Running video games (and consoles) thread

Got FIFA, Black Ops 2 and Halo 4 for the 360 for Christmas.

Since most of my video game playing involves the sports department at the office after we're done to blow off steam after deadline, Merry Christmas to us!

FWIW, the sports editor has won the last two FIFA tourneys. KYSportswriter and him are usually the best in Halo. I tend to do well in CoD.

 

FIFA tournaments in the office? Hire me?

 

We've had several FIFA tourneys in the office (although all after deadline unless two of the competitors were done with their work/pages/assignments). I had the most teams advance in the last tournament, but got put out by Argentina (couldn't stop Messi) and Spain (I hate David Villa).

Our cable boxes were screwing up on both newsroom TVs last week. There's one TV in the four-member sports department and one in the five-desk copy, err, desk. The M.E. stopped by and tried messing with the TV and like us, eventually agreed it might be time to leave Comcast.

When he was leaving, the M.E. said, "Well, at least you still have the XBOX."

So it's clear management isn't bothered by it. We keep it in a bag, but we don't hide the bag.

Plus, there's been several times we've been playing games and had to bail out the A section because of a ad error or spelling mistake that it failed to catch and we had to open the page, make the correction and re-send.

 

We've even had some of the post-press guys come up and play a few times. Everyone knows we almost always play Xbox after we're done. Even our publisher does and he doesn't care.

 

So I bit the bullet and picked up Madden 13 for $14 earlier this week. Figured I'd give it a go after all.

The connected careers mode is awful. I went through and edited the Seahawks a bit, but what's the point of that when none of the ratings carry over into the mode?

Also, does anyone know of an easy way to transfer saved games from a detachable hard drive? I got a new Xbox for Christmas and my old one had a removable hard drive with all my games saved on it. I was able tor re-download all the stuff I had purchased in NCAA 13 and stuff like that, and I thought I could pull up my dynasties on NBA 2K13 thanks to the 2K servers, but that didn't work.

 

Exactly. It is probably the worst madden I can remember and I've played them all. Online play is so laggy it's astounding. How can I play large team games on COD without a hiccup, but playing against someone in Madden is like getting into an AOL chat room in '96?

 

Get one of these:

https://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+hard+drive+transfer+cable&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=&oe=#q=xbox+hard+drive+transfer+cable&hl=en&tbo=u&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&source=univ&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=9xneUPHxLuKz2QXkoIAQ&ved=0CFIQsxg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.b2I&fp=342f8882e4e08a6c&bpcl=40096503&biw=1680&bih=901


They go for like $2-3 on ebay.

 

Here is a question I have that I've never seen answered directly: do you have to have a Wii U console in order to play the new SMB game? My roommate and I just beat the first one for Wii (all except world 9) and we're going to need another game that both of us can play pretty soon. Already have the Wii but I don't want to have to pay for the Wii U controller just for this game, when it sounds like the game can be controlled from the regular Wiimotes.

 

If you mean New Super Mario Brothers U, I think it's only playable on the Wii U: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Super_Mario_Bros._U - Nintendo has just been in the habit of making their controllers backwards compatible too lately, since each new controller is seemingly less like a video game pad. (For example, the Gamecube pads worked on the Wii because you needed the extra buttons for several of the games.)

 

Just picked up NBA2K13 ... holy hell is the presentation awesome. I haven't owned an NBA game in years, so I thought I'd try something different. Still getting used to the gameplay, but the in-game presentation is fantastic. EA could take some pointers for its NHL series. I like the Association feature. Much better than the Be a GM mode in NHL. You can see what's happening in the rest of the league ... play games other than the ones featuring your franchise. Very cool.

 

2K13 has its issues, as does pretty much any game, but I still love it. I'm playing an Association as the Nuggets right now.

One of the things I like is the ability to trade legends to current teams. I played one season as the Bulls and had Jordan, Bird, Rose, Shaq and Pippen as my starting five. That year was damn fun.

 

Treated myself to Assassin's Creed III for the holidays, but soon got sucked back into NCAA 13 dynasty mode. Sigh ... such is life.

Hankering for a good old school RPG on a next-gen console. Any suggestions?