Month: September 2006

I started to make this post another RBT exclusive, but I think I may have already played that one out. Sorry Chris.

My wife’s laptop now has 1,256MB or so RAM, so it should be good to go to actually play a decent game or three. My wife is happy that email and web surfing are noticeably faster, while I have seen a nice improvement with OOTPB 6.5 and 2006. I should know better than to actually try to scrimp on memory. Will not make that mistake on my next purchase.

The next step is to actually take the next step (so to speak) and buy some sort of PC game: Age of Empires, Civilization, or something along those lines. Or I may just realize that I do not know what the hell I am doing with OOTPB 2006, save my money, and figure that one out. Either way, surfing has never been faster.

I guess the “in” thing now is to post on a blog that you’re playing a game and “tease” everyone that you’ll post more later. This is based on a small sample of two sites – The Blog for the Sports Gamer and Dubious Quality. I’ve been on the edge of my seat first thanks to DQ and now thanks to the TBFTSG!

So in that spirit, here is a Recycle Bin teaser. I’ve been playing two games for a couple of years. They are easily the games of the past two years at least. Well, one hasn’t quite been out for two years. I’ll post more about them later!

Wait, I guess I’ve already talked about these games. A lot. Oh well…

How about this. I’ve been eating a meal. It comes on a round plate. I use a fork and knife. It’s the tastiest meal I’ve eaten since yesterday. More later!

Now that is a teaser.

I love me some NFL football. How can you not be happy that football is back again? How can you not love Heinz Ward? What an awesome catch (Steelers 14, Dolphins 0 as I write this post).

My three sons. Has a nice ring to it. I feel really blessed today knowing that Tonya’s doctor said that baby is nice and healthy. And the little guy is a boy! Happy days.

Yesterday I order a 1GB memory stick for my laptop, which means I am now one step closer to being a PC gamer. I am not sure I ever would have considered myself this close to being a PC gamer, other than the occasional text based PC sports sim (i.e. OOTPB and FM), but here I am with enough memory to actually consider some sort of PC gaming. Now what to play?

As much as I think I would actually enjoy WoW, I do not think that will happen anytime soon because I have a hard time with the whole $9.99/month to play subscription thing. So I am looking more towards AoE or maybe the Civilization thing. Then again I could always just focus on Final Fantasy for the PS2 and be done with it. Tough choices all around.

If you want to read an article about baseball text-gaming in the 1980s, check out this ESPN Page 2 article. No wait, the author only discusses 1980s baseball sims. Somebody should write to him and let him know that we’ve progressed since the 1990s. No mention of Baseball Mogul, PureSim, and (of course) Out of the Park Baseball means that the writer is probably in his 50s and never used the internet before. Or at best is clueless.

Is Dynasty League Baseball still being updated these days? Or, a more appropriate question, why is it being updated these days?

The big surprise is that ESPN didn’t figure out how to insert a shout out to Madden 2007 in the article. That contract must have run out.

I tought the whole street racing thing had run its course, but it looks like EA disagreed. So says Need for Speed (NFS) Carbon, which is really the third iteration of the Underground series. I see no reason for EA to release a third version in the series other than EA knowing that everything Need for Speed sells (i.e. cash cow).

Seriously, I figured by now everyone would have done the street racing until they were ready to puke, and move on to more interesting aspects of the NFS series. I assumed the car pimping thing was played out by now. Silly me. Never under estimate the EA marketing machine.

I never played the Midnight club series, but I spent plenty of time with NFS Underground, and just enough with Underground to know that I was done pimping.

Traditional NFS with exotic sports cars, and great multi-stage tracks is what NFS is all about. Not illegal street racing, pimp daddy stuff. The only thing that will save this thing has to be the graphics, which look impressive, but I still have to wonder why EA would not go after the broader NFS audience. Pimping has to have limited market potential compared to something like NFS Hot Pursuit 2, which is really one of the high points in the NFS series.

Yet another sign that I must be moving further outside of anyone’s target audience for fun. I hope the gaming companies remember that as games get more expensive, my demographic actually has disposable cash spend on nonessential items, such as video games. No pimping for me, but give me a new NFS with some sort of Hot Pursuit mode – and of course some pretty graphics – then call me happy.

Here are the lessons learned so far from our transition to Out of the Park Baseball 2006 (in no particular order of importance):

(1) Make sure to confirm that every owner has installed the game and your league file correctly. This will take some time, but many owners will probably overestimate how easy it is to install OOTPB 2006.

(2) Upload the full league file through the game AND make it available on your website. Some owners will have no problem loading the league file through the game. Others may be behind firewalls (or whatever) that won’t let OOTPB 2006 connect with an FTP site.

(3) Turn off waivers when importing your OOTP 6.5 league. The OOTPB 2006 AI will make a number of roster moves when importing a league. Turning off waivers stops the AI from putting players on the waiver wire that the human owners probably don’t want to happen. The AI will still make silly moves like releasing players the human owner still wants on his team, but those are easier to fix.

(4) Make quick start games often. I made quick start games for every major change that was made when I imported our league. We did a league contraction, so every time I made a structure change, I created a quick start game.

(5) Get to know the Anderson Utilities. I used the AU65History utility to import the individual player histories that were lost during the league conversion. I haven’t fully explored all of the neat utilities that are available.

(6) Think about when you want to run your draft. OOTPB 2006 executes the draft differently. Players are “revealed” 30 days prior to the draft. We decided to move our draft to March 1st instead of June so that we could do the draft before the season started and not suffer any delays.

(7) Get FaceTool and use it. In the pantheon of OOTP utilities, FaceTool joins BOSI as one of the greatest pieces of text-gaming add-on goodness ever written. I almost spent $375 to buy Facegen to do what FaceTool does much better. It not only creates color coordinated uniforms and player pictures for each team, it will update pictures to refelect trades when players move from team to team.

That’s the list for now. We will do a team import/export test on Friday.

This is probably more for Chris, because I am not sure who else reads my crap, but just in case, I figured I would ask. Where is a decent source of PC gaming reviews? I am looking for a site or two where I can find well written reviews that target RPG and RTS games. I have not been a PC gamer for years, and I doubt I will be again anytime soon. With that said, I have this jones thing going for AoE right now, so I may as well do some reading to see what is out there � popular, cult favorites, or something off the well-worn path.

I found myself in Best Buy today; Joshua had some money burning a hole in his pocket. Ultimately he could not decide between one of three Nintendo DS games � StarFox, Super Mario Bros DS, or the upcoming Pokemon Blue Rescue game. I talked him into waiting for a few days to “decide” what he really wants.

I spent a few minutes with the 360 Madden 07, and I have to say the thing looked damn impressive. Pretty much in the same way NFL2K (Dreamcast) graphics were leaps and bounds better than the PSX, the 360 graphics for Madden are far and away better than the PS2. Not that I am making a next generation purchase anytime soon.

I came close to picking up Age of Empires for the DS, but I decided to stand pat for a while longer. I could see myself picking up a DS Lite, but I did not want to blow $170 or so today. I suppose I could “borrow” Joshua’s DS, but that would be like pulling a bone from my dog. Not going to happen.

So I decided to take a look at the PC aisle. I came this close (picture my fingers about an inch apart) to picking up Age of Empires III, but I decided that I was not going to pay $50 for a PC game. I am not sure why, but I thought gaming on a PC was cheap these days. I know top systems are expensive, but I thought the actual games were cheap, or they were discounted fairly quickly. Anyone know of a good place to get discounted PC games?

So I was almost a PC gamer … but not yet. I have a feeling within a week I will have AoE for the DS (with a DS Lite) or for the PC (with a $90 memory upgrade). Either way, I want to play AoE, and I either have to get a DS or upgrade my system to handle games.

I think the memory upgrade is the better route right now because it would be useful for other things besides a gaming fix. So the real question is how much memory do you actually need to run the game? I think the box said 128mb (or maybe 512mb), but that sounds pretty low. The machine I am going to put it on has 512mb and runs slow; processor is fast, but just not enough memory. Recommendations?

Found this interesting bit at Dawg Sports:

“For what it’s worth, I would note that the Bulldogs’ 48-12 win over Western Kentucky marked the fifth occasion in program history on which the Red and Black scored exactly 48 points in their season opener.

In the four previous seasons in which the ‘Dawgs hung 48 points on the autumn’s inaugural opponent (in 1974, 1991, 2004, and 2005), Georgia averaged almost nine wins per year . . . and the Red and Black were 3-0 against the Gamecocks in those seasons.”

Steve’s boys scare me, not because they have better talent, but because it is such a big deal to the Gamecocks if they beat the Bulldogs. While UGA expects high standards, South Carolina will be “up” for UGA because they hope to achieve lofty standards.

More to come on this one…

How much hype can one stand? I thought there was way too much around the Irish/Tech game, but this FL State/Miami thing is way out of hand. Hope the game lives up to its billing, but I bet we are going to be in for an ugly defensive struggle.

Speaking of hype and Norte Dame, I just heard someone on ESPN Radio say that Norte Dame’s defense was the most impressive thing he saw for opening weekend. WTF is up with that? Georgia Tech’s offense is a far cry from actually being good; of course things would be different if the bumblebees actually had a decent QB.

All in all, not a bad first week for predictions. I went 9-1, with my only miss being Hotty Toddy, and that just barely. Before you ask, I do not go against the spread (I could never condone gambling) and I do not track the non SEC action.

Early favorites for Calvert Games’ SEC Shame of the Week Award were Mississippi and Kentucky, but the award goes to Arkansas. While there is no shame in going down to USC, Hog-nation was certain things would be different this year. I am sure that they are coming up with excuse after excuse, but to have someone drop 120 combined points on you over the last two years is just damn embarrassing. The Wildcats *could* have received the award, but everyone knows they are bottom of the class; Arkansas is *supposed* to be better.

If dad was here, he would certainly be happy about McCoy’s impressive debut for the Horns, but he would be worrying-up for this Saturday’s Ohio State game. And yes, the Arkansas debacle would have brought a smile to his face.

I am not sure if there were any real surprises around the SEC. I called California mud a while back, so I expected Tennessee to win (figured it would be closer). I am not sure why, but I never expect Auburn’s backs to be as good as advertised, but that Irons kid put up 180+ on the ground, which is gosh darn impressive. I did not expect Mississippi to find a ground attack (and actually win), and while I expected Kentucky to stick, I certainly did not think their defense would stop just shy of 60 (ouch).

Hope the Dawgs figure out some things in a hurry before Saturday night. Namely, how to open some holes for our trio of backs, how to hold onto the ball (come on receivers!), and how to get some consistent QB play. It seems like nothing comes easy for Georgia when they travel to Williams-Brice Stadium, so this one could go wrong fast.

Not to be looking ahead because the Dawgs cannot do that this year, but that UAB game has to look a tad scary now after UAB’s performance against Oklahoma. The Colorado game now looks like a cake walk.

Go Dawgs!

How does a team like Colorado go down to a 1-AA opponent? In this case Montana State embarrassed Colorado 19-10. You expect Duke to falter against the 1-AA teams, but Colorado? I think not. Not that I am a fan or anything. For that matter I never understood what was so great about Hawkins. Boise State won a lot of games under Hawkins, but come on, the competition was inferior. What a mess in Boulder.

How about Rocky Top? I called that one the first week in August. I never understood why everyone thought Cal was so special. I am not going to say, “I told you so” � well, we all know the SEC rules.

The reality of the situation is that Dawg fans should thank their lucky stars that we were not playing a real opponent, or it could have been very scary. At this point I still think that Georgia has enough on offense and defensive to win a close one against the ‘cocks, but the 296 total yards gained today against Western Kentucky has to look mighty scary to Bulldog Nation.

Tereshinski was garbage. Nothing personal, he just did not look sharp. Cox did not look like he knew what was going – ‘just for giggles, I think I will throw it up for grabs.’ Good grief! Stafford? He looked fairly sharp, but the game was well in hand by the time he saw playing time. Controversy? Going to be an interesting week.

While I did not expect a lot from the Georgia QBs, I expected a lot more from the HBs. Ware had a nice day (67yds on 6 carries, including a 40+ yard TD run), but after that Lumpkin (5 rushes for 27yds, 1 TD) and Brown (10 rushes for 25yds, 1 TD) did not look like great backs. Maybe some of this can be attributed to suspensions, youth, and depth problems on the o-line. Next week will be telling.

More to come later. Go Dawgs!