The Recycle Bin

It is that time of the year again. Every few months I comb through my game collection and decide what needs to go up for sale on eBay, and what I need to hang onto for a rainy day. Of course having a game “collection” is something that I have lamented about in the past � it is one thing to collect treasures from the past, but it is an entirely different matter to “collect” current generation games, especially games accumulated at full price. This is yet another subject to write about at a future date.

Thankfully my recent track record has been much improved over the gluttonous days of the past. I am doing a much better job of evaluating what I purchase (i.e. actually playing the games), and deciding what should stay in my library a few months longer, to be enjoyed in my rare moments of gaming pleasure. Those that do not make the cut are promptly listed on eBay.

Case in point: Bust-A-Move Deluxe and Out Run 2006 Coast 2 Coast, but for the PSP. Bust-A-Move is a fine puzzle game, but it is the same thing we have been playing for years, albeit with a few new gaming modes. It is also impossible for me to justify the $39.99 MSRP. I just did not get my money’s worth out of this title, so I decide it was time to make the best of a bad situation, cutting my losses so to speak. Out Run 2006 is a different story. The $29.99 price point is perfect for this title, and the game is perfect for pick-up-and-play moments. With said, I just do not play the game enough to justify keeping it around. It is certainly not a bad game. In fact, for an arcade racer it is a damn fine example of what should be done with a portable system. While Out Run 2006 is on par with Ridge Racer, which I have also sold, I having been getting my racing kicks from WipeOut Pure and CMR.

From a timing standpoint, I waited far too long to try to move NCAA Football 2006. Normally I do a much better job of moving sports titles on eBay while there is still a market, but I wanted to hang on to a “current” football title. Why? I will never know, since I rarely played the game after the recent bowl season wrapped up. I guess this goes back to that “collector” mentality, which I have been desperately trying to break.

Back to the Hungarian Grand Prix (have to love the rain), and hopefully more NCAA Football 2007 later today.

I have played NCAA Football since its beginnings on the original PlayStation, but I have never seen anything like this before. Today I started playing the various rivalry games in order to get a better feel for the game, and to experience some teams that I do not normally use on a year-to-year basis. Tonight I decided to play Air Force (me) vs. Army, and I just got walloped; I mean really, really, castrated: 72-45.

There is a lot to say about this game, but first let me start with the score. I do not think the CPU has ever put up that many points on me; ever. Seriously, 72 is a hell of a lot of points, and the CPU kicked a 57-yard field goal with 11 seconds left just to rub salt in my wounds. Pretty nasty stuff.

For what it is worth, I was playing on the default settings (with 6-minute quarters). I have written about this before, but I always start out on the default settings and adjust from there as needed. If I am in the mood, in a future post, I will once again recap why I take this approach, if anyone is really interested.

One thing I have noticed about the 2007 iteration of this football classic is that the momentum feature can be brutal. This game is a case in point. Even though I was the home team, once the CPU took the lead (28-24), I never had a chance. The CPU WRs caught everything thrown their way, while my guys started fumbling left and right. At times it really seemed unfair, but while I do think this game was fairly typical of momentum getting out of control, I am going to try to reserve judgment until I get in a few more games.

I am not sure if Air Force’s defense is really awful, or if Army’s offense is awesome, or if I really suck, but I just could not stop the Black Knights. In fact, Army scored every single time they got the ball. Their starting QB (#14) was 19-24, 486 yds, 7 TDs (0 INT), good for a 79% completion ratio, which is a vast improvement over anything I saw in the last two versions of the game. Army’s backup QB (#15) was just as lethal: 7-9, 115 yds, 2 TDs (0 INT), good for a 77% completion ratio. My starting QB (#5) would have been great under any other circumstances, going 13-24, 299 yds, 3 TDs (2 INTs), and 150 rushing yards, including 1 TD.

Besides the fact that I sucked on defense, I just could not keep possession of the ball: 2 INTs and 2 lost fumbles (5 total fumbles). This was the first game where I did not get sacked left and right; I was only sacked once. Time of possession was in my favor 13:11 to 10:49, and I accumulated more total yards: 943-791.

On a positive note, I did return a kickoff for a TD, which has been a pretty rare occurrence for me the last couple of years. All in all, this was a not so fun game because it was just so damn unrealistic. Seriously, I may not be the best player in the world, but I have never given up 72 points, and I seriously doubt anything like this would happen in real life. I guess I am going to have to start playing with sliders (QB accuracy down for starters, and FGs need to be more difficult), and I may have to go back to 5-minute quarters. So far 6-minute quarters have not been bad since most of my games have been fairly close affairs, but I guess it can all go south in a hurry in the case of a shootout.

I have another rant about slider settings, but that too shall be saved for another day.

I finally broke down and picked up NCAA Football 2007 for the PS2 this afternoon. I just could not stand not having a yearly NCAA update. I guess EA Sports banks on guys like me.

Impressions? I do not have much to say after one game. I am ashamed to say that I took it on the chin by two touchdowns in my rivalry game of good old fashion hate (GA Tech vs. UGA). Contributing factors were a lack of a rushing attack, 5 fumbles (4 lost), and seven sacks. The sacks killed me, contributing in 3 fumbles, but Brown also coughed up the ball a couple of times while trying to push in for a TD.

I am not sure what to think about the new kicking meter (controlled power and accuracy via right analog stick), but at least the developers attempted something different. The graphics are pretty much the same. As with each yearly release, I assume there are some new animations, and there is a new camera view for kicks. I actually like the new presentation style, which is really just more of the same, with a little more polish and small new touches such as the stadium noise indicator.

Hopefully I will actually have some time over the next few days to really dig into this one, but for now my next big decision is do I try to take North Texas to the top once again, or do I just go with UGA or Texas?

Looks like Texas, ranked #2, still has lots of respect even without an established replacement for Vince Young. The 2006 USA Today Preseason Coaches’ Poll has Ohio St ranked in the top spot. SEC notables are Auburn #6, Florida #8, LSU #9, Georgia #14, Tennessee #23, and Alabama #24.

I am not sure there are any real surprises other than West Virginia #7 � yes they beat UGA in the Sugar Bowl last year (and I am still bitter), but they do not have much competition, and I just do not see them being a legitimate Top 10 team. California and Louisville are not Top 15 teams; at least not at this point. I also think it is too soon to give the Dawgs a #14 ranking, and Alabama should be much better than their #24 ranking indications.

Oh course it is all speculation, hype, and anticipation at this point. The reality is that I have never seen much point in preseason rankings, other than giving college football fans something to debate in the final days before kickoff.

I was looking at the PS2 games @ EBGames.com to see if there was anything cheap that floated my boat, and I came across GameDay 2004 for the low, low price of $24.99. I wonder if anyone actually orders the game; forget the price … seriously, does anyone actually order this game? The used version is on backorder, but it goes for $1.99, which may be a buck too much.

Only 29 more days until UGA kicks-offs the 2006 season (September 2 vs. Western Kentucky @ 12:30PM EST). The biggest question for Georgia fans has to be when will Matthew Stafford play? Of course there are a lot of other questions to answer, but I am not sure that Western Kentucky is the right opponent to see just how good (or bad) this year’s team actually looks.

The Western Kentucky/UGA game will be televised locally by Lincoln Financial Sports (formally Jefferson Pilot Sports Network). That got me to thinking that my dad used to hate JPS because their games often preempted the Big 12 Game of the Week on ABS. Heaven forbid if Texas was featured because dad always missed most of the first quarter (and sometimes more). Those JPS games were legendary for running past their allotted time, and often filled with silly post game stuff that just made the wait for the next game almost unbearable. Of course the same thing happened here; JPS always preempted the SEC Game of the Week on CBS, often causing UGA, Auburn, and Alabama fans in my area to scream in agony.

This is a great time of year for college football fans, and I am facing the realization that dad is no longer around to email tidbits about UGA, the SEC vs. Big 12, how the next great Texas recruiting class is looking, how much we hate Arkansas (the football team, not the state), if Texas can defend their title, the state of OU football, and so on.

It’s been an initial bumpy road for our league transition to OOTPB 2006 – that has nothing to do with OOTPB 2006. We contracted four teams and re-aligned the division structure from three to two in each league. OOTP 6.5 did not handle this well. The main issue was that players were being dumped into the free agency pool AND remaining on their teams. So Irvine may not have been contracted, but because of the re-structuring, Irvine’s players were listed on both their roster and duplicated in the free agency pool.

Was very, very painful.

After a bit of trial and error (and a fresh re-install), I figured out that by adding a new team and then deleting it one at a time (you have to do this to move teams around in OOTP 6.5) this helped. I also discovered that the duplicates are still created doing this, but if you close the game and re-open it, the duplicates magically disappear.

Phase one is thankfully complete. On to phase two!

My online league will begin to switch over to Out of the Park Baseball 2006 next week. I’ll keep you posted. We decided to contract from 32 teams to 28 in order to get rid of some of the dead wood. The owners that remain are a pretty hardcore lot who have been with the league for many years. We are currently advertising for an opening in our league. I’ve had a few nibbles, but nothing on the hook yet. I think it’s very important to select good, active owners for a league and over the years I’ve been able to tell who fits the bill. If interested, drop me a line.

Our transition is complicated by a contraction draft, but otherwise there don’t seem to be too many issues with the online portion of the game. We’re still looking at things like how OOTPB 2006 handles team finances, but I don’t think we’ll have too many problems to adjust to.

However, stay tuned….

I downloaded the 45 MB Total Pro Golf demo with no expectations about the game. The idea that a 2D text-based golf game could be interesting was a bit of a stretch as far as I was concerned. But after playing the demo, I can see how this just might be the beginning of a nice text franchise. I’d like more detail about the career portion of the game, but it seems players start in a golf minor leagues of some sort and work their way up by earning sponsorships.

Be warned – TPG isn’t an action game. Clubs are chosen and type of swing is selected, then a button is clicked. In some ways I like this better than worrying about swing angles with my mouse. TPG just might capture everything I liked in Sierra’s old Front Page Sports Golf. I enoyed the large AI fields and tournaments that had a purpose in FPS Golf.

There’s a pre-order available, but I think I’ll wait and see what the full release version brings.

For you city slickers out there, this is the sort of thing that makes front page news out here in Central, Texas.

To answer a couple of questions, no I have not played NCAA 2007. I do not see the game in my future. A PC version would have slightly increased the probability to say, 3%, but right now there is zero chance I’ll get the game. My Xbox and PlayStation 2 sit in my family room as monuments to days gone by when I was forced to review games on consoles.

Besides, that’s what Jonathan is here for!

While Jonathan deals with real life issues, check out The Blog for the Sports Gamer as they show a classic clinical case of ADD by dropping OOTPB 2006 and picking up NCAA 2007 without missing a beat. If they like it, then it must be OK with the twitch crowd.

I was quite shocked to read that Harold Reynolds was fired by ESPN. A good summary of the rumors can be found here. He was one of the baseball analysts I enjoyed listening to over the years.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in the gaming world, EA Sports decides to shock you once again. Please let this die a horrible and unprofitable death. All of you Madden lemmings out there, please fight the impulse to order this for the good of the greater gaming world.

Ok, at the risk of upsetting a significant segment of the baseball text-gaming world, I have to ask a question. If you are a fan of historical baseball re-creation, why are you playing Out of the Park Baseball 2006? I am obviously showing my bias against historical sims because (a) I think they are boring and (b) I think they are boring, but if I did decided to be bored, there are other nice options available.

PureSim 2007 seems like a nice fit for historical simmers. It offers a great deal of customization and can import historical databases t’ill the cows come home. If I did decide to be bored, I certainly would be falling asleep in front of PureSim 2007 while it simmed the 1935 World Series.

If I wanted historical accuracy, I would be yawning in front of Diamond Mind Baseball. Again, seems a perfect fit for historical simmers who want statistical replay and results.

The last game I would want is OOTPB 2006. It isn’t designed as an historical replay game. It is prospective baseball software that really shines as a fictional league product. Historical simmers and people like me are not looking for the same types of baseball games. If I wanted more “what if” in my historical games, I’d be playing PureSim 2007. If I want more “this is how it happened” in my baseball game, I’d be playing Diamond Mind Baseball.

But what do I know? I had to drink a cup of coffee to stay awake to type this up!

Sports Interactive released the final version of their 1.0.2 patch a day early.