Stune's XleagueTV Blog

Posted by: xilef

Article written by Steven ‘Stune’ Embling



January 2008
The aftermath of the CGS World Finals. Having enjoyed our one race in LA I was eager to get straight back into playing as soon as possible. I noticed registration opened for Xleague’s PGR4 tournament so looking forward to getting some early practice to get into what everyone believed was going to be this seasons racing CGS game, I happily entered looking forward to the competition.

Previously when I was in LA, Xleague held a PGR4 tournament which I was disappointed not to be able to attend. My friend Lambo who I knew since my early Forza 2 days attended as did BHh CraigSenna and Rocker (now known as NrG Mosher) who I had the pleasure of playing back last summer in Xleague’s Forza 2 league ladder. All these players picked up PGR4 remarkably well for that tournament claiming the top three spots, and I was delighted when I found out they were all competing again this time around.

The online stages which kicked off the tournament in late January/ early February weren’t too challenging if I’m being honest. A few of my opponents chose not to play me and accepted a default loss and I managed to beat my remaining opponents going completely undefeated without loosing a single race until the knockout stage. It was at this point where CGS made the announcement they were not using PGR4 this season in favour of Forza 2. This meant PGR4 had to take a back seat as getting ready for CGS was of maximum importance to me, especially considering we believed our combine to be around April time, whereas we now know it to be May.

It was around this point were university work really started to pile up as well, meaning gaming time was sadly very limited. Despite this I still wanted to play out the remaining rounds of Xleague’s PGR4 tournament as just two more games would secure a place in the TV finals if I won them both. Despite being out of practice I managed to win them both and booked my spot in TV finals.

As Xleague only confirmed the date of the TV finals the week beforehand I realised I already had long standing arrangements with my girlfriend for that weekend, so I was worrying about not being able to go to the event. But thankfully she was happy to travel with me all the way to the studios in London to support me and so we could still be together on her birthday weekend. The rules we would play at the TV stages were only announced 2 days before the event itself, but I looked forward to the challenge of trying to learn the tracks in time. Sadly I could only manage 4 hours of practice in that time span as I was due to give an important presentation at university the next day. A quick look at the scoreboards confirmed Lambo would be my main opponent. With his times being top 3 in the world on 5 of the 6 tracks we were racing he would surely feel comfortable with all the tracks. To add to this CraigSenna and Rocker had also posted top 20 lap times on many of those tracks, as had LaurenceD89 and Ti360 Optimus on some, who would make up the remaining two spots at the event. At this stage I was wondering what I let myself in for. Due to other responsibilities I was dreadfully out of practice at the game and the competition was very strong across the board. What’s worse is I went in with a massive reputation due to my London Mint status, and because of my past experience in PGR3 and Forza I was strongly tipped to win the tournament when realistically Lambo should have been.

I got off to a good start in the first race and found myself in second place before getting rammed off down to third. At this point I didn’t know what to expect in terms I aggression from my opponents so I rather forgivingly treated the incident as a mistake for the time being. Despite my best efforts I could not catch up back up to second place before the end of the race, but Lambo and Rocker had a good battle a few seconds in front. The next race went even worse for me. I got caught up in many collisions and was guilty of perhaps being too conservative, giving up my position with without a fight and not necessarily making the best from each opportunity. In the end I finished in 5th which was a real blow for my hopes of winning the tournament. At this point I knew I had to do much better if I was to get a respectable position from the tournament. The next race was on Shinjuku Speedway, a track which was familiar from my PGR3 days and I got a good grid position. At the start I took an ambitious move past Lambo and gained the lead. Rocker also made it past lambo and put pressure on me throughout the first lap but then I was able to use my pace to begin to pull out a lead which got bigger as the race went on. I was hoping for another strong performance in the next race but Lambo and Rocker pulled out an early lead. Sadly for Rocker his controller cut out leaving him back in fifth place. Meanwhile I was having a good battle with CraigSenna and Laurence and managed to take second place near the end of the race. In the penultimate race Lambo took an early lead once again while I was left to battle with CraigSenna and then Laurence, by the time I got up to second I was already 8 seconds behind Lambo who was driving magnificently, I was unable to close the gap in the Snow of Quebec and failure to do so meant that it was not mathematically possible to beat Lambo whatever the scores in the final race. Despite that I was now in a strong position to take second place from the tournament, another strong performance would ensure it. Sure enough after a few unpredictable collisions I managed to make my way up the field into second, but Lambo already had a decent lead and proved his class once again by winning the final race in the series.



Overall Lambo deserved to win the tournament. His pace was superb throughout the event and it was clear and from the amount of practice he put into the tournament winning meant a lot to him. I wished I could have been more competition for him but through no fault of my own I was out of practice for the tournament and did my best on the day. The first two races is what ruined the day for me, but as the event went on it looked like 2nd place was all I could hope for, and was happy to take from the event all things considered. Laurence took third place overall and was consistently in the action throughout the whole event. Rocker was the most unlucky in my opinion; his controller cutting out in the St Peterburg lost him many points and was the main contributor for losing his overall place to Laurence. CraigSenna was also fairly unlucky in my opinion, he had decent pace throughout the event and was probably amongst the cleanest drivers there, sadly he only managed 5th place overall. Optimus was the final racer in the event, he wasn’t a weak driver by any stretch of the imagination, but didn’t quite have the pace of the other rest of field, meaning he was always comfortably going to be in 6th place, but he came a long way from the start of the tournament and fully deserved his place in the final.

Looking back on the event I believe this goes to show how competitive things are in the racing scene in the UK. I look forward to racing Lambo and the others in x leagues Forza 2 Spring tournament starting next month.


PES 2008
Alongside the PGR4 tournament I was also playing in the Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 Winter tournament. I had played Pro Evo casually for many years and got fairly good at it. In fact I even managed to reach the top 100 in the overall online leaderboard in one iteration of the series, but despite that I never thought of myself as a Professional Pro Evo player. There were many advanced tactics which I didn’t know much about.

Birmingham Salvo general manager ODEE said something in LA which made me think. He told me something along the lines of; anyone who can reach the highest standards in one game can do it in another. It seemed like a strange thing to say considering surely different game types require different types of skills, but with that in mind I decided to enter the xleague tournament.

Things went well right from the start and despite one player disputing a score for a game they didn’t even play I finished top of my group with an otherwise undefeated record. I let in quite a few goals, but scored a lot more, not really surprising considering I use a customised attacking 3-4-3 formation, which I stuck to for the duration of the tournament. Before too long I found myself in the top 8 and had to play the familiar name of Ti360 Optimus who I was due to play in the TV studio at PGR4 just days later. It good fun to play him at Pro Evo and surprisingly was one of my more difficult games up to that point. Despite winning the first game comfortably I made I bit of a meal of the second game but managed a 7-6 aggregate win which put me in the top 4. My next game however was against qG NeoKubrick would from what I understand from everyone’s comments and what I could find out about him, he was known as the ChrisyB of Pro Evo. I was really looking forward to the experience of playing against one of the very best players in the world.

Things didn’t go too well in the first match, I kept him out for 38minuits but then flood gates began to open. His style was not like anything I had played against before and it was apparent he knew exactly what he was doing with his formation, tactics and general play. I lost the first game 4-0. Determined to score against such a top player I came out all guns blazing with my usual attacking formation, but conceded the first and second goals. I then scored myself and went in search for the equalizer. He caught me on the counter attack and I was forced to bring him down with my goalkeeper who got sent off for the challenge, leaving me with 10 men. He capitalized on the mistake and increased his score to 3-1 from the penalty before the final whistle. Overall the aggregate score was 7-1 to him, but I was happy it took a player of his quality to beat me. I still managed 3-4th overall in the tournament and was very pleased with that performance considering I always considered myself only a casual Pro Evo player, with my strength clearly in racing games.



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