Mawd

I GM'd a game of Dark Heresy for the first time (for both) to 6 people and it went very well most things considered. My friends are hyped for the next one which is the main thing; and my partner also now wants to run his own campaign which is super cool too.

I think this last one needs an award for weirdest music video 2014.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

I'm kind of hoping that in one of the spin off Star Wars movies we do get something more muted from it (if only by SW standards). Oh and a 'Bounty Hunter' movie with almost no jedi in it would be great.

I saw The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies. It's pretty fun, features a few cheesy Jackson Moments, and features one hell of a Quick Time Event. But I think it was worth seeing in theatre. The movie gets right into events so if you don't refresh yourself beforehand the pacing in the opening moments can feel a little hurried. Also I really enjoyed the hand drawn concept art in the credits, it was a nice touch. I don't think I'm going to talk spoilers yet; I now also feel a keen need to start up Dwarf Fortress and bring war to the elves and goblins while digging too deep and too greedily. >: D

I had a dream last night where my partner and I went to the supermarket to do a huge grocery shop. We ended up being too involved in our shopping to notice the store closing until it was too late where we spent some more time in the aisles arguing over what brand of spread to buy and whether we should go to another aisle first before the checkout. When we finally found a cashier the entire place was locked and there was only one staff member left in the store and she proceeded to glower at us while she checked out our goods. It was all for nothing though because as I was walking our shopping trolley loaded with goods back to our house I ended up losing control of the trolley which sent all our food into the ocean which was quickly carried off by a 1.2 metre swell. Then my Dad came over and growled at me for losing all the food, the end. Another dream involved a warship, my partner and I gaining civilian access to it, unaccompanied exploration of the ship, a stakeout spent spying on another ship, and multiple rides on a military grade helicopter. Our awesome and kinda illegal adventure came to an end though when our return trip on the helicopter ended up with all four rotors snapping off after being obstructed by powerlines while travelling over an upmarket shopping district. Everything ended okay though as we crash landed on the sidewalk with no-one injured and we were able to disembark safely and say hi to my mother who was shopping for a new handbag. That's really cool! I kind of do the same thing with establishing and going over set locations in my dreams but I rarely get to revisit a full narrative. Although some locations, towns, coastlines, (usually beaches) might end up with some narratives recycled.

Awesome! I really need to check out similar things in Wellington, we have these excellent film festivals but I never seem to make time for them.

Must See.

Really enjoying this. I don't think this new DG track is going to end up a favourite but it's pretty fun.

I've found it kind of hard to raise a game I've enjoyed this year to its of GOTY plinth. Transistor was really good but I didn't have the same experience/enjoyment as I had with Bastion. Stryder, Nidhogg, and Heroes of the Storm would have to be mentioned as standouts. Dark Souls 2 would also have to be praised. Same praise to Divinity Original Sin. But my real game of the year are the Dwarf Fortress 2014 updates.

Despite how much I play Natural Selection 2 I rarely get to appreciate how nice it looks.

My guess they used the song for recognition. Or yours and Badfinger's complaints are because it's a badly made fan trailer. Still I think it fits the spirit of things. I'd love to see a bounty hunter or heist based Wes Anderson Star Wars film. Although I think with a little bit of creative re-imagining The Grand Budapest Hotel is the story of 'If Wes Anderson did Star Wars'. I mean M. Gustave could just be an amazingly suave Jedi..

I kind of really want this now. I'd be weirdly happy if one of the spin offs became a personal small scale Star Wars story at least hosted by Wes Anderson.

I'm keen. When I saw the speeder I thought "wow that looks odd" but I really like that the design is going back to the blocky tank side of the futurespace engineering aesthetic. I like a few of the designs from the prequels but as I grew older I decided that the original trilogy vehicles and buildings not only looked cooler but were wayyy more memorable. Anyway I have been a rabid star wars fan in the past and this trailer reignited a bit of that for me. I loved the wood shot and the hint that parts of the film will have a slow almost pathological pace also the framing in that shot made me so happy. Now there's nothing left to do but follow Ben's method and live in Tor in the Highlands until this movie finally comes out. Y'know I think that as much as I enjoyed the Falcon when I was younger what I'd really like to see this series is for it to be almost completely destroyed and seen in this dis-repaired, derelict state for a non insubstantial amount of narrative time even if it dose end up being restored for everyone to go 'Woah!' at.

I've jumped back into DMC with the pc version (+ gamepad) and I agree that its a fantastic game. I'm starting to wonder if my familiarity with God of War causes me to feel like the game is missing something. I really enjoy both series and I've been playing them almost since they came out but I can't help feel like my preference of game feel for one has bled into the other which is weird because I've enjoyed both games on their own equally. I really enjoyed heavenly sword as well and was confident in the developer as they went into this; it just feels like something's slightly off-centre for my experience.

For some games? Sure I won't look up any sort of guide. Most times those games are rpg's or straight forward shooters. With rpg's the only time I'm really tempted is when I want a specific outcome to a situation while roleplaying more than I want to change my personal narrative of the game where X character makes a specific mistake. Games like ME or Divinity Original Sin tempt me heavily with this. I remember when I started with TWD Ep1 I began with a guide talking about conversation outcomes but by episode 5 I considered that to be heresy. Some games lend themselves extremely well to out of game guides consciously or not. I mean for everyone who's played Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress we've all had those moments where we've wanted to do something cool but can't remember how to do it. Then there's competitive games that offer insights into more experienced player's techniques that when integrated into your own playstyle do make a noticeable difference but don't feel like a key to the universe. CS:GO comes to mind. I think the game that most lends itself to going to the community for help (besides Dota 2) is Natural Selection 2. A lot of the time we see rookie players jumping right into commander rts roles without a firm grasp of the mechanics or the social responsibility of communicating with your team while commanding. The commander is such a crucial role (a match does not start until there is one on both sides) and a match's enjoyability & length and the commander's skill are so closely related that unless newcommers are willing to engage with the server's community they have to be thrown out of the commander chair. It sounds harsh but even a game with a new commander can still last a painfully long time where you just end up in a meat grinder contained in one room. A game could be over by 12 minutes and still last to 30 minutes if the winning players don't know how to consolidate to end the the game. So most commanders in the game start of by being coached by someone from the server before everyone recommends that they go practice in offline mode and watch guides on youtube. It's a weird game where a player is still considered to be pretty much a total noob even with 100 hours and there are so many different play styles to learn or lessons on positioning and tactics to take in that even with 890 hours in game I still look at guides to refresh myself on alien lifeform play styles and map zone control.

Re write it. Analyse the crap out of it; re write it some more.

I'm actually really excited about X-mas this year since I'm spending it with the section of extended family that I have the most in common with. Not to mention they throw some pretty rad social gatherings. The downside is that my partner won't be with me. But he's down with his fam to celebrate a golden wedding (a 50th anniversary) and I've spent the last two years spending it with his family. Anyway do you guys have any family tradition X-mas foods? For my Dad's side our tradition has always been to wake up and eat lamb chops with mint sauce followed by raspberrys with cream and icing sugar. One of my uncles does a blackpudding too but it looks like the rest of the whanau discontinued that. After that it's probably a leg of glazed ham or a turkey followed by a Pavlova and some kind of Christmas cake.

It comes down to priorities. If I want to learn about a cultural touchstone in music right now I'd sooner look at FKA Twigs, Death Grips, or Lorde. If I'm going to look at musical influence I'd rather look at musicians whose music I at least appreciate. As for looking at things that are culturally important or being part of a conversation I think it's a weak argument to make when there are already so many niches and meaningful discussions to be had (that are also culturally important) without digressing to factoids on subjects that don't interest me or only interest me in a meta-narrative sense. I mean even at 21 I don't really consider Taylor Swift as having much relevance to whatever demographic I fall into. With that lack of demographic relationship I'll make some other arguments. For example I don't need to look into Tinder or Grindr despite their cultural relevance because I'm not single; I don't need to look into Vines because I'm not a teenager; I don't need to know things about Pewdiepie or TotalBiscuit because they don't interest me; I don't need to know about what shows toddlers watch because I'm not a parent or toddler. Honestly regarding Taylor Swift I consider my line of thought as no different from these examples.

This game sounds fantastic. But I'll have to wait until March before I can spend that kind of money again. Anyway I'm super keen to see how this project grows.

It's been too long for me to remember specifics sorry. I played it on a three day rental in between nine hour shifts weeding outdoors for a lilly bulb plantation about a year ago. So while I do remember I had my critical thinking cap on the details were a bit of a blur

Well after my six stair fall the good news is that nothing about my spine is fractured which means no X-ray. I'm just badly bruised and the area around my spine still hurts in various stages of movement. The worse news is that my tail bone is probably fractured and there's nothing to be done about it except wait for it to heal.

I did wonder if the ending had been reshot to make it less bleak. It might have gone over better with a more pronounced return to civvie life section like The Hurt Locker or Jarhead. Still though it's definitely worth seeing.

I really enjoyed it. I've been a huge series fan and I think this was a very satisfying game. I might even get it for my PC sometime. I do think a certain part of the game feel was lost when I played it though. Perhaps I just need to replay it on a higher difficulty. Also while it's been almost a year since I played it there was something of a let down in the last boss fight. Although I can't put my finger on it.