A reader recounts the unusual trouble he’s had with his copies of FIFA 14 and illustrates why you shouldn’t sit too close to your console…
I thought I’d just share my story of the cursed FIFA14 that has plagued me the last month. I bought it for Xbox 360 (wish I’d bought it for PlayStation 3 now) and after about four days of obsessively playing it I nudged it slightly with my foot and that was it; horrendous laser burn on the disc, unreadable. Massive amount of swearing and threatening of the fist erupted. Didn’t work. So I returned it to Asda who were very amicable and they just swapped it over and gave me a new copy.
Another four days, I nudged the Xbox again, lightly. I didn’t even notice the impact of the nudge myself but yet again, horrendous laser burn, totally unusable and more swearing and violence. I genuinely have never, ever scratched or burnt a disc to the extent of it being unreadable ever. And yet I had done it twice to the same game in just over a week. I was fairly amazed.
Couldn’t bring myself to head to Asda again, especially as I work there and the Music and Games colleagues would soon tire of what looked like regular clumsy nerding, so I headed to Games Exchange who I was sure did disc repairs. They did, and so ten minutes later I had a working disc again (glad I opted to not do the toothpaste technique myself, that had fail written all over it).
A week and a half of frantic FIFA playing ensued, all other games forgotten, GTA V lying forlornly next to the PlayStation scowling at me, Xbox well out of reach of either foot or any appendage whatsoever so as not to be ‘touched’ as apparently the Xbox doesn’t like to be touched.
Tottenham first in the league for the fourth season running, treble winners, (yes, I laugh sadly and mockingly with the rest of you), and I go to plug my charger cable in.
That’s it, the moment I do, the Xbox just turns off. No warning, no Red Ring of Death, no funny noises. Completely dies, with FIFA still firmly locked in the tray. The power supply is working, the controller is working… Xbox dead. FIFA trapped till I can bother taking the console apart.
I imagined if this all happened with the Xbox One with its voice commands that I’d be on my knees, dramatically screaming ‘Xbox turn on! For the love of Bale, please turn on!’
And then it suddenly occurred to me, bearing in mind that I’m not one for wild accusations or over the top suspicious theories; within its time shipping from wherever to wherever, FIFA had picked up an ancient Egyptian curse. Or,you know, I was just unfortunate. Hans Moleman unfortunate.
The third theory though is more the fact that this occurred one day after the Xbox One launch… Would any of us put it past Microsoft agents to climb through our windows while we sleep, attach a small, timed (to go off whilst we play which is even more annoying) silent, explosive/EMP device to our old consoles in order to render them completely useless so that we feel the need to buy their new console?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. We’re aware of it now Microsoft!
Now I feel obliged to enter the next generation, still unsure about where exactly to go and what to do (leaning casually towards the PlayStation 4 though).
Meanwhile, I must pay my respects to my long serving and suffering Xbox 360 60GB that should have realistically broken long ago, knowing that it was probably just sick of giving me false hope that Spurs would win the title season after season.
Time to move on I think.
By reader Redant22
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk
