football

Wow!

Just wow.

I received my Joytech VGA Cable for my 360 yesterday and after suffering the planned outage of XBOX Live and the intense double episode start of the new series of LOST, I was ready to play.

Now, my AOC branded LCD monitor is not a recent piece of hardware.  In fact i’m sure that I have seen it pictured on the bayeux tapestry, just next to the knight listening to that £250 Rio MP3 player with 64mb of memory I used to own.

I was concerned that with a low response time, my attempts at FIFA RTWC would just turn to a mushy blur instead of a sharp, Hi Def graphics experience.

I had to cycle via Maplin on the way home from work to obtain a £4.99 VGA Gender Bender as the monitor connection on the Joytech cable is male and my AOC display does not allow me to remove the cable from it at the back.  See, I told you it was old!

I plugged in the VGA cable from the 360, into the gender bender and then into my monitor and booted the 360.  I was pleasantly suprised to see the 360 logo spinning onto my display in lush 640×480.  After getting into the dashboard and setting the display to 1280×1024 I was nearly wetting my pants in anticipation as I loaded a game.  The quality is amazing!  As an old-hat PC gamer, I was half expecting the game to slow down as the 360 tried to pump out the higher res graphics but it was just the same - but better.

After XBox LIVE came back online at midnight I got online using Internet Connection Sharing on my PC and got beaten 2-0 by someone playing as Argentina on FIFA RTWC.  Still, it was nearly half past one in the morning and I was only testing it….

Honest!

Had a great Easter weekend over the last four days.

Friday:
Went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park with the wife and kids. We went with Mr and Mrs Swimpig and their daughter too. A very nice day out all in all and ended off with some late night card playing and Jack Daniels drinking fun. As usual, Mr Swimpig won.

Saturday:
It was the mother-in-laws birthday, so we were over at her house for dinner. The kids got to play easter egg hunting in the garden, so we have again got a cupboard full of chocolate eggs, chocolate bars and assorted chocolate bunny shaped sweets. And all that after we just threw away the eggs that never got eaten from over two years ago!

Sunday:
Had a lazy day around the house and then went for a dog walk with friends through the local fields. Very nice.

Monday:
Went to my first ever football match to watch the MK Dons beat Hartlepool 2-1 at the Milton Keynes National Hockey Stadium. My eldest son took part in a Football In The Community scheme where the MK Dons came to his school to teach them football skills. As part of a fund raising Penalty Shoot-out competition, we got a free pass for one adult and one child. I then bought two more tickets so that the wife and my other son could come too.

It was quite exciting being in the crowd and we only just won after trickling a shot off the post about 4 minutes before the final whistle. As you may know, I am a seasoned FIFA player on my XBox, so it was nice to see the real thing for a change. There was only a few times when I got confused and thought I would watch the replay of the goal again… only to find I was pressing the head of the bloke sitting in front of me instead of the start button…

Hartlepool were certainly the best side and at times The Dons were quite comical, falling over the ball and passing straight to the other team. Some decisions did not go their way though after Hartlepool scored by barging the goalie down after he had grabbed the ball and vollying the shot in.

I did enjoy it though and might go to the next, and last, home game later this month.
Anyone else up for that?

Report: BBC SPORT | Football | League One | MK Dons 2-1 Hartlepool

Tuesday:
Back to work on the push bike. Microsoft Patch issues ahoy! Great…

Technorati Tags: mk dons, easter, football, hartlepool, walk, eggs, chocolate, jack daniels, cards, dog

Yet again the MK Dons have been beaten. And its all my fault.

But why? When I put FIFA 2006 into my XBox for the first time and selected my local team as my favorite, it offered me the chance to play against the World Classic VII. They totally whipped my ass! Damn you Cantona! At least I got two of them sent off injured.

"Thats it… hobble away old man!… fat has-been!"

I have played the FIFA series on PS2, PC, GBA and Xbox for years and have really enjoyed getting beaten all the time. I am really crap at it - I admit! If and when I get onto XBox live and play someone - they are gonna kill me. Unless it's some spotty schoolkid who's shins I can hack away until I get the game abandoned through too many red cards against me.

The latest version for Xbox, FIFA 2006, is visually amazing, fluid, realistic, fast and fun. So i can get beaten in real graphical class! Definitely a must have game!

On a side note, I have actually bought my first real retail game for my Xbox!

Halo 2 from Play.com for a tenner!. Hard to pass up really. Especially if I get the 360 and can play it online too!

Technorati Tags: xbox, fifa, fifa 2006, football, soccer, xbox live, MK Dons