Where to start? That must be the big question facing DICE right now as they try and wrangle Battlefield 4 into a stable state. Players have been reporting disconnection errors, freezes, crashes and a smattering of bugs. DICE have tabled a list of fixes they’re working on on the Battlefield 4 forums, which includes a bug that stops server queues from working and various client instability problems.

Players have also been finding some odd errors, YouTubers TeamTooHeavy have posted a video that apparently shows the silencer on the QBU88 muting sound on a server. More worryingly, many players have been reporting netcode issues, which cause a discrepancy between the game logic that denotes where shots are going and when they hit, and what you’re actually seeing on-screen. If netcode’s laggy the game might tell you that you’ve just git a soldier seven times in the chest and been suddenly killed, while from your killer’s perspective he’s rounded the corner and shot you fair and square. Redditor Hickery123 has rounded up some pretty blatant video examples of this happening here.

DICE are patching speedily, thankfully, which marks a change from Battlefield 3 when every patch had to go through Microsoft and Sony bureaucracy. A lot of Battlefield 4’s multiplayer component operates server-side, so they no longer have to deploy updates and downloads to every player’s PC to deal with issues. Battlefield 3 also had some major problems on release, and ended up okay, but it’s a particularly frustrating situation when a big open beta event happened just weeks ago.

The connection issues seem to be affecting 64 player servers more frequently, so you might want to steer clear of those for a while. If the server runs into an error, all of the levelling progress you made during the match will be lost, but reportedly this will suck up XP boost time regardless, so it’s best to save those until the server issues are fixed.

So Path of Exile. A free-to-play MMORPG made by Grinding Gear Games and set in a land of exiles, criminals and morally ambiguous types of all sorts. It’s been out for a little while in Beta and became available on Steam a little while ago and so I thought I’d give it a try.

Before I start, I’ll say that I’m not greatly experienced in this genre of game. MMORPGs to me were always about being really damn good in parties of players and I just never had the time or attention span to grind high enough. However PoE, with its dark world and touches of lore scattered about the world, has me hooked.

The character creation screen is the first bit of the game a new player will see, and immediately it sets up the scene with a voice-over announcement reminding all passengers that they’re on a one-way trip to the exile’s land of Wraeclast to reflect on their crimes against whatever rulers or gods are worshipped back home. There are six different class choices to choose from originally, aligned around three attributes: Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. The classes to be chosen from are Ranger (Dex), Marauder (Str), Witch (Int), Duellist (Str/Dex), Shadow (Dex/Int) and Templar (Str/Int) with there being a quest-unlockable seventh class called the Scion that has equal ability in all three attributes. However, besides being able to change the League you play your character in (which has an effect on mob levels and who you play with) there isn’t a lot more customisation you can do at this point; although this can be excused as the game is still in Beta at time of writing.

However there is customisation available to you by way of items, skill gems you can fit into the sockets on items and through choosing to spend the skill points you acquire through leveling-up on one of the largest skill trees I’ve seen. As you level up, you can choose to unlock bonuses such as more life or dex which will in turn unlock better, stronger skills higher up the tree. I’ve only played to a few levels with my Ranger character, but I’ve seen other more experienced players talking about the best ‘builds’ of classes. Whether to go for speed or for health, or maybe both equally. Forward planning to build a character skill-wise is certainly something I could get interested in.

Items as well will be different from character to character because mobs don’t always drop something and when they do, it’s random what they drop. If you pick up armour too and don’t already have an item of that sort equipped already it will auto-equip your character too, which is useful in the midst of battle with seven cannibals at once. However you won’t have better stuff equipped if you’ve already got something in that slot so it does pay to check your stuff against your Inventory every now and then. The other thing about items in this game is that given the environment of Wraeclast, gold and silver coins are not available. You can instead trade things with other players and certain NPCs for other items that can do everything from revealing unknown properties of some items to refining them to transforming them into something else random (not that I was ever brave enough to try that last one). You can also ‘Stash’ items in a special chest that you want to keep but don’t want taking up room in your limited inventory space. Extra stash space is one of the few micro-transactions I’m aware of in this game, and from what I can tell, probably the most popular of them.

Like most MMORPGs you can choose to form parties and guilds in-game, with guilds coming with their own Stash chests for items to be shared about. I joined Lone in game for about an hour or so and while I do wish we’d had voice options in-game (there might be some, I just didn’t find them) it was quite fun to team up and have a health bar so I could see how my team-mate was doing. Especially as we were on equal footing, with Lone being melee and myself being range we had a good monster fighting balance.

Overall then, PoE is quite a good game, especially as being a free-to-play means it’s good value. If nothing else, it’s made me who usually avoids this game genre want to keep on playing. And that’s got to mean something.

Along with many other popular and easily accessible multiplayer games, Minecraft is a commonly chosen medium in which many smaller video makers and players in general will make videos with. This can take the more traditional form of screen captured footage being edited into videos which are then uploaded the the video sharing website of choice or live events can be held in which the footage is broadcast to an audience ‘live’ with a few seconds delay. Both generally require the ‘camera person’ to own and be able to use additional programs that run alongside the game, and this can eat up a computer’s memory. However there might be a solution, for the livestreamers among us as well as the video makers in an indirect fashion.

Today Mojang announced that they are working with popular gaming livestream site, Twitch, to get “native livestreaming support” for both the Mac and PC versions of the game. Twitch has said that it will be a standard implementation with chat and both companies say that the relevant updates should be available to users sometime ‘soon’.

More details should hopefully be emerging soon, but as a video maker I think this could turn out to be a very useful tool. Provided any bugs can be sorted out quickly.

After a week of teasers, the first official trailer has arrived for The Lego Movie, and it’s every bit as ace as were were hoping!

Having had our whistles officially whetted by yesterday’s Batman and Superman snippet, the full version has finally arrived, and it more than lives up to the hype.

Directed by Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Chris McKay, and featuring the vocal talents of Will Ferrell, Chris Pratt and Will Arnett, The Lego Movie will open in the UK on 14 February 2014.

Check out the new trailer below!

What do you think of the new trailer? Tell us, below!

Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.

Spoilers Ahead!!! so if you don’t want the story ruined, beware!

Ok, first I have to say thanks to Cineworld for showing this as a Double Bill with Thor 1 (the Extended Cut) aswell, so a good catch up on the story and actually seeing Thor 1 on the big screen again actulaly made the first one STRONGER for me, is it was generally considered the weakest of the Avengers Phase 1 movie line up.  The other big thing about Thor 1, was that it was considered the Star Wars style space opera of the Avengers film line up and Thor: The Dark World lives up to that comment immensely, and shows some of the Star Wars talent that has joined the Marvel/Disney line up now

The biggest thing you first notice (if you recognise the cast at all, which some didn’t), is that the cast list is majority bumped up in Thor: The Dark World with some big name actors and actresses returning from the first and getting a LOT more screen time aswell, but also some good cast changes

The setting is the strongest point here, it’s not set in America at all, but in our very own leafy London and also Asgard, but London has a solid half of the film time and Marvel, through some really clever and beautiful shots (and probably copious amounts of CGI) actually make the English capital City look pretty nice (I don’t like London to be honest, I actually don’t like cities at all, but London just makes me sad) and the main bad guy tearing up London is amusing on a geek level, considering Malekith is played by 9th (or is that 10th now?) Doctor Christopher Eccleston. He is genuinely creepy in his portrayal of Malekith, a Dark Elf that lost the war against Odins Father, Thor’s Grandfather, Bor (Tony Curran)

The biggest thing you notice between the two Thor movies is just how much Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has grown up and matured.  The first film was about him changing from being a brat of a warrior, into a King and leader of men (and then becoming part of a team in Avengers), however in Thor: The Dark World, he is learning to love and be a symbol and a peace keeper in the 9 realms.  Plus, for the ladies, more gratuitous naked chest shots (lots of gasps in the cinema last night).

On the other side of that character growth by Thor is his fathers, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is getting older, he wants to pass the mantle of king to Thor, but Thor won’t accept it, he has a job to do and peace to keep.   But Odin is getting old, he’s getting weaker and there was a level of desperation to the character this time.  Anthony Hopkins plays Odin amazingly, he looks fantastic in the costumes (I actually preferred his armour to Thor’s) and he gets to kick some ass in this film aswell, leading his army against the dark Elves, but looking like it takes him an effort.  Anthony Hopkins has made this role his own, especially with his relationship on screen with wife Frigga (Rene Russo), which is nearly heart breaking, but Rene Russo is amazing, looks stunning and kicks ass aswell.

Now, the biggest, yet smallest cast change I noticed was in the Warriors Three, who play a much bigger part in the film this time, Ray Stevenson is back as Volstagg, kicking ass this time rather than lounging around mostly eating, Jaimie Alexander reprises the role of Sif, again pining after Thor, Tadanobu Asano is only in the film as Hogun for about 5 minutes, staying on his home realm to help rebuild after an attack, BUT Zachary Levi (Chuck) takes over the role of Fandral from Josh Dallas this time and it shows.

The Earth based support cast is unchanged (Actor wise) but are in very different places in life, Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is rather unhinged after his possession by Loki in Avengers, and arrested by the police for streaking naked around Stone Henge, Stellan does an amazing job playing this role again, he brings incredibly humour, but also a level to the character that makes you believe he is a scientist that knows what he’s doing. Darcy (Kat Dennings) is still helping the group, but this time has her OWN intern/minion/lackey and makes the most of it. But of course Thor’s love interest, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), is the main billing here and after two years of searching for Thor and ways to connect to Asgard to find him, has finally started meeting other men and we first see her on a date with comedian Chris O’Dowd‘s character, Richard.   SeaBass…  SeaBass, SeaBass, SeaBass…

Yet again though, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) steals the show.  From initially being placed in Asgardian jail (which looks pretty swanky to be fair), to helping Thor and Jane Foster later in the film, to his obvious double crossing (didn’t see that coming…)But I am worried about the over arching use of Loki in the Avengers movies.  He is brilliant for fan service, but he stands the chance of over shadowing the storylines of other villains, as we know that the big baddie for Avengers 2 will be Ultron and Avengers 3 will be Thanos, I wonder how Loki will get involved with this and pull the strings of the storyline over Avengers Phase 2 and 3.I love Tom Hiddlestons Loki, I would actually happily go and see a Loki film, as he has made the character strong enough to not only hold his own on screen, but actually totally over shadow Thor, who’s film it actually is.

As I said before, the Star Wars influences are totally seeping through in Thor 2, and it benefits from it a lot.  Thor 2 is a far stronger movie than Thor 1 and I would actually say that it is stronger than IronMan 3 (which I gave an 8/10 for back in April), which was a little weak in the story department, but was about character and story development, especially with the building of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and the Extremis storyline that is being pushed in the tv show.

Thor: The Dark World is a special effects tour de force, it looks and sounds great, although I wasn’t bothered by the 3D, which seemed underused, as it did in IronMan 3 aswell.  I would actually happily go and watch it again at the cinema, but this time in 2D

A definite 8.5 outta 10

Bazinga Tony stark!
~Lone