Ranting Wombat: “State of Origin Time…Let the Whining Commence!”

Well it’s State of Origin time again boys and girls, and as usual there is as much controversy as there is excitement over the series.  While the omission of Scott Prince from the Maroons has set tongues a-wagging (for the record, I don’t think Prince should be there despite the fact I quite like him as a player), the real cause of contention has been the freshly announced New South Wales side, particularly in the halves combination of Peter Wallace at halfback and Greg Bird at pivot.

NSW fans appear to be vehement in feeling that Wallace does not deserve the halfback role; my question is who the hell else should have the spot?  Last I checked, Wallace plays for the Brisbane Broncos, who are currently ranked third on the NRL ladder; if the top two teams have Queenslander’s for halfbacks, wouldn’t that make Wallace the best NSW-born half by default?  Hell, even if you ignore that basic piece of logic, he’s still been playing some absolutely phenomenal football for a club that has tried for years to get a permanent halfback.

Kurt Gidley, before his unfortunate injury against Melbourne, was the frontrunner for the position…despite being a fullback.  Gidley is a quality player, and I don’t question his ability in a utility role, but isn’t it a little insulting to the various NSW halfbacks that a fullback is the number one choice?

But then again, maybe there aren’t any other real choices for Origin level; Mitchell Pierce, while coming along nicely, is still a kid and a little too inconsistent; Brett Finch has shown in the past that he has an equal ability to lose as many games as he helps win, and a nasty attitude to boot; Brett Kimmorley has had his shots and generally blown them; Jarrod Mullen has only just come back and is almost as green as Pierce; and Matt Orford has a reputation for crashing and burning in the big games, a rep that the grand final shellacking against Melbourne last year would seem to back up.  With choices thin on the ground, Peter Wallace would seem like the obvious choice then.

A similar situation has arisen around the selection of Greg Bird in the number six, or more specifically the fact that Braith Anasta didn’t make the side in his place.  Stories are spreading about a player-based “hate campaign” against Anasta, and some credence is leant to this story by the simple fact that he has consistently been voted in the annual players’ poll as the most overrated player in the game.

Now while I still disagree with the selection of players in a rep side out of position, I can understand why they chose Greg Bird at 5/8; he’s a big bruiser of a bloke, tough enough defensively to stand up to the firepower of the Maroons, and he has proven himself in a couple of games for Australia too (supposedly the top representative level); Anasta, on the other hand, is much like Kimmorley or Finch - he might occasionally pull out a match-winning performance, but on the whole he’s just a decent club footballer that is too inconsistent for the big time.

Other changes to the team are also positive signs for the Blues.  Some of the dead wood has been dumped from the side (like Kite), and some fresh blood has been brought in; even better, most of these players are actually in form and deserve to be there.  Sure, there are some mystifying selections; why are there so many players from the Dragons in the side (including new addition Hornby), when the Dragons have done nothing but fail repeatedly for years now? How do Willie Mason and Mark Gasnier keep getting rep jumpers regardless of how they perform at club level, or indeed how the clubs themselves are performing?

Even so, I think that this NSW side has the chance to really take it to the Maroons this year, and while I think Queensland will still win the series, there are positive signs for New South Wales fans.  I only hope that the selectors for the Blues will stick to their guns if the first game is a loss, as looking to the future now will ensure that NSW are competitive for a long time to come.

And while I’m a Maroons supporter and hope the Blues get drilled into the ground (even with my main man Bellamy coaching them), I want the games to be entertaining and competitive events.  Hopefully this year will be the start of an emphasis on young blood and skill in State of Origin, rather than old hands and loyalty to players that don’t deserve to be in the squad.

In the meantime, here’s hoping Billy Slater runs a hundred tries over the top of the Gaz!

    

- The Evil Wombat

Call of Juarez (360) - Classic Game Review

In theory, Gaming and the Wild, Wild West (whickywhickywildwild…sorry, Will Smith flashback) go together like professional wrestling and oil; like idiots and the RTA even - just perfect matches for each other.  In practice, however, gaming and cowboys usually compare more to the Xbox 360 and the Red Ring of Death; when they join forces the results are usually unpleasant.

The third-person action game GUN was one example of this trend well and truly being taken behind the bike shed and bucked hard; it was great fun while it lasted, and encompassed a whole bunch of different gameplay styles that all worked well together.

The more recent FPS Call of Juarez, on the other hand, does not buck the trend of poor western/gaming tie-ins.  What we have here instead is a game with a whole bunch of decent ideas, but in which the execution was poor enough that it didn’t stand up well on release, never mind a year later.

The first thing that catches the eye is the graphics, and not in a particularly good way.  While the landscapes look great, as do the towns, horses, etc, the character models are downright frightening in their ugliness, and not just due to being rednecks with poor hygiene; if this were a game about the not-quite-so-inevitable cowboy/zombie hybrid apocalypse, the graphics would be just about perfect, as the characters in this game look like they’ve been in the ground for well over six months before re-donning their chaps and six shooters.

The storyline, on the other hand, is fairly cool. Playing as both an accused murderer and the man who is hunting him, this has all the hallmarks of a great spaghetti western - think a tale of revenge, a whole bunch of harlots, evil gunslingers, and of course quite a bit of lost gold; Call of Juarez has it all in the story department, and in this regard the game is still a winner.

It’s just a shame that the voice acting isn’t quite up to the standard of the script; while the accents and dialect sound semi-realistic, everything is so hammy and clichéd that you’ll shudder every time another good ol’ gunslinger confronts you for a duel; when you hear Brother Ray (one of the main characters) say “Billy!” for the thousandth time you’ll contemplate slicing your wrists with the game disc just to end the agony.

Of course, I could forgive all the crappy voice-acting and undead cowboy action in the world if the gameplay rocked my socks off, but that is just sadly not the case.  Call of Juarez takes some basically sound FPS foundations like dual-wielding, a bullet-time style “Concentration Mode”, stealth, and all those other staples, and tries to “Westernise” them; guns break down after a while, there are duels, horses are added into the mix, and a bunch of other little things have been done to make the game feel authentic.

The problem is that Call of Juarez seems to take most of its FPS inspiration from Doom; I swear that by the time you’ve finished the first four chapters of the game, you will have wiped out more people than actually lived on the American continent at the time; by the end of the game you are assumedly the only living person left on the planet. 

This game was the perfect candidate to have fewer, tougher enemies with brilliant AI to add to the authenticity of the experience; instead you’ll come across a small time gang of robbers and wonder how they managed to attract 4,000 members who enjoy nothing more than standing still waiting to be shot, and it’s all so damn jarring that it kicks you straight out of any immersion and reminds you that you’re just playing a (poorly designed) game.

What’s even worse is the fact that the sheer amount of enemies makes the gun degradation mechanic a massive pain in the arse.  Add in the fact that everyone appears to have bullet-retardant skin, and the whole thing is a recipe for epic frustration and a test of any masochistic tendencies you happen to have. 

Speaking of masochism, prepare to throw your controller through your expensive new television when you come across the stealth sections of Call of Juarez.  Imagine, if you will, being spotted by an enemy from a hundred metres away…through a fence, a crate, and numerous bushes.  Now imagine not having the option fight your way out, but instead having to reload to an earlier, entirely inconvenient save point; seriously, what the hell were they thinking? 

Other aspects of the game are equally as unforgiving; you have 30 seconds to pursue a person you can’t actually see through a cornfield, or you might have to use your whip to swing across a gap while having the crap blown out of you, or you might need to kill 800 guys with your bare hands while extinguishing a fire and reciting Norwegian poetry, or other scenarios that should never have made it through Quality Assurance.

In all, Call of Juarez is just a bad game.  I really hesitate to say that, as I think that most games have some sort of merit to justify playing them.  Call of Juarez has some shining moments where things click, but most of these are overshadowed by so many poor design choices that I’m forced to just shake my head in disgust and not bother playing the game. 

It’s obvious that the designers really tried to make something unique and special with Call of Juarez, and they should be commended for that.

It’s just a shame that they failed utterly.

   

How I would have rated it on release: 2/10  (Great idea executed terribly)

How I would rate it now: 2/10 (Still a great idea, still El Terrible)

      

- Tim Sweeney