The Recycle Bin

I wanted to interrupt my NCAA 2006 love-fest for a few minutes to write about the good guys of sports. I have been a subscriber to the Sporting News the past three years, and each year I have enjoyed reading the annual Good Guys (What’s right about sports) issue. This year the Falcons’ Warrick Dunn was singled out as the top good guy.

While it does not really matter how much these guys give, I always get a kick out of reading that such and such superstar gave $100K to a chosen charity. The jaded person in me immediately thinks that “so and so gets x million a year, but only gave $100K!” I admit that is the wrong direction, instead I try to focus on the fact that a professional athlete is actually giving something back to the community besides another illegitimate kid, another costly court case, another highly publicized run-in with the law, or even worse. The bad guys always get so much attention that it amazing that everyone in sports is not all that bad (I am being a little sarcastic, but I am sure you get my point).

It is funny that most of us never get our names in lights for giving money; it is just one of those things that Americans do. We are a generous people. So it is just another sign of the times that we actually care about what athletes give, but as I said, we (well, I do) expect so much focus on bad behavior that we are often surprised by the good stuff.

At any rate, be sure to check out the July 8, 2005 Sporting News to read about the good guys in sports for a happy-feel-good kind of day.

Another day, another NCAA 2006 update. While the game is not vastly different than previous versions (I am not even going to count NCAA 2005 as part of the official NCAA series canon), speed actually matters for the first time. Big plays happen when a player with breakaway speed gets a step on someone that cannot match stride-for-stride. In past versions of the game, I always felt like there was some degree of cheating going on because individual player speed attributes did not seem to count for much.

This year NCAA 2006 really feels like college football from all aspects of the game. Not only does the running game work, the CPU will actually allow running teams to run the ball. The passing game has been fixed; drops are not as common as NCAA 2005. Tweaking the speed attributes (or rather making speed matter) results in kick off and punt returns for TDs. Of course the atmosphere is awesome, which is the hallmark of the NCAA series. Needless to say, NCAA 2006 has rejuvenated my love for gaming (I am not going to digress, that is for another day).

Unless you absolutely hate the inherent Madden/NCAA/EA Sports style of football, I think I can safely recommend NCAA 2006 as one of the best games in the series. I am still playing on the default settings (I have increased penalties a notch across the board), so my opinion may change if I graduate to the All-American or Heisman settings, but so far so pleased.

As I said in a previous post, it has also been a huge help that I have not scoured messages looking for info/posts on the games. I am already a jaded bastard, so *not* reading about what is broken, money plays, and what sucks has tremendously improved my enjoyment factor. I will try to remember that before I go halfcocked on any gaming factors that I find debilitating; maybe with some sort of spoiler warning.

Maybe this whole casual gamer thing is not half bad! Are any readers in favor of a dynasty report (or two) so I can get out of the mainstream and into sports-gaming-freak mode?

I don’t beta test anymore, but there’s no reason why folks shouldn’t help Shaun Sullivan develop his latest PuerSim version. He’s released a public beta version of 9.0, so head over and start providing feedback.

I am still not sure what to make of the Race for the Heisman mode; I know I am going to be serious pissed if I win the Heisman and there are no extra bells or whistles. I will be equally disappointed if I import my player into Madden 06 (assuming I buy the latest, greatest Madden) and he (or rather I) am not worth a damn in the NFL. I will also be extremely disappointed if there are some limitations of rolling my Heisman mode into a Dynasty mode. I guess I will cross those bridges if they get in my way.

I played an awful game against Troy; while I did win 10-0, I totally sucked. Must have been the beer. Surprisingly there is still some Heisman buzz around my alter ego, but I have no idea why there was any buzz in the first place. When it comes to the NCAA series, I have always been more about running than passing, which is going to hinder my progress as a scrambling QA; sacks kill my rushing average.

In my next game vs. K-State I managed to win 27-17. OK, I admit that I padded the score by kicking a FG as time expired, but I toss it up to needing the practice. The big deal to me in this game was that I had two INTs with a LB; that almost never happed with previous versions of the game. Strangely enough the picks came on K-State’s first two possessions for the first half. The bigger news was that K-State actually mounted a 12 play, 82 yard TD drive that took almost 3 minutes. Everything about the drive was encouraging. I have been playing my Heisman mode games on 4 min quarters so I can get in plenty of games, so a 3 minute drive is a huge chunk of time. I cannot think of a single time with any of the previous games where the CPU actually mounted a 12 play drive.

I have not spent very much time looking around various message boards to see if the buzz around NCAA Football 2006 is positive or negative, but I can say that I am pretty pleased so far. I will probably stay away from most boards (as much as possible anyway) so I am not jaded by all the posts about various flaws that I have yet to uncover.

The New York Times has an interesting piece about the creation of the new Battlestar Galactica.

Let�s continue the upgrade saga. One of the things I always try to do during any PC upgrade is maximize the free games I get with the hardware I purchase. Since I don�t buy many games anyhow, there�s usually a high probability that I won�t own the free titles and will get some benefit from them.

The motherboard I chose was the ASUS A8N-E. I like the NForce motherboard bios, but don�t need SLI (you�ll see why in a minute), so the A8N-E is a good choice. The question that should be apparent at this point is � how did I get a free game out of this? Well, Mwave.com is giving free copies of Half Life 2 via Steam when a motherboard/CPU combo is purchased. Since I was just about to purchase Half Life 2 for $39 at Best Buy, this is a nice freebie.

First free game.

I wanted to upgrade the sound on my motherboard. I decided to get a Creative Audigy 2 ZS and was first looking at the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Was attractive because of the additional firewire ports that I currently don�t have on my motherboard. As a bit of an afterthought, I looked at the cheaper �Gamer Limited Edition� version of the card. It had only one firewire port, but included five free copies of full version games. Halo (another game I was about to purchase), Rainbow Six 3, Splinter Cell, Jedi Knight Jedi Academy, and Tomb Raider the Angel of Darkness.

Now up to six free games.

I didn�t need a SLI board because I decided to get an ATI XL800 card. At first I was simply going to purchase the ATI brand card, but I did a little more investigating. MSI Computing sells a RX800XL card that includes three free games � Uru, XIII, and Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. OK, I�m not a big Myst fan so Uru is a complete waste, but it�s still a free game.

Final tally � nine free games.

When will I have time to play all of these games? I don�t know, but I can promise that at the very least, Halo and Half Life will get some serious attention. Then Rainbow Six 3, followed by the collection of Splinter Cell games. After that, who knows?

I started my Race for the Heisman game last night; little ‘ol freshman quarterback Jonathan Calvert took the field for #92 North Texas down in Louisiana against #9 LSU. The results were pretty much as expected – my ass was handed to me, 35-21.

I have written many times that I almost always start my games on the default level, Varsity in the case of NCAA 2006, so I can get a better feel for what the developers intended for the average player and/or mass-market target audience. It has always been my experience that I can more easily “tune” a game when I start with the defaults, but these days I do not have the time or patience to tune games. Anyway, on Varsity it was obvious that LSU was much better than the Mean Green. My next game was at Middle Tennessee State, and I ran away 42-14; in this year’s game there is clearly a different between top programs and the bottom of the barrel.

General impressions are favorable; so far, so good. While I am seeing some dropped passes, they do not see as blatant as with last year’s game. The running game seems improved, especially for the AI. LSU pounded the crap out of me the entire game, but Middle Tennessee could do next to nothing on the ground. Interestingly enough the Middle Tennessee did continue to try to establish a ground game, but they were really over matched by my swarming defense.

As mentioned in my previous post, the CPU almost always manages to get rid of the ball instead of taking a sack once the throwing motion starts, but human players have no such luck. This may not bother many of you, but it pisses the heck out of me that EA cannot fix this problem. I know the developers are trying to enhance the game to make it more challenging (or maybe more realistic), but it needs to be applied fairly to humans and the CPU.

The new slow-mo action that takes place when an impact player makes a big play is actually growing on me. I figured it would be annoying, but now it builds some anticipation because I know something interesting is about to happen. Well, most of the time something interesting happens.

At this point the Heisman mode thing seems to be more of a gimmick instead of having substance. You cannot set your rosters except during the in-game setup screen. The fan letters are stupid to the point of being absolutely pointless. And I have no idea what the playbook feature does. It is suppose to let you improve your attributes, but I cannot really make heads or tails of it doing anything.

More still to come …

Sci-Fi Fridays are back tonight with new episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and my favorite television show, Battlestar Galactica. Can’t wait to see how they resolve the BG season ending cliffhanger!

How the hell would I know? I have only played one game, and I am not into the whole “best ever” bit after a few minutes of play. So here are my free-form opening remarks …

As the game loaded up I was immediately put into the race for the Heisman mode thing. I am not sure why they force you to do this out of the gate, but that is what EA Sports deemed best, so it must be good for us. I created a scrambling QB; all of 6 feet, 180 pounds. I guess I did OK, but not great. Scholarship offers came in from #48 Minnesota, #49 Arkansas, and #55 Kansas State. As if I would ever consider playing for any of these teams; I signed up as a walk on for North Texas.

Just in case it needs to be said again, my favorite college teams are Georgia, Texas, and North Texas; in that order. I usually go with North Texas because there is not much of a challenge playing with a great team (in terms of video game potential) such as Georgia. I digress.

Next up I created my player profile; my ratings were not bad, but certainly not great. I think I would like to be a little faster than 78, but what can you do?

The race for the Heisman thing looks pretty interesting. You can import your dude into Madden 06, which is nothing new, but you can also become a coach in Dynasty mode, which is cool, if not a bit of a novelty.

You are then taken to your dorm, which is pretty much your NFL 2K style crib thing; I suppose. I did not mess around here (or with this mode); instead I took it back to the main menu and played a rivalry game: Georgia Tech vs. Georgia. Unfortunately the bumblebees got the better of me.

Are drop passes better compared to NCAA 2005? I think so, but I had at least 4 passes that were dropped that should have been caught (my opinion anyway). Tech ran back a punt for a TD. I am rather pissed that the who “tackle the QB while throwing” animation thing still looks to be “in the game.” I could live with this if it happened to the CPU, but while it happened to me three or four times, the CPU QB always managed to avoid such misery.

What else? Impact players are highlighted in white – kind of a shadow effect. This actually adds to the game and reminds me of Sony’s GameBreaker franchise. I missed an extra point; too soon to tell if the meter means more and/or if it is faster.

A pass interference call was levied against the CPU on a crossing pattern when their defensive back kept my player from reaching the ball! That is a minor improvement, but will actually be a huge game play enhancement if it is called on a regular basis. Your mileage may very.

You have several options once you are inside of two minutes including running a no-huddle offense and spiking the ball.

I lost 32-16; boo hiss and all that. Out of the gate, stats were more or less in line with last year (Tech / GA):
Total Yards 257 / 297
Rushes 12-106 / 19-73
Comp-ATT-TD 6-11-2 / 11-24-2
Passing Yards 151 / 224
TOP 5:50 / 10:10

Tech got several big players including a 64-yard TD pass off of a screen after three of my guys bounced off the freaking HB! Needless to say, that was ridiculous. Other highlights were a 55-yard TD pass and a 64-yard TD run (also featured several missed tackles). The only real highlight for me was a 60-yard TD strike from DJ after a timely INT with about 20 seconds left before the half, which put me up 16-14.

Interestingly enough, Tech went for 2 when the score was 20-16; not sure why because two points would not have help much. I stuffed the play, and if things did not go south from there, I think you would have to consider that a questionable call.

Too soon to reach any sort of verdict, but figured I would do my part to contribute to the yearly hype.

Sometimes writers-block hits, and when it does, the results are not very pretty. I was going to write about being a member of eBay since 1997 and a whole bunch of stuff about how I used (and currently use) eBay, but I think I will just say “screw it” and move on to my main point.

OK, enough of that. I can never just get to the point; you guys know me too well. Back in the day I found eBay really useful for collecting old video games, strange oddities, and RPGs � pen and paper not the rocket variety. These days, trying to use eBay to support a hobby can be a pricy proposition, so I just use eBay for selling stuff; rarely do I buy anything.

I found a recent washingtonpost.com article about eBay’s “E-Commerce Growing Pains” rather interesting reading, especially for those of us who have been around eBay for a while.

As an eBay buyer I have only been burned once, and that deal was more out of ignorance than anything else. I thought I was buying an “original” VHS version of Disney’s Song of the South, but it ended up being a bootleg copy from Japan (or some other Asian country). At the time I did not know I could file fraud complaint at the Post Office; live and learn I guess.

As an eBay seller I have had great luck – I always require Shipping Confirmation or Insurance since I can use those as “proof” that I shipped a package. In 7+ years I have only had three people claim that I did not send the goods. Two dropped the claim after I told them I would send them a copy of the insurance and confirmation receipts. Unfortunately for the other one, my wife forgot to include a delivery confirmation number � I was out $35 or so dollars. I guess the bad news is that two of the three happened in the last few weeks, while the first one happened several years ago. I hope that is not a sign of the times.

Recently I have had a heck of a time getting folks to pay; I would say that 20% of my transactions over the last three or so months have ended with me having to file for a refund. It seems like that is a growing trend, but all in all I have been fairly happy with eBay, and will probably continue to use them for selling items until another competitor makes it worth my while to stop using the giant garage sale known as eBay.

As promised, the hype will ensue as soon as the kids go to bed. Happy days are here again; thanks to a 12 pack of Samuel Adams Summer Ale and a tasty new NCAA football treat.

More to come?

Gaming magazine continues to suck. Details at eleven!

We’ve discussed this many times before, but Gamers with Jobs does another nice “job” pointing out the declining state of certain print gaming magazines.

I say again, Ooooouuuuccccchhhhh!!!!

Shaun Sullivan has announced that version 9.0 of his popular PureSim franchise will be available soon. There’s a pretty extensive list of tweaks and additions (including multiplayer) listed on the site. There are still hints about a publisher/distributor but no announcement yet.

Anybody else find it odd that folks are talking about a console college football game when we’re at the Major League All Star game?

With a pocket full of birthday money, and a sale at Best Buy, I decided to give MLB 2K5 – “powered by ESPN” – a try. I must say, desite all of the horror stories I heard about this title, my one-game experience was pretty positive. I didn’t encounter the deadly passed-ball bug, or any crazy bugs with runners on, numbers of outs, and so forth. Granted, one game is hardly a sample size, but I left with a favorable feeling about the game. Also, it seems that hardcore fans have found workarounds for the biggest problems, as reported in many gaming forums.

First off, the atomosphere is over the top! The crowd rose to the occasion, and really pulled me into the game. The “thwack” of bat on ball, or a missed swing, was pretty poor, but other wise, the action was very ESPN-like.

I love the myriad of gameplay styles and options. For my one game, I stuck with “True Aim” hitting and “K-Zone” pitching. After a couple of at-bats, I was able to put the bat on the ball pretty consistently, albeit without much power. I slapped 14 singles, but got no runs! A couple of untimely double plays and a pickoff did me in, plus some extremely conservative baserunning on my part. Actually, the baserunning was almost exclusively station-to-station. I’m not sure if it’s a problem with the speed of the ball in the outfield, the outfield size, the outfielders’ speed, their arms, or my aforementioned lack of aggressiveness on the bags.

The K-Zone was pretty easy to pick up as well. I through about 85% strikes. Sometimes I would miss badly, and throw a “meatball,” but usually, I could hit my spots. I did walk one batter, but I was pitching around him. Their are four other pitching styles to choose from, and I’m looking forward to playing around with them, to see which one suits me the best for realistic play.

The most encouraging thing is that there are about 50 or so sliders for the AI and human player to adjust. I’m assuming they’ll have a measurable impact, so the game can be tweaked to my preception of “realism.”

Hopefully, I won’t run into these “bugs” reported across various websites, and I can find the right combination of sliders (without too much effort) to make the game suit me. After game one, and after spending only $15, I’m pretty excited about this title. We’ll see…