The Blog for the Sports Gamer

- Officially, I became “That guy” last night as I took my daughters to a midnight opening of Gamestop for Guitar Hero World Tour.

In the interest in full disclosure, we were in Madison for a hockey game last night and got to the store around 11:15.  We sat in the car until midnight and went in and picked up the game.  Thankfully the crew at the store helped me carry the full kit box out to my car.  I had my daughters home and in bed by 12:45.  Not a great scenario, but they wouldn’t have been in bed until midnight either way.  This way, I got a new game.  heh.

- Speaking of GH:WT, I love the drums.  Much, much quieter than the original Rock Band kit.  One other nice surprise was the fact that there is velcro on the bottom of the kick pedal.  I really think that I’ll be able to play this drumset in the room next to where my kids are sleeping and won’t have to worry about waking them up.  That’s a huge victory for me.

I haven’t had a chance to try out the guitar yet, so no words on that yet.

One thing that I did notice right away was the difficulty of Guitar Hero versus Rock Band.  Medium on the drums in GH:WT seemed to be a great deal harder than it was on Rock Band, and that’s not a bad thing.  In my first three songs, I couldn’t get better than 95% of the notes for the drums, so it looks like I have some work to do.

- As far as the hockey game went, the Badgers lost 5-2 to the Gophers.  0-5-1 at this point in the season and the schedule doesn’t get any easier as they head to Grand Forks next weekend.  There was a “fight” last night though.  I hadn’t seen a fight in college hockey in about 10 years.

I do say “fight” because the Minnesota guy never dropped his gloves and just got beat down because of it, guess that’s what happens when you don’t fight back.

- Just about done with Blitz: The League II.  I hope to have a short review of the game up on the site in the next few days.

- I’m planning on picking up Little Big Planet and Fallout 3 this week… but have no idea why.  I won’t have the time to mess around with either at this point, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.

- I picked up Fable II as well as Fable: The Lost Chapters for the Xbox today.  I figured if I enjoyed the early parts of Fable II, that I would probably want to take a look at the original as well.  For $10, where can I go wrong?

After playing through the first hour or so of Fable II, I was surprised at the direction that the story took so quickly.  I won’t spoil it for those of you that haven’t started playing it yet, but it was definitely not what I expected when I started playing the game.

Also, I love the dog that becomes your pet in the game.  It seemed like a gimmick to me when I heard about it, but I found myself wanting to take care of it and watch over it as soon as it became my companion.  I guess I’m just an old softie.

- A review of Blitz II: The League should be coming your way later this week as well.  I’m nearing the finish of the campaign mode and should be finishing that soon.  I’d hate to go through the effort of writing up a review for a game before I finish playing it…. not that I’d accuse any sites of doing that… (cough… IGN)

- Maybe it’s just me… but I’ve had a hard time getting excited about the baseball playoffs after the Brewers were knocked out in the NLDS.  You kind of throw all of your fandom behind one team… and after they’re eliminated it’s hard to keep interested.  Having said all that, ‘Go Rays!’

- Oh, yeah Dan… like you’ve never tried to talk me into buying games.  All I did was mention that Haze was $10 and that it had online co-op.   Heh.

Well I am already exhausted. I don’t remember having as little time for games as I do now. Perhaps I am officially getting old.

Of course, playing games and buying them are two different things, and when I walked into Best Buy tonight, despite preordering Fable 2 from GameStop and Wii Music from Amazon, I couldn’t help myself and I bought both of those from BB as well as Haze for $9.99 which is completely Glen’s fault. I had no interest in that piece of crap but Glen was like we’ll play online and I was like, ok.

Meanwhile SOCOM sits in it’s factory sealed box, Far Cry 2 comes out on Steam tomorrow and I’m still meaning to play The Witcher.

I’m way behind on TV as well … the only thing I’m caught up with on TiVo is Mad Men, which is just an awesome show…and the Shield which also has holy crap moments.

What games did I get to play tonight? Namco’s Outdoor Adventures for the Wii and Wii Music. The kids LOVE Wii Music. You’d think designing an album cover was just the most amazing thing you could do in the game. Outdoor Adventures is a nice DDR-esque activity game that 2 people can play together with one mat. It’s cute too.

I want to play the adult games though — but there is never any time when I’m not exhausted. I’m half awake as I type this trying to will myself to play games but it just isn’t happening.

On the bright side, I got my 360 20GB HD and 3 month Live subscription from MS today…that was a great deal — the shipping address is Fort Worth TX, same place where you ship your dead 360 so I wonder if they are any good (heh).

Working from home today with a sick kid, so I’ll make it quick

- Tetris Party on Wii Ware looks pretty good.  6 player tetris?  Tetris with the Balance Board?  Ok, I’m a sucker… I’ll probably pick it up.

- So, if you’re a member of Best Buy’s Reward Zone program you can get Haze for the PS3 for $9.99.  I’m a sucker for a cheap game… so I’ll probably grab that as well.

- Still can’t believe the Packers dominated the Colts like they did yesterday.  The defense was just stellar.  Crazy.

More later…

Congrats to the Tampa Bay Rays who actually pulled one out — this gives hope to Orioles fans…well kind of..it’s pretty said that this team (like Florida before it) is in the World Series and it’s been 25 years since the Orioles have made it to the fall classic, but I digress.

I still didn’t get in as much game playing as I wanted to, but I did play some BLitz 2 and Dead Space. As much as I’m enjoying Blitz, it’s tough for me to get over the fact that the bug that’s been in there for 10 years still hasn’t been fixed. I find it incredibly annoying to score on the last play of the game only to be denied a PAT chance.

Down the road, Wii Music this week. Yay! Fable 2 has a midnight opening — I didn’t realize it had that much of a following. Finally, the game I’m really interested in for next week is the Nerf N-Strike game for the Wii. If you have kids, you know all about the n-Strike series and the fact this has an N-strike gun included with the game is pure genius.

Just getting ready to sit down and watch the Packers/Colts games and a few things have been on my mind.

- Like Dan, I’m still playing a lot of Blitz.  It’s an arcade football game and it is just as fun as I would have expected it to be.  I have found some subtle things that force you to change how you play in some of the games as well.  Definitely an enjoyable game.

- I couldn’t believe this story when I heard it, and if it’s true… Favre is proving himself to be someone that Green Bay should be glad to be rid of.

- Another bad week for Wisconsin sports as the men’s hockey team was swept (giving up 13 goals) at Denver and the football team embarrassed themselves again against Iowa.  Hopefully the Packers can grab a win against the Colts today.

- So, the Brewers cut Sveum loose on Friday.  I’m not too shocked about that.  I’m just curious as to who will be the next manager.  All of the managers being suggested are former big league guys, and Sveum just couldn’t match up to their histories in the league.

Also, the Brewers are rumored to be looking at trying to acquire Jake Peavy as well as making an offer for CC.  Hell, I’d just be happy if they could acquire one of them.

They’re also going to talk to Ben Sheets agent… I’d rather they just let Ben move on.  He was a great player, but he just couldn’t shake the injury bug.  Bring in some new quality starters and see if Sheets can put it together somewhere else.

Saw this over on Kotaku, now bringing it to the real masses — Something Awful has posted the official qualifications for how to get the Nintendo Seal of Quality. It’s pretty funny. Check it out here.

I’m having fun playing Blitz 2…but how many more versions of this @#$%ing do we have to play until you can kick a PAT or 2 point try in the 4th Quarter with 0:00 left — when you score a TD with no time left…it’s game over.

Hope you’re not down by 7 on the last play of the game…because you’ll lose. Maybe this will be fixed when I’m 70.

Yesterday, I received my copy of Blitz: The League 2 and here’s my first impressions.

- Online is pretty damn fun.  Dan and I played 3 games earlier this evening and even the blowouts were entertaining due to the fact that you get to use late hits on your opponent every few plays.  The counter attacks on the late hits were especially entertaining as well.  The games that we played were lag-free and the last game was a terrific back and forth battle that ended in a one point win for Dan (I went for 2 with 20 seconds to go to win the game. Stupid me.)

- The character creation mode is a nice touch.  The game simulates a press conference that asks you questions that defines the positions that you will play for your team and then the follow up questions define what attributes are most important to you.  In my opinion, it’s just better than the generic “create-a-player” mode that we typically see of late.

- Frank Caliendo’s play-by-play has been funny to this point.  The one thing that confused me was the fact that he only calls the game in the single player mode, but not online.  Just interesting to note.

I haven’t heard any real repetition in his calls to this point, so that’s a nice plus.

- The T.D. celebration codes are another nice part of the game.  I’ve been fighting the urge to hit Gamefaqs and see all of the ones that people have figured out, just so that I can try to unlock a few of my own without any help.  If you haven’t had a chance, take a look at this video over at the Midway site and tell me that some of them aren’t cringe worthy.

- Speaking of cringing, some of the injuries that I’ve seen thus far are pretty brutal.  During the online game that Dan and I played, I ruptured his QB’s spleen… 1 play after he returned from a broken bone in his arm.   There is also a mini-game that you play after each of the minor injuries that, when executed properly, allows you to get the player back into the game sooner based on how well you complete it. It’s a nice way to balance out the injury caused by your opponent, by giving you the chance to get your player back sooner.

I did love the fact that a broken arm on a QB only took him out of the game for 7 plays though.  heh.

So, my first thoughts on the game are pretty positive.  It’s a huge risk/reward game.  If you take a chance on the big hit, you may be rewarded with a fumble or the other player could get by you and score a TD.

It’s not going to be the most realistic football game on the market, but at this point… with how much I’ve disliked the path of Madden, it’s nice to have a football game that is fun to play and is entertaining as well.

I’ll play a bit more over the next few days and post a bit more about it then.

Well, Glen and I played a few online games of Blitz 2 and they were a lot of fun. I lost big time thanks to Glen’s ability to injure my players..but on the 3rd game, thankfully he went for the win by going for 2 instead of getting the tie and didn’t convert. Yay me.

In other news, I turned off the Sox game at 7-0 thinking it was over. A friend IM’s me and says "OMG The Red Sox came back in a thriller," and I’m like, uhh you are full of crap.

Then I go to ESPN. Holy crap. That’s unbelievable.

Another long weekend has gone by, and I didn’t play nearly as many games as I wanted to. Unfortunately I spent most of Monday in the bathroom (there’s a visual for you)….must have had some bad food because that was the only issue. Blech.

The Goo game on the Wii is very good, if you need to find a reason to blow 1500 Wii Points.

In other news, if you’re an owner of an Xbox 360 Arcade system,  you are in luck. Microsoft is giving out 3 months of XBL gold and a 20GB hard drive for the low low price of $29.99. Since my 360 #2 is an arcade, I picked up the offer even though I have the 120GB drive on it. Hey you never know when you’ll need a backup drive, or if you get an Xbox #3, right?

For more information, you can click here. Be forewarned that you must have an Arcade serial number in order to qualify for the upgrade. Nice idea though…if only we could see some sort of storage solution for the Wii..that goo game was 300 blocks. I have no idea what games I own because I’m constantly deleting.

I think I have come up with my threesome for the TRU sale: Blitz ][, Dead Space and Saints Row 2. Not a bad haul for $120.

Of course, having the time to play them is a completely different story….

- Ever sit down to play a game with a friend but know before you start playing that you have absolutely no interest in doing so?  That’s pretty much what happened on Saturday night when I played Madden for the Wii with Dan.  I had a rental of the game that I had been sitting on for probably 4 weeks now and I just wanted to get rid of it.  Dan had been asking to play a game of it online, and I had a bit of time to waste on Saturday night, so I figured ‘What the hell.’

The game isn’t awful, but I just wasn’t interested in trying to figure out how to play while we were in the middle of our game. I started calling plays, trying to annoy Dan halfway through… because I was just trying to get through the game as quickly as I could, so I could get back to watching Iron Man on Blu-Ray. (Which was a great action film.  Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet… great stuff.)

So, I was very unfair to Dan on Saturday, and I apologize for that.

On a side note though… the kicking interface in the game stinks.  It was a problem 2 years ago and it still is.  Dan and I had at least 4 shanked kicks between the two of us in the game.  I remember having the same issue with the original game.  They should really have that issue fixed by now.

- I’m home this afternoon with a sick kid and as a result we had to stop at Target on the way back from daycare.  I was able to pick up GRID for the 360 for $15 while we were there.  Not a bad deal.  They had Skate for the 360 for $15 as well, but since I grabbed the PS3 version of that for $10 last week, I had no need to grab another copy.

- My bad string of hockey luck continued last night as I got cracked in the face mask with a slap shot again… and then had someone slash my thumb with their stick.  I couldn’t have worse luck on the ice.  I’m hoping that my thumb isn’t broken, but I still finished the game.  That’s what hockey players do, right?

- I spent another few hours with the Killzone 2 beta last night.  Each time I play it, I have more and more fun.  Last night I started to mess around with some of the other weapons available and found that I love the shotgun.  I have always had issues with games that make you ‘focus’ to use the machine gun accurately, but the shotgun makes that point moot.  If you see someone and they’re in front of you, BLAM.  That is like 6 different kinds of awesome after you’ve had a bad week.

- Wow.  Big week on the Wii Virtual Console.  World of Goo has gotten great press to this point and you can’t go wrong with a Square RPG.

- Sony’s upcoming firmware for the PS3 will finally allow the controllers to be shut off after periods of inactivity.  As Dan said to me, “Welcome to the 360 features of 2005.”

Of course if you look at what Microsoft is doing with avatars and such it’s like they’re trying to be Nintendo of 2006.

Everyone wants to do what the other consoles are doing better…

- Did anyone really feel bad that the Patriots got whumped last night? Yeah, didn’t think so.

- Of course, this comes from a person who watched the Badgers get absolutely destroyed on Saturday night.  The last time they had a loss that bad at home it was the Don Morton-era.  Don f’n Morton.  He ran the Veer, for Christs sake.

You remember the Veer offense, right?  Veer to the left, veer to the right, veer up the middle, punt.

- One last thing, does Dan get to talk about college hockey?  heh.

First, condolences to Glen as UNH whumped Wisconsin in Hockey. I still say that a College Hockey game would be awesome.

Also, more condolences to Glen as I whumped him in Madden on the Wii. Oh wait, it was the horrible controls according to Glen. To be fair, if Glen had actually played the game at all before playing me online it would have been closer. He really hated the game. I enjoyed it. I like the Wii version of Madden. Sue me.

Toys R Us is having a Buy 2 Get 1 Free on ALL video games this week. Pick up Socom and Saints Row 2, get FIFA free. Not a bad deal.

Circuit City is having a buy 1 get 1 at 50% off on Wii games $49.99 and higher. Another deal that isn’t bad.

I was just reading the Friday afternoon GameStop sales circular - which shows the price of NBA 2K9 PC to be…drumroll..

$19.99!

Um, why would I buy the console version then? I’m going to buy it even though I don’t normally play basketball games unless I’m reviewing them

- Typically I wouldn’t say it, but TGIF.  It’s been a long week… too long in some respects.

- So, riddle me this… Why would you buy this weeks episode of Qore to get the exclusive Valkyrie Chronicles demo, when you can download it for free off of the European PS store.   Just asking.

The art style for that game is wonderful though.  The look just seems so much better than cell-shading, in my opinion.  Also, it seems like it will be a quality tactical RPG as well.

For a season when I wasn’t looking forward to that many new titles, I’ve found two in the last two days that I’ll be almost certainly picking up very close to launch.  LBP, and Valkryie Chronicles.

- My 3 year old was totally enamored with my time with Little Big Planet last night.  I started to work on designing my own level and she just couldn’t get enough of Sackboy.  Every time I went into the character modifier, she had new ideas of things for him to wear.  It was so much fun to see how creative her mind is already.  I can see how this will become a family game for a lot of people very quickly.

- Anyone grab Linger in Shadows off of the Playstation Store?  I’m curious about how much value you get for your $2.99.  All I’ve heard is that you just kind of wander around the ‘demoscene.’   Just seems intriguing to me for some reason.

- I grabbed the Stickball demo last night, but haven’t had a chance to play it yet.  I’ll post some thoughts on that later tonight.

- I’m still stunned about the MLB Front Office Manager title from 2K.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to see more sports management titles on the market, but I never saw that coming.