Old Site News

Check out the Recap; and make sure to go to the blog to comment on your favorite tracks/moments from the LAN Party.

Thanks all for coming! I'm looking forward to next year's... as well as racing more of the favorite tracks from the pack in future FNGs...

Yes, there really has been activity with the Friday Night Gamers... it's just been recorded on our blog.

This site has been in major need of re-work for a while, and I'm in the process of starting by making some Motocross Madness 2 functionality... until I get that part complete, everything will be happening on the blog and information here will be for archival purposes.

How long the re-work will take, will be determined by how much free time I can muster up; which isn't much considering I have 5 children now, the youngest being twins!

Anyway, FNG is still alive and kickin' despite our numbers dwindling. Come join us sometime... we're usually racing some MCM2, TrackMania (and experimenting with PURE.)

We also enjoy some RTS now and then too still (Starcraft, Age of Empires II/III, Command & Conquer 3, etc.)

http://news.friday-night-gaming.com/

Despite FNG being in its 10th year running, most of the gang (including myself) have been tied up with other things that have kept us from doing something extra special for our tenth anniversary.

My twins have kept my head spinning so much I didn't have time to think about this year's Turkey Bowl until Thanksgiving Day (go figure...)

Without time to hand pick a bunch of new tracks, I thought it more appropriate to make a medley of tracks selected from the past four Turkey Bowls; a "Greatest Hits of Turkey Bowl" if you will (and believe me, I will.)

So, without further ado, here's the list for this year's Turkey Bowl:

Nats:

• Bail Jumper
• Funky Flyer Special Edition
• Grassy Knoll Special Edition
• Mackheu Basin
• Mosquito Hill
• Pepsi Max
• Snowfields

Stunts:

• Bear Mountain
• Halfgrand Playground

Tag:

• Arena Tag #3

GameSpot posted an article about a survey taken of how many households own at least one gaming console. FNG's home turf has 32% of homes owning at least one gaming console.

Does this rock? Well, yes and no... because that means most of those homes aren't enjoying the goodness that is TrackMania, Motocross Madness 2, Half-Life 1 & 2 which have the most killer online play ever because those games allow custom content creation. But hey, they're gaming and that's what matters.

The most fun part of the article is the comments that follow. Responders said anything from "Mormon" wise-cracks to things like "just because they have the highest percentage of consoles owned doesn't mean their the best gaming city." ... No, but I bet our grammar is better! You have to love comments like that.

The cool thing, it's a fun thing to get Salt Lake City on the map for; since we all love a good video game now and then. And in light of the recent tragedy at Trolley Square it's nice to hear some fun news.

Now we just need to get those console lovers on PC. Take a second, hook your Xbox controller up to your PC, fire up some Trackmania Nations or Narbacular Drop (for those getting excited about Valve's upcoming game "Portal") and see what REAL gaming goodness is. Warning, they're both absolutely free and highly addicting. You have been warned.

Anyway, kudos Utah - you know how to get your game on; regardless of your religion.

Despite being scheduled three different times to ensure more than three riders... the 2006 Turkey Bowl commenced on Groundhog Day 2007 - with, you guessed it, three riders! *cackle!* Three must be a magical number.

It was a good time, and some close races, with the favored-to-win Tsam almost dethroning That One Guy... but the reigning champion holds on to the crown for one more year.

Get all the details in the recap!!!

And this is the LAST time it's getting moved... might have to make this a permanent time of year to do it... February's not too busy a time of year.

For those of you still interested in participating in our Motocross Madness 2 tournament, the new (and final) date is 02 February 2007.

See details below... and we'll see you on Groundhog Day... better watch out Punxsutawney Phil - you're hole is about to become roost.

That One Guy has made it to the World Ladder in all-around Island track racing in Solo mode on TrackMania United. Tsam isn't far behind.

Both racers have reached World Ladder status on many of the Island tracks, with a goal to reach #1 on at least one track - just to take our screenshot, say we did... then forget about that freakin' ladder and go play for the real reason we fell in love with TrackMania in the first place...

MULTIPLAYER MAYHEM!

That's right... we're dying to get back in the thick of the uber-creative universe that is the TrackMania community. With seven environments at our fingertips now, there's no telling what out-of-this-world ideas the track makers will be up to now. We thought Nations was intense... this is even more so.

Ok, so it's past Thanksgiving already and I haven't talked about Turkey Bowl here yet. It's all good, because I've discussed it offline with the other Friday Night Gamers and we decided to postpone Turkey Bowl until 29 December 2006.

For this year's bowl, I've selected 10 tracks that are brand new to FNG from the MotocrossMadness2Central.com DVDs I purchased around a year ago. One of the tracks, called "Acceler8" is simply a tight figure eight. There isn't much room for the players so it will be interesting to see how much we mow each other over fighting for 1st place. Another is called "Bail Jumper" and is appropriately named for some freakin' huge jumps. The sounds effects triggered throughout are pretty amusing too.

This Friday (22 December 2006) will be FNG's official practice round for the Turkey Bowl. Other than that, y'all are on your own to get any practicing in before the tourney. And consider yourself warned, some of these tracks will require practice or you're in for a world of frustration come the night of the bowl.

That's right... this year's bowl will be a test of all your Motocross Madness skills, not just full throttle mayhem. There's a nice variety of technical, rhythm, high-flyin' springloadin' good times awaiting with this year's track pack.

So quit reading and start downloading the track pack! See y'all there... and may the best rooster win.

Friday Night Gaming has still been going strong over the last 4 months; I just haven't had any time to get updates/recaps up here.

When we last left off... we FNGers were insanely addicted to TrackMania Nations. Nothing has changed there, we still are; though we did go on a 3-month hiatus from it because all our free=non-FNG time has been filled with other things.

During our hiatus, we've made return trips to Motocross Madness 2, MX vs. ATV Unleashed, Age of Empires II/Conquerors, TrackMania Sunrise Starcraft, Need for Speed Underground and some others.

As of late, a few of us picked TrackMania Nations again and "re-learning how to ride the bike." Not long after we did so we discovered Verizon is hosting an online tournament to show off and gain exposure to their new game matchmaking software PlayLinc. It definitely shows signs of infancy in software; but shows a lot of potential too. It integrates with AOL Instant Messenger so your buddy list imports into PlayLinc (adding a new PlayLinc group.) One cool feature is the ability to follow a buddy into a game... though you have to be in the same game lobby as the buddy. Hopefully in the future, they'll add an option to follow them from your buddy list, regardless of what your main PlayLinc window is showing.

On a sidenote, I noticed the last recap was from March at our Lan Party. FNG is so overdue for a lan party. I was hoping to host one this month, but that's out of the question. Which is too bad because tonight would've been a perfect night so we could all qualify and practice for the TrackMania tournament... *sigh*

Anyway, Tournament Details follow...

Please see my TrackManiacs Reunite blog post on http://www.thatoneplace.net/ for my original post on this...

The Tournament finals begin on 16 November 2006 and end on 19 November 2006. To qualify, one must install the TrackMania/PlayLinc update, login to PlayLinc and register your TrackMania Nations online account so it can auto-log you into their passworded servers via the PlayLinc software.

Once on their servers, the player must race 6 tournament qualifier tracks in Time Attack mode. Earning a Gold Medal on each qualifies the player for the tournament.

At the time of this posting, there are only 3 days left to qualify (qualifying must be completed before midnight 14 November 2006); and on the Qualified List there are only 1080 contenstants listed.

Of the Friday Night Gaming crew, That One Guy, Tsam314, Beuchety and BigBadMrT are attempting to get in on the action. That One Guy has qualified but is pretty low on time rankings for the tracks. It will be interesting to see how the tournament plays out, since it won't be a time-attack type tournament. Most of the players of TrackMania are used to playing time-attack mode where you can respawn when you make a miastake and restart the lap to go for a no- mistake, speedy lap.

In the first elimination rounds of the tournament, racers will win by being the first to complete three laps ... no time limit. Those of us that are trigger happy to hit that respawn button are going to knock ourselves out of the race quickly, so we'll need to seriously practice some in Rounds mode to get us out of the habit.

Good luck all FNG Players. Regardless of the outcome of the tournament, it will be mega-fun being in it. See you at the races next Friday!

We'll be posting our best replays so we can help each other qualify.

So I get this email today from a guy named David Aldridge (alias: 'Walker'); a cool guy who runs a site called "Friday Night Gaming." And jealousy strikes - they beat me to the punch both when they started their group and getting their hands on the cool domain name! hehe

Walker's FNG group plays First Person Shooters exclusively, so if you're looking for that kind of action - go get hooked up! They seem like a fun group of gamers. I know some of our FNGers dig on shooters, so feel free to go check them out! Their site has a fun little history about how they got started too.

Check out the other Friday Night Gaming site today!

Do you have unanswered questions on how to get CrackMania, I mean TrackMania Nations, working at its best? Come see our Frequently Asked Questions page!

With seemingly impossible diagonals-to-wallrides-to-loops ... this track chews you up, spits you out and leaves you coming back wanting to have it dished out to you again. Dan and I decided to give it a go, along with the infamous ZHuM-W001x in a couple of ten minute rounds each. We both finished Wall Buster multiple times and Dan came oh-so-close to completeing W001x. Jeff had a streak of luck with W001x and finished 6-10 times.

To try these tracks... go to the TrackMania Nations page.

I added some replays to the TrackMania Nations page... more to come soon. Enjoy!

Jeff (That One Guy) and Dan (Tsam314) hit the top 100 in the USA on 24 May 2006. We took a snapshot of the scores page since we don't know if/when they'll reset the ladder due to the recent changes in the scoring system. So for today, we'll enjoy the achievement!

Jeff's Comments

It's been a long and enjoyable ride... especially with all the new friends we've made racing some of the best in the USA and the world on ZHaDuM's "440 MODS & BOOST" (recently renamed to "440-TEAM KOFS USA") server. Nothing feels cooler than the times we can beat some of the best in the world and playing new tracks where you're 1 of 5 out of 50 players that figure out how to finish it during the track's debut round on the server.

It's great fun to play online with such a cool and creative community. ZHaDuM always keeps the track rotation and applied mods fresh, and the company of great racers that encourage others' in their victories keeps this one of the most fun gaming communities I've been a part of in my gaming career.

This game definitely goes down in my book as one of the top 5 best games ever made... It's replay value lands it up there with my all-time fav, Motocross Madness 2.

Dan's Comments

It's been dang hard to get there, but it's been worth every late night. I've really enjoyed racing with the top dogs on the 440 server.

After filling out my application and seeing there were only 18 applicants including myself, I jumped on the TM Forums. My intent was to post a thread and make sure all the USA players knew about the short window in which to apply for, again, what I thought was the US Preliminaries.

When I did, I learned that there was already another thread; one that explained what exactly is going on with the US teams for all games this year.

To read what's going on... follow the following links:
TM Forums
GotFrag.com - Article #1 (18 May 2006)
GotFrag.com - Article #2 (19 May 2006)

In a nutshell, the USA was supposed to have qualifying tournaments for all ESWC games, and the winners were supposed to have their expenses to get to the ESWC paid for.

Now, there will be no qualifying tournaments, and the players have to pay their own way to Paris. It's a raw deal, and we can only hope the USA teams this year will be properly represented. Hopefully next year, things will go back to normal.

You'll see in the TM Forums that I have emailed in my resignation from being considered for the ESWC, because I know that I won't look near as good on paper as I could prove myself in a competition... and I know that at least 3 or 4 (probably more) racers on that list would beat me in the prelims at some point. I just wanted to see how far I could get. Guess that dream won't be a reality this year.

So, my regrets and sympathies to all USA players for all ESWC games that were looking forward to your qualifying tournaments in your race for your ESWC seat.

To those fortunate enough to be hand-picked, we're still cheering for you. Go show 'em what we're made of! GO USA!!!

Application Form

Competitor List

The USA preliminaries for the Electronic Sports World Cup have finally been announced, and I've signed up to give it a shot.

If you're interested, you need to get your application in ASAP. To apply, fill out the application form on the Official ESWC Website.

I'm not sure when the competition to decide the two USA contestants is yet, but "The invited list for the Grand Final will be announced on May 30th on Gotfrag.com ( http://www.gotfrag.com )." So it must be soon... I'll post more as details unfold.

The only bummer is that, "Champions will have to cover their travel expenses for the event but will be accommodated in Paris by ESWC as all international competitors." ... Looks like if we're good enough to make the grade, we'll be quickly seeking sponsors to help us get over there... because heavens knows I'm not made of that kind of cha-ching... and I don't think Tsam314 is either! :)

Good luck all competitors! This is a very exciting time, and no matter the outcome, FNG is just out there to have fun. Go USA!!!

I added a TrackMania Nations page with our Ladder Ranking info (updated every 45 minutes.)

It's not much right now, but as time allows, I'll be adding more about the game there.

We had a ball at our latest Lan Party, held 24 March 2006 at That One Place. 12 people showed up in all, 11 with computers and we played Trackmania Nations, Age of Empires III, Motocross Madness 2, Trackmania Sunrise and more! Check out the recap!

What are you still doing here?! Get over to DaveU's MX vs ATV Unleashed Site and get his 2 tracks!

DaveU is hands-down the FNG Motocross Track Creator of choice (along with Twisted Dirt and Cameron Graphics)... we're so excited for what is to come from these awesome creators!

Thanks for the new tracks DaveU!

After a grueling week of mad hunts in multiple stores after release date, we finally got our grubby hands on 4 copies of MVA. I'll spare the gory details, but will suffice to say that Walmart beat EBGames to getting the game on their shelves.

Actually, I shouldn't say that, cause Dan (tsam314) scored the 4 copies before they hit Walmart shelves... he happened to see them behind the clerk's desk!

This game rocks freaking hard... and it's only $29.99 so get your buns out there and go get your copy of the game. We're hoping we'll send the word out to Rainbow Studios that they need to stick around the PC market and not ditch us again like they did when THQ bought them out and they went Consoles only.

The physics are amazing in this 3rd installment of Motocross goodness on the PC from Rainbow Studios. I have to tweak my camera off to the side of my rider when I'm racing Supercross because it's so much fun to watch him take the whoops sections!

They've also added the ability to pull Backflips and 360°'s - which is a riot in themselves. Unfortunately, stunts isn't quite as fun as MCM2 because the air isn't quite as Sik and the points degrade quickly... the only huge point scores come when you combo Backflips and 360° stunts with the others... If you try to just pull a 3x jump, the points aren't worth much.

So... will MVA replace MCM2 for FNG? Most likely not... we still have an insane amount of fun in MCM2 (especially with Stunts and Tag - Tag incidentally isn't available in MVA) -- so MCM2 will live on, as long as we can keep it running on our systems... :)

But we'll play a crapload of MVA as well. It's incredibly fun, and we eagerly anticipate the next installment, hoping that Rainbow will build it for the PC first so we can have the full-on goodness we expect from the superior PC hardware.

Also... it appears we may have an nVidia/ATi type situation on our hands... Four prominent Rainbow employees (including the ultra-cool Robb Rinard) have left Rainbow to start their own company called 2XL Games and are already at work on their first project.

Sounds like Team FNG is in for double the Xtreme Sports games goodness. We hope both companies keep each other on their toes, and keep feeding the PC Motocross community with killer MX games for years to come!

While checking out the MX vs ATV Unleashed forums, I found a post that talked about this killer new game (that happens to be ABSOLUTELY FREE!) called Trackmania Nations.

Trackmania Nations Video ~1.5MB
This is me breaking one of Nadeo's records on a fun little track.

Needless to say, I immediately downloaded it and was instantly hooked. Dan downloaded it as well that night, and we started testing it out at around 10:30pm.

We played for what felt like 2 hours when I decided to finally look at the clock. We were shocked to see that it was 3:30am! If that doesn't tell you how fun the game is... go download it for yourself and take it for a test drive.

The tracks are intense and very puzzle-esque. The game even includes a Track Editor so you can make your own. The crew got on last Friday and played til the cows came home. We're going to buy the other two versions of the game that are out for sale. It's THAT good!

Another really killer thing Trackmania Nations has going for it, is that when playing online... the positioning sent across the network feels just about real-time, which is rare for racing games.

If you're into fast, tight racing with a roller-coaster feel to it.. this game is for you! You'll love the launch ramps, corkscrews, hairpin turns, vertical horseshoes, multiple paths and other mayhem this game has to offer.

I hope you're downloading while you're reading this... if not, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?