Tag Archives: PS4

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 30, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

3 Comments

MLB The Show – World War K: The New Blood (May Recap)

9header

Start from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: Trade Winds Part Two

In the dark future of 2099, robots playing baseball is commonplace.  Pitches are thrown at 150 mph.  Bats are laced with carbon fibers to increase home run distance.  Laser weapons are mounted on arms to assist with breaking up double plays.  These machines are designed with a certain brand of the sport in mind–one that fragile human flesh and bone would be unable to withstand.  But it was more than that.  Robot baseball was efficient.  It was calculated.  It was stripped of random chance and uncertainty with the virtual minds of the players guided by calculations beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

When the rogue AI K.I.R.K.G.I.B.S.O.N. selected six robot masters to send back to 2014, it did not anticipate these differences.  It believed that the robot masters would be unstoppable. It failed to take into account…the human element.  The fielders behind the robot pitchers would not be perfect.  In fact, many of them would be quite terrible.  The pitches the robot hitters faced in 2014 would be slow and unpredictable.  And so, despite everything that had gone wrong with Mike Trout’s plan to save baseball, there was still hope.

As May came to an end, and faced with a mediocre start to the season, player/GM Pat Burrell made two dramatic moves to improve the Royals.  Struggling prospect John Lamb was shipped out for the most corpulent pitcher in basebal, Bartolo Colon.  And James Shields, whose ERA was beginning to affect the tides, was traded to the Cardinals for Matt Holliday and Carlos Martinez.  This was a risky deal, as one of the six robot masters was playing for the Cardinals.  There was a good chance Shields could put everything together again, but Burrell saw enough potential in Martinez that he didn’t believe St. Louis could end up winning the deal.

youngdominican

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 24, 2014

Posted under

Baseball

Comments

Leave a comment

MLB The Show – World War K: Trade Winds Part Two

8header

Start from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: Trade Winds Part One

Pat Burrell and the Kansas City Royals thought that trading for Major League pieces in the middle of May would be a difficult proposition, but they had underestimated the power of the trading block.  After putting out feelers for a few players listed on the block, it became clear that they were more than just available–they were priced to move.  The Royals would be able to upgrade both their rotation and their lineup with some judicious planning.

The first call Pat Burrell made was to Sandy Alderson, GM of the struggling New York Mets.  The Mets had not been expected to contend in 2014, and in the new alternate future they were more than living up to expectations.  They sustained a 9-18 record in April and continued to barely limp along into May. Alderson already knew there wasn’t much hope of competing, and wanted to move some of the older spare parts off for pieces in the future.

heavy load

weight

talkingbartolo

rounded

hng

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 17, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

MLB The Show – World War K: Trade Winds Part One

7headerStart from the Beginning – Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: The King in the North

As the baseball season slipped past the midpoint of May, the Kansas City Royals found themselves in a rut.  The handful of players keeping the team afloat found their numbers normalizing, and the struggling majority didn’t improve in kind.  A terrible 1-7 run against the Rockies, Orioles, and White Sox left them with a 24-23 record and stuck in third place.  The GM of most teams would just wait out the trouble and hope for a rebound.  But Pat Burrell and Strike-O-Matic knew that they couldn’t let the Royals fall any further behind.

Fetch

beepbeep

transactional

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 13, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

MLB The Show – World War K: The King in the North

6header

Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Previous Episode: The Frame Game (April Recap)

The theories of the 2010s pitch-framing analysts are lost to history, purged after a reactionary movement seized sports media in 2031 and instituted the Heyman Doctrine, a brutal set of reforms that made the use of any advanced statistic less predictive than ERA punishable by death.  But we do know that these statistics informed the 2014 Kansas City Royals’ decision to acquire Jose Molina from the Tampa Bay Rays.  Molina, a month away from turning 39 at the time of the trade, could otherwise hardly be seen as a trade target for a team that hoped to save the future of baseball in 2014.  He had a career OPS hovering around the low .600s and had never received more than 350 PAs in a season.  If not for the pitch framing craze of the 2010s, why else would anyone trade for Jose Molina?

knowthetruthwhat is thatsoro

ahura

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 4, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

MLB The Show – World War K: The Frame Game (April Recap)

5header

Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Episode 2: And We Will Always Be Royals

Episode 3: Verland Before Time

Episode 4: The Candyman Can

T.S. Eliot once wrote that April is the cruelest month.  But what the hell did he know?  He wrote a book that inspired the musical Cats.  His hands are  stained with blood.  In baseball, April brings hope and uncertainty.  The passage of the month brings the first significant statistical endpoint to evaluate players or the team as a whole.  However, almost all of these stats–even win/loss record–come with sample size caveats.  You can’t project how well anyone will do based solely on their April.  But that doesn’t keep people from trying.

Late into the month of April, it became clear that the Royal’s catcher, Salvador Perez, was suffering from overuse.  He was hitting worse than anyone else on the team, which caught Player/GM Pat Burrell by surprise.  Perez was supposed to be one of the few sincerely good players on the Royals.  Burrell decided that the team needed a quality backup catcher and veteran presence.  Someone to fill the role that Todd Pratt had during Burrell’s early years in Philadelphia.  Unfortunately, Todd Pratt was now 47 years old, so getting him out of retirement would be more than a chore.  Burrell would have to trade for a backup, and do so without giving up anything of significant value.

With that in mind, he went to the team’s advance statistics department for advice.  Unfortunately, the Kansas City Royals advanced statistics department had been gutted during the Dayton Moore years, and now consisted of nothing but shortstop Alcides Escobar sitting in a small office after every game and browsing Fangraphs.

framing

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 20, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

World War K Episode 3: Verland Before Time

ep3head

Episode 1: The History of the First Base War

Episode 2: And We Will Always Be Royals

The first day of the regular season brought the first major challenge for the new-look Kansas City Royals.  Their first opponents were the Detroit Tigers and the first pitcher they would face was Justin Verlander.  For years, Verlander had been one of the most formidable pitchers in the American League.  In 2011-2012, he was absolutely unhittable.  2013 saw the first signs of decline for the hard-throwing right-hander, but all but the most pessimistic fans thought he would bounce back to contend for a Cy Young.

In the original version of the timeline, before Strike-O-Matic and the robot masters changed everything, 2014 was a disappointment for Verlander.  His first-half ERA was almost a run and a half above his career numbers.  Even by the standards established in Detroit in the early 21st century, this was a disaster.  However, time travel changes everything.  While the robot masters had no particular interest in Verlander other than his eventual subjugation at their cold steel hand, their presence would disrupt the timeline across the board.  This would give him another shot at a successful 2014.  And Verlander wasn’t someone to bet on disappointing twice.

tigertiger

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 9, 2014

Posted under

Baseball, Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

World War K: The History of the First Base War (MLB: The Show)

As we venture into the new century, several generations have known nothing but the Base Wars.  Robot versus robot.  Robot versus man.  Man versus man.  It is not news.  It is not history.  It is merely life.  For the young people of the year 2099, it is nothing to go to the ballpark and see a robot with tank treads for a leg attempt to decapitate a floating robot with a laser sword.  The cyber-checkpoints are routine, and the e-police are just another fixture on the street corner, twirling their e-batons and compiling their e-donuts.

There was a time before this neon mecha-hellscape.  Once, you could walk down the street without seeing the roving gangs of hobodroids, shaking down the robourgeoisie for their laser-rubles.  It was a simpler time, before the airs was filled with the scream of holodrones and we lived under the constant threat of quantum terrorism.  How did we get here?  And how will this end?  The answer to both of those questions is one and the same.  Because of time travel.

This is the history of the First and Last Base War.

WWK

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

May 3, 2014

Posted under

Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

NBA 2K14 — Quantum Hoop The Finale: Beckett vs. Beckett

prevon
All right team, you’re going to have to decide between Jason Richardson and Tony Allen.
This is a terrible idea.
No, it’s natural selection.
Uggghh…
Yes! I won the balloting!
Only becasue Beckett didn’t vote and Evan Turner can’t think of anything but DOTA.
You mean I’m not a feeding noob.
Shut up, Evan. This is important.

Pacersallenrichardson

Okay, I guess it’s not that important.
Sam, I think we’ve figured out what’s going on with Jackson Ellis.
What?
A future version of you has leapt into his body.
Oh come on that’s just bullshit.

march29

So, this is it. March 29, 2014.
In the original timeline, the 76ers narrowly avoided a NBA record for consecutive losses.
But you leapt into the body of your son, and carried them to the playoffs on that date.
And now, I’ve leapt again into this timeline, into the body of Jackson Ellis…
Why? Why would I try to undo everything I already did?
That’s a good question, Sam.
And I hope that we’re finally going to answer it.
Yo, Beckett, who are you talking to.
Oh, no one. Just getting myself worked up for the game, that’s all.
It’s okay. I talk to myself sometimes, too.
My own voice is calming, especially when I make it deep like a wise old man.

Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 14, 2014

Posted under

Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

NBA 2K14 – Quantum Hoop Episode 16: The Big Dogs

prevon

Hey, Beckett, I see you’re flush with VC now. How about you buy this sleeve?
Why would I want a sleeve?
It makes your shooting better.
That’s just silly.
Something about a failed energy drink that could float.
WHAT?
Yeah we fucked up on that investment and now several square miles in New Jersey are uninhabitable.
FUCK. What else could go wrong?
We’re trading for another SG.
…why?
YEAH WHY?
Don’t worry he won’t be stealing your minutes.
Hehehehehe

NBAgif

Yo, dawg, thanks for backing me up on this Tony Allen thing.
I think we both know your minutes are safe, so I appreciate it.
No problem. We’ve had our fights in the past…
I made you wear a clown nose.
But I think we came out better for it.
Whatever happened to that clown nose? Haven’t seen it in a while.
Yeah that kind of got dropped out of nowhere. There wasn’t even a cutscene explaining it.
Cutscene?
I… Uh… I…
I’ve been saying weird stuff like this ever since I saw the cover of that video game I’m on.
NBA 2k15 or something like that?
You’re not making any sense.
Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot.
So, how are we going to keep Tony Allen off our backs?
I don’t know. I want to believe the GM that he really isn’t a threat but…
Something doesn’t seem right.
I would watch out for Allen if I were you. He was involved in this shooting incident once and–
Wait, Tony Allen shot someone?
No, that’s the scary thing… He was just around. He broke someone’s eye socket.
With his fist? During a shooting?
I told you, Beckett. Watch out.
Continue reading →

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

March 25, 2014

Posted under

Video Games

Comments

Leave a comment

NBA 2K14 – Quantum Hoop Episode 14: All Star Weekend

prevon

Oh man, the Pistons again? It’s always the Pistons…
Yo, Beckett, I feel like our rivalry is making us both better players…
…so I want to help you out but I can’t help you out if you know what I mean.
I don’t.
I think it’s code, Sam. Look at this:

socialmedia2

You highlighted random letters in that message.
No Sam, this is a message.
“Its u Sam fo sho”?
Sam, I think you’re the one behind whatever is going to happen March 29.
You from the future…er…present. You from 2014.
This is so confusing.
And I still need to decide who is going to be my agent.
Pick me and you’ll be rich with VC!
I can’t abandon my childhood best friend, uh, whatshisname.
You’ll regret this, Sam Suck-It.
Whatever, man, I’m an All Star.

ThisCityMadeMe

Good news, Sam, I think I’ve got you another deal.
Yeah, what’s going on with Kia?
Didn’t I have to win 4/5 games? We definitely did that.
Well, uh…
Don’t tell me it fell through.
Listen, I don’t know what happened. It just hasn’t come up again.
It just hasn’t come up?
I don’t know what to say!
But this is bigger. This is Champs sports.
You know the other guy was promising Adidas.
Man, Adidas was founded by a German named Adolf.
And don’t get me started on that Korn song.
Okay, I know one of those things is innately bad.
Yeah that Korn song is embarrassing.
I meant–
So, Champs sports is a subsidiary of Foot Locker. Foot Locker, Sam.
Okay, I guess that’s a good thing.
There’s only one catch…

Tornbetween

Wait. What?
Are you kidding me?
That’s what they’re telling me.
Have they looked at the stats lately? The standings? Anything?
This is just how the game is played, Sam.
What game?
Because it clearly is not basketball.
Marketing, man. My game.
Shouldn’t you be able to outplay Ellis’s agent?
Well that’s the bad news, you see, because when you turned down that other guy–
Are you telling me Ellis signed with the super agent? And that’s why I gotta compete with him?
I get it, I get it, this seems like a raw deal after you picked me over him.
You think?
If it’s really a big deal you could go back to him. No hard feelings.
Nah, I burnt that bridge. He called me “Sham Wreck-it”.
He really said that?
Man, white dudes do not know how to throw shade.
Yeah, well, I guess I just have to outplay Jackson Ellis again.
This time at the All Star game, right?
What? No. Ellis isn’t an All Star. At the Futures Game.
Am I being arrogant if this is kind of insulting?
Kind of.
So I have to outplay Ellis at the Futures game for the Champs deal?
That’s the deal.
Well, I think I can do that.

Continue reading →