buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Archives for October 2004

Minor glitches in NCAA 2005

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Dynasty mode in NCAA is definitely the biggest draw for me. Starting as a new team running with the big boys in Division 1-A is tough but it’s rewarding. I also love “Create-a-team”, being able to pick everything from location to uniforms to mascots. If you make a team that doesn’t have one of the “canned” mascots/nicknames, when the announcer refers to your team, it’s either “the home team” or “the away team”. So in my recent dynasty, I’ve recreated my high school, down to the school colors and team mascot, The Bears. Well, there seems to be some confusion. Sometimes I’m referred to as the “Bearcats” and other times it’s just the “Bears”. It’s a bit frustrating that something seemingly so simple (in terms of programming) can be so horribly screwed up.

In NCAA 2004 it was picking up a fumble, running for about 5 yards and hearing the announcer scream “fumble recovered for a return of seventy three yards!” Right.

These are just minor things, but they do get my goat sometimes.

My gaming “queue”

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So I’ve added a new list to my “what I’m playing list”, my list of games that I have waiting to play. I’ve amassed a decent library thanks to gaming deals I’ve found a CAG. The links on my lists are links to Amazon, if you’re feeling like supporting my burgeoning site, I’d appreciate you using my links.

Top Five Football Games

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This isn’t so much a Top Five Football Games list as it is more of a progression of my football gaming experience. I mentioned earlier that football games have evolved over the years. So I’ve listed five games that have had an impact on my football gaming experience.

#5 Mattel Handheld Football 2 – The first in the list is the game I played at night before I had a Game Boy. Not much to see here. I never was able to reconcile the total unfairness of the first iterations of video football games – there was always one more offensive player than defensive. In the case of the Mattel Handheld game, it was three red dashes versus four other red dashes. I don’t remember much about the game play here but I don’t remember anything about spin moves or stiff arms. Just those red dashes.

#4 Super Challenge Football (Atari 2600) – Ahh, my first console football game – Super Challenge Football. Anyone who’s played this game knows exactly why I loved it – if you missed a tackle, no big deal! Just run to the left, you’ll pop out on the right side, perfectly positioned to make a play. As you can see from the screen shots, about twenty yards fit on the screen at the time. So when you made it to one end of the screen, you popped out on the other side. No side scrolling here. Again, I don’t remember too much about the game play, but I do remember being a sweet safety. Nobody got through more than one screen against me!

#3 Tecmo Bowl (NES) – Many will say Tecmo Super Bowl was the best NES football game, possibly the best football game of the 20th century, but Tecmo Bowl is my choice for #3. Of course, it had its quirks, like unstoppable players including Lawrence Taylor, but it was a great game. It still didn’t have a full team of eleven players, but it was getting close. I had a friend who actually keep track of stats between games (Super Tecmo Bowl did this) and he even chose an MVP for each of his seasons. I didn’t get that into it, but we sure played the heck out of that game.

#2 John Madden Football (PC) – I couldn’t make a list with out paying homage to the game that brought football video games to the life. I had John Madden Football for the PC almost fifteen years ago. The thing I remember most about this version was being able to draw up plays on a chalk board, with X’s and O’s. You could then simulate the plays and watch them real-time. I remember drawing up plays that had the whole offensive line pulling to block on a sweep. As I remember, that play didn’t work too well.

#1 NCAA 2004/5 (Gamecube) – Of course, this game is number one on my list. I am a HUGE college football fan, and NCAA 2004/5 is my number one game. Madden 2005 or ESPN NFL 2K5 might have better graphics, more recognizable stars and more all around polish, but for my money, it doesn’t get any better than Dynasty Mode in NCAA. The graphics are great, but the dynasty mode is so much more than the game play. It’s about running a high impact college program. It’s training players, recruiting them and getting them to stay out of trouble (discipline was added to 2005). I was a bit disappointed with 2005’s enhancements but it is still a fabulous game with a great replay upside.

Simple games

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Sometimes simple games are the most addictive and engrossing. I enjoyed, to a certain extent, the strategy in Final Fantasy: Tatics Advance, but it really wasn’t too hard. There are many characters available and you can switch “jobs” anytime you want to improve a certain area of a character, making your characters a formidable fighting force, effectively reducing the amount of strategy and forethought before each fight. More time was spent determining which members of your party were best suited for the laws of the encounter. It was fun and midly addictive, but it didn’t burn too many brain cells to beat.

Now that I’m back to playing Advance Wars, I really think it is a better game. I think its appeal is its simplicity. There are only a handful of units available and each commanding officer has a certain power that gives him a brief advantage. Moves require chess-like preparation, avoiding long range missile attacks while considering the best defensive position for the next computer turn. The strategy component of AW is much more pronounced. Each move will impact the next. When I played Age of Empires, my strategy and style was build up a big army and then send them to their death while I pumped out more units. Wars in Age of Empires usually become wars of attrition. Not so in Advance Wars. Often you have a limited arsenal and you’ll need each and every unit. Brute force usually isn’t the best answer (unless your C.O. is Max). The computer can be brutal, too. But while the computer AI is tough, I wonder what a human opponent would be like.

Paper Mario Reviews

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Gamespot gives Paper Mario 2 a great review, as do IGN and Gamespy (surpising, IGN and Gamespy give the same game high marks?). This is good news. I posted earlier on EvilAvatar (I’m not linking to the article, since the comments degenerated into fanboy rants that I abhor) that I was getting pessimistic about Nintendo’s outlook, but my outlook has changed.

I really think the next 2-3 months (read: Holiday Season) are going to be great for Nintendo. The DS is starting to turn a lot of heads and should put up a good fight against Sony’s PSP. Metroid Prime 2 should be stellar, along with a bunch of other games. Seeing Paper Mario get a good review is great, I really think this is what is going to get the ball rolling for Nintendo. Good for them! It does my heart good.

Weekend gaming and Video Game Football

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This weekend didn’t involve as much video gaming as we had anticipated. Other things happened, like going outdoors and actually breathing fresh air! We rode the four-wheelers a bunch, watched some college football (my Buckeyes are reeling, but I’m not dismayed) and played some NCAA 2005 on the Gamecube.

Watching a few football games this weekend made me realize how far football games have come but also how much farther they can still go. While it is unrealistic to think a gamer would want to spend 3 hours playing a game of football (3 hours being the average length of a college or pro football game) I think there can still be more realistic additions to both the graphics and AI. For one, collision detection still has a while before it’s perfect. Body parts still go through other bodies as if they were ghosts, collisions occur and bodies contort in unrealistic (in a Newtonian Physics sense) manners, I could go on. There also should be in place ways to play other positions. My brother-in-law doesn’t really like to play offense, so when we play co op, he plays one of the down linemen. He thinks holding ‘X’ keeps his guy engaged, but I’m not sure about that. If there was a way to make a sort of “mini game” to determine the amount of success one has, would be an improvement. I really like the 1st person mode in ESPN 2k5 (even though I’m not good at it) but that would only work for one person.

With respect to the AI, it is getting better but the play calling can be very predictable and sometimes blatantly wrong. I’ve had the computer driving on me at the end of the first half (in NCAA 2005) and it lets the clock roll until there is less than five seconds on the play clock before it hikes the ball. In the process, it loses precious seconds to set up the next play or get ready to kick a field goal.

But as I said, football games have come a long way. I’ll be going over my top 5 football video games on Friday. Hopefully this will start a trend of posting top 5 lists every once and a while.

Lets play some games!

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I haven’t had much time to play many games this week, I played a little Fable Wednesday night and some Advance Wars last night (I finaly beat FF:TA!) so I’m looking forward to a little gaming. That should happen this weekend.

Finally, I’ll get some time to play some video games this weekend! We’re going to the in-laws house this weekend, to visit with Greta’s older brother and his family. Same guy we visited out west last month, so there will definitely be a lot of NCAA 2005. Her other brother will be there, too, so we’ll have some 3 players vs. the CPU. It’s always good fun. The girls will want to get in on the gaming, too, so we’ll play some Mario Kart and some Pac Man Vs. Should be a good weekend.

Spectator Mode on Xbox Live?

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I saw this tidbit over at Kotaku today, talking about a spectator mode on Xbox Live. I don’t have an Xbox Live account (I’ve thought about it numerous times) but this idea just doesn’t resonate with me.

For one thing, I work full time and have a 20 month old daughter. When I do get a free moment to play some video games, the last thing I would do is fire up the Xbox to watch someone else play. Just doesn’t sound like a good time to me.

Now, on the other hand, I can see where this is going – Xbox Live Leagues. There’s talk of a ticker of scores while you’re watching/playing. Again, I don’t think I’d tune in to watch an online match of NCAA 2005 when I can fire up ESPN and watch the real thing. But I know many people want professional gaming here in the USA and this could be the first step towards that.

Gaming Blogs

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Hopefully this is a trend to come: more gaming blogs. There have been a few “gaming blogs” (if such a thing exists). Penny Arcade has been a sort-of blog for a long time, Game Girl Advance is another site that has some great insight into this world we call gaming. Now sites like Joystiq and Kotaku are starting to garner more of a wide spread audience for gaming blogs. There are a few sites I’ve got bookmarked as gaming blogs, and I’ve started a list in the sidebar of gaming blogs I read.

So how did ButtonMashing become a blog? I began thinking about starting a gaming site back in January when I was a SAHD (stay at home dad, for the uninitiated). I was looking for something that was productive and fun to do while the baby slept. The idea of ButtonMashing was born. At first I thought of making a site that would be an aggregate of reviews of video games, but GameRankings does a pretty good job of that. Then I thought about a site for links to gaming news and announcements, but GameTab and Evil Avatar do that much better than I could. So I there went that idea, too. I finally settled on using simple blogging software (Blogger in this case) and simple blog about what gaming I was doing and what I thought about gaming in general. I had the best of intentions, but then life happened and I got a full-time job. That not only reduced my video gaming time, but my online time in general. Now that things have settled down, I can finally get some good gaming in and some good blogging. While I’m still working on garnering an audience, I do appreciate those of you who stop by and read whatever I’ve jotted down. Hopefully it will be worth something.

Now I’m on the look out for new and old gaming blogs. If you have one, or know of a good one I’m missing, let me know. I’d love to hear from fellow gaming bloggers. Hopefully we can build a community similar to other “blogospheres” out there.