Japan vs Denmark. The only game I’ve seen so far that genuinely entertained me.
Although that said I did miss the Italy game, which at 3 - 2 sounds entertaining too.

Japan eh… supremely fit and hard working right up until the final whistle, no dishonerable bs, quality free kicks and quite frankly awesome to watch. I hope they carry on for at least another couple of rounds so I get to watch some more action.

As for the Italians… bad luck you dishonest, complacent bunch of girl’s greasy twats.
Highly glad you went out in the first round having won fuck all because that’s all cheating cunts deserve. Just shows how far going down like a bunch of prepubescent girls holding your faces rolling around all over the floor after tripping over a blade of grass gets you. Assholes got everything they deserved.

End.

Ok, so England haven’t been doing well in the world cup. To be honest, couldn’t care less. It was massively over-hyped that we’ll be doing well and like normal, we’ve fallen flat on our faces.

The biggest thing about the world cup that has annoyed me, at first, was the fucking trumpets, however the more games I watched the biggest problem is the sheer amount of dishonesty from the players.

What’s the point of playing a game on a top professional level if all you need to do to win is cheat the best? This leads me on nicely to the officials and the lack of 4th referee. The sheer amount of diving, clutching faces where no faces have been touched, rolling around on the floor only for the players to wave their hands at the ref to attempt to get a player sent off has grown irritating and old very, very quickly.

It’s as if FIFA are happy to promote sheer dishonesty and have systematically hired the shittiest officials with mental difficulties to ref the games.

Take the Brazillian game, they had moments of sheer quality. Small periods of time where they were actually a joy to watch when the lazy bastards actually bothered to put some effort in. Regardless, the 2nd goal that went in against the Ivory Coast should never have happened. In the replay we see the Brazillian guy handball it once, flick it over a couple of defenders and then handball it again against the inside of his arm, before slotting it into the net.

The whole world saw him do on the video reply about 10 times.

The Ivory coast players saw him do it and appealed.

The ref casually jogs along side the Brazilian player with a grin on his face, asks him if he’d hand balled it via a gesture to the top of his arm, ironically exactly in the same place as he actually did hand ball it. To which the Brazillian player lies his as off, no no it hit my chest, the ref grins a little more, just runs on by and the goal stands.

Yeah big fucking joke, why not ask the Ivory Coast just how funny this little incident is. After all it’s only the world cup finals, lets all just cheat and be totally dishonest about it. It’s quite fucking simple really isn’t it? A 4th referee would have seen it happen, the player would have been yellow carded for cheating and the goal disallowed.

A comment from some idiot in the BBC commentary team suggested “there was no way the player could say he hand balled it at that point”. Yeah why not promote a little more dishonesty to the entire nation and all the kids watching. Why not justify the outright cheating by claiming the player couldn’t fucking possibly actually own up and say he hand balled it. The idea of actually admitting what the entire world can see anyway on video replay is obviously an impossible nonsense.

There was another incident when someone called Kaka got sent off towards the end of the match. One could say the Ivory Coast got a little revenge on the Brazilians taking full advantage of the shit officials once again. Kaka already on a yellow card gets run at by an IC player, off the ball. He stands his ground and admittedly sticks a little elbow into the mix to stop the player and they clash. The IC player goes down holding his face after a small elbow dig to the ribs, thrashing around on the floor like an electrocuted salmon. The dishonest cunt.

Then comes the waving of hands to emulate cards from the IC players to attempt to get the guy another yellow and sent off. Guess what, it worked. The ref who saw nothing of the entire incident, his eye-line demonstrated to be positioned completely towards the ball - then proceeds to judge his entire response to the situation on the IC players response and didn’t appear to consult the linesman. Who probably missed it anyway.

Awesome, another result for not having a 4th ref with video evidence. Kaka gets a red card, sent off for an action by the IC player that was obviously designed to do just that. Why run at and eventually straight into another player off the ball in the first place? For a laugh? He now faces at least a match ban that apparently can’t be appealed or overturned - what fucking pathetic and archaic laws, especially as WE CAN ALL FUCKING SEE WHAT HAPPENED ON VIDEO.

I believe the referee is not allowed to view any sort of video replay, what a fucking nonsense. This just strikes me as FIFA absolutely supporting the complete pricks that dishonestly bring this game into disrepute time, after fucking time and the world cup will ultimately be won on who can cheat the best and get away with it.

This behaviour needs to the controlled, curbed and eliminated, FIFA have the power to do this but don’t seem to have either the balls or the desire to do anything about it. Perhaps turning it into a fair, sportsman like game would damage their cash flow as the majority of the complete fucking morons that watch the game might get turned off and actually find something better to do with their lives.

So, please FIFA, you absolutely bunch of greedy, selfish, twats - Stamp out this unsportsmanlike nature of the pussy, dishonest, overpaid, complacent losers you have playing the sport at the “top level” you are ultimately responsible for governing, so people can actually get on and play a fair game without the falling over, cheating, baiting the ref, swearing at the officials and general shit attitude.

Finally managed to pick a copy of this game up on PS3. Unsure what happened with distribution and creation of units but for a major Rockstar release the shops ran dry pretty quickly indeed.

Ok, so this is a game that is basically GTA4 on horses, set in the wild west instead of a busy city… very simply put.

Now my reviews are very much akin to Yahtzee in the way that I won’t sit here and tell you what is good about the game. You can find that out from any deadpan boring paid off reviewer out there on IGN, gamespot or whatever. I bring you what can be improved or what has pissed me off about the game.

The first thing I’ve noticed about the game is it has a very similar, if not the same feel as GTA4 control and movement wise; supposedly because it uses the same physics engine, with the same bugs. Very disappointing to be honest, a very well written and pretty game crippled yet again by dodgy controls, visual bugs and retarded random events that shouldn’t happen.

Noticeable events so far are being stuck in walls and objects, unable to jump over objects such as logs laid alongside a campfire that are about a foot off the ground and the horse rocketing sideways and keeling over dead from falling about 2 feet off a rock. All very strange, all very present in GTA4… anyone who played it for any length of time must have experienced the classic car hitting a curb at 5mph and flipping into the air resulting in a barrel roll style affair.

The controls are also pretty shite to be honest, basic movement of person and horse seems clunky and slow. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve tried to get through a door, ran into the side of it, turned around to try again and ran straight into the other side of the door frame. You get to a point where you’re getting frustrated at the control method because you know exactly what you want the character to do, you just can’t manipulate him into doing it effectively.

The other ever present Rockstar copy-write (c) (r) on how missions play out is the random ending of such missions for seemingly no explainable reason. To name a couple of times:

One mission I was told to follow a dog around a local ranch to scout for criminals and rustlers, keep the place safe. So I got on my horse and followed this fucking dog around for a couple of minutes until at last it’s ears pricked up and off it went barking away. I followed the dog but after getting within about 3 seconds of the vicinity that it had stopped at, the mission ended with red characters displaying “You failed to stop any criminals”.

I didn’t see any criminals the entire time.
To this very confused moment, I have no idea what actually happened.

Another situation had me going into a burning barn to rescue the horses inside. I made it into the barn no problems, climbed down and was told to open the door. I saw a rake across the handles of the barn so I shot the rake and was then told to smack the horses to get them out. I did this successfully for 2 horses but on approaching the 3rd horse the mission ended, the screen faded to black and I was told I’d failed because I “Terrorised the locals”.

Again, utterly no idea what was going on there.
Possibly because I shot the rake off the door rather than removing it, but er… the mission ended about 30 seconds after I’d done this.

On the 2nd attempt the game reloaded and I was placed back inside the barn; I decided to remove the rake without shooting it this time. No problem. I got the 2 horses out, approached the 3rd, a cut scene played and some burning timber fell in front of the door blocking my path. I was told to mount the horse and jump the burning embers to get out of the barn, again no problem! Point in the direction you want, hammer X, press square to jump. If only it were that simple.

I got on the horse and steered it towards the back of the barn for a run up, arduously turned it around aimed at the door and started running. Just as I got there the camera veered around in a weird pan, the horse clipped an object on the floor and as a result shot off 45 degrees towards a wall. If that wasn’t bad enough it then got its head stuck through the barn wall and wouldn’t move. I stood there in the burning barn with no way out and eventually the game faded to black again and told me I’d failed.

Another situation of randomness saw me sat up on a rocky hill after chasing down a city man that was captured by a cannibal. I shot the cannibal, gained “honour” (without a u) and off ran the city guy. I decided I wanted to know where he was off to, so started following him running madly into the distance. I got to a point where I was on said rocky hill and some wild dogs / coyote things came up to the horse and started nipping at it’s ankles. I sat there for a while convinced that a little dog running around the feet of the horse wasn’t going to bother it too much, utilI saw the horse kick at one of them so I decided to shoot one.

Next thing I know, one more coyote has run up to the horse, which until this point has showed utterly NO sign of being unhealthy. It nipped at the horses leg again, at which point the horse decided to instantly die on the spot, flipping sideways and throwing me a few feet away. At which point I realised I was completely stranded out in the middle of nowhere, left scratching my head as to why my horse had just died on the spot, so I directly powered the machine off so this hideous seemingly random fuckup wouldn’t completely ruin my save profile.

One final example, I was steering a wagon away from some people who er… wanted my wagon? Or the guy fiddling with the dead people on the back of it, something about treasure I think, I didn’t really care. I was racing along these tiny fucking pathways only to get pushed off the path by someone on a horse. Ok fine, a single horse pushing an entire moving stagecoach, I can let that off as it’s part of the game. However for some reason the designers had created some sort of bent metal object along side the road that just happened to er… be there. I don’t know why.

Said object was exactly wide enough to enclose and trap the stagecoach within the metal structure and hold it perfectly half way. So my wagon is now lodged head first in some weirdly designed/placed object and there is no way of reversing. So er… the result of this was I sat there on top of the wagon frantically belting the controller to fuck all effect, whilst gradually getting shot to death. Getting off the wagon and attempting to run instantly failed the mission also as certain NPCs apparently are not allowed to die. I can understand being punished for not doing something as skilfully as I might as it makes no sense not to be able to fail a mission; but getting stuck head first in some random object that then pins you and doesn’t allow you to move removes any object of challange from the “GAME” and turns it into a pointless escapade.

You see, I think something as simple as basic directional movement should not be this fucking bugged in a game released in 2010; physics generation on the fly when done well is great, something like halflife/halflife 2 shows a great relationship between the source engine and the phys-x physics add on. I am not sure what Rockstar is using, engine wise, but its blighting all their games with poor controls and ridiculous events that would/should never occur.

You see, I’ve been playing games a fair old while now, 20 something years and I’m fairly adept at them. Pads with analogue sticks… those new fangled things that appeared on the N64 etc, I’ve got to grips with recently and whilst I’m no pro gamer, when I learn the controls to a game I’m confident enough not to get into a fluster when the shit goes down and I need to react to a situation in a skilful manner.

However, all recent Rockstar games with their cack physics engine and shite controls always instill a mild feeling of panic in me when I’m required to act swiftly. Mostly because I know when (not if) the shit starts going down and I need to react, the control method is so bad and unresponsive that I’ll be sat there feeling helpless behind the pad because I know full well when I need to react I’ll be unable to do so in a timely or effective manner. If you don’t perfect the movement and get a bit lucky, first time, chances are you will not be able to recover at all and you’ll fail the mission and have to start all over again.

This is quite frankly, unacceptable. The control mechanism is meant to be such that after sustained use it becomes invisible to the user. I shouldn’t have to worry or think about whether or not I can simply navigate the player character through a situation effectively, if my own skill or intelligence lets me down that is completely fine, but not being able to perform and react in a timely manner is the most frustrating feel when you, just, want, the guy, to turn, around, to shoot, the person… frantically, shooting you, in .. the… back… … but, the… player, spazzes, around… too far… and… oh I’m dead.

Anyway not to go on, this guy makes the point in a more articulate way than me. So watch it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1776-Red-Dead-Redemption

How do companies and businesses get away with charging adult prices for people over some arbitrarily assigned age?

Last time I checked a person was a child until they hit 18, this is the law.
At 18 they are considered an adult, not before.

So why is it companies when selling products, tickets for events, hotel rooms etc, are freely allowed to redefine what is already set by law in order to charge more money?

I’m not aware that a business can change the law off it’s own back and lower the age of buying alcohol or cigs for smoking, just on a whim that they see it as being “fairer to their business”, so why is a 16 year old charged adult prices in hotels, at concerts, on various transport methods etc… without the rights of an adult?

I’m currently listening to a debate on question time about public sector and MP / Prime Minister’s pay.

Apparently it has been revealed recently, that some public servants, civil servants, whatever, are paid more than the Prime Minister. This has caused outrage, but I think, for the wrong reasons.

Retard number one stands up and reasons that the prime minster has ultimate responsibility (which is actually true), but goes on to say, as no one else in the country has as much responsibility he should be be paid the most. No one should be eligible for more pay or is clearly more valuable.

Retard 2 reasons that the prime minster “does the most” in the country, and therefor everyone should be benchmarked against him because they “can’t possibly do as much”.

Ok sure.

Lets think about this for a second, the prime minister is a privileged bloke that ran a party with decent credentials behind him but was ultimately ELECTED IN. He has no previous experience of running an entire country and we’re going out on a limb putting confidence in someone to do a job who has no past experience of doing it.

Sure he’s a confident and experienced politician so that puts him in an ideal position, being leader of the opposition for a few years, but how valuable is he? Has he proved any valuable and decent credentials as a Prime Minster just yet?

Rhetoric.

So yes, ultimately the initial argument 1 of Ms retard was true, he DOES hold the most responsibility. However responsibility is not the ONLY factor that attributes to value.

Argument 2 was a nonsense, “does the most” means literally fuck all at the best of times. Does the most what, whores on a weekend? Hairbrushes up the ass passage the wrong way up, concurrently?

The thing that we need to keep in scope here is there are high skilled and experienced individuals doing jobs that no one else in the country, let alone the world are qualified to do, and have been doing them keeping us safe and running very important institutions and agencies, for fucking years.

That is the be all, and end all of the issue. The Prime Minister is the most media exposed, accountable and potentially “important” person in the country, but he is by no means the most useful, experienced or VALUABLE. There are a lot of highly skilled jobs within the public sector that some people, simply can not, or could not do. They might not be the Prime Minister, but they are ultimately more valuable.

One good point I heard put forward which won’t go down well, but to me makes perfect sense… The Prime Minister’s salary should be doubled. Let’s face it, is 140k a year (approx) actually a decent wage for someone running an entire country? Is it fuck.