GAMING


Saddle Up partners: Time for some Sim Polo

Posted by admin in EQUIPMENT, GAMING on 11-12-09    No Comments


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Now here is a sports gadget that wont be makin into a sports drink add. The RaceWood Simulator. That’s right, you get to mount this sucker in your driveway and practice riding to your heart’s content. Racewood offers several models that let potential high speed horse back riders practice trotting, galloping and full running. There are race strategy simulators. And even a calorie counter.  Imagine the fun as you burn fat as you practice riding. But wait there’s more: Our pick of sim horse to own is the polo practice mechanical pony. According to the company, this faux polo rider  rides like a well schooled pony and even matches the rhythm and balance of an actual polo horse. Plus there is no messy clean up. $30,000 ish. Let’s ride!




Strat-O-Matic Breaks the Color Barrier

Posted by admin in GAMING on 11-10-09    No Comments


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For all those who doubt the deep — and historic –  relationship between geeks and sports, need marvel at the genius that is Strat-O-Matic. The Glen Head, New York board game maker pioneered an eerily accurate baseball simulator back in 1961 based basic dice and data cards. There are versions for other sports like football, but baseball players can expect to play a decent recreation of fake baseball with your favorite players in about 30 minutes. The thing is, there is actually news in Strat-O-Matic. The game now has a Negro league version. Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard and many more now can play along with their white contemporaries. Now modern fantasy players may snicker, but Strat-O-Matic does a great job of bringing the past alive. And we bet DiMaggio/Gibson would be a hell of a match up.




The NFL On The Wii?

Posted by admin in GAMING on 11-02-09    No Comments


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Nope that ain’t Madden on the Wii. That’s the real live, in your face, NFL on the Wii. And it ain’t Star Wars stuff. An important step was taken early last month New York-based Organic Motion developed what it claims is the first motion capture technology that requires no outboard sensors. Ok we all have seen how they get player movement into most video games. The athletes have to strap on silly suits with control nodules that capture their movements and encode them into a computer. But Organic claims it can do the trick without suits. And for sports it could be transformational. If athletes can be modeled in real time, it means that that the PlayStation, Xbox or Wii could be easily turned into a live game display device. And suddenly you would be right there in the action. Early prototypes might filter out in demos early next year, with rollouts coming slowly after that. But with video game and sports ticket sales down, expect this sort of must-have technology to get to market sooner rather than later.




Guitar Hero played on the wall with soccer balls?!?

Posted by Dan in GAMING on 11-02-09    No Comments


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Check out this behind the scenes for the English rock band Kasabian.  They built a giant guitar hero clone on the wall and then used soccer balls to work the frets.  Its a pretty damn good display of accuracy.




EA’s FIFA 10

Posted by Dan in GAMING on 10-16-09    No Comments


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FIFA-10-Cover-ArtI just got my hands on a PS3 copy of EA’s FIFA 10, the new iteration of their soccer franchise and I’ve been playing it for about 9 hours.  If you liked the previous FIFA games you will like this one.  The game is more  like real soccer than in past versions, if your forward is faster than a defensive player you can’t just run around them, they will grab and hold on to you.  The “be a PRo” mode is once agin quite excellent.  You start as a rookie player on the reserve team of pretty much any professional soccer team in the world and have to work your way up to international stardom.  You will have to learn to play the positions that you pick though because the game penalizes you for straying from your assignments.  EA has added a lot of online content to this version, you have the ability to download your face to your player and set up an online team to play with friends.  You can also carry over the players you create locally to the online teams.  The game will be available on all platforms on October 20.




QuickHit Football

Posted by Jonathan in GAMING on 09-22-09    No Comments


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QuickHitWell, forget all the Gaints/Cowboys nonsense and their fancy pants new stadium. For our money the tech story of the week was what to do during the commercial breaks in game,QuickHit Football, the free to play Web based football game. The site got going earlier this month with some decent buzz and we finally got around to getting on the beta this past weekend. Now for sure, Madden this game is NOT. The graphics are limited, action is pretty much viewed from above and animation is basic. But for those of us from the Tecmo Bowl generation there is a throw back vibe to the game. We liked the play calling and strategy is excellent. The site even signed a bunch of ex coaches to be commentators.

Check out the trailer here. It is not bad.




Patent Submitted For New Wii Football Controller

Posted by Dan in GAMING on 08-27-09    No Comments


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My partner in crime over here at TSC  went off yesterday about how crappy the Wii is for Madden 10 and other football games.  Well it looks like Nintendo has been doing some thinking about this and has developed a new controller for football games.  The controller looks like an actual football that you shove your Wii-mote into and toss around.  This could either be very cool or just be the cause of broken living room furniture all over the world.  Check out these pics and see for yourself.




The Wii’s shortcoming: It’s got no (sports) game

Posted by Jonathan in GAMING on 08-26-09    No Comments


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When the Nintendo Wii came along, no question, its motion-sensing control system took sports games above the rim. Sports were physical. The Wii was physical. You stood and moved and played pretty much the same in both Wii world and the real world. But after just three years since its launch, it’s clear game developers are losing some of their Wii hops.

Apart from Tiger Woods golf and a couple of tennis games, tell us, which real sports games actually play well on the Wii? This year’s newly rethought version of Madden NFL Football for the Wii is outright abysmal, according to both reviews. and our messing around. (Admittedly, though one of us (Blum) does SUCK at Madden.) Still, playing Madden on the Wii is like taking a shower with a raincoat on. Something noisy happening, but you are not sure what.

And the new Wii MotionPlus system, which renders users’ movements more accurately, ain’t helpin. Game Informer magazine was unimpressed with EA’s Grand Slam Tennis game. IGN acknowledged some of its shortcomings. And we too had a hard time really getting the thing to rock on Madden.

And forget other non sports titles on the Wii. Medal of Honor Vanguard and Marvel Ultimate Alliance are just ridiculous on the Wii. Simple movements are very tricky gestures that need to be remembered. And time and time again, we just wanted a directional button or toggle control to get our fricken men where we needed em.  Our take is the Wii is not the sports game killer app. And we really have to wonder how long before the Xbox or a PS3 catch up. For our money, it can’t happen soon enough.




Farve Back in the NFL and Back in Madden 10

Posted by Dan in GAMING on 08-24-09    No Comments


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Farve in Purple and Old

Farve in Purple and Old

Brett Farve is back in the NFL after teasing us for months. Is his homelife that bad that he wants out?  Is he like the retired cop who can’t survive without the rush? Anyway his late addition to the Minnesota Vikings roster meant he missed the deadline for addition to the rosters of EA’s Madden 10.  EA has remedied the situation and he is now avialable for download, but don’t expect the farve of Madden 2008 when he was a 90.  The Farve in Madden NFL 10 is rated at 82.  What’s funny is Michael Vick is now rated as a 78, do they really think Farve is better than Vick?