Hot Heart

http://i.imgur.com/aJGTSaH.gifv

Is that 'a few hours' worked out correctly, Ethan? I'm looking to do the weekly Heroic at 26, and try the Nightfall too, if you guys are around.

I won't be back from work and ready to go until about 6, but then I'm free the whole evening. Lame.

Me me me! I'll try and make it. Will be closer to 6:00GMT, maybe a bit after, if that's alright.

I'd buy that just for the title. I grabbed the Blue Sun expansion for Firefly, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. I've also ordered a new game, because it seemed like a reasonable price. Colt Express A game about being a bandit robbing a train while a bunch of other bandits are trying to do the same. Seems like a cool Western-themed heist game like Android: Infiltration but with the programming madness of Space Alert mixed in. You'll play a sequence of actions then resolve them, hoping others don't screw up your plans, and there will be cool variations like going through a tunnel which means cards are played face-down. Also, it includes a 3D train.

Bandmate made a 'mix CD' of the sound he wants to go for with this new band. Of ones I hadn't heard before, this stood out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e_9liCmUAE

Actually, Whedon also made a Malteaser.

The trailer didn't reveal much solid information. It teased. It was a teaser trailer.

I think the general observation is that it is "over-lit" and flat-looking, where it doesn't feel 'cinematic' compared to most action films. Of course, when it comes to actions scenes, I'd rather have Whedon's clarity, staging, beats and visual storytelling over Michael Bay or some shit like that.

There's a general criticism that Whedon's film direction tends to look "too TV" or flat. This looks like a great deal has improved (I was happy with his directing before anyway; the action is clear and concise). ...soooo, why can't I watch this already?!

Only had three of us in the end. Tried the Nightfall Weekly Strike but with arc damage buffed on the Summoning Pits strike, it's fucking tough. The goddamn knights and wizards do arc damage, so we were pretty much screwed when even a few showed up. Had to give up on the final wave of that bloody runes bit. So then we tried the Heroic version at level 26. This was still tough because yellow health bar wizards are a pain. Managed it, though not exactly glowingly. On the other topic, public events are good for getting marks, but doing the Strike playlists is generally good for improving your skills and getting a bunch of engrams (along with gear to scrap). Since you get a purple 'package' with the postmaster every time you rank up with a vendor, it's always good to be getting engrams to rank up the cryptarch as well.

Amazing drummer from Rx Bandits has a new album out as pwyw (or just listen for free). https://cgak.bandcamp.com/album/audio-disconnect Not my usual bag, but the band broadened my horizons many years ago, and can't do any wrong, so I'm always open to whatever their members put out.

I'm in. Not sure being that low a level would work though. Your damage would be reduced drastically against level 26 enemies...

A cool little site that presents party policies on key issues, you select them without knowing which belongs to which (though UKIP and BNP are pretty easy to spot...) and then tells you how you sided. http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ Turns out I'm mostly Green with some Lib Dem (surprise, surprise) and a smidgen of Labour.

That's the one I would buy if I cared more about cosmetic stuff than actual gear, otherwise I'm just hoping I get it from an engram because it is the awesomest.

Sure, but I find the site useful if I want to tie it in with patrol mission bounties on a different planet with my main/a higher level character. Maybe I've just been lucky, because I've received an ascendant shard every single time. And while I'm here, some 'stuff' about the first expansion: http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/73518812/0/0 I was going to make a big post about the lore stuff (pretty fascinating once you scratch the surface) but I'll probably leave that until later.

I'm still enjoying the game, since it fits well into a 'casual play' approach. I mean, I can still hardline the game like I was the first two weeks, if I wanted, but right now I'll just hop on, do some "dailies" and work towards better gear or levelling up gear. I like that there's not so much pressure as with an MMO subscription, since the PS+ covers everything and more. It would be better if I could find people who play as regularly, and I might have some UK folks (friends of my cousin) to make that a reality. Really, I'm just working towards being as ready for the Raid and high level stuff as I can. At the moment, I'm simply farming for ascendant shards, which basically involves having alternate characters (I only have 1 other, but might start a Titan now I've got some exotics and legendaries for that) and going and doing a public event each day. Most of you probably know this anyway, but for those that don't, I'd recommend it, since you just need only to be level 9-10 and use this site to find a public event in the Cosmodrome: http://destinypublicevents.com/ Colour-coding is for likelihood of it happening, and it's usually helpful to have other Guardians in the area already, both for triggering one and achieving gold tier. Do that each day with a character, go to the Postmaster in the Tower and you should receive an ascendant shard for 'first gold tier public event of the day'. Three characters = three ascendant shards a day, with a chance at ascendent energy when the public event is completed as well.

Hey, that's why I added the (?!). This was said by someone who grew up as part of Hollywood though and is involved in pitching and now directing films, so he must know something.

It's a good film, not great. I like Cruise in most films though, just that he is a wacko in real life. Definitely something to be said about 'The Death of the Movie Star' though. Max Landis (screenwriter, son of John) was talking about this the other day with regards to female stars; that besides Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart(?!), you don't have any real bankable female leads on which to hang new IPs or franchises. To me, it's interesting to examine because there has been somewhat of a shift and marketing tends to emphasise different things now. With regards to Edge of Tomorrow though, Cruise is most certainly not the typical hero, not invulnerable in any sense. He's a PR guy who gets in over his head and dies a lot.

Not exactly who I envisioned for Christian... and definitely not for Deena (unless they've gone straight to Enki?) and the trailer makes the tone look a little off (I know they're keeping lower budget) but I guess I'll give it a watch since it'll be free on PS+.

Coming along nicely. Hopefully, there should be some more gameplay stuff posted in the next few days.

That should be okay, provided we can get it done in 3 hours or start a little bit earlier. Pesky job getting in the way of my fun...

PC gaming is great and all, but speaking personally, I just can't be bothered with all the hassle I get. Some games run extremely well and that's great, but more often than not, I'm looking at poorly optimised ports or strange graphics issues. Couldn't get past a certain point in The Witcher 1 because it just crashes every time. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit had problems with CTD and performance issues on multi-core CPUs(!), plus missing effects (could hear wet and rain but not see any). The other one Criterion made also has issues and crashing when it does some of the arty crap intro videos, so I just can't play them anymore. If I wanted to run AC3 or Arkham Origins without framerate issues, I had to reinstall the graphics drivers before playing (no idea why) and an update clash at one point meant having to unplug the graphics card just to get the PC to use different drivers to be able to start the PC and resolve the issue. I gave up on Brutal Legend because the open world won't run smoothly, no matter what I do. Same goes for Prototype 2. Saints Row 3 just randomly wiped my save after I was a good way through, so I'm not bothering with any more. Sonic Generations has the occasional framerate hiccup and some areas just won't maintain a stable one. Tomb Raider had a gamebreaking bug right near the end that meant I needed to restart the whole game (good job I really liked it). And I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other annoying little niggles compared to how smooth everything's been when playing a console game (particularly on PS4) I'm just fed up with all the messing around just to play most games. Maybe some of it's related to my PC being from the start of 2010. Maybe it's ATI-related, but then I won't hear people saying, "Serves you right for buying that version of the PS4." I'll still game on my PC, for sure, but I'm finding myself increasingly low on patience with issues I'm finding on the multi-platform releases (why can't Nixxes do everything?). I'm happy to use the PS4 for now and then probably buy a new PC a few years down the line.

It does get quite ridiculous, but I really enjoyed it. Nice palette cleanser if anything. And the amount of variation in the interactions is insane.

I think the Iron Banner stuff is confusing people because light levels don't factor into PvP (i.e. highest level is technically 20) and the actual weighting given to attack and defence values really isn't much. That's my understanding anyway. Besides, I'm not sure what people were expecting though. That some lower level scrubs would wander in and they could whale on them?