Tony Hawk's Bro Skater Too‏

I’m pretty sure people still remember the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, as it was such a big hit back in the day. I had an N64, so due to the size limitations of the N64 cartridge, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was gimped: songs were cut short,  it ran better with the ram expansion and required a memory card to save (neither of which I owned). Buying the two things isn’t expensive these days, but I found the PS1 version on eBay for $4 shipped. What a steal.

Going back to this game brings back mostly fond memories: It’s super arcadey skateboarding with crazy special tricks that even these pro skaters would have a tough time pulling off. I played Single Player to death, and what’s great is it’s easy to play a couple of minutes here and there, since each skateboarding run you do is 2 minutes. I love how I can fit in 10 minutes for this game, yet still make progress.

Graphics are still great in my opinion. The game doesn’t feel like it’s aged poorly because it still plays very smoothly, including the animations. It might be filled with jaggies, but it’s ignorable due to all other aspects of how the game runs.

You get a multitude of different levels, and all of them feel different. Out of all, my favorite is probably Venice Beach since it’s fairly big and has a good amount of everything, from ramps to roofs. School II is also great fun, but brought some annoyances, even to this day. For example, in School II you have a goal that requires you to Wall Ride over school bells. Seems simple, right? Nope, some of these bells are just annoyingly hard to Wall Ride.

Lastly, the tracklist is great. I think it’s one of my favourite and most memorable tracklists in a game. The N64 version however, only had 6 tracks, compared to the PS1’s 15. Seeing as I never played the PS1 version until now, this tracklist has only become better. I can’t believe I was in love with 6 tracks while PS1 owners had much more to love! Some of my favorite tracks are “Bring the Noise” , “Guerilla Radio” and a new favorite is “B-Boy Document” because it’s got Mos Def!

It was fun going back to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. If you’ve never played it, get ready for some simple, but great fun. There’s also an HD remake which features levels from the first and second games in the Tony Hawk series, but I heard it’s not that great. Stick to the OG Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.

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A Rebuttal For eSports

Recently there was an article that went up titled My problem with eSports and after reading it, I noticed that I felt about the same way towards real sports as he did about eSports. Throughout my life, I've loved playing football. My dad is a coach and I played it during my formative years, from Atom all the way to Midget. I couldn’t get enough of it but the actual act of watching it never really caught my attention. And this goes for most sports: I just never really found it very fun.

This changed slightly when I started watching professional League of Legends, like Adam said in his article. I first started off watching streams to get better. I had heard a lot of streamers studied VoD’s (Video on Demand) of their games to see mistakes and strategies used by their opponents, similar to the way other sports teams might do it. So I figured why not learn from the “best” and see what I can pick up. Overtime I grew to like and enjoy the streamers.

The first streamer I ever started to watch outside of attempting to better myself was Dyrus. Now Dyrus has been around for a long time in the competitive scene and it’s weird to say but I’ve seen him develop over time and become a better player, eventually establishing himself as a dominant force in the League community. The weird part is this is exactly like following the career of a college football player. You see there are a lot of similarities between eSports and real sports, aside from the physicality. There's really not that much different and I think that's why so many people gravitate towards eSports. If you ask a sports fan there’s something innately fun about watching a good game even if you're not invested in the teams; if it’s a good back and forth it’s fun to watch. The same goes for League of Legends: you can watch two teams of unskilled nobodies go at it and if they know what they're doing, the games are incredible to watch. Streaming has made this extremely accessible for the fanbase. At any given moment you can go onto Twitch and see actual competitive League of Legend play, which isn’t as easy with all sports.

The biggest factors though for me are the teams and the players. Professional League of Legends is broken up into five major divisions. There's the North American division (NA LCS), the Europeans (EU LCS), the Korean Championship League (OGN), the Chinese League (LPL) and lastly, the south-east Asian group Garena Premier League (GPL). These divisions each have their own stable of teams all playing against one another during the regular season fighting for the top spots to go to worlds, while at the same time there's also the Challenger division.

When you think about Challenger, consider it the minors to the majors and it’s built up of several teams all jockeying for a spot in the majors. The top twenty teams that climb the ladder in-game are pitted against each other weekly and accumulate wins and losses. After the regular season finishes, the top three teams go up against the bottom three teams in an attempt to knock them out of the LCS (League Championship Series) and take their places. This is honestly one of my favourite aspects of the competitive scene as it allows you to see teams come and go, and it keeps the game from becoming stale. If a team is on a massive losing streak there’s consequences; it forces the players to recognize their position and strive to better themselves or get relegated and have to fight their way back.

The last thing—which I think is the most important—is the viewer to pro interactions that go on in eSports. In eSports there’s not even remotely as much money as in traditional sports, which makes sense, but it forces the players to look for alternative sources of income, which basically means computer equipment sponsorships and streaming. The latter portion leads a lot of players to have great relationships with the community because you're never gonna see a professional hockey player practicing and simultaneously interacting and entertaining a crowd, which is what these guys do on a daily basis.

You see, professional League is a job. Professional players have to play eight to twelve hours a day just to stay relevant in the scene. And I’m not trying to say that they lead the hardest life out there, far from it, but it builds camaraderie and friendship between the players and the people who watch them. All of this culminates into these rabid fan bases you see for these teams because the community feels a personal investment in these players. They want to see them succeed because they know that they can do awesome things. I’ve been a fan of Team SoloMid (TSM) since I started watching the LCS and they have these insane fans—and they really are insane. They're the most diehard group of people out there and they constantly just chant TSM over and over again at live competitions. This affects the players: they’ve come out of so many do or die situations as the winners. It's insane to watch and the feeling you get as a fan watching this is the same as watching any other team you like succeed. eSports may not be considered a “real” or a “traditional” sport but like the wrestling fans of my childhood used to say, "It’s real to me damn-it."

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My Problem With eSports

Holy shit, do I feel like an old man. I played street hockey for about 3 hours yesterday and my joints feel like shite. The second day is always the worst after heavy exertion though, so I anticipate being alright tomorrow. What I'm really anticipating though is the start of the NHL regular season this week! I love sports and I'm up to play anything. I'm also a huge fan of watching many sports, and I watch Sportscentre nearly every night...but why is it that I can't get into eSports? I've played many a game of League of Legends, and while I can hold my own, I am nowhere near the quality of play these pros possess. I was a fan of the game, and it's the epitome of competition, much like any other sport I might watch on TV; but for some reason I just can't bring myself to watch any of the world championship.

I'm not going to sit here and argue if you can even consider eSports real sports. I think you can. While they aren't a game of physical activity, they are definitely a mental game along with some fine dexterity. And if you can call poker a sport, I don't know why you couldn't call League of Legends one. The head honcho over at EPSN might disagree with me and this guy over at Forbes does a good job arguing for eSports' cause: Youshould go check it out. But enough of this, I said I wasn't going to argue.

I think the real reason I can't sit there and watch an eSport is because I don't have any actual tie to any of the teams. The main draw of professional sports—in a league form at least—is that each team represents a real place. You live practically anywhere in North America and you will have a team to support. In eSports, all the teams are random abstracts with nothing behind them to give me a reason to care. At least this is my rationale.

I know that Campeau likes to watch professional League of Legends but not for the reason you might think...well, maybe he does just like it. From my understanding however, at least from what he's told me before, he likes to watch it because he uses it as a learning experience. Watching the pros is a pretty legit reason, heck I even do it when I watch the NHL (not that it improves my hockey game much). Maybe that's just it though; you have to be really into it to care. Campeau is a huge MOBA fan, and has played countless hours of League of Legends over the years; he even started playing during its beta. Me on the other hand, I enjoyed the game, but not enough to invest outside time to it further.

In the end, sports are really just a distraction from real life. A few hours here and there you can just relax and scream at the TV when someone you like fucks up. eSports? Traditional sports? Who cares: At least there's always something to watch.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 1‏

I was probably 7 or 8 when I got my first console: a Sega Genesis. I think I was even given the choice of either the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis, but that blue hedgehog reeled me in and I had my mind set on a Genesis. Unfortunately, I ended up getting 3 games through its lifespan, and none of them were Sonic games. I plan on talking about each one in the next few weeks.

 

The first game I ever got came packaged with my Genesis. It was supposed to be Sonic 2, but Toys R Us ran out of the bundle. I think my dad haggled for a game, I don’t remember, but he didn’t know what he actually got me. In fact, I try and block this game from my mind, but it usually comes back to haunt me. While cleaning up my room, I found this amazing gem:

Yup, I was 7 years old, playing NFL Football ’94 Starring Joe Montana. No disrespect to the sport, but I had no interest or knowledge of football, and I blame this game for feigning any interest in it now. I hated it, but it was my only game for 90% of my time with the Genesis as a kid. If you look carefully at the cartridge, you’ll even see I drew a smiley face on Joe Montana; this was because I got no happiness out of this game.

 

Ok, I lie: the intro song to the game is quite catchy, and possibly my favorite memory:

Besides that intro, I barely understood how to play. I remember seeing a lot of formations, which made no sense to me as a kid. They confused the crap out of me because all I saw were lines and circles, and then all of a sudden I was allowed to play again.

When it came to actually playing the game, of course I sucked. The only time I would get/score a touchdown would be if I was lucky enough to run from my end zone to the opponent’s. Again, I didn’t understand anything about the video game or the actual sport, so I would either fumble or get tackled incessantly.

My favorite team was the Miami Dolphins. Because come on, dolphins are cool.

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TBT - Asphalt Athlete

I'm a pretty huge sports fan. I watch Sports Centre nearly every day. And I'm always up for a pick-up game of whatever. Soccer, Hockey, Football, Volleyball, Baseball...Ultimate frisbee...you name it, I'll play it!

There is a hyper-realistic video game version of nearly every sport you can think of (I'm still waiting for the day that Hurlinggets the video game treatment though). They're all fine and dandy, but nothing really beats the "street" versions of these games. FIFA, NBA and NFL Street are some of the best sports games made from an entertainment standpoint.

On The Street

The Street series was an EA franchise. And since they had all the rights to the players of a respective league / sport, all the games actually used real players. Some of the games even had you creating your own team by mixing players from all over. It was sort of like a mini manager mode: you were always on the hunt for better players to add to your roster.

The main draw to these games was how they moved away from the realism and created a more arcade experience. Players have super moves, run off walls and do flips, set the ball on fire, blow up nets, etc. It's crazy! Personally I played a lot of FIFA and NBA street. I never really touched NFL, but I know Sean used to own it on PS2 and loved it.

Since these were "pick-up games", they were also always played with less people than a normal sport would have (lots of 3 on 3's). Smaller teams actually changed the dynamic of the sport quite a bit...you know, on top of setting stuff on fire.

Foul Play

The last game that was released in the series was a reboot of FIFA Street, which was only a couple of years ago. I would hardly count this though because they drastically removed a lot of the crazy-ness, opting for a more authentic feel rather than a street-sport game, and focusing more on tricks you could practice but never perform in a real game.

The last realrelease was FIFA Street 3, which was 6 years ago on the PS3/360—NFL and NBA were released as well on PS3/360, but dropped the street name from the game and changed focus a bit, much like the FIFA reboot. Taking this into consideration, maybe the series is dead. But I for one hope it isn't, and would love to see a new release on the PS4/XBOne. 

I feel that there truly is a market for these Street-style games: sports games are some of the most popular in the industry, and the best part about these games was that even people who typically don't play sports games had fun with them (Sean is a perfect example). Bring back the arcade experience, I don't care if it's "authentic". Just make it over the top... Are you listening EABitch?

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TBT - King Of The Links

With Campeau talking about Mario Tennis the other day, it's a funny coincidence that I planned on talking about the Game Boy (GB) version of Mario Golf for my throw back this week. This game (along with Mario Tennis for the GB) was like the "Be A Pro" mode in an EA Sport's game before it ever existed, and was arguably the ultimate mix between RPG and Sports game.

When Mario Golf originally came out for the N64, I was all over it. Don't ask me why I like golf so much, it's not even a sport I'm good at in real life, but there is just something about the gentleman's game. Mario Golf for the N64 was a pretty basic golf game, nothing extravagant, just solid golf. A few different modes here and there but it ultimately came down to it being a multiplayer game.

The GB version however couldn't have been more different and my god, do I wish Nintendo would just start making console games like this! My point being that for the most part, when Nintendo makes console games, they are always so focused on multiplayer (local multiplayer of course, since their online infrastructure is atrocious). Ever since the N64 came out and had built in 4 player support, they took complete advantage of it. The only problem is that all their genius single player games moved over to the handhelds. Case and point: Pokemon will never be the same on console as it is on a handheld, but why Nintendo; why!?

Like I mentioned earlier, it's a sport-RPG. You create your own character and traverse the world playing golf. As you continue to play rounds you gain XP points and level up. Just like in any other RPG, when you level up you get to put attribute points into whichever stat you so desire. Want your drive distance to be longer? Done. How about a better putting ability? You can do that too!

As you continue along your path to becoming the greatest golfer in the Mushroom Kingdom, you can get invited to tournaments. You even meet and play skins matches against the "pros"—of course pros being Mario and his posse of regulars—you can even purchase new gear with your winnings.

One thing Mario Golf has over any of the "Be A Pro" modes in an EA sport's game is that golf is an individual effort. No need to worry about anyone on your team letting in a softy or giving up the ball at a very inopportune time: that right there just removes any anxiety or frustration rooted in this type of mode. Tiger Woods PGA Tour games try to do the same thing, but I just don't get the same feeling as when I was a kid playing on my Game Boy.

I think the main reason why would be the lack of real progression. In Mario Golf, you started off pretty shitty, but were able to achieve something awesome by the end of the game. In Tiger Woods, I feel as though it just sort of starts you off as a pro, and the amount your character's skills actually progress vs. how much equipment does for you is practically negligible.

If Nintendo has this version of Mario Golf on the Virtual Console for the DS/3DS, I would highly recommend picking it up, well worth your time.

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No Tough Love

I've never been a huge fan of sports games but there is one that I can always play and that game is Mario Tennis. If you haven't gone back and played a N64 game since its heyday, then you probably don't know that the controls from that generation are pretty balls and most games haven't aged that well, or at all.

Unlike its fallen brethren, Mario Tennis doesn't suffer from the same issues as Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time—which make you question how you had so much fun playing these games while wrestling with the three pronged monster that was the "controller"—but it rises above all that and sits atop the pedestal alongside Super Smash Bros. and Diddy Kong Racing, with the other still playable games from that era in gaming not too far away.

I've owned this game since I was a kid but to be honest, I hadn't given it much thought until I played it recently with some buddies at a friend's apartment and it all came back to me. I realized that this game was a lot better than I ever thought it was; the controls were simple and you could pick up the basics within a round or two and after a few sets you've learned all the in's and out's. In the same vein as most Mario games, all the characters fall into different classifications—whether it be all-around, power, technique, or tricky—each brings a different strength to the table and are pretty self explanatory. The different stages also change the games ball speed, bounce and overall feel of the game.

I've spent many a night playing doubles with a bunch of friends till the wee hours of the morning, hurling insults and trash talk at one another during nail biting, tie breaker rounds. If you can round up four working N64 controllers I recommend getting this game, it is too much fun for its own good and I honestly couldn't recommend it more highly. The game is super solid and hours of fun. Also if you like drinking game the rules are simple: Miss a shot? Take a drink; Get a fault? Take a drink; Double fault? Do a shot cause you suck; Losing team finishes there drink, rinse and repeat.

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NH... Hell?

Strap yourselves in for this one; it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I’d like to dedicate the following rant to the champions at EA Sports who clearly have NEVER played a game of hockey in their entire existence, or even watched a hockey game for that matter apparently.

When I was younger I was a huge fan of EA’s NHL franchise. Getting to play the game as my favorite players from real life was amazing and the experience got even better with the invention of the “Be a Pro” mode. I found it odd at first that the game would make you sit on the bench and wait for your shift, but it introduced a new dynamic that added to the game. Your AI teammate would take a stupid penalty and you’d have to go out there on the penalty kill and save his ass from embarrassment.

Now, the last NHL game I owned before buying NHL14 was probably the 2010 version. I stopped buying them after that because dropping 60-70 bucks yearly on the same game just doesn’t seem like a smart investment… he wrote, glaring menacingly at his CoD collection. This year I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to give NHL14 a shot. I now think that the money would’ve been better spent on paying someone to punch me straight in the balls.

Back in 2010, I was only a hockey fan. I played the game on my Xbox and I watched it on TV. Now, I actually play hockey in real life. I got off my ass and decided to start playing the real thing even if it is only ball hockey. I’ve been actually playing for about 2 years now and the knowledge that I’ve gained has really opened my eyes to the fact that these games are absolute trash and detrimental to the Great Game.

The main game mode I focused on was “Be a Pro” because it kind of gives it an RPG type feel in terms of gaining experience and leveling up your skills. The problem with this mode is the lack of control you have over the 4 other guys on the ice. You get judged by your coach at the end of a game by things like Team Play, Stats and Positioning. The first two are fine and dandy but when it comes to positioning there is seriously NO WAY the system can analyze if you’re in the right spot during any given play. For example: I normally play as a defenseman.  The system has a general idea of where your teammates want you to be but if you move 1 inch out of that specific spot some other jackass is going to come sprinting across the rink to try and cover your position. They usually end up slamming into me and I lose the puck and get chewed out by the coach on the bench.

My other major issue with this game is the all new “Enforcer Engine”. What a colossal waste of my time. First off, just let me say that I am a proponent of fighting in the NHL. It still serves a purpose and rarely takes anything away from the game except on the rare occasions when someone gets severely hurt. That being said, this option of the game is everything that is wrong with fighting in hockey. In what world can I just strut on over to Zdeno Chara and start throwing fists at him for no reason. I managed to knock out Chara with god damn Brendan Gallagher. What kind of twilight zone world do they think I live in? Every time someone gets taken out with a clean hit, you have to fight someone. Just let me play the game for the love of god. If I wanted to play Fight Night I would’ve pissed away my money on that instead.

Now we get to my biggest issue with this game. Microtransactions. This point of contention isn’t really specific to this game but just with EA as a whole. After giving up on the abomination that is "Be a Pro", I decided to check out the "Hockey Ultimate Team" mode. I had a lot of fun trying this out. You basically piece together your own team from player cards you get out of booster packs. When you first start out, you pick your favorite team and end up with 2 gold level players (basically anyone in the NHL qualifies as gold) and a bunch of miscellaneous players from the lower leagues. You gain EA puck points, or something along those lines, for winning games with your team. Here’s the kicker: you can spend real money to get these points and just load up your team with gold players and laugh as you destroy the hopes and dreams of people like me. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I tossed the game on my shelf and haven’t touched it since. It’s back to living vicariously through the guys I see on TV for me.

Keep your stick on the ice.

/endrant. 

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