Hot Heart

I gave up on the game because it was the PC version and Criterion can't port worth a shit. Occasional CTDs during normal play, and always CTDs when trying to load those shitty arty 'cutscenes' before the actual Most Wanted events (and only those, for some reason). Should've learnt my lesson from Hot Pursuit (wouldn't run properly on multi-core processor machines? COME ON!) but it was supercheap. Wish they'd just make another decent arcadey Burnout anyway.

He's just wasting everyone's time. Ban him! BAN HIM!

Badass x2 http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-14-game-of-thrones-actor-joins-the-witcher-3

Got this stuck in my head, thanks to the Alan Partridge film. Shouldn't have stayed during the credits.

From my experience, kittens don't seem to make that connection (or just enjoy seeing it as something to attack?). Once our cats all got older, they figured that one out though.

A new feature on the hacking. And IGN has a short interview with a producer on the game. /wantthisgamealready

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Pretty much everything you could want from a big screen version of Alan Partridge. Apparently, the original cut was approaching three hours long, but unlike Judd Apatow, they knew that this was far too long for a comedy, so it is a nice hour and a half (with hopefully a bunch of DVD/BD extras). Lots of comedic situations and great lines, and it manages to remain funny throughout. My only (very minor) criticisms would be a late plot convenience and that the character doesn't seem 'low' enough at the start; he's too comfortable. It does give him something to lose, but he still had a way towards a rock bottom like before. If you've never heard of him (why?!), then it's a nice, silly little 'siege' film. It makes comedy out of the mundane and pedantic, so if that's your cup of tea, then this has it all.

Had another gaming night with friends. Started with some Sentinels, beat probably the easiest guy on advanced mode; I tried a new hero in the process who seems to kick quite a bit of butt once she gets going. She has an ability that deals damage for every 'burst' card in her trash, plus a power that lets her look at her deck and trash a card if she wants to. In one go, I used some other equipment to chain a few card plays together and wound up doing about 15 damage (and letting other people draw cards), which was fairly good for about 6 rounds or so into the game. Then another friend, who wasn't originally going to come, caught a break and joined us. Though, while we were waiting I got my friends to explain Small World (with expansions) to me, ready for a 5-player game. I remember seeing it before and getting confused, but it's fairly easy to pick up after a few turns. I lost the final round of rock-paper-scissors-off (rather than pointyness of ears) which meant I went last, but that seemed to work to my advantage. First go, I picked up Commando Barbarians, which gives you 14 troops and -1 to capturing so I spread those bad boys around in a (fortunately) mostly empty part of the board (damn lost tribes and mountains) and netted 10 points straight up. I think I took one more area on my next go, and the other guys were busy fight each other, so I got 11 on that one then went into decline the next time around. By now, all except one of us had gone into decline (one was stomping around as Pillaging Kobolds, I think) so I eyed up the Historian Trolls (nets you a victory point for each race in decline when chosen) and a space freed up to quickly establish a 5-pointer region. Luck was with me...or the other guys had some existing rivalries, so I was left alone for a bit, earning a decent 14 points after that. Gradually, they picked off the old barbarians but I had been expanding the trolls' base by then and still getting 9-10 a round, and they were still under the impression that one of the other guys was running away with a victory (or just angry at Kobolds guy) so battled each other. When it came to the end, I got to see the guy who got a decent start with Halflings lament that he was 'so close' to the guy he thought had won (the guy who stuck with Kobolds the entire game) and then as my final turn was done, I revealed my 10s (all seven of them)...and slowly turned over the other eight tokens (two 5s, two 3s and four 1s). Ninety, bitches! Cue "Son of a bitch..." (this time a chorus). Kinda wishing I'd secretly kepy two of the 10s as the last to be revealed, but didn't want to push it... Then we did a 'quick' game of Sentinels (winning can still take an hour) against a promo version of a villain; which is pretty cool because it uses the same deck in innovative ways. Essentially, if we didn't win this quickly then we'd lost (involves a condition where his damage increases with new devices or, when flipped, with trashed cards). We were actually pretty fortunate to have Batman The Wraith who got rid of some nasty ongoing effects at crucial moments, and Absolute Zero who was converting any fire damage he receives back into cold damage against the enemy. The game ended after I finally got to loose off a decent barrage of damage and then Absolute Zero redirected the fire damage from a River of Lava (came from the environment turn right after mine) to finish off the villain. One friend thought it was anticlimactic. I thought it was pretty dang awesome.

New Ridley Scott film based on a Cormac McCarthy screenplay (his first original).

http://youtu.be/DWKgfQ1BSWA

Just to pitch in, I got what FDS meant.

*Microsoft announces that the on-off switch will be Kinect detecting you poking yourself in the eye, with a separate on-off switch accessory sold separately* *Microsoft backpedals days later*

Gamespot Developer Walkthrough Some cool things: - You can pick enemies up off the ground to beat on them some more rather than wait for them to get up (first time I've seen a beat 'em up do that). Alternatively, taunt and it keeps your combo going. - Attacks are automatically contextual i.e. killing mousers means low and stomping attacks, fighting robots means going for dismemberment, explosive robots means throwing them away from you - An option for stealth kills Not cool thing: - Seems the PC release date is the same as the PS3 one due to Summer of Arcade exclusivity.

"Why can't I GET THE FRIGGING THING?!"

Probably not. That's why we need more Sif!

Yeah, I just hope people in the UK don't give too much weight to what they're saying. For starters, I don't really like Matt Lees because he's always had this tendency to overexaggerate for comic effect (well, they all seemed to be doing that there). It is a tactical game and it's not just about using the same power/setup everytime because the dynamic is constantly changing. Things get destroyed, new targets appear, other things get triggered, the playstyle needs to completely change because the villain has flipped, etc. I can understand the complaint about trying to keep track of too many things (which is why there's a useful HP tracking app on BGG for things like 'target with highest/lowest HP' situations) even with the status effect tiles, but keeping that all in mind is part of the strategy and why you need to coordinate and talk to other people to even beat the villains. Could be they were playing with simpler heroes or ones that take a while to get going or suffer against certain villains, but they had at least one expansion (that I want!) And I guess it is useful to have someone who really likes the game, so they learn the complexities a little more. Oh well... In other news, played Dominion with some friends, and though we were 1 over the recommended max number of players it didn't suffer for it (plus, I think it has a fairly neat core setup that can scale anyway). Essentially, it is the quintessential deck-building game with a simple setup and easy to grasp rules. There are action cards, money cards (in values of 1, 2 and 3) and Victory Cards. Using a simple progession of Action, Buy, Clean-up, each turn you can build a deck for a variety of different strategies (some allow you to draw more cards, some allow extra cards and actions, etc.), but the main aim is to have the most Victory Points at the end. These are represented by cards that can be worth 1, 3 or 6 and need to be bought as you go. But since you only get a hand of 5 each turn (barring actions), buying too many Victory Points (only worth something at the end) can clog up a potential hand and limit your options that turn. For example, I had a hand with 3 markets and 2 coppers (worth 1c each). The market allows you to draw an extra card, play an extra action, make an extra buy and adds another value of 1c for your buy. I can chain these to give me more 3 more cards and another action spare (which I may have drawn from my deck) as well as an extra 3c. If I have no more actions, it's possible I might have more money which allows you more money in order to make up to three buys of more action cards, money cards or victory cards (rarely will you get a chance/need to make more than 2 buys). Long story short, I failed massively on the first game and came third in the second game. Though the second game was ruined because we didn't realise a certain card (which I never got close to being able to buy in the first game) lets you 'upgrade' your money (trash a 2 in exchange for a 3) and put it straight in your hand not your discard pile, which would have changed the whole dynamic...and it would have benefitted me greatly first. This is Power Grid all over again... Anyway, it was still pretty fun and goes by fast, so I would recommend it.

I wouldn't accuse people of not having played a game...but I'm not sure these guys played the game. Properly, anyway. http://susd.pretend-money.com/videos/v/sentinels-multiverse/

Oh, wow. This thread is still around. Watched this recently. The whole film's fantastic, but drunk Cary Grant is great. "Doctor, I am gassed!"

A certain someone is back on Dexter. Yay.

Funny you should say that. I rewatched some old Chip 'N Dale episodes not too long ago and I was like, "I can barely understand what they're saying!" I guess as kids, you're more accustomed to higher voices?

If you saw World War Z, it was right in front of your eyes all along http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Didn't play any new games, but some valuable lessons were learned. 1. Do NOT play against Miss Information, especially on advanced mode, with six heroes in Sentinels of the Multiverse. First off, this was an 'experiment', because my friend's wife was going to join us, since the game is meant to be 2-5 players/heroes. Second, this villain's theme is essentially that the superteam's secretary was killed in an alternate/future timeline and has been reincarnated in the current one, seeking revenge. As such, her identity is unknown at the start of the game, so she is not an available target. Instead, her deck reveals diversions to hold up/damage the heroes, or clues which reveal her identity if enough are in-play...though, these also come with negative effects. In order to reveal her identity, so as to flip her card and make her a target, you need a certain number of clue cards. This value is the number of heroes minus 1, therefore 5 were needed. Unfortunately, we chose to play on advanced mode (+1 extra damage to heroes) and had a pretty evil environment that kept further buffing that damage, plus more heroes meant more damage from certain cards. So, right near the start of the game, 4 heroes were taking 8 damage each (typical starting health is in the 26-30 region) and then we had clues (which we desperately needed) making us destroy/discard cards each round (which really limits the options for a couple of heroes who are good at manipulating decks, buffing damage, etc.) I was holding out with a fairly decent set-up, and might've made a go of it if we'd held out a little longer to get her to flip, but we got pretty unlucky with a lot of the draws and she has some pretty evil cards anyway, so when we were 4 heroes down we decided to concede. Worst was the fact that my friend's wife had already quit after the second round anyway. 2. Toying with people in Munchkin is fun. When we started playing, I had no designs on/hope of winning since I'd forgotten most things from last time and everyone else had played a lot more than I had, but I started with an alright hand and just battled on from there. Early on, I got lucky because I faced a level 20 dragon but turned it into a parrot and took its five treasures, and being a dwarf meant I could keep an extra card in my hand. These would prove useful at many moments along the way and, after what happened last time with victory being stolen from me, I spent the whole game holding onto cards that would help at the end. So, a doppelganger that doubles my combat score, a transferral potion, a +10 to the monster, a bomb that can add +3 to either side, a magic lamp if things go really bad, and even one card that automatically kills the Floating Nose. Cue, me at the penultimate level 9, pretty confident I can secure victory straight after my friend's turn when he goes 'looking for trouble' and produces...the Floating Nose. So, first up, he was going to defeat it easily and I figured I'd mess with him and perhaps mislead others as to what cards I had. So I gave the monster +10 to bump it over his combat score. He has to use some other card and then gets the only available friend except me to help out (one was too low a level after dying, thanks to me discarding a race card to them...which made them incapable of escaping the tough monster they faced on their very next turn. And the other was an elf tied with me, who would've won if allowed to help) and they're about to beat it and put someone else at level 9. By now, I've got an idea that no one else really wants to or is incapable of messing with them too much, so I lay down the transferral potion and drop myself into solo combat instead, ready to beat it by 3 and thus win the game. It was a risky move not immediately playing the 'auto-kill this exact monster' card but I wanted to toy with them a bit, and I already knew they didn't have much they could do...so I graciously enquire as to whether anyone cares to try and alter this combat. Two of them pipe up and both use cards to trash two bits of my armour, putting me just 1 below the required combat score. Then I'm torn, because I could just play that 'kill monster' card...or I could put the doppelganger card down and obliterate the monster the old-fashioned way. Rather than delay it any further, and because it would probably annoy them more, I chuck down the former and ask someone to read it for me. The friend whose turn it was grabs it, has a quick look "Oh, plus two, nice." (the first part of the card allows you to add 2 to either side in any combat and that would again put me above the required combat score). "And read the second half, please," I instruct him. A second later, "Son of a bitch!"