STG's

Swords and Soldiers HD is a strategic game that you may have seen in many flash games - each side produces combinations of soldiers, and send them into the field. Swords and Soldiers HD uses pretty much this model, with upgrades (extra units and spells) and spells (Heal, lightning, Rage, etc). Graphics are good, but sounds are borderline annoying, even for a little while. Overall I feel the game is OK and mildly entertaining.

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Nine's Legacy - by Pittacus Lore - is the latest book in the Lorien Legacies. Like all others in The Lost Files sub-series, this one is pretty short - I believe it took me something like an hour or so to read it. This book takes us on the events just before Nine's appearance on a Mog cell on the end of Power of Six . It also has a tiny scene with Nine and Four that takes place after Power of Six, and thus moves the story along (the whole scene could be summed up in one sentence, however). Compared to Six's Legacy , Nine's Legacy at least is pretty much all original content - no repeated scenes. Overall, I recommend it to fans of the series. Yes, it is VERY short, but it is also cheap, and good enough for the money/time involved.

Recently I decided, at someone's suggestion, to get a real logo for my site. Previously what I had on my site header was pure text, and the icons for my main apps with links to them (which I'm told is bad for SEO - never got around to fixing it, though). I just looked at my enormous icon folder for adequate icons, selected a hard drive and a printer (which jointly represent my main app, FolderPrint , and put something together. You can see the final result in my Disk Usage for Windows page, for example. One part I liked is the effect of floating the image slightly above the rest of the header. This is easy to do in CSS: .logo { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 50%; margin-left: -420px; } The important part here is that the margin-left should be minus half the width of the image. Unfortunately, the image is a transparent PNG (which is the reason of the cute icon shadows), which doesn't work in IE6. However, IE6 has about 1% of my current traffic, so I...

A Rising Thunder - by David Weber - is the latest installment in the Honor Harrington series. As of the last books, the plot created by the Mesan Alignment is finally exposed, while the undeclared war with the Solarian League is warming up. The book was fairly exciting (well, in the traditional Weber sense, which includes very long and thoughtful pauses in the action where the main characters have long discussions). While there was at least one of the traditional space battles heavy on tactics, it was very short, and well before the ending - which consisted mostly of battles of the political kind. In that sense, the book is a bit of a letdown, but I have no doubt that other fans of the series will still enjoy A Rising Thunder. PS: Almost forgot - you can also get this as a DRM-free e-book on Baen , for a very cheap US$6. And it is easy to read on your Kindle (or iPad) - you can just e-mail it to the Kindle's e-mail address.

I had heard how Duke Nukem Forever was bad, but after playing the demo, it seemed OK. Then I bought it at a sale and started playing the full version... Now not only I believe, I know. The whole Duke joke, with trophies of him around, semi-naked woman etc, is entertaining. The graphics are acceptable, and pretty good at some points. What is horrible is the gameplay. It's annoying, almost all of the time. I don't know how they managed it, but it is probably worse than the original Duke Nukem 3D - and that is considering playing it now, not back then. There were whole sections where I continued playing in disbelief of how awkward things were. And then they just did again...

Sol: Exodus is a space shooter that uses the Unreal Engine. The graphics are quite beautiful, specially the planets and space. The story is good enough. What I really didn't like is the gameplay. You see, most of the space shooters I remember loving are OLD. I loved Tie Fighter and Elite. The newest I can think of is Tachyon: The Fringe, and this was over a decade ago. I'm not sure if my memory is deceiving me, but I recall them as being a lot more fun and complex than this. I'm not sure if it gets better after the first mission, but the demo certainly isn't enough to get me interested - much to the contrary.

Back when it was new, I played Jagged Alliance. I'm not sure how innovative the tactical approach to battles were, but I had never played one before, and I really enjoyed it. Jagged Alliance - Back in Action, looks pretty similar in many ways, except that with pretty good graphics. However, I don't think I ever got the hang of the demo - it is extremely hard for me to kill anyone without a member of the team getting badly hurt (except for using grenades).

I have just finished WWW Wonder - by Robert J. Sawyer. This is the third part of a series (I have reviewed WWW Watch previously. The series are about the spontaneous rise of an AI - WebMind - which exists spread across packets in the Internet. The technical underpinnings of the novel are weak, but that goes with the territory. The last book ended after the AI made itself public and the government tries to kill it. This one is mostly about Webmind starting to help mankind in many ways, while people are still struggling to accept it, and some still want to kill it. While it might me make look less friendly to future AIs who read this post :-), I sort of agree with the principle used by the military on the book - if you get an AI evolving at an exponential rate, the logical thing to do is try to kill while you still can. Yes, it is kind of bad, but it still makes sense (popping into my head while I write this - Neal Asher's Quiet War, by which the AIs end up ruling mankind,...

I have been reading Analog Science Fiction and Fact since the early 90's. Back in 04, I started subscribing to the e-book edition, on Fictionwise. However, in the last few years, the subscription option disappeared. I've also gotten lazy about transferring new books to the device, as the usual book just come automatically through WiFi. I have read the Analog's formatting has improved, and since it is so cheap, to subscribe to it on the Kindle. I have to say that the new formatting is fairly acceptable. Personally I think that having links to each section, and being able to skip to the next item is almost useless for the magazine, and takes up space, but it is not a problem - on the Kindle. I also read on my Android (Galaxy S), and on it the magazine is pretty awful. It doesn't remember where I stopped, and neither does it allow highlights. Very annoying! About this issue: - The serial was Triggers - by Robert J. Sawyer, which is a writer from who I usually...

Scoregasm is an old school shooter. It is not one of the frantic button pushing type, as regular firing is automatic. Graphics are very nice in a retro style. The basic style is unusual, as your game field is a circle or square in the center of the screen, and enemies popping up at the borders. Sound is OK, but the music was borderline annoying, even after only a few seconds. The introduction has a nice comic nod to how thinly veiled are the plots of most shooters. There is an adequate selection of different enemies, as well as power-ups such as triple shot, homing missiles, etc. You also get a close range attack that you can actually fire at will. I don't actually enjoy the gameplay much - but it has been quite a while since I enjoyed this kind of shooter. If you really like the genre, it might be worth your time checking the demo.

Star Prospector is a top view game where you go piloting a big mech around the universe to far-away planets mining, fighting enemies and building bases. It seemed pretty interesting. However, the pace of the game and the silly battles grow quickly tiresome. The graphics and sound are OK, at best. But it is the gameplay that made me stop playing. Not recommended.

Intergalactic Medicine Show issue 26 was pretty good, with unusual story approaches to old themes. Remains of the Witch - Tony Pi - A neat look into Oz's witch of the West and her favorite winged monkey. Arkmind - Niall Francis McMahon - A ship's computer, all alone after all humans died, suddenly becames sentient. Lovely ending. Contaminant Source Removed - K.G. Jewell - Pretty funny magic story. The Lair of the Twelve Princesses - Amanda C. Davis - Neat turn on a classic fairy tale. Story with Pictures and Conversation - Brontops Baruq - This story won an award for best brazilian SF. It takes the form of a report of an official about a child's journal written while Earth is being invaded by hostile aliens. Somewhere on a Flattened Earth - David Lubar - Very short story about old "truths". Excerpt from Ruins - Orson Scott Card - Ruins is the second book in the Pathfinders series - I didn't read the first one, so the beginning of this had parts t...