Hot Heart

Sounds alright except for the wired bit. My sisters wrecked an amazing game back on the PS2 (Wacky Races) thanks to tripping over a controller wire.

Next you'll be singing the praises of lootboxes!

A lot of that doesn't happen until right near the end when she figures out they were using Mahjong. So, yeah, it all feels a little bit late. Blade Runner 2049 Really cool-looking piece of sci-fi (Deakins better finally get that Oscar) that needs to be seen and will be definitely be a shame if it does bomb. It feels too long/slow in places and there are some weird inclusions here and there, but the overall story is pretty good and there's a lot to delve into. Good performances, cool costumes without going too overboard and a really neat score and soundtrack. I just know it's going to be a nightmare on home sound systems as you'll forever be turning it up for dialogue before being deafened by a giant BWAAAAARM. p.s. I know it's actually the case for most people, but I never realised Gosling's eyes were so unsymmetrical.

Having played it for a month now, I definitely sense the change in design philosophy. I think anyone who's worried about Destiny eating up all their time has nothing to worry about now. Bungie have said that if people are getting fed up with Destiny, they should take time away and play other games and they've certainly made changes to support that. I touched on the changes to patrol and weapon/gear levelling, and it's actually really refreshing. You don't have to farm materials, you don't have to keep hoping for that decent roll on a piece of gear, you don't even have to worry about the element type on your energy weapons. No more worrying about grabbing bounties. Each week, you've got your core elements of progression in the form of "milestones" which are shown clearly on the director screen: flashpoint (public events on that week's chosen world), crucible kills & assists (a total requirement which has been greatly reduced as well), nightfall and raid. Plus, extras for being in a clan. Once you've done them, you really don't have to play any more. Obviously, there are lots of little things you can work on but, essentially, you are playing for the joy of playing not because you feel you need to. I mean, part of me misses that min-maxing and flexibility and experimentation with abilities but I think that stuff will be built on more as Bungie feels comfortable. Destiny 2 really has been stripped back to a (still fun) core experience for getting new people onboard first.

The Destiny 2 soundtrack is really friggin' good, you guys

Arrival Finally got round to watching this. Slightly slow at times but it's a great "hard" sci-fi film that doesn't feel like one. Of course, that means some of the writing can be a bit "we need to make sure the real idiots understand this". Some great performances (you almost, almost buy Renner as a theoretical physicist), with some neat sound and music. I think my only real gripe with it is that apart from a few moments there's never any real tension. There's the suspense at one point, but I never really got a sense of true jeopardy after that. Maybe it's too much of a cliche to take this route, but I feel like more could have been made of the

https://i.imgur.com/APgmTuV.gifv

Not exactly the right thread but I suppose it is "promotional" stuff and it's funny enough it's worth sharing.

Spectre (aka. Dead M's Switch) I loved Casino Royale... and have been disappointed by every Bond film since. This is no different. It starts off promising and gradually devolves into pure stupidity. "Oh, yay, the car chase!" I thought as it gets underway, before it becomes so boring he manages to have a phone call in the middle of it. There are a couple of comic beats in there, too, but it doesn't really save it. And the big reveal? Never bought the romance bit either. Plus, Bautista's character? Fucking stupid. Why did they think his character could replace Sciarra when he's just an almost completely mute thug who can poke someone's eyes in? In its favour, it does have some extremely nice-looking shots.

I watched the first couple of episodes of Discovery, going in completely blind. Never been a Trekkie and thought all the new films were shite, but I was hoping this would be a decent jumping-on point in some way. However, it appears to be some serialised show about one character which doesn't really interest me. I'm hoping this was just the approach for the two-part pilot, which is meant as a prologue... . I guess I'll see how it goes with the next episode.

I've been pretty good about not buying any more board games but I couldn't resist this miniatures adventure game from the designers of the brilliant Firefly board game. Looks like it should be pretty intuitive for people who've played the "original" one since it uses the same iconography (fight, tech, negotiate, etc.) Plus, as a pre-order bonus, you get this: Who wouldn't want that?

Just a small update. Received my kickstarter copy of Unmasked: Dracula's Feast which is a neat little deduction game that was cheap enough while filling a decent niche of being quick, simple, with no elimination and no need to be very vocal/argumentative/confrontational. The theme is that Dracula has thrown a masquerade ball for a bunch of unsuspecting victims only for a bunch of other monsters to show up, so everyone is trying to figure out who everyone else is. While I didn't take any photos of the game in action, it has some really nice art and graphic design, while the wording keeps things succinct with a minimum of confusion. You all get a different monster/character, with one mystery guest in the middle (which can't be Dracula) and a couple of cards for answering "Yes/No" in secret. On your turn you can do one of three things: 1. Query another player, which means you just ask another player if they are [character] and they pass you a card that says Yes or No, answering honestly. 2. Ask another player to Dance, which they can decline. If they accept, you look at each other's identities in secret. 3. Accuse. You reveal your own character and then place the character reference cards in front of the other players for which of them you think they are, including the mystery guest. Then the other players all put their honest answers using their Yes/No cards in a pile that you shuffle and look at; with the other Yes/No going face-down in another pile. If they're all "Yes" then you've correctly identified everyone. If not, shuffle these answer cards back with the discarded ones and hand them back out to continue playing. The wrinkle is that the characters all have different rules/powers and potentially other victory conditions. For example, Van Helsing just has to identify Dracula when they accuse. Whereas Alucard wins if he is ever mistaken for Dracula during an accusation. The Trickster is fun because they must always answer "Yes" to queries. While the Zombie always accept dances but cannot initiate them and to win only needs to successfully accuse their two neighbouring players. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun trying to figure out if that person is Dracula trying to throw you off the scent by asking someone else if they're Dracula or whether that person's the Zombie because they're focusing on their neighbour's identities or whether they're accepting dances because they're the Boogie Monster. There's enough there to play around with different combinations of roles and it moves along fairly swiftly.

Solo queued for Crucible and, whether or not it's because it's still adjusting as the system "learns" player skill levels, I had a fun time. I can see how it might get annoying if you keep running into a heavily coordinated team of MIDA users but I think the sweaty players will gravitate towards the Competitive playlist and Trials.

So, I finished the story and managed to do the first nightfall. I think I've played enough to put a reasonable amount of thoughts together on all manner of topics: story, weapon/ammo changes, subclasses and abilities, strikes, patrols, nightfall and crucible. Up front, I will say that I am liking it a lot. Nearly everything they have changed has been for the better and it shows that the only major thing people are moaning about is the shaders. So, firstly, the story. The main questline is pretty simple but that's obviouisly because it's mostly for the new people, so as to draw you in. After the cool opening, it's got the basic structure of going to a new place, seeing a new enemy and helping a new character with something before moving on. Which is perfectly fine because it's when you go back to these places afterwards and do all the "Adventures" (of which there are loads) that you get a bunch more story on what's going on, lore stuff, etc. The actual story has some decently-drawn characters but it never rises to anything special; it's "functional". However, the best thing about the main story is that the missions now have a real Halo vibe to them. I mean, the Destiny 1 missions -- structure rather than story wise -- were okay and got better with the expansions but this is on a whole other level I'd almost forgotten Bungie could do. The environments and your paths through them are so much cooler and it has some big setpieces towards the latter half. I think even playing it solo (which I did towards the end as I got fed up waiting for my fireteam) is a good experience. And the weapon changes. It does feel different, but the combinations still present options with close-range and long-range. The changes to the way energy types work against shields also means it's no longer punishing you for not covering all the different energy types and, in fact, gives you a bonus instead. What has changed? Well, most obviously, all energy weapons work better against shields than kinetic weapons. Yes, they all work the same regardless of which energy type is shooting which energy type except if it does match then when the shield pops it causes a little explosion that does AoE damage and stuns that enemy briefly. And the way power ammo works feels pretty well tuned (for strikes and missions anyway) because there are now two tiers of tougher enemy that always drop it. Where it was yellow health bars for "majors" now it has one in-between red and yellow, which is... you've guessed it... orange. So, whenever you kill one of these orange or yellow guys you are guaranteed a power ammo pack on top of the ones regular enemies might drop. Ammo feels fairly plentiful although, sometimes, I've fallen short if I lean too heavily on only one of kinetic or energy rather than switching between them more regularly. As for the subclasses and abilities, these recharge faster than in the beta and you get all sorts of armour perks to improve it as well. Also, most grenades hit like a truck now... except for the stickies, which is annoying (especially since they still have the exotic which gives you two) and clearly a PvP-led change (since people could get close stick you and earn an easy kill). I'm liking the change to Sunsingers (apart from not getting a shield on melee) so the super is no longer about holding it just in case. However, my absolute favourite class and build at the moment (which I would share a video of if PS Share and YouTube weren't being shit) is the Voidwalker "Devour" build. It's a sort of risk/reward, tanky, ad-clearing combination of abilities where you trigger the devour effect either by consuming your grenade or getting an ability melee kill and then every time you kill an enemy you instantly get full health, while it also recharges your other abilities faster. And you've got a 9-second countdown that resets each kill, so it's fairly easy to keep it going and clear a whole room. And I've really liked all the new strikes I've seen so far. The one in the beta is definitely the longest, but they're all a decent length and keep things moving along pretty well. They're not so much raid-lite as some of the later ones in D1 became but there are some interesting twists here and there. Patrols or should I say patrol areas have had some quite significant changes, actually. The general structure is still there, while lots of tweaks and improvements have been made. Firstly, since all the weapon and armour levelling/upgrading is gone, you're no longer farming different materials just to unlock a node. There's no collecting bounties as much as there are just little challenges. Essentially, you're doing a few things in these spaces which all lead towards tokens you trade in with that world's vendor to earn reputation and earn packages. So you still loot chests and collect materials, but you're just trading them in for rep. Lost sectors are fun little diversions that get you loot (good until you hit 265) and tokens. The other main things are adventures which are fairly substantial side quests with a lot more world-building and story content and then there are public events. Public events are now shown on the bloody in-game map WITH COUNTDOWNS AND EVERYTHING. This means people will find it easier to group up with other random guardians and even try and trigger the "heroic" versions of these public events to earn better loot. It's all good changes, really. The nightfall has undergone another change, where you can all die and not be kicked to orbit (or even a checkpoint) but it's like a time attack mode where you earn time for kills (but it's still better to leg it through as much as you can). This week has a rotating burn modifier (which also punishes using the wrong type) but it only shows up on the "news feed" in the bottom left (where it says kills, revives, super activations and stuff) when it switches, so you really have to look for it and communciate with your team if you spot it. I've only played a bit of crucible but it's been pretty good, since my friends and I make up 3/4 of a fireteam now. We've dominated all but one match we've played so far and had a really tight 26-25 game of supremacy (which I hated in 6v6) but I kinda miss those 6v6 games for stuff like control. The weapon changes are really welcome here and it's obviously closer to the older Halo model of having a "power weapon spawn" where only one person gets it... except there is one for each team (technically). Not sure if I'll attempt Trials but we'll see. And, yeah, there are so many little quality-of-life changes that are welcome and there's probably a ton of little things that I haven't covered. Overall, though, loving it.

Destiny 2. It's been rad so far. I haven't finished the story (rest of my fireteam not getting on until late and falling behind) but the actual environments and flow of the missions is a huge step up from before. I'll do a proper write-up after I finish the story, I think, but I'm pleased to say a lot of my concerns were just Bungie being coy. The way they've changed/tweaked a lot of the systems (currencies, loadouts, levelling, reputations, public events) really just removes annoying grind and places emphasis more on experimenting with weapon and gear mods/perks. The broader story elements are actually there in the scannable objects and side missions so you get some interesting stuff on Osiris and Toland, etc. while the main story focuses on the Cabal. I guess I'll see how it holds up in the long run but I'm very pleased with everything so far.

Yeah, absolutely no need to buy Silver. You get a bright engram every time you level up past 20 and they give you cool stuff. I've already got a Sparrow, an exotic weapon ornament (skin), a sweet-looking chestpiece and an "exotic" emote among other things. I've got more than enough shaders and bits and pieces from playing the regular content, too. And the "buy-to-win" mods? You get them all over the place and particularly from the Gunsmith, which is easy to rank up since all your Rare and above weapons give you gun parts (which aren't needed for levelling up guns because that's not a thing anymore).

I finished the new version of The Tick on Amazon. It's pretty good. There's no real individual structure to the episodes (more like a comic book in that way) and it doesn't really cover a lot of ground in terms of plot, but it does a great job of establishing the world and characters and the hero's "call to action". Serafinowicz is a fine Tick, Griffin Newman works really well as Arthur and a lot of the side characters are played well (Ramses, Ms. Lint). It's even got Buzz from the Home Alone films. Also, the dialogue with the flow of it and the little throwaway jokes is really good, too. Which you might expect from writers who worked on Firefly (Edlund and Molina). Or there's just simple stuff like a villain attacking The Tick unsuccessfully: "Why won't you die?!" "I... don't... wanna..."

People have concerns over the XIM4 stuff, but if anything raw mouse input will still have an advantage at high level play. I mean, with aim-assist, the number of times I've got a decent bead on a guy at distance, I'm just about to finish them off and then their teammate zips across, dragging my reticule with them... With an even greater focus on team-shooting, you'd be better off without it. And the sweaty players will gravitate more towards the competitive side of the PvP as opposed to the other one anyway. I can't remember the exact names but I know there are two "flavours" for more competitive and more casual. The PC version does have dual-binding as well, except it was only in a config file at the moment. I know people are telling Bungie (or is it Vicarious Visions doing PC version?) that this should be in-game at launch. But, yeah, I think you should have a fun time whichever version you pick and it'll be great to see new players experiencing it on PC.

FOR THE PUPPIES!

This series on actors' accent work is pretty amusing and interesting. Especially when it goes over constructed languages Then a full video on actors portraying real people (or mimicking a real person's performance like McGregor doing a younger version of Guinness' Obi-Wan).

I like Luke Smith. I'm encouraged by his comments about a couple of things. 1. The comment about making ability stats more meaningful. While your levels of Intellect, Discipline and Strength did have an impact, it wasn't always that obvious. With the Agility, Resilience & Recovery stuff it sounds like they're trying to make it more intuitive and much more pronounced. 2. The weapon switch-up. So, there's a little insight into the switch to Kinetic, Energy & Power. Besides the obvious reining in shotguns, snipers, etc. for balance there's the way that energy weapons interact with shields (popping the shield with a matching type causes an AoE explosion which also stuns the target) and other guardians (matching the element of the super a guardian is performing will deal more damage to them). So if sunbreakers are deemed too strong, at least a team that knows to bring solar weapons stands a better chance against them.

This has been a real rollercoaster ride, Ethan.

Another silly pic. Used the bank holiday for playing Rock Band with some friends. One asked me to throw a pose so I did and, of course, there's nothing more metal than a replica Paul McCartney Hofner bass. "HELTER SKELTERRR!"

Short film that acts as a prequel for the new Blade Runner film. Might skip it since the last trailer had me intrigued enough and I'd like to go in with as little knowledge as possible.

So, I finished The Defenders. Overall, it was... good. Certainly not the triumphant team-up that The Avengers was but it did some neat things and there are some really good episodes towards the end. 1. It gave Danny an arc and he got better as the episodes went on. 2. It had some good action scenes, particularly right at the end where you got to see their different styles -- or the two different styles of martial artist (Daredevil, Iron Fist) and superstrong brawler (JJ and Luke) -- all working together. However, I had a bunch of problems with it... So, yeah, lotta problems but at least it also seems to be setting up some decent stuff for Daredevil and Luke Cage.