Miracle Man on the Court - Follow Up Post

Greetings gamers, readers, and all you nameless people who have stumbled upon my blog. I'm back again, except this time, it's a follow up to another post. I'd just edit the old one, but I don't really want to. Of course, if I just made a post as something of an add-in, there probably wouldn't be much. So hope you don't mind, but I'll kind of combine contest work with my personal take on a game. This particular entry isn't complete yet, but it will be, hopefully, soon enough.


If you remember my last post from August, about my sports family, you might remember mention of some members of my fictional Peters family that didn't really see a lot of action. Well, finally, one of them is moving up towards super-stardom, at least to me he is. As you can probably guess from the name of my post, it's my virtual man Gabriel Peters...my basketball hopeful. Before I update you on how he's been, first, I'd like to tell you about the game that features him.

NBA 2K10

At first, I was pretty excited about this game. I don't remember when I got it exactly, but I do remember having a heck of a time tracking it down. I bought it from a used game and novelty store (which shall remain nameless, but I can tell you it has the initials V and S) or at least I thought I did. The game inside the case was definitely not NBA 2K10. So, I took it back. Then by chance, I happened to be browsing around a GameStop, and lo and behold, there it was. I almost couldn't believe my good luck. I could have jumped for joy...

...until I got home and put it in the PS3. Let me tell you, this game is H-A-R-D hard. I mean, I didn't expect it to be like NBA Jam, although I would have liked it that way, but I was just left in a state of gamer's shock. Yes, I have made up a new condition where one buys a game, under the assumption that they can pick it up, only to find that the game is much harder than they expected. Perhaps, you too have suffered from this syndrome. But I digress.

If you want to know why I was so frustrated, basically, it's because from day one you have to fight for position. Unlike most sports games where you have the chance to stick your newly created pro on a team right away, you don't even start in the NBA. Your goal is to get invited to an NBA training camp. Then, you have to hope to survive all the way through in order to make the team. It sounds easy, but take it from me there are a lot of ways to mess up. Add in an annoying little auto-save feature, and basically, you have a game that will put pressure on you. It sure did me.

But lest you think that this game is insurmountable, I can tell you it isn't. I'm finding the controls are getting easier to handle, although there is still a fair amount of frustration at missing shots or letting my matchup get the better of me. Still, I'm finding it no more difficult than any other sports game I've played, which leads me into the real purpose of this post.

Drum roll, please...I can't hear you.

That's better.

Gabriel 'Miracle Man' Peters

I tried at least three times this year to get Gabriel on a team. Well, after a lot of tense moments, he finally got his break with the Los Angeles Lakers. I wanted him originally with the Chicago Bulls (hey, Jordan all the way), but I thought I might have a better chance with the team that I was on to begin the Summer Circuit. Training camp was pretty tough. More than once, the side testing out the rookies included one Kobe Bryant. Luckily for me, Gabriel wasn't made to be a shooting guard. At 7'5, he was really more center material. At first, Gabriel was more of the backup guy. He sat on the bench for quite a few games early on, but he began coming in as the starting center for a few games. Now, I'm pleased to say he is officially the starting center after the original got traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder. This puts him right alongside Kobe himself, so I'm pretty pleased to have him playing with me instead of against me.

I've had a lot of sweet moments with Gabriel, but most of them usually involved a slam dunk. When I first began his career, I could barely score at all. Now, Gabriel is usually the top scoring player for the Lakers, some games even beating out Bryant in terms of points. And at least one shot is a real jam. Yeah, he doesn't know too many specialty dunks yet, but he'll get there. He can even get shots off despite double-teams, so that's really impressive.

As to his nickname, I gave it to him because I thought it was a miracle just to survive training camp, but I came to find it becoming more apparent in some really tense games. For instance, our first game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, I was facing up against Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James (depending on if I happened to be center or power forward). Second quarter, the Cavs were going to down, but I managed to start chipping away little by little at their lead. Sometimes, I'd even grab a rebound to keep them from getting a second chance. We managed to come back and win by 3 points. Now, that really did deserve the name Miracle Man.

Gabriel's career is far from over, but it's looking promising. The Lakers have so far been undefeated through 40 games, and while Gabriel is not quite a superstar, he's star enough for me.