Hot Heart

9 films for £15? Hell yes.

Looper. Damn, that's...huh. That's pretty heavy stuff. Liked it, but I think I might need to mull over it some more. Going in, I was actually expecting something a little 'smarter' and thriller-like when it was actually more of a drama that favours story over airtight logic (not necessarily a bad thing...and it's already a time travel film anyway.). I've seen people say it's like a film of two halves but I don't consider it quite so demarcated. The performances and direction were really cool, and it's nice seeing Bruce Willis properly acting.

Faked? Damn, sorry, dude. Donald finds some ducks (most likely scares the shit out of them).

Woah, thanks for the heads-up. Can't believe I missed this. Wanted quite a few of these for a while (particularly The Walking Dead) so I paid quite a bit over the average anyway.

Watched some things, since it's out very soon. The game looks very cool, though the gameplay does not. A few videos http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/05/06/remember-me-gameplay-commentary

I remember when I first realised he was Eomer in Lord of the Rings as well as the bad guy in Bourne Supremacy. He's a good actor.

I'll wait until the Remember Me: Total Recall edition.

He always came off as a little self-centred when he was being foolishly naive (as happens near the start of the fourth season) but the earlier episodes were always structured so you could see the 'good dad' side to him at the end of it (they highlight that 'heart of the show' thing with the film). Now, because of the way it had to be made, it is more caught up in repeating the same stuff over and over where you see him as kind of a dick. What I found quite interesting by the end of it all was seeing I think it's worth persevering with the show. As I said it's very unbalanced, because it starts very George Snr., Michael and Lindsay-focused, shifts over to a bit of Gob and Tobias with other things mixed in, then off to the more George Michael and Michael-based stuff so that by the end you've kind of forgotten about George Snr., Lucille and Lindsay. I think repeat viewing should be quite rewarding though.

Had a very busy weekend. Definitely managed to take advantage of the bank holiday weekend. My friends have been pretty big on tabletop stuff at the moment, given that it seems to be so hot right now, and decided to have a day for it. As far as I'm aware, a lot of these were purchased after seeing them on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series so you could always seek those out if you want to get an idea of how they play. However, THESE ARE MY IN-DEPTH THOUGHTS ON THEM. Small World I arrived while this game was in progress, with four players. I had no idea what was going on and doubt I would've been able to grasp it anyway. I was content to look at the pretty pictures and point and laugh at the weird combinations of adjectives (attributes) with races: marauding sorcerors, were-leprechauns (they turn into men during a full moon?!), flying trolls. I SUPPOSE IT COULD BE FUN. Ticket To Ride (before you ask, OF COURSE, I sang the song) I thought I was at an advantage with this game, given that I have both been on a train and know where a few North American cities are; how wrong I was! The idea is to try and build connections between different cities to fulfill specific routes with varying values, depending on difficulty (risk/reward is that points for incomplete routes are deducted from your total). This was now five players, and began with a surprising amount of people not dicking each other over...or we were just keeping very quiet about it. I managed to play pretty well (I thought!) as a lot of my routes occupied the same area, and I even gambled on some extra routes (you can get 3 new ones but must keep at least 1) which paid off. Turns out I must have played it too safe as while I completed all my routes for fairly high values, it wasn't enough to keep me from third place (with an extra ten points for the longest uninterrupted route jumping someone into first place by 1 point). Still, it was enjoyable enough, and I do regret not dicking over the guy who came waaay last anyway. Fluxx (basic) I'd played this one before and really enjoyed it. A card game where the rules and goal are constantly in...a state of constant change. Games can be incredibly short or incredibly long due to these shifts. The best games come from when you can spot someone attempting some sort of scheme, which is completely upended by someone else moments later. In our little circle it has become an injoke to make sure one person (who can take things a bit too seriously) never wins, even if it means handing victory to another player (as happened on one memorable occasion). Unfortunately, this was one of those games where the random nature handed one player two consecutive victories very easily. In the first game, the goal had been changed to the one card they already had by the time it got round to their first turn (which was still highly amusing), and the second game lasted about three goes around the table before virtually the same thing happened again. The winner then declared it a boring game (three of the guys share a house and had played it a lot before) and that was that. King of Tokyo As of Fluxx, we already had 6 people, which limited some of the gaming options and meant we gave this a go despite some of the others not being too keen. Based on what I tried to watch of the Tabletop episode, I can see why. Not much to say except having 6 players makes it fairly short, and there's not much going for it outside of the 'cool' theme. Munchkin (Deluxe? There was a board too. I don't know...) This seemed a little more interesting, even if my friends made it sound more complex than it is. It has some recognisable RPG elements with races, classes and gear which combine to create levels for tackling monsters in order to level up (first to 10 wins) along with other little modifiers (half-breed options, curses, buffs). I recognised artwork by Gabe of Penny Arcade (I forget his real name) and the actual items and enemies were generally quite funny (I fought a Telemarketer). Some shrewd playing (along with some luck, of course) meant that I was winning for a long time without the need to sabotage other people's efforts (because I'm a nice guy!). There was a moment where someone chose to be a total dick and buff a monster (also adding a second one) so it was unbeatable solo only for me to switch it so they had to fight...only for them to get help from someone else who I didn't want to dick over by then adding a +10 to a monster's level. Following that, I played no holds barred and had victory in my grasp, seeing the final monster I had to defeat was a level 1...only to discover it would refuse to fight me because of one item of gear I was wearing which someone almost stole on the previous turn (FFFFUUUUU-), which meant my turn was a waste. After that it was just a clusterfuck of people trying to defeat one final monster to earn victory, with everyone trying to sabotage the other until they were out of useful stuff and someone got lucky. Smash Up By this point, my head was about to burst with trying to take in all these new rulesets and game mechanics, and this one was hella confusing. A base capture sort of game involving lots of numbers and various modifiers, played with 6 people in charge of 2 races each, with nearly every card carrying some sort of effect. Essentially, there are different bases that hand out victory points to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place depending on your minion score when the base's total is reached (generally 1st place is best but not always). Problem is that certain races alter point values depending on other factors (such as whether it's their turn) or can trigger other things at the same time. Trying to keep track of everything was NOT FUN. Anyway, it has a pretty cool concept in that the various races make for different combinations that drastically alters the required tactics. Someone had aliens and undead, another had pirates and ghosts while I had ninja and bears (FUCK YEAH!) after picking at random because I had no fucking clue what any of it meant. Soon enough, I got a feel for what I needed to do, and I don't think ninja and bears make for a great combination (gonna need to see some real world testing) seeing as the bears are about throwing in lots of minions to hold bases (with abilities that mean they can't be touched at all) whereas the ninja lack the manpower, instead using lots of actions to fuck with people. Anyway, I had found a decent approach, although it did mean having to wait out a few rounds and be careful about going over the hand limit while keeping future moves in mind. On a few occasions, I managed some pretty nifty moves where a shinobi is allowed to sneak in as a base is captured, and pick up some points that way (taking 2nd on one occasion where that point value was actually higher than 1st). I was about one turn away from victory when someone else managed a decent round of moves and stole it. Oh, well, actually quite enjoyed that game and could see a lot of potential if attempted earlier in the day and with a few more combinations. Elder Sign I HATE THIS FUCKING GAME ALMOST AS MUCH AS IT HATES ME. All joking aside, this game sucks. It's based on Lovecraft mythology and I suppose it succeeds in that it is just an overwhelming amount of inescapable doom. I thought I would enjoy a cooperative game, but a greater number of players seems to work against you in this instance. I'd try and explain it to you, but it is needlessly complex for what is essentially a series of dice rolls followed by the game giving you the finger. I think I had the worst character with no useful abilities and it's one of those games that kicks you when you're down, so much that I wound up just sitting out the last few turns, partly to heal but mainly so as not to fuck up everyone else's game (seriously, they might as well have put my dude's picture next to the main villain's). Somehow, 'we' managed to win though... Power Grid It had gone 11pm by the time we started even looking at this (it has so many pieces that need setting up!) and my brain had been giving up about two games ago. We decided to sort of learn it as we went, and I managed to pick it up rather quickly. It involves buying power stations on auction (where players can compete) that rely on certain resources (whose values change depending on how many have already been purchased each round) and these power a certain number of cities where you buy a...I DON'T KNOW WHAT BUT YOU GET THE RIGHTS TO PUT A LITTLE WOODEN HOUSE THERE OK, which then give you money each turn, depending on how many you are able to power. I put my first little wooden house in Fargo (Oh, ja!). There's an element of advantages quickly becoming disadvantages as turn order is constantly altered to favour those who may be falling behind (for example, stragglers get first pick on resources, potentially raising prices for everyone after). Things were going well, and I was sitting pretty to win (wind power stations, hell yeah!), although the unofficial alteration to the rules (halving the total number of power plants owned by one player before the game ends and totals are added up) made in order to shorten things actually wound up screwing me over when they had to be further altered a few goes after mine. And I would've been guaranteed victory under those rules as well. Either way, I found myself enjoying this game more than I would have expected, and I think a full game could've been fairly topsy-turvy...though it would've taken a few hours, I think. And that was that. Overall, it was quite fun. I would definitely recommend Fluxx and Smash Up, though I think Munchkin, Ticket To Ride and Power Grid are worth a look, too.

How can you tell which is which?

Turns out I do like a Take That song. A bit different to what I've heard from them before, but still cheesy. Heard it during the credits of X-Men: First Class (which also has a really great score)

Yeah, the problem with watching it with so many people is that they tend to talk or laugh over other jokes. I completely missed the Annyong bit except for the 'Goodbye' part. Just seemed like such an obvious joke, and if I can think of it...

Watched the whole season with friends yesterday. Really enjoyed it. It is a little unbalanced from the way it's structured, but I guess there was no way around that. Even when it wasn't firing on all cylinders, I liked it. For the most part, I was just happy to see the characters again, but then things got moving and it really was very funny. It still had a lot of the same things that made it great and it's still dense with little sight gags and things (check Lucille's prison number or search George Michael's less embarrassing name, for example). And they got so many old faces back, as well as some good new characters, it was fantastic. At times, it does get a little too caught up in its machinations and can get a little confusing when those mix with the timejumps (another fault of the structure, really) while overexplaining things elsewhere (if you're watching them back-to-back anyway). A lot of the twisty nature of the story was good though, and it must have been a headache to plan it all. I was really impressed overall though. Also, while Kristen Wiig was OK, I wasn't a fan of Seth Rogen as young George Snr. I liked how they did flashbacks before. ps. maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised there wasn't an 'any Storm in a port' joke made during the harbour bit of the Tobias episode.

Will be going round a friend's to marathon the whole thing today.

And directed by Jon Favreau.

Hmm, well, I've just watched the seventh episode of S1 and it was still going there. Also, I have no idea who Barry is but I guess that's coming up. I guess, to sum it up, what irritates me is just that I get the feeling they have no idea what to do with some of the ancillary characters most of the time. What Dean says makes me think that things will improve a little though.

Yeah, it's usually for the wrong reasons that people become recognisable on other forums.

Hmm. I wouldn't class it anywhere near Arrested Development's level of humour or dialogue. That had clever, interweaving plotlines. Archer has completely unrelated side stuff where the humour is just from being weird. Though, I won't deny there have been better episodes that are well-structured. This is probably just a bad run. I guess it's down to taste, because I don't mind the recurring 'Archer is a stupid jerk' stuff or the funnier meta things ("Yay for metaphors!") but the other stuff seems to rely too much on shock value.

Been working my way through S1 of Archer and while I'll probably be treated like a pariah for asking this...does it get funnier? I can't deny that Archer himself is funny, and the delivery is great but everything else already feels stale. I don't mind the general 'plot of the week' formula they have going but already I'm tired of the same Lana and Cyril relationship stuff every episode along with side characters like Pam and Cheryl just there to hang out and talk weird sex stuff.