STG's

Quantum Conundrum is a physics puzzle game. It really reminds me of Portal, which is the biggest mainstream example of the genre. I've heard complaints about how little of a story there is in the game, and it is fair to say so. You are a 10 years old kid who was dropped in your scientist uncle manor. Something happened and your uncle is trapped somewhere, and you use a device that controls dimensions around you to solve puzzles and keep advancing. Objects and dimensions can have less or more mass, slow motion or reverse gravity. That leads to many puzzles, starting with using the "less mass" dimension - fluffy - to move safes into places or destroy glasses with them. Overall, interesting puzzles and tones, but a bit boring so far. I'll update this as I play more.

Tiny and Big: Grandpa Leftovers is an indie 3D platformer. It is quite unusual, both in the sense of the theme - you are chasing your big brother who stole the magical pants that your grandpa left you - and in the heavy physics gameplay. You have three pieces of equipment - a laser cutter that can cut through anything, a grapple that allows you to pull objects, and a rocket launcher that allows you to push objects. You can also push objects of almost any size yourself. Those tools are mostly used to cut ramps and pillars, and move them into place to move around. Occasionally you also use the laser to drop wherever Big is on top of. Along the way you can collect stones and music tapes, which add to the music you can choose while playing. Overall, very unusual, and nice graphics, and I mostly like it. It does get a bit repetitive towards the end. You can buy it on Steam or GOG

I really love the new GOG downloader (not sure how new it is - it is the first time I've noticed it). It is not in the same league as Steam, but it is still much better than it used to be. The part I liked the most is that it can download the bonus items for a game (which can easily be in the 6-10 range) in a single click. Speed so far has been great - very near 100% of my 20 Mbps connection. I wasn't sure if I should buy a new game (Tiny and Big) there or on Steam - i.e. DRM-free or automatic downloads and updates. So far I'm satisfied that I choose GOG.

I have recently reviewed Infinity Blade II . After playing for a while I was curious to check out the original game. It is almost exactly like the sequel, except for the keys (which are mostly annoying), gems (which quite frankly I'm not sure are necessary). There is a little difference that I found a major improvement, however - in the middle of the battles, on both games you have little cut-scenes at certain damage levels on your enemies. Then they jump back, fall back, or just fall. In the first game, it doesn't matter if you just started hitting - the cut-scene starts. That  means that instead of getting in 4-6 hits and a combo, you get a tiny amount of damage. That is quite annoying, and it was fixed on Infinity Blade II. Overall, pretty good, albeit quite repetitive. The system whereas you keep beginning again (in the first game, you are supposed to be the son of the last warrior who died, continuously. Why you get all his stuff AND experience? No idea) is a great ...

Spec Ops: The Line is a squad 3rd-person view shooter. It is very much like all of them - you have to take cover and kill enemies, and can order your squad mates around a bit, such as killing specific enemies and in special occasions, using flash-bang grenades. The story is a bit unusual - apparently Dubai was lost in a massive sand storm, and your squad was sent to help a group of US soldiers that lost contact while trying to lead a mass move from the city. When your squad arrives, it soon has to fight some guerrilla fighters, although the story implies that you will fight pretty much everyone eventually. The first sequence in the demo is an helicopter rail shooter, which looks great, although it does stretch the imagination a bit - you kill something like a dozen choppers. At least they blow in cute ways, such as hitting cranes, buildings and more. The rest of the battle is pretty standard, as I mentioned. The game seems to be a bit stingy with ammo, and there are a bunch of di...

Plutonic Repulse is an unusual interpretation of the tower defense game genre. You actually have to defend yourself by "nurturing" (looks more like bribing) certain other entities to defense yourself. While the graphics are acceptable, the sounds and music tend to be annoying, and I didn't find the gameplay fun at all. Not recommended.

Atooms to Moolecules is a chemical puzzles game. Atoms drop off the top of the screen, and you drag and drop to combine them in the required molecules. It is not as simple as it may seem, since to get the bonds right you need to combine them in specific orders. I can imagine it as mildly useful on a chemistry class setting, but as a game, it just feels really annoying to me. The graphics are really old school but acceptable, and the music is incredibly annoying. But it really is the gameplay that I don't like.

Splice is an unusual puzzle game whre you must move cells to specific places. Frankly, I didn't get how it is supposed to work very well, so I only went through the first few splices. But I have to say that it doesn't seem fun at all to me.

The White Laboratory is an spectacular abstract tower defense (TD) game. It is very different from any other TD game I have ever seen. The abstract enemies keep coming to your pyramid - cubes, spheres, cilinders, prisms and wheels. Every once in a while, one of them will turn white instead of getting destroyed. When that happens, you can use it yourself. Cubes are the structure, spheres fire pellets. Cilinders rotate the cubes so that the spheres fire faster. Prisms work as lasers. To make your towers, you just drag the pieces into place. I'd say this is (and being very hard to manipulate the view) is the biggest weakness in the game, as pieces sometimes just won't lock where you want to. It is not too bad, but it is irritating. The game pauses automatically in this mode, which is a big deal as you can't (at least I don't know how) move the whole tower - just a piece at a time. As you can see in the second picture, the levels can get pretty intense. Overa...

MilitAnt is a plataform shooter. The setting is not common - you are a soldier ant, and starts with guns such as pistols, shotguns and flamethrowers. You can unlock more later. I mostly found this one annoying. You run around with enemies popping off the ground and also enemies shooting from far away (you can't shoot those, just dodge their constant fire). The graphics are more adequate for a free flash game. And while you use the menu to change your weapons, the game goes on, so there are places where you just can't use it, or you will be killed while changing weapons. I think it might have been easier to just have all available weapons cycle and have the menu just to unlock new weapons. Not recommended.

Bang Bang Racing is a top view racer, just like dozens and dozens I've played over the years. The graphics are good, in a fun arcade way, the physics and handling on the gameplay are pretty good. You only have basic controls - up, left, right, brakes and nitro, which recharges over time and on a specific lane. There is a generic car damage model. From the demo, I see nothing particularly exciting, just a competent, generic racing game.

Wool, by Hugh Howey, is a post-apocalyptic SF series. This volume contains the first five, and a sixth was already released. Most of the story takes places in the silo - a massive structure, with thousands living in for centuries, as well as farms, mines, oil wells and generators to keep them alive. No one can live outside, because the air is now toxic (this is explained later in the volume, and quite frankly I was surprised). People are regularly executed by being sent outside - and any stated curiosity about the outside requires being removed. But now someone discovered old records, and they are going to learn the truth... Really liked this one, recommended. Reminds me a bit of the Fallout game series, for obvious reasons.

Rage is a very impressive looking FPS. It is from id, which traditionally have made great engines, but since Doom their games have a tendency to have bad problems. Unfortunately, Rage is no exception. I understand that with previous versions of video drivers it was even worse (which is why I just started playing now - I bought it on pre-release, but the reported problems were so severe I ended up waiting and then forgetting about it), but I still get horrible stuttering problems (game freezes for a full second or more for no apparent reason). Too bad, because it seems pretty nice otherwise. The intro looked great and had great music, and the game looks great. The characters (while with some small distortions) are the most realistic looking I have seen. The gameplay seems good, although I find the keyboard only driving to be a little weird. It is better than the mouse look systems where forward/reverse flip depending on where you are looking, though. The Doom bobblehead was a pr...

FieldRunners is a tower defense game. And for various reasons, it is one of the worst I have ever played as a download (probably some flash-based ones beat it). The graphics are nice. Given the existence of several  high quality 3D tower defense games, I find their statement of "visually stunning" to be simply absurd. The music is incredibly annoying after a couple of minutes. And the gameplay is just terrible. There is basically no introduction - just a "your enemies will come from here", there are your towers (not actually explaining anything about them, of course - just pointing to the 4 icons). There are tower definitions, but only on the help, which is only available from the main screen instead of the game settings screen. Also, I can't help but think that the first time you play you could just show the help or the least have a button that takes you there. The enemies are repetitive and it is too easy to keep going with more and more waves till the...