Buried

...very ...busy ...organizing ...soccer ...league...

...keep ...it ...short ...no ...time...

...how ...'bout ...those ...Buckeyes!?

...The Contender ...was ...awesome ...can't ...wait ...until ...Thur...

...MVP ...still ...impressing ...me...

...want ...to buy ...Fight Night ...Round 2...

...but ...saving ...for ...vacation...

...Cavs ...losing ...streak ...sucks...

...hope ...it ...ends ...tonight

Much Adieu about Nothing

Regular readers (both of you) will recall that a little while ago, I wrote about my neighbors that were moving out at the end of February. We were despondent over losing such good friends. Also, the other dilemma, was that the rumors were that our new neighbors were two women. Without rehashing any of that previous discussion, suffice it to say, I had nothing to "worry" about all along. My new neighbors have moved in, and indeed they are a nice young married couple, much like we were 9 years ago when we moved in. The husband's name is Courtney, which is what I believe caused the original hullabaloo. Hopefully, we'll be able to establish a friendship with them to fill the void left by our previous neighbors...

MVPressive

I have to say, MVP is the most impressive baseball video game I've played in a long time. I haven't put the front office stuff to the test, but so far, the on the field gameplay rivals anything I've ever seen.

I pondered listing all of the positives, but quite honestly, I don't have that kind of time. I'm not writing 4500-word reviews any more, like I did in the golden days at Calvert Games. I'll put it this way - imagine All Star Baseball without the bugs, or Winning Eleven meets baseball, or High Heat with better control over the pitching and up-to-date graphics. The bottom line is that if you're a baseball fan, then you owe it to yourself to check out MVP, which may be the best console representation of America's pastime ever made... This is quite a potential swan song by EA.

It's ironic that EA's exclusive NFL license forces (arguably) the best football game out of the market (NFL 2K5), and Take Two's semi-exclusive MLB license is forcing the best baseball game out of the market (MVP)! More and more, I'm leaning towards just keeping my favorite version of a game for each sport, as opposed to running out and buying the latest and the greatest. In case your interested, here's my current list:

• Best football game - EA's NCAA Football 2004
• Best basketball game - Microsoft's Inside Drive 2004
• Best baseball game - EA's MVP 2005, All Star Baseball 2004, FPS Baseball '94 (slight edge to MVP)
• Best soccer game - Konami's Winning Eleven 8, Worldwide Soccer Manager (edge to WE8)
• Best boxing game - EA's Fight Night 2004 (I haven't played FN 2005 yet, but I think it will be my favorite when I get my hands on it)
• Best racing game - Codemaster's ToCA Race Driver 2 (I'm not much of a racing fan, so take that for what it's worth)