The Recycle Bin

I think a PSP baseball game is just the ticket for summer gaming (and my upcoming beach trip). So now, where do I find a good review? Not that I ever took much stock in reviews in the first place. Nope. Not me. Instead I used to seek out reviews to see what silly reviewers had to say about the big hits, fringe titles, and everything in between.

I am not even sure where to find a good review these days. Most of my gaming friends have stopped reviewing games; something in the water I guess. I do not have time to regularly visit any gaming sites, so I have no idea if there is a decent sporting gaming site. What is a thirty-something sports gamer to do?

I could turn to the likes of IGN, but I fail to see what that will bring me other than a general idea if readers agree with the score. In the case of MBL 06 they generally do (IGN 8.3; Reader Avg 8.4), but no so much in the case of Major League Baseball 2K6 (IGN 6.7; Reader Avg 8.8).

Game Rankings is somewhat helpful; I can at least use it to find mainstream reviews, but once again no idea if any of these sites actually has creditable reviews. For what it is worth, Game Rankings lists Major League baseball 2K6 with a 73.5% average and MLB 06 with an 83.4% average.

A second for what it is worth; when I say creditable review, I mean creditable sports gaming review from my perspective as a sports gamer. I know; so snobbish of me. The list in no certain order …

• The statistics engine must be believable. I have grown past the days of demanding perfection. Instead I just want something that does not seem so totally unrealistic that it will never happen. Pretty subjective, but still, I am all about the experience, but it does not have to be serious, down, and dirty realistic.


• These days I do not have limitless time to play countless games in a season (or sadly even multiple seasons in a NCAA or Madden franchise) so a good simulation feature is a must. Simulate a single game, simulate to the end, simulate x number of games, simulate the season, simulate the rest of the season. I love NCAA Baseball’s feature to jump into a simulation.


• A good coaching mode (or play calling mode) is a must. My fingers have never been nimble, and age (and beer) are catching up with me.


• In game saves, at any point in the game. Sports gaming on the PSP rules in this respect.


• I want the CPU AI to challenge me in a realistic manner; not just get faster or guess my plays (cough … NCAA Football … cough) as the difficulty level is increased.


• Ferrari F355 Challenge with true analog support. Wet dream.


• I have never been an arcade sports gamer (think NBA Jam or the various EA Sports Street titles) so please do not give me something over the top unless it is in line with SSX, SSX Tricky, or SSX 3.


• Update Destruction Derby. I mean a serious update, not that Arenas junk.

I do not think I am asking for that much. In the end I want feature rich sports games that are simulation oriented, with challenging (but fair) AI, strong statistical tracking, and the ability to save where and when needed. So where does one find reviews that have the thirty-something gaming in mind? Please do not tell me I have to write reviews again…

I read earlier today that NCAA Football 07 is going to be released on the PSP, which is a nice move for me because I would love a portable version of the game. Of course I would be happy with the PSX version of NCAA 2000 running in emulation mode (see previous story), and I may have to hold out hope for the emulation route because the next version of EA college franchise may have gone just a little bit too far for me to stomach. I read this tidbit under the game’s propaganda on EBGames:

“Back to School�Excel in the classroom to improve your overall character, and then balance your time wisely between studies, practice, and social events as you live the life of a Student Athlete.”

I want a football simulation. Off field recruiting is one thing, and even some form of spring ball to improve statistics (which by the way I do not like) is something I can live with, but student life? That sounds like one of those squirrelly Japanese dating simulations. No thanks.

Please do not tell me what this says about me, but I did not manage my Yahoo fantasy baseball team for the first three weeks of the season and managed to hold onto first place. Why? Pujols rules!

I did not know that Sony was still producing the PSX (I still do not want to call it a PSOne), but they are, or rather they were. Turns out that after an 11 year run, the PSOne has seen the end of its run. The interesting news here is that PSX games may be coming for the PSP. The system needs something to add some life, and this may be just the trick.

My son is begging for a Nintendo DS. There was a time when I would have picked one up a launch, but that time has now passed me by. Now I am considering getting one that we can “share” – the fact is that my seven-year old son will just abuse the heck out of the thing, as he has done with his GBA. Still, an arrangement of some sort could be in the works because of a couple of games that may put me over the edge. Ages of Empire – I have wanted to try this on the PC forever, but I know what would happen. Besides I just do not want to play in front of a PC for hours on end. A portable version could be just the trick, giving me the ability to play on the go, as well as playing in the living room around the rest of the family while they are playing board games, watching TV, reading, etc. Stay tuned.

I am not sure what to make of the Falcons draft. Trading up for Jimmy Williams (CB, VA Tech) may be a great move, but everything I have read indicates a serious attitude problem. I guess the Falcons want to become thug city; screw character is what it says to me. Norwood (RB, Miss St) could be a good hedge with Dunn getting older, and Duckett in the last year of his contract. No idea about Ojennaka (OG, Syracuse) who looks like he has good size going for him, or Jennings (WR, Fresno St) who seems to be a rather small target. My son was ecstatic that the Falcons took Shockley; may be a good fit to back up Vick at some point. I guess the Falcons did all their work prior to the draft, so I was not really expecting much over the weekend.

Seems that online baseball guru and IOSBL team owner Tom Montalto is enjoying the OOTP 2006 beta according to the latest OOTP 2006 blog. Tom was one of the first people to IM me that there was no way he was pre-ordering the game back when we both were, shall we say, less then enthusiastic about pre-purchasing vaporware. Since then his tune has changed quite a bit, Mr. Duffy has used the force, and brought Tom completely over to the dark side. Ok, maybe not the dark side, but his transformation is complete and he’s ready to drink the OOTP 2006 KoolAid Marc and Markus (could be a great talk radio show name by the way) are handing out.

It’s a good sign that Tom likes OOTP 2006. It’s a bad sign that nary a line of anything written about OOTP 2006 discusses the online portion of the game in any sort of detail.

In other news, OOTP Mac owners are wanted to beta test OOTP 2006. Since the only games I play (World of Warcraft and OOTP) are now going to be available on a Mac, might be time for me to take a look at the new line and see what’s what.

I�ve been hearing little birdies chirping in my ear this week about Out of the Park Baseball 2006. At first, they could only hint and nudge, nudge about their official beta tester status. It seems that the decision was made to allow the beta team to identify themselves as members, so now they really, really want to tell me about the game, but can�t because of the all powerful non-disclosure agreements. And they don�t want to risk making Marc Duffy �mad as hell� again.

Reading in-between the lines, folks are liking what they see. There are at least two beta testers in the online league that I run, so I know who to blame if the game is broken when it�s released. Ok, I�m only kidding. Well, a little bit.

Meanwhile, the �twitch� crowd is all up in arms about the state of MLB 2K6. I haven�t played an action baseball game for more than a couple of days since the sudden demise of High Heat Baseball because, seriously, that was the last action �baseball� game ever made worth more than five minutes.

According to The Blog for the Sports Gamer, Bill Abner is taking heat over at operation pop-up, I mean Operation Sports because he dared to criticize MLB 2K6 in the OS forums. Mr. Abner and I don�t agree on many things, but I do know that he knows what a baseball game should be and is a long-time member of the old guard that killed off the abomination known as Triple Play Baseball. So stay strong brother, there will always be lemmings in the gaming world. To hell with them and their tolerance for crappy baseball products.

This is truly going to be the golden age of management sims if OOTP 2006 works as advertised. I hate to be a spoil sport, but there�s never been a great, truly great, career baseball twitch game. Each, including the much loved High Heat Baseball, had significant flaws that were sometimes smoothed over by fan initiative. In the console age, I knew action baseball gaming was doomed because the people who make twitch games don�t understand baseball, now that 3DO is dead to us. And you can’t create fan mods of any significant nature on a console.

Meanwhile, text-sims are booming. This season there are three viable baseball career sim products on the market. That�s three more than twitch games, for those keeping score at home.

It doesn�t get much better than this as far as I am concerned.

The good folks at Sports Mogul released a 30 MB demo of Baseball Mogul 2007 for your playing pleasure.

In a move to give those of us waiting for Out of the Park Baseball’s release at the end of May something to do, Shaun Sullivan announced that PureSim 2006 will be released the first week of May. Since external beta testing hasn’t started yet (or doesn’t seem to have started yet), I’m a little concerned. But I will probably check out PureSim when it is released.

There’s quite a bit of buzz surrounding EA’s NFL Head Coach. An interesting blog discusses various aspects of the career portion of the game and things look very interesting. However, it is an EA Sports product so there is no way I’m purchasing this until the many lemmings who purchase everything EA get a chance to run this through its paces.

There’s some initial discussion about an upcoming Championship Manager 2006 patch on their website.

A new unofficial Baseball Mogul patch was released a couple of days ago.

Markus took time from his busy schedule to post a new blog about the in-game screens in Out of the Park Baseball 2006. Of particular interest is the “SION” webcast view of the field action. Looks, very, very cool. Am I too old to say that?

Shaun Sullivan continues to tease us with tidbits about PuerSim 2006. He mentions that there are new animation and audio effects that spice up the game’s on field presentation.

Thanks to Chris for keeping the action fresh around here. Of late I have been doing everything except gaming and posting. I am not going to go into tons of personal details, but my dad is pretty sick, as is my geriatric cat.

I have been reading “Game of Shadows” � a fairly interesting read, but you have to wonder about the credibility of an ex mistress. I don’t doubt for a minute that a ton of folks were on something, including Bonds, so it is not as if everyone should be surprised.

Remus “Ming Fu” (my Shih Tzu) likes beer. Not sure why that is important to write about right now, but it is pretty funny. He accidentally knocked over a beer bottle one night, and enjoyed lapping in the mess. Now he intentionally knocks over my beer at every opportunity. So he is trying for a beer right now while I am watching Team USA’s lackluster performance vs. Jamaica (1-1 at the half).

I keep thinking I am going to have some gaming time at some point soon, but there is always another something in the way. I have tons of stuff to play and write about when I get around to finding the time.

Not sure what the last post (Chris’ previous Just to be Clear) is about, but I remember the days when publishers/reviewers asked if I would give their game a “favorable” score if I was provided with a review copy, interview, or other such collateral. Chris can probably go into more details than I can, but the game review industry can be rather disenchanting. My game reviewing days are long behind me.

Chris, thanks again keeping things up and running.

If you’re a developer reading this blog, I (1) do not accept free/press copies of games as I am in no way, shape, or form a member of any press and I can afford to purchase the games I want to purchase; (2) do not review games; (3) do feel free to mention good and bad aspects of the games that I do purchase; (4) will mention developers by name for praise and for criticism; and (5) do not discuss anything with PR people from any game company…

…unless you’re the artist formally known as “mad as hell” Marc Duffy, because, well, I like most things from Sports Interactive. Even their PR folks.

Shaun Sullivan is busy getting PureSim 2006 ready. He posted a list of changes and tweaks in the forum. I’m not too thrilled about yet another game that simulates minor leagues and doesn’t force roster management, but it’s a step in the right direction. Will be interesting to take a look at the final product.