Hot Heart

Extended clip from GotG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzI-U1Fh9zc It seems the Empire magazine staff all loved it, too. And a look at Josh Brolin's in the Thanos prosthetics and make-up job... or is this just Michael Shannon normally? And a funny Rocket Raccoon moment:

This album is ten this year. I remembering hearing the full version of this track in Burnout 3 before the album came out, having only previously heard a live version without so many guitar hooks and slightly different (and worse) lyrics. Where did all the time go?

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Good news. My friend found a local board gaming group, so we joined them down the pub for some games. Started with Samurai Sword, simply because it supported 6 people. I like the game, but it's not something you can truly understand/appreciate with just one game (I doubt even I know all the nuances). It did seem to take a lot longer than I thought as well, but I suppose when you've got four other new players, that's bound to happen. One person, playing the revealed Shogun, did ask, "Why the secret roles?" which I guess suggests they didn't enjoy it or comprehend how to play (Shogun is perhaps the easiest role if everyone else is staying quiet anyway) The thing you begin to learn is that the Shogun/Samurai team actually have an advantage and will most likely win unless the Ninja team or Ronin do something. I was a ninja who was trying to secretly 'hold back' the Ronin and the Samurai, while levelling out the scores. I managed to knock the Samurai down a bit, but sadly, I was attacking another Ninja not the Ronin (he'd asked me what team I was on, which just seems like suspicious Ronin behaviour!) One of the other Ninja got completely obliterated so while us two squabbling Ninja managed 4+4, the Ronin got 9 and the Shogun/Samurai managed 8+4, as well as another 2 bonus from Daimyo cards. D'oh! In future, I think it's really in the interest of the Ninja to either try and make it obvious to the others or draw out the Samurai by pretending to be one himself. The Ronin just has to try and sneak in with the Ninja. You definitely need to play up that social part of the social deduction. Next we split the groups so my friend hosted a four player game of Seasons. And my friend was correct: it does take ages. I think they spent half an hour alone just drafting cards thanks to one person who didn't want to use beginner decks (to help the other two new players)... plus that guy did miserable in the scoring anyway! I joined a nine-player game of One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which was cool because it's not often I'd get to try a game with such a large group (if ever). It was good fun except for the fact that I was Mason in nearly every game and there was one player who would always lie about his role for a bit and then later go, "Well, actually, I was the..." no matter his team, which probably made things more complicated than they should've been, leading to a lot of Tanner wins. Worst of all, though, the one time I got an interesting role as the Seer, I looked at his card and saw he was a Werewolf but some bloody Troublemaker switched him with a Tanner... except I couldn't trust the Troublemaker (could've been another Werewolf or a Minion) and the person who was the Tanner didn't seem to try and affect things! After that, had a game of Hanabi, which is a really smart design but makes my brain hurt. It's a little co-op card game where you don't see your hand of (five) cards, but your teammates do, and you have to make sure the cards are all played in sequence (1-5 in colours red, blue, white, green and yellow) to create a fireworks display. You can do one of three things on your turn: play a card, use up a clue to give another player a hint or discard a card to earn back a clue. Problem with the hints is that you can only tell someone if they have a colour or a number, so it's not always going to be clear-cut. e.g. "These cards are all 4s" or "These are all green." which means there's a lot of memorisation and hand-sorting needed. Duplicates in the deck, and your replacement cards after you play one also add to the confusion. The owner of the game was a bit of an alpha gamer, and I wasn't exactly at my sharpest in a pub at that time of night, so it perhaps wasn't as enjoyable as it could be in the right hands (taking mistakes too seriously, really). Still we scored 21 out of a maximum of 25.

This is the new Avengers NOW! (you really have to shout the last bit)

Alas, freedom is not free.

Aha. I remember it now. Oh, gosh. S2 was so terrible. WHERE ARE THE OIPODS?!

Yeah, as I said, that's probably the best option for anyone looking to get into the series.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/14/gop-self-destruction-millennials-conservatives-backlash lol

That was the joke.

Europe wins the World Cup! Go, us! Spin it, to win it.

We had these things called 'gaming magazines' and they included 'Tips & Tricks' section or, sometimes, full-on little books of cheat codes and secrets for all manner of games. ...I think I read the OoT thing online though. All I remember was those fucking skull-back spider things that could really fuck up your whole run right near the end. My favourite secret thing was the Arkham Asylum easter egg hinting at Arkham City and that, I think, nobody found until they were told about it.

I did like S1 of Heroes for the most part. I really liked the Peter/Nathan/Syler stuff. I suppose Hiro was amusing, but I hate all that prophetic bollocks that a lot of shows do (except Game of Thrones, where it's somewhat in the background of actual dramatic machinations), and the Nikki/Micah stuff was p dumb. Anyway, Peter made a good hero, Nathan was a good 'reluctant' hero, and Syler was a decent villain.

Speaking of songs getting in your head. Frickin' Estrella advert... Skip to the 1:55 mark and you'll see what I mean.

Wow, he's aged well though, doesn't look a day over 1,900!

Rx Bandits somewhat channelling Fugazi. Fuck yeah. http://www.craveonline.co.uk/music/articles/722623-band-of-the-month-rx-bandits-unveil-1995-exclusive-performance

TWD S2 has been pretty great/horrible so far. The writers have done a great job at presenting even more complex situations and character relationships. I really think it is worth waiting and just binge-playing though, in some regards. There are so many characters and little things/touches that too much time passes between episodes to remember everything.

I think the problem is that if you're not very knowledgable or articulate, you risk sounding like someone who writes for Kotaku. Seriously, though, it's worth bearing in mind that we have all sorts of different folks here. Some aren't college/university educated and thus might not be accustomed to more analytical tasks and others are just so busy with everyday jobs that they can't (be bothered to) spare the time to take a deeper look at their hobby. In the same way that few really examine the music they listen to, even if they consider themselves huge music lovers.

My friend wanted me to write up my thoughts on his newest game, even though he only visits the forum as a guest. IF YOU'RE READING THIS I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. Firstly, though, I want to talk about my newest game. Epic Spell Wars of the blah blah blah Grabbed this after seeing Dean mention it, and reading a bunch of reviews. Was a decent price as well. The artwork and theme are pretty funny, sort of Ren & Stimpy-esque mixed with Adventure Time on even more drugs. We didn't get fully into the 'announcing spells in a wizard voice' but it was late, and I was kinda tired (that's my excuse), so maybe it didn't shine as much as it had for others. Still, it was good fun, even if it only lasted 3 games. I was all set up with some decent treasure for one game, but it wasn't enough thanks to stupid, bad dice rolls! It does seem a bit like a game at odds with itself, or maybe it's just too chaotic with five players (usually the case), because it has these somewhat tactical considerations with how big a spell to create and what types of attack/glyph to use, etc. but if you were to really try and play strategically, you would bog the game down with checking HP and other people's treasures and things like that, and then you're still relying on die rolls to get a desired effect. A fun little filler game to whip out every now and again, though. And now for my friend's request Cosmic Encounter You might have heard about this game recently (since it was featured on Eurogamer), but if you haven't my brief description is 'poker, but with fun and spaceships'. The aim of the game is to land your ships on other people's home planets, creating 'colonies'. The first to five wins. Everyone always has five planets, and starts with stacks of five ships on each (or four maybe? I think it's five...) ANYWAY! They're like poker chips, except poker ships. You are betting with spaceships -- little flying saucers -- that stack. The way you get to land ships on someone else's planet is by having a... cosmic encounter. On a person's turn, they flip over a card from the 'destiny deck' and that governs who they will have an encounter with. If they draw their own colour they can simply place ships back on an empty planet (if they have one) or perhaps challenge another player who has landed ships on their planet. If they go up against another player, it's face-off time. The attacking player will then choose which of the planets they wish to attack, keeping in mind that the ships the defending player owns on their planet will contribute to their attack score. The players may call for alliances from other players to help tip the balance, but those players have to keep in mind the risks and rewards involved. Once that's settled, players will place their 'encounter' card face down and then both are revealed, with the higher number winning. Sounds simple, right? Well, it isn't. Because, like poker, you'll never know quite what encounter cards another player has. You can bluff, intimidate or even try and negotiate (based on trust and both playing 'negotiate' cards if they have them). It really comes down to what you are really capable of, and what you think the other player is holding. In one instance I volunteered to negotiate, not feeling confident in my attack ability, but the other player didn't believe me or appeared overwhelmingly confident. I guess I hadn't ever tried to negotiate before (do or die!), and I didn't really press the point because, admittedly, I was almost tempted to attack instead. I called it wrong. My opponent attacked while I played a negotiate, and his attack card was so low that I actually could've won. Drat. But the considerations don't end there. The game is chock full of various races, each with their own game altering/unbalancing powers as well as various cards that can add reinforcements, sacrifice ships to incur greater losses for the winners, zap powers or even other cards. There's nothing like seeing a player feel confident that they've secured a solo victory and then slapping down a card that forces them to negotiate instead. Or knowing that you're bound to lose an encounter but have a sneaky move that screws over the victors. The great thing is that even if the cards and powers somewhat unbalance the game, it's the interactions between the players that redresses it somewhat (even if we seemed to play a 'variant' where race powers were kept secret until they were mandatory or the player wanted to use them). No one's going to want to help the player sitting at four colonies and ready to win their fifth, just as no one should call for assistance from people who are one colony from winning. Our game did see one player do particularly well and come close to victory, only to see their forces gradually worn down and, thus, slip down the ranks. And so the game goes on until you all betray each other and hate each other and give people the finger (+5 reinforcements trumps your +3, bitch!) and then realise that maybe you shouldn't be aggressive towards everyone else because then they won't help you if you need it. Ah, forget it, give them the finger. In our session, we got a few rules wrong (I think I even missed an instance for the Reincarnator that could've altered the final outcome) and I know I made some poor card play choices at times (mostly missing opportunities in other encounters) but I really enjoyed it. It was just a pity that such an epic back and forth struggle ended with one player pretty much throwing the game by inviting the two leading players to attack me at the worst possible time and gain a shared victory. Or to borrow a new term I learned: a diet coke victory. Anyway, I got to leverage the very circumstantial Fodder race power twice, twice! And against the same player. So I got what I wanted out of it. Like A Study In Emerald, its appeal (to me) is that it's one of those games where you can look back at all the various moments, and lament that just a different decision here or a different move there would've completely changed the outcome of the game and, oh well, you've learned your lesson and you'll do better next time and then you'll win except the random nature of things means THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME NEXT TIME SUCK IT LOSER. Fin.

Burnout Paradise was just disappointing. Sure, it was fun to mess about with friends online, that was actually really well-designed, but the actual racing took a backseat or just wasn't the same thrill ride it had been before. The later NFS games addressed this somewhat, but I never had a perfect experience with them because Criterio can't program a PC game for shit. The only game to actually, really, totally bum me out was Mass Effect 3. I actually really enjoyed ME2, it's one of my favourite games of all time, and I'm actually glad it trimmed the fat off the messy, clunky ME1 (which had initially disappointed me somewhat after earlier BioWare games). It has more interesting characters and took you to other places you wanted to see, without losing that great Mass Effect atmosphere. ...then they'd painted themselves into a corner. Big, galactic war alongside your big, dumb Alliance buddies. Okay, maybe I'm bitter that they sidelined a lot of the better ME2 characters, but it was the general direction that the story took, which bothered me most. Cerberus become the Illuminati evil empire and the writers try to ignore some of the other ME2 changes, or at least attempt to recapture more of the ME1 vibe (like Dark Knight Rises did, poorly) and open up plotholes big enough to fly a dreadnought through. Now, I loved the combat (I put the multiplayer aspect as my GOTY!) and I understand what they were probably getting at with the ending(s), but I couldn't escape this really depressing feeling that sort of grew afterwards. Like...that's it? I think it was after that that I really stopped gaming so much (probably more to do with timing and other factors, though). Fortunately, the Citadel DLC was actually really fun and a somewhat decent send-off (though, again, favouring the boring cast over the others), but I really cannot get excited about another BioWare game anymore.

Fuck the haters, Rag Doll Kung Fu is hecka fun if you can get 3-4 people together in the same room. In the same vein as LittleBigPlanet (RDKF is from one of the guys at MediaMolecule), which is another good local co-op game, the fun is in the chaos.

I beat The Wolf Among Us. Well, I 'saw it through to its conclusion' more than beat it, but there's not really a thread for that. Let me start over... I completed The Wolf Among Us. Really good stuff. A teensy bit QTE-heavy in the last episode but a nice ending, very noir. Really hope they do more (even if they just straight up ignore the comic canon).

My friends want to attempt the Pathfinder RPG so now seems a good time for dice. They actually look a lot better with some electric lighting, too. I bought these ones because the numbers were clear to read and that scratched look is not so pronounced anyway.