Sports!

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So….couple of new sports games came out; I was wondering what you might think:

First off, it’s MLB The Show ’23. I am playing the Xbox version because….it’s included under Game Pass.

Great now I can play music all game. That’s a big “who cares.” It feels like MLB The Show. But where’s the pitch clock? Where are the “you can only pickoff a couple times” rules? Not sure how realistic that all is these days. Of course if you’re using true analog pitching, it will probably take more than 9 seconds to pitch…so I guess that can’t be replicated. But I still think that there should be some rules included since the real game has changed. When I was on first the pitcher threw over 2 times, so that means steal right. Not in this game. Ugh.

Moving on, there’s a new golf game in town — it just came out right around the Masters…..and of course it’s about the Masters. A new EA golf game. Seems interesting. Well I started playing it and ….uh..it was different than what I expected. Left stick swing control? Nope lets switch that to right stick.. and then it just felt weird. As someone who has been playing the 2K game, it feels a lot different. I’ll keep trying. One thing I’m very surprised on, the EA game does not have a.4K resolution on PC. Not sure if that’s the same thing on Xbox as I was playing on the PC .

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Baseball

It’s opening day 2023. I haven’t played The Show yet but I certainly watched the games today.

The Orioles beat the Red Sox in what I call a “Home Run 2600” game. You see, I would play my dad and I would always throw these crazy ass pitches. And then when I was ahead, I’d deliberately hit all his players so that the bases were loaded and then I’d hit a triple play, because it was Home Run and the game was terrible.

We’d also play the 5200 game, which had speech and was so cool. I won a ton of games, so just to keep it fun, I’d let my dad win. I told my brother this, and told him he should let dad win now and then, but instead he told my dad that I let him win. My dad enjoyed bourbon, and uh…let’s just say when he found this out he was not happy.

It was not pleasant. From that point forward I realized it was best not to say anything and anytime I played a game with him after, he always wondered if I let him win. I remember playing him in Hardball on the C64 and the Genesis.

No matter what, we always talked about the Orioles. Even if there were issues, there was always the Orioles. He left this world in 2016, and even now I am like damn I wish I could talk about today’s Orioles victory.

It’s just so hard to believe this f’n team hasn’t won since 1983. Sigh.

MLB.TV

This year MLB is up to $149.99 (inflation, Xavier Bogarts, etc) but MiLB is included free. That’s kind of cool.

MLB The Show had a reveal today, and uh, it looks like baseball? I still miss High Heat but I’m probably at the place where if I played it today (if it could run on any device) I’d be like uhhh, this was good? LOL.

One of the things I really liked about High Heat was that it took less than 3 hours to play a game. The Show always feels so damn slow to me. It plays well but like an Avalon Hill board game it seems to be played in real-time.

Super Thoughts

Although I had no vested interest in the game, it was mildly entertaining.

The Chiefs are on an incredible string of luck when it comes to referee calls. Both calls were correct; however my issue with it is that there were a lot of other calls that weren’t correct or should have been called….so if you’re in “let ’em play” mode, you don’t call a ticky-tack penalty that decides the game.

This reminds me of all those Peyton Manning calls where he would just heave the ball downfield and always get pass interference. It was unreal.

Of course PHI choked big time. Football and baseball in the same season. Sorry PHI fans. Yuck.

In gaming world, I got a Steam Deck. Haven’t really played it though. I did buy the Nintendo vouchers, now I just need to find games. Obviously I won’t buy a $39 game with a $50 voucher. LOL

Have a lovely day.

MLB The Show ’23

Received an email today announcing Jazz Chisholm Jr as the cover athlete for MLB The Show ’23.

I must be getting old, because I thought I followed baseball — and my first question was “Who is Jazz Chisholm Jr”

FIFA 23 PC

Hasn’t worked for me.

“application encountered an unrecoverable error”

Has anyone gotten this and/or fixed? Running as admin doesn’t help.

Ted Lasso /AFC Richmond in FIFA 23

Haven’t you wanted to play as Roy or Jamie Tartt or see Coach Beard in a video game?

Now you can have AFC Richmond play Wrexham AFC in FIFA 23.

Exciting , I guess.

Madden NFL 23

Since I have EA Play Pro for the PC, I was able to play Madden NFL 23 today.

So the first game is an All-Madden Tribute game with players he preferred both teams are coached by Madden — one ‘young’ Madden and the other was late 70s Madden. The game is, well, the game. I doubt at this point, if you’ve been playing Madden since the 80s, you’ll see anything really new here (I guess there are new Commanders helmets).

But during that first game, there is a really nice tribute to John Madden. The whole thing may bring a tear to your eye. It’s just one of those things…death is a part of life.

I just think about the kids today who won’t know who Madden is…then again, probably most 14-year-olds today don’t know who Madden is either, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, the best $100 you can spend is with EA Play Pro for PC. If only they had NHL available.

Also, congratulations to Manchester City for being the 22-23 EPL Champions.

Unless something amazing happens during the World Cup break, this just is terrible.

Why am I playing Madden NFL 23 on a Monday afternoon? Because I still don’t have a job, but I’m guessing you figured that out.

ESPYs

I think after you have Dick Vitale have a 15 minute speech about cancer and then following that with a comeback player of the year where the nominees are a guy with stage 3 colon cancer in the prime of his life or a guy that literally died on the pitch and came all the way back to play for Manchester United, you pick a guy that had a run of the mill ACL tear, that’s pretty lame.

A difficult post

With all the things happening on the world right now, this is the least horrible thing out there unless you are me.

Earlier this week I was let go from my position after more than 19 years.

I can’t get into it, except there is shock and sadness and thoughts about how to get a new job.

I hear it’s a great job market but it’s been a week and no dice yet. I guess I am expecting too much too quickly!

Too bad there aren’t any freelance writing gigs for video gamers over the age of 50! That would be nice.