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NBA 2K11 provides a glimpse of the new Miami Heat

September 30, 2010 in Basketball, Game Reviews, Indiana Pacers, NBA

I’ve been following all the NBA 2K11 videos on YouTube in advance of the release on October 5th (October 8th in Australia).

The best of the lot has been from MrOperationSports, one of the few sites that seem to genuinely hold a copy of the real game.  But their latest video, which gives us a glimpse of the new look Miami Heat, is too much for me.  It’s entitled ‘The Conseco Massacre’, and depicts Dwyane Wade and Lebron James having their way with the new look Pacers.  Dunks, threes, spin moves, alley oops, big blocks — the video has it all.  It even has Lebron James trash-talking Danny Granger (probably about his lack of minutes for Team USA), while Brandon Rush stands in the background looking completely stoned.  And you thought basketball games were not realistic!

Here is the vid.

As a Pacers fan, that video was utterly brutal, but I’m not going to pretend there’s no chance of it happening in real life.  But why the Pacers?  Why, oh why?

Anyway, 2K11 is looking really good.  I’m not even a Michael Jordan guy, but this new trailer has my blood pumping.

Can’t wait.  And you can forget about NBA Elite 2011.  I’d be surprised if anyone prefers that game after what we’ve seen from the demo.

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What a Difference a Year Makes!

September 29, 2010 in On Writing, Study

Source: Sparknotes.com

I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, but for once, it’s kind of a good thing.

I’ve been waking at 5:30am in the morning and have been unable to fall back asleep because my mind is wandering all over the place.  I’ve been working on a bunch of articles and I’m always trying of think of ways to develop and structure them.  But I don’t think of it as a pain or a chore at all.  It’s all actually quite enjoyable.

Anyway, it got thinking — so much has changed over the last 12 months!

Almost exactly a year ago, I was just recommencing work again at my old law firm after a stint in the UK where I had some of the best times of my life.  It was one of those ‘oh my god, I can’t believe I’m going back there’ moments, where my brain was telling me I had to give it another shot, while my heart had already left the building and was already looking for stuff to write about.

Interestingly, I was also suffering from a lack of sleep back then — not because I was excited.  No, quite the contrary — I was constantly stressed and wondering how I could get through another day without going insane (ie become one of ‘them’).  My days were long and my nights were short, and sometimes, non-existent.  I hated waking up in the morning because that meant I had to go to work, though I’d wake up early because I had too much on my mind.  And I hated going to sleep at night, because it meant I’d have to go to work as soon as I woke up, but I needed it if I was going to be able to function properly the next day.

I’m making it sound worse than it was, but at the time, it really felt rather torturous going through those emotions every day.  There’s nothing wrong with what I was doing — indeed, many people love their jobs, and let’s face it — I was one of the lucky ones to even have a job, not to mention a relatively well-paid one (funny how we used to always complain about the pay, which was a legitimate gripe if you calculated it by the hour).

Now, I’m in the reverse situation.  I’m making no money, but I’m enjoying life and ‘work’ at the moment.  Even when I eventually finish this course and get a job, I’ll probably only be making half of what I used to get (at least initially).  I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sting me a little bit, but it’s a trade I’ll gladly make every time.

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Transcribing is a Ball-Buster

September 29, 2010 in On Writing, Study

Source: open2.net

It’s taken me an entire week to transcribe all the interviews I’ve done in the last over the last month or so (mostly in the last couple of weeks).

There was a mixture of 4 or 5 face-to-face interviews that ranged from 30 minutes to 4 hours, plus a couple of phone interviews that didn’t go for more than 10 minutes.  I thought it would have taken 2 or 3 days at the most, especially since I recorded everything on my Pulse Smartpen, which allows you to reduce the playback speed without compromising the quality of the sound.

But no, it was so much harder than I had anticipated.  Part of it was because I felt like taking a break every 5 minutes, but honestly, transcribing is such a ball-buster.  Not only do you have to type fast and without errors, you also have to keep playing the same sentences over and over again until you can get every word perfectly.  This is important, my teachers tell me, because you never know when you might need a transcript to back up something you’ve written in an article.  It’s good to start practicing early.

And when you listen back on conversations, you realise that people hardly speak in complete sentences.  I don’t know if it’s my subjects in particular (who are all very articulate people), but even putting aside the ers and ums and mumbled words, it was often extremely difficult to piece together sentences because seem to jump all over the place and start and stop without warning.  It makes quote-gathering a rather unenviable task.

Anyway, that’s finally all out of the way.  Now I just have the write the damn articles.

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Junior Masterchef Freaking Me Out!

September 26, 2010 in Entertainment, Food, Shows

Masterchef is the juggernaught of Australian television at the moment.

I was living in the UK when it rose to prominence and became the must-see TV it is today.  When I came back, everyone was talking about it.  I even watched a few episodes myself.  It was pretty good — the format was fun and intense, the food was sensational, and if you like to cook, educational too.  It was like a serious blend of Iron Chef and Australian Idol.  The only problem was that it made me insanely hungry.

Anyway, Masterchef Australia has taken things to the next level by introducing ‘Junior Masterchef’, which is essentially the same thing except with child contestants.  From what I can gather they’re mostly between the 8 and 12 years old.

I initially thought the whole thing was a joke.  It was an explosion or severed finger away from worldwide condemnation and multi-million dollar law suits.  Yes, the parents are supervising, and yes, safety measures are in place, but seriously, kids cooking?  What’s next?  Lord of the Flies Live?  (Actually, that would be a good show).

So I watched my first episode last night.  At the start, I was very cynical because it felt so serious.  The judges spoke in their usual exaggerated fashion and the kids stood stern faced with hands behind their backs.  I was expecting to see kids running around, picking their noses and giving each other Chinese burns, but they were all so bizarrely mature and professional about the whole thing.

And when they started their cooking tasks, I was blown away.  What’s going on with kids these days?  They can actually cook, and cook extraordinarily well.  They know what they’re doing.  They know all the terms and the lingo.  The stuff they make look pretty and I assume, given the judges’ responses, tastes not too shabby either.  They put me to shame.

I first learned how to make jelly at age 8.  Mix packet with water and freeze.  And I didn’t do that particularly well either.  I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t let me use the stove until I was much older than that.  The question is, should kids be doing this sort of stuff?  It feels so weird to me that kids are so knowledgeable and capable in the kitchen.  And to put them on national TV under the spotlight, with all the stress and pressure that comes with it.  But on the other hand, if they enjoy it and it’s safe, then why not?  They could be getting up to much worse things nowadays, and having a useful hobby is not a bad thing, especially if they eventually want to head in that direction as a profession.

Whatever.  It still freaked me out.

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Thoughts on the NBA Elite 2011 Demo

September 24, 2010 in Basketball, Game Reviews, NBA

[If you want to read about first impressions of the 2K11 demo, click here, and if you want to read pre-demo thoughts on both games, click here]

I am speechless.  I am without speech.

A couple of days after the release of the NBA 2K11 demo, EA Sports followed with the demo of their game, NBA Elite 2011 (formerly Live).  I just downloaded it for free (on the PS3) and gave it a decent try…and all I can say is that I am astounded.

Last year’s NBA Live 2010 was pretty good, probably because Mike Wang, the guy who many credited for 2K’s success, was poached by EA to fix things up (he went back to 2K after Live 2010).  In my opinion Live 2010 was a relatively small step behind NBA 2K10, but there are others who have it the other way around.  The graphics were good, the gameplay was vastly improved, and for those who like their basketball sims a little more arcady (ie lots of flashy dunks and layups), Live was the better video game.

But this year, EA took a giant risk by going with David Littman, the guy behind the success of EA’s hockey series.  With him, Littman brought along a bunch of what he perceived as new things such as ‘total control, ‘real AI’ and ‘real physics’, in an effort to totally transform the game by rebuilding it from the ground up.

Did these things translate Elite into a good basketball sim?  Well…I can’t be definitive because I’ve only tried the demo.  But if the demo is anything to go by, then the gamble has certainly not paid off, because the result appears to be bordering on disaster.  In just about every facet of the game, Elite has taken a step back from Live 2010.

[To read on and see the videos click on 'more...']

Read the rest of this entry →

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