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FIFA 08 Preview - the Trip

Matt and Yug travel to Sydney to attend EA's preview event for their upcoming game FIFA 08

FIFA 08 Preview - the Trip | FIFA 08 Preview - the Event | FIFA 08 Preview - the Preview

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I only know of two good reasons to go to Sydney and since Oracle’s fiance filed that restraining order I’m down to one. I’d like to say that one is to cover events of interest to the Australian Gamer readership, such as upcoming game releases from EA, the world’s largest video game publisher, and well on the way to being the ONLY video game publisher.

But it’s not. It’s going to Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man.

If you haven’t been to Max Brenner before or don’t know what it is, then I pity you, for your life is empty and your soul is too dead to even see what being alive could be. Trying to explain Max Brenner chocolate to someone who has not tasted it is like trying to explain colour to a man born blind, or trying to explain philosophy to Yug. You just don’t have the capacity, the mental facilities, to understand.

To understand the depth of my love of Max Brenner chocolate I have to tell you that I once took a freelance job contract purely because I had to fly to Sydney to meet the client and I’d get a chance to go to Max Brenner. While I was there (the Oxford Street store) I spent more than $100 on chocolate.

Matt's love affair with Max Brenner

Fast forward to today as I wipe the drool off my chest. (I type naked. I like to feel free.) When EA asked us to attend an event to check out… some game, I didn’t pay much attention… I jumped at the chance. It looked like the ideal opportunity to head to Max’s place and stock up on that sweet, sweet brown joy. Oh, the pecans in praline. Oh, the chocolate shavings. Oh, the gift set chocolates with flavours like rose hip and red wine. Oh, the Chocolate Milk made by melting insanely expensive chocolate directly into the milk. Oooooh, so good!

My plan was set. It was a good plan, but depended on definite flight details. From the airport the closest Max Brenner is in the city. A short train trip from the airport to Central, then some shopping in the city. I could grab some Max Brenner, chocolate nearly good enough to make a woman love even me, if given as a gift. So I’d stock up big time. Then on into Pitt Street, and to Kinokuniya, unquestionably my second favourite shop in Sydney, though not quite good enough to justify a trip on its own.

The times turned out to be tighter than I had hoped. In fact, from the plane’s arrival we had only an hour to go before we had to be at Olympic Park. We’ve done that trip before, though, to Olympic Park for Game1 Sydney, so I was well prepared.

With military precision I could jump out of the airport with only a half empty carry on bag, onto a train and into Max Brenner’s. A brief chocolate purchase carried out with optimum efficiency could be used to purchase a surgical chocolate strike. Money that would otherwise have been wasted on nonsense like rent could instead go to buying that sweet cocoa, so beloved of the gods. A full bag and full belly later and I could be at Olympic Park, contented in the love radiating from a Harry Potter Backpack filled with happiness while Yug glared at me for being maybe just SLIGHTLY late.

In the words of the immortal (yet dead) Robbie Burns, “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay”. Well, mine went well aglay all over the place. The damage was first done when Yug unhelpfully pointed out that our Itinerary, which I had merely glanced at, actually mentioned getting a car from the airport.

My dreams of a shocking and awing raid on Max’s confectionary stronghold melted like a Max Brenner Chocolate Kiss, a delightful dish consisting of nothing but a small bowl of melted chocolate. What more do you need?

At that point I pretty much had to make a decision. Sulk about not getting my way and having my plans ruined, or man up and do the job that we’re supposed to do. For the record, I still haven’t decided.

Naturally, things hadn’t finished going wrong. The plan was to meet in the morning in the foyer downstairs at our shared apartment block. It seems to be a popular misconception that Yug and I live together. We don’t. We used to when Australian Gamer started, but now we live in the same building, but not the same apartment. Clear? Anyway, the plan was to meet at 8:30am downstairs. 8:35 Yug wasn’t there yet which can mean only one thing. Everything is normal.

Yug is fanatically late. It’s like a religion with him. The number of times he’s supposed to be somewhere or we’re supposed to be somewhere at a particular time and he picks that time to “have a quick shower first” is quite remarkable. I popped up to his apartment, where he was frantically tugging a shirt over his unattractive form. “I’m running a bit late,” he helpfully posited. “No shit.” was my ever understanding reply.

Matt looking as happy as ever to be back at Brisbane domestic airport

Fact was we had plenty of time. We’d pretty much allowed enough time that anything short of nuclear holocaust and we’d be well and truly there for check in. Which we were.

There’s no much to say about the flight. I wish there was. I’d like to regale you with some sort of aircraft anecdotes, but the only ones that jump to mind were ones from the Air Crash Investigation show that I had unwisely decided would be interesting the night before. It turns out planes have to be going fast enough to take off. Who knew?

The flight was a flight. We watched Mythbusters, probably the big cutting edge of difference between Qantas and Virgin Blue. That and the fact that Virgin Blue employ hotties and Qantas’s hiring policy for hostesses appears to be based on the new “Experience Pays” tradie TAFE ads. The woman doing our safety demonstration looked like the Portrait of Dorian Grey for Cher.

Still, the plane ignored the tedious laws of gravity and physics and took off, flew a long way and landed. I read a book. I was going to play the PSP. I normally do bring it, but the problem with PSP is that you have to turn it off while taking off, and also while landing. Which on a flight to Sydney leaves you about 45 minutes that you can actually play. Of course, the batteries on a PSP only last for 45 minutes anyway, so that’s pretty handy.

Still, a book works ALL the time, even while Morticia is doing her safety demonstration. Got it, love. Wings, brace position, wear high heels, take the mask away from the child next to you. I can handle that. It was the same demonstration last time. I’ll keep in mind that I’m four seats back from the nearest exit which is an over wing exit on the left hand side, and you keep in mind not to crash the plane into a mountain. Deal?

The best part of the flight was that Yug didn’t sit next to me. He was on the other side of the plane. So awesome.

Landing was unspectacular, as landings should be. We got out of the plane, walking through that bit that they put up to the plane and were suddenly hit by it. Cold. So very very cold. Sydney, deciding to hate us loser Queenslanders was putting on an unseasonably cold day. I grew up in Darwin before Queensland, so let’s just say cold is not a favourite.

We went down the stairs to look for the man with the card with our names on it. I checked with Yug and his name turned out not to be Tran, so that guy wasn’t for us. We walked up and down for a while, looking. No dice. No driver either.

Checking of itineraries showed that we were in the right place, but a little bit late as the plane was late. Eventually Yug made the helpful suggestion that we take a cab to Olympic Park. I adamantly refused purely on the basis that I just didn’t have the money. We called the car company listed on our Itinerary, who claimed to have no idea what we were talking about. There was no booking for us. *sigh*. So we scraped together enough for the cab, and jumped into one.

Yug and Matt in the cab getting lost.

Sydney cabs are crazy, and lack of respect for your own life seems to be the only job requirement. Speeka di English certainly isn’t one.

It’s hard to tell exactly how close we got to Olympic Park before we suddenly wondered whether we were even supposed to go there. I’d estimate that we were three quarters of the way there, at least. Probably closer to four fifths. Frantic checking of what data we had there (let’s not forget we expected there to be a car) confirmed that we were in fact NOT supposed to go to Olympic Park. We were supposed to go to North Sydney Oval.

If you don’t know Sydney well you probably can guess anyway that North Sydney Oval is in the North of Sydney. You may or may not know where Olympic Park is. “Not north” would be one way to describe it. South west would be another option. Ironically, the path back to North Sydney oval was most efficient via the freeway. In making this particular trip we had to pass the Airport again. It’s a savage blow looking down at the meter reading $40 when you know fully well you haven’t even gone anywhere. It’s like a flagfall.

Yes, you read that right, it was an $85 cab fare, plus $10 for tolls took it to $95.

We got there, though, at pretty much the right time, and saw a collection of people waiting outside the event and knew we were good to go. We paid the $95 taxi fare with a grimace as it literally took the last of both of our money. Outside we chatted to some people we knew from other events, and checked in with the attractive EA lady guarding the door, just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything.

We hadn’t missed anything, no one had checked in yet, we were just getting ourselves organized.

Matt faking happiness outside the North Sydney Oval entrance

Actually, we’d missed one thing, but it wasn’t her who told us. It was me, when I patted myself on the leg (I was trying to fondle myself and missed) and suddenly realized something. I was in fact missing something. My phone was on the back seat of a very expensive Sydney Taxi. Calls to the company were little help, the driver had gone off shift, and wasn’t answering. It may someday return to me. I wouldn’t mind some of the numbers back.

So that put a nasty edge in the start of my trip. We wandered into the event, getting our names checked off a little list, and were confronted by a sign pointing to either the stairs or the lift. Take your choice, I guess. For some reason we chose the stairs, and some other journos followed. Why? No idea. It was a bad plan.

Decisions, decisions.

As we crested the last bit of staircase, we came into the Event Proper, and were fully surrounded by the game we were here to see: FIFA 08.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ONTO THE EVENT

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