CC Interviews

by Chiyu

Grytolle

Interviewer:
HELLO.
Grytolle:
HI.
Interviewer:
Please give us your real name, your birthdate and tell us where you live.
Grytolle:
Ok, my name is Johan, I am born the 25th of November 1988 and I live in Uddevalla, Sweden.
Interviewer:
How do you pronounce Uddevalla? ;P
Grytolle:
['Udde'valla]
All vovels short. :P
Interviewer:
Do you have any siblings?
Grytolle:
Yes I do. 4 of them. Gustaf, Anna, Emma and Maria, aged 4, 12, 12 and 14... I think.
Interviewer:
You're not sure?
Grytolle:
No, I always forget their ages.
Interviewer:
Owned.
Interviewer:
Any pets?
Grytolle:
Nope, I don't own any pets. Actually, I sort of hate pets Simply because they seem to dislike me, soIi guess my inaffection for them is answered^^.
Interviewer:
Explain, give an example.
Grytolle:
No, I refuse;D.

Interviewer:
You like blowing. Please explain.
Grytolle:
Well, I do enjoy blowing, it works best with lots of oil for me.
Interviewer:
Whats the oil for?
Grytolle:
To make the slide slide.
Interviewer:
What's the slide?
Grytolle:
The thing on my "trombone" that you move back and forth to create certain sounds.
Interviewer:
Do you have any other hobbies? If so, which?
Grytolle:
Yeah, I play handball also, aside from playing trombone and jj2.
Interviewer:
Are you good at that?
Grytolle:
I am decent. I used to be really good, before I stopped growing lengthwise.
Interviewer:
What does stopping with growing have to do with handball?
Grytolle:
Well, it's much about how tall you are. I need to be able to stretch my arms higher than my opponent to shoot over him, or block a shot from him.
Interviewer:
But if you used to be good, you should still be atleast as good, unless you shrunk?
Grytolle:
Yeah, I am even better now than back then. But the people I compete against has improved even more. Actually, I ain't short, it's just that in handball you either have to be really short or preferably REALLY tall. 1.82 just isn't enough ;(.
Interviewer:
So you mean that relatively (measuring yourself with your competition), you became worse?
Grytolle:
Exactly.
Interviewer:
According to the CC site, your favourite song is "You Win Again" by the Bee Gees. Does this have anything to do with the fact that you often win at JJ2?
Grytolle:
Hmm, that needs to be revised again *bugs Chiyu*. Actually... I never won a game whilst listening to that song. I hardly ever lose to "I want to break free" though;P I listened to it the entire jj2wc-playoffs.
Interviewer:
The same song by Queen looped over over?

Grytolle:
Indeed;P The power of winning is repeated too ;D.
Grytolle:
Ever since me and Yasco beat Unhit and Dizzy on bblair, somewhere around christmas, I have kept listening to that song when I play an important game.
Interviewer:
You seem to enjoy beating your opponents. Winning is pretty important for a lot of CC members. I'm no exception to that either. Can you explain why?
Grytolle:
Not really, I'd guess it is something about my strong will, though. I sometimes have problems accepting other peoples opinions, although I've improved in that area lately. Anyways, the fact that I am in CC makes me more competitive too, there's a hard concurrence here, many good and active players. I feel like I fit here ;P.
Interviewer:
Hehe. Talking about JJ2WC.. What are your thoughts about last season?
Grytolle:
Most of what happened was according to my predections. CC, VS and DM ended in top, although I expected more from FoR and [Si], also, I sort of knew that LR would be better this year, even if they certainly weren't good enough to maybe get a top placement. I feel happy about having played 6 clanwars this year - most of them in jj2wc, and been spared from any losses, which would, of course, be a stain on our clan's honour.
The thing I feel most content about must be round II against FoR in the group-pharse. It was a great revenge for CC to finally come back at FoR, especially in such a manner. 14-0 against Cell, Turtle and Skull isn't something you just do. -It requires hard work, something that has been significant for our participation in jj2wc, at least in my opinion. I guess you could say that this victory "washed away the stain" . Also, jj2wc gave Criss some warteam experience in LB, which will ofcourse benefit CC sooner or later. Over all, I must say everything went great. What else can I say when we didn't lose a single round? Some people may be surprised that the "polish noobclan", VS, could place so high in the tournament. I wasn't. Jj2 only had 4 really active clans (CC, VS, [Si] and DM), where CC and VS were clearly the ones training the most. Also, I knew that VS's teamplay is not to be underestimated.
I wonder what happened to TF According to Yasco they used to be one of the best clans just a year ago. Still LR, my ex-clan (yes I am proud of them for their latest results), manages to beat them. Ohwell, let's hope that Chippie continues the successfull saga of Jazz jackrabbit 2 World Championships - or shall we say "ChampionChip's" (ROFLOLOLLOL;P).

Interviewer:
Be honest - do you think CC could have won without you in the team?
Grytolle:
Maybe... We did have a wide margin, and I am not much better than, Yasco, Veg or Ani... (assuming I am for the sake of reasoning;P) so ofcourse CC would have won anyways. We had the strongest team, especially seeing to quantity.<
Interviewer:
You are one of the most influental CC'ers of 2005.
Interviewer:
How do you feel about that?
Grytolle:
It's ok; I like CC and CC seem to like me.
Interviewer:
Can you explain your "rise of power" or your own "imperial march" within CC that has happened recently?
Grytolle:
I played a lot, from about 16:00 whe nI got home from school to like 00:00 or even later pretty much each day. I also got to play together with good teamplayers, most of them in CC. I see this as the main reason for my rapid carreer. The CC-LR alliance was when I sort fo began developing into a good player.
Interviewer:
So you're saying that the fact that you're now one of the CCers with the highest rank, is credited to your increase of skills at Jazz Jackrabbit 2?
Grytolle:
Partly, the fact that I played so much jj2 made CC interest in me I guess. The reason that I have risen in power should be because I am, and have been, very active in the clan. I participated in many trainings, many clanwars this year, I helped Chiyu update the site recently, etc. I try to help my clanmates when I can and have the time.
Interviewer:
Is this where it ends? Or do you expect to see yourself as CoLeader in 2006?
Grytolle:
I think I'll go for GameLeader or something first;P Nah, seriously, I don't care about my title too much, our titles doesn't seem to make any real difference. We seem to have soom "highest-among-equals" sort of ruling within ECC, with Chiyu as "highest", of course.
Grytolle:
(ofcourse, by this I meant that Chiyu is stoned most of the time ;)).
Interviewer:
What role do you want to play for CC in the upcoming year, being Vice-GameLeader of JJ2?
Grytolle:
I don't know really, I'll go on as I do know and I'll see what future brings.
Interviewer:
For example, it's partly your task to prepare the warteam for JJ2WCIII, which will consist of "old blood" (Ani/Veg/Gry/Chi) as well as "new blood" (newly recruited members and trained members).
Interviewer:
How are you going to take care of that?
Grytolle:
Me and Vegito will recruit some new, hopefully talented, players, teach them how to teamplay and then tell them to train a lot Hopefully this will result in 2 or 3 elite players before the next jj2wc.
Interviewer:
Like which new talented players? Or is that a state secret?
Grytolle:
It is a secret indeed;P But exclusively for the CC newspaper... maybe I could give you some name... NO I WONT!! ;F Expect a lot from CrissCC though, he has improved a lot lately. :)
Interviewer:
Our Spybunny too.
Grytolle:
Ohyes indeed, aside from recruiting new players, some of the players inside the clan will have to take a bigger responsibility too. We have lots of players that are far away from reaching their potential - a resource that can not be ignored. :)
Interviewer:
What was your happiest moment in CC?
Grytolle:
Humm, that must be when my parents allowed me to go to the CC-holidays this summer :D.

Interviewer:
Talking about CC-holidays. What do you expect?
Grytolle:
I don't know really, "a good time"? ;P What I do know is that I will finally get to see some of the people I spend so much playing jj2 with, which I hope will be great, despite the fact that I get to see two completely new countries.
Interviewer:
Aren't you worried that your seven companions at the holidays are Dutch and may talk Dutch too at times? It happens automatically.
Grytolle:
Well, I can comprehend lots of dutch - A related Germanian language. Aside from reading bodylanguage, that is.
Interviewer:
You may also meet Scare and Shaney, during our annual trip to Six Flags Belgium. What do you think of that?
Grytolle:
It will be great I hope. All the ppl going to the actual holidays seem nice, especiallY Chiyu, Veg and SS (and ani;D). Although I have to admit I look forward more to seeing Scare than Shaney.
Interviewer:
Don't tell me that Shaney isn't one of your favourite people on JJ2? O_o
Grytolle:
No he isn't, but I don't hate him either. ;P I am sure we will get along. Especially if Yasco will come, since he would want to have lots of "quality time" with Shaney (he promised him a handjob ) and hence divide his attention, so I don't risk getting more Shaneyness than I can handle. He seem to have the ability of sometimes, very skillfully, annoying people.
Interviewer:
I hope the holiday will be worth your money, because it's probably more expensive for you than for any of us 7.
Grytolle:
Yes, most likely I'll simply punish Chiyu in some way if it isn't good enough ;P.
Interviewer:
what way is some way?
Grytolle:
I can't tell you since I know Chiyu will read this paper.
Interviewer:
I'd like to conclude this interview with three final questions.
Interviewer:
1. What is your goal in life?
Grytolle:
Er, dunno ;P.
Interviewer:
2. What is your favourite food?

Grytolle:
Baklavi ;D.
Interviewer:
3. You MUST make a choice between one of the following:
- letting Shaney fuck you in your ass.
- fucking Shaney in his ass.
Grytolle:
Er... I don't wanna get poo on my dear dick... so I choose being fucked then ~~considering shaney's size~~.
Interviewer:
Thank you for your time and good night.

JJ2WCII Interviews

by Chiyu

I decided to interview some people who played for other participating clans in JJ2WC2, so people can read about a few other clans' experiences of the tournament.
LR was considered one of the "noob-clans" (together with JSZ). Still, they did better than expected, statistically ending 7th. TF was a clan that was in the top in the first season, but hasn't been doing too well this season. LB was the old, underestimated clan that recently made a comeback and suprised everyone by reaching the playoffs.

Crusader (LR)

Interviewer:
What did you think of your clan's (LR's) performance during the last season of JJ2WC2?
Crusader:
Ummm, pie and bla5t could have played a bit better, but otherwise it was ok.
Interviewer:
Do you think LR would have deserved to be in the playoffs?
Crusader:
Bleh we would lose. So no.
Interviewer:
What were your expectations on LR before the season?
Crusader:
I thought we would win, but the clans were better.
Interviewer:
What match result were you most happy with / proud of?
Crusader:
Heh, we only won once. Against TF.
Inteviewer:
What suprised you the most during the tournament?
Crusader:
LB I thought they would suck but I spoke too early.
Interviewer:
What do you expect of the next season that is scheduled for late 2005 and which clans do you think will reach the final four then?
Crusader:
CC, si, DM and FoR might win (and I want to play on the easy ones).
Interviewer:
And finally, what are your own plans for the rest of your JJ2 carreer?
Crusader:
To stay in CC or revive LR if I get kicked out.

Enigma (TF)

Interviewer:
What did you think of your clan's (TF's) performance during the last season of JJ2WC2?
Enigma:
It was a teensy bit disappointing of course, but since we have never been very competitive, it wasn't quite as soul-crushing as one might expect. It might be an incentive to actually prepare ourselves next time though. =)
Interviewer:
Do you think TF would have deserved to be in the playoffs?
Enigma:
The way I see it, if we had deserved to be in the playoffs, we would have been in the playoffs. So no, probably not.
Interviewer:
What were your expectations on TF before the season?
Enigma:
Not too much. Win a few matches in the groups maybe, and reaching the semifinals would have been nice, but it wasn't really a must or something (fortunately enough for us =D).
Interviewer:
What match result were you most happy with / proud of?
Enigma:
The 14-23 loss against Si I guess. Due to several players not being able to make it, we had to use pretty much an emergency team there, and considering those circumstances, we did quite well actually. I had expected losing by a much larger difference.
Inteviewer:
What suprised you the most during the tournament?
Enigma:
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: DM's defeat by VS in the semifinals.
Interviewer:
What do you expect of the next season that is scheduled for late 2005 and which clans do you think will reach the final four then?
Enigma:
Don't know what to expect really. I hope the differences between some of the organisers and clans we had this season, will be sorted out by then (I noticed lots of yelling and screaming in pregame servers near the end of this season). As for the next final four, assuming that they actually participate in the tournament: CC, VS, DM, FoR (yes, I based my assumptions on this seasons results. Sue me).
Interviewer:
And finally, what are your own plans for the rest of your JJ2 carreer?
Enigma:
To spread love, peace and understanding in bunnyland, so that we may finally stop fighting each other and give our lives meaning. =) (That's what you get for asking someone who never plans jj2 stuff about his future career).

Saddam (LB)

Interviewer:
What did you think of your clan's (LB's) performance during the last season of JJ2WC2?
Saddam:
I think we did well. We wanted to reach the semi-finals, and beat [Si] ofcourse. We made it. The finals we're a little bit TOO far. And the power abusing, sucked ofcourse. :| Beating DM for the 3th place was rather impossible, and 3 times power abusing against us, made the clan getting killed :|.
Interviewer:
Do you think LB deserved their place in the playoffs?
Saddam:
Yes :P. We played well. We made a good team, stunner and me owned everyone, only DM was a bit too much. We wanted to make the semi finals, and we made it.
Interviewer:
What were your expectations on LB before the season?
Saddam:
I did not think we would get the 4th place, since well, me and stunner did not play a lot with eachother. We had not trained either. So.. well, I thought that we would beat TF really hard and that it would be close at [Si]. But after all, everything went smoothly, except the power abusing in the clanwar VS TF.
Interviewer:
What match result were you most happy with / proud of?
Saddam:
the 8-2 against [Si]. I did not expect that, but everything went great :).
Inteviewer:
What suprised you the most during the tournament?
Saddam:
That shaney was banned out of the tournament because he said "idiot". He wanted to apoligize AFTER the game, but R3ptile did not accept that. That really made me think "WTF?".
Interviewer:
What do you expect of the next season that is scheduled for late 2005 and which clans do you think will reach the final four then?
Saddam:
DM, VS, 8D and CC. I think CC Vs. DM in the finals. It will be a close match, but CC however, will win. They train the most and always know how to play in a level very fast.
Interviewer:
And finally, what are your own plans for the rest of your JJ2 carreer?
Saddam:
I dont plan a lot. I wont fight nor train a lot either. I just stay in CC.

CC winning JJ2WCII

Woohoo, it's May, one of my favourite months (birthday + CC meetings)! Since we are now focussing on our only three divisions Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Age of Empires 2 and Lineage 2, you all certainly know that the most important thing happening in CC at the moment is our participation in the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 World Championships II.

Hence, this is the JJ2WCII special. This newsletter will have two interviews with non-CC members about JJ2WC2 as well as a large article about the tournament which we've won! Which means that CC is the #1, and the world champions at JJ2. VS ended as #2, DM as #3 and LB as #4. Sadly, the other six didn't make it to the playoffs...

Better luck to them next year!

From now on the newsletter will be released at the END of each month, so we can reflect back on it, instead of reflecting back on the PREVIOUS month.
Oh and btw, good luck to everyone who's having their exams this month and next month!

Written by Chiyu, 26 May 2005.

Game Reviews

by Chiyu

Suikoden II

Release dates:

17 December 1998

31 Augustus 1999

28 July 2000
Designer: Konami
Platform: Playstation
Guides - Torrent

Since there was some space left in the middle column I decided to write a small review about my second most favourite RPG ever (Final Fantasy Tactics is my favourite), and try to explain why I like it that much. This was the last 2D Suikoden, after this the series went to the Playstation2 and became 3D. Me, I've always preferred 2D games.. But Suikoden II is much better than it's sequals anyway. Suikoden 2 is a direct sequal to Suikoden 1, and some of the characters appearing in Suikoden 1 will also appear in this game.

Graphics

For a mostly 2D game the graphics are above average. The FMV's (short movies) in the game look really nice and the face portraits for all the 130+ major characters are well done. Still, don't expect superior graphics like Doom 3 or anything. It is still a 2D, and a Playstation1 game...

Music/Sound

The music is very good. Although the soundtrack may not be as good as that of a Squaresoft SNES RPG, it still has a lot of memorable tunes. The music sounds very asian. The sound effects are decent, and also configurable.

Gameplay

The gameplay is one of the things that makes this game so great. The battle-system. You can have up to 6 characters (instead of 4, and nowadays 3, in most RPGs) in your active battle team. You can choose "auto" and your character will fight automatically for 1 round, making the easier battles really fast. What makes the Suikoden games so unique is that you can recruit 108 characters (of which most are optional), which each have diverse personalities (making it easy to sympathise with some characters) and at least 60 of those are playable fighters for your team. So there are hundreds of combinations and you can make your own favourite team with these combinations. Various characters have "combo" techniques, but next to that they can also have special attacks and magic skills, from "runes". For example; give a magician unit a "Fire Rune" and he/she will have access to fire elemental magic (the higher his/her level, the higher the MP, the choice of skills and the damage they do), and a fighter unit a Titan Rune, that makes him attack slower but twice as strong. The non-playable characters which you can recruit can enhance the HQ you get in the game (yes, you get your own castle), by adding shops, minigames (some are REALLY fun!), restaurants, etc.
There are three kinds of battles, the standard 6 vs X enemies battles, a special duel mode (that works a bit like rock-paper-scissors) and an amazing turn based strategy for "army battles". This really adds some spice to the game.

Story

The story is the other aspect that makes this game one of my favourites. I don't want to spoil much but it's really interesting. It's a perfect balance between a;
- "personal" storyline; boy and his best friend split ways, and the boy gets a mysterious "True Rune" that gives him great powers.
- "political" storyline; one evil country Highland wants to invade the City-State of Jowston (basically a federation of smaller, allied countries), and it's up to you to lead a neutral army to stop this and fight back. Ofcourse you'll need to recruit a lot of soldiers and get a lot of allies in order to do this.

Conclusion

A game with a great replayability, gameplay and storyline that can keep me hooked for hours. Once you get your first HQ, the Mercenary Fort, the game starts getting interesting. From that point on, you can recruit characters. Trying to recruit all 108 characters is almost just as important as following the "general" storyline. With the different modes of battle, the huge world map (and freedom of exploring it), the additional mini-games and the 60+ fighters you can use, the game offers a lot of variety.

Graphics: 8.1
Music/Sounds: 7.5
Gameplay: 9.3
Story: 9.5
Overall: 9.0

Movie Reviews

by Anakin

Star Wars III: Revenge of the sith

Release: 19 May 2005
Director: George Lucas
Producer: George Lucas Films
Genre: Science Fiction

There were a lot of expectations for this movie, which was by many considered as a movie that coudn't be better than lotr. Nevertheless worth watching, i'd like to get 1 bad thing straight, George lucas first directed part 4, 5 and 6 and then came up with 1, 2 and now 3, that sux because if you have seen the 5 other parts you know who's going to die in episode 3. Also the whole movie reflects to one thing, keeping the jedi from turning evil, the movie has 2 parts, part 1 with episode 1, 2 and 3 with Padme, Anakin and Obi-Wan as the main characters and part 2 with episode 4, 5 and 6 with Leia, Darth Vader, Luke and Han Solo as the main characters.

During the whole 3rd movie you already know whats going to happen everything is pointing at it, this isnt even spoilering anymore, the fall of Anakin to the dark side. I was really like; "how is the fall to the dark side going to be?" If the movies were made in a correct order the Return of the Jedi (6) would be so much more emotional.

Well anyway the movie starts with great special effects, you need to see in cinema, but after a while in the starting battle, you're just w8ing till the story/talking parts starts, this is after all the episode where Anakin will turn evil in. The place where Anakin fights Obi-Wan couldn't be any better, the final fight is really emotional, i liked it very much, including the music, the ending is a real succes to me. The movie is worth watchin imo, but i'd suggest you to see part 1 and 2 first, and 4, 5 and 6 after, then its really cool.

*Spoilers!* (highlight to read)

When Anakin says he has nightmare's about Padme dieing when the baby's will be born, you just know how Padme's going to die because she has to die in this movie and Ani will turn evil anyway. I like Christhoper Lee as actour (Saruman from lotr) but i knew he woudnt have time to hang arround in the sw movie the whole time, it didnt suprise me to much to see him getting killed early in the start, I liked it that Anakin killed him.

There is no real moment when anakins is really fallen to dark-side imo, I think the good characters also gave up on him to easily. When Anakin is Darth Vader i was kinda suprised his first question was: where is Padme, is she alright, is she alive? That means he was still good, or atleast had care. Even Padme says it before she dies, there is still good in him, i know it.

The general gouvenour or w/e he was was a stupid character imo who had no influence on the story, i was glad when he got killed, the end battle was soooo cool, i thought Anakin would win, i actually forgot that Obi-Wan still appeared in ep 4, i was kinda suprised when i remembered, the match didnt end in a draw, Obi-Wan did win, but after he cutted off anakins legs the movie was really cool, the famous line: you where the chosen one, is really emotional, and then Anakin says: I hate you, and Obi-Wan says: You were my brother Anakin, I loved you. Was soo cool, that had me impressed the most, especially because it was a fire area they where in and Anakin starts to burn after.

But those lines "You were my brother Anakin, I loved you" really impressed me, i even had trouble holding my tears a bit, he really acted very very well.

The music is also good, like i mentioned before, especially when darth vader rises, the NOOOOOOOOOOO sux, in one word, that had no emotion at all in it, i dont understand why Anakin gave up on Padme so easily anyway and why he just killed her so easily, that was stupid, I was really looking forward to the deaths off all other jedi, as they didnt appear in episode 4, i expected Anakin would kill them all, i'd loved seeing that, especially if Anakin would take his revenge on Master Winduu, i really exited to his dead and it was sooo dissapointing, also yoda was soo weaker than in Episode 2.

Graphics: 9.5
Music: 9
Story: 9
Actors: 7,5
Directing/main: 8.5

Second opinion

by Unhit

Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith is the 6th movie out of George Lucas' great famous Star Wars series. The movie was meant to be the last and concluding one of the series (I know about the rumours, but let's forget about that for now), and since it was the 3rd part (right in the middle), everyone who had already seen Star Wars knew about the story already. So Lucas had to manage three things: make an amazing finish, connect to the "old" movies Episode IV, V, and VI - and make the story exciting although we all know what's going to happen, at least roughly.
And what he did is without a doubt a masterpiece. Epic battles follow tragic scenes, as you see the Jedi facing their doom. Ian McDiarmid plays an awesome Emperor Palpatine whose aura even affects the spectators. And Anakin's transformation to Darth Vader is well shown as a slow process, until Anakin suddenly explodes and makes way to his fear and anger.
The tragic story is underlined by an amazing soundtrack by John Williams which increases the feeling of depression during the movie. The artists of ILM, Lucas' "private" special-effects-enterprise, did their job great as well and showed us a complex, real world in hundreds of colours.

My overall rating for this movie would be at least a 12 out of 10. But since I should stay on the scale I'll give it a 10. Read this mark as the mark of a Star Wars freak, but: I've seen the movie on the premiere day, and I will see it again soon for sure. It's a masterpiece without a doubt. Go see it.
May the Force be with you.

JJ2WC2: Memories of a cupadmin

by ChippieBW

As CC'ers, I can't imagine that you haven't heard about it: the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 World Championships (or JJ2WC for insiders) have been held for the second time recently. The first edition, organized by R3ptile and played during Autumn 2004, turned out to be a huge success. Many (and I mean MANY) eager JJ2 players tried to organize a similar JJ2 Clan Tournament before, but actually none of them worked. R3ptile was the person person who managed to get such a clan tournament working (besides the notorious JDC which is played during summers, and in which many players participate) and the joy was huge. Of course, several things still didn't work (fights between clans, clans that didn't show up for a match, clans dieing during the tournament, etc.) but after it was good enough. Time for a second season.

The second season started in April 2005 officially, but a few smaller events were held before it (R3ptile organized two duellist tournaments which were won by FireSworD and SkulL).
A big event was the CTF Contest. R3ptile wanted to make the mappool more diverse than the last time, so he decided to start a contest for best CTF level. The price was pretty good: the level would be played during JJ2WC and 4 matches would be played on it at least. It stimulated 4 eager level makers (CelL, ChippieBW, DarkSonic and Ragnarok) to submit one of their levels. After the contest was delayed a few times, it became a serious battle in the poll between my entry (I'm ChippieBW, in case you didn't notice) and CelL's. At the end, Quasar Quandary by me (yay!) won the contest.
The mappool was decided: Nuclear Afterblast, Quasar Quandary, Jungle's Edge, Sacrifice, Medieval Skyscrapers and Security Breach v2. The first 5 would be played during the group rounds and SBv2 during the semi-finals. After the contest, the website was made and the groups were arranged. The tournament was ready to go!

April came and so did the first round of the second season. It already contained a huge blockbuster: the epic match between CC and GpW, who had been rivals since the JJ2 stone age. The match turned out to be very successful with a smashing victory for CC at the end. The "imperial mach" for CC started to unfold itself, and they promised to go on with victories like these. CC was entitled as the big underdog for this season, and the majority expected DM or FoR to win this tournament. But after this relatively easy victory, all eyes where aimed on CC. About the other matches during the first round - they didn�t went excellent. LB's Saddam was banned during the match versus TF because R3ptile suspected him to be Vegito (although this wasn't true) and the match ended in a tie, although LB could have won. JSZ didn't show up in their first match against VS, so a Polish derby didn't take place.

During the second round, the favourites started their tournament. The Mercenaries faced the Freaks during their first match, and they directly showed their qualities by raging over TF with a 19-3 score in Quasar Quandary. FoR showed the opposite: they refused to show up against VS and they lost on forfeit. VS got their 4 points totally from forfeits, but they were leading in Group 2. The other match, LB vs. LR, ended in a huge victory for LB. They took the lead in Group 1 as well.

Round 3, played in Jungle's Edge, would become a round of surprises. DM continued their march to the playoffs with a surprising victory of 18-6 against [si]. The victory itself wasn't that surprising, but the score - [si] was playing with an excellent team consisting of R3ptile, Blackraptor and BlurredD - was. DM took over the leading spot from LB, who had a free round. Another surprise: LR won from TF. The freaks weren't in good shape, but a loss from LR wasn't expected. VS and FoR played their first real matches(!), FoR won from GpW and VS lost from CC.

Round 4 and 5 didn�t really matter that much anymore - the separation from teams that would proceed and teams that would get knocked-out had already taken place. Many matches weren't really interesting anymore, although some interesting happenings occurred: JSZ was kicked out of JJ2WC because of too many forfeit losses and LB surprisingly won from [si] - in contrary of majority belief [si] didn't proceed to the playoffs. In group 1, DM (expected) and LB (unexpected) moved on, and in group 2, the honour was given to CC (kind of expected) and VS (kind of unexpected)

The semi-finals approached. So far so good - a few matches weren't played (mainly those from FoR and JSZ) but almost everything turned out to be fine. The first semi-final, DM against VS, was expected to be almost unnecessary. DM would win, kick VS out of the tournament and advance to finals like last year. Things went different. After a smashing and stunning match in Security Breach v2, VS ended up as the winner. This was surely th� surprise of this years JJ2WC so far.
One day later: CC versus LB. Again played in Security Breach v2, and the match started quite fluently for CC. At half time, CC already had obtained over 10 points at that moment so a overscore would be possible.
After about 15 minutes in round 1, a series of events caused Shaney to say "idiot" to R3ptile, the supervisor, which gave him reason to give LB a forfeit loss in the first round and ban Shaney from the tournament. This decision had some consequences: in protest to R3ptile's unfair actions, LB left the tournament with honour and most of LB clan died out. CC wasn't really happy about their progress to the finals and ChippieBW (myself) got kicked out of JJ2WC for writing a match report.

Then the finals passed by. It had lost a bit of the glamour and shine it could have, although CC vs. VS became an interesting match anyway. CC didn�t really had much trouble with VS during the match (only with some laggy hosts) and the match was won pretty easily. CC became the replacer of DM, and a serious new force on the World Championship.
A few days after the finals, R3ptile decided that he had enough with JJ2WC, JJ2 and all things related to the community (probably the seventh time he said that) Anyway, he decided that JJ2WC would get a new main supervisor for the third season. The dedicated person for this job was, after a short poll, myself! Yay!
The third season is planned for November 2005. Any changes? Well, not much I can think about at the moment, the tournament structure won't change much. I'll try to make the website much more dynamic though, with PHP/MySQL and all kills and scores will be noted, for eventual side tournaments. I hope the next season will be as good as this was!

Picture of the month

"Latex Whip", submitted by Dessiny

Have you got a nice/funny pic to send in? Feel free to send it to newsletter@craccoclan.com! If it's not the proper size (245 by X), I'll have to resize it.

Member changes

Members who joined last month (May):

Criss (JJ2)

IronLight (JJ2)

EarlyBirdPie (JJ2)

Stickgo (JJ2)

BlastFire (JJ2)

Saddam (JJ2)

kyrsiN (JJ2)

Puffie (JJ2)

Nat (JJ2)

Crusader (JJ2)

Predator (JJ2)

BattleSpaz (JJ2)

Elf (JJ2)

Members who left last month (May):

Yasco (JJ2)

Squirrel (JJ2)

Member of the month

April's member: Grytolle!!!

May's member: Vegito!!!

Do you wish to vote on who should be the member of the month June? Please tell me on MSN or e-mail which member deserves the "member of the month" title in your opinion. Don't base your vote on personal opinions, base it on who you think did most for the clan in the last month.
To prevent "fakers" from voting, only CC members are allowed to vote on their clan mates. You can not vote on the same person twice in a row.

CC Facts

Did you know that.....

- CC'ers voted X� to be the best clan ever (followed by TEC, XS� and [Si]), excluding CC itself.

- Chiyu (formerly known as CraccoBoy) has won his 34th clanwar for CC (against VS) this month? :P

Recipes

by Ryu

Lobster Alfredo (for four persons)

Ingredients:
- 120 ml of lobster- or fish bouillon
- 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
- 300 g of fresh meat of a lobster, without the scale
- � teaspoon of Tabasco
- 200 g of Parmesan Cheese, fresh rasped
- � teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 spoon of butter
- 5 dl of fat cream
- 5 egg thaws
- 15g fresh chopped parsley
- 1 dash of Worcester sauce
- 340 g of fettuccini

How to make:
1. Melt de butter on medium fire in a medium pan, add the lobster- or fish bouillon and add the fat cream as well. Then increase the fire to the maximum level.
2. Add, when the cream is almost boiling, the Parmesan Cheese and klop until all of the cheese is melted and has been taken into the cream.
3. Add the Worcester sauce, the Tabasco, the black pepper and the Dijon mustard and klop firmly. Change the fire to almost the lowest heat and simmer the substance for about 20 minutes.
4. Boil, while the sauce is simmering, the pasta (the fettuccini). After this, leak it and divide it over the plates.
5. Chop the lobster meat in little pieces and blend it trough the sauce.
6. Add the egg thaws to the sauce and change once again the fire to medium/high. The sauce must have an average thickness.
7. Scoop up the sauce over the pasta, sprinkle it with some fresh parsley and serve the meal.

Preview on Xbox 360

by KyrsiN & Nimrod

Xbox 360 is Microsoft's successor to their Xbox video game console, previously referred to during development as "Project Xenon". The console is expected to be released in November of 2005 in the U.S., and the launch in Europe is expected only a few weeks later. The Xbox 360 will compete for market share against the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Revolution. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, a week before E�. The system's retail price has not yet been confirmed, but is speculated to be between $299 and $399 U.S. Dollars.

With the launch of the Xbox 360, Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live will go through a major upgrade adding a basic non-subscription service (Silver) to its already established premium subscription-based service (Gold).

Hardware specifications

1. Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
2. Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz
3. Two hardware threads per core; six total
4. VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
5. 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
6. 1MB L2 cache

Custom ATI R520 Based GPU

1. 500 MHz GPU (90nm process)
2. 10 MB embedded DRAM (256 GB/s memory bandwidth, 2Ghz Bus)
3. 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
4. Unified shader architecture
5. Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second
6. Pixel Fill Rate: 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA
7. Shader Performance: 48 billion shader operations per second (96 billion shader operations per second theoretical maximum)
8. Dot product operations: 9 billion per second (Microsoft figure)

Memory

1. 512 MB 700MHz GDDR-3 RAM (unified memory architecture)
2. Memory Bandwidth
3. 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
4. 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
5. 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio

1. Multichannel surround sound output
2. Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
3. 320 independent decompression channels
4. 32 bit processing
5. 256+ audio channels

Controller

The Xbox 360 has the ability to support four wireless controllers. Additionally it can support three wired controllers through the use of its USB ports (two in front, one in back). The wired controller cords are nine feet in length and are breakaway similar to those used with the Xbox.

The controller for the Xbox 360 is a similar yet improved version of the Type-S gamepad for the original Xbox. The Xbox 360 controller adds the new feature of the Xbox guide button, which has the appearance of the Xbox 360 emblem and is surrounded by a ring of light. Pressing the Xbox guide button will bring the Xbox 360 out of sleep mode or instantly bring up the "Xbox Guide". The ring of light lights up to designate what controller "port" the gamepad is currently using and which console (if more than one) the controller is connected to. The black and white buttons have been redesigned as shoulder buttons, now referred to as bumper buttons, located above the left and right triggers. The rear of the controller has been redesigned to include a new port where the player can connect a headset. The new port replaces the old multi-purpose connector on the front of the Xbox controller.

Miscellaneous

1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG photo CD
2. All games support a 16:9 aspect ratio, and 720p and 1080i video modes
3. Standard definition and high definition video output supported
4. Anti-Aliasing will be required in every game
5. Customizable face plates to change appearance
6. 3 USB 2.0 ports
7. Support for 4 wireless controllers
8. Detachable 20GB hard drive
9. Wi-Fi ready (802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g), using an Xbox 360-specific or third-party wireless bridge accessory. Xbox 360 consoles will automatically detect and link with other Xbox 360 consoles within range.

Backward compatibility

According to J Allard during Microsoft's E3 Press Conference, the Xbox 360 will be backward compatible with original Xbox games with Xbox Live support, however, it is possible that it may not be fully backward-compatible with all Xbox games. J Allard stated, "Xbox 360 will be backward-compatible with top-selling Xbox games". The ambiguous statement has many media outlets believing that Microsoft may pick and choose certain games.

Faceplates

Faceplates (much like on mobile phones) will be available for Xbox 360 to personalize the console to the user, some examples below:

A day when nothing seemed to go right

by White Rabbit

Having rushed down the stairs to the kitchen after getting up late I found that there was still enough time for a proper breakfast. Relieved that I probably wouldn�t be late for school if I hurried, I quickly put two slices of bread in the toaster and prepared my corn flakes, while I hoped that this morning�s misfortune would be my last for today. How wrong I was! To my surprise I discovered that the bread had hone bad and the slices I put in the toaster were covered in fungi. I was going to go hungry until lunch, which was disappointing, but it didn�t seem to matter much. School would end at 12.35 today so having an empty stomach couldn�t possibly do much harm.

My neighbours always park right next to our backyard, which is always frustrating, and although they listen to us when we complain they soon forget our annoyance and block the path over and over again. Today was no exception and I almost crashed into my neighbour�s car web I took out my bike. I regret having stopped in time. They would, after all, think twice about parking so close to our backdoor if they found the side of their car with scratches on it every morning. And that would certainly help brighten up my mornings.

My first lesson at school was geography, and we were working with computers on our geography coursework. Having ploughed through pages of census data, I collected the relevant material and put it into my coursework. By the end of the lesson I was very proud of having done so much but I was less thrilled when all my work was lost when my computer locked and crashed and when I forgot that frequent saving prevents data loss. This really made me angry as the day was going pretty poorly already from the start. I usually like computers and I still do, but from now on I will never treat an Apple computer with respect.

Just when I thought things couldn�t get worse, it did. When I arrived at my English lesson, I discovered to my horror that I forgot to do my English homework. Last night I was too busy doing my other homework well into the night, which was the main reason I overslept, I completely neglected my English homework. I was given the opportunity to do it in class instead and found that the title of my homework was �A day when nothing seemed to go right�. Well, this must certainly be the easiest English homework I have ever done!

Soccer updates

by Anakin

Important Club Results:

Champions League (Semi Finals)

AC Milaan - PSV 2-0
Chelsea - Liverpool 0-0

PSV - AC Milaan* 3-1 (on away goals)
Liverpool* - Chelsea 1-0

*=to the final

Uefa Cup (Semi Finals)

Sporting Lissabon - AZ 2-1
Parma - CSKA Moskou 0-0

AZ - Sporting Lissabon* 2-1 (3-2 A.E.T. Sporting win on away goals)
CSKA Moskou* - Parma 3-0

(Final in Lissabon/Portugal)

Sporting Lissabon - CSKA Moskou 1-3

League Results:
Feyenoord - Ajax 2-3
PSV - Feyenoord 4-2
Manchester United - Chelsea 2-3

Highlights:
Barcelona are the champions of Spain
PSV are the champions of the Netherlands
Bayer M�nchen are the champions of Germany
Chelsea are the champions of England
Lyon are the champions of France

International (World cup 2006 qualifier):
Netherlands - Armenia 2-0

Comments:
The dutch soccer suffered 5 goals against just before the whistle, PSV got eleminated on Milan's double counting, away goal in the last minute, altrough PSV eindhoven managed to score 3-1 directly after, it still wasnt enough, the same thing happened in Milan when AC scored 1-0 just before half-time and 2-0 just before the end of the match, while PSV was better in both matches.
One day later after PSV's elemination in the Semi-Finals yet again, AZ got also a 1-0 lead but just before half-time sporting, who would play the final in their stadium, scored 1-1, AZ scored 2-1, so there had to be extra time, this gave Sporting Lissabon 33 extra minutes to score a away goal, which counts double, AZ scored 3-1 but in the injury time of the 2nd half of extra time, when just 10 seconds where left to play (while injury time isnt allowed in extra time according to the official uefa soccer rules). Sporting scored, yet again in the very last minute, a (away) goal and the dream was over for AZ which played yet again much better than their opponents.

So a poor week of soccer, with great matches for the neutral soccer fans, honourable results for Eindhoven and Alkmaar but really sad eleminations, which none of both teams ever deserved. A week of soccer with many sad mistake's by the uefa and Feyenoord Rotterdam is really doing very bad at the moment :l.