Hot Heart

Going to need to give the album a few more listens, but right now, it's probably my least favourite of their The Resignation-onwards albums. It has some great tracks, no doubt, and it's better than 90% of other stuff out there but, given that this was a fully independent release, I was really expecting them to go even more experimental/progressive/out there. I had my initial fears when they released Stargazer early, and it sounded very pop-y and there are a few too many tracks in that vein. Still miss their horn section at times, too.

Armor? More like amore! More like J'aime Alexander! More like I SHOULD STOP NOW.

Cabs suck. You want the Cloud Racer or whatever it's called. It looks stupid as hell but it's got a turbo and the other shoulder button makes it hover so that it drives right over other cards but still counts for checkpoints. That Maria Hill one does suck though. I think it took me a few tries. As with all the races, it's about pace more than haste; just stay consistent, don't take any risks or mess up.

To be fair, Jaime Alexander looks SO much better than a lot of things.

Finished my epic review and overview of Sentinels of the Multiverse! http://pressxordie.com/2014/07/28/roll-6-or-die-review-sentinels-of-the-multiverse/ Might do one for Android: Infiltration or A Study In Emerald next. Had a great game of the latter last week where the zombies came out to play.

After playing the Destiny beta some more... eh, I'm not champing at the bit to play the full game. Maybe seeing it on PS4 with all the pretty would help things, but nothing has sold me on the gameplay. I went through all the story missions and then did the 'strike' thing, which just drags on if your teammates are terrible/squishy Hunters or whatever. I mean, I liked parts of it and the shooting is satisfying, but it just gets exhausting mowing down the same waves of enemies over and over again during a protracted boss fight. Especially when they're constantly running away and hiding behind things and then you can't get too close to the big boss because INSTA-DEATH and then you're scrambling for ammo. Which leads me onto the thing that bugs me about the ammo, well, special ammo in particular - the green stuff. It's frickin' annoying if you're toting around a sniper rifle and a shotgun for different occasions and then need to switch and the game tells you, "Nu uh, you don't have any ammo for that" because, okay, fair enough, the shotgun shells won't work in the sniper rifle. I'll switch back to the shotgun and use that to charge some enemies, you think, maybe get them to drop more. "PSYCHE! NOW YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SHOTGUN AMMO!" Now I'm not the biggest fan of FPSs anyway, particularly when they're not called Halo, and it just doesn't have that feel that I used to love from Bungie. I miss snatching alien weapons and blasting Grunts about the place, hijacking vehicles and mowing down enemies (yeah, good luck with that in Destiny), getting into tense sniper battles, flying a ship onto a Scarab... All that big colourful shit. The weapons aren't interesting enough to sustain it, nor is the gameplay that exciting. I want to like it, but I'm just not seeing it. There are glimpses of better things in multiplayer, but that was not a fun experience for me. Seems to favour camping with sniper rifles from the map I saw. My experience in a nutshell:

It's kinda funny that it's got so many Golden Age comic book characters who are almost sepia-toned in appearance.

I don't think I liked any of the bosses at all. The fact that they rekindled those awful titan battles from Asylum, not once but twice, was unforgivable. I know they were used in City, but they never overstayed their welcome or left a bad taste in the mouth. That last bit with Bane... my god...

Welcome to the Punch. James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, David Morrissey, Peter Mullan. A great cast of British actors wasted on a so-so 'action thriller'. It's essentially a John Woo film in London with all of the slick cinematography, cheese and cliches but not quite outlandish enough or near as exciting. They actually have a slow-mo shootout in the villain's nan's lounge played totally straight-faced.

Played the beta for a bit on PS3 (shut up) and it's been good so far. Would probably be a lot better if it didn't look so ugly. I get that there have been Borderlands comparisons but at least in Destiny it actually feels like you're shooting people. Not enough loot though. I want more. Even if just to dismantle it (I assume you can't sell it.. which is actually really cool. Ain't nobody got time for that.)

I heard maybe the Mr. Freeze one was alright, but I watched a playthrough and it looked pretty lame. Then I think FLD or someone mentioned the Bruce Wayne initiation stuff was awful.

This is where they fill in the middle gap and we find out that Thor is now a woman.

I disliked it for various reasons, more severe than not trying anything new. There were a few combat tweaks that ruin it. It's a bit faster, which would be forgivable if I didn't notice annoying little control 'hiccups' that kill your flow. They throw loads more enemies at you, which makes for a nice challenge... until you get a certain gadget that pretty much makes it really easy and turns everything into a button-masher, which the series never was. Finally, the counter-counter mechanic with the ninja is just clunky. They also introduced a somewhat overpowered gadget for Predator rooms that makes them a lot easier, too. I suppose you could not use it, like with the combat one, but then things get needlessly difficult without it. The game is about excess more than refinement. The boss fights all sound good, but they're all completely lame. The devs touted Mr. Freeze from Arkham City as an inspiration, but they certainly don't show it. QTE, QTE, QTE. Style over substance. That said, uh... the story's okay and the Batman character model looks pretty awesome. Like FLD said, it doesn't really need to exist and I hope WB Games Montreal are never given another Arkham game. Plus, I seem to remember some rumblings about there still being game-breaking bugs but them pretty much saying, "We're not fixing them anymore, we're doing this rubbish DLC."

Pfft, I don't change my pants for anything less than 1080p. Honestly, though, that last Halo live-action series was complete rubbish and this just looks dull. Like, Halo's bright and colourful. Give me something other than grey!

Yeah, they're a bit tricky at first and there's no such thing as 'mastering' them. Fortunately, I discovered that any races involving them stack up time as you reach checkpoints, so you don't need to use the unreliable superfast speed, just get a decent pace. You ought to have seen the flying controls in LEGO Batman 2...

Honestly, I don't mind the ranking stuff in Sonic. It's not as if any of the levels are particularly hard, so it's more of an optional difficulty. No roadblocks in your game progress, but you'll need to practise to get the best rating.

The only Canadian who could possibly be cooler than Batman is Nathan Fillion. Maybe I'm just xenophobic. Okay, I'm done.

400 Days See, I've never really felt there was a disconnect between my intentions and how those actions were executed/perceived... except for that choice at the end of episode 1. That was a bit clumsy. Maybe it's partly down to The Wolf Among Us, but I've actually felt that staying quiet has been a more valid option in some instances. Not necessarily the 'best' option, but a logical one that I never really bothered with in S1. Again, could be down to the altered dynamic though...

I need to add in some proper updates from the past few months. In short, this game has diversity out the wingwang (or gender-neutral wingammies)! Fat, thin, old, young, different races, whatever. You can play it, and the NPCs will be generated randomly as such. The other big thing is that the first 'bit' of the game is online with the Unity3D login stuff for the Cortex. Go over to the site, register your username and GET A FREE SPACESHIP

Yet to play episode 4. Forgot it came out, so thanks for the heads-up! I'm really enjoying S2 so far. In some regards, I think the writing's a lot stronger, with the various characters and complications. The fact that they manage to keep a little girl as the significant, central character without it feeling too contrived/forced is laudable in itself. I think I prefer it over S1 in that there are tougher choices and not everything is so telegraphed (yet sometimes it really is) but it is a very different dynamic this time around so probably isn't to everyone's tastes. My only real complaint is that there wasn't more Kumail Nanjiani, and that I couldn't help but metagame Bonnie's appearance in episode 2 thanks to 400 Days.

...also you need to double-tap A/X in order to dodge. Oh.