Monday 22 April 2013

A Little Victory, Leads to Bigger Things….


Good Morning from Philadelphia!

So! It's been a long night for the Geeseter! BUT!? I finally won a damn game on this season mode for NBA2K13! I'm using the Philadelphia 76ers & I made some changes to the starting lineup & the team overall. Plus on this game, Andrew Bynum is actually capable of playing. To be totally honest, I would be sleeping right now normally. I'm not gonna bore you with my personal problems, I'll save that for another time. But I'm fighting high blood pressure & bad health, frankly I've got no business doing anything that stresses me out. But our Rambler can attest to the fact that I'm usually someone who overcomes obstacles & I'm still not too keen on simply sitting back & just giving up.

I'm looking for work & in all actuality, winning this ONE GAME, because right now we're 0 - 7. OR WE WERE, OH & SEVEN! But winning this first game of the season, on this game? I let Our Rambler see some of the old introductions from when Electronic Arts used to make basketball games for the NBA over here in America. Most of you know Electronic Arts as EA Sports & their most notable game & franchise/series is John Madden Football, or Madden, as it's called now. But during the time I was in high school, in the late 80's, they were the first to produce a series of basketball video games called Lakers vs. Celtics & the NBA Playoffs. These games eventually grew into the NBA Live franchise that Electronic Arts ran up until 2010. I stopped playing the basketball games around about 2000. I was used to doing it in real life, but my knees & ankles took a toll & so that was that. 

Mind you, all these ailments, aren't helping in the job search department either. BUT, I always have some sort of means to still be able to LEGITIMATELY MAKE MONEY PEOPLE. LEGITIMATELY. MAKE. MONEY. HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! Now don't distract me, cuz all this ties together & it's past my bedtime & I'm up typing this BE-CUZ!? The basketball video game I am playing now, was the competition of the one I used to originally play. I initially BOUGHT THIS ONE, because the NBA Playoffs are going on right now over here & me & the Misses favorite team, the 76ers, didn't make the playoffs. No small thanks to Crazy Ass Coach Doug Collins. 

So I bought NBA2K13, because the price had dropped from that ridiculous $60 damn dollars, down to $40 & there were too many fools still buying it for it to drop down to $30 & frankly, I was feeling nostalgic, because last year the 76ers were one game away from playing the Eastern Conference Finals against the Evil Miami Heat! We would have lost, BUT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN GREAT TO SIMPLY SEE THEM PLAYING! So I bought the game & brought it back here, thinking that this game was going to be so much more different & better than the last time I played any video game basketball games. I still have both my NBA Live 96, which has the unnamed Free Agent character of Magic Johnson on it. And NBA Live 99, with Tim Hardaway on the Cover & of course, Allen Iverson playing for the 76ers! That's when our team was actually worth watching. Right now? We need a coach who wants to coach & acknowledge the talent he has, instead of whining about what he doesn't have. 

So!? I put 2K13 in & lemme just say. I also waited forever to get this game because I'm not a fan of Jay-Z. Lemme just state that right off the bat. I don't care for him or Beyonce, at all. So when I saw he "executive produced" this game, I was like... "Great. That means I gotta hear his corny-ass every 3 seconds...." I put the game in, his lame ass intro came on. I hit start & skipped it. Then restarted it just so I could make sure it was as corny as I knew it was... AND IT WAS! Then I started fiddlin around with the options, then went straight to Season mode. Picked the Sixers, where in THIS GAME'S SEASON MODE, I don't have TOTAL CONTROL OVER THE TEAM. So I can't GET RID OF DOUG COLLINS. Then they have it set up where you can trade ANYONE FROM ANYPLACE BETWEEN YOURSELF & THAT TEAM!

That? Is lazy. ANNNNNNNNND. CORNY! But then I said, eh! It fits today's generation of "entertainment". So I got rid of SPENCER HAWES! That name alone should cause my sweetheart to QUICKLY INTERJECT ABOUT GOOD OLE SPENCER HAWES! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! THAT'S IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY BEEN READING HER TALKING ABOUT CRAZY ASS DOUG COLLINS, THE NOW FORMER! COACH! WHO QUIT SOON AS THE REGULAR SEASON ENDED! Lemme tell ya something, was listening to sports talk radio here in Philly while fillin out online apps, see!? I multi-task for mine, YEAH! But that press conference with Doug Collins, lemme tell ya somethin!?!?!? That dude was SENILE & CRAZY! SERIOUSLY! And people were calling in to 94.1 WIP & 97.5 the Fanatic & were like "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY!!?!? NO WONDER THE TEAM SUCKED THIS YEAR! HE'S FREAKIN CRAZY!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

So in this video game, it's not a COMPLETE SIMULATION OF BEING A TEAM OWNER or anything like that. But you can trade players as you please. But you can't fire your coach. You can't build a new area, move the team, etc! So if this was a video game review, this part already would be an F. Straight up, cuz it's lazy. Think I'm gonna pass this blog post on to my oldest son & let him post it on his video game blog. I dunno. He hasn't sniffed using that place since he didn't win that Witcher 2 Review contest. Either way, I traded players. Sent Spencer Hawes to Utah & got Derrick Favors. He has been strong on the boards in our 7 losses but his scoring leaves a lot to be desired... A LOT! And his free throw shooting...? He couldn't hit the ocean WHILE HE'S IN IT! 

But I start playing the game... And kid you not I'm like... WTF, IT PLAYS JUST LIKE NBA LIVE 96!?!?!? WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?!? IT'S 2013, WTF IS THIS GAME PLAYING LIKE SOMETHING THAT I DON'T EVEN PLAY & HAD ONLY SEEN THE LIGHT OF DAY SO I COULD SHOW MY WOMAN THE INTRODUCTION TO IT!?!?!?! 

Bottom line is that it has an instruction manual where you'd think you're trying to learn how to FLY A SPACE SHUTTLE! AND NOT SHOOT A FREAKIN IMAGINARY BASKETBALL ON A FREAKIN VIDEO GAME! All of the FLAWS, from the early EA NBA Live Franchise, ARE ON THIS GAME! I WAS UTTERLY SHOCKED! FOR REAL FOR REAL! So my NEXT INSTINCT WAS, lemme just go on ahead & use what I KNOW WORKS from those games for THIS ONE! Uh-UH! Because now a lot of these sports based video games, like Madden, have sliders where you can change different aspects of how the user or cpu shoots from the field. 3 point shots. Etc etc etc! So whereas the ole ones I used to play it was all ON YOU! Which is why a LOT OF PEOPLE would slam down joysticks & controllers, AFTER GETTIN THEIR BUTT WHIPPED! Because the games were alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll on you, as a person, to know when to do what, etc! Now?!?!?

Mad computer help AND!? INTERFERENCE! So unless you tamper with the sliders in the options & all of that, the game can get REALLY OUT OF HAND IN A HURRY! And if you set the level TOO LOW, then it's not challenging at all! Never mind that unlike the old NBA Live games I had, you had the OPTION to set the CPU in season mode to facilitate trades with itself AND YOU! Which meant me sending Spencer Hawes to Utah for Derrick Favors, the computer would weigh the trade & the two players & may or may not reject it because it doesn't help the team it controls. 

What the hell does ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THIS, GOT TO DO WITH YOU!?!? OR EVEN ME OR WHY I'M POSTING THIS!? Because it's been a pretty craptastic day for me & the Rambler can attest to that. Really it's been a pretty bad weekend in ways I certainly wasn't expecting where I'm not in a position to take care of the problem. So in the midst of this I'm also fighting with this freakin game that I just spent $40 bucks on too & instead of it being a stress RELIEVER, the damn thing has me on the verge of snapping it in half & throwing it away! But I went on ahead & stuck with it & finally started figuring out how to actually play the game without;

#1) CHEATING, by lowering the difficulty or altering the sliders to the point where I wouldn't miss even if I was falling onto my FACE! 
#2) BREAKING THE DISC, this is something that my oldest son has seen me do on a couple of occasions, where the game just wasn't worth my time or money & is so frustratingly annoying that it is impossible for the makers to not have seen all the problems with it during testing. Whenever I break a disc, I don't normally buy anymore games from that particular maker or video game studio, thus saving myself time & money in the future! 
#3)QUITTING, by simply turning it off, tossing it into the darkest corner I can find & then never speaking on it again! 

The reason for me posting this right now is because with the way the weekend had gone & the way certain things had gone yesterday, I had no business sitting down & saying "Lemme try this damn game again." But for me, it was all about knowing that I can actually get this if I stick to it. The personal challenge of, lemme GET THAT FIRST WIN! In this damn game. Then sitting down. And going through the grind that this thing is, where just now!? I won my first game & it literally came down to THE LAST. SHOT!

The irony was & is that Evan Turner was the player of the game. But the point behind this is that I put this kind of persistence & determination into everything I do. And that's the reason for the post. Things went badly this weekend, but it certainly wasn't the end of the world & I have people counting on me. Pressure? A LITTLE. But much like my coming back to get this FIRST WIN, quitting isn't gonna solve anything. And trying to CHEAT my way out, well, that would make me like some people who shall remain unnamed. I guess the bottom line is that I won this first game by giving it everything I had from start to finish & not worrying about the fact that I was already 0 - 7. And I guess that's my point, you only lose when you give up.

With the things going on right now, this is a small victory, seemingly meaningless. But the timing & nature of it, having to keep cool & not get agitated. It was a nice reminder of how I've even gotten this far in life & it reminded me of WHY I've gotten as far as I have. Good omen, people... Good omen....
Later! 

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