March Madness

March 28, 2008

2K Final Four and my bracket (shot to sh*t)

Okay I never qualified for 2K's Final Four competition on XBL.  But after some of the exploits I encountered during playing on-line, I really just got disgusted with the whole process.  In related news, my bracket is busted all to hell and gone.  Really sucks when you expect a defensive powerhouse to make it to the sweet sixteen and they get knocked out in the second round.  I imagine a lot of people expected G-Town and Duke to make it to the Sweet 16, but I had both teams advancing far enough that when they lost, my chances for winning my office pool went down with them.

UCLA escapes again!  This is the team I have winning the whole tourney and they just keep making the tourney interesting.  Before March Madness began I thought that they were the most naturally talented team in the field.  But now it seems they have been exposed as a careless team when trying control the ball  and execute offensively that is only offset by excellent team defense.  My guess is that they'll struggle offensively against Xavier as well, so we'll just have to see how they can handle a stronger and more experienced opponent.  They've made what should be an easy path to the Final Four look extremely difficult.

March 10, 2008

Qualifying for 2K's Virtual Final Four Pt. 2

Long story short, I am really just getting my ass kicked online.  Mainly, because my settings that I play with offline, do not match those of the settings that are standard online.  This being said I have completed a total of 5 games so far with three disconnects, for a total of 8 games.  It would seem that if I gain a slight lead or a manage to keep the game tied for more than the first five minutes of the game, gamers are disconnecting.

Not like I expected much more than this anyway.  Gamers don't like to lose, and thus they either adapt and get better, which few do; the remaining find exploits within the games' AI.  In sports titles this is the largest issue, gamers use star players that never fatigue and rarely exhibit cold streaks.  So for the last five games I have been playing against individuals who use the full-court press and double team exploits for the duration of the game.

Though I have found a way to beat both exploits, my major problem with CHOOPS online is the latency issues that affect shooting.  Granted it's a problem, but one has to wonder if this is something that has to do with the VIP recording functions from the 2K server.  I certainly hope not, but I just can't help feeling that this is what's happening.

In summary, my lofty goal of 35 games is being reduced to 12 maybe more if I can get a win streak started.  The (I am getting owned online stats) Stats:

Record: 0-5
Rank: 5949 (this is the leaderboard rank)

March 01, 2008

Qualifying for 2K's Virtual Final Four

Crap...I completely forgot about this.  Worst part is I have been playing my "Closed Legacy" with UC Davis quite regularly.  For those of you who don't know, Pontiac is sponsoring a Virtual Final Four Touney on College Hoops 2K8.  To qualify you must play at least ten ranked games between now and March 14th, to gain as many points as possible (points are based upon wins and quality of opponent).  From there, depending upon user registration numbers they will choose anywhere from 256-2048 qualifying contestants.  Who will be separated into 64 man brackets, draft teams to compete with and narrow each "mini-tourney" down to one champion who will then be inserted into another 4-64 man bracket.

As of this morning, I just registered, there are approximately 3415 contestants, yes I am at the bottom.  With many, whom I guess plan to just play 10 games to qualify, I will attempt to play 25-30 games within this window.  However, I will also be traveling on business from 3/3-3/7, so I will be cramming many games as possible into each day.  The stats so far:

Record    0-0
Rank        3415

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