Hot Heart

Haha. Wicked. The punch-by-punch narrator for Daredevil's fight scenes is crushing it.

In case my ramblings haven't convinced you that Dogs of War is a must-own, try a review by the guys at Shut Up & Sit Down: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/review-dogs-war/

Shhh, TFG, this was all your crappy gaming skills' fault in the first place!

A couple of bits on the next "Defenders" show: AKA. Jessica Jones http://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/430217-first-look-at-david-tennant-and-mike-colter-in-marvels-a-k-a-jessica-jones I actually don't know much about this part of the Marvel universe (and I kinda don't want to "spoil" any more), but the basic concept sounds very similar to Powers. Another series by Bendis... On the subject of the Netflix shows though, I finished Daredevil. Overall, it was really good and shows a lot of promise. In way more detail... SPOILERS FOR BITS ALL OVER THE PLACE OF THE WHOLE THING

Yeah, because otherwise Chewie's lifespan would be far shorter.

Pre-ordered these thanks to a heads-up on this offer here: http://savygamer.co.uk/2015/04/16/almost-any-2-upcoming-ps4xbox-one-games-for-70-total/ Definitely sounds like a good deal if you're in the UK.

The original point is that LittleBigPlanet is not like GTA Online. Which it isn't. There's a shared pool of lives/respawns but anyone still alive when the last respawn is used up can continue without it automatically failing them. You just have to try not to die while the friggin' porthole flashes red and plays an annoying alarm sound.

No, it isn't. You said if someone uses up your last life while others are still alive, it fails you. Like Ethan, I am saying the sole survivor can keep going; that is the entire point of my second sentence.

Hey, this actually looks Star Wars-y

Nah, to the best of my memory, it's always been how Ethan said it. The porthole things had a certain number of respawns, which is why you always had that tension of the sole survivor having to make it to the next checkpoint (which would then use up that one's respawns as all the dead players reappear).

Bandmate said a song I'm working on reminded him of Husker Du, so I figured I'd better actually listen to them, having heard of them but never actually heard them.

Mostly current or former employees iirc. Terrorists Businessmen.

I had a fun ITT Day. There were a few events all over town, and I know experienced gamers were needed at a local pub so that's where I headed first. With my usual luck, I managed to arrive at a bad time, with a few big games going already. Some smaller games did get going while I was there, but I wasn't really interested in playing Dixit. No, by then, I'd gotten myself involved in a game of Firefly that had been put on by the guy I played with at the brewery months ago. Only this time, he'd gotten himself into a six-player game with only himself having played before. Madness... madness... Finding a bit of seating at the side, I made quick friends with the new guy next to me and, feeling sorry for him being stuck with the S.S Walden (only moves 4 sectors, has no Stash space) along with one of the "weaker" leaders, I took to helping him out. Rather than backseat drive the whole thing though, I would just offer a few thoughts and the main options (since he was completely new to the game). He made some poor decisions a couple of times, but they only really cost him a couple of turns in the grand scheme of it. He got lucky with some of the Alliance Cruiser and Reaver movement (although, they got him plenty anyway), after he flew way too close to the former for my liking. That said, he also had his fair share of bad luck in other areas, like trying to find a pilot, so it all balances out, really. A bit like the ol' tortoise and hare story, he made his way slowly but surely, working his way up through the jobs he could manage (Duul to Patience to Badger) while the others won and lost big over and over. The main rival, of course, was the guy who owned the game and I was determined to beat him this time... after his luck at the brewery session. With the guy slowly heeding my advice to ignore a job that took him too far out the way, he managed to grab some good crew where I'd told him to head along with a job that took him right towards the goal planet while giving him enough money in hand, provided he didn't pay his crew. It all worked out... just. Victory, woo! Next, I played a game of 7 Wonders with five others, all but two being complete newbies (this was someone else's copy, and the other non-newbie had played once). I did pretty well, but the person to my left managed to scupper my military stalemate in Age 3 and so I was tied with the game owner who'd managed to accrue more money and, therefore, win. I'm definitely noticing that Ephesos is a strong Wonder to play as against newbies, and since he was to my right but wasn't neighbouring me, there was nothing I could really do to affect him much (player to my immediate right was doing all sorts of dumb/unpredictable things, despite having played before). Oh, well... Then, finally, onto the game I was looking forward to the most: Homeland. This is a really cool, mid-weight "traitor game". What I mean is that it's not as light or as simple as things like The Resistance or One Night Ultimate Werewolf and it's not as complex or as time-consuming and complex as Battlestar Galactica, or perhaps Dead of Winter (which itself isn't purely a "traitor game"). And the actual structure of the hidden agendas combined with how the game plays out really adds this constant air of paranoia (along with a refreshingly cynical slant on US national security affairs). See, because there will only ever be one winner (or just everyone losing) based on how the game actually comes to a close. The simplest ending is that enough terrorist plots succeed that that red track on the left fills up, meaning the terrorists have won. Everyone reveals their agendas and if there's a terrorist mole, then they've won alone. Otherwise, the whole group has lost. The alternative is that the agency track manages to fill up because they've stopped enough threats. The game then moves into an accusation phase. This is where everyone has a chance to secretly pick out the terrorist mole (or simply pass by showing their own card). A correct identification gives that player an extra 6 points, an incorrect one costs them 3 points. And so, even if you're confident you've identified the mole, you might do better to keep it to yourself. Firstly, because you could collect those extra points along, but also, if the mole still thinks they're safe, they'll probably play a bit friendlier, giving you more chance to stop the threats. And this constant paranoia and questioning occurs because of these three different types of agenda, each with their own scoring conditions. Plus, to add a bit more to it, there's always one more card in the distribution than there are players, which goes back into the box unseen. So, yeah, there might not even be a terrorist, or maybe there'll be too many greedy political career chasers. And so each of these roles pulls against the other. A loyal agent clearly wants to stop threats that they've taken the Case Lead on, earning themselves those Rep tokens. But there will probably be more than one loyal agent, who wouldn't mind seeing a rival's case fail or just snipe the better/easier threats where possible; perhaps even try and convince everyone they're a terrorist to cost them points. A political opportunist is somewhat on the same side, but they don't get points for Rep tokens, instead they want Political Clout... which everyone earns when a terrorist plot succeeds. So they've got this careful balancing act of letting a few threats slip through perhaps, but not too many, while hopefully appearing like a terrorist to fool others. Then onto the terrorist who had a big decision to make: either go bold and hope to cause so much chaos and damage that the terrorist track fills up even with everyone knowing it's clearly you. Or play it very subtle so that even if the agency track fills up, enough plots have succeeded that you get enough points to win. However, if even one person figures out you're the terrorist during the accusation phase, then you're disqualified from winning. And so, it all makes for this wonderfully tense game where even if you don't think you're good at lying as a traitor, there's enough shade and suspicion on everyone that you could pull off a half-decent job anyway by either going bold or some sort of double-bluff. Each turn, a player is forced to play an intel card (basically, single-digit plus or minus values to cases) to at least one other person's case so they can still bluff that "it's the best they could do". In this game, I was the terrorist mole but played it like a political opportunist, making sure to cling on to a few clout all the while and make sure my own cases succeeded. Little did the other players know that I'd put a Jihad (highest value negative card) on someone else's case, knowing that they hadn't been paying it too much attention and hoping it would be thought of as the blind, "starter" intel card that appears when the case was placed on the board. My ploy succeeded, and so round four turned into this horrible cascade of all these threats resolving at once, all in my favour while my own all looked above board. Needless to say, I enjoyed it and I think the others appreciated the different style of game to what they'd been used to. That said, it does take a little while to wrap your heads around the mechanics, even though they're not too complex. Plus, with all new players, it seems highly likely that the terrorists would win anyway, even without a mole perhaps. I look forward to trying this with my close friends though. I know one isn't too fond of traitor games but I think he might warm to this when everyone's out for themselves. EDIT: Added images from the event.

It's the press screener eps. So they're in SD. *shudders*

"If you can see a mountain in the distance, you bet you can go and fuck that mountain."

Four eps in and this show is brutal with the violence. Not a complaint, just very surprising. It's a good cast overall. Charlie Cox makes a good Murdock. My only reservation is that, although I usually like D'Onofrio, his Fisk is a bit... odd. This is sort of his "origin" too though, I'm told, so it develops well, apparently.

Watched two episodes so far. I like it. Feels a bit different from the other Marvel fare, but the tone is still pitched right.

Based on most of their suggestions, I still wouldn't think of them as one. /elitist

Haha. Brilliant. Can't wait to see "Ow, my lucky face!"

My only concern with the game was the guy at Eurogamer who played it said the console/pad controls were a bit... fiddly, or at least poorly thought-out. Like calling a horse with clicking the right thumbstick so it interrupts your normal move/attack animations or not easily being able to tell if you're locked on to an enemy which makes all the difference when you want to roll instead of a small dodge step. That said, this was a while back so maybe that's been improved on.

*Rock Band 3 Nightmares*

Which is why there is a huge expectation that Lib Dems will lose a heck of a lot of seats this election. All those voters are feeling betrayed and the Lib Dems are second-to-last in all the opinion polls I keep seeing (behind UKIP but ahead of Greens). At the moment, there's a lot of talk about the SNP seeing a decisive surge but a great deal of that seems like political grandstanding. The spin is up to maximum, and the knives are out. This is a guy who seems to be doing a lot of good in getting younger people interested in voting, because voter turnout is a fucking shambles and with dickheads like Russell Brand about, who knows what might happen. Greens stealing Labour votes, UKIP stealing Tory votes... seems to be an election about holding onto your base instead of genuine politics. Biggest thing so far has been the non-dom stuff.

o rly? Might have to check it out. Just struck me that his solo stuff might be soppy acoustic rubbish (like what that one from Stereophonics did) On another note. Holy shit, completely forgot about this song. I think it's because I checked out their other stuff and didn't like it.

Seeing as the Dreamfall Chapters stuff has started to be released, I decided I should actually get around to The Longest Journey and then Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. So, the games are either the Dreamfall series or the Longest Journey series... huh ANYWAY. I'm liking the characters and the story in TLJ so far but really put off by the old-style adventure game mechanics. I mean, I used to love that sort of thing, but here they are so divorved from the actual narrative I'm thinking it would be better off without this stuff until the thrust of the story gets underway. So far it's just a lot of "go here and meet a person" but this person's told me to meet them somewhere... except they're not there. Now I've just given a guy a sweet that I made disgusting by dipping it in ooze that was under a bin, he's run off so I can get to a fusebox he was standing next to... and now I've picked up his hat. And I've got an inflatable duck ring thing for some reason, there's a machine outside my character's border house that I suppose I'll need to fix? I have no fucking clue why am I doing half these things.

Sounds like a really cool filler. Might scratch the same itch as Machi Koro except it wouldn't suck since, instead of die rolling, there's a press-your-luck element that is only part of it and it has a pirate theme. A lot of depth for a game solely consisting of 120 cards (the backs double as coins) and was under £10. Also, that seagull has pooped on that guy's boot and I can't tell if that guy is pissed off or unaware or gently dissatisfied.