Rewind back to 2005 and 2006 when their predecessors launched, it was a different ball game. The Xbox 360 was all about games, whereas the PlayStation 3 focussed more on their system as a media centre, what with its built in Blu-ray drive. Since then, both consoles have been fairly even, with Microsoft just about edging things in terms of the cross-platform games, with these seemingly being built for Microsoft’s console before being ported over.

However, the announcements of the PS4 and Xbox One appear to be hinting at a role reversal, with Microsoft’s console hammering home how it will replace every other device in your house… and those that it can’t, it’ll happily piggyback onto. Meanwhile, the PS4 placed more focus on the games it could play host to, without actually showing many of them.

The next big event is going to be June’s E3 convention, as we wait to see what the games studios are planning to do to make use of  the next generation of technology. Compared to the 360 and PS3 launches, EA have claimed that they’ve learned from their past mistakes; hopefully that means that the first releases of their franchises (FIFA, Madden, NHL, etc) on the new consoles won’t be incomplete abominations. Likewise, we’d also hope that the only use of the new technologies won’t simply see an additional visual filter being applied to the gameplay.

At this point, neither console has a street date or price, although at time of writing, Amazon are currently listing UK prices of nearly £600 for each console, and £90 for each game. If those aren’t just placeholders, then all bets are off!

SPOILERS BEHIND THE JUMP

With WrestleMania returning to the New York market, the wrestling convention business attempted to capitalise on the invasion of fans with an event called WrestleCon, with the usual array of wrestlers and vendors available hawking their wares and signing autographs. Also part of WrestleCon was a myriad of independent events, most of which were available for those fans unable to make the trip to the Meadowlands Convention Centre in Secaucus, via the emerging internet PPV format.

I was one of those fans who didn’t make the trip to New Jersey, and having had the privilege of attending two prior WrestleManias (and also having the foresight to book Monday morning off work this year!), I decided to dip my toe into some of this weekend’s action.

Having to contend with a five hour time difference in the UK, a lot of my action was to be viewed on demand, with Evolve on Friday night at 9pm, Ring of Honor at 12.30am (early Saturday), Kaiju Big Battel at 4am on Saturday morning (which I did not watch); followed by SHIMMER on Saturday afternoon at 5pm, Dragon Gate USA at 1am (late Saturday night), then another Dragon Gate on Sunday evening at 6pm. There were other shows, like CZW who aired on iPPV also, and CHIKARA (who did not) as well as a Ring of Honor television taping, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a serious wrestling overdose before a WWE bell is even rung!

The following timings are in the order I saw the shows, not the order they took place…

FRIDAY NIGHT

My wrestling weekend started on Friday night then, with the EVOLVE show – the first effort that I’d seen from this group. For the uninformed, EVOLVE is an independent promotion that was set up in 2010 with the idea that it would be presented more like a sport, with emphasis on things like rules and wrestlers’ win-loss records. The group was set up by former Ring of Honor booker Gabe Sapolsky, among others, and recently merged with Sapolsky’s other effort, Dragon Gate USA, although the two continue to run separately branded shows.

This EVOLVE show was centred around a one night title tournament, to crown the company’s first champion. In the weeks building up to the event, brackets were unveiled, showing a less than conventional tournament, with a singles match and a four-way match being held as “qualifiers” of sorts. The show actually opened with the four-way, but despite the live show being held up for half an hour to sort out internet problems, the main bugbears of iPPVs rearered their ugly head, as most of the first hour of the show was unwatchable due to problems at the venue.

To EVOLVE’s credit, the company sorted the problem within the opening hour and arranged for make goods for everyone who’d paid to see the iPPV – effectively upgrading people or giving them a freebie.

Unfortunately by this point, the live crowd had been deflated by the delay and the opening match which took their breath away, as the four-way between Rich Swann, rumoured WWE-signees Sami Callihan and Samuray del Sol and Jigsaw (aka Rubix in TNA) blew the roof off of the convention centre. The second qualifier, between Jon Davis and AR Fox felt somewhat anticlimactic in comparison, as a simple ref bump with Davis accidentally clotheslining the referee ended the match by DQ.

Later in the tournament, the top two seeds – Ricochet and Chuck Taylor – ended up losing to the qualifiers Sami Callihan and AR Fox, setting up the finale, although by that point a stuttering internet stream had dampened my enthusiasm, although the entertaining act of the Gentlemen’s Club (accompanied by the Swamp Monster!) did manage to revive things somewhat in their loss to Johnny Gargano and former “current” WWE champion Brian Kendrick.

One wrestler I’d not seen before (but had heard plenty of) was Uhaa Nation. He made his EVOLVE return following a year out with a serious knee injury, helping Arik Cannon overcome Scott Reed. If you’ve not seen Uhaa before, the best way I can describe him is as a more athletic version of Bobby Lashley, with standing moonsaults and standing shooting star presses in his repertoire. Tailor-made for one-day making it to WWE, watch him while you can because those moves won’t make it onto Raw!

I tapped out after the tag team match between the Young Bucks (formerly TNA’s Generation Me) and the Super Smash Brothers, but was able to watch the finals on demand the next day, as AR Fox overcame Sami Callihan to become the first EVOLVE champion as the show ended with barely an hour to go before Ring of Honor opened their “Supercard of Honor 7″ event back in New York City.

SATURDAY

The Hammerstein Ballrom has been more famous among wrestling fans for ECW in their dying days… and also the start of WWE’s revival of Extreme. In more recent times, Ring of Honor have used the Manhattan Centre as their New York base. Friday night’s Supercard of Honor was their latest foray into iPPV, a medium which the company has had extremely mixed results in.

On WrestleMania weekend last year, ROH’s iPPVs were a mitigated disaster, with internet connections and local weather combining to ruin both night’s shows, and force the company to leave their iPPV providers (GoFightLive) and create an in-house solution with extremely mixed results that have severely tarnished the reputation of internet pay-per-view as a whole.

As a live experience, ROH’s iPPV apparently cut out in the vital moments of the main event, killing all of the suspense as Jay Briscoe survived an onslaught from SCUM to unseat Kevin Steen as the ROH World Champion. Watching the show on demand the following day revealed the same problem, as the show rolled along well until the end of the main event, where the picture quality dropped, then the image froze until the end of show celebrations.

Elsewhere in the “Supercard of Honor”, Michael Elgin and former TNA X-Division champion Jay Lethal battled it out in a stellar number one contender’s match, whilst Matt Hardy continued his rehabilitation in wrestling with a loss in the three way for the company’s television title, as a low blow and small package allowed Adam Cole score the elimination before he eventually fell to defending champion Matt Taven. Speaking of Taven, his act as part of the “House of Truth” with Truth Martini was bordering on the X-rated, as was former WWE Playboy model Maria, whose partnership with the returning Mike Bennett was laiden with chemistry. Sadly, if either of those two get picked up by WWE, I cannot see their entire entourage making the trip to Titan Tours with them.

At 5pm UK time, the SHIMMER women athletes promotion held a matinee show at WrestleCon, broadcast worldwide on iPPV. Although they had some issues, the show was at least watchable. If your only exposure of women wrestling was from WWE and TNA, then this was a world away – women who can wrestle, and aren’t hired primarily on their appearances. Compared to promotions like ROH and EVOLVE, Shimmer’s matches were a lot more basic, and dare I say, old-school. Matches ending after a finisher or a big move, as opposed to a WrestleMania finish in every match. The fact that the main event cage match, which could only have been won by pinfall or submission, ended with Cheerleader Melissa (formerly Raisha Saeed and Alissa Flash in TNA) winning the title from Saraya Knight following a top rope huracanrana on the Brit, says it all. No overdone false finishes, just a match building up to a big spot which ended the match. Refreshing.

SUNDAY

My plan was to catch up with Saturday night’s DG:USA show before following up with the company’s live matinee. Sadly, the video on demand of the show didn’t get posted until after Sunday’s event, so I was left to watch “Mercury Rising” out of order.

By this point I must admit that I was starting to get distracted as the build-up to WrestleMania continued. An opening match featuring former TNA man Tony Nese was perfectly acceptable – the polar opposite of the second match of the night, as “The Scene” exploded, with Scott Reed beating Caleb Konley in a match that made zero sense unless you’d seen Saturday’s show. Which I hadn’t.

A tag team victory for the Super Smash Brothers and Brian Kendrick’s win over Chuck Taylor then led us into a weird elimination style gauntlet match with ladders. Billed as the “ladders are legal fray”, this was a seven person match which had staggered entries, and the introduction of ladders once everyone had joined the match. If you wanted to be critical of the Young Bucks, you could say that their main move here was the superkick, although it was clear that this match was clearly designed to put over Uhaa Nation, as he ended up eliminating both of the Bucks to claim victory.

The show was rounded off with two matches – first a Dragon Gate six man tag. Those of you with a decent memory may recall these matches stealing the show for Ring of Honor over WrestleMania weekends past. In fact, it was the success of these matches that led to the creation of DG:USA after Gabe Sapolsky’s departure from Ring of Honor. However, those matches were pretty much transplanting a Dragon Gate feud and putting them on a ROH card. Nowadays, the Dragon Gate six man tags are three Dragon Gate guys vs three DG:USA guys, which really takes the lustre of fof the match. The main event of Akira Tozawa vs Shingo was skipped by yours truly: another one to stick on the “watch later” list.

And then… we make it to WrestleMania. This was the first year that WWE ran a pre-game and post-game show, and it felt like a nice addition to the WrestleMania experience, with Jim Ross (in the role of legendary commentary), Dusty Rhodes (legendary wrestler) and Kofi Kingston (best spoken guy who couldn’t get on the card). If this gets copied into all other PPVs, though, it will quickly lose it’s shine. The pre-show match between Wade Barrett and The Miz only went four minutes, which was sadly a precursor for things to come as too many matches went way too short.

We all know the story of recent WrestleManias – a pedestrian first half of the show, with the main event matches knocking the ball out of the park. This year, it didn’t quite work out like that.

The opening match of the Shield vs Big Show, Randy Orton and Sheamus may have ended in a win for the invading forces, but at the end of they played second fiddle to Big Show’s umpteenth turn, as his spell as a babyface of convenience came to an end. Ryback vs Mark Henry was what we all expected, save for the finish, as WWE opted to extend Ryback’s pay-per-view losing streak in favour of having him perform the Shellshock after the match instead.

Daniel Bryan finally got his WrestleMania moment after last year’s 18 second loss and the prior year’s dumping to the pre-show, as he and Kane retained the tag team titles over the debuting Big E Langston and Dolph “I never win” Ziggler. The placement of this match only added fuel to the fire for those hoping that Dolph would finally exchange his flattened blue briefcase for the World Heavyweight title, but it was not to be on this night.

Jack Swagger’s curious jobber entrance at WrestleMania of all places may have been sending a message after the challenger’s recent DUI went unpunished (or perhaps they just didn’t want to show him driving). The match was pretty good, although the crowd didn’t seem to react to this, or most things on the match. Alberto del Rio retained the title with the cross armbreaker, and as the picture faded to black, it became clear that we’d be seeing no cash in tonight.

The Undertaker extended his streak with his annual blowaway match, with CM Punk being the victim this year. I’m fine with the Undertaker wrestling once a year if it means we’ve got someone capable of saving WrestleManias, but it’s clear that the Dead Man is in the twilight of his in-ring years, so we’d best make the most of the spectacle that surrounds him.

At this point, we sure could have used a Divas match, a concert or even the mixed tag team match to bring the crowd down. We got none of those, with P Diddy having gone out earlier, so we went straight to Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H… and man, that killed the crowd. WWE always used to put divas matches in the fake “semi main event” spot for a reason… because if you didn’t, you got this! If you added crowd noise, this probably would have been a good match, but as the crowd didn’t care, it came across really badly on TV. Somehow, Brock Lesnar is bulletproof as he takes yet another loss but still remains a scary guy, but something needs to be done if they plan to use him to headline WrestleMania against the Rock next year.

Finally, WrestleMania rounded up with once, sorry, twice in a lifetime, as John Cena claimed redemption against the Rock. I knew that before the bell even rang, as all of the promos were about Cena getting his win back. On paper, the match was about the same level as last year’s, just minus the rabid Miami crowd, which left this main event feeling as flat as a pancake.

All in all, if you take WrestleMania on a match by match basis, it was a pretty good show. However, the poor running order left the fans with a bad taste in their mouth, and the feeling you have at the end of the night is always the feeling you remember in years to come. That being said, after watching an ungodly amount of wrestling for someone not called Dave Meltzer, and all in a short space of time, I was left feeling burnt out and glad that I’d paid the extra for the on-demand options.

Looking back on WrestleMania weekend, my favourite show in terms of wrestling would have to be the SHIMMER Women’s Athlete show from Saturday, followed by ROH’s Supercard of Honor. Both of those shows, on demand, would cost you $30, vs the $70 that WrestleMania cost you. In hindsight, with only the Punk vs Undertaker match being a must-see, you could probably wait for the DVD and save a few bucks, but hingsight is always 20-20.

So, next year, WrestleCon and WrestleMania head to New Orleans and doubtless we’ll be doing all of this again. Despite the problems with internet PPVs, regardless of whether I’m live in New Orleans or sat on my couch at home, I’ll be doing this again next April, albeit a lot more selectively.

These days, a ticket to the cinema will cost you about a tenner (before you add in any gimmicks such as 3D). Then you’re looking at the chestnut of what to eat or drink – if you’ve fed and watered yourself before you go, you’re fine, otherwise you’re looking at £3 for a bottle of water, a couple of quid more for popcorn, and then the rest. If you’re unlucky, you’ll probably be out £20 per person for a couple of hours at the cinema – meaning that for a lot of folks, movies fall into three piles: ones you want to see at the cinema, ones you’ll buy or rent once they’re on DVD, or movies you’ll think about catching when they’re shown on TV.

Still, it’s a few hours of escapism, as long as you can stand being told that you’re too early (at 15 minutes before showtime), and that you have to sit “over there”. Except “over there” happens to be an empty coffee shop where over-eager security guards happily tell you to move (after the same cinema staffer who told you to sit there then goes and tells on you).

Unless my buying a DVD for £10 (or renting it) produces the same results – being told to get up off the sofa because I’ve put the DVD on too soon, or having to pay a premium for tap water because it’s in a glass (or another convenient receptacle!), or having shrink wrapped popcorn – I can see me watching more movies on my flat-screen as opposed to the silver screen!

Sin Cara beat El Local (Swanton bomb) – decent match, nobody knew who el Local was (spoiler: it was Ricardo Rodriguez in a mask and body suit).

Post match Miz beat down Cara to set up his Intercontinental title match with Kofi Kingston later on.

Usos beat Prime Time Players after top rope splash onto Darren Young. Good tag match, but little reaction for either team, which isn’t surprising given that the Players have been set up to fail time after time, and the Usos are barely on TV these days.

Kaitlyn beat Natalya when she countered a sharpshooter into a roll up. It was what it was – a decent divas match, not too long, but not that great either.

Randy Orton beat Alberto Del Rio. Fun match, ADR focused on Orton’s arm and shoulder, but Orton won with the RKO. The advertising beforehand had promoted this as a “Fan’s Choice” match (there was no fan interaction for the show whatsoever, which was weird).

Ted DiBiase & “Simply” Johnny Curtis. Someone in this company must love male stripper gimmicks… They took on William Regal and Wade Barrett. Something tells me they won’t be working heel tonight… and they weren’t. Regal and Barrett got a nice reaction, but Regal’s presence was seemingly lost on the younger fan-base, who were non-plussed by the pairing of Curtis and DiBiase. Barrett won with the souvenir on DiBiase. Pretty good match, but the crowd were not used to cheering Barrett.

Kofi Kingston beat the Miz to retain the Intercontinental title. The kids loved Kofi tonight, but this was one of those slow paced matches that verged on the boring, Miz spent most of the bout working over the knee, but Kofi got the win with the Trouble in Paradise at the 3rd attempt.

Sheamus vs Big Show. Sheamus was accompanied by six members of the London Irish rugby team. Sheamus won by dq when Big Show pulled the ref in front of a brogue kick attempt for a really rotten ending to the show. Sheamus hit the White Noise on show for a near fall. Post match Sheamus hit the brogue kick to send us home happy.

Strangely WWE made no mention of the London tv dates being in the o2 arena as opposed to Wembley arena.

The New York Jets came from behind to force overtime and then lose to the New England Patriots last Sunday. Today, they were humbled by the Miami Dolphins as a season full of promise continues to collapse on the Jets. Fair enough, Rex Ryan’s side have lost their main defensive player, with Darrell Revis gone for the rest of the season. However, the Jets season was in doubt from the get go.

During the close season, the Jets made a trade with the Denver Broncos for Tim Tebow – a move that was perhaps forced by the Broncos signing Peyton Manning from the Indianapolis Colts. However, the arrival of Tebow at the Jets was first thought to be the end of Mark Sanchez’s career in the green and white, with Sanchez having had a stuttering season in 2011.

So far, that hasn’t been the case, as Tebow has found himself on the bench for most of the season, with Sanchez still being preferred as the Jets’ starting quarterback. No matter what is said to Sanchez behind the scenes, the presence of another highly rated – but still green (pardon the pun) – quarterback is bound to unsettle him, and if your quarterback is unsettled, then the rest of the team is going to struggle.

After eight games, the Jets are currently 3-5 – a far cry from the usual pre-season hysteria that usually sees the Jets pegged for a play-off spot. That spot now looks a million miles away, as the prospect of another close season reshuffle looms. If the Jets don’t make it to the play-offs, decisions will be questioned: why sign Tebow, knowing full well the affect on morale it’d have, if he weren’t going to play? Why were the Jets so reliant on Revis, especially considering the number of times we’ve been held up in contract talks with him?

If the Jets are planning on playing football early in 2013, things will need to change – otherwise there’ll be a huge shake up before the 2013 season kicks off proper.

In recent years, derby days haven’t been too kind to Sunderland, with the Lads having either scraped a draw or gotten beaten (and we’ll not mention Halloween 2010). Today was the day the Mags came to Wearside, and although both sides left with a draw, it felt like we were jammy as hell.

Going behind after three minutes isn’t the best start to any match, least of all one with an intense rivalry involved. Even until Cheik Tiote showed why he was the most carded player in the Premier League’s recent history, Sunderland didn’t create much, and after his sending off, all we were able to do was keep hold of the ball for insanely long periods of time.

During the build up to this game, my main fears were over two players who hadn’t been in form for us this season: Stephane Sessegnon and James McClean. Stephane’s partnership with Steven Fletcher hasn’t really clicked at all, whilst McClean is in the midst of a bout of second season syndrome – something that Martin O’Neill was hoping to avoid by sticking McClean on the right wing instead of his usual left. In addition to not helping out McClean, this move seems to have also contributed to a rather confused midfield, with Jack Colback and new signing Adam Johnson being the only ones playing in position, as Seb Larsson moved to a central role. That’s led us to have a rather confused and anonymous midfield, with numerous passes being overhit or going astray during the Newcastle game.

Looking on the bright side, we’re coming up to November with only one loss all season (but still only one win!), but things need to change. We all trust Martin O’Neill, but we need to start picking players on form rather than what they have done before. If Sessegnon and McClean aren’t performing, there’s no point picking them every week – in a worst case scenario, that leaves us two men short if both of them aren’t contributing to the team.

Today, we had two passengers in the side and were lucky to escape with a point. Please make that be the last time.

And one more thing… Sunderland have six strikers at the club, with James McFadden apparently close to becoming the seventh. Does that mean he’ll be replacing Fraizer Campbell on the subs bench, or will we actually be playing with two legitimate strikers, or will we just be pushing the forgotten Wickhams, Jis and Nobles of this world closer to a loan exit and deeper into obscurity?

I was one of those who pre-ordered WWE ’12 last year, and enjoyed every second of the game. That is, until you opened up the online portion of the game. Anyone playing games with an online aspect to them will know to expect server issues in the first few days and weeks of the game’s release, as everyone buying the game on day one rushes to play the game. The only problem was that WWE ’12 suffered from those same server issues throughout the duration of the game’s life – unless you were willing to log on in the middle of the night to download your custom creations, you’d more than likely be forced to play with the default roster of characters.

With the SmackDown vs Raw/WWE series of games increasingly moving online, this is a crucial part of the experience – so of course, the first thing that THQ needs to get right this year are the servers. Nevermind playing against an online opponent; if you can’t connect to upload and download custom wrestlers, arenas and storylines for a second year in a row, then this game is pretty much going to be DOA.

As far as the core offline gameplay, we’re stuck with virtually the same engine that THQ have employed since 2000′s “WWF SmackDown” on the PS1. Whilst it’s evolved since it’s first appearance, it’s not quite as good as the engine we saw in No Mercy, it’s the best we’re going to get (and if you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the abominations in years gone by, over on Joe Gagne’s Funtime Pro Wrestling Arcade series on YouTube).

Roster-wise, WWE 13 is the best you’ll probably get as far as active wrestlers, with pretty much everyone on the active roster in the game either from the start, unlockable, or as DLC. Unless you want to play as Tyson Kidd, in which case, you look to be screwed this year. As far as legends go, WWE 13 is the deepest game yet, thanks to the inclusion of the “Attitude Era” mode, which also serves to be the reason why we have two John Cenas, two Big Shows, three Triple H’s, and several more duplicates. Yet still no Tyson Kidd…

Last year’s Create an Arena mode returns with more customisable options – different stage templates, the addition of your own mini trons, different arena types and crowd sizes. Let’s see if they’ve gotten the bug fixed where all custom wrestlers crash the mini-tron and give you that wacky “filming a TV screen that’s showing what you’re filming” effect.

The Attitude Era mode seems to be replacing the game’s prior Road To WrestleMania single player mode – although from my point of view, I’ve never played these single player “career modes” much since the triple threat cage match in Day of Reckoning 2′s insanely difficult career mode. To be honest, with THQ having added “Universe mode” several years ago, I think the ability to have your own endless-sim of WWE shows is more appealing – especially now you can create your own shows, on your own days, with your own rosters. Whether they fix the bug that saw customised Universes crash after the Bragging Point pay-per-view remains to be seen (but I’d guess “yes” since that show no longer exists!)

On a final note, I will admit to being slightly perturbed at the lack of available demos for WWE ’13. At Eurogamer last year, there was a sample of WWE ’12 – albeit playing with six wrestlers in limited match types. This year, there was nothing. No video reel. No playable demo. Nothing. As is usually the case these days, there’s not even as much as a playable demo, so if you want to try before you buy, your best chance is to rent the game.

The first such game is Joe Danger 2 – just released on PSN (with a special bundle for PS+ members, selling the original game and the new release for £7.99 – a huge discount on £9.99 each!). At it’s core, Joe Danger 2 is a “race to the end” style of game, beating multiple obstacles and hazards whilst performing tricks and stuns along the way. As a single player game, it’s quite fun, but Joe Danger 2 is at its best in multiplayer mode. Admittedly, you need to have a good crack at the game’s single player mode in order to unlock extra tracks (and provide longevity) in multiplayer mode, but for a tenner, it’s a solid game from a surprisingly small developer.

Next up, from the small indie developer to a former worldwide powerhouse, is Sega’s “Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit” – a platformer that could best be described as an underground version of Sonic. Controlling Ash, a dead rabbit, you navigate and drill through an underground maze of tunnels in a quest to vanquish a myriad of bad guys. It’s fairly simplistic, with the “bosses” being a series of mini-games. For a downloaded game it’s not bad, and if you’ve got PlayStation Plus, it’s free for the month of October – well worth a punt for free!

The other game that caught my eye is due to be released shortly: The Unfinished Swan is a PSN exclusive – a game where you navigate a blank world that you can’t see until you blast that blank-ness with paintballs, that effectively render the world in which you can wander around in. It’s a weird example of “games as art”, and one that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

From the sales figures, I’m in the minority – you can keep your annual iterations of the first person shooters that are the same game just in different settings. As long as there are other publishers releasing games that aren’t just a continuation of a franchise, then there is life yet in the video game market. And now to become a hypocrite – my next games mention… is likely to be on THQ’s annual iteration of their WWE series. D’oh!

Fortunately, with the use of the hairdryer trick, I was able to boot up my dead (classic) PS3 for long enough to take advantage of my PlayStation Plus’ cloud backup – something that proved extremely useful after finding out that I would be unable to simply insert the hard drive from my dead PS3 into a new console. At least, I wouldn’t if I wanted to retain the data on it…

Luckily, I was able to source a replacement fairly cheaply (well, as cheap as you’d be able to get a brand new PS3…), and got back into the swing of playing FIFA 13.

Comparing it to PES is like comparing apples and oranges. We all know the drawbacks for Pro Evo from the point of view of a casual gamer who just wants to play as their team. Pro Evo has fewer licensed teams and fewer clubs in general (so if you wanted to play as Hartlepool, Southend or Bury, you’re SOL). Whilst the gameplay historically for Pro Evo has been solid, if you’re already down on the game because of the realism issues, then it’s always going to be a struggle.

As a Sunderland supporter, I always play as the club in every game I can. In my post summing up Pro Evo, I complained about how, even after a day one data update, the Sunderland team were woefully out of date. Summer signings weren’t in the squad, and as for deadline day move… forgetaboutit! FIFA, in contrast, having been released on September 28, had our starting XI near as matters the same as the side that had drawn with West Ham… six days earlier.

In terms of gameplay, I would say FIFA and Pro Evo are just about on par with one another. Just like Pro Evo, you can configure your gamepad, so if you’ve been a Pro Evo addict and are used to square being shoot, you can map the buttons so FIFA will do that. Having played FIFA 12 beforehand, there are a few slight tweaks that will mean that you can’t just dive into this game and expect to immediately be at the same level as you were in last year’s game. But after a few games, you’ll be back to where you were.

The addition of skill games in the pre-game loading screens will help newbies – and those who just like using brute force or repeating the same two or three tactics (ahem) to score. Want to learn how to cross early without risking losing games? Well the skill games give you a chance to perfect crosses, chipped penalties and first time shots without potentially costing you a few games – and I think a lot of us have been there… winning 2-0, arrogantly going for a chipped third goal, only to miss and the other team score twice in the dying minutes.

However, the game does seem to focus on attack attack attack, with even CPU controlled games rarely ending 0-0. The same tricks from FIFA 12 continue to exist (long range shots from the edge and corners of the box usually result in a goal), meaning that, at it’s worst, FIFA continues to resemble NHL ice hockey with the virtual lack of midfield build-up play.

That being said, having solely played through the career mode, I have a few bugbears, caused by selling Stephane Sessegnon for £28m to help get some more money in to strengthen the squad. Admittedly, I had tinkered with the wage/funds allocation in order to offer some players a longer term deal… however, my wage budget had gone from a surplus of around £100k, to a shortfall of over £2bn! What the hell happened… was I now feeling the effects of taking out a Wonga loan to pay my team’s wages?! Other issues have been with the series before, where players join your club when in real life they wouldn’t come close to signing for you. From my £28m sale of Sessesgnon, I’d brought in Neven Subotic and Dede for £10m apiece, strengthening a defence that was rocky even after signing Felipe Santana early in the season. There’s three players that Sunderland would struggle to get in real life!

Staying with bugs, the Wonga wage shortfall was resolved by reloading my career, but a similar bug’s come up with a contract renewal resulting in two players now having contracts of minus two years. Minor bugs, yes, but it’s a little scary to think that I could be offering my star player a big money, long term offer, only to lose him because the game thinks he’s stayed on two years after his contract ran out!

Aside from that, some other complaints include having to pay extra to use the game’s Creation Centre (imagine buying this second hand, having to pay for online access, then again to use created players, teams and tournaments!), and what seem to be flaky servers in terms of downloading said created content.

In terms of the core game, FIFA remains king of the footballing world. However, the introduction of extra content and improvements seem to be bringing in room for error which is starting to creep into the game. Patches and fixes will help work around these, but in years to come I for one hope that the race to get the game onto the shelves first doesn’t ultimately result in an unplayable game.