Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Yankees Advance to World Series
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra. Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. Reggie Jackson and Ron Guidry. Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, and Tino Martinez. Now Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez. The tradition goes on for the Yankees, and with it, the tradition of winning American League pennants and playing in The World Series.
The Yankees clinched the AL Championship Series with a 5-2 victory over the Angels in Game 6 on Sunday in their first year of the new Yankee Stadium, marking their 40th pennant -- a Major League Baseball record by far -- and the first since 2003 for the sport's most fabled franchise. Six years isn't a long time, you say? Well, these are the Bronx Bombers we're talking about: That six-year drought represented the fourth-longest stretch without a pennant in franchise history.
The Yankees didn't win a pennant until their 21st season in 1921, while also experiencing spans of 12 years (1964-76) and 15 years (1981-96) between AL titles. The Yankees have been to the World Series seven times since '96, five more times than any other team during that period.
The Yankees' 40 pennants have come over the past 89 seasons -- at a pace of almost one every other year. The Bombers own nearly twice as many pennants as any other team; the Dodgers have won the National League pennant 21 times. New York, in fact, has more pennants itself than the next three teams in the AL, with Oakland (14), Boston (12) and Detroit (10) combining for 36 pennants.
The Yankees' next opponent, the Phillies, will play in the World Series for just the seventh time, even though they were founded in 1883 -- 18 years before the Bombers. The second of those seven trips, in 1950, ended in a four-game sweep at the hands of New York.
The Yankees, however, have lost their past two World Series -- to the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001 and to the Florida Marlins in 2003. That means they're still looking for that elusive second championship this decade; New York has won at least two World Series in all but one decade (the 1980s) since its first title in 1923.
It has long been a fact of life in America that the Yankees will win the pennant or at least will not wait long for their next one.
The wait for their next one is over.
The Fall Classic is coming back to the Bronx. This time, it comes to a new ballpark, but one with the same tradition. Now the question is whether a 27th World Series championship can be far behind.
-Tim Britton / MLB.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
1up gave R&C Future: A Crack in Time an A+, Giant Bomb gave it a 100, Destructoid gave it a 90, IGN gave it a 9 and Gametrailers gave it an 8.9. In short, this is an awesome game that anybody who owns a PS3 should check out, even if you didnt play the previous installment. Although I have to say if you arent sure about this franchise, its worth picking up the original R&C Tools of Destruction for under $20 and using that as your starting point. With so many good games coming out over the next few months, its extremely tough to pick and choose what to play, but if you do have a PS3, R&C Future: A Crack in Time should be right next to Uncharted 2 as one of the games you dont want to miss. Release date is Oct 27th 2009.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Connection Testing On A Friday Night
There are two factors here, one is connection quality, and the second is connection speed. Quality, which is represented in the top image, has to do with your line stability and ping, which is the time that it takes a signal travels to a remote server and back. In my case, I got an "A" grade. The lower your ping, the better. In PC gaming, where we usually browse a list of dedicated servers before choosing which to join, we always go for a (populated) server with the lowest ping; anything under 50ms is great, although up to 100ms or so is playable for FPS games (RTS games can go even higher), but beyond that the game becomes laggy. Lag can be caused by either a server or peer to peer host who has a poor quality connection (high ping), or slow connection speed (quantity) which isnt sufficient to process the amount of data flowing in and out.
Without going too deep into the technical details, the packets that the host sends to each game client in a peer to peer hosted game like Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, or Gears of War 2 on the Xbox 360 are roughly 6-7Kb/s each in size. What this means is that if you have 10Mbps download/2Mbps upload type connection, you should be fine to host a 24+ person match. However, if you have a 512Kbps connection like much of rural America does, your game may start lagging beyond a 3vs3 or 4vs4 match. This explains why smaller gametypes (4vs4 modes in Halo 3 and Gears 1, Horde in Gears 2, Team Tactical in CoD4) seem to run much better on average than the larger gametypes featured in those games, although I think we can all agree Bungee and Infinity Ward set up their matchmaking and network code a whole lot better than Epic does.
On a scale of 1-5, Ive got a 3.8 for raw speed, which is actually pretty decent. What Im most pleased about is the 5Mb/s+ upload speed, which means my connection is solid for hosting (in theory) 48 person games, not that I would ever try it. 9Mb/s isnt amazing for download speed, but for gaming its far more than enough. While its nothing like having a fiber optic FIOS or T1 connection, its pretty good for just $50 a month. I truly wish I could see the stats of some of the other players who often get host in Gears of War 2, and what my ping to them is. Its amazing to me how often I will get connected to someone who either has a slow 512Kbps connection or lives in some remote area where their ping looks like this:
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
L4D2 Trailer = 3 Minutes of Awesome
If this trailer doesnt get you pumped up for L4D2, nothing will.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
New Super Mario Bros Wii: GT Preview
The lastest Miyamoto masterpiece is almost here, but will it deliver?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Dragon Age & Bayonetta Hype Factor
The early word on the street is that Bayonetta and Dragon Age Origins are two games for the ages. Bayonetta has received a perfect score from Japanese gamer mag Famitsu, and Dragon Age is being called "the best RPG this decade" by some of those that have reviewed and or played it. Strong words. Bioware totally blew the marketing of Dragon Age, but I think when it finally hits the streets people are going to flip out this November. Bayonetta wont be out until next year, but Im looking forward to it being the best new action franchise since God of War on the PS2 and Ninja Gaiden on the original Xbox. Strong words indeed.
In other news, some of the luster has come off Infinity Ward's armor as they face a rebellion among a 100,000+ person army of PC gamers who refuse to buy Modern Warfare 2 because it doesnt have dedicated servers. Previous iterations of the game such as Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War had dedicated servers, like almost all PC games. In the console world, dedicated servers are a rarity, but in the PC world they have been standard for years, and the switch to a peer-to-peer Matchmaking system has PC gamers in an ire across the globe.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Dirty Tracks and Dirty Tricks
The Codemasters? I wouldn't have expected it from them but their anticipated DLC for Dirt 2 turns out to be 800 points for 2 cheat codes. No new content, nothing downloaded. So you can't call it DLC surely?
http://www.ps3vault.com/codemasters-dirt-2-dlc-is-disappointing-7076
"As explained by Senior Executive Producer Gavin Raeburn, the said DLC would allow players to personalise and augment the boxed game – a vague and intriguing statement."
DiRT 2 Trust Fund ($4.99)
Why wait? Unlock all vehicles, liveries and upgrades instantly with the DiRT 2 Trust Fund Pack. Download now and experience 35 killer rides and access all upgrades and 93 liveries.
File size: 370 KB
DiRT 2 Access All Areas ($4.99)
Unlock every DiRT 2 World Tour event and track with the Access All Areas Pack! Get VIP entry to 100 events set on 41 tracks. You’ll also gain exclusive access to X-Games events with their electric atmosphere, outrageous courses and intense competition.
File size: 370 KB
The game already has a flashback feature to make it easier to complete the campaign racing. It's very sad and yet I must admit if EA had released a Euro code for B3 they'd have raked in the cash from many thousands of people.
Ha, ha http://news.softpedia.com/news/DiRT-2-Developers-Talk-About-DLC-105222.shtml
"The model that Codemasters should probably follow is that of Criterion. The developer has created a ton of new content for the open world racing game is has designed, Burnout Paradise. Only recently have they begun to charge money for the DLC that they released and only for those packages adding significantly to the game. One model that Codemasters should not follow is that of Skate 2 developer Black Box and publisher Electronic Arts. The first piece of DLC they put out was designed to open up the game and unlock all the content in the skating game."
Posted by umopapisdnpuaq
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
3D Dot Heroes: Gameplay
This Zelda style "2.9D" action adventure game is coming to the Japanese Playstation Store next month for download. Hopefully, it will make its all the way to a Western release before Nintendo notices the similarities and does something stupid. I think the game looks sweet and I cant wait to check it out the old school style gameplay.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Operation Flashpoint DR: Launch Trailer
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and Arma II are the current and only real contenders for the king of the military simulation genre, with one distinction being that Operation Flashpoint is available on consoles now while Arma II is currently not, and this being a genre which typically appeals more to the sim-crazy PC gamer crowd, that might not mean a whole lot in terms of lost sales.
At this point Im undecided on buying either game. When Arma II came out to positive reviews I almost got it, but the lackluster demo with its subpar voice work, glitches, and impossible to control helicopter didnt quite convince me to buy it. Couple that with the fact Codemasters was releasing its game only a few months later, and I figured I would wait and see how the whole thing shaked out. At this point it appears to be a draw, because they have gotten very similar review scores and oddly similar reviews, with the primary distinctions being that Operation Flashpoint DR appears to have shipped relatively bug free, and the PC version is priced at a very friendly $40 (the 360 version of OP: DR is $60 and Arma II is $50 on Steam).
The guys over at CVG posted an interesting review of Operation Flashpoint DR where they explicitly compared it to Arma II. The differences between the two games are subtle but important: Arma II is the more graphically impressive and technically advanced game, it has larger battlfields, more weapons and vehicles, bigger multiplayer servers, and more custom scenario editing features. It also has a ton of bugs in the single player campaign, glitches with the voicework, and requires a beast of a computer to run. Operation Flashpoint DR is slightly more accessible and polished; the missions are better scripted and more straightforward, the battlefields are smaller, the servers are smaller, and the graphics arent quite as impressive, but at the same time they are much less demanding on your PC than Arma II and they scale well to older machines. Its quite clear that while the two games are similar, OF:DR is the more fully baked pie right out of the oven, even if its a smaller and slightly less ambitious project. Both games are hardcore military sims; Arma II is just slightly more so.
The thinking mans alternative to something like Call of Duty Modern Warfare or Battlefield 2, both these games are very realistic and unforgiving in their design. One bullet can kill you, the vehicles and guns have highly accurate physics models, the missions can be extremely long, progress at a snails pace and require tons of teamwork, proper planning and pinpoint execution. These arent your "run N gun" adrenaline fests with epic cutscenes that sell ten million copies; they arent even aimed at a general audience, more at enthusiasts. That being said, they offer a level of military realism and battlefield immersion thats unparalleled - if you can handle it.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
GT Anthology: SSX
Sadly, one of the best franchises from last gen consoles is totally absent on Xbox 360 and PS3. Sure, the Wii got a borked version with waggle controls and 480i visuals, but really who wanted that? Can you imagine how awesome SSX would be over XBL? Tournaments, leaderboards, coop and tag team racing and freestyle events...
EA, seriously, WTF are you thinking? Do you not want my money?
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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