STG's

Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos, is a military SF book. The story takes place in the future, when the world is even more packed full, with plenty of huge wellfare neighborhoods - and colonies on other planets. The main protagonist is smarter than average and manages to leave the projects for a better life. (This reminds me of a Charles Sheffield book - Higher Education) In this book, the boy joins the military. Cue pretty much regular SF military start (although very engaging). Eventually, he gets dumped into the territorial army and goes to nice, heavy battles. Then there is a twist and he goes elsewhere. The ending makes sequels very much possible, and I'd buy they in a heartbeat. While the overall plot description seem formulaic, the execution is very good and I enjoyed it very much. Recommended to fans of Military SF.

Little Inferno is an unusual game - mostly you get or buy objects, and burn them in a fireplace. I wasn't planning on getting it, but it came in the Humble Bundle 8. I am glad it did - it is quite fun. You burn objects, which react in sometimes interesting ways - an oil ship starts shooting oil (which can be ignited), bugs turn flames in different colors, bug exterminators turns into a flamethrower, an old game turns the flames retro and much more. All of these objects drops coins that are worth more than you paid for it, and so you go on buying more stuff. This stuff is into catalogs, which you require combos and money to unlock. Combos (as you probably expected) are done by burning objects together. Usually you can guess from the list of the combos, although some are a bit difficult. There is also a back story, with a girl that send you letters, letters from the company and weather reports. Overall, quite fun, and strongly recommended.

System error: in your favour by Iain Clements is supposedly 112 pages long. It feels even shorter, though. The book is a classic AI story. People work with AI, something happens, it goes sentient and gets out of control. Traditionally, I really like these. However, Iain delivery feels a bit stiff somehow, and it is only OK at best. There are several editing errors (in addition to typos), including one I didn't see before - text that has a line draw over it and new text that substitutes it after. I'd be very disappointed if I had paid the US$7.50 full print price. Even at US$2,87 I am not recommending it.

Inferno is the latest book by Dan Brown, which I have followed since Digital Fortress. Inferno also features Robert Langdon as the main character, with similar purposes to his other best sellers - describing plenty of historical monuments and mysteries, and solving riddles. There are also plenty of nice twists in the story in the way. I have enjoyed the ending on this one. On one hand, there is a major change in the book's world. But on the other, the whole book was moot from the start. Still, feels a lot fairer than the usual ending where everything is saved on the last second. Recommended.

Defiance is a MMORPG based on the TV show. I like the show so far, so when I heard there was a free trial for the weekend, I went for it. Defiance has a mostly bad rep so far. Clearly some people like it, but most don't. I have played for about an hour, and so far I don't like it. It is very standard MMO fare, with nothing particularly good about it. Collaboration seems to minimal - and it lacks the sense you get on Guild Wars 2 that you are with a bunch of people (and bots) working for the common good. At least there is a decent critical shot. But enemies pop from the silliest places. So far, nothing to really hold my attention. This isn't worth the time I'm spending on it. I'll update this if I play more.

Sanctum 2 is a mixed FPS/Tower Defense game. I have played Sanctum too, and it was OK, although I usually felt like I was just waiting for a level to finish. Sanctum 2 has a number of differences from the original game. Unfortunately, I seem to dislike most of them. The UI feels less readable and with less details, and the multiple characters and their guns feel quite off. Graphics are good, but don't seem like much of a particular advance. For several small reasons, the gameplay really doesn't work for me. Overall, I really don't like it. I'll update this if I play more.

Anomaly 2 is mostly a reverse Tower Defense (TD) game. That is, you pick the attackers and go at the towers. The story of the game takes place a few years after the initial alien attack on Anomaly: Warzone Earth  . I didn't play all the way through, but apparently at the end we win. But then they come back on force and take over the whole planet, expect for a few survivors. As the game starts, the survivor group is trying to get the plans to a superweapon. The main difference of this game is that many of your units can morph for two different versions - one with more range and another that is better for close combat. For example, one form might have a long range artillery that only shoots in a near straight line, and the other rockets with a 360 degrees turret. That greatly adds to the strategy you need during the game. Also, there seems to be much more towers popping in the middle of the action - so you will choose new paths in the tactical view much more. As usual, your...

I bought and downloaded Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit quite a while ago, but only got around to playing it a few days ago. I have to say that it is much better than I expected. I really like the graphics and the selection of cars (which look very good). There are some interesting gameplay mechanics - such as the shortcuts and the (quite common) stuff you have to do to get nitro, such as slipstreaming, near colisions, etc. The driving is fine and you can really see the drift difference on wet pavement. I also liked the touch of controller vibration when you get off the road. The cop line of the game is what I like most. Hitting the other cars is fun, and the weapons you get (such as spike traps, roadblocks or an EMP gun) are useful without being too powerful. I have been playing with a XBox controller, and it works well, but I can't help but feel that the analog stick doesn't have as much resolution as I'd like. Maybe it is because I don't have much practice with the...

LASW - Land Air Sea Warfare is a RTS game that seems to specialize in massive battles. The tutorial is almost good enough, and graphics and sound are acceptable. I played for quite a while and the music didn't bother me at all - it just seemed repetitive at first. Most things are common - the base, factories, defenses, tech levels you can upgrade, etc. One very different thing is that there are minerals spread on the map which allow you to build special, massive units when you mine them. There are a few things I really didn't like, mostly where it differs from convention: - no cursor stop for the screen. On a multiple monitor setup, this is VERY annoying. - you use left click to select, move, and attack. The result, of course, is that you will try to select a moving unit only to move another you didn't deselect first - you can build anywhere an unit can see. I can only imagine what kind of crazy battles that causes in multiplayer, but even against the computer, ...

Super Sanctum TD is a retro style Tower Defense game, based on Sanctum (which Sanctum 2 ad copy calls the first FPS Tower Defense hybrid, even when the first called itself one of the first...). Frankly, I wasn't planning on buying it, but it was free when you got Sanctum 2 on pre-order, and it was so cheap I couldn't resist. Basically, you get a 3D top/side view of the level. It probably would be easier to view on a real top-view, but then it'd look more like a 2D game. Graphics and sound are fairly OK for a retro game. For some reason 1024x768 seems to be the only resolution - this is tiny on a full HD monitor and quite annoying. Music is just repetitive and bound to irritate anyone after a few minutes. Gameplay is almost OK. You place towers and upgrades, as usual for TD. You also get some selectable powers that can be used directly, such as causing explosions (on a place or on the whole field) or teleporting enemies back to the start. There are a few nice str...

Off to be the Wizard, by Scott Meyer, is a wonderful mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, in a comedy tone. It starts with a random hacker that finds a file with his name and height in it. He increases his height on the file - and suddenly he is taller. Just like that, he discovers a way to change reality. And then proceed to use it - badly, which causes him to flee to the past, off to be the wizard... On a way, the series reminds me of Rick Cook's Wizardry series, where a programmer goes to another dimension where magic works and proceeds to program with magic. Of course, in this book the premise is completely different as the magic is just altering our reality by editing a computer file. Overall, the book was awesome and I laughed a lot - and even skipped some sleep to read it. Very much recommended.