danielpholt

Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy It won't win any awards for pushing the medium forward or anything; but Guardians of the Galaxy is an pretty flarking enjoyable romp through Marvels Galactic universe. It's far from the most original game ever released, but it's polished to high-hell and the games story is actually kinda alright. A few technical issues aside towards the end (did anyone else get some pretty horrendous frame-rate issues during the final few battles?) I don't really have any complaints. The game plays well, it runs well (aforementioned issues aside) and it looks fantastic (60FPS is a must). It's linear as anything, but you know what? That's fine. Sometimes a guy just wants to sit down after a long day at work/parenting, grab the controller and zone out right? No decisions; just walking and talking and shooting bad guys, and Guardians is great at that. All in all, after the disappointment that was Marvels Avengers, it's nice to see that maybe Square can give us something that's legitimately fun. 3/5 (Enjoyable) As an aside, I'm interested to see why Guardians seem's to have avoided the flak that Marvels Avengers got in terms of not having the MCU likenesses. Is it simply that Guardians is a game that people are enjoying, and thus the likeness issue isn't being used as a weapon against the game, or is their more to it; maybe the Guardians characterisation is just that bit stronger, so it becomes less of an issue almost immediately upon starting the game?

Exactly! Now if only we had a more left-leaning government in place to handle the transition away from the EU, maybe we could actually make it work in some meaningful way.

AV never stood a chance when those that had the most to benefit from keeping FPTP in place were running a campaign based around this sort of bullshit. (Also, the idea that £250m is a fuck-load of money in the year 2021 is absolutely laughable - it's a rounding error). That being said, we fall for it every single time because our electorate is ill-informed and disinterested....which I totally understand. Democracy isn't working in this country and whilst I disagree with the result, I totally understand why people tune out when it comes to the day-to-day stuff that makes up our democratic system; for the vast majority of people it seems like they're fucked regardless of who's in charge (assuming even that they feel like their vote matters; for many it simple doesn't). I could go on all day about how to make our system more balanced and more.....direct; but we both know there's absolutely no way we see any of those sort of changes whilst the Tories are in power.

I'm maybe 2-3 hours into Guardians and whilst I don't think it's going to blow anyone's socks off, I'm having a good bit of fun with it. It looks great, although I'm a bit disappointed to see that they're splitting Performance Mode and Graphical Modes again. I'd have liked to see that with the additional power these new boxes bring that they could hit 60FPS in both modes. The combat is mostly fine. Sometimes it devolves into a complete mess of characters and enemies that you sort of just continuously shoot at; there's a thin layer of control in regards to telling your Guardian allies what to do, but even that feels less strategic than it could do. I'm here for the characters and they bantz. Let's be honest, that's where a Guardians game lives and dies. And in this instance, it does pretty well. I've laughed plenty, and I don't ever get bored of just listening to these guys interact with one another; sometimes to the point where I'll just leave the controller and here them talk shit. So yeah, pretty happy so far.

I guess in their estimation the 'Left' have nowhere else to go. We do have the Greens, although with the nature of first past the post voting, voting Green could largely be considered a 'wasted' vote (I wouldn't say that, but it massively benefits the Conservative party to see Labour/Left voters splitting their vote). A fairer system of voting would actually sort this mess out; we had a chance to change that in '97, but we did nothing because like most parties in power, we thought it'd last forever and hey guess what? It never does. Without a doubt we need leaders who are solid on substance, but that just isn't how politics works right now. And I'd argue that Starmer is both poor on policy and on charisma. He's being beaten on both flanks at the moment and it's a poor look. Take the nurses pay rise for example. Classic rope-a-dope by the Tories. Come in with a low offer, let Labour shoot themselves in the foot by offering a slighter higher (but not nearly high enough counter-offer) and then come back with an even higher offer that they were always going to come back with. Starmer's been desperate to claw back some semblance of competency, but time and time again he's been out manoeuvred by a Tory party that aren't playing by the rules that they'd stringently stuck to in the past; raising taxes, increased spending (during the Pandemic). They're routinely getting beaten by them on the left, that's absolutely unacceptable to me as a Labour member. I'm a Corbyn fan, but he clearly wasn't a good leader, of that there can be no doubt. The problem is their so scared of the ghost of Corbyn (rightly or wrongly) that they're trying to shift the party into the center, which is a losing position when you're running up against the Tories, and a British public who for the most part, are fairy happy to vote Tory regardless of what they're doing. For Labour to win they *have to* offer something truly different. Yes they have to be highly competent and their leader has to be likeable, but ultimately that isn't enough; it never has been. You've got to offer the British public something different because they have (and will) continue to vote for the devil they know until you offer them something truly new and exciting (and viable). A strong Lib Dem vote doesn't hurt either, sponge up some of those softer Tories that wouldn't dream of voting Labour. Sorry, I didn't mean for that to go on for as long as it did. I deleted Twitter and yeah, this is my only outlet.

HALO 4. I moved around (slowly). I shot at things. I occasionally pressed X to let Cortana do something. You know, Halo shit. In fairness to the game, all of my prior experience with the franchise has come in the form of campaign co-op, and so playing solo felt like a pretty tedious affair; that's probably more to do with my specific situation than anything the game was doing. Onward onto HALO 5 I guess.

I just don't think he's all that good a politician. He's very good at coming across as serious, and that should in theory work well against Johnson's bluster, but it just doesn't chime with what the British public wants from it's elected officials. He's totally lacking in charisma and personality, whereas Johnson has it in droves. As for clear terms, I agree. Unfortunately they've lost all sense of reason and are doubling-down on focus groups and Blairite thinking about how to win over undecideds and lite-Tory voters, at the expense of those that have, and will continue to vote Labour. You can't out-Tory a Tory. Unfortunately there's a complete dearth of talent in the ranks; both on the right and the left of the party. Even if we did change it up, I'm not sure where they'd turn.

So I finished Project: Hail Mary last week and whilst I can't confess to liking it nearly as much as The Martian, it's still a worthy read if you're into that sort of thing. Credit to Andy Weir here, because based on the first third of the book I could quickly see this thing spiralling out of control, but it didn't, and he kept it very grounded (no mean feat for a book set in space).

Truly inspiring. The Tories are lying stains on our society, but they know how to coin a good phrase. 'Get Brexit Done', 'Build Back Better', fuck, even 'Strong and Stable' meant something. You want to get people interested in politics, you've got to get them invested in a better future; Corbyn (for all his faults) did that, but once again the party under Starmer is found wanting.

I get mine with a friend and like 5-6 other people on their 'family plan'. It makes it much more reasonable. Absolutely wouldn't be paying for NSO if I couldn't spread the cost around.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-10-15-nintendo-switch-online-launching-later-this-month-costs-gbp35-a-year Bit steep for me, even as someone that's already subbed to this.

Lots of new features and quality of life improvements. I've got to think that had it not been for COVID we'd have seen these a while ago (some of these really should have been included from the get-go). The ££ DLC isn't as immediately interesting to me, but some of those new home additions really should be available in your own home and I'm surprised it's not tbh. Why can I design someone elses house with nice dividing walls but not myself? *edit* According to Eurogamer, once you have used some of those features in the Holiday Homes they will unlock for your home as well. Happy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58930593 This has absolutely no place in British politics, and yet here we are. Two murdered MP's inside what, 5-6 years? It's absolutely fucking horrible news for all involved, and in a larger political context, does nothing but deepen divides, and put more barriers up between constituents and those they represent. Supremely angry right now. I hope they've got the deluded c*nt that did this. Fuck everything about this on every single level.

I'll take Blair and New Labour over anything we've had since in a heartbeat. Iraq was clearly a mistake, but on the whole I feel like the country was in a much better place than it was before, or after the Labour government left office. That being said Blair is far from perfect, and his lack of contrition at times really rubs people up the wrong way. If only Brown had called the election in 2007 rather than 2010; he likely would have won that one and who knows, maybe we avoid 15+ years of a resurgent Tory party.

https://inews.co.uk/news/health/covid-19-inquiry-thousands-deaths-avoided-pandemic-mps-report-lockdown-distancing-1243492 Not much of this is news, we already knew we went into lockdown later than we should have (three times). We already knew the government totally failed to wrap care homes in a protective bubble in order to save thousands and we know that a decade of chronic underfunding to the NHS caused massive issues with regards to PPE. +4 Con Shit like this should end governments, and in a more educated and democratic country I think it probably would, or at least there'd be a serious chance it if causing significant issues going forward. We all know that come the next election, the electorate will largely forget about all this shit and reward them with another majority.

Finished: Ted Lasso S2 All in all it's another good season of the show, albeit maybe not as original or well written as the first. Still enjoyed it massively however, and can't wait to see where the third season goes. We can all see the arc, however they stick the landing and don't force more episodes into the shows run that don't need to be there. Started: John Adams An HBO show from the late naughties staring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney amongst others. Obviously it's about the 2nd President of the United States, John Adams and two (very long) episodes in and it's checking all the boxes for me.

I know we're joking here but she absolutely hates this shit. I've turned into a toem of presidential facts and figures and she greets each and every one with an eye roll. Anyway... I've started reading Project Hail Mary the newest book from the author of The Martian and it's really engaging. I won't lie, it doesn't have the immediate hook that The Martian has, but after about 120 pages it's really starting to work through the gears. I'll be honest, I've got absolutely no idea where it's going, part of me wonders if ... That aside however, I'm running through it pretty quickly, and that's usually the sign of an enjoyable book.

Sayonara Wild Hearts A short little rhythm game with a super cool soundtrack (there's probably a name for the type of music in it, but I don't have it). Didn't take overly long (around an hour) to beat and I can see you going back to earn a higher score.

I'm not a massive Blair fan, but I do like Brown. I think it was less 'I'll let you take this one on the assumption that you'll do me a solid later' and more 'Okay, I could win this leadership election but it might fuck the party up in the process, so I'll step aside and you'll give me the reigns after 2 terms'.

Event coming next week Will it be enough to get *me* back into the game? Probably not, but Danielle is very excited.

Marvels Avengers Went into this knowing full well that it was a bit of a let down, but I wasn't expecting to be outwardly bored after the first ten minutes. And then when we finally got to the combat, I found it to be rather underwhelming, aside from the Cap/Black Widow combat which has a bit more 'Batman Arkham series' too it. I've just found , I'm going to give it another hour but if I don't find anything to grab onto I think I'm going to leave this one in the dust. What a disappointment.

Anyone watching this Beeb documentary about New Labour? I'm only one episode in so far but its been pretty interesting to me (as a Labour Member who wasn't old enough to really remember the Blair years in any significant way). They've got another four episodes on iPlayer right now and it's going to run through the end of Browns tenure in office. One of the most startling things I noticed was just how different Brown and Blair both saw the idea of succession. Brown still seems to have a chip on his shoulder with regards to how he stepped aside to let Blair take a run at the party leadership after the death of John Smith in 1994; only to then find himself waiting longer and longer before Blair stepped down and handed over the party. Going forward, I'm interested to see how they handle 2007. I think if Brown calls an election after taking over from Blair then they win an election in 2007; the delay cost them vital time and gave the Tories a massive boost with regards to the crash in 2008; at that point it was basically over for New Labour and Brown, a man who I do think would have made a decent PM.

Just finished Echos of the Eye, the recently released DLC for Outer Wilds. Whilst I don't think it'll have the same effect on me as base-game Outer Wilds (one of my favourite games of all time), it's a worthwhile sledge of content for a game I truly love. As for Echos itself, it's got everything you'd want from DLC to that game. The way these people deliver story without a second of dialogue or (in this case) even any language whatsoever is something else; super impressive what they can do with some nice art and top-tier music. If you've not already played Outer Wilds, I really recommend you give it another look (and don't worry too much about the ship controls, it's a space ship made of wood and sticky tape, it's okay to crash it).

It absolutely plays better on the PC (nothing major, but the mouse definitely helps with some of the navigation - but I think we knew that anyway), but if that isn't an option then this version seems decent enough.