Doom 3 demo. Got it installed at the weekend. Got the graphics working last night after our video night. Had the piss scared out of me.

Really.

Now I’ve seen some scary films and read some scary books and played some scary games and been in cars involved with some really scary driving. And none of these things have really freaked me out, apart from the driving where I may have been squealing like a little girl… But generally I like the scare factor. I’ve always prefered the psychological horror to the slasher variety because there’s something a lot more appealing (?) about a creeping terror than some idiot with a big knife.

I’m not sure which category Doom 3 falls into but it’s easily far scarier than anything I’ve seen or read… ever. So much that, after 20 mins of playing the game, it was switched off and uninstalled.

However, as a challenge, Chris at work has offered to lend me the full game… I’m tempted but it might tear me away from Morrowind and in the short term I’m going to spend as much time on that to get the most from it.

Later on, when I’m out of excuses, I’ll play it again. Maybe.

BigAl

OK - well, it’s the morning after the night before, and I’ve had time for some reflections on last nights game, with a little help from the papers and some friends.

Firstly, the goal. I think that there were a few possible outcomes of the situation:

• Baros flicks on, goes past Cech and scores
• Baros flicks on, gets taken down by Cech, leading to:
  • A penalty - would we score it? Nobody knows
  • Cech being carded - red or yellow?
• Garcia shoots, ball gets knocked away, referee ends advantage and gives penalty (as per previous scenario)
• Garcia shoots, ball goes in

In all honesty, I couldn’t tell whether the ball was over or not - the angles weren’t right to be able to tell. However, I am amazed that Cech did not receive any sort of booking for the challenge on Baros.

As for the rest of the game - I can only say that if Mourinho thinks that the best team lost, then he was watching a different game to me. (Although, we’re both biased, yes?) I haven’t seen such a good defensive performance in a long time. And, if my friends are correct, this is very much the way that Porto made their way to last seasons CL final, led by none other than Mourinho, so he can’t complain about that.

Considering the other 3 games we’ve played against Chelsea this season, I reckon we deserved a bit of luck. And despite some interesting refereeing decisions (seemed to me that the only decision that favoured Liverpool was the goal) and 6 minutes of stoppage time, we pulled through with only a couple of scares.

And now some interesting stats - in the first 3 games of the playoffs, we scored 8 goals and conceded 2. In the second 3 games we scored 1 goal, but conceded 0. The final will be a very interesting match indeed. Don’t try and phone me on the 25th…..

mrBen