Category: Archive

Washingtonpost.com has an interesting PSP review. You may have to register with the site to see the review:

“If you get a PSP, do yourself a favor and stick to the games. If you also want to listen to music and view your pictures, just get an iPod Photo or another music-plus-photos player. What if you don’t want to carry around two expensive gadgets all the time? Then you’ve got a problem — and so does Sony, until it revisits the PSP’s multimedia software.”

I am going to be in this boat. I will soon carry around my cell phone, my iPod Photo, my GBA, and my PSP on various trips. I wanted the PSP for the games, not the other stuff, so no big deal.

There is also a separate article that covers some basic reviews of the games. Nothing to write home about, but it is always interesting to see what the mainstream has to say about games.

“On the sports front, Sony offers MLB, NBA, Gretzky NHL and World Tour Soccer. NBA is our favorite of those four; not only does it look extraordinary, it offers some creative added features, such as a set of three mini-games that let you work on particular skills. World Championship Soccer, however, was the worst of this bunch, on account of its stiff animations and repetitive commentary. MLB, NBA and Gretzky NHL can all be played online as well as over local “ad hoc” wireless networks, but World Tour Soccer only allows local competition.”

Too bad about WTS – I have read similar unflattering previews about the game, so I decided to go with FIFA to meet my PSP soccer gaming needs. I hope to try WTS fairly soon after launch, if I can find it on the cheap (eBay) or for rent.

For the first time in recent memory I did not watch an F1 race live and instead opted for the replay. I guess I am getting too old for this stuff; for back in the day, I would have stayed the course and watched the race in its entirety, or just set the alarm to get up and watch in the middle of the night. No more I guess.

I am not sure I am sold on all the new rules for the 2005 season, but it certainly looks like the racing governing body knows what it is doing; the Red Ponies are finally at the back of the pack, while other manufactures are at the top of the heap, all the while there is plenty of racing action on the track instead of in the pits.

More to come later, but drama of a different sort is finally in F1. Can Renualt maintain its pace? Will Ferrari fight back when they finally unveil their 2005 entry? Not that last year’s drama was bad (i.e. can Schumi win them all), but the young season is proving to be very interesting.

I suppose many sports fans spent yesterday engrossed in March Madness, but I spent my TV time engrossed in the 12 hour Sebring race on SPEED. It seems like each year I get more and more involved (dare I say engrossed) with endurance GT racing – very interesting racing, with tons of high quality drivers. I was disappointed that one of the two Corvette C6-R cars did not win their class; the new C6-R is a damn impressive car.

Each time I watch one of these endurance races I always wonder why a video game developer cannot give us a Gran Turismo style physics game, with a Melbourne House 24 Hours Le Mans style game. The DC and PS2 Melbourne House games were always fun, if not a bit easy, but the cool thing about them was the 18-24 car field vs. Gran Turismo’s 6 cars. Plus the PS2 version of Le Mans has the Petite Le Mans Road Atlanta Race.

Speaking of Gran Turismo and Le Mans, I am only 5% or so into GT4; Le Mans goodness is coming, but apparently it is one of the tracks that is time released after a certain number of GT4 days. I will have to post some updated statistics later (for anyone that cares), but I have not really had much time to play the game since it came out, which makes me question my judgment of my PSP pre-order with 5 games.

EBgames.com has confirmed my order; still waiting for the AMEX to get charged to “prove” it, but I feel certain it is a done deal. The brick and mortar EBgames also have told me that I would have a shiny new PSP waiting for me at midnight on the 23/24 of March. I guess that means there is the opportunity to make a little extra cash on eBay, but I do not get the feeling that massive shortages are imminent. I have to make some decisions this week about what to do with my two PSPs. Right now I am thinking about canceling the local store order, but maybe I will read stories today about all the expected shortages. Either way, hopefully on Thursday I can say “I got mine!”

Baseball games have come and gone this season, but the only significant news is that there will be a new patch issued for Out of the Park Baseball in a couple of days. I hope. Since this patch was promised as a “Christmas present” in 2004, many have speculated that Markus actually meant an early present for Chrsitmas 2005. No word on what is fixed or added by the patch.

Sean Sullivan continues to plug away at his PureSim Baseball game. He has a very loyal following and the game is much better than when first release a couple of years ago. The real shame in all of this is that I don’t have time to really take a hard look at the game. I am an OOTP fanatic because of online leagues. Playing baseball games solo lost its luster after I joined my first online league, and there really isn’t a significant PureSim multiplayer community.

However, if I did play baseball solo, I probably would choose PureSim over OOTP6. I don’t like PureSim’s minor league structure, but everything else is set up to attract people who like to customize everything. Sort of the ultimate tweak file game.

Speaking of baseball pruducts, it just amazes me how many years we see the same reaction to baseball arcade/action games. One group will quickly proclaim that game A is the best thing since sliced bread. Another group will say they don’t like the batter/pitcher interface. Yet another group will complain that some major baseball aspect is seriously broken in the game. Bill Harris will lead a concerted effort to “slider” out the problem. Everyone will seek Bill Abner’s slider settings. Repeat and rinse.

High Heat was the last gasp folks. Until a serious sim engine is attached to these arcade games, this cycle will continue. High Heat 2001 was the closest thing to a serious arcade baseball game that I’ve seen in my lifetime. It failed because of many lingering bugs that even the community couldn’t fix and tweak out of the game.

But that is is. Game over. Will never happen again. If you seriously believe that EA Sports or Sony (my God, Sony!) is going to make a serious baseball product, then you really aren’t looking for an acurate baseball simulation. So be happy with what you have.

It won’t get any better.

This is why I steadfastly support PureSim and OOTP. These are baseball chess games. And they deserve to be played.

One reader pointed out to me that Angela Basset is a good guy on the currrent season of Alias. Have we not learned? Ms. Basset will be outed as some sort of evil spy working for some sort of evil group at some point this season or next. You can count on it.

Anybody else lost track of the different evil groups that come and go on Alias?

I’ve been having fun playing the market in World of Warcraft. Looking for a way to gather loot so that I can purchase my Kodo mount at level 40, I finally started putting things up for auction. For those unfamiliar with WoW, every side has an auction house which serves as the clearing house for various merchandise. My Tauren hunter skins what he can to get various types of leather to sell through these auctions. So far, I’ve mad a nice profit.

There has been a great deal of uproar about servers going down and long lines to enter certain WoW realms. I really haven’t experienced much of this during my many months playing the game. Yes, the servers have gone down a few times, but nothing too inconvienant.

World of Warcraft is so much fun, that I can’t honestly see any game on the horizon that will take any time from it or Out of the Park Baseball. If I had any additional time, I’d probably check out Everquest 2 since there’s a lot of good word of mouth about the game. But what elder gamer has time for two online multiplayer games?

Not me, that’s for sure.

Yesterday I was exuberant about my PSP preorder from EBgames.com (see Virtual Sex below). Today I read the fine print:

You may cancel your order at any time up until ten days prior to the PSP launch, which is March 24, 2005. To expedite processing, your credit card will be charged ten days before the PSP launch.

Please respond to this e-mail within 72 hours. If, after 72 hours, we have not received your reply, your order will be canceled. Receipt of this e-mail does not guarantee system availability nor does it guarantee that your order will be fulfilled with our initial shipment.

Once we have your order in the system we will send you an e-mail confirming your games and accessories choices and the final price of your bundle. You should expect this confirmation within seven business days of replying to this e-mail.

WTF? Let me understand this. First, my credit card will be charged 10 days prior to March 24. Second, I have to respond to the email within 72 hours, but EBGames.com has seven business days to reply to my email to confirm my order. Third, EBGames.com is not sending a confirmation that they have received my email, but it does not really matter because this process does not “guarantee that my order will be fulfilled with our initial shipment.” Again I say, WTF?

Well, not really, but it makes for a nice headline. As I just told my wife, I guess this is what virtual sex feels like. She was starting to get pissed until I told her that EBgames.com just confirmed my PSP preorder. Pretty sad state of affairs when EBgames.com makes me happy by saying that I can spend $500 or so on a PSP bundle, but I digress.

This just in from EBgames.com via email:

Thank you for pre-ordering your PSP Bundle from EBgames.com. The bundle you have purchased includes:

Sony PSP Value Pack, which includes the PSP hardware, 32 MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones with remote control, battery pack and AC adaptor, soft case and cleaning cloth, movie/music/game UMD sampler disc and, for the first one million PSP Value Packs produced by Sony, a UMD video release of the feature film Spider-Man 2
Your choice of any four games and accessories listed below
Carefully follow these steps to tell us which games and/or accessories you would like.

Select any four items from the list below. You must choose at least four, but if you select more we will add them to your bundle. If an item is not listed below, it is not expected to be available at launch and therefore is not available for this offer.

Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (Rated T) $39.99
Twisted Metal: Head On (Rated T) $39.99
Wipeout Pure (Rated E) $39.99
Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (Rated T) $49.99
Gretzky NHL (Rated E) $39.99
FIFA Soccer (Rated E) $49.99
World Tour Soccer (Rated E) $39.99
NBA (Rated E) $39.99
Ridge Racer (Rated E) $39.99
Tiger Woods PGA Tour (Rated E) $49.99
Tony Hawk�s Underground 2 Remix (Rating Pending) $49.99
Lumines (Rating Pending) $39.99
NFL Street 2 Unleashed (Rated E) $49.99
Spider-Man 2 (Rated T) $49.99
Dynasty Warriors (Rated T) $49.99
Ape Escape: On the Loose (Rated E) $39.99
Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory (Rated M) $49.99
Metal Gear Acid (Rating Pending) $49.99
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (Rated E) $49.99
PSP Mobile Kit $39.99
Sandisk Memory Stick Pro Duo 128MB $39.99
Sandisk Memory Stick Pro Due 256MB $54.99
PSP Charger Case $59.99
Pro Gamer�s Case $29.99
Sound Stage for PSP $49.99
The software and accessory products listed above are scheduled to be available at launch, but release dates are subject to change.

EBgames is giving customers 72 hours to respond or they will cancel the order. Good thing I am not traveling this week!

No real surprises other than the memory stick; thank goodness I do not have to buy one right away. Also cool about the Spider-Man 2 UMD movie, but I would rather have the unit sale for less and not include the disk. Hopefully the sampler is worthwhile. I was also surprised that there are actually 19 launch games, which a lot more on the way in April.

I decided to go with 5 titles: Twisted Metal: Head On, Wipeout Pure, FIFA Soccer,
Ridge Racer, and Lumines.

I wanted to go with World Tour Soccer, but I figured FIFA was a safer bet; who knows how WTS will play on the PSP, but I can imagine what to expect with FIFA. Lumines was also a dark horse; I think Archer Maclean’s Mercury looks like a better puzzler, but it is not available on the preorder list. Surprisingly, no baseball games. I started to do Tiger Woods or Tony Hawk, but I figured I would not get my money’s worth out of either game. As it stands, it is going to be hard to get plenty of time in with Wipeout Pure and Ridge Racer. I figure Twisted Metal may suck – I love the series, but I cannot imagine that this one will be better than TM1, TM2, or TM:Black; maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. Hopefully these new PSP games will hold their value on eBay for a little while … just in case they suck.

Now if I can also get my local EBgames to commit to my preorder from back in January; I may be able to do some damage on eBay.

Am I crazy?

Was watching Justice League (yes, the cartoon) via Tivo (yes, I tivo’d it) and another piece of the conspiracy puzzle rested in place. Guess who is in charge of the grand government run conspiracy against the Justice league? A white male? No. An Hispanic women? Nope. Who can we find that has cornered the market on evil this television season? Who can that be?

An African American female cartoon can, that’s who! Not even children and/or older folks who appreciate fine cartoon entertainment are safe.

Or maybe we’ve come a long way baby? Seems every other racial/gender mix has ascended to the throne of evil at some point in history. Finally black women get a turn in the sun? Is this the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. hoped for?

In other news, my Tauren hunter is level 31. The game likes telling me how long I’ve played World of Warcraft. So far, that would be 4 days and 9 hours – with just my Tauren character. That’s right, 105+ hours of my life gone. I also have a level 21 Dwarf hunter.

Does Blizzard know how to make a game or what?

I need 100 gold pieces to purchase a mount for Fwa (my Tauren hunter) and I only have 22 on me. So I need to make quite a bit of coin over the next eight levels. Because nothing looks badder than a Tauren on a big old Kodo beast.

Got to get me one of those.

As I said yesterday, petrol is in the air. Despite the dominance of Ferrari in recent years, I still love F1. I do not look at the one man show as a bad thing; I look at it as mastery that may be a once in a life time experience. The 2005 season is almost a go!

This week was fairly lacking on the video game front; some management of my OOTP6 online baseball league team, some GT4, and Wipeout XL, but that was it for the week. I need to put in some time with WE8 tonight for the online league over at SGN, but other stuff is going to get in the way (that F1 thing in Australia).

Speaking of which, I picked up some Fosters this evening in honor of kicking off the 2005 F1 season Down Under. Fosters is not part of my normal rotation; I may buy it once a year (for the Australian Grand Prix), and when I go to Outback, but that is about it. I suppose it is not that bad, but it is not that great.

I also picked up some Sam Adams Light, which I was very impressed with for a light beer. Much better than Keystone Light (a poor man’s Coors); needed some cheap beer. Anyway, back to the Sam Adams Light – this is about the best light beer I have ever tasted. I normally drink what I like, but I have been trying to eat better lately, so I have been doing light beer do try to cut back on the calories. I guess that explains the Keystone Light. Feel free to offer up some light beer suggestions.

I guess that is all for now; seven minutes until taped qualifying (session 2 – the new rules are interesting). A happy Sunday to all!

Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of spring. F1 is back in action. I am really nothing close to a gear-head, but I love me some Formula 1. The new 2005 rules should make for an interesting year. It is going to be fun having Villeneuve back full time.

As I was watching Alias last night, it suddenly dawned on me that this show is part of the axis of evil. Half way through the episode, it occurred to me that Anna Espinoza…is yet another evil African American woman on TV! The show even went to great lengths during past seasons to establish Sidney’s best friend (a black woman), only to turn her into an evil twin.

Am I onto something?

The actor who plays Ms. Espinoza was also an uber-demon in the show Angel for a while. And, to top it off, she let the President’s wife convince her to let her husband die in 24, after becoming the President’s brother’s lover.

Alias, 24, and The Apprentice. Trying to keep a sister down.

Still no word from ebgames.com or the local ebgames about my preorders. I have no idea if I am going to get 0, 1, or 2 PSPs at launch, but there may be some good news from ebgames.com:

Your choice of any four games, accessories or a combination thereof, from a select list of launch games and accessories. These games and accessories are priced between $29.99-149.99 each.

If I have to have a bundle, I would much rather get games than be forced to get an accessory. With that said, 4 games is a hell of a lot to have to buy at launch. I suppose I will end up with three and some sort of memory stick.

Forgot to post this earlier, but some interesting news for iPod owners. Apple is very good at innovating, but very bad at understanding consumers. At least consumers who think rationally and aren’t dazzled by Apple’s brilliance. There’s a long list of great Apple ideas that were fully exploited by other companies. A vintage Apple Newton sits in a file cabinet in my office.

Random thoughts:

I saw this movie title, thought about 24 and The Apprentice, and laughed out loud (readers of my former site will get the joke).

Florida beat South Carolina in South Carolina by one point this afternoon. Nothing significant except that it was the first game in four years that the Gators showed some heart.

Lot of bad press for ESPN’s baseball release. Mixed reviews for MVP Baseball so far. I’m staring at High Heat 2003’s jewel case wondering if I will ever purchase an arcade baseball game again. That was the last action baseball game that I paid for, and High Heat 2002 is the last baseball arcade game that I actually played.

One of the funniest gaming threads I’ve ever read. You’ll have to speak online RPG geek in order to get some of the jokes, but every elder gamer/married person will understand the gist of the discussion.

Do your disks need protection? Ever consider a disk condom? Sounds crazy, but I picked up a 5 pack of d_skin disk protectors last week from Best Buy. Yes, I am supporting the enemy, but it is not my fault that someone gave me a gift card for Christmas, so I am not directly supporting that crap chain.

Anyway, the 5 pack version comes in a little metal canister and cost $5.95 (or maybe $6.95). Each disk slips over the underside of a disk (CD, game disk, DVD, etc), which protects the disk from getting scratches, while allow the laser on your player to read the media.

I picked up a pack because my oldest son does not understand the concept of not scratching his dad’s game disks (especially Need For Speed games). I just put these condoms on the games that Joshua is allowed to play, and then I do not have to worry about his grubby little hands ruining my games.

So far so good; no problems with my original PS2 reading any of these disks, and no new scratches on my games. I wish I would have thought of this; the manufactures have to be making a killing because these condoms probably cost next to nothing to manufacture. In fact, I am willing to bet that the little metal canister cost more than the 5 condoms. Oh well; maybe my day will come.

Highly recommended!