Sports!

As some of you people may have noticed, in addition to games like Halo and Advance Wars, I regularly play sports video games. This is because I like the thrill of competition with the option of just quitting if something totally bullshit happens. Unquestionably, my favourite sport tis hockey and thus, my favourite sports video games are hockey ones.

I recently wrote a top 10 list that was not posted on Gamefaqs website because they are in love with bad spelling and shitty opinions. So I've decided to post it here instead, in two parts. So now, you will be the proud reader of my top 10 hockey video games list.

The Top 10 Greatest Hockey Games of All Time

With the news that EA has made a serious bid to buy Take-Two, the owner of the 2K Sports franchise, we may be in the last days of a competitive, high quality sports video game market. So let's take a few minutes to remember the (possible) days gone by with the top ten greatest hockey video games of all time.

#10 Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey (N64)

Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey is one of the earliest N64 games (the first to be released with 4 player support), and despite it's lack of EA-style realism and it's abundance of hideous graphics, at the heart of this game, there is a nice little arcade-style hockey experience. Get four friends with multi-colour controllers around the old Zelda machine and you've got yourself a few hours of fun in between playing endless rounds of Goldeneye.

#9 Ice Hockey (NES)
Pretty much the game that started it all, Ice Hockey is part of that classic NES pantheon of sports games named after the actual sport it features. Other memorable entries include: "Tennis", "Baseball" and "Golf". In Ice Hockey you choose between 6 countries (Canada's jerseys are green, ?!??!??) and then choose between 3 types of players for your 4 team roster: Skinny, Medium and Fat. If you were anything like me you loaded your team with fat guys and had one skinny guy who was obviously Wayne Gretzky.

#8 Mutant League Hockey (GEN)
Mutant League Hockey was made by EA and as a result, bears a striking resemblance to the NHL 93, 94 and 95 games that came before/around the same time as it. Luckily, it also contains the same amount of excellent gameplay and fun with a wacky arcade-like twist where you control teams made up of skeletons, goblins and killer robots with names like Puke and Killbot. If you like the early EA hockey games and haven't tried this one, I highly recommend you do so.

#7 NHL 08 (X360)
The latest in the storied EA franchise is easily the best in years. The skillstick feature from 07 is perfected and mixed with the solid multiplayer from XBOX live/PSN not to mention the hilariously quirky teams from Sweden and Finland (make note of the Lukko "Sly Coyotes" and Tempereen Ilves logos) make this game a real winner. The only place the game lacks is in it's puzzlingly bad off-season features. Seriously EA Sports, why did half the league retire after my first season?!

#6 Blades of Steel (NES)
Blades of Steel is simultaneously the best Hockey and best Fighting game for the NES, ever. The game features the first good fighting mechanic and is still revered for it. An additional bonus being that when you won the fight, the guy you beat goes to the penalty box. (the same thing would happen in Ice Hockey) Bonus points go to BoS for the rare Gradius minigame in between periods, although more often than not all you get is that damned panda bear shooting the puck.

Stay tuned, Top 5 coming up soon...

HIPSTERS!! ARRRRRRRRGHHHHH!!

Hey gang, so earlier in the week I get to work and immediately log onto to facebook and this is what happened:

"No surprises here, ok, oh someone named
another photo album "randoms"
ok standard - wait a tic - WHAT!?!?!"

It's at this point that I (obviously pictured above) saw a group of improv enthusiasts (some who are friends of mine, but mostly full of stupid hipsters) sitting around in a theatre of some sort just playing numerous games of Goldeneye and Mario Kart for N64 - Nintendo 64 - NINTENDO FUCKING SIXTY-FOUR.

Why is it that video games have to be 10 years old before it's cool to play them in public with a shitload of people? I WANTED TO DO THAT IN GRADE NINE.

Screw people who like things just because they're retro.

I swear to god hipsters, the next time you get a bunch of your lame-drama-improv-dweeb friends around you fucking better be playing something from THIS generation and it better be system linked and it better involve a Halo.

(Ok it can be something other than Halo, but NO Wii sports)

GAH! Hipsters!

National Hockey League 2008: A plea to a gaming giant.

There's nothing more rewarding to a sports gamer like myself than to get thoroughly involved and dedicated to a team or season in your favourite sports game and see them through years and years of development.

A few weeks after I picked up NHL 08, I was through my first season with my leaf squad (who now includes Mike Cammelleri AND Jay Bouwmeester for all you hockey fans) when I go to check the "Players who retired" message in the stupid EA Messages thing. I was surprised to find that well over 80 players had retired from the league. Including players like Martin Brodeur and Daniel Alfredsson who are in their mid 30's and enjoying prime seasons!

For those of you not familiar with Hockey this is basically like having Derek Jeter or Tim Duncan retiring at the end of your MLB or NBA seasons.

This was one of the regular 90 problems I end up having with Hockey video games. Others include: Why did they remove the Fantasy Draft option? and Why can't I edit a players attributes like in the 2k series? WHY?

Seriously EA Sports, do you test these things? And if you do, does this person know anything about the sport they're playing?

Here is something that I honestly want to do so badly that I would make serious personal sacrifices to do it: I want to work with the EA team that develops the NHL series and help them create a complete, realistic, yet fun experience for hockey fans. It is my belief that they have not achieved this since NHL 2001 for the PC or NHL 95 for the Sega Genesis. Mainly I'm talking the menus, the GM features, the way the create-a-team and players systems work and trading and signing free agents.

EA SPORTS, I CAN HELP YOU, SERIOUSLY.

GRIFFED!

Halo 3 fans need to play this weekend. Now that the heroic maps are free, the gametype offered for the double exp weekend playlist is Grifball. Yeah that's right Grifball, get into it man, it's like football but with gravity hammers and swords.

If ya don't know, now ya know, fellows.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "But what about rules and why do you get a hammer AND a sword?" To that I say don't even stress out man, why you comin at me with all these questions? Get outta here man, you're steppin in my space I don't like that, alright pal, back of the line one more outburst- sorry, for a second there I thought I was a bouncer at a nightclub and you were a drunk guy trying to get in...

Anyways, in honour of the Grifball weekend, most of which will be spent away from my 360 >:O, here is a list of other, famous Griffs:

Doug E. Doug as Griff on "Cosby"

This is the only famous Griff I could find.

See you guys next week!

The Tentacle Beast of Glon'ark

The troubles of EA have been left behind. I could actually feel my blood pressure rising every time I tried to get that Tiger Woods game face thing working so I said screw it. And you should too! Maybe I'll try again sometime, but not as long as excellent things like Halo 3, Advance Wars: DOR and the black and white DVD version of The Mist exist.

So to recap that, I took Tiger Woods 08 out of the case, punched it in its stupid HD-DVD face and spent the weekend playing Halo 3 (4v4 custom games with friends) Advance Wars: DOR (just picked it up) and I finally saw The Mist.

First of all, everyone go get the DVD for the Mist and watch the 2nd disc, which is in Black and White and is how the director meant for you to see it. I won't ruin anything for you, but the movie contains a tentacle beast, or as I named him, the Tentacle Beast of Glon'ark. Trust me, that didn't ruin anything. I'd be willing to say The Mist is one of the best Sci-Fi/Horror films I've seen in a long time, go see it now.

GAMES:

Games wise, I bought Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for DS and played it quite a bit. I've always been a fan of the Civilization series and those of you who are also Civ fans, you'll probably like it too. I say this because DOR is a solid turn based tactical strategy game with a pretty neat little story to boot. If you're like me and you find yourself searching through shelves of shitty kids games at your EB games or Wal-Mart for something decent to play on DS, I highly recommend it.

Finally, here's a little piece of video I've been laughing at for the past 4 days. It probably won't be available for much longer but it's what happens after Kenny gets high on cat's piss. Enyoy.