Author: jcalvert

My PSP has not gotten much play of late, but that is mostly due to not playing much of anything lately besides NCAA Football 2006. This fall I plan to beef up my PSP library via the UK PSP launch – TOCA Race Drive 2, F1 Grand Prix, Colin McRae Rally 2005 Plus, and World Rally Championship look delicious. Of course I also need some football, and well, that is the point for this post.

I know that a preview from GameSpot via EBGames is not actually a lot to get excited about, but the quote works for me:

“The good news is that the PSP version isn’t simply a console port with all the cool features missing. One of the best inclusions in the game is the ability to transfer files between the PSP and PS2 versions of the game. If you own both the PS2 and handheld versions of the game, you can share a number of different file types between the two games, including rosters, profiles, and spawned games. Rosters and profiles are well and good, but sharing spawned games may be the best reason for the PSP version of Madden to exist. In a nutshell, transferring data between the two versions of the game will let you take your franchise mobile, play your franchise games on your PSP, and then resync your games with your PS2 once you get home.”

The game sounds like more of what Madden fans need, but now we have to play the waiting game to see if the development team can work out the frame rate issues.

This time last year I wrote about Atlanta’s Matt Schaub being a starter in the making. After watching Schaub play in today’s preseason match up vs. Indy, you have to wonder if Atlanta just gave too much money to Vick.

Sure, sure, sure – I still love me some Vick; he is exciting, he has a massive arm, and I think Vick may turn out to be a heck of a QB before he hangs up he helmet. But – have to get in one of those – Schaub will be the man somewhere, someday soon. Today Schaub went 11-13, good for 115 yards and 2 TDs. I know it is just preseason, but man on man does Schaub look like he could be a hell of a QB.

Not really, but it is another Friday night, and another drunken blog – hey I do what I can.

First, the number one spot this week is Aspen Edge. I know beerpals.com thinks it sucks, but it works well to chase a night of Harp and Shiraz. Besides beer flavored water rules.

What about recent music? I picked up New Order’s “International The Best of New Order” from iTunes. So I love me some 80s’ music; sue me, whatever. I am also in love with some Gwen Stefani pop; no apologies. I even downloaded some JoJo the other night, but I have to admit that I am a little ashamed to amid I paid for pop. I know Chris thinks it is pretty trite, but I am still enjoying the Killers – good stuff.

On the home front my pool room (AKA the garage apartment reconstruction project) is almost ready for me to do the refinish thing. Thankfully my wife is all about getting a pool table and a refrigerator full of beer to recoup some of the construction costs. I suck at pool, and never really played, but I am looking forward to building out the game room. Have to give a shout out to my wife; she actually suggested the refrigerator full of beer. Tonya is a great wife!

Renovating my grandmother’s house has been a heck of a learning experience. I am sure if she was still here my grandmother would be pissed about the wall we took out, but overall I would like to think she would be happy to have kids running and sliding on the floors again. I am pretty excited about moving into the house this fall!

Gaming has been non existent this week, but who needs gaming when the duckets are flying left and right for the pool room.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend of gaming!

Here we go again. I know the sex stuff buried in GTA:SA is old news, but the washingtonpost.com has a great article about the story.

“So — the justification for this use of our tax dollars is that Take Two misled the public by promising a game featuring enough violence to make Sam Peckinpah blush, but instead sprinkled it with near-hardcore pornography. (I use “near” as there isn’t any display of genitalia, at least as far as I could see. And it’s a cartoon graphic, not real people…)

Good heavens, citizens! What’s going on here? Oh yes, of course, we’re getting all bent out of shape over nothing again. I keep forgetting that this is a proud American tradition, on the same display shelf as the controversy over “Darling Nikki” and the fuss over video games in general from the early ’80s. I bet some of the folks who thought our children’s brains were turning to mush over too much “Centipede” aren’t looking at it this way today.”

My sentiments exactly! But it gets better, much, much better.

“Lauren Charbonneau didn’t worry about purchasing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for her son, Luke, in October when he was 11. Luke is ‘pretty mature,’ his mother says. She figured he could handle an M-rated video game. Then news broke last week that explicit interactive sex scenes were discovered hidden in the code of the game that touts intense violence, blood and gore. … Luke says he never accessed the hidden scenes, but the news of their existence upset his mother. ‘I’m shocked and angry,’ says Ms. Charbonneau, 47, of Plano. ‘They deceived the public.'”

Wow! The GTA series is an easy target, but why not go after parents such as Lauren Charbonneau for not actually following the ratings guide? Why not make parents responsible for actually supervising their children and (I know this is crazy talk) actually watching what their kids play?

I could go on and on with this one, but enough for now.

So says Elton John, and who cares if no one is really keeping track of Friday night (tonight)? Since I am already done, I figured now would be a good time to post – my best prose always comes after a few cold ones, and the Harp at the Tap is delicious.

Seriously, a weekend of gaming is in the works – all NCAA 2006, all weekend. Plus my mom is watching the kids Saturday night, so I think the weekend should be awesome. Hope everyone has a good one!

For the first time ever in the NCAA series, I just played a game where the CPU actually won the all important time of possession battle. Anyone that follows my exploits will know that this is damn near impossible! Not only do I tend to play games where I ground things out on the ground (3 yards and a cloud of dust and all that jazz), the CPU seems to always pick up a few quick scores on long TD strikes or some such broken play.

Last night, I managed to beat Troy 28-3. North Texas has two studs at HB (plus yours truly at QA) so I like to give those guys the ball as much as possible. Say what you will about North Texas and my style of offense, but Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas have led the country in rushing the past two years, so it would be fairly ignorant of me to just start chucking the ball all over the field. Besides, I am a Heisman hopeful, and a scrambling QB to boot, so I have to keep the ball on the ground as much as possible.

I am getting completely off track here. At the start of the 4th quarter, despite being up 21-3, Troy still had me beat by 3 minutes in overall TOP. By the end of the game, Troy was up 9:30 to my 8:30. I find that simply shocking, but in a good sort of way.

I did fumble twice, including one time at the 1 yard line – I leaped into the endzone, but apparently I forgot to take the ball across the goalline. I also hit one of my TEs for a 71 yard TD strike (about 50 yards after the catch). I also held Tory in check with a fumble recovery, an INT, and I stopped one fake punt attempt.

I am still not sure how I managed not to win the TOP battle, but I am pleasantly surprised that NCAA 2006 is giving me something different. My pride has been wounded, which means I am going to try to beat the crap out of Arkansas State later tonight!

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 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.

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 …

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?

Well, I gave it the old college try; I attempted to not buy NCAA 2006 right out of the gate. I suppose that I did actually manage not to pre-order the game; that should count for something. This is the first time that I have not placed a pre-order for this game; yep, first time that has ever happened in the history of EA’s wonderful little franchise.

I just placed an order thanks to EBGames.com and their free two day shipping coupon. Deep down inside I think I understood that a certain part of me just had to *have* the game, but I am still amazed that I made it this long.

Now to actually find time to play the darn thing …

I never really followed hockey, except for the occasional Sports Center highlight and a videogame here and there. At any rate, I do not really give a flying crap that players and owners cannot figure out how to get their heads out of their collective ass. Players and owners makes so much freaking money that it is really hard to feel sorry for either side; Lord only knows why it had to come to throwing away a whole season. It is just hard to understand strikes and lockouts in professional sports. I guess I am just a jealous little shit.

Apparently Jeremy Roenick thinks we should all go take a dump. Unfortunately for Jeremy or anyone else that thinks fringe fans – people like myself that just love sports – will bother to tune into hockey when it eventually resurfaces may be in for a big surprise. Who does Jeremy thinks pays for the privilege of playing professional sports?

“If people are going to sit and chastise pro athletes for being cocky, they need to look at one thing and that’s the deal we’re going to be signing in about three weeks … Pro athletes are not cocky. Pro athletes care about the game. Everybody out there who calls us spoiled because we play a game, they can kiss my ass.”

“I will say personally, to everybody who calls us spoiled, you guys are just jealous,” Roenick said. [Just Google for a source.]

Me jealous of the life of a professional athlete? No thank you.

I do not know Jeremy, but I can only assume he is a first class asshole. Whatever; Jeremy does not what me back, so I will not bother to watch (if I can actually find hockey on TV at some point this year). Does the NHL even have a TV contract now that ESPN pulled out?

Oh yeah; I almost forgot. On ESPN radio this morning I heard that part of the new CBA would expand the number of playoff teams by 4. So pretty much any Tom, Dick, and Harry team will make a playoff run, but will anyone give a flying f’?