I wouldn't call myself a professional military man, but I've been hunting Russian terrorists from my couch for the last four years.
My first deployment was on a three seat sofa in Melbourne from which, green as grass and with an itchy trigger finger, I picked up the trail of a group of ne'er-do-wells and swore to bring them to justice. I followed the threat wherever it took me and in 2008 I was transferred to a uncomfortable futon lounge at a secure location in London.
It was war, but notwithstanding one horrible incident at a Russian airport, those were happy days. Good hours were spent in the company of comrades, defusing bombs, calling in UAVs, camping on supply drops and capturing Charlie.
But everything wanes in time and eventually, even I wasn't without battlescars. Sporting two thumbs riddled with RSI and a pair of index fingers calloused beyond repair, it was clear that my days of chasing terrorists were at an end, so I decided to settle down, adding a wife and two children to my personal platoon.
It turned out to be the right decision and before long I was safely ensconced in a leafy North-London suburb for a quiet life of nappies, beer and telling embellished tales of my exploits to anyone who would listen.
Or so I thought.
Not two nights ago, after putting the kids to bed and installing my wife in front of something involving public ridicule and Gary Barlow, I heard chatter on the squawk-box that a new threat was rearing its head, in London no less.
Now I'm not the soldier I once was; my joints are stiff, my reflexes are tired and my three-seat, terrorist-hunting sofa has been traded for a one-woman, rocking chair designed primarily for breast feeding.
But despite these handicaps, I'll be damned if I'm going to put up with fictional terrorists rampaging through my town. I may be over the gaming hill, but let's not forget that I'm a patient, willing, 33-year-old man with a comfortable chair and the
£44.99 that Activision will charge me to hunt these terrorist dogs down.