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Tony

Frustrations GALORE

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Electronic Art’s EA Sports World site sucks. Plain and simple — it sucks. Don’t bother clicking that link, because IT WON’T FREAKING LOAD.

I have been trying, rather unsuccessfully for the past 24 hours, to log in to EA’s NCAA 08 community site so I can watch a highlight video I uploaded to the site last night. I just want to show it to a couple friends. It’s really no big thing, the video. Just the thought of sharing a short video clip from I game I had just played was very cool. I was super excited about showing it to the readers of my other site, too. They would appreciate it, as Buckeye fans, as it was an interception I made as Ohio State against Michigan, returning it for a touchdown. It was a thing of beauty. But I can’t show it to anyone because EA’s site is such garbage.

I imagine their servers are getting absolutely slammed right now, as NCAA is only a couple days old and everyone is excited about this new feature, but the fact that their site is completely inaccesible is just sad. They had to be expecting a huge response to these additions and added more servers to up their capacity. This isn’t even their flagship enterprise. Sure, there are a ton of NCAA fans, but there will be way more players playing Madden when it drops next month. If their servers are down now, they will literally discorporate when the hordes of Maddenites start punishing them. It’s going to be ugly.

How could they not be ready for this onslaught? I hope they get things working soon. Like by tomorrow, so I can show my friends my NCAA interception skills.

In my hands…

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NCAA 2008The college football season starts right now!

(actually, it starts in about an hour, after dinner and the kids are bathed. So almost now)

Update: Okay, I’ve been able to put a couple hours in so far. One huge glaring problem I have is the absence of the “Create-a-school.” I was aware that this feature was left out of NCAA 07 but I thought it surely would have been left in the game. Disappointing! No University of North Royalton Bears Dynasty this year. (I should have known better, of course. This is EA we’re talking about. It will be “in the game” next year.) That means I’ll probably take over as the Kent State coach and take them to the national championship. I wanted to stay in Ohio and have a 1-star team, so that’s my only option.

Outside of that issue — ME LIKEY. I’ll have a more comprehensive review/post up after I get a few hours with the Dynasty mode in.

Where were these camps when I was a kid?

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Video Game Merit BadgeI went to Boy Scout camp every summer as a kid. We did fun stuff like build fires, sleep under the stars, and play German Spotlight. I also got to enjoy being homesick to the point of tears (my first year only, honest!), being a hemo-buffet to every mosquito in northern Ohio, and getting poison ivy in places better left unsaid.

At no point in my childhood did I ever get to go to somewhere cool like Cybercamps. Where was this stuff when I was a kid? (h/t Educational Games Blog)

Actually, I think roughing it in the woods was a pretty good time.

Weekend gaming

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I plan on playing NCAA 2008 exclusively for a couple weeks once it comes out next week, so I decided to get some variety in my gaming this weekend, as it will probably be the last time I won’t be concentrating on one particular game for a while. I figured it would be fun to reach back in the 360’s library and go “old-school” as it were. I picked up Call of Duty 2 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Both came out before I had a 360, so I plan on doing a little achievemnt point earning and old school gaming.

I also hope to get a little Everquest 2 in, with a little Pokemon Diamond on the side.

(I should also add that I’ll probably get sucked in to some Flash game over at Kongregate. Suprisingly, it won’t be Desktop Tower Defense. More likely it will be Bowmaster Prelude or Endless Zombie Rampage)

What games will you be playing this weekend?

E3 musings (day 2)

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A few thoughts on what I’ve seen talked about throughout the game-o-sphere:

It seems like most people’s reactions to Nintendo’s conference was a big shrug of the shoulders. Everyone seemed interested in WiiFit, but not much else. I can’t blame them. The Nintendo’s stable of games is being replenished by old stand-bys (Mario Kart, Super Mario, Metroid [so purty!]) but other than that, not a whole lot. I’m not that interested in WiiFit, personally. I see what they’re doing and I guess they should be commended for it, but I’d rather go to the actual gym and pump some iron. I’m also a bigger guy, so the thought of me getting on that balance board thingie is laughable. I’d snap that thing in two in two seconds flat.

Fracture for the 360 looks interesting.

I didn’t play the original Fallout games but I know its pedigree. Fallout 3 on the 360 has me very intrigued. bethesda

On the other hand, Fable 2 does not interest me in the least. Fool me once and all that.

Finally, I know I’m in a tiny minority here (made up of probably myself and a couple teenage girls) but I still don’t see the allure of Guitar Hero. Now even Nintendo is getting in on the GH action with the Wii. I’m still not swayed.

(Gametrailers is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites. All this media to consume!)

Let me show you my Pokemans!

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(That was lame. Sorry about that.) I am getting everything set up with my router so I can do some Pokemon WiFi. I won’t be able to jump on until the kids are tucked in bed (they always want to see my Pokemans. [SORRY!]) but here’s my friend code:

3308 1742 3208

You can add yours in the comments or send me an email through the contact form or hit me up on Yahoo IM (screen name: cholo_75).

I’ll be back soon to get some codes and get in on some Pokemon battles.

E3 musings (day 1)

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By now you’ve hopefully read all that Microsoft had to offer up at their press conference. I can’t comment on everything that was announced (Aeropause has a good summary) but I would like to point out a couple things that me likey very much.

The Halo 3 Xbox. I’m a sucker for these kind of things, and it sure is purty.

Halo 3 Xbox 360

I was suprised that it’s not the Elite version of the system. If they’re going to fleece us over and over, at least be committed to the fleecing!

I mentioned earlier I wanted something about Resident Evil 5. A teaser is what we got. It doesn’t reveal much (and being set in Africa, I doubt I’ll be able to do a translation page like RE4) but unbridled excitement doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about this game:

There is more, almost too much. The 360 Fall lineup is outta sight. My wallet (and my family) are already cringing. It will be NCAA 2008 around here for a while, then it’s going to get thick with games. Mass Effect, Halo 3, Two Worlds. Crazy!

Comments cleanup

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I was trying to reply to some of the recent comments on the site during lunch time, and I must have been doing them a little too fast, because I was greeted with this:

comments.jpg

Sorry about that, WordPress. I thought you could keep up.

E3 and me

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Since I don’t have the extra time or intenstinal fortitude, I’ve never covered anything in-depth, with regard to E3, here on the blog. It’s usually a week-long overload of information, with heaping spoonfuls of marketing and PR fluff and I can’t process it as fast as it comes out.

Nevertheless, I still follow as much as I can and leave the heavy lifting the big boys. As always, I have a list of titles I’m most interested in, and I follow the news to catch whatever tidbits there might be for my consumption. Here’s a short list of what I’m interested to see covered from this years E3 (keep in mind I don’t even know if anything will be mentioned, I’m just hoping):

Halo 3 (naturally)
Mercenaries 2 (please be as awesome as the original)
Sony’s new MMO-Spy game, The Agency
Mass Effect
Assassin’s Creed
Metroid Prime 3 (who needs online multiplayer? There can only be one Samus!)
Super Mario Galaxy (One of these two titles will finally push me over the edge to get a Wii. If they come out with months of each other, I’ll be in heaven)
Animal Crossing Wii (ditto)

These titles are just wishful thinking:
Dead Rising 2
Resident Evil 5

So that’s what I’m looking forward to (and probably what you’ll see linked here on the blog). What about you? What games are you most interested in? Anything not on my radar, that should be?

Ranking the video game bloggers

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I wanted to link Dan Dormer’s deconstruction of MTV’s “Top Ten Video Game Blogs” and his reconstruction a much better list.

I don’t have a ton to add, I just wanted to say I agreed with pretty much everything that Dan said. It’s criminal that they didn’t include Game Politics. Horrible omission. I’m also not a huge fan of Destructoid but I recognize what they’ve built over there. They do their thing, which isn’t necessarily my thing, but they still do their thing very well. I commend them for their success, though. They have become pretty popular pretty quickly.

I’m not sure who else I’d add that Dan hasn’t already mentioned. I’m pretty partial to the bloggers I’ve got on my blogroll, though.