STG's

The Plagiarist, by Hugh Howey is a nice little SF story. In a future where quantum servers (quantum is always convenient - if there wasn't a quantum something the premise of the story wouldn't make any sense) simulate whole worlds, the main character makes a living stealing the works of other authors. Nice story, and a very good (albeit not as innovative as the rest of the story) ending. Very much recommended - not only it is good, it is also cheap and short.

Zen Bound 2 is a puzzle game I got with the Humble for Android 2. It is certainly unusual - basically your goal is to tie up an object, and cover a certain percentage of it with rope. There are other factors - such as nail bombs, that cover a large area when you touch a nail, and rope bombs, that are spread on the rope. Graphics and music are good. The gameplay is interesting, but to me it feels like something to spend a few minutes with (at most). I imagine it must be more fun in the iOS or Android versions.

Snuggle Truck - part of the latest Humble Bundle - is an adorable little physics game. Very adequate for kids. It feels a little too adorable for me after a few minutes, though. You have to transport a bunch of animals from the wilderness to the comfort of a zoo, going through terrain designed to make you spill them. You also get a rocket add-on and animals dropped in the middle of the run that you must catch. It is OK, and a theme common in flash games. The original version - Smuggle Truck - was much edgier while being mostly identical - you transported illegal immigrants instead. But the Apple store wouldn't let them release this on iOS, so the developers changed it. Supposedly you can switch between the two modes inside the game, but I couldn't figure out where (please leave a comment if you do!).

Just finished Hilldiggers - by Neal Asher. As usual, this is a Polity novel, however it doesn't happen in the Polity. The setting is between two world, colonized from Earth before the AIs took over in The Quiet War. Asher wouldn't want to skip on the bizarre creatures aspect, I imagine, so one of the world is badly toxic and the Brummalians are weird adapted humans, with a hive mind. They have been at war with the Sudorians for decades, until the Hilldiggers came about - massive ships with grav-tech weapons. Now the war is over, but after they captured an alien life form, most of the planet has gone insane... When the present time of the story starts, a Consul from the Polity (an old Captain from Spatterjay arrives on the system. And there is also a quirky AI drone, as usual. They will have to stop a civil war and genocide... Hilldiggers was very good. I'd even say it was surprisingly good for a non-series book - I usually like Asher's series more than the stan...

This issue of Asimov's was the first I've read with the new format. It is not great, but it is acceptable - specially if I stick to the Kindle instead of the Android Kindle Reader. Some notable stories in this issue were: - The Last Judgment - James Patrick Kelly. Interesting setting - aliens take look like demons decided the world was violent and troubled because of men and made us all disappear. The story is a murder investigation on this world. Pretty good. - Living in the Eighties - David Ira Cleary - cute premise - a web site is able to sync you brain in a way that can make you time travel (I imagine the author took inspiration from all the brain sync audio that is sold). One friend tries to go the past to save his girl, the other to the future to get cured of Diabetes. I didn't really enjoy this one - it mostly made me too anxious about everything that goes wrong. - Something Real - Rick Wilber - nice story in a classical setting - spies and time traveler tryi...

Waveform is an interesting puzzle game - it is based on changing the amplitude and frequency of a waveform to match items you want to collect and avoid obstacles. I've seen this as a mini-game in several other games over the years - I seem to recall it was there in Hard Reset , for example. Graphics are nice. The music is nice to start with, but gets a bit repetitive after a while. The gameplay is somewhat fun, but for me it quickly changed to annoying. Maybe it is a game that should be played only for a few minutes at a time. If this seems interesting to you, I recommend you try the demo before you buy it.

Gratuitous Tank Battles (GTB) is an interesting take on the Tower Defense (TD) genre. Before anything else, please note that it is still in beta. GTB has some interesting changes from the norm - you can play both defense and offense. You can also play against yourself - a recorded version of your attack, that is. There are plenty of units (I'd say it is probably too many), and like their other well known product, Gratuitous Space Battles (which I personally didn't like), you have an enormous amount of customizations available when building each unit. Graphics are nice, specially weapon effects glows. So far I didn't really enjoy the gameplay. I only played for a bit, because at the end of the first level it wasn't able to send the information, and thus I couldn't continue. That is an interesting way to handle it, to say the least. When I tried to alt-tab I got black screens on all monitors and had to reset my computer - I can't remember the last time...

Defenders of Ardania is a tower defense (TD) game. They did add conventions from other games genres- in particular, you send soldiers from your castle to destroy the enemy castle or other objectives - which is seen in many flash games and some PC games already. In another convention that is common since Command & Conquer in RTS games is that you can't just built towers anywhere - you extend where you can put a tower by 4 spaces every time you place a tower. Other than that game seems like conventional TD in most ways. The graphics are excellent. However, I really didn't like the gameplay - it felt more like a chore than fun. Also, it has an annoying problem with multi-monitor configurations - it starts on the lowest monitor number instead of the primary. The only fix I found is turning off the secondary monitors. That is very annoying and I've seen many complaints already. Overall, not recommended.

Defenders of Ardania has an incredibly annoying problem on my computer. In the first time in probably thousands of games I've played, the game starts on a secondary monitor (which has happened just once before) AND it doesn't a control to change the monitor. That is unacceptable here. I looked for a solution, and the only one I found was using DisplayFusion (which I have been using for some time, it is pretty good) and monitor profiles to turn off both secondary monitors. Just right-click on the Display Fusion icon and choose Monitor Profiles->Create/Edit Monitor Profiles. In the Monitor Configuration screen that appears, choose the monitors you want to turn off and change Extend Desktop to this Monitor to Disconnect this monitor. This worked properly, but it is interesting to say that Windows Explorer crashed a couple of times when I switched to my regular profile, and some apps moved from their usual location. Note that you can turn the monitors off in the regu...

All Zombies Must Die! is a mostly standard top-down view shoot-and-run, in the genre started by Llamatron. Graphics are great, and the sound is adequate. What I found lacking was the gameplay. At least in the first few levels, zombies are all the same, and pop non-stop from the ground. At this point, you can use your fist or shotgun to kill them all. You are assigned quests by gates, such as killing a number of zombies, or finding a certain item. While this was fun for a few minutes, I got bored fast. The top-view is frequently obscured by other objects, which is very annoying. ESC didn't bring up the menu, which is quite unusual for a PC game. I simply alt-tabbed out of the game and closed it from Windows. Overall, I recommend at least waiting till a demo is available for All Zombies Must Die!, or just ignoring it.

iBomber Pacific Defense is a Tower Defense(TD) game, and the sequel to iBomber Defense (which I reviewed previously). The game has adequate graphics and somewhat annoying sounds. What surprised me was how much better the gameplay is compared to the previous version. I don't know if the demo of the previous version stopped too soon, but this new version is pretty good. It has an adequate mix of towers - machine guns, cannons, rockets, air, flame towers, bombs, radar, etc. Bombs are interesting in the sense that they can be used against enemies anywhere, as well as against secondary objectives that have to be destroyed. Radar is now becoming common in TD, and increases the range of surrounding towers - but I think the range increase is too little before upgrades. Of course, towers can be upgraded. You can also use Dig In for some towers and improve defense, but at the cost of limited aiming - which you can change manually when needed. You also have points from each battl...

Shadow of the Scorpion - by Neal Asher - is a prequel to the Cormac series of books, which I previously reviewed here. It takes place on Cormac's childhood and early training as an ECS Agent. It also shows how he got Shuriken, his personal semi-AI weapon. It was nice and had some exciting points, but it lacks the momentum that the series had and thus cannot be as good as it was. The ending (about Cormac's father) was a bit telegraphed in advance, but still reasonable. Recommended for fans of the series.

Just finished my first game in Sins of a Solar Empire - Rebellion - first beta. For those that are not familiar with the series, it involves various players (AI or multiplayer) starting with a single planet and expanding their empire by fighting other players, making alliances, etc. As usual in this type of game, research and acquiring resources are very important. And unlike most other games, you can have rather massive battles. Please note that this version is still a beta. Also, I am not a reviewer - I am just playing and sharing my experience with the game. I'm not going out of my way at all to try everything in the game. First of all, it is pretty much the same game as previous Sins. It is still a relatively slow game - that can be bad or good, as each game can easily take several hours and have an epic feel in the end. I hear there are graphic improvements. Frankly, I couldn't tell any difference. But it has been a while from my last Sins game. One of the big Re...

I have to say that while I do know that Rayman is an existing franchise, I don't recall ever playing one of them. I didn't really expect to like it when I tried the demo. Rayman Origins is a platformer, where you must run, jump and attack, mostly the exact same enemy. It reminds me of Sonic - which I also mostly didn't play. Graphics are particularly beautiful, especially the water. Sounds are mostly annoying. I didn't enjoy the gameplay - it feels silly and repetitive to me. Also, it is interesting to keep in mind that it is an Ubisoft game - which usually means awful DRM. Whenever I see an Ubisoft game these days, my immediate reaction is to stay away from it.

Vessel is an interesting indie plataformer, with a Steampunk style. The main thing on the game is robots made of fluids. You can build them to hold switches for you, among other things. The robot "seeds" - which when filled with liquids become the robot - also attrack other liquids, which is used on some of the puzzles. You also have a "gun" that can suck and release liquids. Graphics and sound are good, and the puzzles are reasonably fun. Frankly I'm not very excited with what I saw in the demo, but it is worth checking out if you like plataformers and puzzles. Amazon.com Widgets

Bulletstorm is a very violent, blood and guts FPS. When it was released, there was an outcry of excessive violence and blood. I have to agree that it is likely to cause excessive violence on both teenagers and adults - it has Games for Windows Live. Games for Windows Live (GfW) is completely pointless - it is a single player game, why does it need to connect online? It is pure DRM, and implemented rather poorly - the game is already on Steam, and I can't remember the last time Steam (or Impulse's) DRM bothered me for any reason at all. GfW, however, managed to request my login (5 times already, despite clicking on the checkbox to log me on automatically), and then take a long time AND reset the computer to update. At least on the 3rd time it managed to remember my login and password. And there is still an enormous delay when starting the game to load the profile. Returning to the review of the actual game, Bulletstorm is wonderfully violent. Plenty of kicking, explosio...