Hot Heart

Okay, more! Gonna hotlink some pics temporarily until I can get back on my PC. First, a couple of other games I forgot to mention Cockroach Poker Little filler game where you are trying to get your cards played in front of other people so they get a set of 4. The card sets are animals like bats, rats, frogs, spiders, stinkbugs and, yes, cockroaches. The artwork is really nice, with each card featuring a unique picture, even within the same set (they're all colour-coded for easy recognition). Gameplay is simply a matter of playing a card from your hand face-down in front of a player of your choosing and saying which creature it is. You can choose to be honest or you can lie. The other player then has a few options. They can try and guess correctly whether you told the truth or a lie (obviously you should defiantly yell, "You're lying!" for maximum effect if you think they're bluffing), with a correct guess meaning the card stays down in front of you instead, or they can take the card themselves, look at it, and do the same routine with any other player. It's a fun, simple game though it can become easy to pounce on someone who's started to get more than 2 of any set, since you can say it's one instead of the other and then other players can latch onto that. Still, it goes by quickly and setup is a doddle so you can get in a few games. I think the most interesting move was when I 'colluded' with another player to honestly pass them a card to harm another player, knowing that they'd seize the opportunity to fool them by switching it over. Other than that, I don't think there's much depth beyond trying to figure out how many of a certain type of card remain. Tanto Cuore This is Dominion but with an anime theme and some slightly more interesting mechanics. The actual theme is something to do with being a housemaster and having maids, but it's the same deck-building style game. Instead of money you have 'love' and there is a mechanic with a pointing finger (or as we called it 'fingering'... after having played Bang! where we were 'banging' people) that allows you to bank your maids for extra victory points. Within that, there are opportunities to purchase permanent buffs or place bad things on other players and you can collect sets of maids for bonus points. Not a fan of the theme at all, but then it's pretty much null in Dominion anyway and while the mechanics were more interesting, it was a little confusing for me during that first play. Needless to say I lost. Badly. Android: Infiltration This is one I bought because I wanted something that supports 5 players but with a little bit more depth than the party-style games and without being some epic day-consumer like Firefly. This fills that niche perfectly. It's set in the Android universe, so it's all cyberpunk. You take on the role of a special operative hired by a mysterious Mr. White to break into a rival cybernetics corporation and steal their valuable data or even make off with one of their cyborg prototypes. However, this isn't some fancy, high-tech style heist (sorry, Ethan). No, this is a clusterfuck of a smash-and-grab robbery where even though you're a team, you'll be messing up each other's moves and competing for those data-files. Firstly, you get your characters. Each has a little bit of flavour text relating to their reason for taking on the job, and if you really want you can use the 'advanced rules' to deal them items appropriate to their characters (robot-smashing hammer for the guy who lost his job to a cyborg, gun for the assassin). For our first game, we simply dealt everything randomly, so everyone was 'equal'. Then you 'build' the facility by randomly-dealing out 'room cards' face-down, which represent the various areas within the building, with a selection of 6 first floor (ground floor) rooms and 6 second floor rooms (first floor, duh!) cards as well as 1 of the 3 available secret rooms (requires a secret entrance to be revealed on one of the regular cards so may be inaccessible or left undiscovered). Each room is unknown until a player enters and reveals it, and they will carry different amounts of data-file tokens, some locked behind lab workers or tech locks. Sometimes, there will be 'Interface' functions that trigger certain effects, and sometimes they will introduce NPCs who can really ruin your day. For turn-to-turn gameplay, players each have a hand of reusable, basic actions: Advance (move forward 1 room), Retreat (move backward 1 room), Extract/Download (gather data files reliant on the number of people doing the same in that room) and Interface (activate the room's Interface function if one exists), as well as 4 unique items that offer special abilities. Some combine basic actions but with a thematic twist like a jump pack that lets you shoot forward 2 rooms, but can also be guns for killing NPCs/labworkers or breaking tech locks. Most are one-use, but occasional ones are reusable like the regular actions (it will say on the card). Each turn, players will choose one of their cards to play face-down and then they're all revealed simultaneously before being resolved in turn order (with the starting player changing each round). Extract/Download is always resolved last, so there is a potential for other player's actions to screw them over. Either way, it's really cool since you're having to guess what your opponent will do. If there are 4 data-files with multiple players in the room, two Extraction plays will net those players 2 each, three players doing so will only get 1 each, and only one player doing so will gather 4 to themselves. And since the upper rooms are filled with more goodies, it might be wiser to push on ahead. The other thing to note with the data-file tokens is that they are randomly selected from the 'server pool' and can carry values from 1-3 (with 1 being more common and 3 the rarest) so there's no guarantee that you'll always be well-rewarded (you can look at your tokens but they are not revealed to other players). The reason for these mechanics is that this is a push-your-luck game. If you look at the bottom-right of the image I've used, you'll see the proximity counter. After each round, the starting player will roll the die and add that amount to the proximity counter. In addition to that, there is an alarm dial (the little one in the middle) that will modify each roll. When the proximity counter reaches 99, that's it, the corporation's mercs have arrived to lockdown the facility. Game over, man. GAME OVER! And it's never easy to calculate how much time you have, because as you delve farther into the facility, certain rooms will have 'Reveal' or 'Enter' conditions that increase the alarm dial or proximity counter or players might carry items that can adjust it. Other times, allowing an NPC to proceed to a certain point can cause a sudden jump for the proximity counter. It's up to you to assess how far into the facility you can infiltrate while still allowing you to get out with your data tokens. The components are nice (tiny item cards though!) and the artwork is lovely (even on tiny item cards!), it's simple to setup, teach and play, all wrapped in a cool, chaotic little theme. Our first game with four was a lot of fun. One player charged ahead, discovering a room early on that lets you discard an item to travel forward or backward three rooms (some Mobility Testing Lab that I assume slingshots you). It was handy also because if you were escaping, it was in just the right place to shoot you straight out of the building if you could get back to that room in time. Anyway, he was filled with confidence, ignoring the early data-files and racing ahead of everyone, grabbing loads to himself from later rooms and even discovering a secret prototype lab. Problem is, by the time he'd got so far, the proximity counter had been rising exponentially thanks to him setting alarms blaring. One player had decided to try and get out early while I and another player realised it would probably be close and luck-dependent for us. The boldest player is doing all he can to lower the alarm dial via some gained items and hoping he can discover the secret exit (there is one, just requires sacrificing randomly selected data-files) on the final second floor room card. Meanwhile, I help us by lowering the proximity counter with an Interface function. Unfortunately, the room he wanted isn't there and some high die rolls convince this guy that there is not a chance he's getting out in time. So, there we are, one guy's escaped, and another player and I are still running for our lives, knowing that if we can just get back to that Mobility Testing Lab, we'll be home free. It's looking like I have the advantage with the amount of tokens, but you can never tell. Come on... Then, the proximity counter is at 89, we're so close, and the player who is guaranteed to lose uses the final room's Interface function to draw 2 new items. On his next turn, he uses 'Call For Backup' which gives him the ability to raise or lower the proximity counter by 10. ...so he raises it to 99 and dooms us three. Son of a...! So the guy with a score of 16 wins as the only escaping player. We check everyone else's for the 'what could have been' outcomes. The other unlucky player had 18, and I had 22. The evil bastard had around 26-28. Either way, it was great fun and I really look forward to trying it with five players. I think I will set the alarm dial to start at -1 instead of 0, to give us probably a couple more rounds and stick with Extract over Download (both do the same, but Extract gives 4/2/1 and Download 2/1/1 with multiple players simultaneously)

Okay. Time for a huge-ish update after my absence. Played a few new games since then, all of them good. Well, except for Rialto, where the only interesting thing was making jokes about 'doge track' (much points! very win!). Firefly: The Game - Pirates & Bounty Hunters Adds direct PvP to the game but without diluting anything else or drastically altering the feel. Now you can hunt bounties, steal them from other people or just attack them to steal their goods, parts or fuel (or earn and steal a goal token for one of the new story cards). We got a few rules wrong thanks to poor wording and me trying to wrangle a five-player game while getting drinks, snacks and answering all the rules queries and running the game's bank... but it was still heaps of fun and a very close game. I managed to triumph by letting others fight it out over bounties and such, focusing on my straight arrow Monty doing some regular old crime (even got an awesome setup where I did a Badger job that attacked Niska's operation, got away clean and then dealt with Niska to take a job attacking Badger's operation...and got away clean). Now we've all had a go with it (and it was the 'quickest' playing game yet) things should be even tighter. It becomes especially tense when someone's got Jubal Early's Interceptor, with a strong, scary crew, and can reach you halfway across the board. Caverna Going in, I didn't know much about this, or its predecessor Agricola, and boy, did it look confusing. There are thousands of pieces. There is a whole forest of wood in there. When Ron Jeremy dies, his coffin still won't contain as much wood as this thing. *ahem* Anyway... Really enjoyable game once you get to grips with it. In general terms, it's a sort of 'lazy Sunday' game, like Firefly, where you're going to want to devote a whole afternoon or whatever, doing your thing. And in the same way Firefly is fairly sandbox-y and it can be fun just flying around, doing whatever, this allows you to do so many little things. It takes a long time to play, but it's a leisurely game of collecting bits and hoarding them and cackling, "Mine. All mine!" The premise is that you have your little family of dwarves and you have a field and a cave. You can then branch out into different things, achieved by using a dwarf to perform one of the available actions (more unlock as you go). The actual playing itself is simple, you place a dwarf on an available action and you do the thing. It can be gathering resources of a certain kind, getting to build a thing or plant seeds or going on a cave expedition (basically pay coal to level up dwarves to find goodies, and they gain experience after each one). From there, it's up to you how you want to play. I kept my family of dwarves down to 3 rather than 4+, but I felt that was optimal since, sure, you get fewer available actions but it means fewer mouths to feed (which starts happening pretty much every round from the halfway point). Within that, I did a little bit of cave exploring and keeping animals in the fields, almost completely ignored vegetable growing (mainly due to early confusion) making sure I had rubies to buy anything I really needed (usually more food) and put a lot of money into building rooms that worked on multipliers. Another player really focused on the cave side of things, while others tried to do everything, though more with animals and vegetables and bigger families. Anyway, during our first play, we got to the totalling up and you go through all your stuff (numbers of this, subtract any missing animal types or unfilled spaces, etc.) and I actually did pretty well. Finished 1 point below the guy who'd owned Agricola. ...but then I discovered I'd missed off my two dogs during the animal counting stage. WINNER! Totally annoyed the guy who thought he'd won... until I made the original "Much doge. Very win" comment. Bang! the Bullet This is the version that comes with a load of decent expansions...and a shiny sheriff star! A hidden roles card game that recreates a hectic, spaghetti western-style shootout (it's by an Italian game designer and even features the Italian translations "Birra!"). Everyone knows who the sheriff is, but no one quite knows who his deputy is, who the two outlaws are and if there's a renegade trying to be the last man standing. It scales based on number of players, but victory conditions are the same. Sheriff and Deputy need to kill the Outlaws, Outlaws need to kill the Sheriff, Renegade needs to be the last man standing (i.e. get rid of the deputy and outlaws, saving the sheriff for last). Gameplay is mostly about laying down weapons that let you shoot a certain distance around the table (you start with only range 1, as in, the people either side of you) then using Bang! cards to fire at others (making sure to declare that you are 'banging' them, of course) and whittle down their health, unless they play a 'Miss!' card to prevent that. In addition to that though, each player will have a unique character with some sort of special ability (one can use Bang! and Miss! cards interchangably, one is allowed to fire multiple Bangs! a turn, etc.) and there are other cards with different gameplay elements (Prison, Dynamite, Beer, Horses) such as increasing the range for others targeting you, restoring health, trying to blow them up. It's a fun game and can get pretty tense at times. Howeever, there are a few huge drawbacks. One is that there is player elimination, and sometimes it'll just be because another player wanted to 'thin out the numbers'. Mostly it's a foolish move with an Outlaw killing another Outlaw, but that's still no fun, and with usual health of about 4-5 (with lower health also reducing your hand limit) it's not uncommon to get no more than one turn in a game before you're killed off. And it doesn't play as quickly as you'd hope. There can be a lot of back and forth and there was one game where the sheriff hadn't figured out who his deputy was so was playing it so cautious that it dragged for the two of us no longer playing. However, the best moment was fooling the Sheriff into shooting his own Deputy and enabling the Renegade to win the game. Fortunately, the designer seems to have come up with Bang! 2.0 in the form of... Samurai Sword It's the same premise, except with Shogun and his Samurai, Ninja and a Ronin, but with various tweaks that should make it a lot more enjoyable. For starters, there's no player elimination. Instead, players have honour points that get passed if they're killed (sometimes, it can be smarter to kill a vulnerable teammate to keep the points in your team... if you're sure they trust you). A game ends usually when one person is left without any honour points (there is an outright, everyone else is 'dead' condition, but that can be harder to achieve). Additionally, to wind the game down quicker, if the main deck needs to be reshuffled (usually happens once per game) everyone loses an honour point back to the game box. And, interestingly, the score calculations vary based on the number of players. In some games the Samurai's points are worth double, in another there will be a higher grade Ninja among that team who doubles their points, and since the Ronin works alone, they'll usually double or triple theirs. Overall, I think it fixes the main issues and brings in a lot of other useful little tweaks (that I won't go into) that allow for deeper strategy and more misdirection. I think maybe I replaced my own initial purchase with another one... I've also played that Ultimate Werewolf game, but Dean covered it, plus I wish I'd known there was a Tanner and Minion character. Probably would've been really useful to have those in the four-player games we played. It was fun, but kinda sucked that I was a werewolf for 3/4 games. Though actually won 2 of them. Both wins were thanks to having a teammate help with misdirection ("Oh, well I swapped those two cards...") and the loss was because I was a lone werewolf, looked at the village cards and found the other werewolf and a villager. BIG HELP THERE! Aaaaand, I think I'll cover Android: Infiltration another time. Phew!

Last week's episode. Kinda saw that outcome...but done that way. Ho-ly sheeeeeeeeit. He'd been kinda one-note to me but I think his scene in the episode before that was really well played ("This is not a monster") This week's episode. Ultimately, felt a bit like 'we' got off lightly. Maybe it was more impactful in the books (particularly that one bit) but it did seem like it was pulling its punches somewhat. Can't really complain though. Thrilling episode. Giant arrows and scythes and hammered heads.

Been watching a few new shows besides the usual (Game of Thrones). Louie. Really liked that first episode. The doctor bit was hilarious, just the whole thing. His nonchalant attitude, his condescending, uncaring explanation. And the garbage men thing was a funny little scene. And the second episode featured the lovely Yvonne Strahovski so that was always going to be a winner. And then there was the episode with the fat girl. Whoa. Now that was brilliant stuff. Such a great performance, and a really lovely little story. 24: Live Another Day Decided to watch for two reasons 1. The aforementioned Yvonne Strahovski 2. It's in London, so I can see all the silliness (ridiculous travel times, heh) It's been okay. Never actually bothered with 24 after seeing a couple of episodes many years ago. It's so absurd but played so adorably straight, that you have to love it. Jack getting into a situation where he has to press the Enter key on a laptop across the room during a massive firefight or in a car being chased by a drone launching missiles. But really, the standout has been the Kate Morgan character. She is probably the most interesting character in the show, and is sort of developing into a female Bauer. Also you get a vengeful Cateyln Stark as the baddie (wih red-haired daughter, too).

Already put Amazingly Astoundingly Awful Spider-Man 2 in the Crap Movie thread. The other three I've seen, go in here. X-Men Days of Future Past As I said before, I was cautiously pessimistic about this, and so went in with lowered expectations... which were met somewhat. I can't really fault the story as such, in that it's a nice premise and does do fairly good service towards its characters. Seeing that triangle between Charles, Erik and Mystique was good stuff. The Quicksilver scene was pretty dang awesome, too. That said, while some of the action looked really cool (Blink's portals! Fully icy, skatey Iceman! FIRE!) it was pretty 'empty'. Lot of flash and no real heft or substance, just like earlier Singer ones where there's a lot of 'do your power now'. The better moments were definitely set in the past. I think the main problem was X-position (lol!) was being carried so much by the original cast just to show them off. You were being told things twice, or they were breaking rules ("Wolverine, go convince my younger self... actually, I'll beam my thoughts into the past because you're a vessel/link more than an influential character"). And, if you think about it, they didn't exactly need Magneto. Or I mean, it was only written that way to emphasise the relationship. 1. He failed to stop an assassination... so let's bring him to stop this one? 2. Well, we need him because Charles doesn't have his powers and future Charles didn't actually give us much fucking detail about what happened. I know, let's break into the Pentagon. That sounds much easier than trying to prevent the assassination without him. 3. Let's break out Magneto. That'll do great things for human/mutant relations! Don't get me wrong, who wouldn't want more Magneto? It just seems like perhaps the impetus from breaking him out could've come from Mystique and then go down that darker path instead of simply old Erik going, "Find me. I'm a massive jerk and will jeopardise everything AGAIN, but my younger self is played by Fassbender. He's a big star, don't ya know?" Problem is, it really would've required a lot of tweaking and you wouldn't get your Quicksilver sequence. ...which brings me onto the other thing I hate about Singer films: those stupid little winky references ("My mum knew a guy like that."). The other thing I dislike is how Singer can't really capture a feeling of time or place very well. It's the seventies, here's a lava lamp and some brown clothes. Here's Cerebro and now it looks like it's from the fucking future itself. Anyway, there are plenty of plotholes and annoying little things and I never really feel like the film 'took off' at any point, but I liked the character conflict stuff so it was a good watch. Edge of Tomorrow I'm afraid, compared to X-Men, I don't have much to say. It's a fun watch. Seeing slimey coward Cruise turn into a hero is interesting, there's a fair amount of humour and some drama. Then they try and explain the science and stupid things happen, and you get a fairly underwhelming but serviceable third act. So, yeah, decent film with some good performances but nothing special. 22 Jump Street Loved the first one and loved this one, too. Builds on the first one with a huge chunk of self awareness and they pretty much smash the fourth wall into tiny little pieces. If you like Community, you'll probably appreciate the willingness to go to absurd places as well as lovingly recreate tropes of yore even if it subverts some of them. The double act of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill is superb.

So, been a while since I've been on here and I've seen a few films in the meantime. Forunately, this is the only one that belongs in this thread. Amazing Spider-Man 2. Holy-fucking-shit. I had no idea you could fuck up a film so bad. Going in, I totally forgot it was written by Orci and Kurtzman, but when I saw their names in the credits, it explained everything. This is the pair that brought you Transformers, The Island, Abrams' Star Trek films and Cowboys & Aliens. Whatever they touch turns to shit. Anyway, I quite enjoyed ASM1. Sure, it had plenty of flaws, but I appreciated seeing a new direction somewhat, where Peter is more of a jerk 'riding for a fall' (since we all know the Gwen Stacy stuff). Boy, oh boy, did they fumble every single fucking thing. Firstly, you get some pointless flashback with the Parkers which didn't really need to be so long or even in there at all (at least Iron Man 2 didn't waste so much time with its 'dead dad's secrets' bullshit) and then, after that, some stupid goddamn 'ghost dad' Denis Leary during an okay action sequence but so camp that it jars with the serious aspects. Then we get the Harry stuff, which is stupid (Why was his condition accelerated? You think his dad didn't already try something with the locked away spiders? If Oscorp destroyed all the hybrid experiment stuff, why are those eels connected to the power grid stuff?) and so forced. Yet again you can see where they've slashed apart the film with yet more things shown in the trailer but not actually in the film (ASM1 cut and rearranged all the 'genetic destiny' stuff for this one). And Electro! My god, Foxx is god awful but then the script doesn't help matters either. And a sadistic German scientist? Seriously?! And of course the Gwen Stacy stuff. It's all back and forth and aimless and such a mess that you can tell they were just killing time until they could kill... you know. And the moment itself! With the web with the little reaching-out fingers... And when she arrived before that by driving a car into Electro! And they blew up the guy who can become pure energy anyway? Then, even if Peter's supposed to feel bad, he's off the hook because Gwen gave a big "I'm going to die" speech at the beginning and so it must be alright now. And then they've given Rhino a massively expensive exosuit so he can... rob a bank?! And the people just standing behind a solitary barrier, and the kid in the costume and... oh my fucking god. This film has soooo many stupid things in it. Did people get paid to make this film? Why is it so long? Why is everything about it so utterly inept? If you thought Spider-Man 3 was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Dean, I see Samurai Sword (and, next to it, probably the expansion that allows for an extra player for a total of 8)! I think we spoke (tweeted) briefly about it before. From the looks of your group with Avalon, Werewolf, Saboteur, they might enjoy the 'hidden roles' nature of the game. You don't have to worry about player elimination like in Bang! plus it plays fairly quickly. So, yeah, buy it... or convince the Avalon owner to. The expansion might be handy if you do have that large group, but I know there are some slight changes to the basic rules (without player elimination, deck reshuffles wind down the game; expansion = more cards so slight necessary alteration) to bear in mind. I'll probably write a review of it once I've had a go with five players (and got my Sentinels one done). Seems like the strategies can really vary based on number of players (no Ronin in four player, and different scoring systems and numbers of roles for different-sized games).

Mammaroids.

Boobies.

Finished S1 of Rick and Morty. I kinda ignored it at first, but then my friends wouldn't shut up about it so gave it a look. I was sold from episode one (unlike Adventure Time, which I've never gotten into). The Interdimensional Customs bit alone was great. "Cover me!" "Oh, man! I mean, you know, I...I...I don't wanna shoot nobody!" "They're just robots, Morty. It's okay to shoot them, they're robots." *shoots, blows off guard's leg* *other guard runs to fallen colleague* "Glenn's bleeding to death! Someone call his wife and children!" "They're not robots, Rick!" "It's a figure of speech, Morty. They're bureaucrats. I don't respect them." It's hilariously weird but at the same time grounds it with the family stuff. I also really like the genre knowingness they have going on. And, of course, Justin Roiland's voice-acting is amazing. If you're not watching because of the art style, Ethan, you are missing out!

Stumbled across this and, you know, it's er... it's useful, I'm sure. How to draw boobies.

I've always seen him more as 'evil but enjoyable to watch being evil'. That's what makes a memorable villain.

It's awesome in its own way, gosh! Plus, you know, it's an instrumental, like you wanted.

You should use this version of the Serenity theme instead (because the film is awesome!)

Well, I believe QMx made the map in the first place and Gale Force Nine based things off of that. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. And apparently there is some 'big news' on the way. So either some proper gameplay or something about an open beta. I've reached that stage where this is my Windows logon/logoff sound.

"Turn! TUUUUUURN! Up! Noooo... UP! Wait, slow down. No, don't start falling!" - Me every time I'm flying round as Iron Man.

Regardless of the gameplay (even if it is a step up from the usual LEGO fare), it's well worth your £3.74. The first time you jump off the helicarrier or get to fly about NYC as Iron Man, you'll see.

Oh, I got that. I just meant with regards to... p.s. still can't stop watching that Jaime gif.

Thanks to a couple of asswipes on Twitter, whom I have since ceased following, the big moment was spoiled. Discovered that Sky Atlantic's 'simulcast' boast was for the first episode only, which is pretty pointless... However, it was still a good episode despite some hammy dialogue. I'm excited to see where things go from here.

Must be in one of my moods because I'm getting chills listening to this album right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggP5YDziMSY

http://tldrwikipedia.tumblr.com/

The Raid 2. Much better than the original in many respects, though be warned that this is no longer a taut, tower block-based actioner but a two-and-a-half-hour crime story (set over a few years) with plenty of talking as well as lots of martial arts (and a car chase) mixed in. It goes to the usual tropes of warring crime syndicates and all that implies (if you've played Sleeping Dogs recently, it'll be very familiar) but the direction is quite superb, and the choreography even better. It introduces a lot more interesting characters and 'scenarios', with only one fight scene dragging on a bit longer than it should. But then it is 'the final boss', so whatever. The action is actually even more brutal in some regards, and I found myself gritting my teeth a lot more at all the grievous injuries being incurred, but it's so over-the-top that it's amusing in some ways. Could be that I'm a sicko. The writing and acting are better this time around, too, and while that may not seem important for a martial arts/action film, it certainly helps with the aforementioned runtime and amount of talking. p.s. Uco is totally Indonesian Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The Raid Friends were arranging to go and see the sequel this weekend, so I figured I should really get around to watching the first one. So, yeah, really good action film. Decent nuts-and-bolts story, well-directed and choreographed action. The speed and credibleness of things is remarkable, and there are lots of cool moments in there if not quite as thrilling as some other action films I've seen. However, some of the action scenes were just that bit too long. I mean, the Mad Dog/Sergeant scene may have run a tad long but had a proper sense of purpose and was a good 'knock-down, drag-out' fight, but the few bits after were just the latter. There are only so many times you can watch arm grab/twist round/blocked punch/arm grab/twist round, etc. or thrown-down/avoid blow/kick back/knock on ground, etc. before you just want the thing done with; especially when the outcome is already so predictable and with a poor plothole-y setup. But, yeah, definitely an action film worth seeing. And I look forward to the wider scope of the sequel.

I wasn't saying I endorse the viewpoint, but that's such a lazy counter-argument. I will say that you look at the root of the problem not the 'outcome' of a bad decision. i.e. maybe not make the game revolve so much around slaughtering entire battalions. I mean, yes, the story's a different tone, but we've already seen a game from the same developer somewhat address ways of not making your protagonist an unstoppable (remorseless) killing machine.