It's coming up round 12 of the 23 round AFL season and I've been holding off for ages to report back on my start of year predictions. There's still plenty of footy to be played and a lot of question marks over the performance of a larger than usual number of teams. So here goes the mid season report....
Prediction: Adelaide, Hawthorn or Sydney as prime Premiership contenders
So far I've been spot on with this one. Both Hawks and Swans had unimpressive but effective starts and now look extremely dominant coming into the second half. As much as I hate Sydney they look the most potent on field but either team could win it on the day. They've already played each other in Rnd 7 and Hawks had their number that day. Adelaide also had a bumpy start but seemed to get their shit together around Rnd 6 (loss to Hawks but they played well and went on to string more wins together after that). As of the last couple of weeks their form has just gone out the window. They sit 10th on the ladder and were completely smashed off the park by Sydney last round. Their big guns need to step up.
Prediction: GWS and GCS improve with final prospects by 2014
Again, spot on. GWS are still winless but are winning more quarters of footy as the year goes on. They also have a higher percentage than Melbourne despite being last on the ladder on points. GCS sit at 12th on the ladder with a win/loss record of 5 and 6. Both teams have actually put in a scare into a couple of the top teams, matching them and even leading for parts of games but falling off towards the end. With more conditioning that will be a thing off the past. Looking at GCS run home, the majority of games are against lower teams. Could they even nip at the bottom of the 8 for finals this year? We all like an underdog so I want to see it happen. Either way, next year will be very very interesting.
Fence sitting: Carlton may or may not improve depending on if the players can get motivated.
Numbers-wise they're doing slightly better than last year but there's still a lot of critics that say the comparison to the coach-firing performances of last year are still too close. I think they look better on field and their potential is looking up but hey still aren't the dominating force they need to be. They're sitting at 7 on the ladder but could easily be bumped out. I'm still on the fence as to whether they suck or not :p
Prediction: Brisbane, Essendon or North Melbourne will improve and play finals
I predicted 1 or maybe 2 of these teams would play finals. Essendon are sitting up 4th on the ladder despite the still ongoing drug investigation in which neither the players nor the public are any wiser on the fate of the club or its personnel. It was said in the media that the scandal seems to have united the players and it would seem the on field performances has confirmed this. They'll play finals. Brisbane have completely bombed with only 3 wins for the season and with coaches contract set to end at the end of the season there is obviously a lot of speculation over whether they'll renew. Might be time for a rebuild of both team and staff. North Melbourne would have to be the most frustrating team to be a fan of right now. They've won 4 matches and of the 7 they've lost, 3 of them have been by less than 4 points. The team often has a lead going into the final quarter only to lose the match, sometimes in rather dramatic fashion. It's like they have the yips. They definitely have skill as they've taken it to some of the top teams but they have something going on, either team culture or mental preparedness, that means they just can't get over the line.
Prediction: Fremantle, Western Bulldogs and Richmond are exciting and 2 of these teams should play finals
Kinda tanked this prediction. Fremantle are sitting 5th and playing solid footy with a very high work rate. They deserve the position and should make the finals very interesting. Richmond and Bulldogs have both played exciting footy but Bulldogs have very little in the way of consistency and are sitting on only 3 wins at 14th on the ladder. Richmond are also inconsistent but have wrestled up 6 wins putting them just outside the 8. I still enjoy watching them both play when they are switched on as they play a nice brand of footy but they'll need to put in a lot more effort to be contenders. Richmond's season isn't over yet but they will need to improve if they want to make their way into the 8. Bulldogs should be looking to get some experience under the belt to play better in 2014.
Prediction: Port Adelaide and Melbourne will continue to suck
...and they do. Melbourne have had only 1 win against GWS and continue to get thoroughly embarassed on a weekly basis. The club has been out of form for the better part of a decade, the shit hit the fan some time ago and it's not just a matter of seeing how many people were standing in front of the fan to figure out who stays and who goes at all levels of the club. Just before publishing this post, the President of Melbourne resigned. Port Adelaide have made a number of changes during the off season including President and Coach which resulting in a unbeaten run of 5 games at the start of the season. They back it up with 5 losses in a row and now again are mentioned in hushed tones by the footy community. I suspect things will get worse for them before they get better but they won't get anywhere near the depths Melbourne have discovered.
Prediction: Geelong, St Kilda, West Coast, Collingwood will need to rebuild but may pad out the 8
West Coast and Collingwood are both having a rough season. They're both in the 8 but injuries have tested their depth and discovered it rather shallow. As such they're in a bit of a win some/lose some holding pattern. If the likes of Richmond and Nth Melbourne can get their shit together we could see them push these teams out of finals contention. St Kilda have bombed out totally and sit 16th on the ladder. Geelong are the real surprise. They're sitting atop the ladder and look very very dangerous. Somehow they're managing to rebuild while playing amazing footy with their newest inclusions stepping up almost immediately and with their veterans turning back the clock and playing with amazing vigor. It's a real credit to the player management group at that club and I suspect it will be a model a lot of team will try to replicate over the next decade.
So all in all, not too shabby. I hedged a few bets of course but really only Geelong and Adelaide have put me off whack. Will recap again at the end of the season to see how I fare over the 2nd half.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Unzip him, Mr. B! Unzip HIM!
All is good on the gaming front. Sure it's not going as planned and in fact it's probably going backwards but I'm happy with the progress in the wrong direction that I am taking ;) Like a lot of people I know I have a huge backlog of games that I've purchase and not played. I think at last check I'd only played 38% of the 154 games I'd bought. I made some headway on that and then bought another 30 games. I also set up my spare PC to run with the TV as a monitor and use a wireless game controller so I could play a heap of those games in a more comfortable setting. Then I downloaded emulators for a dozen consoles or older pcs that I've played throughout my lifetime, spent a few days pouring through online game libraries identifying and acquiring every game I can every remember playing on those platforms. Then when I started to play em I found the menuing systems (or complete lack of) for every emulator to be inadequate or annoying when trying to control with a game controller so I spent 2 weeks learning Java FX and writing Smooth Navigator. The app now works but tbh I've been slack on taking the final steps of setting up default configurations I like for the emulators so it's still annoying to play the games. I'll finish it one day and when I do my game backlog will quadruple ;)
Speaking of not finishing things, I played Bioshock (the first one) and almost enjoyed it and almost finished it. I shall now don flame retardant clothing and review it (spoilers will also ensue) ....
I started playing this game and found it awesome. Set in a dystopian underwater society, run by power hungry mad men and populated by insane, genetically enhanced citizens it wasn't long before I was having a blast running around smashing heads with wrenches and getting genetic enhancements of my own. The world was gritty and atmospheric and the populace amplified that feel with their mildly humorous and often disturbing actions and dialog. When I watched one of them attack and slap a pony tailed little girl only to then be smashed up against a wall by the girls burly protector and have a large drill rammed into his face I immediately thought "shit just got heavy". The game would continue in this vain with the player encountering different classes of enemies and having to choose whether to destroy or free the Little Sisters (the aforementioned child) who have been enslaved and are working dark purposes for unseen benefactors. There's a few major players in the game all adding their own perspectives, truths and lies to the ongoing story and it really is an enjoyable, albeit dark, experience. As a guy who really likes a dark game Bioshock should have been perfect match for me. So here comes the foreseeable but...
...some of the game design choices really detract from the experience. A minor complaint is the number of buttons required to generate effective combat. Different weapons, different ammo types for each weapon, different genetic alterations, movement controls, reload button, hack robots button, interact button (useful for health stations); there was just so much that could possibly be going on. It wasn't an issue until later in the game when enemies became more difficult and the different classes were often combined in a way that required different techniques (enhancement and ammo combinations) to more effectively dispatch of them that became a bit of a cluster. It wasn't extreme but it detracted a bit regardless. It's not that I don't like difficult games, its just that making a game difficult by requiring a player to grow 2 extra fingers feels like a bit of a cheat on the developers behalf.
I think the major issue for myself was with a simple game mechanic that I suspect was designed to keep the game flowing but instead kept me detached from the game. You rarely get to see any of the major players in the game face to face, with most of the interaction coming over radios or from tape recorded journals. As opposed to jarring or often boring cut-scenes, the developers went for audio story telling which occurs while the game continues to roll on. I nearly quit very early in the game when I received my second genetic enhancement and had no idea how to use it because the auditory instructions were missed among my frantic ducking for cover from a grenade lobbing enemy. This continued throughout the game. I'd clear a room or area before triggering an event only to have that event launch some aural progression of the story line and spawn a number of enemies at the same time. Of course the game gives the option to play back the messages but that just left me standing in a pool of bodies while someone rambled about something that may or may not have been important, fearing to continue the game lest I miss the message for the second time. So I soon gave play back the flick and found myself often following 1 sentence hints from my journal rather than feeling any sort of investment in the game or the characters within it. In the end I just felt like I was doing random and possibly pointless quests in a rather cool landscape. So when I finally got to the end boss I had one go at killing him, got beaten when he was at half health and then just watched the game ending on youtube. It's kind of sad that I didn't feel like I missed out on anything by finishing the game in that way. I have the sequel but I'm not in a rush to play it.
Speaking of not finishing things, I played Bioshock (the first one) and almost enjoyed it and almost finished it. I shall now don flame retardant clothing and review it (spoilers will also ensue) ....
I started playing this game and found it awesome. Set in a dystopian underwater society, run by power hungry mad men and populated by insane, genetically enhanced citizens it wasn't long before I was having a blast running around smashing heads with wrenches and getting genetic enhancements of my own. The world was gritty and atmospheric and the populace amplified that feel with their mildly humorous and often disturbing actions and dialog. When I watched one of them attack and slap a pony tailed little girl only to then be smashed up against a wall by the girls burly protector and have a large drill rammed into his face I immediately thought "shit just got heavy". The game would continue in this vain with the player encountering different classes of enemies and having to choose whether to destroy or free the Little Sisters (the aforementioned child) who have been enslaved and are working dark purposes for unseen benefactors. There's a few major players in the game all adding their own perspectives, truths and lies to the ongoing story and it really is an enjoyable, albeit dark, experience. As a guy who really likes a dark game Bioshock should have been perfect match for me. So here comes the foreseeable but...
...some of the game design choices really detract from the experience. A minor complaint is the number of buttons required to generate effective combat. Different weapons, different ammo types for each weapon, different genetic alterations, movement controls, reload button, hack robots button, interact button (useful for health stations); there was just so much that could possibly be going on. It wasn't an issue until later in the game when enemies became more difficult and the different classes were often combined in a way that required different techniques (enhancement and ammo combinations) to more effectively dispatch of them that became a bit of a cluster. It wasn't extreme but it detracted a bit regardless. It's not that I don't like difficult games, its just that making a game difficult by requiring a player to grow 2 extra fingers feels like a bit of a cheat on the developers behalf.
I think the major issue for myself was with a simple game mechanic that I suspect was designed to keep the game flowing but instead kept me detached from the game. You rarely get to see any of the major players in the game face to face, with most of the interaction coming over radios or from tape recorded journals. As opposed to jarring or often boring cut-scenes, the developers went for audio story telling which occurs while the game continues to roll on. I nearly quit very early in the game when I received my second genetic enhancement and had no idea how to use it because the auditory instructions were missed among my frantic ducking for cover from a grenade lobbing enemy. This continued throughout the game. I'd clear a room or area before triggering an event only to have that event launch some aural progression of the story line and spawn a number of enemies at the same time. Of course the game gives the option to play back the messages but that just left me standing in a pool of bodies while someone rambled about something that may or may not have been important, fearing to continue the game lest I miss the message for the second time. So I soon gave play back the flick and found myself often following 1 sentence hints from my journal rather than feeling any sort of investment in the game or the characters within it. In the end I just felt like I was doing random and possibly pointless quests in a rather cool landscape. So when I finally got to the end boss I had one go at killing him, got beaten when he was at half health and then just watched the game ending on youtube. It's kind of sad that I didn't feel like I missed out on anything by finishing the game in that way. I have the sequel but I'm not in a rush to play it.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Will see if this post works. Another night in with awesome music...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpbIPQl7CA
Hit play and close your eyes. Let the music take you where it will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgpbIPQl7CA
Hit play and close your eyes. Let the music take you where it will.
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