Hot Heart

I like the little in-jokes and nods too. Like wearing an Atheon mask and "tripping" off the tower (before it was fixed, in the Vault of Glass raid, people found an exploit whereby a certain grenade could be used to "push" the final boss off a platform, killing him instantly).

Yeah, science fiction isn't really a genre in itself. I mean, there are pieces that you could say are "true" sci-fi in that they just explore a simple "what if..." premise (as Dan says above) but most stories conform to other genre tropes as well. Blade Runner is not the same sort of film as Alien, which is not the same sort of film as Interstellar. Firefly is not the same as Doctor Who, which is not the same as Star Trek, etc. And Star Wars is definitely more science-fantasy (an old teacher also described it as a space-western), but of course it still has that science-fiction label.

Sicario Managed to go in not knowing much about it except that it was well-regarded, which is nice. Good thriller with some great performances and a lot of tense scenes. My only qualm is that by the end you're kind of like, "Okay then." Something just feels slightly off but it's hard to describe.

I am legit in love with Sara Niemietz. The presence, the voice...

Pre-ordered this because they fucking rock.

Well, we're probably all getting our accents from mainstream media (but seriously, where would Americans be hearing Georgie except in Georgie Shore: the complete opposite display of intelligence?!) On that basis, I say Texan accent is sexiest. At least that is where Angie Harmon and Peri Gilpin are from and what I know of that accent. On the other subject, my sister does genealogy as a career (you can see her on Heir Hunters occasionally) so maybe I should ask her more about my heritage. All I know is that my dad's family were all cockneys. Funny related story: my dad didn't find out his mum had died earlier this year until this sister came across the death certificate months afterwards.

Me again. Cutthroat Caverns This is something I managed to nab for a decent price on eBay. I know my friend was interested in it, and I had liked the sound of it way back (it's from the same publisher as Dread Curse and I saw a "double review"). Since it was just over £16 for a "like new" copy (the previous owner had sleeved it all and then crammed those in the box), I figured it was worth a punt. It's fun. It's mean. It's messy. It's a sort of semi-cooperative, "take that!" game in which you play as D&D style adventures trying to escape a cavern with your priceless loot. Along the way, however, you'll encounter all manner of monsters whom you'll need to defeat one after another in order to escape. This is done with simple card play of (mostly) attack cards used to whittle down the monster's health. The twist is that to earn the prestige points from each monster, you'll want to land the last hit on the creature as well as survive until the end. Oh, yes, there is elimination. I'm never too fond of this, but there is a sort of inbuilt balance (each creature has "AI" based on the # of players who started the game) so that losing people too early, will doom the whole expedition. And in order to win you'll want to fuck with your fellow adventurer's plans. Be it by redirecting a creature's attacks towards them, playing a "Critical Miss!" on their attack or getting some opportune shots in before anyone else can kill the creature. Hilarity ensues as some card zapping happens back and forth and the monster who should have been dead two rounds ago, continues "regenerating" health and picking away at the party's precious life points (there are healing potions but they are limited and must be used before an encounter begins). So, our group of five set out to face the 9 encounters. We did well up until about the 5th or 6th when we sabotaged everything against aforementioned "regenerating" golem. We left that encounter fairly low on HP across the board, and gradually a couple of people died off. Fortunately, they play Hearthstone on their phones, so they got on with that. We got to the final creature with three of us, but a couple of us were pretty much doomed after a round. Of course, I fucked up by forgetting I had a card zap, which might've got me through then played a wrong card afterwards but I had fun either way. I really dig the core simplicity of it, and the creatures have some amusing little design variations (like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who faces a minotaur in a maze). That said, the rulebook is somewhat lacking in its phrasing and clarity when it comes to some concepts so it takes a little figuring out the intention/mechanics for some encounters (e.g. "The troll strikes the first player to damage it for 20 LP and the last player to damage it for 10 LP", took me a few readings). There's also the fact that it's got the "anytime" cardplay, which always raises questions about timing and validity but I think we all came to agreements without any real fuss. But, yeah, I think we all enjoyed it somewhat. There were some genuine moments of laughter with the player fuckery. What's He Building In There? There's not a great deal to say about this. It's got a cool theme, in that you are evil doctors looking to unleash your doomsday machine and have an escape plan in place, but there's not much of a twist on the worker placement genre itself. Each player has a randomly dealt Doomsday Machine and Escape Plan, both of which will require different inventions/blueprints and resources. To earn resources, you can use your doctor or henchmen to visit workshops and inventions require certain resources along with some "Master At Work" points and money. The workshops will change each round and during the resolve phase at the end of each round whoever landed on a workshop first gets to choose whether it will be supplying the related resource or refining it. So, there's a bit of player awareness needed (virtually impossible with five players and everyone's master plans hidden anyway) with whether you go to a workshop hoping to get some resources when instead the other player who got there first chooses refine. There are additional black market spaces, which allow a little rule-breaking but they're generally less efficient methods. There's an additional element with regards to improving your evil doctor's residence and social standing (the right of the board above) but I had to ignore that completely because I put so much in getting inventions out first and working towards tier 3 of both doomsday machine and escape plan, that I couldn't spare sending my doctor to those spaces (orange ones are for your doctor only)... even though I had heaps of spare money coming in from those inventions towards the end of the game. And that's about it. You put people down and get things to turn into other things while hoping no one fucks it all up. An alright game, but not one I'd ask to play again anytime soon.

"The Carlton" is, of course, a legendary emote. So, it requires purchasing another 500 silver just to get it. *drop to knees "NOOOOOO!" emote* Managed another raid completion last night. Went pretty smooth overall, considering we had one newbie. Bit miffed with the rewards I got though. A solar shotgun, a slightly higher value chestpiece, some boots and Thunderlord (but only 290). I had 20 moldering shards as well. Was hoping for at least the pulse or scout rifle. Oh, well, at least it's an easy evening's clear.

Uh, I think you mean "a flaming beacon that burns with the heat of a thousand suns"! Running Voidwalker with Obsidian Mind and Bad Juju is supremely fun though. Of the emotes, I would be tempted to buy the formal bow but I find the wave really funny... "Hi, Oryx!" "Hi, giant ball of death!" "Hi, Atheon!"

Oh boy, you should try it! I use it in most situations because of pure survivability. With the right setup, I have two grenades (and one great for zoning), two melees, as well as being able to get an overshield with the melee charge and a self revive for when things go very wrong. Of course, I was mostly doing endgame activities where stuff like nightfalls (really hard versions of strikes) used to kick you back to orbit if the team wiped, so the revive thing was many a team-saver. It's nice that I no longer need to rely on that so much, but I still vibe with those subclass abilities so well.

Warlocks are the best.

Yeah. Hence why I am low on weapon parts, hehe. I just got a bit indecisive with weapon choices and then got greedy with having auto rifle, pulse rifle and scout rifle options alongside sidearm, shotgun, sniper, machine gun, rocket launcher... Had to be raid ready with a couple of different setups. With most setups now, I can reach 299/300. I'll see what the raid brings tomorrow, now that I have over 20 moldering shards.

As much as I love the main stuff, I'm still bothered by the little things. Too many currencies still. They needed to give you that extra vault space because there's a lot of stuff everywhere. Shaders and emblems having to be items is stupid. Armsday orders occupying weapon slots and being non-storable is stupid. Runes not going in as mission items is stupid. I'm also starting to get a little annoyed by the rewards. Rarely will I get anything decent anyway or worth infusing; and when I do, it tends to be the stuff I really don't need. On top of that, I was always low on weapon parts. Anything I get from Three of Coins is always a helmet or gloves when I already have everything for a Warlock anyway. I got 1 weapon and it was a Year One that I could buy anyway. On the plus side, at least I can clear the raid in an evening with a good team and (inf)use stuff from that.

Finally had a go at the new raid with half a team of randoms and it's pretty damn good. The thing is mega long (yes, I know a team beat the whole thing in 34 minutes) with 6 combat sections, a few "jumping puzzles" and a sort of maze thing and really really requires teamwork. Doing it in one sitting is certainly possible, but it feels more like something you chip away at over the week. I have to give credit to the guy who had the patience to stick with a bunch of newbies right up to the second big boss fight, because he got us through the first jumping bit and the two other randoms kinda sucked anyway. Only problem is, his instructions weren't always entirely accurate/clear which confused things. For example, referring to one player having an "aura" when, in fact, it's someone with a "brand" who gives everyone else an aura. That caused a bunch of team wipes. Then the boss we just couldn't get past was because he missed two vital elements. There are two people with a specific role who actually had an extra job that needed doing, and you also really want someone in the group of four to be killing adds and damaging the boss when possible. Went back with a different team the following night and I experimented with changing subclass and came up with a proper gameplan and we nailed it pretty good then got all the way up to Oryx before it got late. So, yeah, really challenging and perfect teamwork execution is absolutely essential. Having Black Spindle really helped too; well worth doing that clusterfuck of a "secret" mission. Although, I'm dreading having to do that first jumping bit again...

I've neglected this thread somewhat as I've been busy with work, moving into my flat and *ahem* The Taken King. I've still been gaming a bit, although I don't think you want to hear more about my Pathfinder adventures. First up, Nefarious. This is a hard one to parse/articulate. It's a game by Donald X. Vaccarino (designer of Dominion), a man who is often accused of producing somewhat dry games with the theme pasted on afterwards. For example, Infiltration was originally about stealing sweets from a candy factory before it got rebranded to fit Fantasy Flight's Android line. Also, Dominion is just plain old dryyyyy. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Solid mechanical design can be entertaining enough. This one's along similar lines. You're mad scientists trying to build all manner of diabolical (or just plain crazy) inventions, but nothing about them particularly stands out. You build an invention which might have an effect like getting some money (back), or make players discard some in-hand inventions or you might just get some points; it feels like a lot more could've been done. The basic gameplay involves simultaneous action selection from a choice of four, where you either send out workers to occupy spots on the board (producing income whenever a player to the left or right selects the related action), invent a card from your hand, research to get a little money and draw a new invention or just take 4 money. This is probably a little more tactical at lower player counts, but at 5 it's just kind of chaotic and then, while everyone's trying to speed things along by resolving everything simultaneously, you have to try and track what actions the players to the left and the right took to make sure you get any money owed. To add to the chaos, each game will have two universal modifiers drawn from a deck; increasing replayability and giving each game a slightly different twist. This sounds really cool and shows promise, but it doesn't exactly feel wildly exciting. For our game, we had that no action can be repeated twice in a row and that any invention effects are repeated (do the actions in order, then do them again). It might sound like I'm bashing the game, but it's a perfectly okay filler that I'd play again; I just hoped it had something a little flashier to accompany the really neat art style. Next up, Stone Age... ...thus ends my opinion on Stone Age. Okay, I'm kidding. I have a lot to say (as usual). First of all, I really like the look of the game. The components are real nice and you get a leather dice cup. LEATHER. It might be fake, I don't know. What am I, an expert on leather? It smells nice anyway. It's a sort of worker placement game where you send out guys to gather different types of resources, with each adding a die to the roll at the end of the round. The more valuable resources have a lower yield because they divide your dice rolls by higher numbers. So, food is a simple half of your die roll while gold divides it by a whopping six. Stone is actually the second hardest thing to get. FUCK YOU STONE THIS SHOULD BE CALLED WOOD AGE OR SOMETHING. So, anyway, you gather resources in an effort to purchase civilisation cards or huts which awards points for different things. Some, like the huts tend to work out as a straight up translation of resources (wood = 3 points, gold = 6 points, etc.) while the civ cards will be modifiers based on other factors such as agriculture score or tools. See, as well as the basic resource-gathering, you can gain more workers (but more mouths to feed), increase your tool proficiency (buff dice rolls) or up your agriculture (producing food each turn and lessening the need to send guys hunting instead). It all sounds like a neat balance of factors, and I'm sure its legacy as a great game is founded on this initial format of four players. However, my friend kindly purchased the expansion to allow a fifth player. This completely fucks that system sideways. Okay, I can't speak as an expert on Stone Age, but as someone who has played a fair few worker placement games now or just familiar with basic action selection/worker placement balanced systems. Five players is too many. I've bemoaned this fact before, but some games lose a little something when you cram in that extra player. Stone Age probably could've addressed this, since it adds some sort of board overlay (which didn't line up with the existing art and drove the player with OCD quietly crazy). Where before you could probably focus a little more on some element (like driving up tools or agriculture) as part of a certain playstyle, there are no extra places which makes it even more competitive for these spots. You finally get first turn and want to perform the action that everyone else nicks... except it's come at a time when you really need this other spot. However, this isn't a deal breaker. The game is still playable, just requires some adjustment of overall strategy. The biggest problem is the new element the expansion introduces. There's a jewellery collecting/trading element which just feels ridiculously unbalanced. See, in every other game with all sorts of spaces and possible actions, there is some sort of penalty or off-setting factor that prevents a player from relying on a single action/space every single turn/round. This did not feel like the case. One player was able to plant two guys down, get some free jewellery pieces (bone things), move two spaces up a track that would eventually let him trade 1 thing for 2 of any other thing provided it was used to purchase a hut/civ card (if I recall correctly) and then also spend a few more of the jewellery bits to purchase a civ card blind from the stack. And because these jewellery pieces could be gathered the same way as hunting for food (highest possible return) it was easy to keep everyone fed as he required and then use these pieces to begin getting easy gold round after round, which then went towards multiplier huts to send his score sky-rocketing while also running the game down by exhausting the civ card pile. He didn't have to rely on dice rolls for gold or anything like that. No diversification required. Granted, we could've blocked the spot a little more but I was inexperienced (and focused on other factors instead) and since it was new we probably undervalued it a little. Whether or not the players self-balance it remains to be seen, but it feels completely at odds with the core mechanics. So, yeah, I think that new expansion element is terrible but would be interested in seeing if a five-player game would work without it. Onward to Venus Bought this on a whim a while back, but never got a chance to play it. It's from Martin Wallace, the designer of A Study In Emerald, and he's renowned for trying slightly odd twists on things so you get a somewhat curious if not always balanced or easily understood affairs. Fortunately, this is a crisp blend of tight euro game mechanics combined with a little "take that!" trashiness from the card play and luck with dice rolls, married to a fun theme of different nations (USA, Russia, UK, France and Germany) looking to colonise the solar system with their steampunk-esque forces. So you have tanks and rocket ships and moon lasers and the Crudmobot 370 and Col. AP Harrison OBE, VC & Bar. 3rd Venusian Rifles. It works well with three players, but I guess only time will tell with five. In its favour, turns are quick, single-action affairs, and it takes place across three rounds. It combines elements of worker placement with area control and card play. The aim is to be yielding the most profit from a planet at the end of the game, this then awards scores based on player positions on each. Earth is worth 11 to 1st, 8 to 2nd, 5 to 3rd while Venus is 10/7/4 and the moons of Jupiter might only award 1st and 2nd. The way to "colonise" these planets is to capture factories and mines on each planet. However, their presence is all determined by tile draws at the start of each round. Each planet receives a certain number of tiles which might be the aforementioned mines or factories, but they might also be big game, tension tiles, crisis tiles or card draw tiles. It's up to the players to manoeuvre their forces across the system (only rocket ships can move between planets but can carry as many troops as you wish, tanks are usually stuck on the planet on which they are built) and decide how best to go about business. For example, you might get to a planet then have to decide between attempting to capture a mine or a factory. The mine will produce £3 compared to the factory's £2 (YES, POUND STERLING), but that factory will allow you to produce rocket ships and tanks on that planet, which might be handy if no one else gets the mine... or if a tension tile comes up later. Yes, the game is not heavy on PvP action (he says...) but these rare tiles might allow you to steal an opponent's building. That's the basic gameplay focused on the core actions: build units, fly them across the solar system, capture buildings. It's the cards and dice rolls that introduce the more random, but also tactical elements and the nice moments of surprise. The dice rolls feature whenever you try to take a tile with a defence value and add to the difficulty of capturing it. You roll 3 of them, subtract the lowest value from the highest and there you go. However, instead of a 1 there is a skull (AN EVIL SKULL) that actually counts as 0 but also means you have to kill a unit for each one rolled whether you decide to take the tile or not (they're lost after taking a tile at least; casualties of the skirmish). However HOWEVER, the cards will confer benefits such as simple combat rating buffs or ignoring skulls or rerolls. This gives you a decisions between attempting to claim tiles to draw more cards or bolster your forces or where to place them or when to best utilise your cards. On top of that, there are crisis tiles. These can trigger unique effects on each planet, but are reliant on a single dice roll at the end of each round. They're not meant to be a huge factor, but can require some effort to shift and might cause trouble if left to build up. They sound like a fun little element, but the other two players in this game expended quite a bit making sure they were eliminated quite quickly. I think I alarmed them by pointing out that if Earth gets too high a crisis rating, a robot uprising occurs and everyone loses. In future, I might try the "heightened crisis" variant suggested on the BGG forums. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It's thinky enough without being overwhelming, moves along nice and quickly and it looks really pretty. Most of all, I liked the possibilities provided by the cards (even if I did accidentally go way over the hand limit by forgetting to just ditch useless cards I was never going to use). The other two got into a (costly) war over the Moon, with moon lasers and supertanks and stuff, while one guy stole Earth right at the end thanks to a card that allowed him to take a tension tile from the discards and put it on any planet and I did a sneaky capture by amassing a huge force far away not to arouse suspicion and then buffing their movement to allow a swift invasion. In a few ways, it sort of reminds me of Cyclades but much lighter and with a healthy dollop of randomness. Finally, a nice relaxing game of Tokaido. A game from Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders) where you play a traveller trying to take in all the sights and enjoy as much as you can along Tokaido, the east sea road of Japan. You move along a track, selecting/blocking spaces as you go. The player farthest behind gets to move first each turn, which might be a boon if you get to snatch up some spaces skipped by others, or a curse as they block the one thing you really wanted. This makes it sound more (passive) aggressive than it is, though. Really, it's got a similar vibe to 7 Wonders in that you probably do best to focus on a few key elements for maximising your score. You can paint landscapes, shop, eat, donate money, make friends etc. and there will be bonuses for first player in most categories. It's got a calm, pleasant vibe to it and the artwork is so pretty. SO PRETTY. I would like to say I won through some smart play, which there might have been moments of, but really there was a bit of luck at a few key points. My character's bonus meant I got a random "friend" (aww, fwend) card whenever I visited the inns (those red squares checkpoints) which enabled me to get money at just the right time, finish off a painting I might not have otherwise and get a free donation to the temple to tie 2nd. On top of that, I managed 3 different icons in one shopping trip then drew another thanks to a "friend" space. Anway, cool game and has a nice feel to it. Having five people might get nasty though...

I'm down for doing the raids if we can find a suitable occasion. Would be fun to do them on normal without cheesing them. As Eleven says, public events award the thing upon completion. 3 motes and, what seems like, the XP bonus for the first one each day. I'm not entirely happy with my Warlock's look because I tend to just go for a full Int/Dis build and the current helmet that is best for that and includes Inverse Shadow (more super from non-guardian kills) is the Devouring Maw one from the SABER strike (which looks ridiculous with Heart of the Praxic Fire, and more like a Hunter helmet anyway). However, I might lean towards a bit of Str, because flame shield is so useful on Sunsinger. Just too much that needs infusing to reach those 290+ levels. Right now, I just need another legendary scout rifle to dismantle in order to get my Tlaloc. I don't want to dismantle my VoC or Fang (or Badger or Another NITC) and I like my new SUROS one a whole bunch.

It's exclusive to each class. So Hunters work towards a sniper rifle, Warlocks a fusion rifle, and Titans a shotgun.

Ha. Glad I held onto my weapon cores from PoE. Now Variks is selling fusion rifles, I can buy and scrap those for Banshee's quest. Hopefully that'll give me a sweet new weapon.

I got the quest from getting rank 2 with the gunsmith, I think. Problem now is that he hasn't got any more weapons I can/care to test for more rep. As for legendaries, I've gotten lucky with a few blue engrams but a lot has come from rep with vanguard, cryptarch, crucible and my faction. I used 100+ motes to up two levels with Dead Orbit. Plus, a few from the heroic strikes.

The Raid 2 was great; just that it had more of a "crime epic" feel. The first one was great also, but it did have a few scenes that just dragged. Anything involving the final baddie just went on far too long you just get bored.

I'm loving TTK, now I've had some more time with it, and I've barely explored the dreadnaught. Feels like a proper fleshed out Destiny experience in every way now. All the weapons in PvE feel good to use and there's some real potential for customisation. The only problem is I'm starting to get stressed out by all the things I "need" (want) to do. It bombards you with quests and stuff, but in a good way. I've been hoarding weapons and armour for infusing lower level legendaries but then I keep getting more and more legendaries that I like the look of. Yesterday evening, I got three Choleric Dragon rocket launchers, two legendary auto rifles and a legendary pulse rifle all in one evening; not to mention the two exotics I got thanks to those "Three of coins" (got two exotics after about 9-10 coins, which seems average). ... but at the same time, I've got to dismantle rare or higher fusion rifles for the gunsmith quest, so I can get the class-specific weapons. Then on Wednesday, I'll have a couple of new weapon orders arrive. Argh!

aka. Arena Shooter: The Board Game. Rab Florence had raved about this way back and it seemed like a fun enough, light game. Just so happened that someone had listed this on eBay along with the expansion, so I got an okay deal on it.

And lo, Strangelove was back on the wheel. So, everyone's impressions thus far? I'm really liking it. The story missions have a little more context and involvement, even if it is a lot of going through the same areas. More Nathan Fillion is always good, and they've given Ghost some decent lines. And the new enemies really shake things up. I just soloed a "Hard" rated mission (I still have crap armour right now and only two "good" weapons, so level 40 majors are still considered tough) that comes after the main questline and that was a lot of fun. It went into a bit more of the lore with the Vault of Glass, plus I got a real "Halo on Heroic difficulty" vibe. Right now, it's a little annoying with how Legendary Marks aren't as easily gained, but I imagine just like with the base game, you gather a sort of momentum and then you'll be able to get your hands on lots of cool stuff.

So, this is a pretty cool feature. Obviously, it's not video of you, but it pulls a bunch of your most "impressive" metrics and celebrates them along with giving you some titles. Here's my main Warlock one. I had no idea I had that many kills with The Last Word. I know I loved it when it first came out, but didn't realise I was that hooked. Funny thing is, I've killed Skolas more times with my titan simply because I was doing the elder cipher stuff.

Yeah, I thought you played the game waaaaay more than any of us ...or maybe that explains it.