STG's

Get more from Life, by Scott Young, is a collection of his 20 more popular articles from his blog, covering a few self-improvement topics - including create new habits, reading, studying, energy management and much more. There is some fluff, but I find that most of the articles do have some interesting bits that can be applied to my life. Unfortunately, the e-book is presented as a PDF, which is much inferior to the MOBI format in the Kindle iPad version. In particular, you can only bookmark pages, not highlight text. Some of the topics I found particularly interesting: conditioning new habits - natural and simulated conditioning techniques, leveraging. look at all aspects when replacing an habit, including social and relaxation. velocity based goal setting. energy management. overcoming discouragement - create an immediate success and reward attempts. 7 rules to understand people. improving e-mail habits. using deadlines. Overall, I found the book useful, and not to...

Mark of the Ninja is a stealth platformer. This is not the most popular genre mix (I don't even recall seeing it before), but in this case it works very well. For most of the game, your easiest option is sneaking past your enemies, only killing them when necessary. There are plenty of special moves, such as using a grappling hook (only in the specified places - which solves a common problem with games with hooks where users get on unexpected places and ruin the flow), climbing walls, hiding places, and there are plenty of vents for you to sneak in. One very cool vent move you can make is simply pulling a close by guard into the vent and killing him (there is even a specific bonus - something about a waiting spider). Graphics are great, with finish moves having a zoom and cartoon style. Graphics also include circles displaying sound (both yours and from your enemies). That allows you to judge where your enemies are when you can't see them, as the game uses a proper ...

Deadlight is a zombie game platformer, with great graphics and a unique style. The platformer part is not very demanding (just regular, long jumps and a wall jump so far). There are a few puzzles, but mostly logical and simple stuff. It also has plenty of checkpoints and quick loads, which is always welcome where a single failed jump can kill you. I don't usually like platformers, but I really like it so far. I will update this as I play more.

Saltation, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is another book in the  Liaden Universe . I have read and reviewed  several of these before . Saltation is the sequel to Fledgling , and it starts as Theo Waitley is arriving at Pilot school. It then develops into what is mostly a teen prodigy school sequence, which is somewhat common in SF (still good, though) The story only has a few moments of action now and then, and ends introducing a problem with an AI ship and with Win Ton that will only be resolved in a sequel, and in almost the exact same scene for Theo from Korval's Game  . I was expecting something being solved in that area, but nope. The AI views in the Liaden Universe are kind of funny to me. Clearly they have near sentience or sentience in some devices (such as the repurposed war bot of Daav and Er Thom), but other than that they almost never appear, and even when they clearly should be doing a good work (piloting, for example) . It is a bit like they are...

Fledgling, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is another book in the Liaden Universe . I have read and reviewed several of these before . Fledgling focus on Theo Waitley, the daughter of Daav, although he has a different name - see the events of Mouse and Dragon for explanations. Reading it is not necessary but it helps. She lives in Delgado, a safe planet, with many cutely odd customs. She is very clumsy, which is a constant problem for her and her mother. But all of that is going to change... Fledgling is a nice book, albeit more "teen" than the others in the series. There are a few cutesy technologies added to the universe (AFAIK), such as the mumu for an advanced smartphone. It also starts a bit slow but speeds up along the way. Overall, I liked it, and it is worth reading if you are a fan of the series, and maybe even if you are not. You can get it DRM-free at Baen  .

Just had to post the funny message on a fake BSOD in a monitor bank in Borderlands 2:

Today the Mechromancer pack for Borderlands 2 was released. Fortunately (and because of the bonuses), I got Borderlands 2 on pre-order, so I got it for free. I have to say that I was a bit bored after a few hours playing as the siren. The power is simply too lame before upgrades - you freeze a single enemy for a few seconds. That is it. Now, the Mechromancer Deathtrap robot is just devastating. I'm not sure if they did it on purpose, to sell the DLC, but it can take several enemies by itself, using a combination of melee and ranged electrical attacks. The whole game seems a lot easier. And some of the skills seem to reflect that - some of the first options on the left skill screen (Best Friends Forever) include health recharge on full gun magazine and bullets reflecting on walls having a chance to hit an enemy (with reduced damage). Overall, a great addition to the game, and I recommend using it. BTW, if after you get to level 5 you could start new characters at level 5...

Tryst is an RTS with what seems like mostly regular elements (although, as usual, they seem to think they revolutionized the genre). I should know more, having downloaded the demo, but the demo has nothing of the single player game, just multiplayer (and the tutorials are apparently only videos). And you need to create an account to start multiplayer (which I'm not a big fan of to start with). At this point I just gave up on the game and uninstalled it.

A Bloody Storm - by Richard Castle - is the third part of a book that started with A Brewing Storm  . Plenty of action here, and the story ends well, with the obligatory plot twists and betrayals, as well as a set up for the next story. It was full of typos as well - at one spot Agent Shower is Agent Flowers. I have to say that even with this annoying format, I'd probably get more of these. I'm not sure they are using the same ghost writer as the Heat series, though.

A Raging Storm - by Richard Castle - is the "sequel" to A Brewing Storm . Sequel is not really true, as A Brewing Storm just stops at the middle of the scene. I imagine some publisher thought that a serial format would sell more - maybe by making the first book cheaper? A complaint that I've seen in the reviews is that the editing is terrible - and it really is. In a book on this scale I wouldn't normally expect typos, but there are plenty here. Either way, A Raging Storm is pretty good - and pretty short. And it ends in a even more irritating place - which virtually guarantees that anyone with a Kindle on-line that reaches the end will buy the next book.

Mouse and Dragon, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is another book in the Liaden universe. It covers Aelliana Caillon - who wins a ship and ends up with the Delm of Korval, Daav. The book was good, but the ending is sad, and feels a little silly. It is probably a good idea to read this first if you read Korval's Game - not strictly necessary, but some parts of it will make more sense. You can get it at Baen as an e-book .

It is several months old, but I finally got around to reading The Final Hours of Portal 2, a view of the development of Portal 2. It was pretty good. Not only the coverage was interesting (specially the various iterations to get at the final game story) , but there was plenty of interesting extras, such as panoramas of Valve, videos, polls and photos. Very much worth seeing for fans of the game.

Hitman: Sniper Challenge is a sniper game that came free with the Hitman: Absolution pre-order. In fact, that is the main reason I got it on pre-order. Even for games I expect to be good, I rarely buy on pre-orders anymore without some extra thrown in. I imagine that was the thinking behind Sniper Challenge, and that it probably succeeded. Sniper Challenge is 47 on a roof with a fixed weapon (sniper rifle with silencer) and his mission is killing a business man, and all his bodyguards. Unusually for a Hitman game, killing the main character is trivially easy. Getting all the bodyguards isn't, though. And as in all Hitman games, there are many ways to kill. In Sniper Challenge, you can just shoot them (including more than one with one shot), shoot them off the roof, drop barrels to kill a guard, kill someone down an elevator shaft, or my favorite, activating a bunch of mines. There are also a number of challenges - from the trivial (kill main enemy in a short time) to the ve...

Hell Yeah! Wrath of The Dead Rabbit is a funny, over the top hell-themed platformer. The main character is the prince of Hell, humiliated because of pictures of him and his ducky, and he will hunt down all the monster who saw it to save face. The game is very silly and original. If you think I'm exagerating, the first vehicle you get is a jetpack/drill that you can use to drill most enemies, carve through walls and use as a limited jetpack to move around. There also seems to be a lot of guns, although the demo only has the rocket launcher. Graphics and sounds are good, although the music is a bit tiresome after a while. Overall, looks pretty good, and I recommend trying out the demo if you like platformers.

Bit.Trip Runner is a retro running game. Basically all you do just over obstacles or holes and get power-ups. The different thing about the game is that power-ups and jumps change the pace of the music, which sounds great. I understand that there is more to the game, but I just couldn't stomach more than the beginning - the gameplay is that annoying to me. The soundtrack does have nice moments, though (got it from Humble Bundle 6).

I just tried the Castle Crashers demo. However, in my Sansung monitor, for the very first time in any game, all I get is Mode not Supported. I imagine it is using some weird resolution choice. I'm not willing to change my monitors around to try a demo, and also couldn't find any way to start on Windowed mode or change resolution in the game, so I'll just have to give up.

WizOrb is a very retro game - in fact it seems to be a mix of Arkanoid and 80s RPGs. Both graphics and sounds are quite authentic - they really look and sound from the 80s. However, that is not at all fun. I have played a few Arkanoid/breakout games over the last few years, but usually they had something that made them more fun - such as nice physics. That is not the case with WizOrb and to me, it is just annoying.

Korval's Game , by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is a SF/fantasy novel that takes place in the Liaden Universe. I have reviewed a couple of previous novels in the series ( Agent of Change  and  The Dragon Variation  . I have also read Mouse and Dragon, but neglected to review it), and I liked them both. Korval's Game takes place just after the events in Agent of Change, where The Department of the Interior of Liaden has decided to attack Korval and take over Liaden Government. I found this to be the best in the series, by far. Whereas most where romance novels with SF and battles thrown in, here the battles are more to the center. Pat Rin - which was a very minor character in the other books - has a nice side story which could almost be a separate novel, and ends up as a major player. It is recommended that you read the other book in the series first. It is probably not strictly necessary, but it would probably help to understand what was going on. The final ba...