Member of the Month September 2016 (dieselv2)

You know what time it is? Yea, it's time to move the f......um..move out the way!! He's the NWO....er I mean the NMoM (New Member of the Month) coming thru....que the music please.... Well he's a-runnin' down the road, tryin' to loosen his load and he's got X-Box games on his mind: Some he has to wrestle, some he has to sneek and kill and most he hasn't even tried....but that won't stop him from suggesting new features and that's tooo sweet! So let me stop rambling so you can meet dieselv2.

Name:
My name is Philip Canavan but much prefer Phil

Where do you live?
I was born in Huyton and moved to Walton once I met my wife. For those that don't know it's Liverpool in the UK. If you want to learn a bit more about me, I'm 30 years old, married to clar3bear78 (she's only played one level of a game years ago) have a 17 year old step son and a 4 year old son.

What do you do for a living?
I was a manager for a busy high street retailer (Argos) before I quit my job! I went back to college to completed an Access to HE course allowing me to undertake a degree in marketing, which I start in September. In the meantime, I do a few nights in Primark for a bit of money until my student loan comes in. Aside from all that, I'm a full-time daddy and house husband haha.

Tell me about your Gamertag?
My gamertag is wrestling related. In 2002 the WWE had a draft split and this allowed them to develop characters. Matt Hardy dubbed himself as Matt Hardy Version 1. In 2003 Kevin Nash aka Diesel returned and WWE.com had the headline 'RAW RUNNING ON DIESEL POWER', from that moment I took the Diesel name but who knew so many had the same idea...Diesel was taken on Xbox Live so combined it with Matt Hardy for Dieselv1 but again taken so tries dieselv2 and it was available so I took it. As a side note I'm dieselv1 on PSN and dieselv3 on Steam.

When did you start playing?
I couldn't tell you the exact year but the first console I had was a Nintendo. I absolutely loved that console. My cousin had one too so we could swap games although my mate had a Super Nintendo and loved Yoshi's World (I think that was the name) after that I got a Mega Drive, which I think I got when I was about 8. I'm going to go off topic since the question isn't asked but my console history is as follows: Nintendo, MegaDrive, PS1, Xbox Original, PS2, Xbox 360, PS3 and Xbox One. The wife had a Wii when I met her too.

What's your play style? Ex: booster? Completionist? How often and long do you play?
With kids it’s now just play when I'm not tired or get chance but before my son was born I loved unlocking achievements and hearing the pop sound on Xbox 360. Major Nelson uploaded the achievement sound to his blog along with the orb sound from Crackdown and I had them downloaded haha. As you can see from my profile, sometimes I play daily and sometimes I go a week without.

What’s your current gaming setup like?
My Xbox One is on the downstairs TV which is a 50" Panasonic TV. Once the kids move out, it's man zone time and a proper gaming room with a PC, Xbox One, 360's, PS4, everything you can imagine. One might be moving out in 2 years so I'm planning out the room now

Tell me a good gaming story or experience? ex: Epic win/fail, marathon, accomplishment, a time you visited a game convention or met someone...or anything.
It was 1999 and I was playing WWF Warzone on the Playstation 1. For those that played you know each character was like a TV screen and you had to beat everyone to get to the top for the championship. So it took me two hours, the first game I ever had on the PS1 and a change from the old cartridge system and I got to the top. I'm ready to play the final match and BOOM! My dad switches off the electricity while he changes a fuse in fusebox. I was absolutely devastated screaming he could have warned me first. So he finishes his job and puts the electricity back on and I have to start from the beginning, 20 matches prior to where I was. Three matches in, the powers going again, changing something else. Gave up on gaming that day hahahaha.

Here's another great story…or not so great for me. Many years after WAW had been out I booted it up to try and get some achievements and landed in a lobby full of cheaters. They booted me and gave me a score of -1 meaning I could never play online again, it was a sad day!

Finishing Lego Marvel’s Avengers was a great event, collecting 250 gold bricks, 150 minikits and what not. It’s the first Lego game I’ve completed and proud of myself as it was stressful at times.

Do you have a special shout out to anyone in particular in the gaming community?
It's got to be Eric. I mean I've never joined a gaming community as they've never looked friendly enough but Eric has made a great site that has attracted great community members that has made me stay and even pay premium (on 3 months at time of writing this) but also to the man running this B8TINGU. As a previous community admin, I know how tough his job is to ensure posts are made in correct forum, everyone is having a good time and following rules and everyone gets along.

What's your favorite game genre?
Simulation. I loved The Sims, Sim City, etc. Not really a fan of games like Tomb Raider...except Tomb Raider 3 but that was just trying lock the butler in the freezer and run away from him. I also like Sandbox games being a fan of Assassin's Creed (except when it went all Piratey) and GTA V.

What’s your favorite game on 360? ONE? Of all time (any system)
My favourite ever game? There are soooo many good games but I'm going to break this down a little. My favourite game on Steam are the Football Manager games. I'm not a big football fan but these games have me hooked and I could sit there for hours playing them. In terms of ID@Xbox, it's definitely got to be Rocket League! There’s a wide range to choose in terms of all time and I’m sure once this is posted and people comment underway I’ll think ‘should have said that one’ but I’m going to go with Halo 3. Not played Halo 4 or 5, but to me this was best Halo made. Online was superfun as was co-op campaign. I think co-op campaign is something more game developers should look at, sometimes it can be boring on your own.

What is your worst game and Why?
Avatar: The Burning Earth....who on earth made that game??? Fun Fact: "Average Gamerscore 984 of 1000" WHAT!?

If you were a Video Game or game character who and why?
Hmmm a difficult one.... I always wanted to be an Assassin, dressed up like one walking down the street looking bad-ass, but I think if I could choose one character it would have to be Superman. Since there’s a Superman game and I think it’d be cool to be him. X-Ray vision, heat lasers, ice cool breath…..He’s a jack of all trades!

Are you looking forward to any new releases?
I used to love November, time for new Call of Duty's, new WWE games and new Assassin's Creed games but now I just wait a year until they are at a bargain price or wait til Games with Gold in a few years’ time. With Games with Gold my need for buying new games has diminished as 90% of the time I get 4 new games a month. Plus, my step son and his friend have each other's gamertag set as home consoles on each other’s Xbox One (my Xbox One really). So I get all the games his mate buys too. If they buy AC, CoD, etc at Christmas happy days!!

Do you collect or not so much?
I collect Games with Gold games if that counts. Got about 30 games I've not yet played haha! Depending when this gets published, I sold some of my Xbox One games a while ago and one was WWE 2K16 and now it's Games with Gold for August so it's like I never sold the game haha.

What else do you do besides gaming?
I am quite computer savvy when things go wrong from a technically stand point and am often found fixing my family computers or helping my nan daily with her iPad. 86 year olds shouldn't have iPads! haha. I have also changed various parts inside a computer tower and it really bought back my desire many years ago to build my own PC. Hmmmm think the wife would go berserk if I spent my student loan building a state of the art gaming PC haha? I love web designing and am proficient with HTML, not much with php but I will sit and manipulate Wordpress for my own gain taking set templates and making them my own.

What's your favorite feature on GTN?
Badges. I was highly addicted to these on 360voice and I am here. I'll be honest, I've whored a few badges just to increase my badge score and move up the badge leaderboard haha. My other favourite feature is Eric, let me explain. Eric is very open to suggestions and he will implement ideas he thinks adds to GTN and really likes to get the community involved.

What would you tell people about GTN if you were trying to get them to join?
I constantly put on Twitter what’s going on round here with hashtags and mention to people and the GTN twitter retweets them (I'm assuming it's Eric that runs that). I do what I can to try and get people involved. I love this place and want to see it succeed were others have failed. I would tell people it's a friendly community, there's a great badge system and more.

Is there anything you would like added to the site?
As much as I want to say genre badges like everyone else before me, I would like to see GTN move to the next level and team up with companies whether that be for prizes for just for name sake and they advertise us. Imagine 'Coors Light Achievement Challenge' haha. 360voice has Old Spice Experience I think it was called but imagine the money it would bring in. Maybe Eric could quit his job with it and be here full time haha. Also, I've said this before in the suggestion forum but it got shot down but I'm going to post it again here...we need a news team. By posting news, search engines will pick it up and when people search for key words they will be sent to GTN.

Nice read, congrats!

Great read you finally made the club good job.

Good read mate. Congrats!

Grats man, was a good read

Yay! Thanks people. I'm in the elite club and get a shiny badge haha

Congrats, diesel!

Congrats, nicely done interview.

'bout dang time he joined us! Congrats on being the new MotM!

Nice read, congrats on MotM.

Congrats!!