Hot Heart

Hmmm... Fucking dubstep.

Yes, Pokémon. I knew that, of course. I'm not feeling really old now or something. I'm cool, I'm hip. I know that one.

I am pretty excited about it. Not sure how the hell I'm going to be able to teach it, but I am eager to see the chaos that unfolds anyway. I've not played Betrayal, actually, although one friend does own it. I think their verdict was that it can be highly unbalanced depending on one crucial factor and probably won't touch it ever again. I didn't get to play Last Night on Earth because I think they felt that was also somewhat one-sided. What I tend to favour in most games is having all those options. Study in Emerald seems to go with that but add in a lot of potential for things to go completely tits up. If you're a Restorationist (anti-Eldritch) you'll want to assassinate royalty and advance the 'Revolution track' but that can give away your identity, or send you mad and force you to reveal your identity, making you the target of any Loyalist. Otherwise, you can try and keep hold of cities and get some other cards that work as multipliers. Or if you think you're a powerful enough Loyalist, you can go all out with zombies or vampires or Yog Sothoth. I think the coolest sounding thing, though, is that necessity of making sure someone on your team isn't last, because one of the options in the game is to reveal your identity as long as it will take you over the threshold for winning the game (e.g. if you reveal yourself as a Restorationist, your 'potential' points for assassinations become actual points and put you over the mark). In other words, it's not necessarily about gathering the most victory points flat out, but knowing the optimal time to try and end the game. ...but you might misjudge who's really on your team, or that last place player who no one's really sure of, can actually use that position to close a gap and then jump ahead at the right moment.

Don't slander me with no basic board game rap, you gherkin jerk!

My sister keeps recommending I watch it (and, yes, Ralph Fiennes is fantastic) because it's not very Wes Anderson-y in the ways I dislike... but I've already been burned twice or thrice.

These go here, right? Firstly, I'll admit that I had no idea who Martin Wallace was (having read up, sounds like a p cool guy) and I haven't read as much Gaiman as I probably should have (next to none) but how can you resist Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu? Saw mention of this game, and the premise alone had me intrigued, then I discovered that it is some crazy hybrid game with hidden identities, deck-building, territory control, assassination, zombies, vampires, double agents... and it has been described with the phrase, "If you think you understand this after a few games... you don't understand it." Reading up on all the crazy outcomes and weird situations thrown out by the game is a lot of fun. The fact that one side is against the 'secret eldritch horrors disguised as royalty' and the other isn't, yet the teams won't necessarily be balanced, nor is it a 'team victory' game (in fact, if someone on your side has the fewest VPs, you are discounted as a potential winner) just makes it all the more enticing. Plus, it's no longer available in the EU (and $80 in the US), nor is it supposed to be until next year, so when I saw it for a reasonable price on eBay (used but actually unplayed, cards still shrinkwrapped) I jumped at it.

What the hell, metalcaveman?! That was the game I was waiting to go cheaper and buy as gifts.

Everything is awesome.

You're not counting the Holy Avenger?!

...or Nova. Having said that, wasn't Castle in the top 15 most watched US TV shows this season? I mean, I know that also includes NCIS and such, but maybe Marvel wants that market, too.

I hope this is true... Nathan Fillion joins Marvel Cinematic Universe in a huge way

DEAN! Let me know if you ever want to play LCatGoL (yikes) and I will co-op the hell out of that thing.

We do? What happened to this place...

From Ashes isn't included like Zaeed? Dang.

There are only 2 pieces of Mass Effect DLC that you really need: Lair of the Shadow Broker and Citadel.

Hmm, well, if these links work, here is stuff I've made, all from regular matchmaking: http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo4/filebrowser/details/5b6e62fc-2799-4b46-ad4e-daefdb02aebe http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo4/filebrowser/details/3136affa-91e1-4bb0-afc6-81ebd575e6c4 http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/games/halo4/filebrowser/details/4b2e9f4a-38a0-4d1d-bd29-4d849be044b4 I'm guessing the new Halo 2 might be like Halo 3 where you can do all that jazz in multi and maybe just full films for campaign.

Played a couple of new games yesterday. Get Bit! Another filler game where you are robots being chased by a shark, and it takes a bite out of whoever is at the back of the line. Each round you'll choose one of your numbered cards to play face-down the same time as everyone else -- in a five player game you'll have 1-6 -- that will govern where you move in the queue of death. Any ties get ignored and then movement proceeds from low numbers to high. So a 1 would go to the front, then a 2 would go to the front, etc. So it could be possible that there are no ties but the person who played the lowest number still winds up at the back. After a card is played it cannot be collected until either you get down to your last card or you get bitten (at which point you also jump up to the front of the line), which obviously means you can try and assess the chance of a certain number resulting in a tie or get an idea of what others might play. I enjoyed it, even though I was the second person out. Didn't help that I actually got a bitten because of a rule mess-up (whereby I was left with just one card after being SO GOOD beforehand and we weren't aware I should have gotten the other cards back) but it did affect someone else as well, so the cock-up stayed consistent. Flash Point: Fire Rescue You are a firefighter, there is a building on fire and you have to GET THOSE PEOPLE OUTTA THERE. This is a co-op game (if you hadn't guessed) for 1-6 players, tasking you as a team to rescue at least 7/10 people (including cats and dogs!) from a burning building. I say 7/10 because getting to 7 is the auto-win and losing any more than 3 is a loss. I missed the setup phase, so I'm not sure if it is done by the dice rolls (if you look at the picture you'll see the black triangles for the d8 and the standard d6 as your longitude and latitude) but those do govern the other elements like new fires and 'points of interest' (not revealed until you reach them, could be a false alarm). In many ways it is similar to Pandemic, except I think it is far better in that it is way more thematic and way more engaging. You get 4 action points on your turn but can also save any spares for your next go (up to 4 max) and after each turn you roll those dice to see where new fires start (or new POIs if you rescued one) which can lead to further ignitions or even explosions (like outbreaks in Pandemic!). All the actions and their AP costs feel logical, and as a team there will always be something useful you can do. Whether you're carrying someone to safety, keeping a fire in check or hacking down a wall, it's quick and simple to take your turn. That said, we did learn the game using the 'Family rules' rather than the Experienced ones, so things were a little easier and we were probably a little more able to take risks and not really have to coordinate as a team. I think the difficulty is somewhat modifiable too, and there are a bunch of extra elements (fire engines with hoses and ambulances, oh my!) to try, so I'm looking forward to trying those. Either way, I really enjoyed it; especially some of the funny emergent situations you encounter. Placing someone down in a spot then immediately burning them with your next dice roll (while I get to stand there helpless and watch!), having two POIs starting on the building's two toilets but not knowing if it's a false alarm ("Excuse me, are you pooping in there?") or taking advantage of saved points so that one player takes a POI off you to get them one space farther so you can catch up, take them back and carry them to safety ("To me. To you"). So, yeah, highly recommended if you like Pandemic; replaces it, in my eyes.

I hope I don't hurt its feelings, Ethan, but that is one ugly-ass ship. Like someone based the design off a Spartan's kneepad.

How do you mean? I'm pretty sure I've got saved films of regular multiplayer games in Halo 4. I just remember being disappointed it didn't have it for campaign.