I'm on the brink and it's all down to a 3-2 defeat to QPR. Well, it's also down to losing by numerous goals to Chelsea, Man City, ManU, and Arsenal, but the most recent bad result is by far the worst. I'd been doing OK, having recovered from a very dodgy opening to the season. I currently sit in 7th place in the league, but I had been third and looking good for Champions League qualification. I'm now slipping rapidly and reading news reports about how my job is in the balance.
I've done all this playing FM13's classic mode, which streamlines everything into an easier to manage package - ideal considering I only play the game during my lunch break, and wouldn't get anywhere if I had all the full-fat game's options at my disposal. You do miss out on some of the attachment you get to your club and players, but I still regularly shout expletives at Defoe for being a "$!$!".
Revisiting Quake 2 some 15 years after its launch, it's strikingly clear how much things have changed. Originally that last sentence was going to read "...how far we've come", but I'm not entirely convinced that's true. Because even when you look at everything modern shooters can be, at the various achievements of CoD, Halo, Far Cry and the others, there's still something missing. Put simply, there was a purity of design here that we'll never see again. "They don't make 'em like this any more", as the saying goes. And for once, that's actually true. They really don't.
ZombiU is a game that I love to hate. After prolonged sessions of play (and in ZombiU's case, I'm talking somewhere between the 30-60 minute mark) I find the atmosphere and tension of Ubisoft Montpellier's apocalyptic London becomes too unbearable, to the point where any eerie noise or unexpected movement is enough to make me jump out of my seat and turn off the console. And then, two hours later, I want to get straight back on with it. That's impressive.
I've never experienced this with a game before. In horror games of old, if I was ever terrified enough to not want to continue, I'd likely never go back. I've already told of the time I returned the original Resident Evil to the shop after discovering a zombie for the first time, and how the skinned thing attached to the chain mail fence in Silent Hill left me emotionally scarred. Just thinking about Project Zero or Forbidden Siren sends shivers down my spine, too.
But there's something about ZombiU that keeps me coming back, no matter how pant-wettingly scary it is. It's a true survival horror, and a game that keeps me up all night - even when I'm not playing it.
