Little Bobby returns to Georgia for the first time today since tucking his tail between his legs and heading out to the Ozarks. Has it really been three years? Whatever; the wanker did Falcons fans a favor by getting out of ATL.
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Look it up. Bobby Petrino = Wanker … |
Even if Little Bobby’s Hogs manage a victory over the Dawgs today at High Noon, there is nothing the wanker can do to earn any respect in the great state of Georgia.
I hope the Dawgs send him packing.
Go Dawgs!
Tomorrow I should receive a new bundle of joy, hope, and expense from Amazon (via Prime Release Day Delivery). Yes, I decided to Move. I picked up the Move Starter Bundle (Move controller, Eye Toy, Sports Champion), Move Navigation controller, an extra Move controller, and a Sony branded Charging Station.
Will this be worth the money? No idea, but I figured just for shits and giggles I would give the Move a go and see where things land.
I decided not to pick up any additional games for now. Something like NBA 2K11 or even Tiger Woods, just to see how this puppy will handle a “serious” sports game, may be worth a flyer in the future. I wonder how that John Daly game is going to end up; garbage quick cash in, or actually decent?
I would love to try something like Cabela’s North American Adventures 2011 with the Move, but for some inexplicable reason, it does not look like the Move is supported. In fact, reviews, info, opinions, or anything else for that matter are hard to come by on the newest Cabela release. I guess it is just “shoot the animals; you know the drill, but this time in HD.”
I know that Heavy Rain will get an update; same for HVB, which should invigorate this PSN classic. I am not sure if any of my other titles will receive Move patches, but MLB 10: The Show would make for interesting Move support.
I will try to post a few updates over the weekend.
What a disappointing loss; 15-9 in OT. Earlier this morning I was in high spirits because I could not imagine the Falcons not being able to run, Matt Ryan not being able to make plays when it counted most, and the “improved” defense falling to an inexperienced third-string QB.
I am too bitter right now to write anything else.
Bummer of a day for the Dawgs. The mighty Fighting Chickens from South Carolina got the better of Georgia on this day. Of course you can always play the “if only” or “what if” cards, but at the end of the day a loss is still a loss.
Of course A.J. Green was missed, but it is really hard to say that Green’s presence would have made a huge difference with an inexperienced Murray at QB. The game belonged to Marcus Lattimore; what a phenomenal performance (182 yards on 37 carries, with 2 TDs).
Next week UGA has a realistic chance of falling to 0-2 in the SEC at the hands of the piggies from Arkansas. Let’s hope the Dawgs figure some things out before Sooie comes calling.
No other real surprises in Week 2. Auburn escaped an improving Mississippi State squad. Florida eventually got chomping against South Florida. LSU easily dispatched Vanderbilt. Arkansas took care of business against inferior competition; same for the Wild Cats from Kentucky. Even Mississippi bounced back after a disastrous opening week.
Did anyone really expect Tennessee to show well over Oregon? I was debating if the Volunteers should be awarded the Calvert Games Shame of the Week, but they did hang close early on, so I guess the boys in Orange can hang their hat on some semi-sort of mini first half victory.
As expected, the Tide Rolled over the Nittany Lions. Yawn. I still do not understand why anyone made this one out to be a big deal, however I admit that I would rather see these types of match-ups along with the likes of Tennessee/Oregon, Miami/Ohio St., and Florida St./Oklahoma, then some of the opening weekend dribble that the SEC typically throws at us with their non conference cupcake schedule. Of course other conferences do the “easy dance” too, so I’ll shut up on the Alabama/Penn St. match-up.
Georgia (the state) had a miserable weekend with Georgia Tech falling to Kansas; on any other weekend I would love to gloat about, but alas I would rather the Bulldogs win than the Bumble Bees lose.
Thankfully one of my two teams did well. Texas started slow against those Wyoming Cowboys. So hook ‘em!
From a non-UGA perspective, it was a great weekend of college football. I just hope that Georgia can get back on track next weekend.
Go Dawgs!
It’s hard to believe that after 143 games, the Braves and Phillies are knotted up at 82-61. There are 19 to play and at this point the Braves are just trying to hold on to a Wild Card spot; they are really been fumbling of late.
The Braves close out the St. Louis series today, followed by three more at home against Washington. Next up is a long road stretch with three in NY, three in Philadelphia, and three in Washington. The Braves then close things out at home hosting Florida for three, followed by a potentially for all the marbles three game set with the Phillies.
So nine on the road and ten at home, which include the last three against Philly. I think the schedule slightly favors the Braves. I like Atlanta’s chances at home, much better than on the road. If the East is still up for grabs during the final three game set, the pressure will be on the Phillies, not the Braves.
Can they close the deal?
I have not written much about the PlayStation Move. Mostly because I have been somewhat indifferent, and I am not really sure that I want to invest a sizable chunk of coin into a new system (really accessory) ad-on that may or may not be well supported over the next 18-24 months.
As we move closer to September 17 I am becoming anxious. Am I going to miss out on something? Do I need to get my Day 1 Jones going? Should I Move?
Do I really want to spend $100 for the Move/Eye/Sports Champion bundle, another $50 for a second Move controller (for those games that require two moves and to allow for multi-player games with my kids), and another $30 for the Move Navigation accessory? $180 is a serious investment when gaming dollars are at an all time premium. Not sure about you, but unless I am getting a great bargain, I have become fairly selective in my gaming purchases. The economy and three growing boys sometimes put a check on my past carefree spending ways.
It will be interesting to see how well the Move is supported in upcoming games. Hopefully we will see a lot of meaningful patches that will allow for somewhat unique experiences over typical PS3 games. The real question for me – does the Move provide for a better experience over the Wii? All signs point to HD gaming with more precision than the Wii. Is the Move worth $100-180 to see if gaming progresses past the typical casual Wii experience? Will the Move be more than a HD Wii?
Lots of questions and hardly any answers for this jaded gamer. If I decide to go with a Move, in addition to Sports Champion, I should have a couple of Move compatible games: Heavy Rain and High Velocity Bowling (HVB).
I haven’t touched Heavy Rain since I switched to my PS3 Slim in June. The Heavy Rain save file was not transferable; and to be perfectly honest I haven’t been in the mood to start over. Every time I think of picking it back up, I think that I should probably hold out until I make a decision on the Move because I could see Heavy Rain’s controls really benefiting from the Move.
HVB should get a nice boost of new reply value with Move support. In my opinion HVB is really an underrated game, but even with the addition of Move support, it would be difficult to call a Move compatible HVB a reason to invest in the Move.
Two supported games for $180 is a little steep for my tastes. Of course getting Sports Champions in the Move bundle would bring my supported library to a grand total of three games. That helps a little on the value front, but very little in the way of ammunition towards convincing my wife that this is money well spent.
So all I am doing is writing about reasons why I should not get a Move, but we all know that I will probably say “f-it” and do it anyway, right? That’s just how I roll.
Except for the LSU/North Carolina game, the first weekend of big boy SEC football was rather meaningless. Granted, Mississippi St. and Kentucky decided to step up and play decent teams. South Carolina brought in Southern Miss. while Vanderbilt decided to host Northwestern, which resulted in a loss; however in my opinion there is no shame in that loss. After all Northwestern was 8-5 last year.
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee all dialed in very safe, subpar teams.
Ah and then there is Ole Miss earning the Calvert Games Shame of the Week honors by taking one on the chin in double overtime to Jacksonville State. Seriously? Are you kidding me? I watched the game as it moved to overtime and I was left thinking that the Mississippi AD should fire Coach Nutt on the spot. Ridiculous.
All in all, a 10-2 opening weekend for the SEC that was highlighted by subpar competition, a disaster in Oxford, poor execution by Florida, and a ho-hum LSU victory over a depleted North Carolina team.
SEC play starts next weekend featuring a pretty good looking UGA squad traveling to Columbia to play the always tough Fighting Chickens. Auburn goes on the road to see if Mississippi St. has improved, and LSU gets consecutive road games (Vanderbilt).
Florida better get its act together in a hurry or the South Florida Bulls may just ring ‘em, which would be a really bad start to the post Tebow era.
Of course the big one of the weekend sees Alabama hosting Penn St. This should be another embarrassment for the Big 10.
All for this week. Go Dawgs!
One day away from the season opener and A.J. Green, arguably the best player on the UGA roster, does not know if he will play. I did not realize that he was in trouble; or at least being investigated.
Seems like the Dawgs just cannot stay out of trouble.
You have to like Branden Smith’s attitude.
“I’ve been wanting to play punt return ever since I got up here,” he said.
He said he takes a three-pronged approach to the job: “The No. 1 thing is catching the ball. No. 2 is holding on to the ball. And No. 3 is just do my thing. With my speed and the blocking up front, it should not be that hard.”
Never heard someone describe returning punts as easy.
Go Dawgs!
I will have to get my arms around these predictions over the long weekend, after all the final roster moves are made. In their team-by-team previews, ESPN has the Falcons taking the NFC South (3 experts predicted 1st, while 2 predicted 2nd).
I am just not sure that the Saints have done anything to show that they cannot repeat as the division champion. The Falcons should be much improved and I agree with the article’s final comment/breakdown:
It all boils down to this: In the end, it’s about the defensive front. The Falcons can talk all they want about their improved secondary and the speed at linebacker. That’s true, but the fate of this defense rests on the front four. If the Falcons really hope to slow New Orleans’ passing game or Carolina’s running game, they’ve got to be better up front. They’re getting defensive tackle Peria Jerry back from injury, and third-round pick Corey Peters looks like he can be a force in the middle. Team those guys with Jonathan Babineaux, and the Falcons might be all right in the interior and that might even help the defensive ends. But John Abraham, Kroy Biermann and Lawrence Sidbury have to generate more of a pass rush than last season if this defense is really going to improve.
So far this preseason (which is probably not worth a lot or a great indicator of regular season success), Biermann has looked very good, and except for the Pats game, the defense has shown improvement.
Go Falcons!
There was a thread over on the PlayStation boards about rating PSN content, which of course got me thinking and writing about reviews and rating systems. What follows is what I posted, which I think is worth a second look here.
On a 5 point/star system, I typically think of scores as meaning:
At one point in my reviewing days I switched to a “pass, rent, buy” system.
Ratings (and reviews) are so subjective that in my opinion they are meaningless unless you know who is rating the game. Do they typically rate higher than everyone else? Lower? In the case of PSN ratings, what percentage of down-loaders actually rate the games?
With all that said, I use the ratings as an “interesting” base point. So for example, if I am unsure or unfamiliar with something, I may look at the PSN rating and then head over to metacritic to get some general opinions on the game, what it is like, and what I may or may not like about a game.
These days most sites cannot get away with not rating a game with a score for fear of retribution – no listing in the various databases, which means no incoming links, and ultimately lower advertising revenue. And it is my opinion that the gaming masses are lazy; they probably just skip to the score. Of course I have no basis to prove this, but it is not as if my opinion can be wrong.
Was the Falcons 28-10 home loss at the hands of the Patriots an aberration, or a sign of things to come when the Falcons play top notch talent? It is only preseason, but …
There were a couple of bright spots …
The Falcons receiver situation is suddenly desperate. With Jenkins possibly out for the first couple of games, the Falcons were looking for Kerry Meier to step up, but after damaging his knee, Meier is out for the season.
Yes, it is only preseason, and the games do not count, but preseason play can also set the tone for the regular season. It can also be said that most defenses are running vanilla blitz packages, and the offenses are not unveiling their full repertoire of plays. All that is well and good, but it still means New England’s first team beat Atlanta’s first team 14-3, which to me spells ouch. I hope the Falcons can show some improvement next Friday night against the Dolphins.
Go Falcons!
The first preseason game of the year, played out to a Falcons win, but for the most part was tearfully boring, which is typically of meaningless games. I think that going into these preseason games, for the most part the rosters are set except for fringe players looking to fill out special teams, possibly backup a position as the third or fourth option. The big goal is to make sure everyone escapes uninjured, give the starters some live contact action, and to get some of the backups some much need experience.
From this perspective, I think the Falcons succeeded. Ryan and company only played the first two series, and while it is concerning that Atlanta had to settle for field goal attempts (made one, missed one), Turner looked explosive, with fresh legs, and he was a check-down receiver on one play.
If the Falcons establish Turner as a receiving option out of the backfield during the preseason, even as the check-down receiver, I believe this new wrinkle will add a nice element for opponents to consider when setting up their defensive game-plans. Mughelli could also play this part very well; hopefully we do not forget about our backfield receivers when the games start to count!
It was nice to see the Falcons really establish control of the o-line, pounded the ball, which is my favorite style of football. With that said, I was really expecting to see (make that wanting to see) some of the vertical passing I have read about all preseason.
I also enjoyed seeing Ryan moving into a no huddle offense on the second possession. Hopefully this will be a regular component of Atlanta’s offense in the upcoming season. Ryan has the ability to run this type of offense with great success, and he has the weapons to make it a feared attack.
John Parker Wilson did nothing wrong to establish himself firmly as the number three QB. I have read that he may battle for the backup spot, but I am not sure that is realistic this season. Then again, it is not like Redman is top self material.
I don’t think keeping the Chiefs to 10 points is much of an accomplishment in the pre or regular seasons. Their offense sucks, and it is much too hard for me to grade ours since so many key starters did not play. I’ll be interested to read what some of the pundits have to say about the defense’s performance.
Next up are the Pats for some good Thursday night National Prim Time action.
Go Falcons!
I’m heading up to ATL tonight to watch the Falcons’ first preseason game of the year. I know it is preseason … but I am ready for the season to get underway.
Go Falcons!
What a tough break for Chipper and the Braves. I really hate seeing Chipper go out this way, with a torn ACL. Assuming it is really the end, I can be grateful that unlike some other Braves players (cough … Glavine … cough), at least Chipper will be one and done with the Braves as his only professional franchise.
While Chipper is not having top notch year (certainly by his standards), his presence in the every day lineup could have only helped with Atlanta’s playoff run. As it now stands, Chipper will have to play the role of cheerleader.
First of all I have to say this and get it out of the way. As a Falcons fan, I am already sick of the Drew Brees and New Orleans Saints infected cover, opening video, start screen, and main menu title. If EA offered a premium upgrade DLC option to “skin” the game to your favorite team, I would jump on that in a heartbeat. There, I feel better. Marginally.
The second thing I have to get out of the way is that as in years past, I always start sports games on default settings. I believe that developers tune and ship games with specific settings to target their main audience. It is not like I have great skills or anything, so I do not immediately jump to All Madden, or whatever the highest difficulty setting happens to be for a given game. In the case of Madden 11, at least playing with the Falcons, I am probably going to have to adjust the difficulty settings straight away because I am having too much success (on offense anyway) out of the box.
In what has to be a silly attempt to make me feel better about my gaming skills, which as I just mentioned are in the least remarkable, I have already earned three Trophies, which is pretty pathetic if you consider that I did not earn any Trophies in Madden 10. Then again, I was not whoring, so maybe I just rule or something. Doubtful; the game ships on the Pro setting, and Madden 11 may just be easier than Madden 10. The developers probably just made easier to achieve Trophies.
Speaking of Trophies, I find it damn annoying that I cannot delete my 0 Trophies Madden 10 game from my Trophy list. I guess that is a rant for another day.
I have only briefly touched on Madden Ultimate Team mode (MUT), and will probably not give it serious consideration for few more days. After getting some fluff and stuff the first time I selected MUT mode, the fine folks at EA presented me with a message of thanksgiving. Apparently EA is grateful that I am coming back for another round of MUT, and I am sure they expect to get down my pants; well, into my wallet anyway.
The game thanked me for returning to MUT, and as a reward I was being given a “better” (subjective I am sure) starting pack compared to other losers that did not participate in last year’s MUT mode. As an added bonus, I was told I get to keep my existing Ultimate Team name (BTW that would be GA TX Falcons). Finally I was presented with the following message: “Congratulations, you have earned 0 coins.” I guess I did not play enough in Madden 10 to warrant any extra special consideration; that or maybe I did not spend enough. Either way I guess I should be grateful to be starting out with 8 72 rated cards (also received 2 71 rated cards, and 2 70 rated cards). To be fair, this actually is better than what I started out with last year. My starting total card collection value is rated at 107,600 coins.
More on Madden Ultimate Team in the coming days.
I am giving the new Gameflow system a go. If for no other reason I want to see if this “new” system can enhance my gameplay experience while speeding the time it takes to complete a game. The only issue I have so far is that in real life I expect the Falcons to try to pound the ball, but with Gameflow, I am seeing too much reliance on the pass in the first half. Interestingly enough, once I get in front, after halftime, I get a majority of running plays called (probably in the neighborhood of 4:1 rush/pass ratio). Certainly worth keeping an eye on to see if the frequency of pass plays in the first half is a pattern, has something to do with my playbook (or game plan), or even the settings I am using.
One thing that I did with Madden 10 was make frequent use of the substitution feature during play calling. This allowed me to make sure that Norwood and Snelling got some touches, not just Turner. I am not sure that Gameflow gives enough variety with player substitutions in formations, so if I am going to continue to use Gameflow, I will probably have to play around with fatigue and player formations settings.
Sticking with Gameflow, and semi-transitioning into AFL mode, using the Houston Oilers (err, Tennessee Titians in throwback jerseys) I racked up 169 rushing yards with Chris Johnson, defeating the original Texans (KC Chiefs) 26-14. This time the Gameflow system called for runs left and right, which seemed appropriate. I really enjoyed the AFL presentation, which is included for free this year after being a premium DLC add-on in Madden 10. I did not pay for the AFL mode last year, so it was a pleasant surprise having it included as part of the base Madden 11 game.
I am sure it has been overdone elsewhere, but kickoff returns are a bitch, and I cannot seem to keep the defense out of the backfield whenever Gameflow calls for a play action pass. On the other hand, I am running the ball well, and screen plays seem to be pretty well executed.
For what it is worth, the CPU has missed several field goals; usually just wide, and a few times off the posts.
I forgot to mention that the Falcons won Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium 24-0 over the Buccaneers. As long as we are talking fantasy, may as well take down the Bucs.
Speaking of the Super Bowl mode, which is really just an option to pick any two teams to play in the Super Bowl, complete with plenty of pre and post game commentary, special (if you want to call it that) presentation coverage, I wish there was a way to setup a Playoff bracket.
My only real complaint with Madden 11 is that once again in-game saves are nowhere to be found; good grief how f’ing hard would that be to pull off?
All for now; more to come.