Malik
(8/9/10)
Super Bowl XL was a long
time ago. This was the magical Super Bowl that saw the Seahawks in
their first ever chance to claim dominance of the NFL. This was the
first time that Seattle could have had a world championship in
anything since the 1979 Sonics took charge of the NBA (sorry WNBA
fans, but I just have trouble accepting the WNBA to be on the same
level of the big four of the NBA, NFL, MLB, and even NHL). This was
a moment that all long time Seattle sports fans never thought
possible; for the Seahawks to actually look good to a national
audience.
I mean Seattle tends to
be more or less ignored in sports. In football, college or pro, the
west coast is mainly dismissed. In baseball, the M's are about as
amazing as the Brewers (appropriate since the Brewers were
originally the Seattle Pilots). In basketball...well, NBA and
Seattle are not exactly on speaking terms. Then the NHL doesn't
exist here anymore...or even for the better part of a century.
So, Seattle looked like
a city of whiners when the jokes started after the Super Bowl XL
hangover ended; the jokes about how the real opponent was the
black-and-white refs, not the black-and-gold Steelers. However, when
it comes down to it, no one could call XL a good Super Bowl. It was
bad enough that the officiating was crap (and this played out for
both teams to some extent), but even the Steelers and the Seahawks
were playing like some unranked college teams. For this reason
alone, I don't think I can take any solace in knowing that
the outcome sucked for outside reasons.
Yes, after half a decade
Referee Bill Leavy is coming clean with Seattle. Leavy has admitted
to blowing a few calls, and how it has left him with "sleepless
nights". Poor guy. I mean that's just too bad for him. I think he
needs a hug.
Despite just thinking
the entire game was crap on all fronts, I still do have some
resounding annoyance and even anger with what happened. Yes, Leavy
only admits to making errors on two calls, but there were some more.
I mean when Hasselbeck was called for his tackle job on an
interception, or when Jackson was called for offensive pass
interference on what should have been a TD...well, there were some
bad calls all around. Add in the phantom TD rush by Big Ben, and you
can find plenty of bad officiating.
So, when it's all said
and done, I'm not sure if I'm happy to have the obvious admitted
(that bad calls happened). Part of me is glad to see that there is
some vindication now for the people who called Seattle a city of
whiners, but another part of me is just sad to have that day of
shame brought up fresh in my mind again. If it was only the
officiating that had gone wrong, I'd feel pretty set in wanting this
level of light being shined on the events. However, knowing that the
Seahawks lost to a Steelers team that couldn't get their act
together, makes it a bit more murky. Then knowing that the Seahawks
played even worse than an underachieving Steelers team just makes me
want to let Super Bowl XL go to sleep and never wake up again.
Anyway, there is a time
when an apology or an explanation by an offending party (like Leavy
did) is good. Leavy may have apologized, but the timing was just too
damned late. The game was done and forgotten. The time for
explanations and apologies is either when the moment is fresh, or
never again. If the wounds have not only healed, but the memory is
long gone, then an apology only serves to make fresh what should be
dead.
If Seattle is owed an
apology for anything in sports right now, it would be more
appropriate to be from the front office of the Mariners for the
lameness of this season. Even an apology from the NBA for the poor
treatment Seattle got when the Sonics left is too late now...and
that's a few years fresher than Super Bowl XL.
Malik |
Malik
(8/10/10)
Seattle sports just keep
getting more drama filled with each day. First we have, over the
weekend, the whole Super Bowl XL ref comment deal, and
now we have the Mariner's firing Wakamatsu. I cannot even
believe how Seattle sports look right now when I think of my old
Seattle sports theory.
My theory was
simple; one Seattle team in a professional league would do good at
any single time, while the others would flounder. This only really
included the MLB, NBA (sigh...), NFL, or MLS. For example, right
when the Sonics were losing momentum in the late 90's, the Mariners
picked up steam. Then when the M's started to collapse in the early
years of 00's, the Seahawks became contenders. Then when the
Seahawks fell to shit, the Sounders came along and were one of the
best expansion teams any sport has ever witnessed. At times, there
was a little overlap of good, and at times the bad hit all sports at
the same time, but never with even 12 months of shit all around.
Sorry WNBA fans,
but I never have really included the Storm in any of this...
This year we are
seeing a change. Yes, it hasn't been 12 months yet since the
Sounders were awesome, but the clock is ticking with only the
Seahawks left to hold it all together. At least they start their
pre-season this Saturday. On a fun side note, after needing the NFL
for so damned long, I'm left missing the first pre-season game due
to other obligations. I know, it's a worthless game, but it's still
something to take my mind off of the MLS and MLB seasons.
That brings me
back to the M's. With Wak being sent away, along with three of his
assistant coaches, I am left wondering what the f#!$ is wrong with
the front office. For one thing, the one bright spot this season was
pitching, so why get rid of the pitching coach? That just defies
logic, unless Rick Adair didn't want to go along with seeing Wak
take the fall alone.
The big problem is
that Wak is not the problem...at all. How do you blame a guy for a
losing team that's built up of one of the sorriest sets of overpaid
slackers this side of the 1980's M's? Wak is not the guy who built a
team around defense without a single good power bat in the lineup.
Wak is not the one who brought in a mediocre set-up man (League) in
place of a guy who just pitched a one hitter the other night and
holds a damned impressive win-loss record (Morrow). Wak is not the
guy who tied his own hands in dealing with personnel problems. Wak
is not the guy who couldn't find a use for three to four 1B/DH
players and not a single good 3B or SS. Wak is not the one who
traded away prospects to bring in another 1B/DH that the team could
have resigned in the offseason (Branyan). Wak is not the one who
decided to ignore the lack of catcher (in terms of defense or
offense).
The problem with
this sleeping giant is it's head. However, you don't need to cut off
the head to kill this abomination...you need to cut off the head to
bring it back to life. Lincoln and Armstrong have been stagnant at
running the front office for far too long and it's time for Nintendo
to step up and remove these two passive fools before they drive any
more problems towards Safeco Field. After all, while Wak had nothing
to work with, and this can fall mostly down to Jack Zduriencik, even
Z's hands were tied with a stunted budget. Of course, while the
analogy of the giant fits, so does another saying; Shit rolls
downhill. Since you can't fire an entire team, the coach is the
perfect target.
Until the head of
the giant is severed, and until stability is allowed to come (you
can't rebuild and become solid if you're always rebuilding and
tearing down the project), the M's will continue to flop. Plus, for
those who look at 2009 as an example of good things after a rebuild,
you need to remember that 2009 was a fluke in every possible way
(just look at the stats and see the sadness of it all).
Malik |
Malik
(8/11/10)
Today I was talking with
a friend about what upcoming games I was looking forward to. There
aren't that many, but one we agreed upon was Civilization 5. I mean
the game will be sweet...or so I thought.
Today, I looked up
some info on Civ 5, like the release date, to get slightly hyped.
After finishing Dragon Quest IX, I need something to look forward
to. Well, I came across something I find interesting; Civ 5's power
level is over 9000!!!
Actually,
I should say the requirements are around there. Civ 5 has a
GeForce 9800 as the recommended video card. Let me say that again,
slightly different; Civ 5, which is a sequel of the requirement
light Civ series, has insanely ridiculous requirements. I mean Civ 4
can run on my ancient laptop. A laptop that can barely handle
Windows XP anymore, due to all the updates and patches from
Microsoft slowing the system to a crawl. However, Civ 5 is going to
push my desktop to it's limits. It may be the first game I've faced
with my desktop that cannot run with settings on high.
I run Dragon Age:
Origins with everything on high. I can run Oblivion, with OOO and
Qarl's Texture Pack 3, with everything on high. I run everything on
high. However, Civ 5 is looking beyond unreasonable with the
requirements. Let's just look at the minimum requirements;
Operating System: Windows®
XP SP3/ Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
Processor: Dual Core CPU
Memory: 2GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 8 GB Free
DVD-ROM Drive: Required for
disc-based installation
Video: 256 MB ATI HD2600 XT
or better, 256 MB nVidia 7900 GS or better,
or Core i3 or better integrated graphics
Sound: DirectX
9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® version
9.0c
That is the
minimum to run this behemoth. I can understand needing more
power to turn the cranks of the game than Civ 4 needed, but there's
a point when I think the developer is going a bit overboard on
pushing requirements. Plus, when you take minimum requirements
into account, you have to remember that these values are typically
what you need to make the game run like ass...or with a Civilization
game, make it run like ass once you start to discover the map.
So, what do the
recommended settings look like?
Operating System: Windows®
Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
Processor: 1.8 GHz Quad
Core CPU
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 8 GB Free
DVD-ROM Drive: Required for
disc-based installation
Video: 512 MB ATI 4800
series or better, 512 MB nVidia 9800 series
or better
Sound: DirectX
9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® version
11
They look like someone at Firaxis has gone
completely insane. I mean recommended
tends to mean what you need to run with some
settings on high and others not even close.
Unless Civ 5 is an exception to this
unspoken rule, Firaxis is telling me that I
need a 512MB 9800 to make this game look
more than passable...? I need a quad
core to make this game run good...? I
need to ditch XP, obviously (DirectX 9 is
the limit on XP) to make the game good...?
The only part of this that makes any sense
to me, as a fan of Civilization since I got
the first one on DOS (on 3.5" floppies), is
the RAM requirements. I mean Civ games
are memory hogs with double digit
civilizations running around with hundreds
of units, dozens of cities each, and a huge
map filled with vast wonders. I could
even see the CPU requirements (to an
extent), since it takes some horse power
under a PC's hood to get all of this stuff
to and from the RAM and to make some massive
calculations. I can even see the HDD
issue, since a Steam download of Civ 5 is
obviously going to be a large monster of a
program. However, video should not be
pushed this far for a game like
Civilization, which ran on my lame as shit
laptop (with an ATI X300 Mobile...not to be
confused with the X series that came out
much later).
Luckily, I can handle this, even with a
somewhat aged desktop. I mean I do
have an 8800 GTS (not bad after all these
years), an over clocked dual-core that rocks
out to whatever I feel like pushing it to
thanks to my fan and heat sink of pure doom,
Windows 7 (thanks to the douches behind
TDL3), and 4GB of RAM from the same age as
the rest of my hardware (about 3 or so years
old).
One thing, however, that worries me is the
trend I've seen in requirement whores of
sequels. Whenever I've seen a
longstanding franchise come under a sudden
assault of requirements that go beyond what
one would expect, I have also seen a sudden
drop in quality to go along with the boost
in performance. For example, Oblivion
required a shit-ton more than expected after
what Morrowind needed...and Oblivion, while
pretty, was a game lacking in substance.
King's Quest 8 required far more than the
average PC could handle at the time, versus
sane requirements for prior KQ titles...and
let's just say The Silver Lining (awesome
project) only came about due to so much
dissatisfaction with KQ8. Ultima 9
went beyond what was even possible for
several years...and it was never stable
enough to be ran by any normal PC after the
technology caught up to the game. Doom
3 was a hardware slayer, and it felt like a
linear attempt at forcing a plot where we
only needed some mild exploration and
massive doses of pure adrenaline pumping
insane action.
I just have not seen a real good example,
yet, of a game franchise suddenly boosting
the requirement level of a sequel and still
showing off quality in what is presented.
I should say, I'm sorry but pretty visuals
is not the quality I crave.
Recently I had seen a trend in mainstream
games getting lower requirements recently.
Many hyped titles have been dropping some of
the hardware needs in favor of giving more
quality in their games. I figured this
was due to the economy, in part, and some
common sense by developers. I mean you
can't sell even a mainstream potential smash
hit of a game, in a bad economy, if hardware
purchases are a requirement. So, why
would a game with more of a cult following,
and a slightly more casual (as in laidback)
of a following like Civ 5 get the hardware
jumping-of-the-shark? I can't even
begin to speculate. All I know is that
this alone makes me a bit more hesitant of
purchasing one of the three remaining games
I was actually hyped for this year (the
other two are Rock Band 3 with a pro-guitar,
and LittleBigPlanet 2). At least LBP2
looks even better with each new bit of
dropped info.
By the way, I will not even get into the
actor to follow in Leonard Nimoy's shoes as
the narrator.
I will just say, from the clips available on
that link, William Sheppard is no Nimoy.
Malik
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