Jay Lucky

HOLY CRAP. I wake up this morning and read my daily morning dose of Joystiq only to find that apparently the biggest gaming expo in the world has been canceled. Crazy. Where the fuck am I going to get all my hype and shitty game previews now? I guess there’s always the Game Developers Conference, but that really pales in comparision to the huge over the top displays and booth babes that E3 has… and to think, I never got a chance to go =(

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out… I’ll be curious what sort of offshoot conf’s pop up to take the place of E3 if it does end. I mean, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo need somewhere to spout off their bullshit, right?

So, I’m what you might call an “Old Skool Gamer”, or, in other words, probably like most people in there early 30’s that grew up on Atari/Nintendo. I love me some platforming! Cloning Clyde, as it turns out, has this in abundance, giving you 40 levels total of pure platforming bliss. It’s actually really fun, blending some pretty standard side scrolling platforming with inovative ideas, such as the whole cloning and DNA alteration thing. I honestly didn’t think it would be as fun as it turned out to be, but I must say, I’d reccomend this to anyone that enjoyed Super Mario when they were younger ( or hell, even now! ).

The price is a bit steep, 800 points ( which is $10 USD ) and it was somewhat short, but I definately would like to see more original games like this come out on XBLA. Please, keep this kind of shit coming. Galaga came out today for 400 points and from what I read, it’s just not even really worth it.

Ok, so I’m a little tardy here with the end of the World Cup, but I’ve been pretty busy the last week and a half. Anyway… what the fuck? The final was going so well up until Zidane turned around and head butted Materrazi for apparently insulting his mother and sister, however it was also said that he called Zidane a “dirty terrorist”, which Materazzi denied... I’m not sure what to believe, but it must have been pretty fucking brutal for a man of ZiZou’s character to turn around and take Materazzi out. I’d rather believe the “dirty terrorist” insult than anything else.

Either way, what the fuck was Zidane thinking with this manoeuver? There wasn’t much time left in the final overtime, he couldn’t suck it up and deal with it? Shame shame.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Zidane, he played like a superstar the entire Cup, yet he will forever be known for this, which sucks. I think he should have kept the golden ball, but FIFA is in the rights for stripping him of it. Still, what a way to end your career… le sigh. I guess FIFA decided to fine and ban both Zidane and Materazzi, which I think is fair, but still… it never should have happened. Irregardless, the game itself was great to watch, although dissapointing for me since I wanted France to win it. I can’t believe it came down to PK’s… I really thought there would be another goal, maybe even 2 before the end. Oh well, congratulations to Italy for a well won World Cup. Even if most of your clubs are involved in match fixing scandals…

The World Cup final is tomorrow, in a little less than 10 hours. I can’t wait! Zidane continues to be on fire, as is Rivery… my pick for the winner is definately going to be France. I hope it’s a great game, either way, but I just think that France has been building up to this. Besides, what a fantastic way for Zidane to leave the game…

For anyone that doesn’t know about the Red Lights of Doom, it’s what happens when your Xbox 360 is completely FUCKED. Basically, it’s how your 360 tells you it’s burning inside because someone ( we won’t name names here, but I’m going to guess that it was an employee at either Flextronics, Wistron, or Celestica in the Pearl River Delta region in Southern China) was fucking sleeping on the job and didn’t put enough thermal paste somewhere, or didn’t fully solder some capicitors into the main board.

All I know is that mine died yesterday. It had been giving me the checkerboard problem for a couple weeks sporadically, which quite a few people have reported, but it was still playable if I rebooted it a few times. Yesterday it started completely locking up, either instantly on boot at the 360 logo, or shortly therafter… it didn’t matter what I was doing. There’s been several reports of this happening lately after the Spring update. I think the correlation between the update and the failures is bullshit, but you never know. At this point, I really wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to fuck something up like that. I checked my secondary code and found out it was 0102, which from what I’ve read is the General Hardware Failure code. Basically, that code means something is wrong but the 360 has no fucking idea what it is. In essence, my 360 was dead and done.

Thankfully I had the extended warranty from EBGames, which I HIGHLY reccomend getting if you’re going to buy a 360. I walked in and handed them my old unit and got a new one, no questions asked. I even got to keep my HDD, so I didn’t lose anything that I’d downloaded. Best 40 bucks I’ve ever spent! The sad part of this is that alot of people don’t have the extended warranty, so that means they’re screwed and have to now pay Microsoft $130 USD to fix it. How fucked is that?

Let’s hope this 2006-05-06 version holds up a little better than that old piece of shit 2005-10-25 version I had.

Wow. Just wow. France beat Brazil in the quarterfinals. How the fuck did they do that? Oh yeah… they’ve got Zidane, Henry, and my new favorite, Rivery. Holy shit is Rivery good with the ball. That guy is seriously amazing to watch, hell, they all are. Zidane pulls a little spin move in midfield like it was nothing. He’s not doing to bad for being 34. What a great game to watch… France deserved that win.

It can’t be easy being Wayne Rooney, especially after he got red carded for stomping on Carvalho’s nutts. He probably feels like shit for getting ejected, but to his credit, the fight for the ball went on much longer than it should have. Still, it’s gotta hurt that in all respects, that probably cost England the game and their chance at the final. I think he’s a brilliant player, but he’s just got to reel in his aggression a bit. It’s bad enough that FIFA is demanding an explanation for his actions, which could lead to legal problems for him. More shit like this and he’s not going to have much more of a career. I still can’t believe that England lost to Portugal in penalty kicks. If Beckham and Rooney had stayed in, I think it would have ended differently. Apparently Beckham feels like shit too because he’s no longer Englands captain. Oh well… they’re out, and now my favorite to win is France.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s game with Germany vs. Italy. I think it’s going to be a spectacular game, but ultimately, I see Italy winning. We shall see.