JasonM

Wall, Beal, Durant - That's a small-ball trio of doom... And Gortat is a baller too, they just need someone that isn't named Nenê...

Well, if the cap explodes like they say they will, they can always try to go after Gobert whose on his final year.

3 is very 80s, and I like the washed out look, makes it stand out more. I'd also take stage 6.

That final picture is just too bright

Utah Jazz are also a very young team with some really really good upcoming players. Gordon Hayward is probably the best Small Forward after Bron, KD, Melo, and he gives the latter a run for his money if he progresses once more this year.

Rudy Gobert is an absolute beast in the low post and he almost defended his team into the playoffs last season after the team went on a tear after the Enes Kanter trade promoted Gobert into the starting 5. He's crazy talented on defense and can get some highlight reel stuff on offense.

Derrick Favors, talented and strong bigman with a good postgame too, like Hayward has improved every year in the league.
Then there's Alec Burks who can score, and a few talented kids in Burke, Exum, Trey Lyles, and Hood.
 

It's also interesting to see how Tyreke Evans will progress after he had a resurgence last season. Maybe that rookie season wasn't a fluke after all, and there's a future all-star in there.

How is that a fair trade for the Jazz?

And he got a 30 second penalty for taking out Bottas, no consolation for Williams, but this means Mercedes has officially clinched the Constructors Championship now..

Have been playing this some more, holding off MyLeague/GM before an opening day roster comes out later this month. I'll prolly play with the Jazz again like last year, I just like the team, Hayward is my favourite non-star player in the league right now and he's pretty damn great in the game too. Favors is a beast from midrange to the bucket, Burks can gun it from anywhere too.

Burke/Exum I am ''eh'' about, neither is particularly great in their own right, Burke is limited to mid-range shooting and going inside which limits his use because i'm not really into inside PG's. Exum is just very average all-round and lacks any sort of skill to put him over the hump. Both are talented though, so I'll see what I'll do with them. They'll get plenty of assists anyway because that's how I use my PG's.

Trey Lyles is like Favors light in all the good ways, he's tough and grindy inside and can grab rebounds and even pop a few from mid range if he's open. Booker is a flaky stretch four too, so he can hurt teams.

Ingles and Hood are two nice shooting swingmen who can pinch in with points off the bench...

Oh, and Rudy Gobert is an absolute animal. In every exhibition game i've played, he's been at least 3+ in blocks in all of them whilst going 10+ in rebounds with ease. He's no shooter from anywhere, but he gets plenty of inside buckets from offensive rebounds and pnr's... That dude is just utterly vicious inside this year, he just feels so cheesy to use in normal scenarios because any team with inside guards will get blocked left right and center.

Yup, Jazz are going to be my team this year once more, better than ever should be able to get that 8th seed off the backs of the scoring of Hayward/Burks/Favors, and everything else from the Stifle Tower.

Hopefully he's ok, but I won't find it odd if the medical team pulls him out of the weekend if there's any sort of pain anywhere. They did a comparable thing to Bottas in Australia where he had some lingering back pain, and you really just can't risk it when you're a driver of a 300+ km/h racing machine.

I tried to get through the Ultimate series chronologically (all of them) in the holiday, but man that shit was so grimdark it turned me off completely... It's just so ''3dark5me'' at times it's just plain annoying.

Speaking of 70s, I love the faux-emergency issues that they added in the Deadpool series i'm reading through now. It's hilariously cheesy and ridiculous in the best kind of way. First one had 80s Deadpool with sweatbands and a drunk Tony Stark, and the second one had 70s Deadpool with an afro and a blaxploitation plot.

Yup, they set the date of the reset/reboot/whatever to the first Wednesday of October, and they wanted to wrap up Secret War before it. But in true comic-book fashion deadlines got stretched so now there's a reset whilst the story isn't even over yet.

Is MyGM still broken though? I recall last year that if you got leveled up enough your scrub team would turn into a literal unstoppable team. Like you could sign all the shitty players and they'd improve to superstar levels purely thanks to your epic coaching ability.

So this week the Marvel 'reset' happens, so I am taking this opportunity to go from a casual reader to a not-casual reader, since I can now easily hop onto every issue without feeling like i'm missing part of the story. Naturally there isn't a total retcon, but Marvel is making sure to give new readers the perfect opportunity to get into the Marvel Comics after their MCU stuff exploded in popularity.

Any issues people here are really interested in? I personally am intrigued by the All New (All-New) Hawkeye #1 which will either take place in the future, or they're making Clint an old guy in the actual normal continuity, but the Hawkeye run will now focus more on Kate rather than Clint, which I am intrigued by because I loved the Fraction Hawkeye, and I also enjoyed the short run of the previous All-New Hawkeye that has now been cancelled due to the reset happening.

The New X-Men will have old-man Logan, which is Marvel's way of not ressurecting Wolverine but actually doing it anyways... And the new Avengers stuff will have Deadpool, which is a beautiful trainwreck waiting to happen.

A bit cross-posting, but maybe it will interest a few people who have been wanting to get into (Marvel) comics, but have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of continuity and story there is. Well, if you're looking for a hop-on point, this week is pretty much the best moment you'll ever have.

This week Marvel ''reboots'' all their comic series, which means that a lot of comics start right back at #1, either writing a completely new story, or taking parts of the past and working it into new content. It's not a New52 deal where everything is retconned, so there will still be backstory, but Marvel is determined in making the transition smooth and build a perfect jump on point for new comic readers.

The reason they've done it is because the MCU films and series have been super successful, which means more people than ever are interested in starting or returning to reading Marvel comics. So for the first time since the Ultimate universe was formed in 2001 (which wasn't exactly a reboot but instead a different universe) the entire Marvel continuity will be reset.

For a calendar on what's getting released, the best place is the Marvel site: http://marvel.com/comics/calendar?&offset=0&totalcount=24

Anyways, this was a bit out of context with film/tv, but I feel this will reach the people on this site that are interested in reading comics, but aren't checking the comic book thread...

A bit cross-posting, but maybe it will interest a few people who have been wanting to get into (Marvel) comics, but have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of continuity and story there is. Well, if you're looking for a hop-on point, this week is pretty much the best moment you'll ever have.

This week Marvel ''reboots'' all their comic series, which means that a lot of comics start right back at #1, either writing a completely new story, or taking parts of the past and working it into new content. It's not a New52 deal where everything is retconned, so there will still be backstory, but Marvel is determined in making the transition smooth and build a perfect jump on point for new comic readers.

The reason they've done it is because the MCU films and series have been super successful, which means more people than ever are interested in starting or returning to reading Marvel comics. So for the first time since the Ultimate universe was formed in 2001 (which wasn't exactly a reboot but instead a different universe) the entire Marvel continuity will be reset.

For a calendar on what's getting released, the best place is the Marvel site: http://marvel.com/comics/calendar?&offset=0&totalcount=24

Anyways, this was a bit out of context with film/tv, but I feel this will reach the people on this site that are interested in reading comics, but aren't checking the comic book thread...

Sting MyCareer mode

Only if they have Spike Lee direct it can it be good...

The most hilariously bad thing about it... If you take a white guy as your player, the family will still be black and they'll still act as if he and his sis are twins. So that either means their mom was into some weird stuff, your character has vitiligo, or he's the most clueless adopted kid ever.

I'd rather see them have just two types of career mode, one without the fancy story that ends up being half-assed almost every year, and one with the story that transitions into the former once it wraps up... That way you can have a shot at winning ROTY for a change, and just focus on playing games rather than be stuck with narratives.

I mean I've seen a bunch of vids now on YouTube of the story mode, and the fact you get a big piece of story where they all say that YOU should be the guy that makes the decision, and then the cutscene ends and the decision has been made for you regardless... That's just fucking bullshit. Yeah I get that it's ''part of the story'', but don't have a huge story moment building up to you having final say, and then take it out of the players hand. I won't say what it is, but whoever played it knows.

Fight Night Champion did it best for me personally, and still holds the crown for a sporting title with a story mode. You had the 'Champion Mode' where you play through the story of Andre Bishop with all the cheesy story goodness, you can unlock fighters too and all that... But next to that there's just a straight up career mode, where you can take the fighters you unlocked, the fighters in the game itself, or make your own fighter to play through an actual career without being strung along on a set path. Sure, it's a bit dry and boring, but it's better than what NBA2K does right now, because that's downright infuriating.

And I loved the pitches, they were excellently done and they really felt like you're being sold on going to a University. Especially UCONN's pitch is just great. And the College matches themselves are fun too, it's a whole different ''feel'' throughout. I really want 2K to continue with the Colleges, or perhaps bite the bullet and just invest into making a College Hoops series again because I fucking loved College Hoops 2k8 on my PlayStation.

Make it like the NCAA Football games where you can start a career in the College game, and then import it into the main game, that'd be awesome to be able to build yourself up to the NBA in a fully fledged way rather than mess around with a half-assed story function that's completely on rails.

The shaky screen is because your player is experiencing ''stress'' doing free throws. It's supposed to simulate pressure, but it's ''eh'' and doesn't really affect your timing.

And when you're starting out in the NBA in MyCareer, unless you got a shitload of VC, you'll be really really shit. So you're better off taking a few steps away from the guy you're defending, and either invite him to shoot (so you can contest), or just don't actively try to have him attempt to drive past you (if you're right in his grille, he's going to try to break you down.)

The humour was more part of the first half of the season, Foggy making an arse of himself and trying to get it on with Karen before becoming good friends instead... After the halfway mark it became a lot darker, especially once they killed off the nice Mexican Lady.

Most of the humour came from Foggy really, he's there to be comic relief most of the time. Matt cracked jokes from time to time, but mostly he was just the serious dark-saviour of Hell's Kitchen.

Ah, Baku on June 19, the perfect attempt to fuck over anyone that wants to try their hand at driving in Le Mans 24h during an F1 season!

 

What i heard is that it just reverts to ordinary MyCareer after the rookie season.

Reply to Benkid

Agent 33 is dead, died in the finale last season when Grant accidentally shot her thinking she was May.

Other pilot musings

I do felt that the general conversations felt a bit off, maybe it's just a case of them having to get into the role again after not doing it for a while, because the chemistry is certainly there as shown last season... It also felt a whole less action packed than last season's pilot, which threw a bunch of new names at us and had the whole Lucy Lawless cameo with Hunter's old crew.

Personally Jemma's planet reminds me of Svartalfheim from The Dark World, where Loki 'died' helping out Thor... But that could just be me.

Fitz's plot was fun, and it's nice to see him blossom into a troubled badass in a team that's already filled with badasses. Of course right now he's just there to have his heart, soul, mind crushed in various painful ways to woobie it up to the audience. But man I just like Fitz and his actor, great job from him.

Also a bit underwhelmed by the new (kinda?) bad guys, I already forgot the name of the leader woman and right now I'm mildly interested, perhaps only to see Coulson with his Skywalker hand pimp slapping mooks.

Also, Mack is less dour this season apparently having gotten over his entire mistrusting schtick towards Coulson and his plans, so he's letting out the snarker. Nice to see him have a joke.

Weird not seeing Melinda May pop up, and with her 'vacation' I wonder when she is coming back to the series.

Naturally we'll see more of Lincoln seeing he's main cast and all...

All in all, fun episode, no doubt excited for episode 2 regardless of this episode being a bit average for something to get the ball rolling again.