12 August 2003
The XIII — pronounced thirteen, but I can’t help myself calling it ecks-eye-eye-eye — demo is very stylised, using a comic-book motif to show key items (think Grim Fandango’s head-turning, but with big white boxes) and sounds ( ‘tap tap tap’ go the feet of the guards). It looks great and has an intuitive control system, although the controls menu could do with some tweaking. The level intros are excellent and the whole thing is pretty fun to play. But XIII can’t keep me away from it.
I picked up Zelda again after a bit of a break. Still excellent, just a case of furthering the story and getting cool new stuff, like the oversized hammer, while twitchily saving to soften the blow of a ‘disc could not be read’ error. But Zelda can’t keep me away from it.
Quake III, recently re-installed, is still a mighty FPS force. Not only for the instinctive, high-speed violence, but also the speed at which it’s possible to quite. I’m a petulant gamer, and if a game makes me jump through some hoops before quitting (naming no prominent names), I’m less likely to start it unless I’m absolutely determined to give it a go. But Quake III can’t keep me away from it.
Another resurrected game, another Gamecube game: Mario Sunshine. A friend of mine just completed it and so I’ve gone back to take another look at some of those needlessly-frustrating levels (this is only slightly related to my aforementioned petulance; I always felt Mario 64 was fair). But Mario can’t keep me away from it.
So what is it? It is Championship Manager — not 4, but 01/02, the last good version — or as I prefer to call it, the Eater of Time. Some say Civilization II’s your man
game; others swear by the Final Fantasy series; those who feel the need to control people in the face of mundanity may well prefer The Sims; and there are those stalwarts who stick it out with MMORPGS. For me, especially with the new season so close, there’s nothing to compare to good old Champ Man.
I’m on my Atalanta game. It’s actually my second: I lost the first due to loading it when tired and clicking on ‘delete’ rather than ‘restore.’ We’re the Manchester United of Serie A, constantly in the top two but only once able to make the big push for the Champions League. The 2009/2010 season’s about to start, and I’m feeling good (as usual). We’ve got Voulgaris in goal, Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year four out of the last five seasons. In defence there’s a wealth of talent, from the veteran Fabio Rustico (over 400 games for the club; career average rating 7.78) to the versatile Markus Dietrich (Germany Under-21 captain). Gianluca Zambrotta, just one of many players who can play at wing-back, was signed on a Bosman and has since been by far my most reliable wide man. I don’t know what to say about the strength in depth up front, but Djibril Cissé and Pablo Aimar aren’t guaranteed starting places, and two seasons ago I had seven players who scored more than ten goals.
If your eyes just glazed over, congratulations. You are not contaminated.