The Recycle Bin

Developer Arlie Rahn posted an update about his Bowl Bound College Football game. Appears to be a demo coming, but still no screeen shots of any volume. An “alumni card” picture is posted as part of the update.

For those that missed it, Worldwide Soccer Manager 2006 is available as a digital download via SEGA’s web store. A steal at $29.99.

PureSim Baseball 2005 Gold Edition 1.1 patch was officially released yesterday. PureSim wins the “shortest time from beta patch to final” award among text-based baseball games. Out of the Park Baseball 6.5b has been in beta for a very, very long time.

You can download a video of the new Championship Manager 2006 match engine from the CM 2006 web site. The match engine seems to add a column over the regular 2D circles that were in CM 2005. Revolutionary! Instead of watching circles, fans will get to watch their pawns score goals.

In other news, go Navy! Beat Notre Dame!

Grey Dog Software released screen shots of its upcoming Total College Basketball game. I’m all for building up product suspense, but Grey Dog wins the award for the silliest screen shot release plan in the business. They consistently leak two or three screen shots of their games and it is just a bit annoying. Instead of thinking “Wow, this is a nice looking game!”, I think “Why can’t these idiots post more than five screenshots for a game they announced months ago?”

Eidos published an article by Producer Luke Didd that describes the new 3D Gameplan/Match Engine. Is it just me, or do the soccer players look like chess pawn pieces? Based on the screen shots, I am not so sure that I don’t prefer the little circles that were in the 2D match engine. Those of you expecting a CM type game with an EA Sports FIFA graphical treatment will be dissapointed.

Even the mighty Civilization IV could not unseat Football Manager 2006 as the most popular game in the UK. The ELSPA released it’s PC sales rankings for the week ending November 5th and FM 2006 is number one for the third week in a row. In addition to Civ IV, FM 2006 was ranked higher than Call of Duty 2 and Age of Empires 3.

Sports Interactive released a new patch, version 2.1.2, and set of rosters for NHL Eastside Hockey Manager 2005.

Thanks to Todd at The Blog for the Sports Gamer for pointing me to a hilarious site called Civilization Anonymous. Check out the “Learn The Truth About Civilization” link and watch a quicktime video that should cause Civilization fans many LOLs.

Yet another edition of The Escapist was released today. Asia is the focus this time and there is one very interesting article that describes games with odd themes developed in Asia that never made it to the US market. And it seems that perfect and understanding girlfriends/wives for gamers exist in Japan.

Shaun Sullivan and Matrix Games announced the release of the 1.1 beta 3 patch for PureSim Baseball 2005 Gold Edition.

After today’s 17-10 victory over Miami, Michael Vick had the following to say to his (often) harsh critics:

“People say I can’t throw the ball from the pocket. I had to show them,” Vick said. “From here on out, I don’t want to hear that question — if I can throw from the pocket.”

And Vick also had this qem of a quote:

“I want people to praise me,” Vick said. “If I’m winning games, don’t criticize me. That’s all I’m saying.”

Good grief! Who likes to be criticized? The Falcons are winning, that is all that really matters to me, but Vick needs to look in the mirror and realize that his passing performances (for the most part) this year have sucked. Sure he has done it on the ground, along with Dunn, and the defense has been solid, but Vick’s air attack has been less than impressive.

Vick threw for one TD, going 22 of 31 for 228 yards on the day. Vick also had 38 yards rushing on 8 attempts. OK, the numbers were good, and the Falcons won (all I really care about), but Vick needs to learn to shut his trap until he is regularly putting up number this efficient (and of course more yards). All in all Vick did look very comfortable in the pocket – the bye week obviously helped – but again Vick needs to shut his f’ing mouth.

So FM2006 arrived earlier in the week … and has been sitting on my desk all week. I am not even sure why I pretend to have time to game these days.

I would get to FM2006 this weekend, but the weekend has pretty much been Housecleaning 2005 Spectacular; actually Yard Work 2005 Spectacular. I thought I had a deal to sale my house without listing it (and incurring agent fees), but the buyer could not sale their house in a reasonable amount of time, so now we have to list the house on Monday. What a major pain in the ass.

It looks like our new house will be ready in a couple of weeks – keeping my fingers crossed. We are renovating my grandmother’s 100+ year-old house, and it has been an adventure. New plumbing, re-wiring the house, building a new kitchen, saving a garage apartment, and the list goes on and on. It is amazing how much time and effort this is taking. I was ignorant going into this – figured I could just hire a general contractor that specializes in renovating old homes; silly me. The house looks great, but as I said, it has been a pain getting to this point.

On a completely unrelated note, I have put in a decent amount of time with Madden this week and I have to say that Madden for the PSP does not suck as much as I have read. I will try to write more info later, but I am actually enjoying the game. I have not really played around with the franchise mode (because of all the reported bugs), but single player games have been fun. The ability to play a quarter – then sleep or save – and play some more later is a godsend. There are some load times (delays) between the play select screen and lining up for a play, but that is really my only complaint at this point.

I watched Star Wars III a couple of nights ago – this one is the best of the new bunch. It has everything you would want in a Star Wars move – great space battles, light saber duels, cool aliens, and awesome special effects, but man does the acting suck. Office Space was also re-released on DVD Tuesday, but I passed on it because there is no freaking commentary. Publishers are doing major $ grabs when they release second and third versions of a DVD with minimal extras/upgrades over previous editions.

I really hate yard work. I am not sure what sucks more – having to invest more time and effort into my current house, or the major landscaping effort that looms in front of me for my new house. As I have grown older, I actually find some yard work therapeutic, but mostly I hate wasting weekend time working in the yard.

I am not sure why, but I decided to purchase Nirvana’s “Nevermind” from iTunes. I have always been a casual fan – I like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” “In Bloom” and “Come As You Are” but that is really it. I am not sure why the rest of the album is so beloved. Luckily I had an iTunes gift card so I do not feel like I totally wasted my money. I guess I will really show my age (closing in fast on 35), but Madonna’s “Something to Remember” and “The Immaculate Collection” were much better purchases. Sue me.

I finally decided to get serious about my PSP collection and only keep the games that I am playing, or have time to play more than every now and again. Ridge Racer and Twisted Metal: Head On missed the cut and where promptly listed on eBay yesterday. Wipe Out: Pure may be next; it is a great racing game, but Colin McRae Rally may be the only racing game I need. I know they are completely different types of racing, but there is only so much free time in a day. If I can get some life out of Madden PSP’s franchise mode, then I may wish Madden 2006 for the PS2 a fond farewell.

All for now. Hopefully more to come on FM2006, and Madden PSP.

Still version 6.01, but now Build 70473. Don’t ask me why it couldn’t be 6.011 or something like that.

Eidos announced that Championship Manager 2006 exists and will include a new “Gameplan 3D match engine.” I still think it’s odd that there are Championship Manager fans who did not jump ship and join the Sports Interactive exodus to SEGA and the Football Manager series. SI Games created the Championship Manager that Eidos published, they left their old code with Eidos for them to do what they wanted with, and continued the Championship Manager series in exile – or better known as Football Manager. Some fans prefer CM 2005 over FM 2005. I have no opinion because with FM 2006 available, who needs another soccer text management sim?