Casual Friday: Let’s play!

It’s another installment of Casual Friday, where we divorce ourselves from Seahawks talk for a day and just chat about other stuff in an open thread.

I had a lot on my plate and thus I forgot to do this last week, but I made sure I would remember this week.

Video games! I reckon most of you have played video games at some point in your life and are still active today. As a kid I ran the gamut of computer games and the first three generations of Nintendo consoles — Mario Party 2 one of the GOATs — but I leveled off in my mid-to-late teens. But I haven’t dropped completely! I just don’t bother with online multiplayer and take huge issue with sports games in particular and the use of microtransactions, but that’s a discussion for another time I suppose.

Over the past couple of years I’ve become a massive fan of Football Manager, a highly addictive simulation game that allows you take control of a real-life soccer club (or national team, or both!) and control just about every aspect of the team within your grasp. You deal with the transfers, contracts, players asking for new contracts, hiring and firing staff, matchday tactics, press conferences, scouting, meeting with the board, etc. The only thing you don’t control? The actual players on the pitch when it’s gameday. It’s an immersive world for nerds like me that’s different than when I’m in full control of the players on the field or the court or ice rink. All I’m saying is that Everton wouldn’t be on the cusp of relegation if I was in charge, although my handling of Borussia Dortmund could get be legally barred from entering Germany.

On the non-sports side, I’ve recently played and completed a couple of the older editions of the Hitman series. Blood Money has high replay value even without a lot of missions because there are just so many different ways to complete the same tasks. It’s a real test of patience and problem solving to get Agent 47’s targets eliminated without being detected. Absolution is pretty good but not great because it gets away from the essence of Hitman and to something more linear and cinematic, but that can be attributed to having different developers. Some of the features from Absolution were transferred to the newer Hitman games so it’s not aged all that poorly.

Oh yeah, and L.A. Noire really needed a sequel. I still hold out hope. Cole Phelps was no angel but he got done dirty.

What games do you play now and what are your favorites of all-time? And have you managed to get a PS5 yet?