Last night, some of the crew gathered over at D.Z.’s house to watch the Super Bowl. Being a Forty-Niners fan, I had little to no vested interest in this game, but hey - it’s the Super Bowl, right? Some of the highlights of the evening included the following:

-Listening to one of D.Z.’s kids talk smack for most of the evening to me because I was rooting against the Steelers. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but he’s not even a Steelers fan. He’s a Bucs fan.

-Me changing my mind on who to root for after listening to the smack talk for the entire first quarter. In a twist, I decided to root for both teams. The team on offense got cheers from me on first and third downs and the defensive team on second and special teams plays.

-Listening to the room erupt in hoots and hollers for how badass the G.I. Joe and Transformers movies looked, only to have Derek, Irving, and I all share that same "ugh" expression.

-Me commenting that the game was boring early in the fourth quarter only to have Arizona score a quick touchdown, followed by a safety, another touchdown, and the Steelers polishing off a comeback touchdown. Looks like I spoke too soon.

All in all, it was a good game and an enjoyable evening. Special thanks to D.Z. for letting us borrow the house for the evening and supplying everyone with drinks and pizza. Congrats to the Steelers for getting to six championships first, but watch out! The Niners will even the score next year . . . or maybe a few years later . . . maybe, I hope.

- Dover

Some people are of the opinion that baseball is boring. I will not argue that, provided that the same people do not hold NASCAR in a high or exciting light. We all have our own opinions, equally valid and equally not mine. I love baseball.

What I do not love are baseball videogames. Last week, Dover mentioned the impending release of MLB Front Office Manager. As the title suggests, it is a general manager sim. You balance account books and set prices and bid on players and so forth. While this is all very entertaining, these bureaucratic bits appeal to the anal retentive mathematician in me, not the hot dog-chugging, home run-hitting, split finger fastball-dropping baseball lover that lurks within me. Good baseball games have been made in the past. I am too young to accurately remember the Intellivision or its then-cutting edge world of sports titles, baseball included, but beginning with the NES I enjoyed a number of solid entries into the digital sport. RBI Baseball, Bases Loaded, Baseball Stars and Cyber Wars if you really wanted to get crazy. Later games included the awesome Hardball series, Super Baseball 2020 and Baseball Simulator 1.000 for the fantasy sports lover, and the classic All-Star Baseball ’99, which still ranks as one of my top games of all time. To this day, my N64 still receives use from occassional exhibition matches fired within that watershed cartridge.

Lately, though . . . yeah. MLB Power Pros scratches much of that itch for solid baseball action, but is too lacking in the online arena. By lacking, I of course mean that it does not have any sort of it. Unfortunately, I am friends with a group of nice-enough-but-still-fuckwits who will not play baseball games against me. The 2K series, the last of which was MLB 2K8 simply does not make the grade. The commentary is stellar, with shots called by Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, but the interface is too cumbersome and button intensive. I almost wonder if the simulation requirements imposed by either Take-Two or Major League Baseball are so onerous as to forcibly suck any possibility of fun straight out of the title’s bottom. A fun drain, if you will.

I am hopeful for this season, and have also heard rumor carried on the winds that Sony’s competing games, MLB: The Show and kin, are quite the crown contenders. I do also look forward to seeing whether or not Take-Two will again localize the latest Power Pros game (it is developed by Konami for initial yearly Japanese release), because this time it will supposedly boast an online mode.

Allow me to spend this sentence praising Codemasters and developer Liquid Entertainment for their recent release, Rise of the Argonauts. Though I do not believe that this title was not ready to set the light of day from a technical standpoint, thank you for trying. Despite its 1001 problems, I cannot stop playing it.

- Irving