twmac

I wonder how Microsoft are going to respond?

Yeah, I totally agree that knowing what is going to Sung Kang's character adds rather than detracts. I know I shouldn't be getting annoyed by this because it is Fast and Furious and the series is inherently dumb. I am both relieved and rolling my eyes that this spat might be tied into Wrestling. I really hate wrestling.

If you guys do play, let me know what club you join as me and a friend on Xbox One can join that Maybe create an IDT/IDL(Idle thumbs) club for everyone?

Okay, I had 17 dollars of credit from having bought Blazblue, Pip's Adventure and Aban Hawkins on the US store - so I bought Firewatch early as it ended up only costing me a couple of bucks (damn the charges). Hope it is good!

So,uh, when is this coming out on Xbox One in the UK? According to an inside source from a biz dev friend it isn't due out in UK yet due to an SLA. I could switch my region to US (I think) and download it there, but then I am paying extra charges.

I used to chat a lot in both text and audio format but something changed around the release of Halo 3 on Xbox Live that meant that I don't talk to random people at all anymore. I think I have an article brewing at some point so I am not going to go into a lot of detail.

Yeah, most of my short stories so far have had elements of truth to them. In the first it is the events of the revolution and the song, the second is half inspired by my own grandmother who has been diagnosed with Alzheimers, the third is primarily about me dealing with living in Thailand and writing, but not doing much else (the Thai professor who shot two coworkers is actually a real thing that happened here in Bnagkok a few months ago). Thanks for the feedback. As for the language used. Finn and Alistair's speech patterns are based on two Canadian friends from when I lived in Montreal. The 'I am serious' is something he would say all the time. Would like to know more stuff that didn't work for you in the dialogue. You'll be amazed how cogent some people can be even with a few beers in them. As for the ending. Look forward to reading some more entries!

I've finished my Rumours and Hearsay piece, it is still in an 1st draft state, but let me know what you guys think: https://medium.com/@twmac/hr-84a3f06d1b78#.r66kvkm7v My partner read it and she likes the Canadian nostalgia.

Hey, can I make an tiny request? If you are going to list consoles a game is being released on, could you list them all? The reason being is that I was bummed out that Hyper Light Drifter wasn't on the Xbox One, and I didn't even bother to check the store. Well, I did today and it is right there.

I appreciate that you decided to watch the films in the cinematic canon chronology but I think you did yourself a disservice in some ways because the weird double take I did when Sung Kang came back and I was really confused and then when he kept showing up in films, but kind of excited by how stupid the series was getting. Finally there was the sad realisation that Gal Gadot wasn't going to make it (and neither was Sung Kang) and that means that every close call that Gal Gadot's character has is meaningful because you are going 'oh shit, is this when they kill her off?' Also, Justin Lin didn't want to make more Furious films after Tokyo Drift and so he made the ridiculous demand that Sung Kang be brought back to life thinking they wouldn't do it, before he would agree to a three film deal. They did and that is why the fourth film is kind of flat but ridiculous (the Mexico border races are pure nonsense). 2 Fast 2 Furious is utterly dire, I struggle to go through it but it is kind of worth it for the dumb Cole Hauser presence and the introduction of Tyrese Gibson's character and Ludacris. I personally like 5,6 and 7 the best. 5 is the best for sure, but 7 is close second, made better when you realise what an editorial nightmare it was. They were filming 7 & 8 back to back and then Paul Walker died so they had to fuse the two plots together to get enough footage. This is why there are like 3 different villains and two of them (Tony Jaa and Djimon Hounsou) get little air time and written out rather hastily. Also 7 is just so damn goofy, the scene when The Rock fixes his broken arm, classic stupid. The only downside is the random bits of misogyny they decide to throw in. I started off watching Fast and Furious films for the sake of watching a series of films and getting drunk for fun, but I have grown to love the 'family' sentiment and it helped that everyone actually seemed to be having fun on set. I am sad to see that there has been some falling out on the set of 8, but they have got Kurt Russel back and Helen Mirren is in it, for reasons.

So, errr, Sony have just said that they won't charge for patches that update older games to HDR and 4K but that other companies can if they want to.

That video is amazing. Thanks for reading my email about the delights of Tomb Raider + Thumbs. Apologies for to everyone else as they went off the rails. I was cracking up so hard. You don't need to say 'Kinect' before voice commands on the Xbox One for in-game, bespoke stuff. With the newest update, you now have to say 'Hey Cortana' for any OS based stuff. Because mine is set to English accents, there is quite a bit of artistic interpretation on the Kinect's part as to what you mean with your American intonations.

Thanks for those links, a long discussion I had on facebook with a friend (who is younger than me) was based around his praise for this announcement from UofC. Having those extra links should be sobering.

I guess, outside hardcore film enthusiasts, that won't really matter? Also, is that a hardware limitation, or something that they could patch in aftewards?

I really enjoyed Drive until someone said that it was Taxi Driver for this generation. I disagreed with the person but the more I thought about it I realised he was right but that Drive gets everything wrong in terms of characterisation. Only God Forgives... That was a bit rubbish, an hour long music video.

Could you provide a link to the podcast this is associated with?

My first draft that I wrote by hand was very focused on the character flaws and actually I never planned to for the story to resolve itself. The extra bit at the end was added when I realised that I would have needed a lot longer than 3000 words to tease out everything (it can be interpreted as everything happening in his head, that he is writing it all when he is blacked out or having an episode). So, I dumped the ending and rewrote it with the extra bit. I'll be honest, it is a lot closer to my normal style of writing and the only part that I really enjoyed was John's complete inability to be self aware. So, after he is confronted with the bit that clearly denotes him as the sort of person who manipulates situations so that he makes himself look like the victim, that is the first thing he does when his wife gets home. I really like that exceprt you created!

This is one of my all time least favourite films. I would rather watch The Net again.

So, played Titanfall 2 with three other people that have played a lot of Titanfall and love it. It was rough. I tried to guide them through how Bounty Hunt works and get them used to the maps, but the response was unanimously negative. One of the guys lasted two matches and pretty much rage quit (he was a bit hungover, to be fair), my other friend decided he had a headache and didn't want to play anymore. Even with me explaining how the game mode worked, explaining the changes in mobility and also point out the Titan tweaks, these guys were not having any of it. The remaining three of us then played a few rounds of Titanfall and we lost the first Last Titan Standing match and then dominated a Pilot Hunter match. Both of them articulated something really important - they were still having fun while losing. Titanfall 2 is missing something pretty fucking vital.

I dropped a shit ton of time into this again and those two first maps are fucking awful. the new one Kodau outpost, or whatever, is much improved on them. Everything about Homestead sucks, on every mode currently available, it encourages break away wins. By that I mean that once a team gets ahead the other team have to be really good (which they won't be because they were losing) to have a chance to get back in the game. Bounty Hunt, Hardpoint and Pilot vs Pilot are pretty much decided by about half way through the game and it is just a matter of waiting to die. Boomtown is cramped and awful. That said the outpost level is one of my favourite of all titanfall levels and works well with every game mode. The multi tiered nature means that no one build type can dominate and it ven has a an area that works as a fuck you to the orange halo. If the rest of the maps are like it then that would be awesome. Bounty Hunt is the best of the three modes but it suffers from encouraging camping - the fact that you lose half your score when you die undermines the free runnjjng element. The concept of the rodeo run makes more sense now they explained it - it doesn't fully work because a pilot is far more vulnerable now but I at least like what they are trying to do. I didn't mention it before but the audio is incredible. Tweaks have been made and it definitely plays better than the first Tech Test. I am less bummed by the game and can see some of the improvements, sort of. I still find the health bars and pacing a little off.

So, this was actually a real struggle for me, I didn't find anything that really worked for me so I went with this: https://medium.com/@twmac/readers-like-you-d3a798660276#.lbkqe1cce Took me ages to write it but I think that was because I couldn't figure out what to type.

I am downloading it now. Also agree about the AI being absent, I definitely enjoyed having there in Titanfall

That give me some hope. Not going to change those kind of rubbish maps though.

I think my problem is that what was exhibited in the tech test was not Titanfall but more geared to being what Call of Duty is. I hated it (I don't like Call of Duty) and have no desire to go back.

That was the best mode, but Halo 5's battlezone is way better. It is fine, as long as what you wanted was a Call of Duty game with killstreaks in the form of mechs. The hardpoint scoring system means that you can be at the top of your team and not have had a Titan for the whole match. My partner convinced me to delete the Beta and go back to Titanfall. She said that my reaction to the game was like seeing a kid being told that Father Christmas doesn't exist