Catching Up

Okay, I just noticed I hadn't posted here in over a month. So let me rectify that.

First off, as to what in the hell I'm doing these days, I'm back working nights in the Emergency Room at a local hospital so that ties up most of my time. I'm shooting for grad school, hopefully starting this coming January. I've whittled my list down to 6 or 7 schools right now, but there's no point listing them till I actually start applying. I will say that my list pretty much only contains schools in the South. Sorry Brutal White North, I gave you a shot, and you sucked.

I've seen a lot of movies, so here are some very, very quick recaps:
Napoleon Dynamite: hilarious, simply put.
Darkness Falls: hilariously stupid and bad.
The Village: it's Brotherhood of the Wolf, in English, with a shitty twist.
House of Sand and Fog: the saddest movie I've ever seen.
Barbershop: I thought people said this movie was funny...
The Manchurian Candidate [2004]: good, but not nearly as good as the original.
The Bourne Supremacy: decent, but with the longest, most boringly drawn out car chase ever.
Bubba Ho-Tep: what? Jesus, this movie was dumb. Say it ain't so, Bruce! [of note: I bought Bubba Ho-Tep used before I'd seen it. If you want it, it's yours for $5.]

Video games: I've gotten a lot of really great games for my Xbox lately, and when I'm not working or sleeping, I've probably got one of those green controllers in my hand in front of my TV. I've recently gotten Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Full Spectrum Warrior, Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow, ESPN NFL 2K5, Spider-Man 2, and Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy.

But I honestly haven't played more than 15 minutes combined in all those games. Why?

Football. Specifically EA Sports' NCAA College Football 2005 and the behemoth, Madden 2005.

Now, I personally prefer college football to pro football, so the vast majority of my time has been spent on NCAA over Madden, but let me comment on each. Madden 2005 is insanely well polished - it's the second best playing football game I've ever played [behind NCAA]. The AI is rediculously good on the harder levels, with defense that blows your mind. The game is a challenge, a welcomed challenge, and the realism that EA brings to the table just blows me away.

Now I think I need to interrupt here and say I've been a Sega Sports disciple since the days of my trusty Sega Genesis. Back in 1994 I got a copy of the phenomenal Sega Sports' College Football's National Championship for Christmas. Even though it only had 32 teams, it had my Florida State Seminoles, fresh off their National Championship in 1993, and they were the shit. I loved hearing the fight songs, seeing the logos, and just playing the college game. The only other college football game at the time, EA Sports' Bill Walsh College Football, sucked in my opinion. I hated the graphics and the playcalling. After the Genesis/SNES years, college football videogames pretty much took a nosedive, not really interesting me on PlayStation1 and N64 platforms. I got a Dreamcast in 1999, and with Sega's rekindling of their Sega Sports brand with the Dreamcast's launch [see the stellar NFL2K and NBA2K for proof] I couldn't wait for a NCAA football game.

And in late 2001, I got it. Sega Sports' NCAA College Football 2K2: Road to the Rose Bowl came out, and I picked up my pre-ordered copy the day it came out. I was blown away to see Bobby Dodd Stadium in its rendered-3D glory, and to hear the Ramblin' Wreck as my boys drove down the field and crushed every team in their path. I loved the game, but it was a bit lacking. After a mediocre release in 2003 [I played the GameCube release], I was jaded on the Sega Sports offering. Apparently a lot of other customers were too, and Sega decided not to make a college football game for the 2003 and 2004 seasons [ie, no NCAA 2K4 or 2K5]. So with no Sega offering, I turned to EA's offering this year. I wasn't a huge fan of EA's football games [I prefered NFL 2K3 to Madden 2003] so I was a bit wary, but I have to say, NCAA 2005 blew my out of the water.

First off, the whole "Homefield Advantage" concept is mindblowing. When you're playing an away game in a place known for crazy fans [Tennessee, Florida, Clemson, etc] and the home fans are in a frenzy, your players react based on their "confidence" ratings. Freshman make more mistakes than seasoned veteran leaders. First, the "crowd pulse meter" rises as you approach the line of scrimmage. Then the screen starts to shake, and your controller starts to violently vibrate. Your recievers can't hear the audibles you call, your running backs look at each other, confused. Your scared O-Line jumps off sides. Your inexperienced center might accidentally snap the ball when you're not ready for it yet. Your recievers run the wrong routes. Players actually act like they would in the big games - and I love it.

The presentation in NCAA 2005 is great. Voice commentary is done by the best team in the world, ESPN's Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and CBS's Brad Nessler. It's the best voice-over work I've heard in a video game [I started with Joe Montana's SportsTalk Football back in 1993 on my Genesis - a game I played the shit out of]. The Create-A-School mode is good but simple. The Create-A-Sign mode is phenomenal [my sign "Your Mother Is A Dirty Bitch!" that shows up after 60-yard runs is priceless, as is EA's built-in "I let the dogs out!"] and the unlockables are great. The Pontiac Classic Game mode lets you replay famous moments from famous college football games and challenge you to either recreate or rewrite history - examples include "The Play" from Cal/Stanford in 1982, the "Hail Mary" from Miami/Boston College in 1984, "Wide Right I" from FSU/Miami in 1991, all the way up to Miami's overtime loss to Ohio State in the 2003 Rose Bowl. Each win nets you a pennant and unlocks historic teams.

As with all NCAA games, the players aren't named in the game to comply with NCAA regulations. [Instead of having "Reggie Ball" listed as the QB for Georgia Tech, he's labeled as "QB #1"]. The ability to download rosters off the internet and put them on my Xbox is honestly the coolest thing I've ever done with a videogame console. Now instead of throwing passes to "WR #5" or handing it off to "RB #45", I can toss it to "Nate Curry" and flip it to "P.J. Daniels". The coolest part of this? Nessler, Corso, and Herbstreit actually call the players BY THEIR REAL NAME. Instead of just continuing to call "WR #5 streaks down the field", you can hear them say "Curry streaks down the field" - so they recorded all the names, but couldn't use them until a player renames their roster. Awesome, EA. Simply awesome. You've got a fan for life.

So go play NCAA 2005. Especially for Xbox if you can. Downloadable rosters, historic teams [1993 FSU! Charlie Ward!], mascot teams [simply hilarious, by the way], rivalry and grudge match games [complete with trophies like Paul Bunyan's Axe, The Little Brown Jug, etc], extremely realistic stadium renderings, every I-A and I-AA team, their stadium, their logos, and their fight songs, and enough detailed statistics to keep a stat junkie like myself giddy. The only aspect I haven't tried is online play, as I don't have an Xbox Live subscription. But I bet it's incredible.

How incredibly realistic is NCAA 2005? In my first season, I led my Yellow Jackets to a perfect 13-0 record, finishing 8-0 in the ACC. But FSU finished 13-0 [8-0] and Tennessee finished 12-0 [8-0], and the BCS put those two teams ahead of me to play for the championship in the Orange Bowl, because they had better computer rankings and strength of schedule [GT plays I-AA Samford and also UConn] I got stuck taking my "At-Large" #3 Yellow Jackets to the Sugar Bowl where we pounded Big East Champ Boston College. And despite having P.J. Daniels rush for 3800+ yards, he lost the Heisman to the QB from Tennessee, who lead his team to last minute victories in 4 of the last 5 games. [Though I cried bullshit on this last bit - 3800 fucking yards! That's mindblowing! Automatic Heisman, I say! Goddamned voters need to get their heads out of their asses!]

Sheesh, enough typing. Back to NCAA 2005. GT's 9-0 in season #2, and still only ranked 6th. Where's the love?