STG's

I just finished Borderlands and so I bought the DLC pack. When fast traveling to Jacob's Cove to access Zombie Island, the loading screen went on and on without disk activity. How do you get it to continue? Well, what happened is that an activation window for the content popped up in the background, where there was no chance of me seeing it. You have to alt-tab to it (and for some reason I couldn't get the mouse to go there, but it works with just the keyboard), and then enter the serial for Zombie Island. After that it will go online to activate the DLC, and after a while it will be able to finish loading. Overall, a horribly implemented idea. All other DLC I ever bought just appeared in the game without further work in my part. AFAIK it is trivial for the program to use the Steam API to do it. No idea why they did it this way in this case... Amazon.com Widgets

The Power of Six - by Pittacus Lore - is the sequel to I am Number Four . It is quite common for sequels to be worse than the original. This one felt a little shorter, but overall it was probably as good as the first - if not better, as the most annoying stuff in story logic and ridiculous battle scenes (with the dark realm) were not present here. The book is a direct sequel, after the big school battle, John and Sam are being chased as terrorists. Another of the garde enter the story and there is a lot of going back and forth between them. On my Kindle book, there was no division between some of these segments, and on the spots where they quickly flipped between the stories that was a bit jarring. There are plenty of battles, and the ending is clearly built-up for suspense for other sequels (which I'll buy right when it is released). The Kindle version I saw had an extended scene (pretty weak), audio messages from Pittacus Lore (supposedly the alien leader, trying to warn ...

Renegade Ops is a very nice looking arcade drive-and-shoot game. The graphics are great, and one of the biggest points in the sales pitches is the number of explosives and destroyable structures. I have to agree, and it looks great. However, I hate the control scheme. It uses WASD as most games, however it uses it to indicate the direction to drive - instead of the W for accelerate, A and D to steer and S for brake and reverse. Seems like a small change, but even after playing for a while I'm constantly bothered by it. I'm not sure I'd enjoy the game with another control scheme, but with this one, I really didn't. Because of this, not recommended at all.

Trine 2 is a platformer that uses the same formula used in Trine, as well as many games over the years ( The Lost Vikings - From 1992 - comes to mind). You control 3 characters magically rolled into one, each with different abilities. You then face puzzles which need you to choose the right ability and the right thing to do with them. Trine 2 is quite beautiful. The music is nice but quite repetitive - I quickly got tired of it. Everything seems pretty much like the first game, so if you liked it, you will probably like this one too. However, I have to say that after half an hour, I started to get annoyed with the fairly similar puzzles, as well as the less-than-stellar combat. I recommend trying the demo before buying.

I've just watched I am Number Four - the movie. While I realize that a lot of people hated it, I really liked it. Sure, I realize that some points of the plot don't make sense, and that the whole story seems forced. But I still enjoyed the fights and the special effects. That is when I decided to read the book. I mean, how frequently have I said that a movie was better than the book? Almost never. Unfortunately, that book was one of those cases. OK, pretending that the author is an alien trying to warn Earth is cute. But the mishmash of SF and fantasy really annoyed me. For example, either they didn't explain it in the movie or I missed it - why are they being killed in sequence? The book explains - it is a charm that makes them invulnerable, unless they get the next one in the sequence. Oh. Also, their superpowers. I would have hoped for the classic SF hand waving - the talents were bio engineered by a long lost tech by their ancestors (I'm thinking of Neal...

Satazius is a REALLY old school arcade shoot'em up. In fact I just went and checked the release date, in case Steam just added a decade old game and I didn't realize. It does look OK for the chosen theme. But the control scheme is incredibly annoying (the menus go back and forth using Z and X?!?! Escape closes the program immediately?!?), and I no longer can handle the annoyance of a single hit blowing you up. I guess they do deserve props for the authenticity of their work, but I didn't enjoy it at all, and don't recommend it.

Prador Moon, by Neal Asher, is another novel of the Polity. This one covers the beginning of the Prador war - right when the the Prador and the Polity had first contact. I particularly enjoyed the extra detailed explanation into Prador armor and augs. The ending is satisfying but while the book pretend to be coy about it, it gives too much away for it to be anything close to a surprise. Recommended for those who are already fans of the Polity books.

The start up movies in Borderlands! are quite annoying. OK, the Nvidia logo with the Claptrap is cute - but not after a few times. You can easily remove them by editing some INI files . Go to "USER NAME\Documents\My Games\Borderlands\WillowGame\Config" and find the file named WillowEngine.ini Comment out (//) all entries on [FullScreenMovie]. Go to this page for more details and tweaks.

Borderlands calls itself a RPS - Role Playing Shooter. They say it as if it was new, but I'd say that it has been done many many times, with varying results. The one thing that is fairly unique about Borderlands is the visual, cartoonish style, which looks great and at the same time seems to bother my eyes after playing for a while. The characters are pretty well made too, with very different looks. The gameplay reminds me of Fallout 3 - you go around and talk to people, get missions and fulfill them, while getting stuff you can find around you and getting attacked by the local monsters and bandits. It also has plenty of different weapons, and seem to go on even more about their uniqueness - they all seem to have different bonus on accuracy, damage or recoil, or special stuff such as explosive, fire or lightning damage. Meanwhile you accumulate experience points. Some guns, shields or class mods require minimum levels, plus you can get improvements to your special action. ...

I've recently tried Star Wars: Force Unleashed II on the XBOX 360, and while I didn't really like it, it reminded me of the fact that I already bought Star Wars: Force Unleashed for PC on a Steam sale a while ago. So I downloaded it - 25GB! and played a bit. It looks pretty great, and I really loved the amount of damageable objects on the opening level. Lots of stuff exploding into pieces. The trees is particular looked pretty nice. The control scheme and gameplay still feels a bit more on the videogame style than a PC FPS, but it is much more tolerable. There is a nice progression system, in which you get extra talents,combos and powers. Overall, I think it is OK - maybe good. If you are a big Star Wars fan, you will probably enjoy it, but I can't help but feel that it could be a lot better.

Rock of Ages is clearly a member of a very old game subgenre - where you roll some round object to an objective, while avoiding falling. Those are the boulders you use to destroy enemies, their structures, defenses and ultimately destroy their gates and kill their leader. However, it adds much more, as there is a tower defense component on both sides - even on single player. You build stuff such as Towers (which just stay there), cows and elephants (which block and damage your boulder) and catapults (which deflect and damage). It looks pretty good and has an unusual art style, specially on the cinematics. I particularly liked how they pulled the theme of the game of the Sisyphus myth - he got tired of rolling that rock up the hill all the time, and decided to use it to broke out of Hades. Pretty funny. It is somewhat interesting, but I'm not sure how fun the gameplay will be after playing more.

Orbus, by Neal Asher, is the third book in the SpatterJay series. It changes the setting quite a bit from the two previous volumes - almost nothing of the story passes on SpatterJay. But ultimately, it is all about SpatterJay. In particular, we get a full explanation of the origin of the SpatterJay virus, its purpose, and why it has almost magical powers. It is hard to go on without dropping lots of spoilers, but I can say that the story of Vrell continues and end in a very satisfying manner, and that Orbus (I mean, duh! It is in the title!), Sniper and Thirteen are back, and that the book ends in the typical heavy battle. Recommended, and I have to say I'm a bit sad to see the end of the series. Thankfully, I've got several books to go with the Polity yet. I just bought Prador Moon and will read it soon enough.

SkyDrift is an old school plane race game, complete with the traditional boosts and weapons, such as cannons, missiles, mines and more. The graphics are very good, and the gameplay is fun while still being challenging. I like it, and I recommend checking out the demo if you like this kind of game.

Fruit Ninja is a Kinect game for XBox 360. The theme sounds spectacularly silly - you have to use hand moves with Kinect to slice fruits in mid air, while avoiding bombs. There are also special fruits, such as frozen bananas, which slow down time. I wouldn't even have tried it, except that the same friend who convinced me to get the XBox told me to try it several times. I was pleasantly surprised - this is quite fun. You get oriented by a shadow version of your Kinect image - which both fits the ninja theme well and is very helpful. The one thing I noticed is that I have to take it easy in this game - if I overdo it I get really sore shoulders the next day! I really recommend trying the demo .

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II looks pretty good. The effects and sounds are great, and the cutscenes look nearly perfect. The force powers are well spread along the controller, too. However, I pretty much hate it. Why? I'm not sure, but I really don't like this particularly top view with flipping relative fronts. Maybe it is because I'm too used to FPS, and because I really liked Jedy Knight II and the others in that line. But the end result is that The Force Unleashed II feels too arcade for me. Note: I only played the demo. Given how I really didn't like it, I doubt the full version would change my mind.

I've recently got a XBOX360 and Kinect, and so far this is the game I've liked the most. It has a few sports and minigames. Soccer: The system is quite clever - you don't really play soccer per se, but get a bunch of semi turn based situations that are a lot like soccer. For example, you can intercept passes, kick the ball, try to defend goals. It is pretty fun. Volleyball: pretty good too. You mostly have to touch the balls as they come in, as well as jump for the shots over the net. Track & Field: not so much fun, and a bit hard on my knees. I have to run with knees really high for it to work properly. Bowling: I didn't really like this one. Probably the control system is annoying me. Table Tennis: pretty fun. I really played a lot of the real thing as a kid, and this version is nice. Of course, you just need to contact the ball, but at least you can put a spin on it. Boxing: nice. It is not as therapeutic as putting on gloves and hitting a dummy, but...

I just got a XBox 360 with Kinect. It is my first videogame console since 88, when I sold my Intellivision (to buy more computer hardware, of course). I have been playing all that long, but only on the PC. What changed my mind was Kinect (and a friend who just got one talking a lot about it). You see, I'm pretty happy with the keyboard and mouse. And I've always felt that console games were, in sometimes subtle ways, less complex and interesting than PC games. The games I've played so far didn't change my mind in that aspect. Kinect Adventures or Sports, with a regular controller, would be generic and silly. But with Kinect, they are quite cool. I enjoyed pretty much every game on Kinect Adventures, and got a serious workout - even though I go to the gym three times a week and still do light exercise on most of the other days. That is, of course, something that I can't say for any other game I've every played. So, how good is the tracking? It is just...

A Beautiful Friendship - by David Weber is a larger version of a story previously published on one of the Honorverse anthologies - More than Honor. The story follows how an ancestor of Honor Harrington, who just moved to Sphinx, discovers and then forms a relationship with the telephatic, sentient local life form - the Treecats. It is pleasant, but it does feel like a young adult book. In fact, overall it very much feels like a B direct-to-TV movie, with a young hero which is oh so much smarter than the adults beside her, and with the help of her pet saves the day.

Rochard is an interesting platformer. Your main gun mostly acts as the Half Life 2 gravity gun, except that it can also fire lasers, and you can also reduce the local gravity. Gameplay is mostly about knocking out enemies, bots and auto guns, by launching and dropping box and explosives or firing at them. A big part of the puzzles is also the use of fields. Each color has a function - red won't allow people to pass, yellow doesn't allow equipment, etc. So far I like the puzzles, but I'm not sure if it won't get too repetitive - that was a complaint in some reviews. Graphics are pretty good and I really like the music. The Orchard Soundtrack is available as DLC on Steam. Overall, I recommend checking out the trailer and buying the game if you like what you see (unfortunately, I couldn't find a PC demo right now).

I've recently purchased Rochard (my Rochard Review ), and I since I liked the trailer soundtrack decided to purchase it (it is pretty cheap when you buy the game). I couldn't find any obvious place to get me to it on Steam. A quick search on the Steam folder found it on c:\games\steam\SteamApps\common\rochard\Rochard - The Original Videogame Soundtrack It includes the music on 320kbps MP3s, as well a very nice cover JPG and a nice looking PDF booklet. There are some very nice songs in there, specially Grinder's Blues and Rochard Main Theme. Space Debris and John's Theme are pretty good too.

One thing that has bothered me for a while is the fact that every one of my blog post page titles starts with the blog name. While in my case that is very short (just STG's), it still is worse for SEO than just the post title. A quick look showed me how to fix it . It is very easy to hide your blog title on Blogger. You just need to do a simple edit on your template (Design->Edit HTML on Blogger) Then you find <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> And replace it with: <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/></title> </b:if>

The Voyage of the Sable Keech , by Neal Asher, is the second book in the Spatterjay series. In the first book of the series , a reification - a high tech zombie that is driven by a recording of his own mind (usually) got resurrected by nanotech. What isn't clear in the first book is that not only this isn't common - it just has never happened before. Thus, a mass of other reifications are coming to Spatterjay to try to get themselves resurrected too. Obviously that is not going to go very well... Most of the characters of the first book are back. Of interesting note is that Captain Ron now flies spaceships, Olian Tay made a sprine bank that now is the basis of Spatterjay's economy, and the adolescent Prador, of course, survives. Also, Janer is involved in a skirmish between hive minds that may destroy Spatterjay... As usual on Asher's books, the Spatterjay virus leaves people, Pradors or Giant Whelks capable of almost anything, including massive, nearly instan...

Lost Adventures is the latest DLC for Orcs Must Die! What you get is: - Five New levels: these seem to be more or less on the same level of cleverness/difficulty/fun as the original levels. The Reverse Tower is a bit of cheating - it is The Tower level from the original game in reverse, with the doors on the upper two levels and the Rift down below. - Two New Enemies: the Frost Bat, which is basically the regular HellBats from the regular game releasing ice, and the Cyclops mage, which is OK. - New Trap: the Mana Well can supply you with mana. Not very exciting. It doesn't add a lot of stuff, but for US$3.99 it is good value if you already like the game. If you still want to upgrade any of the traps, the extra skulls (up to 50) should come in handy. It wasn't obvious (at least to me) how to play the new levels. I'm posting on a separate article how to play the new levels in Lost Adventures .

When you buy Orcs Must Die: Lost Adventures it is not all the obvious how to play the new levels. However, it is very easy - just click on Play and look for the button Change Campaign. Click on it to change to Lost Adventures and you can start playing.

The Hot Gate:Troy Rising III  by John Ringo follows Live Free or Die and  Citadel  into what is called the Troy Rising series. The series covers the events after Earth gets an interestellar gate, galactic tech and some new enemies. The fight continues on the third book, with extra battlestations being built. The main focus is on the Termopylae,  which - in a possibly offensive way to all south americans -  is filled with incompetent spacers from Argentina, Chile, Equador and other south american countries. Apparently they are useless because of their culture. I guess since Ringo kept Brazil off the list, I can't be nearly as offended... Another AI breakdown happens (apparently they are a lot buggier than initially apparent, as one breaks down per book since the 1st...), Tyler and Dana Parker's relationship continues to develop, and as usual there is a massive battle to end the book. Pretty good, as usual,

Data Jammers: FastForward is a very nice looking, retro style game, which reminds me of a "lane hopping" game design that I remember playing in arcades and my Intellivision back in the 80s. From what I've seen in the demo, you hop between lanes (which divide with very nice visuals, which reminds me of Tron Legacy) and use bombs or pushing to destroy your enemies. It all looks great, and the trailer theme is adorable, but in practice I really don't get the gameplay. Enemies seem to come from everywhere, and all you have is area off effect bombs, which you can't really use all the time as you only get a couple and the eventual replacement. I don't recommend it. But if you really think you are going to like it, try the demo first, which is only a few megabytes.

The Haunted: Hells Reach is an unusual third-person based demon hunting game. It seems to have a lot of things I don't like - it is third-person based, no tutorial at all (there is a how to play section in the menu), and enemies that pop out of nowhere right in front of you. Graphics are pretty good. Punching and kicking is OK and there are a few different moves. You can also shoot with a handgun, shotgun or commando rifle. Overall, I didn't like it, but without a tutorial or explanations I don't think I really got the game at all. I'll update this post if I play more.

The Skinner  - by Neal Asher - is the first of the SpatterJay series. I had heard it was pretty good, but I ended up reading the Ian Cormac series first. It was pretty good, so I didn't think the SpatterJay series could be much better. I was wrong. Very wrong. The Skinner was simply awesome. Asher seems to take a lot of pleasure in creating incredibly complex ecologies with horrible, yet believable creatures. Spatterjay, with the "magic" virus that can keep humans living forever while changing, and a veritable panoply of dangerous creatures, is easily one of his best. There were plenty of battles and action on the book, and a new ECS agent - Sable Keech. The ending was quite satisfying yet leaving plenty for the rest of series. I already bought the next one, of course. Very strongly recommended. Get The Skinner now at Amazon

Dungeon Defenders is a very nice looking Tower Defense/RPG . It uses Unreal as the game engine and it really shows in the beautiful graphics. My problem with it is the interface. It uses an incredibly annoying top view camera, which I pretty much hated. The movement also feels more like a RPG with indirect control, but it uses FPS controls. So I really couldn't bear it for more than a few minutes. I have been playing Orcs Must Die!  - which in theory is similar, but have very different controls and that probably didn't help. Really not recommended. Try  Orcs Must Die!  instead.

Lightfish is another QIX clone. For those that don't remember it, you walk only or borders, and must enclose a region of space, without being touched while drawing the limits. It is not particularly bad, and the graphics are quite good (in a retro way), but I'm not a fan of the keyboard based control-scheme, and that really ruined it for me. One QIX clone I really liked was  Cosmo Bots  (Warning: download link). The different bugs and map shapes made it quite fun, and I really preferred the mouse based control scheme. I'm a bit amazed that they still sell it for US$20 after all those years, though!

Since I tried to install an update about a month ago, I've been unable to use iTunes. I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times, but there was always a new error. Quicktime wasn't installed properly, Apple Software Support wasn't installed (but trying to install made the installer complain that it was already installed), and several more. What did solve my problem was following this article by Apple  . In particular, I looked at these folders and some of them still had files after I uninstalled everything. Re-installing iTunes now seemed to solve everything. BTW, I can't help but feel that the Windows version of iTunes (at least, I've never used the Mac version) is horribly full of flimsy dependencies. There are a ton of similar complaints about the web. At least they are now designing their iOS so that you don't really have to use it for downloads or upgrades...

I've just tried to run Orcs Must Die! , but I had a problem. It wouldn't run at all, just launch the icon and then disappear quietly. I found the solution in this FAQ  by the game authors. It is fairly easy: - Find the game on Steam (if you have a large list like me, might be easier to switch to Recently Played games first) - Right-click on the game title - Choose the Local Files tab - Verify Integrity of Game Cache There were 8 files with problems on mine. After that the game ran fine. And I have to say that so far I like it a lot - see Orcs Must Die! Review  for my opinion. Amazon.com Widgets

Citadel  - by  John Ringo is the second book in the Troy Rising series. I have read and reviewed Live Free Or Die  last month. In the series, an interestellar gate is installed near Earth,  and trouble soon ensues. But Earth is fighting back, and Troy is the biggest weapon - a massive asteroid, with plenty of guns and armor. In the second book, there is a lot expansion into secondary characters, and an interesting view from another angle of the shuttle incident in the end of the first book. Of course, the fight continues in neat ways. While it is a bit of spoiler, I was surprised that it took this long for the characters to go with a Project Orion style propulsion. Very good, strongly recommended.

Orcs Must Die! is an awesome tower defense/FPS game. Tower Defense/FPS is not a particularly common genre, but there are a few of them out there - such as Sanctum or Iron Grip: Warlord  . Orcs Must Die! is quite simple - you have to defend the Time Rifts in a bunch of different castles from an horde of Orcs. You will do it with weapons - such as a sword or a crossbow - and traps - on the demo all you get are floor spikes, wall arrows, tar traps and exploding barrels. This allow for quite a bit of strategy in the placement. There are also crossbow and sword defenders, but at least on the demo they are at fixed positions. The traps are also upgradable, and it looks like you collect new traps during the campaign. Another strategic element is that you only have a few slots, so you will have to pick which traps are best for your strategy and specific castles. Graphics are great and so is the sound. I love the gameplay in the demo. It is just at the appropriate side of frantic...

Astro Tripper is yet another space shooter. I've been playing these since the 80s, and I can't say that Astro Tripper has anything new. I've also seen nicer graphics on flash versions (although there are some nice looking effects). I didn't enjoy it at all. Really not recommended.

Xotic is an unusual FPS. The theme is somewhat trippy - a mental entity called the Orb went crazy and it taking bodies across planets, which devastate them. You are another weird entity that will fix the planets  -mostly by shooting at red balls - and take on the orb. The graphics are OK enough, (and some items, such as the alien plants, look very nice) but I can't help but find that the style of the gameplay reminds of the Doom clones back in the 90s. Not recommended - the game play is mostly annoying.

I just got Frozen Synapse in the latest Humble Bundle. I've been meaning to check out their demo for a while, but never got the time. The game is in an interesting middle of the road as genre goes. I've played a few turn-based games (my fondest memories being of Silent Storm), but Frozen Synapse is not really like that - it feels more like a shooter puzzle. I like the gameplay, but I didn't really get the hang of it yet, so I'm still being massacred :-) Graphics look very nice, with the whole neon theme, and explosions look great. It is always fun to see a game that allows explosions to properly take walls. Since it is so different from most game I recommend that you try the demo first.

Very cool looking new views for your blogs: It is nice to see some innovation from Blogger - frankly I thought Google have given up on it!

Demolition Inc. is a very neat 3D chain reaction game. You are an alien who has to destroy all cities on Earth to return the planet to a pristine state. Apparently they were all out of ray guns, because you will have to work with oil, glue, explosive cows and the like to set chain reactions with cars and trucks to destroy buildings. The demo is VERY short, but I liked it. You have to suck the debris, both to get bonuses and so that the cars and trucks can keep moving. I've heard complaints of debris getting stuck, but didn't have any problems. My sole complaint is that for whatever reason it decided to start on monitor 1 instead of the primary monitor, which is very uncommon (I think I've seen another game do this a few years ago). You do have an option to switch to whatever monitor you want, so it is not that annoying. I recommend that you download the demo and try it out. Update: The game was on sale and I bought it. Turns out that the demo levels were way more...

Heat Rises  by Richard Castle (well, not really as he is a fictional character) is the third novel on the Nikki Heat series. The series is a tie-in with the TV series Castle. While I'm not traditionally much of a fan of mysteries, all books in the series have been good so far, and the tie-in aspects really add to my enjoyment of the books. This one is no exception. I did feel that the story on this one was more complicated, and I have to say that I never imagined who was the culprit - but I think it used the traditional Agatha Christie system of not giving up all elements that the detective has to the reader. Nice references to the show (in particular the dedication to the captain, killed in the TV series). I really liked the tiny reference to Malcolm Reynolds - the main Firefly character which was played by Nathan Fillion, the actor who plays Richard Castle. Very nice, recommended.

The Parasite, by Neal Asher  is a 1996 novella sized SF tale. It is does not take place in the Polity universe, although any casual reader familiar with Asher later works would probably assume it was - the main topic is an alien tech or species that takes over humans, making them better in the process. And it also has a  golem that someone tries to make crazy and anti-proton weapons. Clearly Asher was already interested in these topics way before he got around to the Polity books. It is a pretty good read (and in fact it had been a while since I couldn't sleep before finishing a book), and there is a nice amount of action. The ending is nice, but clearly less optimal to the creation of a continuing series than the regular Jain tech used later. On a side note, it is somewhat interesting that this is the first time Asher self-publishes. I imagine that he gets a lot more per unit than on regular books. Good look with that! Very much recommended.

Wasteland Angel is a cute top-view drive and shoot game. The action is basically driving around shooting your enemies with machines guns, napalm, missiles and more, and getting power ups. A big part of the action is saving citizens from slavers, which just entails shooting the special cars that kidnap them. One funny thing about the graphics - the most I can set here is 1680x1050. Very surprising to see on a Full HD monitor (1920x1080). It also has a very common problem - the mouse cursor is not locked to the game area. So if you have more than one monitor, one larger move and you are thrown out of the game. Gameplay is OK. The action is fairly fast, and there doesn't seem to have a lot of strategy involved. The physics of the cars is satisfying enough. It also has some nice comic style cutscenes, like this one: Overall, if you usually like that kind of game, I recommend taking a look at the demo.

I've just finished  Live free Or Die, by John Ringo. It is, oddly enough, derived from a webcomic - Schlock Mercenary  . As quite usual for Ringo, the topic is aliens suddenly attacking an ill prepared near future mankind, who rise to the challenge. I really liked this one. The book starts with an interstellar gate being installed near Earth. Right away aliens come to trade - and to demand tribute. One man figures out exactly the right thing to trade for, and builds on that to start defending the planet... Very nice tech and large scale engineering, particularly loved the "Death Star" design. Very much recommended. In fact, I just went and bought the two sequels - together with a bunch of other books - on Webscription.net

Blocks that Matter is an interesting puzzle game. The biggest innovation is that you go around absorbing cubes of matter, which can then be reused to solve the puzzle. It is interesting but I rarely like puzzle games. If you do, you might want to try the demo.

Engineering Infinity  is a wonderful collection of short hard SF stories, edited by  Johnathan Strahan.  This is one of the best of all short story collections I've ever read in recent years. Malak by Peter Watts A nice story about an AI drone. Very satisfying ending - I laughed out loud. Watching the Music Dance by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Wonderful little story about implants, a little girl and her music. Laika's Ghost by Carl Schoeder This one was quite clever, and involves data glasses, which seem to be coming back into fashion in SF with all the augmented reality apps in smartphones and tablets. Loved the use of the old Orion Project principle. The Invasion of Venus by Stephen Baxter Loved the BFG in this one!  The Server and the Dragon by Hannug Rajaniemi I really the liked the Von Neumann galaxy-wide network scheme in this one. The dragon bits were quite whimsical.  Bit Rot by Charles Stross Best of a specific Horror S...

Hard Reset is a cyberpunk FPS. The developers - Flying Wild Hog - describe it is an old school shooter. It is hard to disagree. I don't know exactly what gives it that feel, but it certainly is there. The graphics are good, although some of the objects feel like they come from an older game. The lightning arcs look great, and you will probably see a lot of them - one of the things the game encourages is blowing up electrical panels and the like to fry your enemies. Your enemies - at least in the demo - are all different kind of robots. They look very nice and seem on the quirky side - they have a few different cool looking moves. The weapons and upgrades look nice. You have the classic rifle and plasma guns, as well as many others - applied as firing modes on the projectile and energy weapons. The weapon above, for example, is an electrical mortar. It nicely spreads lightning on your enemies, and then explodes. The cut-scenes are comic book panels, with nice art. I ...

WarHammer 40,000: Space Marine  is a rather intense third-person shooter set into the WarHammer universe. I've only played the demo so far - I'll update this post if this changes. You play a Space Marine captain. Space Marines are very tough and were not only trained but altered for the task. On the game, you will usually be fighting whole hordes of Orcs, and be attacked from many different directions at once. You have both ranged weapons - pretty standard fare - or close-ranged weapons such as chainsaws and power axes. The animations for the close-ranged weapons are pretty cool, and you can kill quite a few enemies at once with them. The game has an interesting mechanic for regaining health - you can stun enemies with a special key, and do a special execution to get more health. The executions are particularly cool and involve throwing the enemies, or gutting them with the chainsaw. Particularly nice are the jump pod sequences - jumping high in the levels is nice, ...

Vuvuzela monsters attacking, 6 guns stacked Serious Sam Double D is a 2D plataform shooter, based on the old Serious Sam franchise. Personally, I've never been a fan of the series, but this little shooter title is fun. The coolest feature on the game is the gun stacking system. You collect guns while you play, and also special connectors. Then you can stack up to 6 guns. It is a silly proposition (and looks bizarre in action), but it is fun to shoot the whole bunch of guns at once. And it is also very useful, because the bizarre enemies sure do teleport in large numbers. A interesting twist is that as those enemies die, their bodies collect on the floor. And the massive numbers can be used to cross spike pits or reach higher places. The graphics and music are acceptable, but definitely not nice. My only real complaint is unfortunately common - the mouse cursor isn't locked to the screen, which means that you can easily click out of the game if you have multipl...

 The Polynomial is a very abstract looking 3D space shooter. The game is quite beautiful, and the lines you can see in the screenshots shift with the music in very spectacular ways. It uses mostly the basic space shooter mechanics - shoot at enemies, get power-ups, with weird options for repairs (ghosts?!?!). The gameplay does not compare to the looks, and I didn't find it to be fun at all. Not recommended, but if you like this kind of shooter you should try out the demo.

Very funny. And I don't think we have to worry about the singularity or Skynet for a while yet...

I was a big fan of Deus Ex - the original 2000 game. It had a great cyberpunk theme and story, and specially great choices on how you could approach an objective. You could use stealth, non-lethal weapons or just go in guns blazing - your choice. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is very much like it in this sense. In addition, they got RPG style quests. The graphics are beautiful and the sound is good. The gameplay is a bit different from the original, with heavy use of cover and a food based energy system. There is also a mini-game when hacking, which is somewhat original and actually fun. You have plenty of options on your Augmentations, such as improved hacking, armor, cloaking, and much more. You can receive Augmentation points through XP, buy them or just find them lying around. The latter shows part of the exploration mindset in the game - it can be very rewarding to go around looking for goodies. You might have to - it is amazing how stingy the ammo is. Clearly you are n...

Very cool Portal video. Starts pretty slow, but the ending is nice.

Tidalis is an interesting puzzle game, with aspects that vaguely remind me of match-3. Basically, you have a bunch of colored arrows. Clicking on one of them starts a stream. The stream continues if it hits an arrow of the same color, and on the direction of the arrow. If a stream hits 3 or more blocks, those blocks are removed. The blocks above them fall, and streams are started for each. You can change the direction of all arrows. This allow for huge and very complex sequences of streams from a single start, and plenty of strategy. But is it any fun? Frankly, I didn't like it, although I do like several variations of match-3. You might want to try their demo before buying.

Bastion is a action RPG game. The game's description says that they redefine storytelling in the game. I guess that is fair, as the narrator reacts to what you do. As far as I can see, that mostly changes the timing and simple branching on the action, however. Still, I can't remember anyone doing this before. Graphics are beautiful - hand painted, and it really shows - and the music is quite pleasant. Visuals are quite unusual, as objects keep coming up or down from the sky, and walkaways appear as you go into a direction. The gameplay itself is not very different from the average action RPG - you go around smashing your enemies and conquering objectives. The RPG part so far is pretty minimal - basically you pick tonics that enhances your character, such as more health, extra critical chance, etc. You also choose between a few weapons and special skills. Very much worth taking a look at the demo, if you like RPGs at all. 4/5 Stars.

Wikiworld is a very nice, clever story about a world where everything is coordinated through wikis - not strictly on the current sense, but more in the sense of a collaborative framework. Paul Di Filippo is an awesome author, and known for quirky and unusual stories. Wikiworld is no exception. There are plenty of wonderful made-up technologies - but that look like they could be reality soon. That includes an internet system based on aerostats, with augmented reality (which seems to be everywhere these days), subcutaneous RFID, and a wiki based democracy - including a Wikitusion in place of a constitution. Very much recommended.

Black Swan is an interesting parallel universe story - a classic SF theme. I really like Bruce Sterling's work in general, but I can't say this story is particularly memorable. Still, it is entertaining given the time and money investment.

Alien Hallway is a nice little strategy game. This type of game is very common on Flash games - basically, you make units that meet your enemy on the other side of the game field, usually with the goal of destroying some sort of structure on the other side (castles, fortresses, etc). In this case, it is the alien teleporter. The graphics and sound are adequate (although even after just a few minutes the music was starting to get annoying). There are plenty of upgrades, but I didn't really notice much of a strategy angle - usually in this kind of game you use certain units to counter specific enemy units. The game is somewhat fun, but looks like it would get boring fast. I recommend checking out the demo first  if you are interested.

The Network is a conceptual retro style shooter. The graphics aren't bad for the retro style, but both the gameplay and the long, annoying pauses in the start and after a few levels really make it awful. Really not recommended.

Really Big Sky is an old school shooter, with a few twists. The biggest twist is that you can flip your ship into a drill. The drill is used to go through meteors and planets. You also get plenty of upgrades options. That is good, because it is very easy to die with the regular ship. The graphics are very good (specially the backgrounds and clouds), and the gameplay is fast and furious. My only complaint is that it takes away more than necessary to restart the game after going to the store.

From Dust is a new game from Ubisoft. Lately they are mostly known from incredibly annoying DRM that requires a permanent link, making pirating their programs much more attractive for paying customers. Not only do they make me activate my game and create an account (which should be trivially easy for them using Steam's API, but they wouldn't get my e-mail this way), they also patch the game I just downloaded. No progress bar, just a message and an animated icon. Nice. When it finally runs, all I get is a Connection Lost message: Had I realized it was an Ubisoft game, I probably wouldn't have bought it. And they also managed to post in their forum that it would not require you to be online - see this article for comments on this, on the supposedly bad port, and on how to get a refund from Steam. It started working. Another "perk"  from Ubisoft DRM is the huge amount of time it takes to save a game after you exit (which of course is completely unnecessary an...

Path to War  is a DLC add-on for  Red Faction: Armageddon  . It takes place just before the start of the game. Path to War consists of 4 new levels. In the first you use a flyer - as one of the cultists - to destroy the Red Faction base in preparation to the attack on the terraformer. Mostly boring and annoying. The second mission takes place entirely on a tank, and is pretty much as bad as the first. The third mission is, thankfully, on foot as Darius Mason again. It introduces the shard gun, which grabs pieces of stuff around you and throws them at your enemies. Trust me, that sounds much better than it actually is. On the fourth mission you hunt down and kill the cultist you played as on the first mission. It is by far the best, and very near the regular game. You also get a new weapon, the sharpshooter, which shoots metal spikes that can impale your enemies. Overall, I couldn't possibly recommend this. It is very very weak and also very short - which I'm n...

Burn Zombie Burn is a top-view, arcade run and gun game. As usual in the run and gun game genre, you run around while shooting at some type of enemy. In this game, as you probably guessed, it is zombies. The graphics are pretty good and in a comical style, and you get a few guns, as well as several different types of explosives. The bats are pretty fun, too. The game gets its name from the fact that you have a torch that you can use to light zombies. They are afraid of the torch, unless they are already burning. Burning zombies drop different items. I liked the game overall, but it has a problem of not capturing the mouse cursor, thus making it impossible to play on a multi-monitor configuration - you just click outside the game and it loses focus. Cut-scene are annoyingly repetitives, and I found the fact that there are no key references on tutorials a bit annoying. The tutorials are a bit slow, too. I'd probably recommend this game more if it wasn't for the proble...

This a very quick review. I got the game as a pre-release, and started playing on the first day. I never got around to writing the review, because I got annoyed at a certain part and stopped playing. This is one of the reasons why now I start writing the review after my first game session, and just update it. Overall, Crysis 2 is pretty good, and I particularly like being able to select "Powers" with fixed buttons. But what I really hated is that they pretty much killed the wonderful open world feel of Crysis, as well as the first Far Cry, and substituted it with a cookie-cutter "follow the obvious path" design. At best you get a couple of options on how to proceed. I still liked it, but that really made it a much lesser game than its predecessors.

Seamen for Sirens Mission Sea Action Land Tactical Sections Pirates of Black Cove is a strategic pirate game. There are sea and land action sequences. The Sea sequences are OK. You begin with cannons and (weirdly enough) homing missiles. These are used to destroy other ships or, in an early mission (pictured to the right), destroying moving concentric gates while avoiding musical notes from the sires. The land sections are incredibly annoying. It takes forever to get anywhere, and the action is mostly silly when you do. Graphics are pretty good - specially at sea - and the music is tolerable, although very repetitive. As mentioned before, I did not enjoy the gameplay at all. If it sounds like something you could like, I recommend you try the demo before you buy.

Edge is a retro style platformer. The basic game is really old school - move a basic shape through platforms, picking stuff up and not falling. I remember playing one of these in my ZX Spectrum back in the 80's. There is a neat use of puzzles on special blocks, including sections that fall off after you pass, move around, bump you through several positions, and switches to change other sections. The graphics are good for the theme, and sound and music are adequate. I'm not a big fan of this kind of games, so I didn't particularly enjoy the gameplay. If you specifically liked others like it, you might want to check out the demo before buying.

Limbo is a platformer with beautiful art and clever (although sometimes annoying) puzzles. The art is quite spectacular, but sound is pretty sparse. I recommend that you get the demo and see if you like it first, but be aware that the full game is pretty short.

Rule 34  by  Charles Stross, is another good near future SF book. Rule 34 says that anything that can be conceived, there is already porn about it on the net. How that relates to the story? It doesn't. In the story it was just a mild joke about the computer crime department. I think it was more of a gimmick by Stross to make the book seem a little more colorful. The main story is about a series of very unusual murders, mostly from the perspective of detectives in Scotland. The technology of most of the book is very near future, as in many of his other books. And just like them, there were a few funny comments on his blog about actual news that seemed taken from the book. Some of the tech on this book is augmented reality glasses being heavily used by everyone, 3D printers as a source of pirated materials and use of drones everywhere. The last two are already starting, and quite likely to get here soon enough (just read a news story about The News Corps use of drones.....