“You’re only writing about games now, aren’t you?” said my mum when I was over there on Sunday. “I like it when you write about other things.”

Sorry, mum.

Call Of Duty 4 (Xbox 360)
I’m not much of a first-person shooterer in general. I’m really, really not much of a console first-person shooterer. But CoD4’s set-pieces, clever narrative tricks and brutal difficulty level + surround sound = something a bit special. I realise that sandbox games and offering the player freedom to wander are in vogue just at the moment, but personally I’ll always take a well-crafted linear game over an aimless, sprawling one that offers several equally-dull choices. There’s nothing here that compares to the brilliant Arnhem Bridge or Stalingrad levels from the original Call Of Duty, and its single-player campaign is pretty short, but it captures the essence of what you expect modern battlefields must be like – messy, scrappy, confusing, vicious and largely fucking terrifying.

I’m pretty sure I mean that as a recommendation.

Chessmaster (DS)
It’s chess! But on the DS. The AI plays a decently strong game (although it’s a shame that there’s no way of forcing the computer to use or avoid a specific opening), and the minigames are quite compelling in a thoroughly boring way. I’ve no idea why I’ve played this every lunchtime for the last couple of weeks, but I have. So there you go.

Team Fortress 2 (PC)
Two things have been instrumental for rekindling my love for Valve’s beautiful-looking, beautifully-balanced Team-Based Online Shooter Of Champions. These two things are the Control Point podcast and my belated discovery of the “Switch To Previous Weapon” key. The former is just a bunch of likable blokes being enthusiastic about something that deserves some enthusiasm. The latter gives me half a chance of surviving in those situations where a certain amount of regrettable violence needs to be handed out to someone in my general vicinity.

I’m a Medic by trade, y’see. Not for me the glory-boy solo-effort flag-capping nonsense of the Scout, nor the shifty, skulking, duplicitous death-dealing of the Spy, Engineer or Sniper, nor even the wholesale slaughter and mass destruction of the Heavy, Soldier, Pyro or Demoman. No. Instead, you’ll find me diving into the midst of battle with only my healing ray to protect me, selflessly risking life and limb to keep my team-mates upright even as a hail of bullets, rockets, grenades and God-only-knows-what-else rain down upon me.

“Rain down on me”, you’ll note. Not “rain down on my armed-and-dangerous team-mates.” Because putting on the Medic’s big coat and the child-molester glasses is basically the same thing as painting a bullseye on your face.

If (like me) you’re a fairly casual player with less-than-perfect knowledge of the game’s maps, and less-than-less-than-perfect FPS skills, playing Medic is great. It allows you to contribute in a real and valuable way to your team’s success without needing the twitch reflexes of a fighter pilot. Just lock that healing-ray onto the arse of a more competent team-mate and follow them on a sightseeing tour of your local warzone.

(My uncle Derek was round my folks’ for the aforementioned Mum’s Day visit. He’s planning a holiday in Vietnam and Cambodia. “Don’t forget to pack a wife!” I said cheerily, to predictably blank looks all round. Sigh.)

The fearful and wonderful thing about the Medic is that you’re playing a purely supporting role – you’re almost entirely dependant on your colleagues, both for protection and to actually accomplish the goals of the level. This is immensely frustrating if you’re playing with chimps, but with competent people around you a decent Medic can be the difference between victory and defeat, by keeping the damage-dealers alive long enough to wear the enemy down, or supplying a burst of invulnerability at the exact right time. It’s immensely satisfying, and a way to feel good at FPSs without being any good at FPSs.

Every so often, though, you’ll find yourself in a spot where you actually have to put away the healing ray and defend yourself – if you’ve clocked an enemy Spy lurking about for example, or if all your team-mates in the vicinity have displayed insufficient respect for the rule that incoming rockets always have right-of-way. Up till this week, these situations have been characterised by my fumbling around with the weapon selection keys like a big fat-fingered fool, then getting my brains blown out. Now I tap Q, and go from selfless healer to SYRINGE-GUN KILLA in less than a second.

Then I run away. No sense in being a bloody idiot about it. If I could shoot straight I’d be playing a sodding Soldier.

Audiosurf (PC)
Audiosurf is a simple little game. Point it at a music file on your hard-disk and it generates a track, along which your guide your ship collecting coloured blocks. The faster and more intense the song you’re playing, the more blocks are available for you to collect. Link three or more blocks of the same colour and they disappear, scoring points. There are various different ships, each playing in slightly different ways. I’ve largely found myself gravitating toward Mono, which plays more like a racer than a puzzler - there is only one colour of scoring block and the main challenge comes from avoiding grey obstacle blocks, with a significant bonus at the end of the song if you’ve picked up no greys at all.

And you’ll want that significant bonus, because on completion your score is uploaded to the Audiosurf website, where you can see the best scores of everyone else who’s played that song. That’s the reason I spent half an hour last night repeatedly replaying the heart-pumping white-knuckle ride that is Identity by the X-Ray Spex, punching the air in glee as I finally managed to finish a run with no greys hit and no leftover blocks, becoming THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!

Ahem.

(By the by, other Blue Man Recommend-o-Tracks for maximum Audiosurfing fun include the Bill Shatner/Joe Jackson cover of Common People, Car Fiction by Echobelly, Robyn’s Cobrastyle and the proper, non-cheaty four-and-a-half minute album version of Vision Thing. I am the best at (some of) these).

Honestly, as a game it’s nothing special. But it looks like a rollercoaster in a theme park run by Tron and I keep getting drawn back to it to try new tracks, to creep up the leaderboards or for a ten-minute blast after a poker game or TuFTy session.

A hugely pretty, sneakily addictive little fiddle-toy for fewer than six of your Earth pounds? Up with this sort of thing.