My thoughts on the 1up.com layoffs

First and foremost no one should be surprised. Ziff was in freaking bankruptcy, we already knew this. Second, the U.S economy is in a severe recession and that obviously effects the video game industry and it’s related industries aswell. Lastly, look at how many people jumped ship last year, that should have told you everything you needed to know. Personally my interest in 1up pretty much ended when the legendary Shawn Elliott left. I still tuned into 1up yours to hear my remaining favorites, Shane and Garnet Lee, but I knew eventually they’d be gone too.

To UGO, here is a comment that i left on Jeff Greens blog
I had never heard of UGO until you mentioned it on the GWJ podcast. I’ve never even looked at UGO’s website until today, and I’m not surprised to see that it’s a piece of shit that looks like a poor man’s version of IGN, (which btw is a piece of shit in and of itself).      

I have no interest in UGO’s version of 1up.com just like I have no interest in Gamespot post Gerstmangate.

To the people who made 1up.com great, I want to say thank you for all the entertainment and information you guys provided. I loved the Brodeo, 1up yours was the greatest (until david ellis became a regular) and the 1up Show was always fun. Thank you guys, I will continue to read your blogs and twitters and  I look forward to hearing you on various podcasts in the future.

Do not click (ever)

Shawn Elliot’s twitter

That is the link to the infamous Shawn Elliott twitter. If you don’t know who Shawn Elliott is, he is a video gamer reviewer and podcaster for 1up.com and a world renown griefer. I clicked on one of his “do not click (ever)” links, and lets just say that the link was something I should not have clicked on, ever. If you’re interested, I would advise you download the 8/7 edition of GFW podcast where Shawn talks about his twitter.

NCAA 2009 Xbox 360 Review

It’s hard to review a game that is essentially the same exact game every year. This of course is the lifelong dilemma of the sports game reviewer, but I digress. I didn’t buy NCAA 09 the first day it came out, instead I rented it. After playing it for a few days I came to the conclusion that it is worth buying, but not until it’s patched

As usual EA sports quality assurance is the biggest oxymoron in the industry. There is currently a glitch in the EA locker roster download feature that causes the game to crash if you edit players. Right now the game is buggy as hell. It’s got the worst secondary AI that I’ve ever seen. Don’t be shocked when in critical moments your defenders in the secondary stand around doing nothing and decide not to guard anyone. 

Wide receivers consistently do the tippy toes sideline catch for no good reason even when their five yards away from the side lines. The CPU controlled offensive players run out of bounds for no reason. Oh and don’t be shocked when you see the CPU QB go 27-28 passing. Don’t be surprised when the CPU nails a 56-yard FG like it’s nothing.

Overall the graphics and lighting look great, although the player models are still annoyingly tiny. Oh, and no camera controls again. How next gen of EA. The weather effects are the best I’ve ever seen in a sports video game. I loved the rain effect, snow is great, but the field degradation is nonexistent.

Heisman difficulty has gone from impossible mode, to basically equal to a harder version of All American. All American has been dumbed down to varsity level, or worse. Most disappointing of all is after you win the national championship there is no celebration what so ever. It’s actually worse than NCAA 08.