Wednesday, June 30, 2004  

We're almost at the end of Euro 2004, and it hasn't been a bad tournament. It's nowhere near as good as Euro 2000, but equally nowhere near as bad as World Cup 2002 (Japorea!). What's interesting though is that... everyone sucks. Everyone had problems (except the Czech Republic, but I really don't want to jinx them). So let's look at the quarterfinals and see where they went wrong...

- Firstly, there was England-Portugal. It wasn't a great game, but it was a great game. That probably doesn't make much sense, but what I'm trying to say is that neither team played particularly well and there wasn't much good play, but both teams gave it absolutely their all and slugged it out end-to-end to create an epic encounter. It's like the last couple of rounds in Rocky: Both exhausted, both producing technically the worst boxing of the match, but gripping nonetheless because they were giving all they had to give and you wanted to see who dropped first. Except both teams did everything they could to lose. Portugal have always been sloppy at the back, so you can't say Owen's goal wasn't coming (nor the chances they gave England afterwards!). They're also awful when you pressure them in midfield. England played technically the perfect game by having Owen and Rooney (then Vassell) snapping away at the dodgy Portuguese defence, the midfield snapping away and disrupting the play of Portugal's flair players, and totally smothering their already isolated lone striker.

Except they only played like that for the first half, abandoning the plan at half time and deciding to sit in the box and invite Portugal on to them, clutching a one goal lead. At this point, Sven should have been shot. It's not like they didn't see Italy make the same mistake a week earlier against Sweden. Or that they made the same one against the French. So were you surprised when Portugal equalised? Was ANYONE surprised?

The only real surprise was that it was Helder Postiga who scored. It looked for a while like Scolari had beaten Sven in the "Self-Destructing Substitutions" game when he topped Sven's Phil-Neville-for-Scholes and Hargreaves-for-Gerrard with the jaw-dropping Postiga-for-Figo, but incredibly it worked out. (Just how the hell can you get away with that, anyway? Postiga for Figo? HELDER POSTIGA for LUIS FIGO?) Not that Sven making stupid substitutions was a surprise, of course... the instant Phil Neville came on, Haneal called and told me it was all over. "Hella self-destruct, man." Seriously.

Of course, it almost didn't happen that way... Rui Costa scoring in extra-time, yeah, that's in the script. But Frank Lampard equalising again? Not only was it not in the script, but given the team England had on the field at the time (with Vassell, both Nevilles and Hargreaves running things) the goal should have been worth two. Which would have helped, because then we wouldn't have to have seen Beckham's penalty. There was some talk in the papers that Beckham wanted to make a statement by taking the first penalty despite missing two beforehand, showing that he was man enough to lead by example and bury his ghosts... and that it was wrong for him to do that and risk missing. You think? Beckham's done this before -- in 2002, he took England's (winning) penalty against Argentina. He was not England's penalty-taker and did not win it, but because he was David Beckham and because he thought he had some divine right to bury his 1998 ghosts, he took it. And the papers applauded him for having the balls to do that... the same papers that say he shouldn't have done it now.

- If there was anything to make the English look a bit better though, it was the French. They were pathetic. And they have been pathetic. They deserved to lose each of their three group games, but escaped with two wins and a draw. But when you're playing like that, and when you're as bad as they've been... you're either going to take it as a sign to buck up and start playing, or your luck will run out. Their luck ran out. They have not been good enough in any way. Barring their goals against the Swiss (the SWISS for crying out loud), they needed set-pieces to grab goals against England and Croatia and only avoided defeat against the Croats with a bad backpass. There was no movement, no interplay, no cohesion. Henry was content to sit and do his thing without playing to Zidane's strengths, Trezeguet was starved of any service whatsoever, and Pires was anonymous. And their defending was appalling. Desailly has had an awful season (remember, Ron Atkinson was booted out of ITV for shredding an abysmal Desailly performance), Silvestre is incredibly error-prone and gave away a penalty or goal in each match, Gallas was played totally out of position and looked it, and Thuram not only came off the worst season of his career but also played in the wrong position.

Contrast this to the superbly organised Greeks, who unlike England are perfectly capable of playing a flawless smash-and-grab (ie: defend like hell, break away to score, defend like hell). I felt before that Greece would beat France. I said the French were due a loss. And they were. And it was a beautiful sight... though the infighting that's following -- with Henry, Vieira and Pires plotting to kick Zidane out of the squad and build the team around Henry -- is even better because it's SO RETARDED. Thierry Henry is a very good player, but Zinedine Zidane is the best player in the world -- and the best Frenchman at the tournament. So yes, let's kick him out! Is anyone against this? Is anyone against the French losing more? It's amazing how happy people were when France went out. Everyone hates the French. Even the FRENCH hate the French. Magical stuff.

- Holland and Sweden really wanted to prove me right. I honestly couldn't see a winner here. Both teams are perfectly matched in every way. I kept thinking, and thinking, and thinking about who'd win... and couldn't see either one. And it looks like they didn't really know either, judging by the way both teams tried not to win... or do anything, really. There have been a couple of boring games in the tournament, but considering the attacking options on show and the stage that game was unforgivable. Didn't anyone WANT to win? It's typical of the Dutch and the Swedes though... Sweden are conflicted, with two coaches (this has never worked anywhere else, go figure), strong organisation in defence and midfield, and a weird improvisational "we'll do what I want when I want when I feel like it!" structureless attack led by Ibrahimovic. And the Dutch are so fractured and talented that they can lose 1-0 and win 6-0 in successive games and you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

- And finally, the Czech Republic are looking so scarily strong that I'm honestly scared that somewhere there's a catch I'm missing. Aside from being the best team to watch and having my support because of Liverpool players Baros and Smicer, they're also the only team to win all their games and have no discernable weaknesses. This is something they've been threatening since they blitzed qualifiers for Euro 2000, but then they inexplicably lost twice to Holland and France, then failed to qualify for the World Cup... so something has to give here. I didn't think it would against the Danes though. Denmark were a quality side, no doubt about it, but the Czechs are just so much better that I fully expect them to reach the final and win it, barring a remarkable act of revenge by the Dutch or an inspired Portuguese performance. They're just too good. This was highlighted in a game of Winning Eleven, when I picked up the ball with Poborsky, then laid it off to Rosicky running up besides me, and then passed it to Nedved to thrash home. They have so many quality players and all of them are playing well right now... so... something has to give. How, where and when I have no idea, but I just want them to win it all so I can claim my prize in the office pool...

Posted at 2:55 AM

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Tuesday, June 29, 2004  

As many of you know, I contribute from time to time to 1UP, run by my good buddy Sam Kennedy. 1UP is about to relaunch with a ton of new features, among them... a blog. I'm not going to ditch this one naturally, but I figured it'd be cool to 'cross-post' by sticking any game-related posts I write here also up at 1UP. Basically, this is just one big plug for 1UP. Check it out. It's cool. Seriously. My page is at: http://fowler.ogamo.com

I picked up this thing called "HD Loader" for PS2 today. It's basically a program that allows you to rip games to the PS2's internal hard drive, eliminating the need for a disc. Though I can see one very serious "evil" use of the HD Loader (rent, rip, return), there are two "legit" uses for it: saving the PS2's notoriously finickity laser from wearing out and cutting down on load times. And for the most part, it works.

One other cool thing is that you don't have to use the official Sony-branded PS2 hard drive here -- any IDE drive that fits the Sony network adapter will work, though naturally any games that actually use a hard drive like Final Fantasy XI won't recognise it if it isn't the official one. Given that virtually nothing actually supports the damn hard drive, I saved myself a ton of cash by just picking up a 40GB Maxtor drive (less than half the price of the Sony one!).

Once you slot the hard drive into the back, pop the HD Loader disc in and start up the PS2. HD Loader will take a few minutes to format the drive, and then you're ready to go. To rip a game to the drive, hit "Install". It prompts you for a disc, then to name the game, and it rips it. Thus far I've only ripped GTA3, Vice City and WE7I, and a 4GB game takes around 20 minutes or so to copy to the drive. Once it's ripped, boot up the PS2 with the HD Loader disc in, select the game from the menu, and you're off instantly. I haven't extensively tested GTA3 or Vice City with it, but neither exhibits any strangeness on initial viewing, but load times are definitely improved. They're not eliminated, and they're still on the long side, but there's a definite improvement. WE7I runs flawlessly, and the load times there have also been cut down by quite a bit, which is good for addicts like myself!

HD Loader is a bit buggy though. It's frozen on me a few times (at various points, including boot-up and before it starts ripping a game), and since the PS2's reset function is sometimes disabled when the Network Adapter/HDD is in use that means you have to reset by switching it off from the back -- which can be dangerous if it's accessing the hard drive when you yank the power. And considering that I want it to save my PS2's fragile DVD drive, it's rather stupid that it keeps spinning the HD Loader disc while you're playing any ripped game (though this is easily remedied by popping the HD Loader disc out as soon as it presents you with the game select screen).

I'm not entirely sure whether the HD Loader and is worth it just for faster load times and the lack of a disc, and the freezing bug is annoying, but I'm not exactly unhappy with it. Does what it says it does I guess, it's just that what it does isn't all that magical really. Mind you, given how much Winning Eleven I play, a 50% reduction in load time will probably work out into saving me something like an extra day or two over the course of a year... though I'll probably waste that extra time playing Winning Eleven again, so I guess it balances out.

Posted at 5:30 AM

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Thursday, June 17, 2004  

OK, I know I haven't blogged much recently, but I honestly have no time. Euro 2004 has monopolised my life. I get up, go to work, and by the time I come home the first game is starting. Less than an hour after it ends, the second starts. And then once that ends it's already 5am, and I haven't even looked at my email yet... so blogging kinda sorta goes on the backburner.

Thoughts on Euro 2004 so far: Not nearly as good as Euro 2000 (my official Greatest Tournament Ever) but not nearly as bad as World Cup 2002. It was an open tournament before it kicked off and it's still open now. France were lucky to beat England, but should be able to ride the euphoria from there; England ironically are one of a select few teams that really don't need to change anything and are set for a good run; Italy, Holland and Portugal need some serious re-tooling; the Czechs (my pick in the office pool) are looking solid; Greece and Sweden are surprisingly strong; and I was really impressed with Spain and Germany. The Germans in particular are looking really solid, and they have three players that could be the tournament's best player, top scorer and young phenom in Michael Ballack, Kevin Kuranyi and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

And though the football has for the most part been fairly so-so, there have been some awesome games too. Holland - Germany was probably the best one so far, but for sheer drama you just cannot beat England - France. God I hate the French. I'm not even an England fan, but I was really, really, REALLY hoping the English could defeat the French -- and they should have. They played brilliantly for 91 minutes and stupidly for 2. What was really amazing was HOW they did it. England basically sat on the edge of their box and dared the French to attack. On paper it was suicide -- the already error-prone English defence was also down to arguably their sixth-choice centre-back in Ledley King, and the French are the best team in the world at breaking down defences. But it worked. Somehow, giving Zidane all the time in the world just outside the England box while shackling Henry and Trezeguet tightly worked perfectly. But then Beckham missed the penalty, Sven brought on Heskey, Heskey fouled Makalele and Zidane slots away that free-kick. And in all honesty, despite all the England fans bleating that "just a point would have meant the world to us!", I reckon that a point in that situation would have felt as bad as a defeat to them. Of course, I didn't reckon that England would manage to find a defeat in that situation, but when Gerrard played that suicidal backpass they did. And then my friends and I basically sat around looking stunned. We kept asking each other "What the F*** just happened?!". None of it really sank in, not even two hours after the game. And once it did, once you analysed just what happened and why, and once you point the requisite fingers (I count seven villains), you're just angry that England wasted an absolutely GOLDEN chance to show up a France team as being significantly weaker than their reputation and that result suggested. And instead, this win will only make them stronger as they feed off the high of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat... again.

On the bright side, the game featured Fabien Barthez being bonked on the nose by an errant shot. Which was hilarious.

Posted at 4:10 AM

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Wednesday, June 02, 2004  

I haven't blogged in a while, and I have a good reason. Haneal finally bought an Xbox and grabbed an Xbox Live account to go with it, so my life has turned into:

- Wake up, go to work
- Come home, turn on Xbox
- Turn off Xbox, go to sleep

I've spoken about Xbox Live before, but to sum it up, I think it's a great online service that needs great games. Well, not anymore. There are tons of great XBL games, from Midtown Madness 3 to Project Gotham 2 to Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. But the other problem with Xbox Live is also arguably its greatest asset: A unified Friends List. Everyone on XBL has one name that works across all games, and you've got one Friends List (like MSN, AIM, etc) for everything.

Now, online games are all about playing with other people. And the first online game I played in forever, SOCOM on PS2, had a great community of polite, co-operative people to play with (which is good considering how SOCOM is tactics-based). But generally I don't like playing with random folks, and I HATE playing with kids, especially with voice chat (which ALL Xbox games use). So, thanks to the Friends list, I now can and will only play with my friends. Except thanks to my schedule, it's hard to actually find a good time to play with any of them. My friends in the US play early in the morning HK time (I don't mean 4am-ish, I mean 9am-ish) and my friends in Japan play while I'm at work.

Except Mukund and I managed to convince Haneal to buy an Xbox on the strength of online play alone. And for the past four days, as soon as I get home from work we've been playing online games for hours on end. First it was Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, which I've told you about before, and is even better when you have three people instead of two (we usually play two spies on one mercenary, but personally I prefer one spy on two mercs -- so stressful and yet so satisfying). Then we moved on to Project Gotham Racing 2, which helpfully includes the option for two people on one Xbox to both play online (helpful because Mukund forgot to bring his copy). And lately we've been playing Rainbow Six 3.

I like Rainbow Six a lot, but ordering around AI drones in singleplayer has nothing on playing with your friends and coming up with cool moves and strategies on the fly. It's even fun when we get it wrong. One funny moment came when we were trying to clear a series of tunnels in Alcatraz (in a mission totally based on the movie The Rock). Muk was going to clear up an empty parallel tunnel while Haneal and I were clearing a dangerous-looking junction. Here's what followed:

Ravi: Looks big. I see two staircases. Perfect for an ambush.
Haneal: OK, we'll go both ways at once. You go right, I'll go left.
Ravi: Better reload. You ready?
Haneal: Ready. Remember, go right, I've got left.
Ravi: Alright. Get ready. GO GO GO!
[gunfire]
Haneal: LEFT IS CLEAR.
Ravi: RIGHT IS CLEAR. Nobody here. How many did you kill?
[more gunfire]
Haneal: Nobody here either. I didn't fire, was that you?
[even more gunfire]
Ravi: No, I didn't fire either. Um, Muk?
Mukund: I'M GETTING SLAUGHTERED TONS OF GUYS HERE IF YOU TWO ARE FINISHED WITH PLAYING PATTYCAKE I NEED HELP!

There's just so much to like in this game. Even little things, like the way you can lean around corners to shoot or how you can see your teammates' mouths moving when they talk... not to mention that with the headset you can go all CTU and be "ROGER THAT" "TARGET IN POSITION" "TANGO DOWN" and other cool lingo. Which might be sad to you, but is fun for me!

And there are tons of awesome online games coming soon too. The next Rainbow Six is out in August, followed by Burnout 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Halo 2, GoldenEye 2... just so much to play.

Posted at 11:12 PM

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