Keyrock

So the Cards punched their ticket to the World Series last night. In the end, they were just too much for the Dodgers to handle.

I never quite understood the zealotry toward iron sights. Then again, I'm only a casual FPS gamer at best, and not a gun buff, so I guess it's just not in my wheelhouse.

Excitement level rising.

It was pretty funny; I liked the same artist's What if All the NFL Logos were British work too. The Seahawks one is gold:

I just realized that the Sawx have already won 2 in a row (games 2 & 3), so let's just pretend that I wrote "no team will win 2 games in a row in this series again". Yeah, let's do that. Last night's game had a little bit of everything, but I think it hinged on baserunning. The inexplicable blunder by Miggy early in the game when he tried to score from second on a single and was thrown out by 5 1/2 country miles may have changed the complexion of the game right from the get go. Had Miggy stopped at third there's no guarantee he scores, but it would have put pressure on a somewhat struggling Lester and the chance for a big inning would have remained. Later in the game Will Middlebrooks made a heads-up, aggressive baserunning play when he went from 1st to 3rd on a bunt when he noticed the catcher was late covering 3rd. While he didn't wind up scoring, it was indicative of the smart, aggressive approach the Sawx were taking.

That's a high compliment in my book. Despite simply being a reskinned Doki Doki Panic, I consider Super Mario Bros. 2 to be an excellent game and worthy of wearing the Mario name. As for Fallout 3, I enjoyed it. I'm not one of those people that yells "It's not isometric? Kill it! Kill it with fire!". I thought the transition to first person shooter-ish perspective was handled pretty well and the game was enjoyable, even if it didn't truly feel like a Fallout game. Bethesda just doesn't have an intimate understanding of what makes a Fallout game a Fallout game, hence why Fallout New Vegas was so vastly superior. Not to mention that Bethesda's writing skills are decidedly mediocre, even when it comes to the IP they created themselves. Still, they have a knack for creating big, fun playgrounds for us to play in, and they managed to capture just enough of Fallout's dark humor that it at least sort of resembled its namesake.

Sawx win, I can sleep well tonight. Lester's control was off tonight, but he did enough. Uehara, as always, was automatic, getting a 5 out save. Sawx now have 2 games in Boston in which to get 1 win. I'd love to see them end this in game 6, though I still can't shake the feeling that no team will win 2 in a row in this series (again, I'm fine with that).

I haven't had a lot of time to play games this week. Luckily, since Resident Evil Revelations was originally a handheld title, it was broken up into bite sized chunks by design, which has worked well for my limited playing time.

HUGE baserunning mistake by Miggy in the 1st. I was utterly stunned when he rounded 3rd and kept going. He had ZERO chance of beating that throw. Even had it been a couple feet off line (which it wasn't), he still would have been out easily. I mean, the guy isn't exactly fleet of foot when he's 100%, but he's gimpy on top of that. What the **** was he thinking? Edit: **** yes, Mike Napoli does it again. He freakin' CRUSHED that pitch. Edit 2: Sawx are whooping up on Sanchez in the 2nd. He's not the same guy he was in game 1, he doesn't have it today.

I would be curious what the new fans gained (likely from the Gears of Wars type crowd) vs. old fans alienated breakdown for Torture Porn Raider is. If new fans gained > old fans lost then I guess it would be a success in that department.

Regardless of the fact that "revengeance" is technically a real word, it's quite obvious that the title was a product of a bunch of suits getting together, deciding that the existing title wasn't skewing enough toward the 14-20 demographic according to focus groups and "moving the needle", then "synergizing" to come up with something with more "impact" that "takes it to the next level".

Actually, according to Squeenix, and for this purpose their opinion is the only one that counts, Torture Porn Raider was a financial failure, despite selling multiple millions of copies. As for your second sentence, obviously we're in complete agreement.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "quite well", but I agree that the economy has been getting better. Anyone that thought in 2008 that is would be something that could get fixed in 2 or 3 years then we'd be in the clear and back to the way it was before was living in a fantasy world. This is going to take over a decade, maybe multiple decades. Then we'll be living well for a little while while the bigwigs cook the books and cover up the money they've lost year after year while they collect multi-million dollar bonuses, until the books can't be cooked any longer, the bottom falls out, and we do this all over again. Hopefully I'll be a corpse by then.

Looking at successful "reboots", we have.... Deus Ex? At least I can't think of anything else. I guess YMMV even on that, but I found it to be a good game that was faithful to the original. Mortal Kombat "9" can be named as another successful reboot Also Tomb Raider and XCOM: Enemy Unknown where quite succesful reboots. I disagree 100% on Torture Porn Raider. Words cannot express how much I hate that game. I know some people like it, but for me it was the polar opposite of "successful reboot", it effectively murdered Lara and buried her in a shallow grave, in my mind.

Agreed, I quite enjoyed the game. I wish it wasn't so incredibly linear, but the combat system was really good and the story surprisingly decent. Also, the voice acting on Styx was excellent. I hope they do a sequel some day. There is a lot of potential there.

Not if Sanchez pitches like he did in game 1, he was filthy. Sawx got punched in the mouth last night, but it's 2-2 and they've already done what they had to do in Detroit, get home field advantage back. Who knows, maybe no one will win 2 games in a row in this series? I'd be fine with that. As for backs against the wall, down 5-1 in the 8th with the prospect of going down 2-0 and heading to Detroit to face Verlander isn't backs against the wall? Sounds like we got different definitions of backs against the wall.

Yeah, I'm firmly in the can't deal with the classic controls any longer camp. That's why I'm such a fan of Revelations. It's the closest the series has come to the feel of those 3 games you mentioned since they upgraded to non-abysmal controls and camera.

If anything, you should LOSE experience for headshots and such. Garrett's whole mode of operation is to avoid killing unless absolutely necessary. In fact, just avoiding combat of any kind unless absolutely necessary. At least, that's how it was before. Garrett might be an assassin now, for all I know.

Released more than a year ago, but The Witcher 2 is my go to eye candy game.

I'd be straight up shocked if David Price was on the Rays roster next year.

I bet she's the life of the party

In fairness, Verlander was really really good. It's just that Lackey was just as good and that one solo shot by Napoli made the difference. But yeah, when you can get a W over Verlander, it's cause to celebrate.

By the time this series is over, I'm not going to have any fingernails left.