Showing posts with label Porto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Porto. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Champion's League & System Shock 2

It's a funny old game football sometimes, the last two evenings have a gone a long way to prove this. Firstly the fact that UEFA have deemed it necessary to stretch the Champions League out for the next 6 years playing half a match every fortnight or something. Even as a big football fan, it's nice to have a week where I know the football isn't on for a change. The action kicked off on Tuesday afternoon when Everton were forced to play their first-leg Europa League tie at half five in the afternoon. Apparently, Europa League matches aren't allowed to clash with Champions League games for television reasons or something. Madness, through and through. Would have been a great game for them if Distin didn't ruin it all with a red card and penalty in the dying moments to leave Everton heading over to Portugal with a slender one goal advantage. AC Milan showed their age later that evening by forgetting to score the millions of chances Ronaldinho kindly laid on for them. Scholes' impossible to re-create miss hit wonder and the gleaming forehead of Wayne Rooney put Man United in a 3-2 aggregate lead going back to Old Trafford. You'd think that many away goals would be enough. Finally, Fabianski learnt another footballing lesson tonight in that you should not face away from an incoming cross and always kick when passed back to. Arsenal were lifeless and lacklustre and more than deserved their beating. The slender one goal lead for Porto though doesn't rule out a Gunner's return at the Emirates. Also, very briefly, Newcastle 4-1 Coventry. Three points clear. Good to see us scoring again.

As opposed to watching a scary movie or reading Glen Beck's wikipedia I decided to find my unadulterated terror in classic Bioshock fore bearer System Shock 2. For an 11 year old game it doesn't look too bad, it's just beyond that head-ache inducing pixel nightmare you get when you try and play an N64 game. Meddled around for a little while, mainly trying to fix a bug in which your inventory becomes redundant as your character would rather blindly swing his wrench around instead of healing. It's creepy at times, although the voice acting is poor, the random rave music wasn't fun and the character models are terrifying in a mostly non deliberate way. It still shits all over any other game from '99 though (Half-Life before, Deus Ex after; that's all I can think of off the top of my head).

Friday, 15 January 2010

Fahrenheit and A Bit Of Football

I can sympathise with the story in this game given that I barely remember buying it. It was one of those late night eBay bids that seemed like a good idea. I then completely forgot about it until I logged on to my barely used other e-mail address and found out that I'd won the auction and needed to pay for it. Which was nice. So it arrived today (was hoping that Assassin's Creed 2 would be with it, but alas it was not) and I gave it a little whirl. The story I reference at the start is that the game begins with you clearing up a murder you committed. But you don't know why you did it and from there on in the mystery begins. I say from there on in, I'm assuming the mystery begins as I'm not that far in. It's a bizarre little crumpet so far, which is like an adventure game with none of the leaping about and lots of quick time events, conversations and opening cupboards. I'm drawn in though, purely because there's not much else like it. Even now 5 years on from it's release. Apart from the DVD set up of the game which was royally ripped by the massively flawed Alone In The Dark reboot. Anyway, I'll see how I get on with it. Although I think Assassin's Creed 2 will push it on to the back burner.

I don't often chat about football which does belay the love I have for the sport. It certainly is worth mentioning the fantastic performance of Reading against Liverpool on Wednesday night. It was a proper FA Cup match, David v Goliath and Reading were the only ones who really turned up. Rafa is, rightly so, in a fair bit of trouble. Should he go? Yeah of course he should. Looking at the Liverpool team sheet these days is like looking at a team like Porto's. Loads of average European players who barely deserve to be in the team they're playing for let alone an international squad. You just can't see them turning it round either. Worrying to say the least. Finally, here's my accumulator for tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Chelsea
Man Utd
Birmingham
Tottenham
Blackpool
Ipswich
Nottm Forest
Leeds
Bournemouth
Celtic