The Blog for the Sports Gamer

OOTP 9 has dropped to $29.99 until Sunday the 20th.

They have also released a new patch for the game in the last few days.  You can pick up the game via Steam or via the OOTP website.

- Here’s my breakdown for the Nintendo press conference

• More Wii Sports with the Wii Motion Plus, via Wii Sports Resort.  It’ll sell millions… next year
• Animal Crossing Wii - big shock
• Wii Music - A rhythm game without any real difficulty…..hmmm
• Cooking Guide for the DS - Obviously the DS is not just for gamers, huh?

- Sony’s press conference

• PS3 going to just 1 SKU in September, 80 GB, $399, no more backward compatibility - Had to see that coming…
• Playstation Video store - Nice that you can transfer the videos you buy to the PSP… and buy instead of rent.  Prices for keeping them seem high… seen some at $9.99, some higher.
• Umm… lots of trailers

I think what we’ve found is that E3 is just about done.  Other than Final Fantasy for the 360, nothing could really be considered a surprise… (and there is no telling how long it will be before FFXIII is done… my guess is 2010.)

- All star game is tied at 3-3 after 9 innings.  Good thing the AL has used up all of their position players…. nice move there.

- Think that Dan reads what I post, considering I posted about Dr. Horrible this morning.  (BTW, it’s AWESOME.)

- I upgraded the blog software earlier tonight.  Please let me know if you find any issues. Issues we’ve run into in the past don’t seem to be a problem at the moment, so let me know if you see anything.

I’m going to bed, it’s the BOT 9th and the game is tied. Ho-hum. Thank God Francona saved Sherrill so he can load the bases in the 15th and lose the game. I mean he’s only done that the last 4 Orioles games, so I expect it now, so I’m going to bed.

* Sorry for the multiple posts on the video, but it’s that good.

* Sony’s Video Store: Yawn. So I can rent WarGames in HD, but I can’t buy it in HD? I love DRM.

* The Super Stardust Team pack was released, but no PAIN update…and we’re still waiting for that SoCom demo…I mean why did I pay for Qore exactly?

* I bought NCAA for the 360. I did think about it for the Wii, then I watched the videos on the Nintendo Channel and thought, oh my, thank God I didn’t buy that game.

* Also on the Nintendo Channel is a video trailer of Power Pros 2008. Unfortunately it looks like it’s only the game’s intro movie, which really doesn’t show you anything. It’s as if they are marketing it like there was no game last year. Grrr!

* In non-sports gaming news, you have got to see this video of Dr. Horrible starring Neil Patrick Harris. Well worth your time!

Joss Whedon has produced some of my favorite TV shows (and films, if you include Serenity) over the past decade and today his newest creation, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, has begun.

It’s a 3 Act internet exclusive for this week only (the DVD is coming soon,) so head over and check it out.

You probably already heard, but there’s a big time glitch with the creation of rosters on NCAA for the 360. Just be careful if you decide to edit rosters. Many of the ‘usual’ guys who spend the week before updating lost a ton of work when their games crashed.

Oh and buying NCAA is also a great way to celebrate the All-Star game. LOL.

So my daughter has a Firefly Mobile phone. The day before her figure skating camp starts, I get an email saying “your firefly mobile phone is no longer active.” Interesting since i pay $9.99 a month for it. Anyway, I email support since I can’t even login and am told the company was sold but they are giving everyone 30 free minutes and 20% off a new phone.

Uhh..and what about all the minutes I had before? Ugh. So at Target  I see this Kajeet.com. It’s cool because you can use Sprint phones and their network, while being able to set parental controls. I’ll keep you posted and see how it goes….

The best story in baseball for this year, is now the best story of the home run derby.  Josh Hamilton not only hit, he absolutely DESTROYED, the first round of the home run derby, hitting 28 home runs.

I say destroyed, because he wasn’t just hitting balls that were clearing the fence… he was hitting 500+ foot bombs.

On a day where Sports Illustrated said that this was an ‘imperfect lineup,’ Josh Hamilton flat out proved them wrong.

First, major props to theKelly Tilghman Fansite who scrapes our blog daily and reposts anything we write about, “Dan had an interesting post about cork and golf…” It’s really great. I’m being facetious.

So how about that E3 Microsoft conference? Fun stuff but nothing mind blowing. Yes, Rock Band 2 has an impressive track list. My monthly mortgage payment is impressive too, and that’s going be the price of this damn special edition. But hey, Bill Harris will like it because it has drums and stuff. Hi, Bill.

The Mii experience on the 360 sounds completely wanna be and stupid. Oh, and hey, let’s make buying games like the stupid album cover scroll screen on the iPod. Useless. Finally, for those that say, gee if only I could fill my hard drive up with useless game installs, Xbox 360 owners will soon have that option! Yay!

Oh and they can strem Netflix. Okay, so I’m happy about that and the 4 movies I can stream that are worth watching.

GameStop must be having some issues as well…remember all those midnight launches? Well this year it’s an 8AM launch. Nice. Too bad some of us have to work at 8am. I didn’t have to work at midnight though. Asshats. Oh well, I’m more excited for Wii Love Golf at this point, mainly because Capcom doesn’t write a blog about how they make the best sports games ever and we should all bow down. Okay that’s a cheap shot. But so is EA calling these football games the best console football games — when they are the only console football games! WTF!

Phew. I’m on a rant now. I need to step back.

- So, here’s what we got from the Microsoft E3 press conference

• Avatars - Meh… This is so… 2006.
• New Dashboard - I don’t know about you… but I never spend enough time on the dashboard to really need that much of an improvement.
• Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour Exclusive music announcements - Is it ever a good idea to have two competitors on the stage back to back?  Rock Band 2 will have a crap ton of music considering the backward compatibility feature.  Who do I have to kill to get Green Day, Anthrax, or Pantera on these games though?
• Final Fantasy XIII, day and date with the PS3 -  This will be an interesting one.  I’ll be curious to see how these numbers match up.
• Talked about how they’re outselling Sony - Yeah, pay no attention to how Nintendo has owned you in every region.  We’re #1 in NPD sales in North America…. For about another week…
• Lots of Live Arcade Talk .   Geometry Wars 2 (almost got a seizure just watching the video,) new Galaga, Portal: Still Alive, etc.  - Lots of focus on party games as well.  That Live arcade must be pretty profitable, huh?  heh.

Interesting conference for them.  I’d comment on Gears of War 2 and Fable 2, if I gave a rats arse about either.  Hated GOW, I’ll hate GOW2.

- Nintendo snuck out a press release before the conference began announcing the Wii MotionPlus attachment.  They’re stating that the attachment will give you a 1:1 motion response.  Announcing this today, must mean that there will be some games that they’ll be talking about tomorrow that will be taking advantage of this.  Force Unleashed, maybe?  New Zelda?  Sports games?  We’ll see..

- The CC deal is working out for the Brewers, so far… I love his line from yesterday.  9 innings pitched, 2 ER’s, 9 strikeouts (including striking out the side in the 9th,) and a Home Run.  Can’t wait to see more of his starts.

- This Favre thing is not going to go anywhere good…. They need to make a trade happen in a hurry and get it all over with as soon as they possibly can.

- NCAA and We Love Golf out this week.  Plenty to talk about, I guess.

Favre is attempting to get his release from the Packers.  Good luck with that.  I can’t see them releasing him without getting anything in return…. trade him, but don’t release him.  Either that or make him sit out the whole year, you have the cap room to do it.

You hold all the cards, Ted Thompson… do the right thing.

I know I’m in the minority at this point, because most Packer fans want him back, but the way this has been handled by Brett just pisses me off.

- Sony must have peed in Dan’s corn flakes this morning.  There are 4 demos on the Playstation store at the moment.  (Wall-E, Prince Caspian, Monster Madness, and Curse: Grave Danger.)  None of which are my cup of tea, so I’ll pass.

- Seeing CC Sabathia pitch on Tuesday night was awesome.  He didn’t have any sort of great control, but the crowd was electric.  People were just pumped up to see the Brewers that night.  Really great stuff.

- I’m downloading that new 360 golf game at the moment.  It was made by Housemarque, who made Super Stardust HD for the PS3… that right there is a good enough recommendation to try out their next game.

- I just read a bit more about the PAIN addon for the PS3, and it sounds terrific.  That game is a must have for any PS3 owner.  If you were ever amused by a guy getting hit in the groin with a football, this takes it to the next level.

- Glad to see that Corey Hart made it into the All Star game, even though I hate the fan voting stuff.  Wish JJ Hardy could have gotten in as well, but he’s only gotten really hot over the past month.  I can understand how he missed out.

1. Clay Fighter is the new game on GameTap. For those of you wondering, what if Visual Concepts made a fighting game on the Genesis, you can now find out for yourself.

2. Apparently a new site called good old games will let you get ol games for a low price of under $10 and no DRM. Not a bad deal, but I LIke the rental smorgasbord that is GameTap.

3. The PS Store is pretty vacant today. Where’s the PAIN add-on?

4. Guess I’ll skip the 3G I phone considering there’s no 3G coverage in Northern New England. Nice job, AT&T. Glad work pays for a Sprint Treo :).

Gamestop is running a promo where if you pre-order NCAA for 360/PS3, if you trade it in by Madden’s release date you’ll get $40 trade in credit guaranteed. So basically you can pay $20 and rent NCAA for a month. Not a bad deal :). You only get $30 trade in credit for the Wii version, but hey, it’s $10 less.

• Wow. Hell’s Kitchen was a major letdown for me, but you kind of knew it was coming. Funny how they didn’t mention the comment cards and how a certain winner’s food was sent back multiple times. I think the ending just plain sucked. Good thing I like Kitchen Nightmares because I don’t think I’ll be watching this stupid reality show again, even if there’s nothing else on.
• The Rescue Me minisodes keep you wanting more and really pisses you off that you don’t get the real show until 2009.
• I tried to play Trauma Center 2 for the DS today, but after 2 1/2 hours of scrolling through text, I mumbled F this and put it back in the Gamefly envelope. Just add cutscenes rather than static photos and you’ll get a 10/10 rating, just like Metal Gear!
• Speaking of weird GameStop called me today but my girlfriend didn’t leave a message. I don’t think anything is coming out this week that I want..unless NCAA is coming out early (ha, ha).
• I am looking forward to trying out the golf game tomorrow on the 360.