Hot Heart

I backed it when it was on Kickstarter and from what I understood it will have four-player co-op. They said: I assume it means online co-op because they later have the FAQ with:

Cautiously optimistic about the new stuff. The previous album was pretty disappointing and their last great album was 2004. ... Shit, where did all the time go?

Thanks! I think they'll look really good, and the bigger art prints will be really nice. My problem might be deciding on which to get...

Anyone watch the pilot of The Tick on Amazon Prime? Peter Serafinowicz is no Patrick Warburton, but he's pretty good. It's also framed more as Arthur's story anyway. It's only a half hour thing so not too much happens overall, but I think it has potential. Related: I had no idea the creator, Ben Edlund, was they very same who worked on Firefly and wrote one of the best episodes, "Jaynestown." I knew I recognised his name.

A family friend is a picture framer, so I'm always on the look-out for more stuff to frame and hang up on the walls in my flat. I really dig the artwork Jakub Rozalski did for Scythe. It has that bizarre juxtaposition of early 20th century history... with mechs. There were some postcards on eBay that are very cheap, so I snapped those up and once I get an idea of where I stand with my budget, I might look at some proper art prints of his stuff from here: https://society6.com/mrwerewolf/prints

Took a chance with a low bid on eBay and won. Not sure when I'll actually bother to play it, mind...

I'm only playing at the moment because I'm finishing up my Moments of Triumph, but also trying to get better at PvP. Also, your current gear can be infused to the raised light levels, so you can still put work into a "build" or just give yourself more cosmetic options.

This is probably the best thing on Brexit as it stands. https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2016/08/10/brexit-enough-david-brent-this-is-serious/

I'll have to give it some more plays, but Scythe might be my new favourite for 2016. As for games I'm looking forward to, besides the board games I mentioned before, I think there is just Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (not sure I want to play it on PS4 though, and not planning on getting a new PC anytime soon), that "new" Rise of the Tomb Raider game on PS4 and Destiny: Rise of Iron.

Holy shit, he is! I guess he was doing a caricature-type accent then? There was one bit where he just sounded ridiculous. I can't fault Will Smith but it just felt like there was nothing interesting there. More the film's fault than his, I guess.

SomTervo has gotten at least two big releases a few days early in the past. We should ban him just to be safe.

I steered clear of BvS and I hoped Suicide Squad would be different. It probably is, but it's bad in different ways.

Suicide Squad This would almost make it into the "OK" thread thanks to its one bright point: Margot Robbie. She steals every scene and has the best lines and has the sort of comedic performance I wished Holtzmann in Ghostbusters was more like. But onto the bad... You might have heard about the troubles behind-the-scenes and how there were reshoots to try and match the style and tone of the trailer that everyone loved. Well, that either fucked up what might have been a more entertaining, "serious" film or just hasn't done enough because it is a mess. The start of the film is all over the place and has no rhythm to the editing and you end up with this weird event where for a minute it seems like you've jumped right into the third act. With the knowledge of the reshooting and editing, it's clear to see how they've mucked it up and half of the soundtrack is weirdly placed songs rather than an actual score (like the trailer everyone loved!) so you'll have a bunch of character intro scenes with Fortunate Son playing over the top, etc. And then you have these weird continuity things that feel like maybe they were still there at the script stage. And even then, it's just a cliche-ridden borefest. Will Smith is on auto-pilot, Flagg is boring army guy who keeps yelling at Deadshot that he expects he'll just "cut-and-run" with no real reason behind it. Jai Courtney has a terrible Australian accent and then there's Killer Croc who hits people, Katana who slashes people and Fire-powers redemption guy. I've probably missed some people as well. Oh, and The Joker is there at certain points but the less said about him the better.

Yeah, they had a "delivery time" of July 2016 and they made sure backers got their copies before it hit retail. It should be out in shops now but it's the hot thing this year so I think it's selling out in a few places (Cool Stuff Inc. is where most people in the US go for board games at low prices but it's all out there) and even the spare KS copies from Stonemaier's site are pretty much all gone. There's an expansion on the way so maybe there'll be a bundle deal for that in future. There won't be a KS for that though. Another thing related to the beautiful board. There are some hidden bits in the artwork. You can find Thor and Father Christmas and there are probably some other easter eggs.

Scythe So, my copy of this arrived and I got to try it out with the full player count last night. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, yay! First off, if it isn't already apparent from the image above: the game is beautiful. The board artwork is both neat to look at and very functional. Villages look like villages that connect onto farms, etc. and the rivers you can't cross at the start or the lakes that most units can't enter are all nice and clear. At its core it's a 4X style game crossed with a "race" playstyle, where you build an "engine" to make the most efficient turns and trigger the end of the game when you're in the best position. You start as one of five factions, each with a set starting position that influences what resources are available to you at the start. In addition, they have different powers as well as upgrades for their mechs/character. What then makes things interesting and increases the replayability is that you then get a player mat for your actions that changes the combinations of top-row and bottom-row actions as well as slight alterations in the costs and benefits. What you'll then do each turn is select a space on your player mat (it has to be a different space each turn unless you're the red Rusviet faction) and then perform the top-row, bottom-row or top-row then bottom-row action. The most efficient playstyles will tend to do both in the same turn but sometimes it might not suit that particular moment of the game (you get a couple of objectives you can complete that rely on specific conditions). The basic top-row actions will see you producing on hexes you have workers in order to get more resources (and more workers if you're on a village), trading for resources you don't have, moving your units around and increasing your combat power. Then along the bottom there are actions for building one of the four buildings, upgrading your actions, deploying mechs or enlisting recruits. The bottom-row stuff is where it gets really interesting because the player mat borrows a concept from Terra Mystica in that moving something off your board then reveals a new benefit (or cost as you deploy more workers. So, using this image as an example. At the start of the game, you will have placed a cube in the spaces that have a little black square in the bottom-right hand corner, buildings in the building named spaces (monument, mill, etc.) you will have lined up 6 workers across the red bar of the Produce action and put a circular wooden piece over the green bottom-right circles in each of the four spaces. What you can then do over the course of the game is build the buildings in order to reveal their benefits for when you take that action on a future turn, or you can uppgrade your actions which allows you to move a cube from the top-row to somewhere in the bottom-row. So you could remove a cube from the Move action, which will then allow you to move 3 units instead of 2 everytime you take that action. You could then place that cube you just removed in on one of the spaces on the Deploy action at the bottom so that a mech now only costs 2 metal instead of 3. The enlist action is for removing that circular piece which then gives you an extra benefit but also means you get that benenfit everytime the player to your left and right takes it. For example, if I figured the people next to me are going to be trying to get all their mechs out, I can take out the circle next to the Deploy action and I will receive a coin every time they do that. This circular piece also goes onto your nation's board and gives you a one-time benefit. Mechs that sit on the nation's boards work in the same way in that they cover different upgrades at the start and then uncover them as they're deployed. The game itself is about pursuing certain objectives in order to place your stars for particular achievements (deploying all 4 mechs, completing your objective, getting all 8 workers out, reacing the top of the popularity track or reaching the top of the power track, winning 2 combats, etc.) so you identify which you of the 6 you can do best and then go after that. The way turns work stops it from becoming overwhelming and because you're somewhat hemmed in at the start (you need to unlock a mech ability or build a mine in order to get outside your three starting hexes), it gives you an immediate focus for the first few turns. This open approach allows for a bit of scope in how you win the game whether you focus on building a great economy or a roving army. I haven't even touched on the Factory, which is a space in the middle that allows you to gain a card that counts as an extra action space on your player mat for some pretty powerful options, or combat which isn't as daunting a prospect as you might think. Finally, there is the popularity track which can be all important because it affects your score multipliers for certain things. If you can see the track on the left of that first image which the heart icons are, this represents how much the people of "Europa" like you, and is split into 3 tiers. By moving up this track, you increase some end-game scoring factors regarding stars placed, hexes controlled and resources owned. I managed to get to the top of it, but the actual winner of our game was only just into the second tier. I'd won a couple of combats, spread over a few hexes and become very popular but the winner had got all his mechs and workers out, spread across a large expanse and had control of the Factory (worth 3 hexes) when someone else (who actually came fourth) ended the game. Overall, very pleased with it. I highly recommend it and look forward to playing it again.

YOUR A MORAN!

Some new details about Rise of Iron are starting to emerge. http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/08/02/destiny-artifacts-to-receive-dramatic-overhaul-4730.aspx I like the idea of having artifacts that can do funky things with your build. And a full infodump https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/210270781?sort=0&page=0

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan Yeah, seriously. Get four people together and tackle the higher difficulties and it's a lot of fun. I think the only other new games I've played this year are Uncharted 4 and Carmageddon: Max Damage. However, on the tabletop game front I have Scythe, TMNT Shadows of the Past and Legendary Encounters: Firefly yet to come... (whereas I've already played How To Serve Man, Firefly Fluxx, Ninja Camp

Warpaint have a new song called New Song. It is good.

Okay, so this is going to start off sounding like a #humblebrag, but I will explain... So, destinytracker.com has me ranked as Diamond I in Iron Banner. For anyone who doesn't know about ranks in online games, the tiers tend to go Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond with splits in each in ascending numerical order. So, essentially, the game is saying that I am in the top 1% of Destiny PvP players. However, I know this is a bit misleading. Firstly, I never really got into PvP until that bloody Thorn quest meant I had to get involved. With PvP in FPSs I'd only ever really gotten into Halo 3's before and I got alright at it, but then Reach completely changed the playstyle required and I suffered and just stuck to Firefight (Halo 4's PvP was better but my experience varied drastically between maps and I didn't have any friends to play with). After looking up some basic tips and just gradually gaining map experience, I've improved a great deal and now I've got a set up I'm mostly happy with while I can hold my own pretty well (MIDA is boss!). Still, I've only ever engaged in PvP as part of quests or most times Iron Banner rolls around. It started when I was always checking back on game stats to compare myself to my regular fireteam, then against the clan for a competition, and more recently I was seeing how much my stats would suffer while I went chasing sword kills for this exotic quest; they have dropped a point in k/d and a couple in k&a/d but fortunately I found a gametype that's best for getting sword kills (Mayhem Rumble). While I was doing this, however, I saw a new feature that the site had introduced that answered another frustration of mine. See, for a few months now, I'd been trying to figure out why I've been having a really rough experience when playing Iron Banner on my own compared to when I played with my cousin. I figured it might be a skill-based thing that should eventually balance itself out since most my games had been played with him and I didn't think I was that much better. Then there was the fact that always having someone by your side makes a huge difference, obviously. I also considered how I've lagged behind max light level since April now, and since I get a lot of "Narrow Escape" medals that difference in light level makes or breaks some encounters. Anyway, the site has started using Elo ratings which then gives some insight into how Destiny's matchmaking works with regards to getting very close teams. I know I saw somewhere that Bungie's overall aim was to give everyone a "win 1, lose 1" back and forth experience with regards to team games and I could see that showing up in my history to some extent where the average team Elo then shows the percentage chance of winning (it's usually something like 51/49) which tends to alternate. Thing is, even when I'm playing solo and getting absolutely slaughtered by people who are clearly far better killing machines than me, I'm doing enough for the team that we win far more often than not, so my win percentage overall is a bit over 58% in that playlist. The system essentially rewards you for defeating people with a higher Elo while punishing you for losing to lower, along with other stuff like a "kill & assists/death ratio" (mine is always at least 1.0) so even though I'm the team's punching bag, they still think I deserve to face tougher opponents. I think another contributing factor is that time that Iron Banner experimented with being Rift rather than Control or Clash, and I think my cousin and I won every. single. game. Even though it's meant to be an "objective-chasing" gametype everyone just keeps rushing the rift, you can hang back, get loads of kills and then while they're waiting to respawn you have a bit of time to walk the spark into their base or just score loads of points for capturing and carrying it more. tl;dr Destiny tracker is a really useful tool if you like to check out your PvP stats and the game has way overestimated my skill. p.s. wanted to share this daily crucible game. Normally, this is just where everyone shows up just to get their daily legendary marks and doesn't care about winning or losing... but I think two people quit after I got lucky at one point and wiped their whole team.

I've been watching Preacher and it's been really good so far. It has that confidence to just get on with things and trust that you can be patient or intrigued enough to wait for a full explanation/clarification further down the line. I've never read the comics so it's all been nice surprises for me.

Those are just cosmetic things where you can alter the chroma to give each piece a certain glow. Since infusion is now 1:1, it's easy to start using them if you want to. I just trash the pieces from the treasure boxes because you can still get the same ones as high light level drops from packages anyway.