Hot Heart

Houses in Leicester are made from Walkers crisps. True story.

I've barely made much progress, but from my limited playtime... Argh, I want to play more... but I also want to play more Witcher 3!

To be wholly honest, I'm kinda wishing I hadn't gone that far with Triss. Turns out Yennefer shares a lot in common with Miranda Lawson, which really revs my engine. Ah, both are great women either way. Friggin' Geralt's "tough" decisions...

D'oh. You didn't get the chance to tell her you love her before she left? That's what I did. She still walks off but then you start talking to Dijkstra who goes into a story and then suddenly stops with, "Turn around." You turn around and there Triss is. It's a really nice moment. @Dean. Sure Vesemir wasn't just berating you because of the hat? Seriously, though, I think there is a bit of... not so much oversight, but slight incompatibility in the variables. Yen was running very hot and cold in the way some conversations went; where it was clear we were supposed to still be a couple (or at least me not just recently thrown into a lake). I'm guessing he means the big expansions rather than the little bits (not that the little bits aren't nice)? I don't think they're due until the end of October. Thinking I might replay this one after they're out.

I think, as you get older and take on more responsibility, it's something you adjust to gradually. I've always felt guilty if I play games for a whole day anyway, and there was an 18-24 month period after Mass Effect 3 where I just kind of couldn't be bothered with nearly all games. I focused on my writing instead, and felt better about it. I'd still dip into the odd "casual" thing, but I couldn't see myself picking up a massively involved RPG anymore (not that Mass Effect was ever that, and Witcher 3 is pitched and paced perfectly). Nowadays it's more a routine of getting in from work, getting sorted then playing a game for however long until I get tired (not an ideal setup either). My day off a week is when I get all my other shit sorted rather than gaming for any long periods. Really need to sort out getting to sleep earlier too. Definitely not as avid a gamer as I was 3 years ago, and I'm just letting a lot of things pass me by, but that suits me fine. Having said all that, I have been putting in major time with Destiny and Witcher 3 and Arkham Knight recently.

So, following IDDQD's sad tale... Man, I love this game.

We find the trick is to run to the far left side and hunker down behind there. As long as you make sure to keep an eye on the adds to the left and right (as well as the odd cheeky bastard who jumps straight over) you should be fine. From there, you can pick at the boss' shield (or just peek over with a shotgun) then get everyone to pile on the damage until he re-ups the shield. My regular fireteam's got into a habit of doing all three characters on a Tuesday: Nightfall then PoE 32, then switch weapons. With the burns on the Nightfall it was great to be able to nuke that Cabal guy to down him in under 10 seconds. Got everything done in under two and a half hours including breaks. Oh, and yeah, with the legendary and exotic engrams, I've always figured they were weighted towards the class that decrypts them because that tended to be how it seemed. Of course, immediately after I told someone this, I did three exotic engrams which gave me items for the other two classes...

Had a quick go at it last night once the update finally installed and I was done with Destiny (3 Nightfalls and 3 PoE32s in one night, phew). Looks lovely and the batmobile is a lot of fun for just blasting around, feeling invincible. I spent a lot of time chasing cars like an excited dog, shunting the perps off the road and then beating them up (batmobile takedowns are swrrrrt!) The way it's integrated is pretty handy too, so it's a doddle to get around, jump out, call it back, etc. Thankfully I read somewhere that you can change the batmobile's battle mode to a toggle, because otherwise I would've kept triggering it while trying to brake round corners (plus, tank battles seem annoying enough without having to hold down a button the whole time). It's not an immediate option, but once you've visited GCPD for the first time, you can make battle mode toggle with R1 (which then moves the R1 cannon to L2, I believe). Much better. Only other control foible is calling the batmobile when wanting to enter detective mode, but I'm sure I'll get used to that. Still acing the combat so far (most times it's better to evade than attempt a counter)

Really? The only tough bit I can think of is that Cabal boss' shields that keep switching. We struggled the first week when it was the 32 because we got pinned down at the entrance but it was a breeze as the 34 last week. I'm guessing you guys weren't communicating and carrying different elementals?

Everyone had already figured that. And I posted that video last week. Had a good run on Vault of Glass last night. I got Fatebringer, finally. One friend got Gjallahorn, finally. And the other got Vision of Confluence... finally! Also crazy that you can down Atheon in two runs now. I also got the Mythoclast (but already had it so whatevs!) and the explodey sparrow (which I'l probs never use now I have the stunt one). Would be cool to get a bunch of us doing it sometime.

Got this stuck in my head thanks to Asda. I actually really like it.

50% off, yay.

Also, OMG THESE ALL LOOK AMAZING

I can't recall exactly what Variks will be selling (Taniks is the Strike dude). I think it goes gloves, chest, helmet, boots so next week should be... chestpiece, I assume. Hard to tell what you should do, really. I had to ascend some armour pieces (boots) on my guys for the extra heavy ammo perk to get to level 34, but I'm still a ways off a proper balanced build (because everything is strength for warlocks!). If you can get to 34 without needing to ascend armour, you could probably focus on weapons. As long as you're 34 and have a decent exotic, you should be okay. It's being level 34 that matters more than the perks, so then you'll want some weapons that go above 340 damage (knock the last digit off a weapon's damage and it'll tell you what level enemies it works up against). The upcoming 34 boss should be Urrox, who's relatively easy if you've got a decent scout rifle and sniper rifle. It was a real struggle when we first did it because one of my friends is pretty hopeless as a hunter and never got used to avoiding the teleport anti-cheese thing (still hasn't, and sometimes it's a little overzealous) but we did it, effectively, with two 33s (friend was dead most of the time and quit out to rejoin only to find he couldn't). Ideally, you want the elemental primaries from the raids, otherwise if you just want 365 primaries, use your first weapon core (from doing 34) and armor core (from 32) to try Judgment's Chance and hope for the scout rifle or something. Wouldn't recommend it though. I think nearly all the new weapons suuuuuck. My first ascended legendary was Vision of Confluence because that guns wrecks. Then for anything else, there's the Crota scout rifle Fang of Ir Yut (although, Fatebringer is supposed to be better, I just never got it). That way you have a solar and arc primary, which takes care of most things. Then I've been focusing on shotguns, because Qodron's coming up and his containment shields are a pain.

This looks p cool. I heard mention that the level cap is going up to level 50, which sounds kinda crazy.

I remember when some teachers ran one at school for charity. My form tutor intended to be a professional athlete with a dream of competing in the Olympics. He didn't last as long as the ex-marine maths teacher.

Fuck yeah, I get to be Palpatine!

Wow. So...

A few more details here. Maybe I am ready to love again...

Played some new games (to me) recently. One during the week, a few yesterday. Lords of Waterdeep The go-to "worker placement" game it seems. Cool little theme (even though I don't know much about D&D) even if it does fall somewhat by the wayside and you're just looking at coloured cubes, trying to collect them all. Place workers down in spots, receive things (mostly cubes), complete quests by turning in specific sets of things and earn points for doing so. There are a few other factors (card play, buildings, etc) but that's the core. The further wrinkle is that each player gets a secret lord who provides bonus points for exclusive things at the end of the game. I got the woman who earns bonus points for each Commerce and Skullduggery quest that gets completed, someone else clearly had one for buildings owned. It was easy to grok and so things moved relatively quickly (except when someone steals a spot you wanted). I got lucky with a starting commerce quest that gave me bonus points for later ones, so that somewhat hid my intentions. Problem was all those quests required money for completion as well, which fed into the main issue as one player ran away with the game. For a long time, I was last player, so I could do nothing anyway, and round after round another player could purchase building after building; despite other players knowing his secret goal, none attempted to stop him. Instead he just kept earning extra bits from people (myself included) using his buildings... which allowed him to buy more buildings. I tried to steal first place, but then he played an intrigue card that gave him it back. I think I made a valiant effort and assembled some decent ongoing modifiers from my quests and wound up joint 2nd. I could've leapt ahead if I'd known I would receive an extra quest late in the game (from an intrigue card) and did choose a different coloured cube from an action; one which was only going to be waste. Not that it mattered because the building player had filled the board and ended about 30+ points in the lead... Anyway, a neat game. I like it. Next up, we did the starter scenario for Legendary: A Marvel Deckbuilding Game Like LoW, this is another game where there's a theme but it's more about the mechanics. You fight a mastermind who also has a mishmash of villains and henchmen (we fought Red Skull along with HYDRA... and Spider-Foes, The Hand, Skrulls, Sentinels and some others I probably forgot) and you assemble a deck of cards from the available decks of heroes (we had Iron Man, Cyclops, Spider-Man, Wolverine and Hawkeye). So each player could have the same hero somewhere in their deck just with different abilities. You use hands of cards to generate recruit and attack points, spend them to get more heroes or fight villains, try and "build" your deck to generate combos like extra card draws or attack/recruit points; the aim of the game being to defeat the villain and have the most victory points (from defeating villains, the mastermind tactic cards, etc.) First game's somewhat simple (we used a suggested modifier because people say the game's too hard with more than 4 people; the modifier essentially gives you 1 extra recruit point in your starting deck) and we never really got a chance to build big, combo engines, although one player had a pretty big turn of card draws and such... just with nothing really to attack or worth recruiting. Anyway, I won. That's what counts. I'm kidding. It's decent and I look forward to trying the trickier scenarios and villains in future. The Battle at Kemble's Cascade A much appreciated gift from my sisters (they researched it and everything) that I got to the table finally. I hesitated because it seems like it could take a while, so saved it for a Sunday rather than an evening. Awesome retro presentation and it captures the spirit of the shmup for people who lack the dexterity. You have your little ship, which starts pretty basic with 5 energy, and each turn you get a free move and shoot (for 1 damage) then have to resolve the "threat" generated from enemies, either ones right next to you or firing from a distance. The board itself is made up of cards from a deck, and that scrolls, getting progressively more dangerous. You'll even get scroll-pushed if you linger on the last row at the end of a round. Kind of a fiddly thing with the trays and card, but it's not too much trouble if you have a few of you handling it as it goes. It's actually trickier making sure you correctly resolve threat from the previous turn (remembering to reduce it if you 'evade' by moving; 1 for each move) before adding new threat for the one just gone There are a few ways to score points but early on it's mostly about gathering in-game currency, known as "bellonium" (heh) so you can improve your ship for the harder things later. On your turn, you can power down to regain energy and "shop" so you can upgrade your engine, rotary cage (governs your 4 orthogonal firing directions), shields or buy a laser, flamethrower, gamma cannon or missile or even power-ups. These'll allow you to take more damage, move farther, deal more damage, shoot through a whole row, etc. All sorts of options and things to think about, and it's really neat. It even balanced quite well with us taking different approaches. I bought 3 different weapons the first chance I got (for an achievement) whereas someone else bought all the ship upgrades (for a similar achievement) and our scores weren't too far apart. I think it'll be cool to experiment with different setups. All in all, I really liked it (not sure the others were as keen) because it looks great and it's really thinky. The main issue is that there are little quirks with certain rules (and the FAQ isn't always clear) and it was our first time playing so we had some fumbles with little things (like an "omni-threat") appearing on the board, but I reckon that's all ironed out and everything would flow more smoothly in future.