Hot Heart

Maybe it's the outfit and the type of work, but this is p funny.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist Not as bad as I thought it'd be. Sort of feels like the first part of Scott Pilgrim but made into a whole film, and not as bizarre. You've got Michael Cera, the bass player in his little band. That whole music scene. You've got the pining over an ex-girlfriend. You've got the gay friend. It's enjoyable in a light sort of way, if you like the two leads. That said, at least structure-wise, there is a whole fucking twenty minutes at the end that don't even need to be there. That and the "Maybe we're the pieces" bit makes me want to puke.

Haha, I'm not talking about Tearaway. I mean a game literally made out of paper, card and plastic.

Hmm, whether or not to switch out the game that cost over $137m to make and put in one made of paper, card and plastic...

Defendor. Another one of those little weirdo-becomes-vigilante films (Special, Super). Some good performances all-round (and Casey Jones from the first TMNT film as a cop, hehe), particularly from Woody Harrelson. The story is fairly predictable but there's some decent humour in there and some nice shots, too.

D'oh! Just realised, while sorting out the cards, that I could've avoided completely failing the Job that did me in because the second card contained the 'Bribes' keyword for the Negotiate test. Which meant I could've added extra points to my test score by paying $100 per point. Which actually means that game would've been really close.

My three picks were Tomb Raider, The Last of Us and GTAV. Initially, I thought GTA V was my #1 but having typed up all my thoughts for this PXOD article, and picked the game apart, I'm not so sure anymore... Tomb Raider was just damn good fun. A good mix of combat, exploration and mild puzzling, with a really cool cover system and animations. The Last of Us tells a good story, particularly with the performances and that motion capture, plus the gameplay grew on me. However, and it's by no means unique to this game, I can't quite escape the feeling that it would've worked just as well as a film... It just doesn't make the most of what games do best, I guess I'm trying to say. GTA V. Well, it's a remarkable technical achievement and there's so much to do. Driving is heaps of fun, and the online makes for some nice tense open-world battles and chases. I just found the story mostly underwhelming and a lot of the side content, pretty pointless or unfulfilling.

Well, it does depend on the scenario, how much people manage to grasp the rules and subtleties, and how you organise play (have people looking through discards during other people's turns, one person moves a ship while the other does the movement cards, etc.) We did play the quickest one, and I studied the crap out of the rules, though. But, yeah, I'd still say it's definitely something for which you need to set aside an evening or lazy Sunday. If they like the theme and get a taste with that initial scenario, they should want to play and discover more.

HE MEANS FALLOUT 3 FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Well, the games have come a long way since then, but I guess it depends what your frustrations were. There is definitely still the issue of 'friendly fire' which can be pretty annoying when you're Cyclops and just want to blast some fools and not your teammates. However, the real issue there is getting killed right back and losing all your lego studs (money), and this game is really generous with those anyway. The biggest real frustration I've had was neglecting to use the mid-level savepoints and, of course, getting a goddamn freeze during the final boss bit after thirty-odd minutes of play.

Epic post incoming... Got to play Firefly: The Game with a friend yesterday and it was gooooood. It really does take up a lot of table space because you've got a big board; people's own ship boards with accompanying crew, gear, upgrades, cash and active jobs; 5 piles of cash denominations; 5 job contacts who could start having their own discard piles (didn't need it in ours); 5 supply planets that start having their own discard piles right away; 2 movement event piles for different areas of space, and their own discard piles; and 1 misbehave pile with another discard. And it took a little while to explain all the various concepts to my friend, but it's actually really simple once you get into it. Plus, I was explaining various aspects and subtleties to him (like 'making work' for $200 if you're at a planet with a spare action) as we went along. We went with the new, improved learner scenario posted online: First Time in the Captain's Chair: Become Solid with 2 Contacts (complete a Job for each), earn $6000 and then race to a planet to pay it off. We started by randomly selecting leaders. He got Corbin (i.e. unnamed and since-deceased guy with the 'net' from Our Mrs. Reynolds) who counts as a Mechanic and, fortunately for him, has no qualms about working Immoral jobs and gets ship upgrades at half price. I got Monty, old war buddy of Mal's and former husband of YoSaffBridge ("I shaved my beard for you, devil woman!"), who counts as both Soldier and Mechanic, and gets extra cash from Smuggling Jobs. We then randomly selected ships, with my friend getting the Artful Dodger (bonus promo ship with increased travel range and extra crew capacity but slightly less cargo space) and me the Bonanza (standard Firefly-class). In the new starter scenario, you automatically get a job each from a couple of the 'starter' Contacts. I would later discover that this, along with crew and ship choices, was already a whole heap of luck against me... Things started well though, as my friend tried to beat me to the Space Bazaar and recruit Wash (increases your travel range by a further 1 space, plus crews with a Pilot and Mechanic can pull a Crazy Ivan, which is most useful should the Reavers come knocking) but got stopped short by the Alliance Cruiser. After having bought a Cortex Uplink (expensive, but allows you to get new Jobs without having to fly over to each Contact's planet), I was close enough to swoop in and nab him myself, and then start making my way for the first simple job. This was one of the expansion jobs with skill-related pay-offs, but a Legal and low-paying one. For my 3 Tech skills, I was rewarded with a paltry $800 and 1 part (that job's special extra Mechanic Bonus). I could've saved the Job for when I had more Tech items and crew, but it still wouldn't have been a great earner, and I needed the money. With this shorter scenario, goal amounts and such have been reduced, so time really is of the essence. I discover that my friend had a similar Job from the other Contact, except his included 1 Misbehave (a really simple one of no concern), some Contraband smuggling (almost caught him with the Alliance Cruiser...) and it paid a base rate of $1000 + $400 for every Tech skill on the job, and an extra bonus for a role his first crew gave him (Soldier, I think). This netted him something like $2700 right away. After that, we had some fun and games with me blocking him off with the Alliance Cruiser a few times, me having to Mosey (move only 1 space, but no risk of drawing movement event cards and chancing the Alliance catching you) on a couple of turns because I was doing an Illegal job near to the Alliance and really didn't need them seizing the Contraband, and him having the damn thing chase me for a few turns. All the while, he was building up a decent crew, got lucky in earning ludicrous amounts from selling some Cargo and Contraband he discovered while travelling, and was generally easing towards victory. Meanwhile I was sitting at about $3400, with both starter jobs done and no new work lined up... One thing was clear: I needed to start taking some risks to get ahead, so I used my Cortex Uplink to consider a Job from Patience on the other side of the 'Verse (since she paid more and was right by the goal planet). As luck would have it, the job was one-stop, literally 1 sector away and paid a whopping $2800. This is it! However, it was both Illegal (requiring 2 Misbehaves) and Immoral. The problem with an Immoral Job is that, should you complete it, it makes any Moral crew disgruntled. If those people then earn a second Disgruntled token, they leave the ship and go back to the associated discard pile (meaning someone else can nab them); but in the case of your captain, if they earn a second one, they fire ALL crew (only had 2 anyway, to keep down the overheads on basic jobs). So, it was a big risk, since I was running a light crew (with a fair bit of gear, however) and would Disgruntle both the captain and Wash, but should I complete it, I just needed to get to the goal planet to win. I was probably going to lose if I didn't do something drastic, so I went with it. First Misbehave I draw is 'Locals in Need', which gives me 2 options to proceed. Either help out by discarding 1 cargo and getting the opportunity to remove any Disgruntled tokens from crew, or ignore their cry for help and Disgruntle all Moral crew. Since I had no cargo to give, I had to do the second options. So, already I know, that should I complete this Job, Monty is going to fire everyone. It gets better... next card I draw involves either Negotiating your way through with a Skill Test (roll a die + crew and gear bonuses) or Fight your way through but risk killing crew and earning a warrant (automatic job failure). The Negotiate one means I have to roll a 6 in order to get an automatic bonus roll, whereas the Fight one requires 3+. I choose Fight...and roll a 2. So, not only do I have to kill someone, but the Job is gone forever, I'm now an outlaw ship and my Captain is still Disgruntled. I opt to kill Wash because NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE and my friend manages to win a few turns later (wisely deciding not to pay some crew after his last job in order to get the $6k) without much I could do. Either way, despite losing horribly, it was a lot of fun. The thematic element is very strong, and there's actually a fair amount of depth and strategy in there. You're limited to 2 actions a turn, so you're always looking at how best to go about your business, you have to keep an eye on your fuel supply as well as carefully picking routes to minimise travel distance but avoid either/both the Alliance and Reavers, and you're trying to run a decent crew without saddling yourself with a lot of nasty overheads. Not to mention, the need to consider which Jobs you can complete, and which you need to works towards or ignore completely. I actually haven't played a game where the mechanics and theme blended so well. And, all told, that scenario only lasted roughly an hour and twenty minutes; which is actually forty minutes less than the 'hour per player estimate'. Obviously, it helped that my friend had a ship more suited to his needs, got lucky with his leader and first job as well as a salvage op (free contraband and cargo), but I don't think it would've taken him an extra forty minutes to reach victory. Might've taken me that long to get back in the game though... I imagine more players will really add to the shenanigans with moving about the Alliance and Reavers, which probably does hold up progress a bit more. But that's all part of the fun! After that, since there was time to spare, my friend wanted to have a quick go of Them's Fightin' Words, which he'd finally received from the guys after the successful Kickstarter. It's a fun little memory game that involves hurling insults (back and forth in two-player, obviously) built up of three parts (You [adjective] [noun]) based on what cards are drawn, with each player's turn adding either a new western/cowboy-themed adjective (lily-livered, cross-eyed, yellow-bellied) or occasionally a new finishing noun (cur, liar). So, if 'You Baby-Faced Cur' is down on the table, you start (with best Texan or similar accent) by declaring, "You baby-faced..." then play your card, which in this case will be 'Namby Pamby', so you continue, "...namby pamby cur!" and so on until someone messes up the order. Of course, if it's a new finishing noun, that goes down instead. It had us laughing quite a bit, especially when you get odd combinations like "You baby-faced, namby pamby, baby-faced..." or "You dirty, son of a, dirty..." Then we had a go of his other new purchase Castle Panic, which I'd seen on TableTop. A co-operative tower defence game that's easy to pick up (and tricky to win). Things started horribly as we drew some big boss creatures early on, but we held out pretty well until goddamn boulders tore us apart...

Been a lazy Christmas and I bought that US import of The Avengers, so I watched all the extras of that (commentary and deleted scenes are real interesting) and then decided to play LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. Avengers overload maybe... It's been pretty fun as far as LEGO games go. They've added a bit more spectacle and stuff in, which is nice; plus, they dropped that horrible inventory stuff from LOTR. Took too long to get to the X-Men's involvement though...

http://youtu.be/72RqpItxd8M Yes, they're actually trying to make this.

https://twitter.com/NathanFillion/status/414533994223796224 /endconsolewar

I'd put Thor 2 in 2nd and Iron Man 1 in 3rd.

Captain America: The First Avenger (and his conveniently multi-racial team!) Probably as good a Captain America film as you could've hoped for, really. It does the character setup well, and includes some of the Asgard/Tesseract stuff while telling a simple old-fashioned tale of a hero. It just couldn't escape the overall feeling of, well, being boring. I did find myself wishing it had focused more on Peggy... Also, none of the action seemed to flow very well; it felt too cut together to be satisfying. Some of the humour was good though, and I did enjoy spotting all the actors from other things (that new one from Doctor Who, evil Thorin, Margaery Tyrell...)

The Kings of Summer. One of the films I bought for one of my sisters for Christmas, (and she'd seen it before so we got a couple of extra titbits while watching). I enjoyed it. It's a 'typical' indie film with some heavy-handed writing to set up things, and it has good bits of humour here and there, nothing really laugh-out-loud though.

Reading back, I have a couple of thoughts. Did we try and get rid of all the members whose names began with B?! Bouchart, Battra, brida, Baguette... Maybe some others need to take a hint, huh?! Also, did Ethan ever get to experience a Terry's Chocolate Orange?

That's pretty much THE selling point that gets me to buy most games nowadays. Heh, well, that is something I check before purchasing games (particularly expensive ones). So, even though my friends have gone off Sentinels of the Multiverse (co-op goes against their instincts for being jerks), I can still run that solo. The cool thing with Firefly is that the designers have made it 'sandbox-y', so that players can tweak the mechanics to represent different things or create new stories. I see people have altered the competitive 'stories' (including the new, improved learning example one) to make them a solo campaign. Or someone made a pretty cool-sounding co-op game where you go up against Niska. With the pirate and bounty hunter stuff coming in (along with another 5-6 expansions) I see a lot more potential too.

Odd choice. Seeing as I'm not too bothered about that game in the grand scheme of things. But I apologise, Chewie. You're right, I never should have stooped so low, even in jest. I am still waiting for FLD's ban though. That is not cool.

Dean, ban him! BAN HIM!

This is the worst thing to happen to this forum since asian.gif!

One of my friends picked up Quirkle yesterday and we had a quick game between cinema visits. It was alright. I can see it being more fun once you get the hang of it...or actually get to read the rules rather than hear them (I'm either more of a visual or kinesthetic learner, I think) so you're not constantly having to go, "Is this a legal move?" I think my friends had watched a TableTop episode on it, so were already one-up on me anyway. Of course, everytime we scored a quirkle we declared, "Alhambra!" I also picked up Fluxx to try and play with the family over Christmas. Had a little demonstration game with a couple of my sisters, and I think they should enjoy it. I think, like me, they're amused when the really silly things come out like 'Play All' or the one with the person on your left randomly picking your first play. I might do the 'No Creepers' variation to begin with though...

Went to the cinema twice yesterday, so... Anchorman 2 I must admit, despite really liking the first film, I was skeptical about this one (and sick of the barrage of marketing). I'd almost put this under 'OK' because it really does feel a little too much like throwing everything and seeing what sticks and the improv or "hey, let's try it this way in the next one" factor shows too much in parts (I feel like the first film reined it in enough). It's also a little long for a comedy, and splits up the news team too much. Still, it's got some good jokes and a silly bit of satire in there. I'm not sure if it'll wind up as quotable, maybe because it spends half the time doing callbacks to the first film rather than forging new ground, but If you liked the first one, you'd probably enjoy this. The Hobbitwo: Desolation of Smaaaaaaug It certainly zips along faster than the first film, but it isn't quite as 'fun'. You definitely get the sense that they wanted a more LOTR feel. It looks just as beautiful as before, even if the locations are a little dingier. Fortunately, I'd adjusted to the 48fps now so there were no problems there (though, with the 3D as well, I can always feel my eyes getting tired as things go over the two-hour mark). The action was as spectacular and inventive as before, partly thanks to a couple of badass elves. An admittedly silly-physics move involving a boat-flip and decapitation was a highlight. That or dwarf-water-skiing. The only thing it really suffers from, besides an unwieldy length and lack of tension, is that it's a middle-chapter doing a lot of setting up without a pay-off. I mean, the first part has some of that same problem but FOTR and Hobbitone both found some sort of mini-resolution within that.

Well, this looks dumb. (I would've killed it the moment it switched an E for a 3).