Here's my picks:
Group A - France, Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay
Group B - Argentina, Nigeria, Greece, South Korea
Group C - England, USA, Slovenia, Algeria
Group D - Germany, Ghana, Serbia, Australia
Group E - Netherlands, Cameroon, Denmark, Japan
Group F - Italy, Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand
Group G - Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast, North Korea
Group H - Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras
And here's how they finished:
Group A - Uruguay, Mexico, South Africa, France
Group B - Argentina, South Korea, Greece, Nigeria
Group C - USA, England, Slovenia, Algeria
Group D - Germany, Ghana, Australia, Serbia
Group E - Netherlands, Japan, Denmark, Cameroon
Group F - Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand, Italy
Group G - Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast, North Korea
Group H - Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras
Not too bad, except for France and Italy collapsing. There's only been a handful of good games so far, and not many spectacular games. On the down side are the stupid trumpets, half-empty stadiums, lots of ball issues and lack of Martin Tyler commentary.
Here's my new picks for the rest of the games:
Round Of 16 - Uruguay, USA, Netherlands, Brazil, England, Argentina, Japan, Spain
Quarter Finals - Uruguay def USA, Brazil def Netherlands, Argentina def England, Spain def Japan
Semi Finals - Brazil def Uruguay, Spain def Argentina
Final - Brazil def Spain
It's a bit of a joke that Uruguay, South Korea, USA and Ghana have one section of the draw. One of those crummy teams has to make the semi finals, while Brazil and Netherlands meet up in the quarter finals.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
A History Of Violence (With Video Games)
I recently came across this great site called trueachievements which tracks all of your 360 in-game achievements. Let's begin this by saying that the 360 achievements system is great fun, in a pointless-rewards-that-noone-but-you-cares-about kind of way (and therefore similar to fantasy sports, which I also enjoy - I might have just uncovered a bad trend), but fun nonetheless (and much better than the system the Playstation 3 has stolen/come up with, as much as I know about it). Let's also state that it is very crap that you have to pay a monthly subscription to play multiplayer games on the 360, and it's basically a nightmare when you want to cancel said subscription. You can sign up automatically via your XBox, even enter your credit card details, but you want to cancel ? nup, that's far more serious, and you need to go hunting online for the local Australian phone number, call up an actual call center, then sit through about half an hour of questions.
Anyway, the thing that makes achievements fun for me is that you have things to aim for while you play the game, getting 250 headshots (BOOM! HEADSHOT!) while playing Red Dead Redemption for example. It evens gives you reason to replay a game, beating Mass Effect on normal, hard and insanity difficulty levels for example. OK looking back that one maybe wasn't worth it, but would I play the same game three times (although with different characters) otherwise ? not a chance.
I'm not playing to be the grand 360 champion of the world. I don't have the time and of course I wouldn't want to even if I did. I'm also not playing it to 100% complete every game (as far as the achievements go) - right now I think my best is maybe 90% completion of three games, and I've had the 360 for more than three years now. It's just a nice, simple reward for the occasional time I find to spend (some might say waste) on video games. Normally via the 360 interface all you see is your total achievement score update, and the list of achievements you have unlocked, but this website brings it all together the way it should be done. Historical data, crazy stats and graphs, leaderboards (just for fun) and so on.
If I owned the same game on 360 and Playstation 3 (although I don't even own the console, yet) I'd play it on 360 just for this reason, even if the graphics were a little inferior. Here's a fun trip down memory lane I had, showing how much (or little) I've played my 360 over the past three years, and the games I've played over that time.
July 2007 - November 2007
Currently I have an impressive and growing collection of unplayed (or almost unplayed) video games. At a rough guess the list includes:
Anyway, the thing that makes achievements fun for me is that you have things to aim for while you play the game, getting 250 headshots (BOOM! HEADSHOT!) while playing Red Dead Redemption for example. It evens gives you reason to replay a game, beating Mass Effect on normal, hard and insanity difficulty levels for example. OK looking back that one maybe wasn't worth it, but would I play the same game three times (although with different characters) otherwise ? not a chance.
I'm not playing to be the grand 360 champion of the world. I don't have the time and of course I wouldn't want to even if I did. I'm also not playing it to 100% complete every game (as far as the achievements go) - right now I think my best is maybe 90% completion of three games, and I've had the 360 for more than three years now. It's just a nice, simple reward for the occasional time I find to spend (some might say waste) on video games. Normally via the 360 interface all you see is your total achievement score update, and the list of achievements you have unlocked, but this website brings it all together the way it should be done. Historical data, crazy stats and graphs, leaderboards (just for fun) and so on.
If I owned the same game on 360 and Playstation 3 (although I don't even own the console, yet) I'd play it on 360 just for this reason, even if the graphics were a little inferior. Here's a fun trip down memory lane I had, showing how much (or little) I've played my 360 over the past three years, and the games I've played over that time.
July 2007 - November 2007
- Forza Motorsport 2
- Project Gotham Racing 3
- Saints Row (only played briefly)
- Grand Theft Auto IV
- Project Gotham Racing 4 (only played briefly)
- Gears Of War (only played briefly)
- Saints Row
- Saints Row 2
- Burnout Paradise (borrowed)
- The Orange Box (Half-Life 2 only, borrowed)
- Mass Effect (only played briefly)
- Grand Theft Auto IV TLAD (only played briefly)
- Forza Motorsport 3
- Mass Effect
- Bioshock
- Final Fantasy XIII (only played briefly)
- Red Dead Redemption
Currently I have an impressive and growing collection of unplayed (or almost unplayed) video games. At a rough guess the list includes:
- Bioshock
- Bioshock 2
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Gears Of War 2
- Grand Theft Auto IV TBOGT
- Grand Theft Auto IV TLAD
- Mass Effect 2
- Rockstar Table Tennis
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Magic Matt's Match-Day Machination
Quality group game predictions and expert insight. Teams listed in the order I expect them to finish the group.
Group A - France, Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay
France are the certain favourite, despite barely qualifying for the finals (they probably need to go back and take a second look at all of the titles Thierry Henry has won, to make sure there was no other evidence of cheating). They've still got quality players that play in the top leagues, although I don't understand why Anelka is their starting striker.
The Mexicans should be good enough to get past the home-team advantage of the Bafana Bafana's and Uruguay lost to Australia once, so they've got no chance.
Group B - Argentina, Nigeria, Greece, South Korea
No doubt Argentina wins this group - Messi, Higuain, Tevez & Milito, how can they go wrong ? Nigeria have one of the stronger African squads, which should be skilled enough to beat a poor Greek team (how did they ever win the European championships) and South Korea. Based on the Australian and Japanese teams, I'm writing off the rest of Asia and Oceania automatically.
Group C - England, USA, Slovenia, Algeria
England are easily the best team in the group, but I just don't see how they can go on to win the tournament or even go close. Heskey and Crouch as second strikers, a lack of depth in defense - it's a bit of a sad indictment for the country that lays claim to the best league in the world. And that's the problem, too many imports, not enough training and development of young, local players.
USA rely on a few good players, much like Australia, but with pretty weak opponents that shouldn't be a problem. I think most people still haven't worked out which continent Algeria are from. Maybe they meant Albania ?
Group D - Germany, Ghana, Serbia, Australia
Australia - no chance. Now for the rest. The Germans always perform, even when they don't look likely. I just wish they wouldn't claim guys like Klose are superstars every time a world cup comes around. Yeah he's scored a few header goals, so what.
I've gone for Ghana slightly ahead of Serbia, they have a good group of Premier League players, only they'd be much better placed if Essien and Muntari were playing.
Group E - Netherlands, Cameroon, Denmark, Japan
I suppose the dutch 19 game streak in qualifying it something to take notice of. For some reason when I see the squad they look to have one of the former fitter and athletic lineups ? Or maybe it's just the orange outfits. Anyway, second place here was one of the toughest calls. I've gone with Cameroon with no real explanation, so yeah.
Group F - Italy, Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand
Italy first, New Zealand last, that's the easy part. Paraguay also seem to perform strongly in the South America qualifiers in recent times, and with Argentina and Brazil around you can't completely look past that.
Group G - Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast, North Korea
I actually know very little about this current generation of Brazilian players, but like Germany you always know they are going to put on a good show. I was undecided between Portugal and Ivory Coast until Drogba went down, not it's a bit of an easier decision. Don't really care what happens with C Ronaldo since he left Man Utd, but my prediction is he under performs once again, and perhaps blames the stupid Jabulani.
Group H - Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras
Here's another of those groups with a clear best and worst team, and then two stuck in the middle. To be honest I have no faith whatsoever in Chile, I think they were just ranked higher, or had better gambling odds - one of the two.
So assuming that all goes perfectly, which it won't, this would be the matchups for the next round.
France vs Nigeria
England vs Ghana
Netherlands vs Paraguay
Brazil vs Chile
Argentina vs Mexico
Germany vs USA
Italy vs Cameroon
Spain vs Portugal
And there's only really two games there (Germany vs USA and Spain vs Portugal) that are really fantastic matchups. On with the next round then:
France vs England
Netherlands vs Brazil
Argentina vs Germany
Italy vs Spain
Finally we have a bunch of blockbuster matches, once we get to the quarter finals. After this I see Brazil beating England and Spain beating Germany, then Brazil beating Spain in the final.
Group A - France, Mexico, South Africa, Uruguay
France are the certain favourite, despite barely qualifying for the finals (they probably need to go back and take a second look at all of the titles Thierry Henry has won, to make sure there was no other evidence of cheating). They've still got quality players that play in the top leagues, although I don't understand why Anelka is their starting striker.
The Mexicans should be good enough to get past the home-team advantage of the Bafana Bafana's and Uruguay lost to Australia once, so they've got no chance.
Group B - Argentina, Nigeria, Greece, South Korea
No doubt Argentina wins this group - Messi, Higuain, Tevez & Milito, how can they go wrong ? Nigeria have one of the stronger African squads, which should be skilled enough to beat a poor Greek team (how did they ever win the European championships) and South Korea. Based on the Australian and Japanese teams, I'm writing off the rest of Asia and Oceania automatically.
Group C - England, USA, Slovenia, Algeria
England are easily the best team in the group, but I just don't see how they can go on to win the tournament or even go close. Heskey and Crouch as second strikers, a lack of depth in defense - it's a bit of a sad indictment for the country that lays claim to the best league in the world. And that's the problem, too many imports, not enough training and development of young, local players.
USA rely on a few good players, much like Australia, but with pretty weak opponents that shouldn't be a problem. I think most people still haven't worked out which continent Algeria are from. Maybe they meant Albania ?
Group D - Germany, Ghana, Serbia, Australia
Australia - no chance. Now for the rest. The Germans always perform, even when they don't look likely. I just wish they wouldn't claim guys like Klose are superstars every time a world cup comes around. Yeah he's scored a few header goals, so what.
I've gone for Ghana slightly ahead of Serbia, they have a good group of Premier League players, only they'd be much better placed if Essien and Muntari were playing.
Group E - Netherlands, Cameroon, Denmark, Japan
I suppose the dutch 19 game streak in qualifying it something to take notice of. For some reason when I see the squad they look to have one of the former fitter and athletic lineups ? Or maybe it's just the orange outfits. Anyway, second place here was one of the toughest calls. I've gone with Cameroon with no real explanation, so yeah.
Group F - Italy, Paraguay, Slovakia, New Zealand
Italy first, New Zealand last, that's the easy part. Paraguay also seem to perform strongly in the South America qualifiers in recent times, and with Argentina and Brazil around you can't completely look past that.
Group G - Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast, North Korea
I actually know very little about this current generation of Brazilian players, but like Germany you always know they are going to put on a good show. I was undecided between Portugal and Ivory Coast until Drogba went down, not it's a bit of an easier decision. Don't really care what happens with C Ronaldo since he left Man Utd, but my prediction is he under performs once again, and perhaps blames the stupid Jabulani.
Group H - Spain, Chile, Switzerland, Honduras
Here's another of those groups with a clear best and worst team, and then two stuck in the middle. To be honest I have no faith whatsoever in Chile, I think they were just ranked higher, or had better gambling odds - one of the two.
So assuming that all goes perfectly, which it won't, this would be the matchups for the next round.
France vs Nigeria
England vs Ghana
Netherlands vs Paraguay
Brazil vs Chile
Argentina vs Mexico
Germany vs USA
Italy vs Cameroon
Spain vs Portugal
And there's only really two games there (Germany vs USA and Spain vs Portugal) that are really fantastic matchups. On with the next round then:
France vs England
Netherlands vs Brazil
Argentina vs Germany
Italy vs Spain
Finally we have a bunch of blockbuster matches, once we get to the quarter finals. After this I see Brazil beating England and Spain beating Germany, then Brazil beating Spain in the final.
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