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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

I forgot to do the Monday Update yesterday 5/26/14

Hey sorry I had to work until 6 and then I had the nerve to attend my sister's birthday party so oh well there was nothing yesterday. You didn't miss much, though.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star First Appearance
I might get some criticism for this, but I remember enjoying Sticker Star when I first played it and I still think it's pretty solid. The combat is certainly different from the prior games, but I still enjoy it. After coming back to it this week, I actually found the solution to one of my main issues with the game: you can actually purchase some of the real-world items at a kiosk manned by a shady figure in Decalburg. I don't know why I didn't know this. I'm glad to get back into it, though.

Wow, really, is this it? I guess I'll include this one-

NCAA Football 2014 First Appearance
Okay, I honestly don't know why I chose to play this one again, but I got to the Sugar Bowl. I've had my dynasty in this game running all the way to 2018. Started as an offensive coordinator at Old Dominion, won eight games, moved 'up' to Eastern Michigan, somehow lucked my way into a national championship because there were no other undefeated teams in the country and only one team with 1 loss. Also this happened-
anyway I somehow got a job at Louisville still as the OC after that, and I won a championship there (the offensive job is very easy in NCAA 2014) and then went on to lose to Tennessee by 40 in the first game of 2017. I won like 6 straight after that and then stopped playing back in October 2013 or so, then I picked up back on Tuesday. I won the rest of my games from then on, but, in a near reflection of the Eastern Michigan situation, I was one of about 5 teams with one loss, then another one with 2 losses and a better schedule strength. I did not return to the championship game despite 12 straight wins, and instead ended up with the Sugar Bowl against SEC runner up South Carolina. That game was a win, which left me with a 26-1 record at Louisville. Then, because I'm dumb and I hate winning games, I chose to go to Illinois for the head coach job.

I want to keep playing a game like this for years at a time. The furthest that I ever got in one game was five seasons of NCAA Football 2005, and I'm entering season 5 in 2014 right now. Can't wait for next year's entry am I right boys

Monday, May 19, 2014

Monday Update: 5/19/14

I had to pack up my room this week so I didn't have much access to anything until Thursday night, unfortunately. But this weekend I was able to turn that "unfortunately" into a FUNfortunately.

I'm ashamed of what I just said

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (SAT): First Appearance
I'll admit I've never been a huge fighting game fan, but Mortal Kombat 3 (and Ultimate MK3, and Trilogy) is always my favorite one to play against other people. There was last year during lunch at school when a friend brought a portable SNES. There was the one guy at camp who owned Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the N64. There was that random Ultimate MK3 machine in that tiny alcove in the mall in Alexandria, Minnesota. I've always had a strange history with MK3. It was one of the first games that I ever tried, oddly enough, as there was a SNES with a copy of it at my daycare. I played it last night against my girlfriend, and neither of us were particularly good at it. We still had fun with it.

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (SAT): Third Appearance, Last on 2/2/14
If this game taught me one thing, it was that Sean Elliott wasn't all that good in NBA Jam. I have no idea how he was in actuality, but he couldn't make SHIT last night. Still won in overtime, though my opponent had never tried the game before and also chose the New Jersey Nets.

Gex (SAT): First Appearance
How have I not played Gex yet this year? But I love Gex! He's voiced by Dana Gould, the music is classic Saturn stuff, and it's actually a pretty solid platformer all things considered. If I had to describe the Saturn in one game, I'd choose Clockwork Knight or Bug! or Sonic R (mainly because Gex wasn't exclusive to the Saturn), but Gex is a great example of an era of gaming that has passed and will probably never return. Video Games were still relatively new, and things that were "cool" look absolutely ridiculous today. Granted, I don't think today is necessarily worse, but it's certainly different. In 18 years, people looking back at what was "cool" in 2014 might see something genuinely cool, like Titanfall. At the opposite end of that is the muddy Gears of War kinds of action games from 2007-2010 or so, which may have been "cool" then, but not the kind of cool that makes you laugh 14 years from now, like a talking gecko who gets sucked inside a television.

Well that's your "too much about Gex" update for the week.

Assorted Others:
NBA 2K14 (X360): Eighth Appearance, Second Straight Appearance: I hate this game but I cannot stop
Tecmo Classic Arcade (XBOX): First Appearance: There may be a video that comes out of this
NBA Inside Drive (XBOX): First Appearance: There will definitely be a video that comes out of this

Saturday, May 17, 2014

The Name Game Finishes Round 1

The bracket that I made for this tournament is weird, I know.
The first round ends with this post, and it includes two matchups featuring teams that played in the play-in round.

THE MILLERS have already defeated the Jacksons by ten points, making use of the play by Andre Miller (Still playing in 2014) and running and gunning with DUAL REGGIES. 

The Reggies are not the only team with two guys both with the same name who are also the same guy. Meet THE ROBINSONS, who also seem to lean towards the inside with a tag team of David and 90's David. NBA Live 2003 came out the year before David Robinson retired.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be a very good game. It went right down to the wire when Larry Robinson got hot and started making threes. When they ended up with the final possession via an intercepted pass, they ended up having to settle for an almost half-court shot. The AI is weird, I tell you. The Millers will move on to the second round to face the Thomases.

THE JOHNSONS have already won a game, defeating the Anderson/sens in their opening game. There isn't that much to say that hasn't already been said about the Johnsons, though they are very, very proficient at blocking shots. Their opponent was THE JONESES.

The Joneses have one hall-of-famer on their roster, '60s Celtic legend Sam Jones. I know next to nothing about him other than the fact that he has the second most NBA championships of any singular player. He also wears notably short shorts.

So could the Johnsons... keep up with the Joneses??? Yes, actually. They really never had any difficulties with the Joneses after halftime. Even though the Joneses had a pretty solid team together, their lack of great inside talent is probably what hurt them the most. None of their players were terribly skilled at making shots either, only one ended up being over .500 in shooting percentage. I had an issue with this game because the game started to sub in the Hawks' backups (whose names are not Johnson) once they were up by about 20. Garbage time was destroying the sanctity of the name game, but I didn't care too much about Jason Terry getting a few minutes. Terry himself probably could have beaten the Joneses that day.

Join me next time for the second round, where the Johnsons play the Davises, and the Millers meet the Thomases. We bid the first round (and play-in games) farewell. Farewell, both Admirals, Jason Williams, Young Birdman, and I'm sure there was someone notable from the Browns as well.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Monday Update: 5/12/14 - finals studying edition

I FINISHED WARIO LAND 4 Second Appearance, Second Straight Appearance IT WAS GOOD
I PLAYED A FEW GAMES OF COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE First Appearance IN A LULL ONE DAY
I PLAYED A FEW GAMES OF NBA 2K14 Seventh Appearance, Last Appearance 4/28/14 

Thanks. If you have any questions about the history of France please send them to me via twitter @joebush_joebush

Sunday, May 11, 2014

The Name Game in NBA Live 2003 Round 1 (Part 2)

The next entry in round 1 is as follows:

THE MILLERS were sort of fudged here, but who cares. Like stated in the last post, many of the best players of the 1990s are playable in NBA Live 2003. One of those is Reggie Miller. However, unlike Isiah Thomas, Reggie was still a part of the NBA in 2002. So I put both Reggies on the team in order to make it work. The rest of the team is rounded out by Andre, Mike, and Brad.

THE JACKSONS had a bunch of guards. Their starting five Jimmy, Bobby, Mark, Jermaine, and Marc. Phil probably could have been their coach, but I didn't think about that and I don't think I could do anything to make it so.

The Millers were at an unfair advantage all game. Only a few of the Jacksons were of above average NBA height, while the Millers were anchored by the twin Reggies, relatively tall when talking about shooting guards. With that added to two of the better big men in the NBA at that time in Mike and Brad, the Millers got quite a few blocks in.
Turns out basketball is best played by tall guys
Credit to the Jacksons for not backing down, but a win is a win, and two Reggies are hard to beat.



Game two features teams from Houston and Oakland
THE WILLIAMSES feature the most popular name in the NBA, with eight players! Eight Williams are present in the NBA, enough to legally fill an entire team up with no others. Unfortunately, there's nothing to write home about with the vast majority of Williamses. Outside of Jason at point guard, there are no Williams on the team with a rating above 80. Also, they're almost all small forwards, no big men.

THE THOMASES had almost the exact opposite problem, with three centers, one small forward, and one point guard. However, that point guard happens to be Isiah, so it sort of works out.

Surprisingly, the difference in blocks for this game was much smaller than in the prior contest. That didn't change the fact that the Williamses were unable to do almost anything on either side. Eventually, J-Will started heaving up desperate threes



and then promptly got dunked on by Isiah
low quality .gifs - "we're working on it"

The Williamses just couldn't get anything going, masking a pretty subpar performance by the Thomases.
Here's how the bracket looks after four games:
It will make more sense in the next installment, probably not written until Friday because this week is finals week.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

The Name Game in NBA Live 2003: Round 1 (part 1)

Alrighty folks, check THIS OUT:


This is the opening round of "The Name Game" in which I take entire teams of players with the same name and play them against each other in Electronic Arts' NBA Live 2003. Most of these teams are a mishmash of random players from random teams, so the continuity of the name and the positions may not make sense sometimes. If a name happens to breed a number of players, but only Shooting Guards, they might run into a couple of issues. This tournament is made out of ten teams, each of different last name potential.
THE JOHNSONS are led by their Hall of Fame point guard Magic (and I included any HOFers with these last names on these teams, as NBA Live 2003 has a "legends pool" of the best players from each decade). This team finally makes use of the dream combo of Earvin and Ervin Johnsons (Magic and "No Magic") (Weird how I don't even put quotes around Magic's name, it doesn't feel right). They're fairly guard-heavy, but they have size on the inside, almost like a real NBA team! Whoa!

THE ANDERSONS(feat. Andersen) feature stars Derek and Kenny, both of whom were sort of short, but still solid shooters in their prime. I had to fudge this one a little, but what we sacrificed for complete and total continuity, we made up with Young Birdman at center.
ESPN
The Anderson/sens don't have much in the way out height (outside of Young Birdman), so they had to focus on cutting inside, setting pick & roll plays, and shooting from the outside. This worked well early, and the seemingly less talented Celtics had a double-digit lead on the Hawks. The tide really started to turn on the Anderson/sens in the mid second quarter, once the Johnsons started blocking all of their shots.
fuckin watermarks
Many a shot got blocked. In the end, the Johnsons proved that they were a better team, taking the lead on a thunderous layup by Avery in the third quarter, and they didn't look back. In the end, the Anderson/sens were a solid team with a solid two names, but not strong enough to beat the Johnsons.



Game 2 was uploaded on Monday, I think.
THE DAVISES are led by a bunch of talent, including their point guard Baron (who was an up-and-coming player at that point), and the inside presence of Antonio. In terms of pure talent, the Davises are more talented by far than their opponent in the second round (the bracket is weird and I wasn't thinking in the order in which I recorded, you'll see by the end of the post)
THE BROWNS are on the Cleveland Cavaliers. They're the Cleveland Browns! The Cleveland Browns! It's like the football team is named! Isn't that something? It's crazy how life works sometimes. Anyway, they're not good. Apparently the last name Brown doesn't create great athletes.
Wikipedia
But anyway, the Davises came out and destroyed the Browns. They destroyed the Browns by so many points that Steve Nash and Nick Van Exel actually got into the game in garbage time. The Davises are so good that they got to stop being the Davises.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Monday Update: 5/5/14

So this has been a weird week

Wario Land 4 (GBA): First Appearance
I used to say that I'd never ever play Wario Land 4. This wasn't because I didn't like the previous games, it was actually because I liked the original three games so much. (Especially the third one.) Wario Land 4 was originally one of the reasons why I wanted to get the Game Boy Advance when it first came out. That desire waned after seeing screenshots in Nintendo Power (I think it was Nintendo Power, or possibly at one of the old Toys R' Us displays).
GameFaqs
You see that up in the upper right? Who did they think they are? Running around leaving scars?
 Collecting their bar of hearts? Health bar. That's the point, there's a health bar. That was an issue for me, because I was always bad at platformers, I couldn't survive most of them, like Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Country. I wasn't skilled enough to keep playing if they gave me a limited number of lives, and generally, I didn't have the patience to go and play through a bunch of levels I had already completed. Wario Land 3 didn't have a life bar or anything of the sort, so I could get hit by enemies as much as I wanted and not have to face any consequences. Having that life bar in Wario Land 4 was exactly what made me turn away twelve years ago.

But anyway I was wrong the whole time, the whole thing is good.

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 (GCN): First Appearance
Foreshadowing for a possible new video??????????????????? Yes, actually. I have owned Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX 2 since 2002 or so, but I haven't ever actually finished it. I'm in the process of that right now, actually, and I have just realized how clumsy the whole thing feels. The levels are a little cluttered, the physics feel weird, and - actually I'm going to make a video about the whole thing soon so hold on.

NBA Live 2003 (GCN): Second Appearance, Second Straight Appearance
A new venture has been started:

I have picked ten teams based purely upon last name and I have pitted them against each other. This will be fun.

Kirby & The Amazing Mirror (GBA): First Appearance
I can not for the life of me figure out where to go, that's probably an issue.