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Tom Orry, Editor – Football Manager 2016, PS4
I’ve got three games to go in the Sky Bet Championship and I’m currently level on points with two other teams, 5th, 6th and 7th positions only being separated by goal difference. With Forest close to receivership, the club is in a very bad position, so if I could somehow get into the play-offs and win, the financial boost from entering the Premier League would potentially be a lifesaver.
I, of course, have still done remarkably well to be as high up the league as I am. Considering the restrictions placed on me in the transfer market, it’s a miracle I’m not fighting in a relegation battle. One thing’s for sure, Monday lunch time is going to be very exciting indeed.
Steve Burns, Deputy Editor – Bloodborne, PS4
Bloodborne. Blooooooodborne. Blooooooooooooooooooooooodboooooooooooooooooooorne. What a cracker. I played it for seven hours straight one day over the Christmas break which, for a guy that hates video games, is some achievement. I only turned it off because I needed to go and watch the original version of Get Carter, which in the early 70s was considered shocking and utterly immoral and now seems like an extended harder cut of a Daniel Craig Bond movie. Oh well.
What was I saying? Ah yes, Bloodborne. You know all about it by now, of course, but if you don’t then go out and buy it for about 20 quid, then laugh forever at how much better than other games it is. Go on. Treat yourself.
Oh, and I also played a super-secret new-old game, which I’ll tell you about later. Shhhh.
Dave Scammell, News Editor – Star Wars Battlefront – PS4
It’s an odd one, this. In many ways I love it: the atmosphere, the sound, the feel of it being Star Wars. But in others it’s a failure: a shallow, messy multiplayer shooter that’s easy to pick up and play, but never manages to make me as excited about playing it as it really should.
I think it’s the map design. Strip back the spectacle of fighting on Endor or zooming over Hoth and the larger maps can often feel like simple Star Wars sandboxes, rather than the carefully constructed landscapes you’d expect from a DICE shooter. These are the developer’s weakest maps in, well, for as long as I can remember, lacking the well-considered layouts of Battlefield and encouraging pickup rushes over tactics and skill, with the highest-scoring players seemingly those who happen to find an AT-ST pickup first rather than anyone particularly adept at playing.
I don’t know. Maybe I need to give it more time for it to click. But so far Battlefront seems like one of those I’ll go back to every now and then for a quick, casual blast, rather than something (like Battlefield 4, Black Ops 3 or Rainbow Six Siege) that grips me for hours at a time.
Alice Bell, Junior Staff Writer – Rise of the Tomb Raider, Xbox One
I played a lot of Tomb Raider over Christmas, with my husband as a vocal audience. He kept shouting, variously: “Are you in a tomb yet? Why aren’t there any tombs? That doesn’t count as a tomb! It shouldn’t be called Tomb Raider! TOMB RAIDER IS A MISNOMER!” He also got upset at all the animals Lara killed, particularly the majestic big cats. This backseat gaming marred the experience slightly for me, but I still had a good time.
Lara is way less of a damsel-in-distress type this time, although she’s still about as careful an archaeologist as Indiana Jones. “Can I fit through this wall? No, but I can smash the wall down! Careful excavation is for DICKS!” (this is how I imagine her internal dialogue). I suppose, arguably, that if you’ve set something on fire and/or exploded it then it can, in a sense, no longer be said to belong in a museum.
