It’s time to get into FIFA09’s career mode in a big way. I’ve had my few getting-to-know-you weeks. I’ve also spent several days playing PES2009 just to see if things could be like they were between me and PES again (no, they can’t—not at the moment, anyway). It’s time to put my money where my mouth is. Time to walk the walk. I’m heading into Manager Mode, or as I will try to make it: Manager League Mode.

This name reflects that I will be playing with House Rules designed to make the experience as much like PES’s Master League as possible. I know—it’s absolutely crazy that the PES career mode is more realistic in many ways than its supposedly fully-licensed, official, FIFA equivalent, but there you go. Life’s not obliged to be consistent.

I’ll expand on my House Rules for Manager Mode over the coming days and weeks. They’re not that complex. There’ll be no consulting a rulebook every time I want to make a substitution. Most of my House rules will limit my coaching staff upgrades and my acquisition of new players on the transfer market. After 4 seasons in my Manager Mode career on FIFA08, I had Michael Owen, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Jesus Navas playing up front for Coventry City. I won’t let that happen this year.

I’ll be playing again as Coventry City on the PlayStation3 version of the game. Yes, the PS3—the console with the dreaded through-ball bug. It’s still not patched. Doubtless I’ll be moaning my head off incessantly about it until it is patched. I have noticed fewer issues since I switched to manual through-balls, but it’s early days.

I’ve mostly played FIFA09 so far on the Xbox360. The game is—just slightly—a better game on the 360. Better graphics, and better overall pace. Just better. Sadly, my 360 would seem to be on its last legs (after just 14 months, and relatively little use) and it’s not reliable enough for me to trust it. I have little enough time as it is. Constantly restarting after freezes and crashes is not something I can be bothered with.

I’ve been playing as Atletico Madrid in the Spanish league on the 360. I’ve just finished my first season and ended up in 4th place. The whole season was played on Professional difficulty. Early on I switched from all-Assisted controls to a mixed bag of semi-manual, manual, and assisted. This instantly made the game harder for me without having to change the difficulty level.

It turned out to be a rollercoaster of a season. Going over to semi-manual shooting in particular saw my goals dry up, and I slipped down the table. I rallied toward the end of the season and but for a few poor performances I might even have challenged for the title in the closing weeks.

What can I say about my Atletico players? I’ve loved playing with them. Forlan. Aguero. Maxi Rodriguez. And quite a few more. I think I’ve loved this season with Atletico so much because it’s been one of discovery for me. I taught myself how to shoot straight without the game helping me so much. Semi-manual shooting makes even the most straightforward goal something that you really have to work for. For example, this goal—

—is the quintessence of a bread and butter goal. But when using a manual through-ball, and semi-manual shooting, I was grinning as if I’d just netted a 40-yard screamer. The ordinary can feel that good in FIFA09. I can’t wait to see how my Coventry City career shapes up.

Another Sunday, and another quick look at how I’m getting on with any other football games that I might have played recently.

My newfound love for PES2008 in the guise of its PSP/PS2 version (*hawks and spits at the very thought of the next-gen version*) has led to a few casualties among my other games. Well, casualties is a slightly exaggerated way of putting it. ‘Games that I’ve stopped playing’ is what I mean.

I’ve got about a dozen great games on the backburner. I’ve got about another dozen very good games on top of that. I’m a games hoarder. Just looking through my drawer here, there’s a copy of Homeworld2 that I bought when it came out over 4 years ago. I still haven’t found the time to play it.

I’ve had an Xbox360 for a couple of months. Halo3 and Assassin’s Creed still haven’t seen any action for longer than about 30 minutes apiece. It’s almost criminal of me, I know. PES really does edge out everything else.

I’m most concerned about the PSP games that I’ve played a lot in the past but abruptly abandoned as soon as last-gen PES2008 came into and then took over my life. Disgaea in particular is one that I’ll really have to get back into soon. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Patapon. The list goes on.

But the foremost casualty has got to be FIFA08 on the PS3. EA’s remarkable football sim has been hit by a double-whammy: last-gen PES2008 is great, and the UEFA2008 demo has just come out. I’ve played UEFA2008 a lot this week, and now FIFA08 just feels wrong.

I played three games of my ongoing Dagenham & Redbridge career. I’m second in League 1and an almost certainty for promotion to the Championship at the end of the season. Within three seasons I should have Dag & Red in Europe.

I should be utterly transfixed by it all and, to be fair to FIFA08, a couple of months ago I was transfixed. I’ve been pretty open on this blog about something that most PES fans have found to be quite shameful to acknowledge: FIFA is pretty damn good on the next-gen consoles. It was and is a truly scary proposition.

But time passes and attitudes can change—in both directions (eh, Seabass?).

Suddenly, FIFA08 doesn’t seem so good. I pushed my players around the pitch rather listlessly. The scripting in FIFA08 now seems very obvious and very annoying. Scripting, for me, is when the game initiates any sequence of play that is predetermined. It’s most overt when the CPU decides to keep the ball and you just can’t get it off them whatever you do. Even if you make up your mind to foul them, they’ll know when to jink sideways, when to accelerate, when to stop, when to change direction. You can’t catch them. They’re demons in the corners of the pitch in particular, always getting their crosses in. Scripting in FIFA08 is a reality. It’s just different from PES scripting, is all.

UEFA2008 could be a very early glimpse of what EA has in store for us with FIFA09. Most striking is the camera: it’s the first true Wide camera in a next-gen football game. It’s disconcerting at first, and after half a year of making do with the existing next-gen games’ faux-Wide cameras, you almost think the UEFA2008 camera is pulled too far out. But it’s not too far out. It’s perfect.

Next is the gameplay. It’s a development of FIFA08’s gameplay, I now feel—not a retrograde step as I thought last week. The animations are smoother, the passing crisper. The shooting still feels anti-intuitive to me, but that’s probably the recent weeks of intensive PES2008 playing with my mind.

I won’t be buying UEFA2008. No matter how great its gameplay, I’m not attracted by its Euro2008 tournament setup. I need club football in a football game; international teams are only there for occasional amusement. UEFA2008 is an all-International affair, which is what it’s meant to be, so I can’t complain, really.

Maybe in June or July if I see UEFA2008 in a bargain bin for a tenner then I might be tempted. But otherwise, my next football game purchase will be the other side of the summer, in September. FIFA09 is only five months away. PES2009 is six months away. It’s going to be a tense summer, wondering what the respective studios are up to, although in all but a few cosmetic aspects I’d say both games should be already substantially complete right now.

In other other football game news, I downloaded the FM2008 demo on the Xbox360 but haven’t had time to actually play it. And I finally checked in again to the Beta version of Football Manager Live. After spending almost two weeks absent, I spent 30 minutes tweaking my team. I put some players up for transfer and bought a couple of others. Then I had to go. I didn’t even have time for a quick friendly (we’re between competitive seasons at the moment).

I simply don’t have the time for gaming—really, I’m not joking. I shouldn’t play games at all. I really, really, really have zero spare time. But I make time, I steal time, and I tend to want to use it to play PES. Everything else is just an impostor.

What do I know about Luxembourg? I know that its football team used to be the kind that England would routinely thump 9-0. (Those were the days.) I know that it is one of the practically-infinite number of places I would like to visit but never will. I know that it appeared in one of the most famous (to me) song lyrics ever, which forms the title of this post.

I also know that Luxembourg thumped me 6-0 in my first proper game of Sensible Soccer on the Xbox360. I was playing as England. I didn’t have a clue what to do or how to play. I couldn’t pick up loose balls. I couldn’t pass. I couldn’t shoot. One button to do everything? Eh?

Yes, I’ve finally got an Xbox360. There it is, sitting on the shelf in my bedroom. I bought it last week, along with a few games. (Among them was a rather forlorn-looking copy of LMA Manager 2007. At just £5 from GameStation’s pre-owned shelves, it would have been rude not to pick it up. I might cover LMA Manager on this blog if I end up playing it to any great extent.)

I never played games in the 1990s. The reasons for this are too complex to go into, but in a nutshell: the 1990s was a gap decade for me not just in terms of gaming, but in terms of life. I was unemployed and/or drunk and/or stoned for most of it. Gaming did not exist.

Consequently, Sensible Soccer is a franchise that I’d never played until just a few days ago here in 2008. I know. Shocking. For a football gaming enthusiast never to have played Sensible Soccer is a little like a literature fan never having read Shakespeare. Or if not Shakespeare, then at least Marlowe.

A few years ago I did play the demo of Sensible Soccer 2006 on the PS2. The screen juddered every few seconds and gave me a headache and I didn’t play it again. What a disaster that game was, I now know.

Sensible Soccer on the 360 is a different proposition. ‘Sensi’ aficionados assure me (indirectly) that it is a faithful reproduction, in glorious HD graphics, of the 1990s Amiga original. That’s good enough for me.

A football simulation this is definitely not. I’ve played about 20 games so far - all single-player. It’ll be a very long time before I dare to show my virtual face online. A review stated that new Sensi players faced “a very steep learning curve”. Understatement of the year.

I replayed England-Luxembourg several times, as all of the Sensi forum gurus advised. Play as a top team against a lesser team. Right. After a couple of thumpings, I started to kind of get what Sensi is all about. (One button? One button?!)

Here’s my first goal. I have no idea how it went in. Aftertouch, or something. This clip’s mobile phone video production standards are even lower than usual. I never thought I’d ever say that.