Month: January 2006

There’s a new article at the Championship Manager site that describes the “match day experience” and improvements for 2006.

I gave up on Texas when USC scored its 38th point. I went to bed thinking that Texas put up a good showing, probably better than what the pundits expected, and was pretty satisfied. Holy crap! I just checked ESPN and it seems I missed some football last night!

How stupid does ESPN look now with its total dismissal of Texas’ chances during the pre-game hype?

There are new version 6.0.2 patches available for Worldwide Soccer Manager and Football Manager.

Dave Koch Sports announced that Action! PC Baseball 2006 is now shipping. The new features include a “biased” play-by-play announcer. An intriguing concept for a baseball game.

Welcome to 2006! With the New Year, hope springs eternal within the gaming community for new and wondrous offerings. Here is my 2006 wish list, in no particular order:

(1) Out of the Park Baseball Manager � this is the game that I�ve wished for ever since I purchased my first Tandy PC with dual 5 � inch drives. It will be the Football Manager of baseball games. I�ll have no reason to complain about sports games because in 2006, all of my moaning and groaning will finally achieve the results I wanted. Triple Play is dead. And we will have a complete baseball universe in a career game.

(2) All gaming print and pay online media services go away � OK, this is a wish list, remember. I stopped reading print gaming magazines years ago. I stopped paying for Gamespot last year. I would be much more in favor of online pay services if they just provided fast FTP to download demos, etc. Otherwise, there�s nothing of value on these sites. I don�t visit or read them for reviews since there are many forums that do a much better job. Those of us that are into the hobby will continue to write about games for free. In most cases, these folks� opinions are the ones I want to read anyhow.

(3) All of the Christmas World of Warcraft noobs will grow tired of the game quickly � I�ve had to endure waiting lines of 350+ every evening this weekend to get onto the Bronzebeard server. The only explanation can be that many folks got WoW for Christmas and are playing in droves. Either Blizzard needs to add more servers or the new players need to lose interest.

(4) I finally get a WoW character to level 60 � Speaking of WoW, I�ve gotten a character to 56 and one to 48. This year I will get one to level 60. Or die trying.

(5) Something on the Xbox 360 will actually make the console worth purchasing � I was in Walmart buying an old Xbox with my brother and took a look at the new Xbox 360 games. All five or six of them. Call of Duty 2 looks like the only thing that would remotely interest me, but I�m not going to buy an Xbox 360 for one game. Especially not at $60 a pop for a console game.

(6) The PlayStation 3 will have more then five or six games at launch � One of the reasons I�m waiting on my console purchase is that I want to see what Sony has up its sleeve. They seem to know what they�re doing when it comes to launching consoles and I can�t imagine that they will screw things up like Microsoft has up to this point. Only time will tell.

(7) More blogs will roam the earth � I�m not talking about blogs written by developers and �insiders� here. I�d like to see more gaming fans create blogs that are updated on a regular basis and discuss gaming. Particularly sports text-gaming (again, this is a wish list).

That�s it for 2006. If these simple things happen, we�ll have loads to look forward to in 2007!

The Giants are NFC East Champs again(!). Considering where this team was in 2003 & 2004, 11-5 is more than most intelligent Giant fans were expecting. The playoffs should be interesting, because the surge of really aggressive defense that the team put forth in the middle third of the season really doesn�t have a chance of resurfacing with the current linebacker corps. Antonio Pierce really became a leader on defense, and was Strahan�s equal in terms of making tackles and keeping the defense fired-up. Carlos Emmons was in and out all season due to injuries, but when he was in the game he showed that he�s a solid veteran that just inspires confidence in the way he plays run and pass. With Emmons now on IR, Pierce still in a cast because of a high ankle sprain, and two more LBs who started the season on the 45 man roster not dressing against Oakland, the Giants are into and past the 3rd level of their LB depth chart. Nick Greisen won the job as the 4th LB in training camp, and when Barrett Green could not get healthy (on IR in October), he became the weakside starter. He�s started every game this season at either Mike or Will LB, and he�s had a heck of a season. It just goes to show that hustle and a couple of years learning the system can make an average linebacker pretty darn valuable. Greisen essentially replaced Kevin Lewis as the plug-and-play guy, but surprise! Lewis was signed on 12/26 and started at Mike against Oakland; another testimony to putting a guy in who knows the system (Lewis started 16 games in 2004, but the team was going younger on the depth chart and he did not make the 2005 team). Alonzo Jackson showed up as the Sam backer after signing in October. Jackson was the #27 pick in the 2nd round of the 2003 draft for the Steelers, interestingly. This is a bit of a motley crew, but 25 yards rushing by Oakland speaks for itself. Let�s see how things go with the front 7 when they face playoff teams; the performance against Washington 2 weeks ago was pretty soft. Also, CB Curtis DeLoatch was benched for pretty mediocre play in favor of 2nd round pick Corey Webster. Webster will now begin paying his dues against first-line NFL WRs (he struggled a bit against Oakland) but they have to find out if this kid can play.

A heavy dose of Tiki Barber behind an offensive line that has really come together (false starts excepted), and young Eli making more big plays to Burress, Shockey and Toomer than he makes mistakes could at least get them through a home playoff game. With the current defensive roster, the team is playing with house money from here on.