The Wayne Rooney saga

                                           

Now  that the dust has settled over the Wayne Rooney situation, lets have a closer look at it. The whole saga began with the drop in form of Rooney, with only one goal so far this season, there have been much discussion over the reason for this drop in form, was this a hangover from the poor performances at the World Cup? Sir Alex Ferguson kept on repeating that Rooney was carrying an ankle injury which had occurred at the end of last season and that he was not 100%. After the Montenegro Euro 2012 qualifier, Rooney was interviewed and he openly contradicted Ferguson's comments about the ankle injury and said that he was not carrying any injuries. This led to Rooney's omission from the next couple of Man United games. At a pre-Champions league game press conference, a devastated Ferguson announced that Rooney had told Chief Executive, David Gill that he wanted to leave Man United. The conference was once in a lifetime thing, with the kind of emotion that Ferguson normally did not show. He left the door open for Rooney to change his mind but it looked like the end of Rooney's Man United career. This seemed to be set in stone, the next day when Rooney himself sent out a statement, citing the reason for wanting to leave was that there was no "assurances i was seeking about the future squad." But 2 days later, Rooney had signed a new 5 year contract saying that his assurances were met by the Man United hierarchy in meetings the past two days.

After one of the biggest u-turn in football, why did Rooney sign a new contract? Was it the money, was it to get Man United a bigger transfer fee in the summer or did the owners actually meet the demands for world class players in the team?

With the numbers which have been banded around the newspapers ranging from £150,000 all the way up to £250,000 a week, money seems to be one of the reasons for Rooney signing a new contract, but the important question is whether Rooney's refusal to sign a contract initially was down to the "low" amount of money offered and that the increase in the offer of wages was the one factor which got Rooney to sign on the dotted line? Another possiblity is that signing a new contract would guarantee Man United a higher transfer fee if he decided to go ahead with his demands to leave next summer, as his previous contract only had 18 months left on it and would therefore command less of a fee if the likes of Real Madrid and Man City came calling for Rooney. Or it could be that Sir Alex Ferguson, David Gill and the Glazers were able to convince Rooney that major investment would be put into the team and the likes of Snejider and Benzema would be headed to Old Trafford.

I personally believe that Rooney did get a rise in wages, but with Rooney's love of football, money must not have been the only motivating factor for him to sign a new contract. Its obvious to see his love for Man United where he has been for 6 years, and that nothing would make him happier than to see United lifting the Premier League or Champions League trophy again. With the power that agents have in football nowadays, Rooney might have been easily persuaded to release that statement saying that he wanted to leave, fully knowing that there would be a queue of clubs who love to have him in their team and hold Man United to ransom over his wages. But with the amount of debt coming from the Glazers' takeover showing no signs of decreasing, it is hard to see where the money for marquee players is going to come from. There was a chance to significantly strengthen the team over the summer but no big money signings were made. Fans wonder where the £80m from the sale of Ronaldo has gone while David Gill always maintained that there was £100m in the transfer kitty if Ferguson needed it, so why not spend on players to replace the aging Gary Neville, Scholes and Giggs?

There has been a happy ending to this saga for all parties, Rooney has his increase in wages, Ferguson is able to keep his star players while the Glazers have kept one of the main players to bring in as much money into the club, but will Rooney's future creep up again in the summer? We shall see if  the assurances that Rooney demanded have been met in the next year before that can be answered.

Mass Effect 2 review

The epic adventure of 2007’s Mass Effect from Bioware had left gamers with an unbelievable experience which consumed many gaming hours. But the question is; can the sequel deliver more of the same? In one word, yes.

Mass Effect 2 is very similar to its predecessor in many ways, with many of the great RPG elements from the first game being incorporated into this incarnation. The levelling up and the conversation trees which have been a trademark for the series are back along with the Paragon and Renegade actions which will affect how your Shepherd is seen and reacted to by other characters. There is also the addition of the ability to intervene in cut scenes which enables you to affect how the scene is played out depending on which way you swing in the morality system. The six character classes are retained from the previous game but now each class having class-specific skills.

Mass Effect 2 also retains a great storyline which Bioware has done an excellent job with. Mass Effect 2 sees Commander Shepherd teaming up with Cerberus; a pro-human organisation fronted by The Illusive Man, to investigate the sudden and mysterious disappearances of human colonies. Shepherd and his Normandy ship is attacked by the Collectors and is torn apart which leads to the supposed death of Shepherd. Cerberus helps to effectively resurrect Shepherd and then gives him the job to put together a team to defeat the threat to mankind. The many different types of crew members you are tasked to recruit are widely ranged characters, from the almost emotionless Cerberus agent Miranda to fast talking Salarian, Doctor Mordin. With each team member comes a personal loyalty mission which gives you a closer insight into the character which can also lead to romantic ties.

While the excellent story telling is retained, one improvement from the previous game is the combat system. The combat has been streamlined with a Gears of War element to it, using the cover and shoot mechanics to full effect. Ammo is found from fallen enemies with all guns using the thermal ammo clips with the exception of Heavy Weapons. If going in all guns blazing is not your style then you still have the option to choose biotic or tech powers as well as being able to command other squad members to do your bidding through the circle roulette style pause wheels for commands and powers respectively. 

Mass Effect 2 delivers what the first game did and more, the same great compelling storytelling through excellent dialogue between characters, whilst giving the power of choice in many issues to the players is an experience which is experienced in few other games. With the improved streamlined combat system making this more accessible to more gamers and the only blemish being the repetitive and boring nature of mining for minerals; it has all the right mixtures to be considered one of the strong contenders to be Game of the Year for 2010.

Tackling in football

Tackling has been a topic of great debate in the world of football in recent weeks. It started with the comments made by Fulham captain Danny Murphy at a football conference, when he blamed managers of pumping up their players so much that it would inevitably lead to strong tackles. This was after the horror tackles from Nigel De Jong and Karl Henry, with the former's breaking Newcastle's Hatem Ben Arfa's leg.  Murphy also named three clubs who supposedly employ these tactics, the three clubs being Stoke, Blackburn and Wolves. After these comments were broadcasted throughout England, it caused a divide in opinion on this issue. In one corner, many have argued that the majority of the tackles in the current game are not reckless but rather mistimed. Blackpool manager Ian Holloway argues the case that because of the fast pace that the game is played in the Premier League, tackles are bound to be mistimed and that accidents will occur from them. While in the other corner, there is a belief that reckless tackles do occur in the game today, and as Danny Murphy says, players are so pumped up and are sent out to stop other teams from playing. Arsene Wenger has been arguing about this for the past couple of years, with Arsenal being at the end of teams with the tactics of "roughing them up" which has led to two high profile injuries involving his players, Eduardo in 2008 and Aaron Ramsey in February 2010.

My personal opinion is that, tackling is a major part of Football, hard and fair tackles are what defines some players, players like Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane were tough tacklers and it was what made them such great players. Getting rid of tackling would make football non contact and games would not have the same amount of  intensity as it would now. Many fans are able to feed off the energy of a crunching tackle from their top defender or centre midfielder and gives the whole crowd a lift. But being able to tackle hard does not excuse tactics of kicking players. I believe that many teams who play Arsenal employ these tactics, because as many pundits say, "they dont enjoy a physical battle and a bit of roughing up." I believe reckless tackles need to be cut out of the game, and anyone caught doing it should be severely punished irrespective of who it is. Even if the referee does see it and does not act on it, the FA should punish the offending player themselves. Reckless tackles are the one of the main reason players careers are shortened and legs are broken, regardless of which team they play for, no football fan wants to see a football player have their leg broken.

Is gaming socially acceptable now?

Video Games are generally associated with nerdy kids with glasses hiding in their bedrooms. But in the past couple of years, video games have started to appear in main stream press, receiving more attention than in previous years. This new stream of media attention can be attributed to the success of the Nintendo Wii. With the Wii's main target audience aimed at casual gamers consisting of titles like Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit, which uses movement and motion controls not normally associated with traditional games and has led to great commercial success with millions of sales worldwide. The success of the Wii has forced their two main rivals, Microsoft and Sony to adopt the same technology with the releases of Kinect and Playstation Move respectively. The casual gamer market is slowly making a bigger presence  and even over taking the hardcore gaming markets. Games like Guitar Hero and Singstar which makes a group of friends/family play together are great games to bring out for parties and gatherings which could not have been said 10 years ago. The rise of the casual games have been one of the driving forces behind the rise of video game culture with many more people willing to pick up a controller,plastic guitar etc to try out a game for maybe even the first time in their lives.

Although casual games are not the only reason for the rise of video game culture. The success of big franchises like the Call of Duty series and Fifa series have received great amounts of advertising and press coverage, although not all necessarily positive as with the recent case of the release of Medal of Honor and the use of the Taliban name in the multiplayer mode. Many midnight launches of big franchises have been well attended with some people queuing for over 2-3 hours to be the first person to get their hands on their new favourite game. Even the supermarkets have been able to cash in on the hype surrounding these titles and have held their own midnight launches bringing a reduction of prices to attract even more customers than even big specialists high street stores like Game and HMV. These events shows that gaming has slowly become an increasingly popular form of entertainment and could even be placed in the same breath as trips to the cinema.

The rise of video game culture can be attributed to these two main factors, with an increasing amount of advertising for games all across the world, there is no hiding away from video games in this current generation, with the release of Kinect and Playstation Move, which allows first time gamers an easy way to enjoy games without the complicated control systems, this will ensure that even more people will be playing new and fun games, which might not appeal to hardcore gamers but will appeal to the masses  Will it replace film as the number one form of entertainment? maybe in 5 to 10 years time, but films will be looking anxiously behind their backs in the next couple of years at the behemoth behind them, which is video games.