STG's

Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG that continues where Guild Wars stops. Both have a nice "feature" which is no monthly fee, just a flat price. I have very little experience with MMORPGs. I have played a few of the free ones - but only for half an hour each. Most MMORPGs feel incredibly boring to me. The basic style is annoying enough (I like FPS and RTS more), and the incredibly repetitive quests (kill N of these, find N of these, etc) are quite common. What I have played was Tabula Rasa - really nice story, really boring quests, buggy and Guild Wars - got sidetracked after a little while - remember as pleasant. Guild Wars 2 has a loader that downloads everything - about 20 GB. No complaints, though, as it was VERY fast and maxed out my 20MB/s connection. Graphics are great for vistas. Actual people are great designs, from the faces, shapes to the clothes. There isn't a basic tutorial - something I've come to expect in most games. It is probably a good idea to read...

I just got the Fire and Water Booster Pack for Orcs Must Die! 2. I am not sure if I should be annoyed at getting hit for more and more DLC - a few weeks after the game was released - or pleased at the extra content available. Right now, I'm tending toward the later. Fire and Water includes 3 new levels, 3 additional Endless Mode conversions, 3 new traps (Dart Spitter, Web Spinner, Floor Portal) and 2 new enemies. The Dart Spitter looks interesting when it works (spinning and sending darts everywhere). One cool upgrade it has is that it can charm enemies sometimes. Still haven't seen it happen, though. The Floor Portal should be useful (although probably bad for regular levels, since you will probably lose skulls for going over par time). The levels seem OK, but nothing special. The fire enemies are fairly generic, except for the Fireling that they let out when they die (2 or 4). These chase you and explode, setting you on fire. They can each take a full blast of the i...

I recently installed VirtualBox (because of a class ). Suddenly when I started VMWare, the network connection didn't work anymore. After installing, uninstalling and installing VMWare tools (which always seems to hang at the end of a install, which definitely DIDN'T help), I did a search for conflicts on the web and figured out the problem (and solution). Just go to VMWare, Edit, Virtual Network Editor. Check which External connection your Bridged networks are using. In my case, it was on automatic. Just switching from Automatic to my PCI controller solved the problem. Pretty lucky, too, because I was about to upgrade VMWare...

I got Great Big War Game on the first day, but the only thing I got when running was the icon on the taskbar and no mouse control in the main screen till closing the game through the task manager. See my post on how I solved the problem here . Great Big War Game is a very much simplified and turn-based version of a RTS. You have the same basic elements - several fighting units with different purposes, buildings that can create units and vehicles (among other purposes), and places to get money. The big difference is that all the buildings are pre-placed, and this is turn-based. Graphics are OK for the cutesy style, and sound is adequate. The character voices are a bit annoying, but at least they have a few different phrases. Music is very annoying and repetitive. Gameplay is acceptable, although it feels too simplified, and more adequate for tablets and smartphones. The interface is quite annoying - for example, creating an unit pops a whole new screen instead of doing it in...

The Rise of Nine is the third book in the main line of the Lorien Legacies (there is also The Lost Files books). The story continues from book 2, and Four and Nine are still looking for Sam. The other group is going to India to find another of the 9. As usual, a number of battles ensue (how the Mogs find them? good question), where everyone of the main cast almost nearly dies (possibly a spoiler following - should be obvious by now, though) but in the end escapes unscathed. And new legacies show up. Good, simple fun. Recommended for fans of the series.

Intergalactic Medicine Show issue 27 was - as I usually start these reviews - good but not great. By a thread - by Flávio Medeiros Jr., was the biggest surprise. It is an alternate history story of a cold war between the English/US and France, with the US dirigible fleet and french submarine fleet (lead by Admiral Nemo!) as the main combatants - you can  read it for free  .

The Dragon Variation, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is a set of 3 stories set on the Liaden Universe. I don't think I ever heard of the Liaden universe before this book, but it came with a Webscription pack. As usual, I just dump all of them on my smartphone and whenever I finish all obviously interesting books, I look around at what else is available. These are quite on the side of love stories, but they were still good and quite enjoyable, even though the details of the universe's back story are a little confusing. There is also a mix of magic with the SF, but it works well enough. Recommended, and available DRM-free at Baen .

Tiny Troopers is a top-down shooter. The graphics are very good, although the cutesy style might be annoying to some (it certainly is to me). I understand it originally was an iPhone game, and it really shows in the gameplay. It is quite simple - right-click at your enemy to shoot, left-click to move. You also get some extras such as grenades, med packs and more, and you can order them using points, as well as a lot of stuff before a level (upgrades for armor, range, fire rate, as well as specialists with grenades or heavy weapons). I really, really hate it. I don't think I have ever reviewed a game I disliked so much. Everything is a said in an annoying cutesy style - and quite repetitive. The music is repetitive. The gameplay is really no fun at all to me. Not recommended. At all.

Tower Wars is another 3D Tower Defense game. I can't say that there is much distinctive about this one, but it does have a "reverse" TD built in. In the general game, you have to build towers to stop the enemies. The game is built so that you can use mazes to slow down the advance, as well as enable towers to do damage on both sides. You have the typical tower types - arrow, cannons, bombs, fire, electrical, etc. Towers can be upgraded and sold. Meanwhile, you should be deploying you own armies to destroy the enemy castle. You have an interesting mix of soldiers, including grunts, healers, shield, etc. These are unlocked for money (both gold and battle points, which you get by having soldiers in enemy areas). You have a ton of small upgrades for units, including health, armor, etc as well as deployment helpers, such as extra slots and the ability to release soldiers faster. This game mode is multiplayer only - I'm really not sure why. The game does create towers...

Hero Academy is a turn-based tactical fight game. There are a number of annoying things, including: - Forced windowed mode. No full screen. - Pauses on reacting to commands with no visual feedback whatever, or an hourglass icon starting a few seconds later. - Forced login on Robot's site. - No real single player mode. You'd think that they would be able to implement an AI for a game this simple, but apparently not. There is a set of challenges, but that is quite different from the game, and somewhat annoying. Overall, really not recommended.

To be honest, I only barely remember the 96 Death Rally. The 2012 remake is pretty nice, though. It is a top-down view race with plenty of weapons. And as usual, you can upgrade cars, armor, speed, weapons and earn extra tracks. Guns include a regular, infinite ammo generic gun, and then goes through shotguns, machine guns, sniper guns, flamethrowers, missile swarms and missiles. You can also unlock extras such as special bumpers and laser sights. You unlock extra gear, vehicles and tracks by collecting pieces during the game. I really like it. In the beginning, It isn't easy to win the race at first, but just finishing gets you upgrade money, and destroying other cars get you much more. You also get proposals such as driving a better car or gun for half of your earning, or killing a specific player. There is a mild attempt at an story, presented at the start and spots (you are a racer caught by a cop, and have to infiltrate the Death Rally to catch The Adversary). Th...

Amped - by Douglas E. Richards - is the sequel to Wired . On Wired, we learn that Kira has discovered a way to massively increase brain capacity, but only for short times and with a serious side effect - the person boosted gets selfish and brutal for the duration of the enhancement. By the end of the first book, she joined forces with Desh and friends. Now Desh and Kira are married, and putting Desh's grand scheme in motion - recruiting people to develop technology to improve the world. Meanwhile, another group is trying to destroy the organization - and an alien vessel is coming to Earth from outside the solar system... Overall, pretty good, with a nice ending with a mostly surprising twist (there were a few clues in the middle, but not enough to make it obvious). Recommended.

Redshirts - by John Scalzi is a SF novel about the unimportant extras that get killed a lot in certain SF TV shows with poor writing. Suddenly they realize that their colleagues are dying a lot, and figure out why... Redshirts is a crazy, very meta, novel. It is not new - the extra chapters in the back even mention that, although not the main one that came to my mind - Stephen King's quite silly last volume of the Roland Series. But overall I really liked the novel, including the extra twist in the ending. There are a couple of lateral endings in the extra chapters that I liked, too. Recommended.

Wired, by Douglas E. Richard, is a sci-fi thriller. It is not so awesome that it is obvious to me that it would be the bestselling Kindle book for SF in 2011, but I can't say I'm surprised. It really is this good. The basic theme is not so uncommon - scientist discovers a way to boost human intelligence. However, the story of what happens before and after, and the military aspects of the novel do set it apart from the common approaches. It is a great technothriller, and has fun bits of philosophy along the way. The ending is pretty good, with a nice twist, with non-obvious and somewhat predictable parts. Very much recommended.

A Virus Named Tom is a puzzle where you connect the pieces by rotating some of them. That is an old theme since 90s (Pipe Dream). In the story, you are a virus unleashed by a mad genius after being fired. That is cuter than some of the themes on such puzzles, although it is pretty close to the hacking mini-game on Bioshock in some ways. Graphics are adequate given the theme, and sounds are tolerable although the music is a bit irritating. Personally I did not enjoy the game, although I did play a lot of a similar game on the Palm - Netwalk. For whatever reason, it felt a lot more fun than this. Not recommended.

Orcs Must Die! 2 is the sequel to the great Third-person shooter/Tower Defense Hybrid Orcs Must Die!  . It was one of my favorites last year, so when I first saw it available on pre-order, I bought it instantly. After the events of the first game, the Sorceress was trapped on the Orcs side, without magic. And the War Mage, also without powers, was working on a mine. Just as the Sorceress was about to get killed by the Orcs, a new rift appeared, and she passed through to our world. In the new game, you can play as either the Sorceress or the War Mage. The Sorceress main weapon is cute -  you can kill the orcs, charge for more effect (including an area of effect mode) or right-click to get them on your side and attacking your enemies temporarily. The new levels so far all take place on mines. There are small wagons coming through the mine tracks that damage and stun the enemies. I liked the castle theme a little more, though. As usual, there are plenty of traps you can...