I'm still mopping up bits and pieces in Rise of the Tomb Raider, but most my time this week has been spent playing/living Football Manager 2016. It's been an experience.
As ever I started my career at Tottenham, but things went extremely badly. Despite buying some top youth in preparation for a long stay as Spurs boss, Levy gave me the boot after just six Premier League games. I was one place above relegation, but I still reckon this was extremely harsh - especially as I drew one game because of a missed penalty and in another hit the post THREE times!
Anyway, I'm now at Nottingham Forest, a club I care little for, and inherited a team adrift at the bottom of the Championship. But, things are going quite well. I'm still very near relegation, but I'm not in the zone, and I'm one of the top five form teams in the league. Sadly my chairman wants to spend zero money, so once some loan deals end the squad may well be terrible. Fun times ahead.
This week, I've been playing Star Wars Battlefront, which is absolutely brilliant for about three hours, then you realise there's not that much to it. An obvious labour of love for DICE, there are moments here which will make you want to punch the air and kiss your Han Solo posters. Sadly, it fades quickly, with too few good maps and good modes. Shame. Now anyway, I'm off. Bye.
Look, let me explain. I [i]have[i] been playing Black Ops 3. A lot, in fact. But in an attempt to see how far Call of Duty had 'evolved' this gen, I ended up revisiting the two earlier games: Advanced Warfare (which I still cannot understand the dislike for) and Ghosts, which by all accounts seems far better than I remember giving it credit for.
I'm talking about the multiplayer, of course - I still stand by the fact that Ghosts has one of the absolute worst campaigns in the series. But there's something about the MP that (and this sounds crazy) somehow manages to feel relatively fresh in 2015. Maybe it's because it feels like 'classic' COD. There isn't any wall-running, boost jumping or Titan-falling here, just the old-school, boots-on-ground infantry-based warfare that gave the series its name.
The maps are excellent, too. From the tight corridors of Strikezone to the open, sniper-heavy castle grounds of Stonehaven, a genuine shift in tactics is required when playing on certain maps, which I’m not convinced carries through to anywhere near the same degree in Black Ops 3.
That isn't to say there's anything wrong with the new stuff, of course - I think Black Ops 3 could end up being the best multiplayer shooter I'll play this year. But it's been surprisingly nice to get stuck back into 'classic COD', even if I do feel just that little bit wrong for doing so.