The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Well the New England Revolution lost their only chance at glory tonight by losing in the SuperLiga. Oh well, didn’t have much hope anyway.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing Dead Rising Case Zero. There is something always fun in mowing down zombies.

Been playing with my Kindle 3 – wow it’s a lot smaller than the 2 and the new case with the integrated booklight is awesome.

Oh yeah and there were new iPods today. Only Apple would say “hey, look at this great new Nano where we took the Camera out of it but it’s better because it’s a touch screen” and people would clap.

Seriously, that press conference was lame. The big thing was a “facebook for itunes” thing? And a massive round of applause for the damn icon for iTunes 10?

Hey, I love my iPod classic and would take it’s 160 GB storage anyday over a $400 64GB touch. I just leave my ipad for apps and video, no music because I have Rhapsody on it.

There was a shirt that I saw that I should have bought. It said “I may be a lefty, but I’m always right.”

So for Craig and all the other nonbelievers, the Consumerist is confirming that you can sign up for Sunday Ticket without proving you can’t get DTV.

You’re welcome.

According to the NY Daily News (just a little bit more reputable than say, a forum post LOL), DirectTV is going to make NFL Sunday Ticket available over broadband to non-DirecTV subscribers for the low, low price of $350, which is about $240 more than MLB.TV costs and about 146 less games of one team. Still not as expensive as actually going to the game and a godsend to those not in the area of their favorite team but ouch….Do I buy a new Xbox, or do I get Sunday Ticket?

Full details here: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2010/07/31/2010-07-31_the_score_calling_it_like_we_see_it_with_sny_producer_gregg_picker.html?page=2

Yes, I am not dead. I was still recovering from the “our game is so realistic, all bugs are accurate” post from EA. It’s stuff like that which is silly. Kickoffs are as bad as Glen showed in his video. This needs to be fixed. The gaming community accepts betas as their sports games at this point, so stop bragging about it and just fix the problem, already.
Let’s hope they do. In the meantime, have you tried Madden HD for the iPad? It looks gorgeous and will amuse passersby like crazy. The game is a little wonky and the touch screen controls are as much fun as…a game with touch screen controls (kinda borrowed that joke from the Hasselhoff roast about Jerry Springer (writing a check to a prostitute is as bad as …writing a check to a prostitute) but it works here.

Oh well. Kicking on a touch screen is pretty good though, I’ll give them that. They didn’t do a half bad job given that I wasn’t expecting much anyway!

..is one of Craig’s favorites: Disney Jonas for Nintendo DS for $9.99.
Unrelated, there’s also a woot off going on.

Last week, my son was invited to a closed New England Revolution practice. It was very cool and we got to meet the players afterward. What was even cooler was that during the 1-0 Revs win on Saturday, Stoli, the player that scored, lifted the ball up and then shot it, which was exactly what they practiced on Friday (although I didn’t seem him at the practice). It was still cool.

In other news, while at Patriot Place (aka another way for the Kraft family to make money and to encourage people to drive way out of their way to Foxboro), I had my first experience with Five Guys. It’s a very limited menu, but holy crap is their bacon cheeseburger good. Just thought you should know.

Also if you’re on Rt 1, make sure to check out wegotsoccer.com (either online or the physical store, right past Gillette)…it was a soccer lover’s dream..jerseys of many EPL and National teams, balls…it was awesome.

Just wanted to say, I second Craig’s comment about “replay 4th down.” Seriously these are bugs we’ve caught on the first or second game, but no one noticed this? WTF?!

Kotaku has the news that 30 were laid off, speculates that it was mainly QC testers. Click here

This game is F’d up. I’m playing Madden moments, got to OT and went to receive the ball. I ran it back to the 35.. and then the chains were called out and it was determined I got a first down. On a kick off. F’ing brilliant.

And if I see three guys on the sidelines holding hands and praying during a stupid midseason game that is not nearly that tense, I’m going to wonder if they are out on a date.

Seriously this is crazy stuff. As bad as the rocking Orioles Pitching Coach ever other pitch in MLB 08 The Show.

At least the Soundtrack is awesome. Straight out of the Patriots PA system prior to the game.

Courtesy @MajorNelson, here are some pretty zany cards. I am not so sure they are all authentic, but I can definitely vouch for Lenn Sakata’s card. In 1981, (I was 10 and in 4th grade), I had just been forced to wear glasses, and I thought to myself, well if Lenn Sakata is playing for the Orioles and wears glasses, then I can still play baseball.

That went really well, as you can see.

Anyhoo, check it out here: http://acidcow.com/pics/12208-the-30-worst-baseball-cards-of-all-time-30-pics.html

First off, Craig never posted here on BSG. Craig did operate a little known site called Operation Sports. After his first hand look at the soon to be horrid Microsoft Baseball for PC, I started emailing him asking about the game. It was funny, him giving the impression that OS was this massive office and industry, using terms like “we think the game has issues” even though by “we” he meant him.
He didn’t like soccer games, and I did, so he said I could review them. And then we went on from there. We recruited great people like Jeff Downey, Steve Noah, and others. We had a lot of fun. By 2000, I was being solicited to run GamePen full time and since that paid just a tad more, I left OS and Craig decided to pack it in…after a while he sold the site to Steve Noah and the rest is history.
It’s great to be on the same site with Craig again, and I hope he can join us for some podcasts; of course he will have to you know play games and stuff.

Wow, it feels like it’s 1998. If only we could find Tony Wyss and he could be with Glen running GA-Sports and Craig and I can bitch slap them. haha.
And for the record I do post now and then, I can’t help it if you haven’t upgraded to an RSS reader, Craig.

- Well, I’ll be heading to the store this afternoon to pick up Madden, like so many others will, but I’m not really all that excited about it.

I already know, as do you based on our interview with Phil Frazier (Madden producer,) that most if not all of the gameplay issues that we found in the demo will be in the full retail game as well.  Kick return issues, clock management issues, and strategy pad issues (although these will be fixed via patch) will all be “in the game.”

Oh, well.. I guess it’s our job to still tell you all what we find.  There may be good things to balance it out, but based on the reviews that I’ve read thus far, I’m being cautious about getting my hopes up.

- I’m going to keep doing a nightly call in segment for my daily podcast show over at Sports, Games, and more so just pop on over there to take a look at the schedule if you want to call in and voice your thoughts.

- My copy of Backbreaker is finally on the way from Gamefly.  Can’t wait to dig into it, as the patch seems to make many people very, very happy.

- Keep on sending in those emails about your interest in our Fantasy league or Madden 11 league on the 360.

I’ll send out invites to both starting at the end of the week.

- Well, I’m going to be retiring from triathlons for the year.

Right after the bike segment, I started on the run and started suffering from some pretty severe abdominal pains.  I’ve heard that this can happen from the transition from biking to running, and it definitely happened to me yesterday.  I was able to get about 1/4 mile before the pain was so bad that I couldn’t run any more.  I tried to jog a few times, but nothing could stop the pain, so I just walked most of the rest of the event.

I guess it goes without saying that I did not improve my time with this race, but I did finish and it gives me things to work on the next time out.

I did much better than I thought I would on my swimming segment and my transition times were pretty good, so I did have some things go right… but it’s time to hang it up for the year and rest for a while.

Hopefully my stomach will settle down at some point though.  Right now it is still hurting more than I would like.  Oh, well.

- In the “Wow!” category, we have this new story from this morning.

I do have to say that I’m surprised that the Brewers decided to lock up Hart for another 3 years.   The one thing that would seem to make the most sense out of that is that teams were not offering anything like what the Brewers would have wanted in a trade for him, so why not lock him up for a few more years.

Glad to see Corey get a good deal though.  One less position player to worry about.

- I’m pacing myself and working through StarCraft II at a very leisurely pace.  Last night I could have completed one of the missions that I was working on, but found that I wouldn’t get one of the achievements and quit it for the night.  I’m being very silly on those things.  It doesn’t get me anything and yet I’m compelled to earn it.  Grr.

- Ugh… I really don’t feel great.   Talk to you all later.

I got a link today that has pictures that professional photographer took of the triathlon that I competed in at the beginning of the month.

I’m on page 24 and page 110.  Just look for the bald guy in the red Nintendo shirt.  (Gotta be true to my geek self.)