Dominik Diamonds Are Forever: The Orange Box, Part 2: Half Life 2

It’s easy to see why someone would be scared of the dark. You don’t know what’s in it for one. A lot of movies and video games are set in dark and dreary places, with the goal to give you the willies. However, it takes something special to make you scared in broad daylight and Half Life 2 is a game that does this with relish.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I’d only briefly played the first Half Life and I’d found it too difficult and a little bit too unsettling, so I didn’t get very far in it. However, recently I’d purchased the curiously titled “Orange Box”, which is a disc with 3 games on it. Half Life 2 is one of those games. I started playing it not sure what to expect and within 15 minutes I found myself running across a roof in broad daylight being fired at by a helicopter without so much as a sandwich to defend myself with.

Half Life 2 wastes no time in scaring the fudge out of you, that’s for sure. The game starts up with a haunting and frankly disturbing video where a man encourages you to “wake up and smell the ashes”. You then find yourself walking through a dystopian train station while armoured guards smack you with a baton just to pass the time. After negotiating the train station and the adjourning square outside, I found myself in an apartment block, which was in the midst of a raid from the Gestapo. I then had to hot foot it to the roof while being chased by enough members of the law to inadequately police a 1980’s football match and promptly fell to the pavement below to be met with a sickening symphony of cracking bone and splitting sinews.

“How come every Half Life game seemingly involves me falling to my death in the first 5 minutes” I wondered aloud. After a couple more head first dives to the inviting concrete below, I managed to blunder my way into another building to be rescued by the resistance.

And that’s how Half Life 2 starts. I’ll repeat, that’s how the bloody thing STARTS!!!

Half Life 2 is a first person shooter set in a world where everything has gone to crap. Weird monsters constantly attack you and when the monsters relent for a few moments, super powered super cops attack you instead. In fact, one of my bigger criticisms of the game would be how most of the enemies you fight are so ruddy strong. At first you’re armed with just a crowbar but eventually you can pick up a pistol and a machine gun to help you with your villain killing ways. However, the guns are so ineffectual sometimes you could be confused with mistaking the bullets they contain for being made out of cotton wool.

At one point I was ambushed by an angry cop at a train station. Being no more than 3 foot away from him, and armed with my pistol, I not unwisely pointed the gun right at his head and promptly unleashed some lead on him. 3 bullets later and he was starting to show signs of fatigue, 5 bullets later and he looked a bit peaky, 17 bullets later and he finally fell to floor dead. I exaggerate of course, but seriously, this cop seemed to have a skull made out of Plexiglas.

Another complaint I’d have is that on more than one occasion I found my character stuck on the scenery. At one point I actually had to restart the game as my character got hopelessly stuck on a corner, like a fly would get caught in a spiders web. I tried crouching, jumping and even tried shooting at the wall in futile hope that it would release me from its iron grip, but alas, it would not.

So that’s where you would deduct points from Half Life 2. That being said, those gripes would be minor on my part. The game is an atmospheric masterpiece. I found myself getting wrapped up in the action on more than one occasion. Sometimes a helicopter will come by looking for you. I leapt behind a crate and felt my heart start pounding as I snuck a glance round the side to see if the copter had left.

The game has a really nifty physics engine as well. Sometimes you will be called upon to stack crates on top of a see-saw so that you can access other areas of the game. It works quite well and I had a lot of fun trying to work out what I was supposed to do, without getting too frustrated.

Overall, the moody atmosphere and interesting puzzles make Half Life 2 a great game. Even with the slew of First Person Shooters that have found their way onto consoles, I would still say that Half Life 2 is one of the best you can get.

I’d like to discuss the story a bit but I honestly had no bloody idea what was going on and the game doesn’t really sit down and explain to you. That being said, the gameplay is good enough that I didn’t really care, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

I’ll give it 8 out of 10

Buy it

Coming next, Part 3 of the Orange Box Review, Portal!

Dominik Diamonds are Forever - The Orange Box, Part 1: Introduction

The Orange Box – Part One: Introduction

I’ve never been much of a PC Gamer. I still have tragic flashbacks to my youth when I used to attempt to play Actua Soccer 2 on my Windows 95 Packard Bell, which had a whole 16 MB (Count em!) of memory and a graphics card that would have barely challenged a ZX Spectrum.

I’ve just never really taken the time to properly invest in the sort of PC you actually need to play games with any reasonable joy. I did have “The Movies” on my old Windows XP PC as well as FIFA 07 and they ran reasonably well but they were also hardly games that required a lot of graphical power and processing speed.

As a result of my PC woes, I’ve been pretty much exclusively a console gamer through the years and thus I wasn’t a member of the cherished “PC First Person Shooter Appreciation Club” of the late 90’s and early 00’s. I did play Deus EX but that was on the PS2. My review of that is wildly simple, It's bloody good but I could never be bothered to finish it.

I briefly played the original Half Life on the PS2 and found it to be a strange and unnerving experience. From what I recall, it involved walking around some sort of super-secret science lab and the game wouldn’t let me do anything until I pushed a tray, possibly containing deserts and assorted liqueurs, into some energy thing, which promptly caused everything to hit the bloody fan and the entire world went to crap.

I then spent the better part of 15 minutes walking around with a crowbar, not knowing what the hell to do, before falling down an elevator shaft to my death. This being the days before you could hop on You Tube and watch a video walkthrough, I instead opted to switch the PS2 off and slink away with my tail firmly betwixt my legs.

When Half Life 2 came out on the PC I never played it and I didn’t care to play it when it was released on the X-Box 360 either as a part of the curiously titled “Orange Box”. For those who aren’t aware of said Clementine Holding Device, “The Orange Box” contains 3 games on one disc, these games being “Portal”, “Team Fortress” and “Half Life 2”. TOB was originally released way back in 2007 but I never bothered to check it out.

However, I recently watched the Zero Punctuation review of The Orange Box and it made me want to finally take the plunge and play it. So thus I purchased it and over the next 3 reviews I’ll be reviewing each game on the disc, starting with Half Life 2.

 

I've not got a specific timeline as to when all this will be done and I may do other blog posts in between. All I will say is that you can expect me to finish this review before North New Hampshire Wanderers win the World Soccer Super Bowl Series Challenge Cup (I'm hoping this will manage everyone's expectations to a satisfactory level)

So brace yourselves people, cos Mike’s going to be playing some games, and he’s probably going to do a really bad job at it! Huzzah!

Dominik Diamonds are Forever - FIFA 13

FIFA 13 Review

Before we start here, yes I am aware that this game came out a whole year ago and yes, I know the new FIFA will soon be out making this review pretty much redundant, but may I counter those fine points by saying “NYAH NAH NAH NAH NAAHHHHH!”

For those of you who don’t know, I’m an Everton Fan. Supporting Everton can sometimes be the equivalent of dipping your nether regions in jam and then wandering past a school of wasps at lunchtime. However, in FIFA world, managing Everton can be quite nice, even life affirming. I don’t know why but there’s something viscerally pleasing about buying David Luiz and seeing him run around in Everton’s immediately recognisable Royal Blue.

In fact, one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about FIFA is making esoteric transfers from one club to another. Want to see Gianfranco Zola playing for Stevenage Borough? FIFA will do it. Want to see Eric Cantona play for Ipswich? FIFA will do it. Want to see Neil Shipperly calmly put out of his misery with a long range sniper rifle by Martin O’Neil on a grassy knoll? I’m sure FIFA will think of a way of adding it at some point, probably as DLC.

Ultimately, FIFA hasn’t really changed that much over the years. It’s essentially like having a high res Subutteo set that you can edit and play with to your heart’s content. Granted, there are games that let you edit in more detail than FIFA, but it’s always one of the aspects I’ve most enjoyed. It certainly adds life to the game experience. Most of my FIFA games start off grounded in reality as I try and use the real stats and teams, but by the end pretty much all of the teams are beyond warped. I usually load up Everton at some point in the edit mode. I also loaded up Arsenal with a front 3 of Suarez, Rooney and Walcott, only to crash to a 5-4 defeat to Spurs. It was fun though.

FIFA is quite easy for a non-football fan to pick up. Well, any non-football fan who has played a video game before. The defending system is overly difficult but you can switch to “Legacy Defending” which is a lot easier. You essentially just have to press “A” or “X” (Depending on the console you’re using) and the players will run right at the opposing player with the ball. If you’re rubbish at games, like I am, it becomes pretty easy to get to grip with after a game or two.

The in game difficulty mode is something that really winds me up though. There are 5 levels of difficulty on FIFA. The problem is that levels 2 and 3 are so far apart from each other, they might as well be in different solar systems trying to contact each other with two plastic cups and a piece of string. I went from killing teams 10-0 on level 2 to getting beaten handily 2-0 by the computer on level 3. Now I’m all for a challenge when it comes to gaming but, as Lisa Simpson once so eloquently put, I want a challenge I can actually do!

Smashing teams 7-1 every time is ultimately unsatisfying but after having 3 or 4 games on level 3 I would have rather of gone 7 rounds with Mad Max in the Thunder Dome. And I’m a football fan! I can only imagine what non-fans were thinking at that point. They’d probably already switched the console off and were balls deep into a game of Mario Party or Call of Dead Space Splinter Halo: The Bloodening.

That being said, there’s enough challenge here that gamers of most skill sets will be able to find a difficulty level which isn’t the gaming equivalent of shooting paraplegic fish in a very small barrel, which has to be a positive thing. Challenge does add length to a game. Despite my previous paragraph of whining, I do regularly play at level 3 now and it’s gotten to the point where the matches are quite close. The game can still be infuriatingly cheap at times, but so long as I restrict myself to only a few games per session, I can still enjoy a decent challenge without tearing my curtains off the wall and hiding underneath them softly sobbing to myself.

There’s also online play on FIFA, and I hear it’s quite good. Online play has never really been my thing outside of Crackdown and COD 4, but if it’s your thing then FIFA does it well, apparently. I have no idea what on Earth “Ultimate Team” is but I’ve spoken to people who love it so much they want to cook it dinner, mow its lawn and tickle is nipples, so there’s that to think about as well

At the end of the day, it’s FIFA. Graphically some of the players look like mince but that’s to be expected when a game has such a huge database of players. FIFA 13 is a game that has enough about it that it can appeal to both casual football fans and hardcore footy lovers. It does it with a generally slick presentation and it’s possible for pretty much every gamer to find his or her level while playing it.

You can get it now on the cheap, and the edit mode will let you make the transfers that need to be made so it may be worth a pop. I certainly enjoyed it, despite some of the misery it dropped on me at times. At the end of the day, that’s football.

9 out of 10

Youth Shut Up, No! YOUTH Shut up!

Do we, as football fans, sometimes expect too much from players in the youth system? After being a football supporter for nearly 20 years now, I’ve come to the conclusion that most football supporters fall into three categories.



The first category don’t really don’t care about the youth team. At the end of the day, the youth team is just there to provide the odd decent player. These supporters don’t have an emotional connection with the youth squad or the youth players. If one comes through and he’s amazing, fair enough, but he’d better be amazing, otherwise they’ll be cat calling the manager and demanding he bring on that 30 year old journeyman the club sparked 5 Million on in the January transfer window.



The second category care a lot about the youth team. They honestly believe that the youth team is the breading ground for future club legends. These supporters keep their ear to the ground to hear about the recent prospects who are delivering in the youth system and under 21’s. They will keep up to date with the youth team results and may even attend youth games when given the chance. They are fine with a 30 year old journeyman playing in the squad and delivering, but he better be delivering, otherwise they’ll be cat calling the manager and demanding that he bring on the most recent youth team graduate as he as “Proper boss against Blackburn in the youth cup”



The third category are those supporters who balance in the middle, bouncing between the extremes of categories one and two. For a while I used to think that I nestled in the third category, leaning slightly toward category two, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I may no longer be leaning that way and I may actually be firmly in camp number two.



On countless occasions now I seem to find myself always leaping in to defend any young prospect that has shown even an ounce of potential in the Everton Youth Team. I’ve even gone to watch youth games at Goodison Park this season (something I have never done in previous seasons). I actually know quite a few of the youth team by name and have a reasonable idea of their abilities and not just from playing FIFA either. I’m going to the Pre-Season Friendly against Accrington Stanley on the 17th July, mainly because I’m interested in seeing whether any of the younger players will get a run out. I will actually more excited if Matthew Kennedy plays on the right rather than Kevin Mirallas. I will be happier to see Francisco Junior playing in the Centre of Midfield rather than Leon Osman or Darren Gibson.



It’s got to the point now where I’ll actually be disappointed if some of the younger players don’t get a game than whether I’ll get to see Fellaini, Baines, Howard and co. I’m actually hoping Mason Springthorpe gets a game because I think he’s got real potential and I’d like to see him get a game under his belt.



I’ve also got to the point now where I will shout down at the dug out during games demanding that the manager get Barkley on or get Oviedo on (Not a member of the youth team per say, but still a younger player who’s been hungering for his chance)



Ross Barkley getting in the team has become a personal cause of mine in recent months. If he ever does become a regular first teamer, I think I’ll be more excited about it than he will. Watching Barkley has become nothing short of weird recently. I don’t know the man, have never met him and I haven’t got a clue about what he’s like off the pitch, but when I watch him play I want him to do so well that it’s almost like I’m watching a family member play. It’s beyond weird really.



Recently, Everton sold Jake Bidwell and most of the category one folk were coming out saying that he was never going to make it anyway. There were a few supporters, myself included, who lamented that this was a real shame and noted, correctly I feel, that Bidwell had never really been given a full chance to make it at the club. Out of all the players to move on, it was a potential LB, a position that Everton may be experiencing a massive hole if Man United gets their way in the coming months.



Sometimes I honestly think that Everton’s transfer policy is handled by a Magic 8-Ball. It’s bad enough to let a player go before he’s had a chance to reach his full potential, but it’s even worse when you do it when you know that you’re going to potentially be another player light in that position.



I recall visiting the Everton Forum www.grandoldteam.com and lamenting the loss of Bidwell. Most of the posters didn’t agree. One poster even suggested that some supporters were “wearing masks” over the incident and were only pretending to express displeasure in order to have a sly pop at Roberto Martinez.



I can’t speak for anyone else, but I will say that my comments in that thread and my comments in this post are truthful. I do think Bidwell could have done more at the club and I do think he deserved more of a chance. You can argue that he was 3rd or even 4th in line at the moment at the LB position. Fine then, send him on loan. I doubt getting him off the wage bill will finally allow the club to sign Messi or Ronaldo. I don’t think we could even get Phil Babb using that money.



I actually see Martinez coming in as somewhat of a positive. David Moyes, despite some success stories, wasn’t exactly great at blooding youngsters. Moyes usual policy was to give a younger player some games and then stick him on the bench, never use him, and then get rid of him claiming he had dreaded “attitude problems”. Rumours abound that this is the reason why Barkley had such a stop-start season last year.



I surely wasn’t the only one scratching my head to see Barkley not start the game against Sunderland after he had done so well against Arsenal. That game may have been one of the most frustrating away trips I had last season. Barkley wasn’t even named in the squad to face Liverpool in the run-in. Rumours again were that he was ill, but I’ve never had that confirmed. If he was healthy, then it was a disgrace that he didn’t at least find himself on the bench for that fixture.



Now I’m sure that some of the younger players in the squad have had, at times, attitude problems. But it seemed a bit of a regular occurrence to me. Even if all the players who were sent on their way due to having bad attitudes did in fact have bad attitudes, after a certain point shouldn’t the club themselves perhaps be held accountable and not just the individual players. If I run a club and countless players start acting up in the youth team, my first thought would be “bloody hell, what is up with the youth team?”. It wouldn’t be “Let’s just sack off the bad apples and carry on business as usual”



I’m hopeful that Martinez will give some of the younger players a chance but the fact he would rather spend money on bring in Alcaraz rather than promoting Shane Duffy leads me to believe that it might just be a case of “more of the same” at Everton football club.



A personal plea to all of those in category three, step on over to category two. If there’s enough of us, maybe one day players like Francisco Junior, Duffy, Barkley, Bidwell and Garbutt make get a fair shake.



One can only dream.

Mike Watches a Movie - Man of Steel

From what I hear, Man of Steel is receiving a bit of a panning from critics. After viewing the movie last weekend, I think I’m ready to give my take on the movie.




Overall, I was entertained by the movie. I certainly enjoyed it more than “Superman Returns” from 7 years ago. It had a much bigger feel to it than that particular movie. I must say though that after leaving the movie theatre my first impulse was to go home and watch the original Richard Donner “Superman” again.



I liked Henry Cavill in the role of Superman. I found him likeable and I was rooting for him throughout the movie. With a beard he kind of looked like a muscled up Andy Murray actually. That being said, I don’t think he bettered or even matched the performance of Christopher Reeve from the original movie. That is more a comment on the strength of Reeve’s performance as opposed to a comment on the weakness of Cavill. He was a perfectly fine Superman and I think that he has potential to grow into the role in future movies should he be given the opportunity.



Hans Zimmer’s musical score, though not bad per say, doesn’t do much for the movie and is barely even close to the excellence of John William’s score. The lack of the classic Superman theme really hurts the movie. There are numerous scenes where a bit of the William’s theme or even a re-mix of it would have been greatly appreciated. The movie just lacks certain panache without it. I can certainly understand the reasons why they wouldn’t want to include it, but I still think the movie is a lesser film for not having it.



I’ve seen some people complain that the flashbacks aren’t in order ala Batman. I’ll say this right away, I hate origin stories. A character like Superman really doesn’t need an origin story to begin with. It certainly didn’t require a whole film dedicated to it like Iron Man did. I actually preferred the flashbacks being placed throughout the film as opposed to doing the big origin build up. They get into the meat and potatoes of the story pretty quickly and I appreciated that.



I actually kind of liked that the flash backs weren’t in chronological order. To me, that was an accurate representation of how the human mind works. When you think about things that have happened in the past, do you do it in order? Of course not. Your mind swoops and shuffles between memories and whatever is the most relevant one at the time usually comes to mind. I liked that this was reflected in the movie. Whether the writer intended that as such I’m not sure but I think it still stands as a relevant point.



The fight scenes have gotten some stick as well but I found them to be visually and mentally stimulating. It can’t be easy trying to recreate some of the bizarre fight situations that a character like Superman would find himself in and I thought the movie did an admirable job in that regard. I watched the movie in 2D so it may have been easier on my eyes than those who watched in 3D. I’ve actually read in some reviews that people got motion sickness watching it but I think that would have to be in jest.



I’m not going to go into the plot too much, just in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen the movie. I know other reviewers had issues with the story and the scripting. Most of them are fair criticisms in my opinion. The characters on the whole are overly simplified and spend most of the story going on big speeches in lieu of actually developing any character. Kevin Costner as Jonathon Kent spends every scene he’s in going on some speech or another at every free moment. I can only imagine there were scenes of the Kent family enjoying a breakfast meal at their local Harvester that had to be cut due to time constraints as the movie just couldn’t contain another 5 minute Costner speech about responsibility and humanity.



The lack of character depth is probably the biggest problem with the movie actually. A Superman movie thrives or dies on the supporting cast. Superman himself is so infallible and so good that it’s hard to find him fully interesting for a 2 hour movie. It’s by surrounding him with interesting characters like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor that drama can be derived. Superman is practically invincible so it’s hard to feel that he is ever in any personal peril.



However, Lois is human. She can be hurt and she can be killed hence this is where the drama from a Superman movie is usually pulled from. If the supporting cast isn’t up to it then the film lacks a fair amount of drama. They try but I never really felt myself caring about what happened to the characters. Most of them are so one dimensional and so blasé about putting themselves in danger that it just totally took me out the movie from a dramatic standpoint.



To be honest, I think pretty much everything, bar maybe the fight scenes, was much better in the original Superman movie from the 70’s. The music was better, the characters were better, the story was better and the comedy was better. That’s not to say that there is no worth to “Man of Steel”.



Like I said earlier, I enjoyed watching it and if it was on TV and I hadn’t seen it in a while, I’d probably be able to sit down and watch it again and derive some entertainment from it. It’s not a good movie though. Apparently Christopher Nolan fans are going on the defensive but I don’t know why. Everyone makes a bad movie now and then. It’s impossible to be a film maker and have a spotless record. This one didn’t hit the mark but I’m sure he’ll do alright in future movies. “The Dark Knight” is still one of the finest films ever made and I loved and still love “Inception”.



I’m actually surprised that two films with such rich and enjoyable characters spawned a movie with such wooden characters as “Man of Steel” but hey I guess Nolan was overdue for a bad film. It’s not an all time stinker and if you go to it with an open mind, I imagine there’ll be things in it that you can enjoy. Just buy yourself some nachos with some of that cheesy flavoured warm plastic that cinema’s sell, sit back, enjoy it as best you can, have a grumble with your mates in the pub/fast food store/wine bar afterwards and then buy Richard Donner’s “Superman” off Amazon when you get home.

Ginger Doesn't Take It Anymore

The Venue: Silas High School Gymnasium

Attendance: 350

The Show: Female Combat Council presents "Chaos Bleeds"

The Match: Ginger Gargano Vs "Darling" Daisy Dempsey for the FCC Unified Championship

 

Ginger hated Daisy. She represented everything she despised about women's wrestling. She was cute, perky and did a "Cow Girl" gimmick. She would come to the ring in chaps with a lasso, which she would rap around a fan at ringside and pull him in for a kiss. The men slobbered over her, like they did for most of the women on the show. The girls for the most part encouraged it. They saw it as a necessary evil, even if it could sometimes be a little degrading. It ensured that the drooling men came back each month, and ensured that the sport would survive that little bit longer.

 

Ginger would have none of it. One time, while she was coming down to the ring, a fan patted her on the back. No sooner had his hand touched her shoulder, Ginger had grabbed the man and pulled him over the apron. She had brutalised him with stomps and punches until security managed to dive him and grab him to safety. Fans didn't touch Ginger after that, and that was the way she liked it.

 

The bell rung and Ginger raced across the ring. Daisy hadn't even had a chance to remove all of her gaudy ring attire. She turned in surprise, only to walk right into a big yakuza kick. Daisy's nose was broken immediately on impact. She scrambled on the mat, trying to grab the rope, the ref, anything. The ref dove in to see if she was okay to continue. Before Daisy could even finish saying "yes", Ginger was back on offense. She elbowed Daisy in the face, hard! Another two well placed elbows cracked against Daisy's face. Daisy slumped in the corner unsure of where she was. Ginger moved away to the opposite corner. The ref took the chance to check if Daisy was okay in the corner. Over the concerned murmur of the crowd, the ref heard a blood curdling yell of "REF! MOVE!!"

 

The ref turned around to see the terrifying site of Ginger charging into the corner. The ref was just able to dodge in time. Daisy isn't so lucky. Ginger mauled Daisy with a brutal knee. She then dragged Daisy into the middle of the ring and pulled her up by her hair. Daisy doubled over and tried to grab at Ginger's hands but she found it impossible to break Ginger's iron like grip. Ginger looked out at the crowd and sneered. The man on the front row stared up at the ring, Daisy's lip stick still visible on his cheek, a look of concern on his face.

 

Ginger reared back and delivered a nasty "Kawada Kick" right into Daisy's forehead. Daisy slumped a little but fought to stay on her feet. This was unwise. Ginger reared back and kicked her again and again, and again and again! The man on the front row shielded his eyes, unable to witness the carnage. After at least six brutal kicks, Ginger pulled Daisy's head between her legs, pointed high to the ceiling, and then lifted her high up in a Crucifix Power Bomb. With Daisy as high up as possible, Ginger drove her down into a Sit Out Power Bomb. The referee counted Daisy's shoulders down for three. It was an act of mercy. Ginger snatched her Championship Belt from the ring announcer and didn’t even bother to wait for her to finish the announcement.

 

"Ladies and Gentleman, your winner and STILL FCC Unified Champion...Ginger Gargano!"

Another contest finished. As vicious as it was brief!

 

Medics attend to Daisy in the ring as Ginger walks through the curtain. She finds the promoter waiting for her and he is spitting feathers.

 

"Ginger! What the Hell? It's bad enough that you haven't had a title defence over 5 minutes since you won that Belt, but now you go and do THAT to Daisy? Dammit, she's one of my top draws! How the hell is she going to draw money now you've smashed her damn face in?"

 

Ginger smirks

 

"Come on Tank, what do you expect? I'm a high calibre professional athlete and you put me in there with 'Cow Girl Barbie'? You're lucky it went as long as it did. You put me in there with someone who can actually hang with me next time and maybe the fight will last longer than 5 minutes"

 

Tank holds his hands over his face and groans

 

"Ginger, I'm not even sure there will be a next time. Do you think anyone in that locker room wants to face you? You take things too far!"

 

Ginger holds up her FCC Unified Championship Belt

 

"Listen, if they want this belt, they're gonna have no choice. If they're not tough enough to hang with me, then they shouldn't even be in this business. I mean, shit Tank, what the hell sort of smut show are you running here? You've got Daisy running around wearing next to nothing, you've got a tag team who are supposed to be 'Cheerleaders' and you've got someone pretending to be Cleopatra!"

 

"Ginger! You listen and you listen good because I am sick, FUCKING SICK, of having this conversation with you every time I run a show. You see that crowd out there tonight? This venue holds 750 people. We used to turn people away when we ran shows here. We used to have to set up bleachers so that we could fit everyone in. Business has been in the toilet for months now. 7-8 months ago, we had 75 people in that building. 75! Ever since we started having the new gimmicks, business has been slowly picking up. Fans like that stuff. They find it entertaining"

 

"They like it because they're goddam perverts!"

 

"No! They like it because it gives the show some flavour, something different. You going out there and murdering my girls is bad for business"

 

"I'm the best wrestler you've ever booked Tank!"

 

"Yes you are, and it hasn't done shit for business! People don't like you Ginger. They're scared of you. Dammit some fan a few months ago patted you on the back and you almost put him in hospital"

 

"He was trying to cop a feel!"

 

"He wasn't doing shit!"

 

Ginger fumes and flings the belt at Tank.

 

"You know what Tank? Fuck you! Fuck you and fuck your stupid fucking softcore sex show! You think I need this shit? You think I want to be champion of a hell hole like this? You can take this belt and hand it to one of your skanks in the locker room. You can dress her as a naughty school girl or some other shit! I don't need this place and I don't need you!"

 

Ginger storms past Tank. The locker room has emptied and all of the girls are watching Ginger. One of the sexy Cheerleaders throws Ginger's bag out of the locker room. Ginger picks it up.

 

"What the hell are all you prissy bitches looking at? You want some of me? I'll fucking tar you all right now!"

 

The girls all look at each other and file back into the locker room. Ginger spits on the floor and then walks out into the cold New York air.

Football Reheated - The 1958 FA Cup Final (Bolton vs Man United)

Football Reheated – 1958 FA Cup Final

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_FA_Cup_Final

I’m going to start this match review by talking about two superior matches. Why am I doing this? I don’t know. No idea why. No idea why I didn’t just review one of the other two. I’m weird like that to be fair.

Both Bolton Wanderers and Manchester United were no strangers to Wembley Stadium during the 50’s. Both had already lost a Cup Final in the decade up to that point, so the 1958 Final was set up to be redemption for one, while being the ultimate kick in the knackers for the other.

Bolton’s loss had been in the epic “Matthews Final” of 1953. A truly sensational 90 minutes of back and forth attacking football that had ended 4-3 in Blackpool’s favour. It was the sort of wild and exciting Cup Final that you don’t get any more. I don’t know what it is about the New Wembley but it’s essentially become the stadium where exciting football goes to die. I can’t think of one FA Cup Final since 2007 that has come even remotely close to being as exciting as the 1953 Final. So yeah, Bolton had lost, after being in the lead no less. This was a chance for the team, the City and club legend Nat Lofthouse to finally wipe those painful memories away.

Manchester United had been at Wembley the previous year and had lost, in controversial fashion, to Aston Villa. United keeper Ray Wood had been unfairly injured by the Villains, leaving United without a first choice goalkeeper for large sections of the match. United ended up going down 2-1, a result which left a very sour taste in the mouth for them and their fans. Things were sadly due to get much worse for United and the beloved “Busby Babes”. 

The Munich Air Disaster would see the tragic death of over half the 1957 Cup Final squad. As the football world mourned, something quite exceptional happened. A depleted United squad somehow managed to make their way to the 1958 Cup Final. Here was a plot from a movie actually happening in real life in front of the worlds eyes. Outside the City of Bolton, Manchester United were going to be the neutrals favourites in this Cup Final. To be fair, how could they not? This was a real life fairy-tale that just needed the Hollywood Ending to make it complete.

Football though, more often than not, likes to go “off-script”. This was one of those occasions.

The version of the match I watched was The Official Release from ILC Media. It has Kenneth Wolstenholme on commentary and he does a solid and workman like job of it all. The picture quality isn’t that great and there’s very little extras on the DVD, but for a match that was from 1958 the video and sound quality matched my expectations. ILC Media do quite well with these releases most of the time. The only thing I’d say is that sometimes they could show more of the build-up and include some post match interviews. 

I can understand why they didn’t with this final as there likely wasn’t any pre or post match interviews. I was speaking to my uncle, who used to watch the Cup Finals live back in the day, and asked him about what used to happen at half time. This was before the days where you’d cut to a studio and there would be a host and ex-pro’s dissecting the match in great detail (Or lack of detail in some channels cases). Apparently, they’d just show a straight shot of the pitch for 15 minutes until the half started or they would cut to a test card until the second half kicked off. I’m guessing this was a case of the latter as the first half ends and then the DVD cuts right back to the kick off again.

United actually have more of the ball at the immediate start of the match and enjoy a fair bit of possession in the opening few minutes. It doesn’t really go anywhere though. Bolton win a corner in opening 3 minutes, which United make a mockery of clearing. Bolton promptly put it back into the box and it falls at the feet of Nat Lofthouse who slots it away with his usual predatory brilliance, making it 1-0.

From the kick off, United again enjoy a reasonable amount of possession but they struggle to do anything with it. By comparison, Bolton look continuously dangerous every time the ball is with them. It’s a very direct approach but by no means is it an unskilled one. Dennis Violet spends the early part of the first half being United’s main go-to player. Charlton is quiet for most of the half and you can see that the plane crash is effecting his overall performance. His passing fails to retain its speed and accuracy that you associate with him. He’s even given a reasonable amount of space by the Bolton defence but he doesn’t really do anything with it.
Bolton are unforgiving and just plain ruthless. Any time a United player gets the ball he’s either charged down and disposed of or he’s reduced to having to hit it long, whereby the receiving player promptly loses it to the coldly efficient Bolton defence. Stand out players in the first half for Bolton are number 7 Brian Birch and Number 3 Tommy Banks. United keeper Harry Gregg is called upon to make a number of saves in the first 20 minutes as his defence continuously keep dropping him in it.

It takes about 20 minutes for United to finally have any kind of meaningful attack when Violet manages to get hold of the ball in the Bolton box. However, his shot has too much welly on it and it ends up flying over the cross bar for a Bolton goal kick. Violet almost makes up for it 5 minutes later by laying off the ball for a shot from Ernie Taylor. Taylors shot forces the Bolton Keeper Eddie Hopkinson to make his first meaningful save of the contest. The resulting corner leads nowhere but United do manage to win a throw in from it. The throw goes Charlton’s way and he finally makes an impact on the proceedings by delivering a cracking shot from outside the box that forces another save from Hopkinson.

The next 10-15 minutes ends up being a bit of a midfield slog as both teams jockey for position in the middle of the park. Bolton spend most of their time looking for the defence splitting pass necessary to unleash Lofthouse on the hapless United defence. United spend most of it trying to retain possession and play Violet or Charlton in with a long ball. The game never really settles and neither goal keeper is given too brisk of a challenge. There’s a lot of work-rate but there isn’t really an end product for either side. United look more comfortable in attack for the remainder of the half but they always seem to be missing the last piece of the attacking puzzle that they need. Bolton seem content to sit back at points and wait for their chances. At no point do you sense any immediate urgency from the Bolton players to close the United players down. The defence are patient and keep the United attacks at bay until the ref blows for half time

United start the second half reasonably brightly but their game lacks that killer blow or viciousness that you sense it requires for them to draw level. Bolton clearly do not have the same problem and this is proven in the 50th Minute where, after a sustained few minutes of Bolton pressure, Nat Lofthouse bundles both the ball and Harry Gregg into the net for Bolton’s second. The fact that this goal is allowed to stand is nothing short of farcical. Dennis Stevens scuffs a shot and Gregg manages to get a hand to it. The ball hangs in the air and Gregg catches it quite comfortably. From behind comes Lofthouse at, and this is a conservative guess, about 83 Miles per hour. Lofthouse delivers a pro wrestling like shoulder charge that sends Gregg careening into the back of his own goal, along with the ball still in his hands.

As you would imagine, Gregg is knocked out cold upon impact. It really is disgusting when you watch it back as Gregg is inches away from smashing his head off the goal post. Thanks to some smelling salts and liberal use of the magic sponge, Gregg is eventually able to play on. It should be noted that Lofthouse doesn’t even bother to check on Gregg. In fact the only Bolton player who seemingly gives a crap is Ray Parry, who actually comes over to check on the United keeper.

Despite there being nearly 35 minutes left at this point, the game is all but over. United are thoroughly demoralised by the goal and as the half rolls on, it becomes painfully obvious that they just aren’t capable of breaching the Bolton defence. Colin Webster does manage to get free for a run on goal with around 25 left, but his shot is saved with relative ease by an in form Hopkinson. Webster gets another chance with about 20 minutes left when Violent plays a nice pass to him in the box, but it’s a tight angle to shoot from and Hopkinson has it more than covered.

The match slowly starts to grind down around this point as Bolton sit back again when it becomes obvious that United are not likely to score. The Bolton players are content to hang back and just catch United on the offside trap, rather than go in for the jugular. Things get a bit bad tampered towards the end of the game as Stevens ends up on the ground with the Bolton players accusing Webster as the guilty party. Sadly, this was back before instant replay so we never find out what actually happened. Wolsestenholme doesn’t see it either. This is really the last thing of any real interest during normal time. Bolton get close to a third in stoppage time but Greaves manages a clearance off the line to keep the score respectable. The ref brings proceedings to an end not soon after and Bolton are crowned FA Cup Winners.

So, the question arises, is this match any good? The quality of football on offer is by no means terrible but it really lacks the sort of pulse and excitement that would draw the neutral audience in. I think what this final is missing more than anything else is a United goal. I think what led to Bolton’s undoing back in ’53 was that Blackpool were able to get a goal back. Once that goal went in, it had the two fold effect of firstly putting Bolton a bit on edge but also giving Blackpool the impetuous to keep attacking. You really get the impression here that after about the 70 minute mark, United really don’t believe they’re going to get one back. This seeps through to the United fans and it kind of sucks the air out of the match.

Bolton never really appear to be in much trouble at any point during the Final and mentally seem to be much stronger than their United opponents. A goal maybe at the start of the half or right after Lofthouses second, could have really spiced the remainder of the Final up. As it is, it’s a good game of football that doesn’t really play that much with your emotions. It’s a solid kick about, but is also pretty much by the numbers.

In a lot of ways, this Final reminds me of Everton’s win over Watford in the 1984 FA Cup Final. Both matches are very similar. Everton and Bolton both take a 1-0 win into half time and then essentially kill off the game with another in the second half. Andy Gray even assaults the Watford keeper on the way to the second goal (Although it’s nowhere near as controversial as Lofthouses goal here)
Lofthouse is the MVP from the Bolton end of things. He scores an excellently taken goal in the first half and then commits an atrocity in the second half to put the game beyond doubt. While it is nice to see him shake Gregg’s hand at the end of the match, it would have been comforting to see him give a crap during the match itself. Still, Gregg ends up being fine so I guess it’s not that big of a deal in the long run. It does give the match its main talking point as well.

Gregg would probably be United’s best player. It would be him or Violet really. I would say that Gregg just edges it as he makes a number of good saves and does well to continue the game after being legit knocked silly for a few minutes. He ends up with a lot more work to do than Hopkinson at the other end due to the numerous errors made by his defenders.

Lofthouse passed away during the 2010/2011 season. That season also saw Bolton and Man United get to the FA Cup Semi Finals that year against Stoke and Man City respectively. A lot of people were into the prospect of seeing the clubs battle in the Final again. It would have been a fitting piece of symmetry had Bolton Vs United been the Final, with Bolton perhaps pulling off the upset with Kevin Davies, almost the modern equivalent of Lofthouse, getting the winner. Once again though, football refused to read the script and we ended up getting a dour Man City Vs Stoke Final. What can you do eh?

Overall I would only recommend this Final if, like me, you already own ’53 and ’57 and want to see the eventual conclusion to the story. It’s by no means a bad game of football, and has been better than every Wembley Final since 2007, but it doesn’t have the excitement that would appeal to a neutral fan. If United had been closer to winning, or had even managed to actually pull off the upset, I reckon this Final could have been one of the all time greats. As it is, it’s merely a composed and disciplined Bolton performance from back when they were a real force in the game.

Highlights below.

 

Below is the link for the Match on Amazon (I do like how an angry Man United fan has given the match a * rating )

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Final-Bolton...fa+cup+fina%3B