Site DNS issues
With the transfer of the new site, there have been some DNS issues.
If you're seeing this page, obviously things are back up and working.
Hopefully the downtime was a short one.
Thanks.
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.
New site layout
Trying out a new site layout.
Colors aren't exactly what I want at this point, but I like the look of it a great deal more than the last layout.
Let us know what you think.
Quick site update
Please test logging in with your account again whenever you have a chance. We had some issues with spam accounts being set up, so I had to go back and clean up quite a few accounts and a few valid ones could have been lost in the shuffle.
So, next time you get a chance, just try to log in to make sure your account is still active. If not, just create a new one at that time.
Thanks.
Interesting development
In a case of what I'm certain is incredibly convenient timing, EA Sports is not granting us interviews or sending us review copies of their fall releases.
My efforts to do an interview with the NHL 12 and FIFA 12 developers have not been responded to, and requests for review copies of the games have been denied.
I say it's convenient timing because of the fact that I have been critical with some of the aspects of the last two games that I was able to get from EA, those being Madden NFL 12 and NCAA Football 12.
I'm not all that surprised by the actions, considering my reaction to the Madden NFL 12 interview, but I would have expected a response from EA to voice their concerns and give a reason for changing the amount of access that they have given to us.
It does not come as a shock to me that such things are going on, as I've been reading for quite some time that companies are becoming more and more selective again about who will receive their works to review and have been cutting off people who don't give the games the types of scores and positive praise that they have been searching for.
The purpose of this site, as I see it, is to allow a few people who have been playing sports games for the better part of their lives, to tell you what they think about them and to let you voice your thoughts along side of us. It's not an outlet to make money, as the site most certainly does not do that. Between the giveaways that we do for the contests, fantasy league prizes, and hosting services, it is certainly not a profitable item for me.
What this site is, for me at least, is a labor of love. I enjoy playing these types of games, and many others, and I like to talk about them and share my experiences with these games with the rest of you. My opinions and thoughts about them will almost certainly not jive with your way of thinking but I want to give the perspective of a person who has had a long track record of playing these type of games and can use that experience to provide some perspective on how I think these games have changed... and how they have not... over the years.
At this point, I have to challenge EA Sports and Peter Moore to not appear to be a company that only seeks positive responses for their new titles and seeks webites that will only give them 9 out of 10 scores for each of their games so that their Metacritic rating for each title goes up.
One of the things that I enjoy most about running this site is having the chance to interview developers and be able to ask them the type of questions that they're not getting from some of the other sites out there. Honestly, I could care less if Tim Tebow has the correct color socks. What I want to know is if linebackers will stop jumping 2 1/2 feet into the air to knock down a slant route pass every time, and my guess is that since you are here.... that's the kind of thing you're looking for as well.
So, where do I go from here? It's a difficult situation. I don't want to buy their titles if they're not going to give me any access to their developers so that we can question them and voice concerns about previous issues, but in order to do the work that I want to do as a site, we need to talk about them.... which seems to cause them to not want to talk to us.
At this point, I would not count on seeing any NHL 12 or FIFA 12 comments from me. Dan and Craig might talk about the games, but as for me.. I'll be avoiding covering them until I hear an explanation from EA as to why things have gone the way that they have.
Hopefully things will change in the future, but until then, look forward to much more Brewers, Packers, and sports related injury coverage. Lucky you, huh?
Tuesday night notes
- Damn, the face technology in L.A. Noire is stunning. It's hard to believe how realistic it looks when the characters are speaking. Quite amazing tech, there.
As for the game itself, I'm just to the first trophy and my first promotion, but there is a great deal of GTA and Mafia feel from the driving and running segments. The interview and interrogation do seem to be pretty much hit or miss at this point, but I'm betting with time, I'll get a better feel for them.
- Well, my surgery is finally up for tomorrow morning. I'll try and make a post after the event and let you all know how much my shoulder hurts... if it's anything like my rotator cuff repair from 9 years ago, it's probably going to hurt a hell of a lot. Oh, well. If it makes my shoulder feel better, it'll all be worth it.
- After reading a few of the excerpts of the new book about the history of ESPN, I really want to read this book. I got a few gift cards for my birthday, so maybe that's what I'll throw the money at.
- As far as the site stuff goes, I fought the theme for a few hours and then just gave up so I could get some sleep.
I'll take another look at it over the next few days. Somedays WordPress can be very friendly... but when it comes to site stuff... it fights me every step of the way.
Have a great Wednesday all.
Minor blog issues
The theme for the blog had been updated a few days ago and the layout was all goofed as a result of it.
I'm working on resolving the issue.
Thanks.
Tuesday notes
- I had to shut down the forums that we created a few months back. It was creating some issues with the user database. If you notice anything going on with your user account used for comments, just let me know.
- Good grief was that an awful basketball game to watch last night... and I watched Wisconsin and Penn State play a 36-33 game this year.
Congrats to Jess Coker who won the bracket challenge though. He picked Crysis 2 for the 360 as his game of choice. It'll be on it's way to him later today. Thanks again to all who played.
- Way too early for panic for the Brewers, but man.. you'd much rather be 2-2 and not have your bullpen blow two late game leads.
- My new goal by the time I have my surgery is to drop 10 pounds in the next six weeks. I've been on a pretty steady increase in weight since late last year and if I can take that 10 off, I'll be much closer to where I want to be at after I'm all healed up from my surgery.
I do a decent job watching what I eat (most of the time) but I really struggle with finding the time to exercise and still be able to have some time for myself.
Just have to really stay motivated and find a goal that matters.
- Lastly, I know people don't like the political talk... but if it's a voting day in your area, get on out and vote.
No talk about anything other than that, just get on out and vote.
Riding the Pines – Episode 54
Hey all.
Here's what we have for this episode.
- Dan, Craig, and Glen discuss old times in the sports writing business and find their old Kali.net keys.
- The guys talk about their favorite games of the year as well and a bit of football talk.
Here's the link to the show.
Enjoy!
Glen’s sports games of the year
Just in the nick of time, but here are my 2010 sports games of the year.
Baseball
I was only able to play two of the contenders this year, as I didn't import PYS 2010... and have been sad about that for quite some time.
So, we have MLB10: The Show and MLB2K10.
There is a part of me when I look at these type of awards where I wonder if I should pick the game that more people will like, or what title I liked most. In the case of baseball games this year, I enjoyed playing MLB2K10 more than MLB10: The Show.
The Show is a great game, no doubt about it, but it just isn't as much fun to play. MLB2K10 was one of the most fun baseball titles that I've played in years and I still enjoy playing it to this day. I tried out The Show again recently and it held my interest for a few hours before going back into my game case. A good game, but I just don't enjoy it as much.
Glen's 2010 baseball game of the year - MLB2K10
Basketball
When you only have one game in the category, it's hard to spend much time talking about it, but 2K did a tremendous job with NBA2K10. The addition of Michael Jordan to the game, the Jordan Challenges, and the terrific gameplay make this an easy title to recommend to anyone who likes basketball games.
Glen's 2010 basketball game of the year - NBA2K10
Soccer
I'm very curious to hear Dan's thoughts in this category, because of the fact that we had 3 soccer titles (Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, and FIFA 11) this year released. What's more surprising is that I had a chance to play quite a bit of all three of them.
Dan and I discussed our feelings about Pro Evolution Soccer versus FIFA a few podcasts ago, but if you missed that, we both felt that PES was a more challenging and technical game, but FIFA was a better game for the casual soccer fan.
Having said that, the game that I enjoyed the most was FIFA World Cup 2010. The ability to replay key moments from the World Cup after they happened via the Story of the Finals mode was an awesome addition. If you're a fan of the Madden challenges, this took that same concept, but allowed you get the replay the best moments of the World Cup and try to change the events after they had happened. Plus... they were free (unlike the Madden challenges.) A great game and a lot of fun to play.
Glen's 2010 soccer game of the year: 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa
Football
Since All Pro Football 2K8, there hasn't been anyone to challenge Madden for best football game of the year. This year, things changed when Backbreaker was released. Sadly, it's just not as good of a football game as Madden is.
Is Madden great? Not really. My feelings on Madden haven't really changed a ton in the past few months. It's still fun to play against people, but there are enough little issues in the game that keep me from wanting to play the game on a consistent basis.
Backbreaker on the other hand is a mixed bag. The gameplay can be a lot of fun, but the running game is almost impossible to use on a regular basis and the gameplay just feels too slow for me to enjoy most times. The giant patch that they put in place for the game repaired a lot of the issues that the game had, but it's still not as much fun to play as Madden.
Glen's 2010 football game of the year - Madden NFL 11
Hockey
The title that Dan seemed to enjoy the most out of the 3 hockey titles this year, NHL Slapshot, I never got to play. I do find it funny that there were more hockey titles made for the Wii (2) than for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
NHL2K11 for the Wii was a very solid title and a great update to what they have created on the Wii last year. The NHL series that EA Sports has created seems to go through waves of greatness... and years where they seem to struggle with where they are going with the title. I think this year is one of the latter.
Again, when I have a hard time deciding between titles, I'll go with the one that I enjoy playing the most.
Glen's 2010 Hockey game of the year - NHL2K11 for the Wii
Racing
This is actually a difficult category to revisit this year due to the fact that there are so many strong candidates.
Here are the titles that I had to choose between for racing game of the year. Blur, Split/Second, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Gran Turismo 5.
Blur was an interesting title that took the Mario Kart approach with real cars. Split/Second added massive course destruction to a high speed racing title. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit gives you the ability to play a game from two different vantage points, high speed racers avoiding the police and police trying to track down those lawbreakers. Gran Turismo 5 is one of the most complete driving simulations ever made, filled with all kinds of different modes of gameplay.
This is actually probably one of the closest categories this year as all four of these titles are well worth your time to play, but only one can be the winner.
Glen's 2010 racing game of the year - Gran Turismo 5
Sports game of the year
As far as my game of the year? It's tough... but I have to go with the game that I keep going back to.
Glen's 2010 sports game of the year - Gran Turismo 5
Have a happy new year everyone. Hopefully next year's sports games will be as good to us as this years have been.
Congratulations to the Carolina Crusaders
Their owner, Chris, is the proud victor of the Sports Gamer Blog Fantasy Football league championship for 2010.
I'll let you know when he's chosen the game he wants for winning the league.
Thanks again to everyone for playing.
I'm thinking of doing a baseball league this year as well, so we'll have a few more chances for prizes yet this year. Let me know if you have any suggestions about places to host it outside of CBS's fantasy site.
MLB2K10 giveaway
Because I'm feeling rather festive and MLB2K10 is on sale again on Steam ($1.99) I figured I would run a little contest to give away copies of the game via Steam.
The only condition is that you will need to have the Steam client installed on your PC. Not a huge thing, in my opinion. Plus, they are having a huge sale right now and there are lots of great deals out there.
Ok. There are 3 questions that have absolutely nothing to do with baseball. The first 3 people to answer all three correctly will win a copy of the game.
1. What was the name of the stadium that the New England Revolution played in in ESPN MLS Extra Time 2002? (Dan loves this question)
2. What site was Craig the founder of?
3. What was my Sports Game of the Year in 2009?
Send me an email with your entry.
Good luck!
Thursday night notes
- Well, it looks like no NHL interviews are forthcoming for the new years title. That's too bad as I was really curious to hear more about the physics based engine for the game and the additions to this years game. I guess I"ll be waiting for the Gamefly rental to give you my impressions of the title this time around.
- Hope you all enjoyed the Patrick Hruby interview from yesterday. Patrick is always great interview and a great sports gamer to talk to.
- I didn't see it until it was too late, but Dell was running Xbox Live subscription cards for $30 earlier today. Keep your eyes open for other deals like it in the coming weeks before the price goes up. I'm covered until February of 2012, but if I could get locked in at the $30 cost for 2 more years, it would be a much better deal than Microsoft's offer of $40.
- With the start of the NCAA Football season tonight, I watched more TV than I had in the last 2 or 3 months. Hell, I didn't even know what channel ESPN was on Dish Network.
Between the South Carolina Game, the Utah/Pittsburgh game, and the USC/Hawaii game... I got a really good start on the season tonight. Plenty more to come in the next few days. Including Wisconsin at UNLV. For those of you that don't remember what happened the last time Wisconsin went to UNLV... here's a link to a recap.
- One last thing for tonight. I had forgotten one last thing on the site that needed to be changed with Craig coming on board. The top of the damn page. Until this morning it said, "Two guys..." Now it is correct. Whew... I felt bad about that for a few minutes when I saw it.
Riding the Pines – Episode 40
We have a very special episode of Riding the Pines available for you this time around, as we did a live recording of our Fantasy Draft.
Joining Dan Clarke and myself tonight were, two of our loyal readers, Richard Lawler and Joe Disano.
Oh, we covered it all tonight. Fantasy football... um... and other things.
You can grab the MP3 here, check it out on iTunes here, and on Feedburner here.
Enjoy the show all!
More forum stuff
We have an RSS feed for the forum page as well.
That way you can be notified via whatever newsreader you use when there are posts in any of the categories there. It's what I'm using to keep track of it and it works pretty well.
Here's the link.
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