has something to do with loading information off of the SD card. Got me.
- My copy of Nascar: The Video Game should be arriving later today. I'm still not sure what to do with my Logitech wheel though. I've been looking at making a DIY wheel stand to use with it... but I'm not the most handy in the building area. I know there are plenty of good stands out on the market, but I'd like to have something where it has the shifter away from the wheel so it's more like driving an actual car. Oh, well... I can dream.
- Craig and I were just having a discussion about the Amazon Cloud Drive and it appears to be pretty cool. For free you get 5GB of storage and if you buy any MP3 album, you get an additional 15GB for the price of that album. If you buy this song for .69 cents it upgrades you to the 20GB level. Pretty dang sweet and cheap online storage.
The sad thing is owning a song from Glee... but such is life. heh.
Madden NFL Football (3DS) review
There is no doubt about the fact that the Nintendo 3DS is an impressive piece of hardware, but it really needs good software to make it worth your while. Based on my time with the title, I can safely say that Madden NFL Football is not one of the games that you should be looking to pick up.
There are myriad reasons as to why this game is one that I would say that you should pass on, but the word that keeps popping into my head is uninspired. The game just feels like it was rushed to make the U.S. launch and it doesn't feel like they made any real effort to make the game special in any way.
One of the first things that you would look for in a sports game (that lacks any multiplayer) is a solid season or franchise mode. A mode like that would go a long way to making a $40 portable title worth your while. Well, the game does have that. As an option, it allows for you to play either a season of arcade 5-on-5 style football, or a regular NFL 11-on-11 matchup. Outside of that though, those are the only real options you'll have with the mode.
Which leads me to the most frustrating thing that I've seen (for the season mode,) and that is the total lack of stat tracking. What makes it's absence so annoying, is the fact that the stats are kept for every game that you play. At the end of each game, it offers you a chance to look at all of the stats for the game that you just completed. They're all there, team stats, individual stats... all of them. That begs the question, "why aren't they kept for the entire season?" For the life of me, I have no idea. The only stats that the game does record are your all time records, but here's the kicker... it only keeps those stats from Play Now games not from season games. It's just so frustrating to see some things kept and others not... it just doesn't make sense to me.
Let's say you can look past all that and just enjoy the season mode as you try and win the Superbowl. Well, if you do manage to win the big game, do you know what you get? A picture of the Superbowl trophy saying, "You won the Superbowl." No celebration, no announcement of your victory by the announcers. Just the end of the game, the game stats, and then the picture. Ugh.
As much as I'd like to talk about something outside of the season mode, that's really all there is. There only other two options are to play a single game option that lets you pick between 11-on-11 or 5-on-5, or practice the game. To call the game feature light, would be a very accurate statement.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, the 3D effect is not implemented as well here as it is in some of the other launch titles and there are even some issues that really caused me some bad eye strain. For example, if there is a penalty or a timeout is called a pop up of the referee will show up on the scree. The picture of the ref appears to be about 1/4 of an inch further up than the field of play, but at a different depth than the score overlay at the top. What that causes is a scenario where your eyes are trying to focus on 3 different things all at the same time because of their pronounced depth. Out of all of the games that I've played at launch, this is the one that bothered my eyes the most. I'm typing this about 15 minutes after being done playing and my eyes still feel a bit buggy. Maybe I would adjust to it over time, but it's a pretty big problem for me at the moment.
The other issue that I ran into with the gameplay has to do with how the rules are implemented. Probably one of the most pronounced change for the 2010-11 season was the playoff overtime changes. In the NFL Championship between the Packers and Vikings, the Vikings kicked a game tying field goal as time expired to tie the game at 17. Green Bay won the toss and elected to receive. Through a good bit of luck, I stiff armed one defender and returned the kickoff for a touchdown. Then the game ended. No extra point, no nothing.
I know that they started with the Wii version of the game when they started the development of it, but it seems like they might have used the rule set from Madden 10 instead of Madden 11 and in doing so they did not implement one of the newest rules for the league. It isn't a huge deal, but it's just one of many "ugh" moments from the game.
At this point you have to be wondering if there is anything good that I have to say about the game. Probably the best feature that is implemented is the "Call your shot" feature that allows you to change the route that any receiver takes on a given play. With this mode, you can change the pass route that every receiver by using the stylus and drawing a different route than the one given out by the play that is called. It's a nice feature, but the question that it brings up is... why wouldn't you give the ability to create your own play for your playbook, rather than just for a single play in a game?
There haven't been many games that I've played over the past few years that I wouldn't say that people should at least rent to try out, but I couldn't recommend this one to any serious sports gaming fan. Perhaps the next version of the game (one that might have some full feature functionality) would be worth your time, but this game is not.
Nintendo 3DS impressions
Having had a chance to spend a few hours with my 3DS, I thought I would share some of my impressions with you all.
- First off, I was actually surprised when I compared the system to my DSi as to the size of it. Due to the fact that it has that larger top screen, I just assumed that it would be a slightly larger system, but it's only a bit thicker. Obviously not a big deal, but I am happy that I can keep my previous cases and such for storing the system.
- The Ok, Go video that is downloaded with your first system update is pretty damn cool to watch.
If Netflix starts streaming 3D content, I will use the hell out of that feature. Even though you get that looking into a box feel when seeing the 3D on the system, there were moments in the video where it felt like things were coming out of the screen, which is pretty damn cool.
What is annoying is that they won't let you back up the video to your SD card. I'd love to be able to save it off and then show it to people later, but it will be blown away with the next system update... that's a bummer.
- Here are my thoughts for the built in games for the system...
* Face Raiders - It's surprising how much fun this game is. All you need to do is take a few pictures of people (even pictures of pictures will work) and you're able to blast away at them. The use of the gyroscope makes this game so much more fun, as you have to move the system around to keep on blasting the faces as they come towards you. Only in the beginning did I lose my "3D focus," and got used to where my head needed to be so that it didn't happen again.
I can see having a whole library of pictures for the game built up very soon. The funny thing was that my wife wouldn't let me take her picture for it last night, so I'll have to use one of our family pictures and see how she feels about it then. heh.
The mode is good fun and worth the time to play with.
* AR Games - Again, it's surprising, but the augmented reality games that are included in the system are actually pretty fun.
The only issue that I ran into is that since they are based off of the gyroscope, I needed to actually find a decent surface that I could set the card on and still be able to move around the card to get the "shots" that I needed.
There were some issues with "losing" the card from the screen, but the effect of creating something akin to bad reception on the screen when that happens is a nice touch.
Another nice component, and I enjoyed playing around with it a good bit.
- The rest:
* I took a few pictures with the 3D camera and think it might be something to show off to friends, but it won't be used all that much.
* The new Mii creator is nice, as it lets you use the camera to take a picture of yourself to convert into your Mii. It's nice that it simplifies the creation of it that way and it does so very quickly.
* I didn't have a chance to mess around with the Street Plaza or any of the features like that, but I also don't know how much I'll really use them as I don't think there will be a ton of instances where I'll be in a scenario where I will be in range of people with a 3DS in sleep mode. I guess I can carry it in my pocket when I run to Target with the family or something, but that's about the only time it would really come into play.
- Obviously the battery issues with the system have been well documented and I ran into a few instances yesterday where the system threw a battery warning my way, but that might have been due to the fact that I never gave it a full charge after taking it out of the box. I'll know more about battery life this week as I play with it more.
For me though, I don't think it will be much of a problem. I only use my DSi for about an hour or two in a go, so 4 or so hours of battery life will not be the end of the world to me.
I'm sure an upgraded battery will come along from a 3rd party at some point and that will help out some of the issues.
- Overall, I'm very impressed with the hardware. The use and effectiveness of 3D varies wildly depending on the software, but the hardware itself is very impressive and I don't have any buyers remorse at this point.
I'll have more on the games that I tried out later.
Thursday notes
- I'm now sitting on two 3DS games... but won't have the system until the Sunday.
I ended up picking up Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars due to the fact that the primary developer for the game is the guy who made the original XCom, which was one of my all time favorite strategy titles. And I had a $25 gift card for Gamestop burning a hole in my pocket.
Also, I got my copy of Madden yesterday, so I'll post some impressions of that next week.
- Along with Madden, I got a copy of Tiger Woods 12, for the PS3, yesterday as well. There is an embargo on it until the 29th, so I'll be posting my thoughts on it next week as well.
- Speaking of impressions, I was planning on getting my Top Spin 4 thoughts up yesterday, but had a time management issue last night and didn't get them all put together.
They'll be up later today.
- The Blog Baseball Fantasy league is all set. Thanks to all that joined. The draft is set for Saturday night, so get those lists all set up.
Wednesday notes
- MLB has announced their top 10 in jersey sales. According to CNBC's Darren Rovell, this is the first time that they have done so.
It's always interesting to see who fans believe is worth spending their dollars on.
I've been talking with a friend about what Packers jersey we would buy and it's always trickier with the NFL because you have a hard time of knowing who would stick around for the longest time.
My vote usually goes for a player that played for the team a while back, so I always go back to John Jefferson. He only had a 3 year run with the team, but he was an amazing receiver. If I could track down a 1980's version of the jersey with his name and number on it, I'd be a happy man.
- Hope you're enjoying the string of interviews. There will be one more coming today as well. Based on the number of downloads the Nascar interview was one of the most popular podcasts that we've ever had. It's always good to see that people like the interviews, or want to listen to them at least.
- I'll be posting my impressions of the career mode of Top Spin 4 for the Xbox 360 later today. I was hoping to have the PS3 version, but I'm actually happier that I have the 360 version and I'll explain why later.
- My daughter brought home a page from the Nickelodeon magazine detailing which DS game she wants. Man... she's persistent.
- Early reviews of 3DS games are coming out and it sounds like some of the launch titles are pretty lackluster.
Ridge Racer sounds like it could be decent, but the two Nintendo titles are supposed to be pretty short.
I'm hopeful that I'll enjoy Madden and Pro Evolution. I haven't played many sports games on handheld systems of late and am interested to see how well 3D is implemented on them.
Tuesday morning notes
- Down to 1 team available for the Fantasy baseball league. C'mon... you know you want to do it. Think of the children. Someone has to think of the children...
- Speaking of the children, I watched 'How to train your dragon' with the girls the other day and while it was aimed at a slightly more mature audience than them, we all enjoyed it. There were a few tense moments in the film but the girls got real close to Dad for those and things were all better.
That was one of the first films that I saw on TV recently that I wish that I would have seen in 3D though. There were quite a few flying segments that really could have been impressive to watch on the big screen in 3D.
- Transitioning to 3D talk...
I finally had a chance to try out the 3DS at Best Buy yesterday and was very impressed with the effect.
The sad part was that I was only able to play it for a 1 minute as my daughters thought that would be the best time to try and grab every single DS game and accessory out of the gaming area. Be it Dora, or Princess and the Frog, Diego, or Bolt... nothing was safe from their hands.
The process of printing out a pre-order tag was, in itself, another ordeal as the station that they use in the gaming area was staffed by someone who had absolutely no idea how to use it. After a few minutes I figured it out by selecting the item that I wanted... then pressing the button at the absolute top of the screen (that is no where near where you are selecting items.) I only recite this story to make myself look like an idiot and to let all of you know where the button is on the screen if you run into the same issues. (I'm a helper, not a hater.)
- As we were leaving the store, my daughters both decided that they needed to have DS's in the very near future. I informed them that the best way to get gifts is to put them on their birthday and Christmas lists, but that those lists were no guarantee that they would actually obtain said items.
My wife and I both have the original DS models and are debating giving those to the kids. I haven't touched my original gray DS, purchased on launch day, in probably a year or two, and my wife hasn't played hers in at least 6 months either. The way I look at it, giving them the old DS's will allow them to tinker with the old GBA software as well as having a chance to play a few DS games like Nintendogs and things like that.
I've never wanted to rush my kids into gaming (even though they see me doing it all the time,) and I guess it's about time to give them a chance with it.
Of course, they'll never get to take them out of the house... or play them without permission. I'm a tough dad that way... heh.
- In sports notes....
It's funny to see how quickly the Badgers went from being the trendy upset pick to most pundit's selection to make it to the Final Four.
Here are two of the NCAA team records that they may set this season.
* Turnovers per game. Current average is 7.48 (NCAA record is 7.72)
* Team freethrow shooting percentage. Currently 82.3 (NCAA record is 82.2)
What that means is that they're not going to make big mistakes during a game and if the game is close late... there really isn't anyone to foul on the team that is a bad free throw shooter.
It would be awesome to see the team get to it's second Final Four in the last 12 years, but I'm not holding my breath on it.
* The Big Ten decided to form a hockey conference starting with the 2013 season. Initially I was a fan of the concept, but as time has gone on... I like it less and less, mainly just because of the death of some of the rivalries that currently exist in the WCHA.
Plenty of time to try and get that squared away though, I guess.
- Lastly... and because I haven't been able to get to any store to actually pick it up... You Don't Know Jack will be in the Amazon Gold Box today at 9PM CST. Another chance for everyone to get some quality time with Cookie.
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