STG's

I just finished Influx, by Daniel Suarez. A scientist discovers how to make gravity mirrors, but then a secret government agency that supresses disruptive advanced technology - and they make him disappear. But he is going to fight back. This was pretty good. I have liked other Daniel Suarez books - such as Daemon and the sequel Freedom , and while this one doesn't really reach their levels (the tech in Daemon seems so very feasible!), I really enjoyed the tech he made up for the book and the final battle. Some bits in the middle were a bit too tense for me, and the dystopic torture was particularly nasty, though. Overall, very much recommended.

HomeComing was the hardest mission on CastleStorm when I first played it. You only play as the hero, which you can't upgrade before winning it. The solution to win it is simple - switch to normal or casual for the mission, and remember to used ranged attacks as much as possible. If you want to, you can then upgrade the hero and go back to win on harder modes - it will be much easier!

Mind's Eye, by Douglas E. Richards is an SF thriller where Nick Hall, awakes with no memory - and discovers that he can read minds - and that a group of assassins are trying to kill him. The threat of the technology present in the ending seems very real (since everything seems to be hackable), but the origin of the threat (can't say more without a major spoiler) does seem a little silly in context. Kudos for the author for having the female lead be cute, not beautiful. Feels refreshing compared to most books. Pretty good, and a real page turner. Recommended.

CastleStorm is a mix of two very common flash game "genres" - destroy the enemy's castle using projectiles (also like Angry Birds) and by sending a mix of troops to stop the enemy troops. Putting it like that, it sounds a bit lame, but it turned out very well on CastleStorm. You have a lot of projectiles, starting with a simple ballista and progressing through explosives, big stones and sheeps with self-propulsion. You also get a few spells, such as teleporting your hero in the battle, healing and attacking. All of that is mixed in with plenty of upgrades and a castle editor that allows you to put in rooms to create new troop types, as well as getting you nice bonuses - such as faster troop creations, stronger walls, etc. I'm not a big fan of the editor, which is a little annoying. And bizarrely, your saved campaign games start with the plain castle, not your latest one. You have to load the latest one, save it again, and then quite the editor to continue. ...

Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, is an hilarious fantasy comedy about the apocalypse. I have been a fan of both of them for a while, specially Pratchett for the Discworld series (which I still think is funnier). Recommended.

Pixeljunk Monster is a tower defense game. I hate it. I hate the way to select tower types - a ring, which makes sense on a controller, but is silly with a keyboard (there may be shortcuts, but I didn't see them on the instructions). I hate walking slowly gathering coins. I hate the monsters, which look silly, and not in a fun a way. I hate the graphics. I really hate the music - which is instantly awful then made worse by also being repetitive. The sounds are annoying. I have rarely had a game rub me the wrong way in so many ways at once, without it being about bugs. But no, here it is just the game design. Really not recommended.

Abaddon's Gate - by James S.A. Corey - is the third book in the Expanse series. The protomolecule built and deployed a large ring. Surprisingly, fear from each faction getting an advantage stopped anyone from entering it. Until a daredevil goes through with his ship... The book is a nice expansion on the series, with great action. My complaint is similar to the previous books in the series - it always feels to me that author is doing less than he could with the tech. In this book, it mostly deploy an inertia messing power, portals, and that is it. Underwhelming. Still, the pace of the human side of the story work well and it is still a page turner. It just feels like it is less than it should be.

PixelJunk Shooter is a 2D shooter that takes place in a cave using a ship. You fly the ship with standard WASD (absolute movement - not W as propulsion, which is what I expected - the way the made it is a lot easier to use), and shoot aiming with mouse (or keyboard arrow keys, which is probably usable but crappy). You right-click to grab objects - the people you are supposed to rescue, treasure, heat shields, and some very interesting alternate objects - such as an object that releases water when it bursts, or another that can absorb either lava or water and releases it later. Lava is the main hazard in the game, and the source of almost all puzzles. You can't touch it as it will overheat the ship and destroy instantly, and it also kills the astronauts. The only way to deal with it is dropping water on it, by destroying stone around water deposits or using the bulbs mentioned above. There are also some creatures that can attack, shoot pellets or lava at you. Overall, I li...

Ethan: Meteor Hunter is a platformer where you play a rat with special powers - freezing time and moving objects while time is frozen. Graphics and sound are adequate, but I didn't like the gameplay (I am not a big fan of platformers, though). Not bad, but not recommended either. Try the demo if you think you might like it.

The Floor is Jelly is an interesting 2D platformer with deformable floors and walls. It looks very nice, and the music is fitting. You mostly jump around, taking advantage of the jelly like consistency of the floor to get boosts if you jump at the right time. This also applies to walls. You use this to reach doors, skip the spikes and get the unlocks you need to get to the next level. However, while I get the mechanics of jumping around, I still don't enjoy them. So far me gameplay is fairly flat... and not fun at all. Not recommended, but your mileage may vary, specially if you are a platformer fan.

Caliban's War - by James S.A. Corey - is the second novel in The Expanse series that followed Leviathan Wakes. As the story starts, Venus has been taken over by the protomolecule, which is building something all over the surface. And soon enough Ganymede is in crisis and Earth and Mars are shooting at each other. There a number of parallels to the first book - Earth and Mars are on a on/off war pace, Holden is chasing another girl that is also important to the larger events that are unfolding, a larger outer planets settlement is messed up because of the protomolecule, etc. Still, the pace of the novel made me eager to keep following page after page to see how it went. And it ends in a pretty satisfying conclusion. Recommended. I am already reading the third book in the series...

Jupiter War - by Neal Asher - is the conclusion of the Owner trilogy, where a super genius gets enhanced with an implant, and takes over an asteroid/ship station to escape and fight a dystopic Earth government (not the current ones - an even worse unified one). In this volume, The Owner decides to escape the solar system, but Earth is not going to let him go without a fight... It was a very satisfying conclusion, and I feel it was even better than the first two parts. Great fights, great and reasonable new technology and a nice little twist in the Earth Dictator's story in the end. Of course, there is always the possibility of further sequels :-)

State of Decay is a 3rd-person view zombie game with interesting base building elements. I have to say I really like it. After a short bit in the start (with a reasonable tutorial), you go around killing zombies, getting resources, finding new people to add to your base and getting status with other bases. The basic mechanics are just great, and the fighting (which has shooting, beating zombies with several objects and stealth parts) , graphics and sounds are pretty good. You can also drive around, which is great to kill zombies but cars get damaged pretty quickly. The only problem I have is that it seems to lock up my computer some times. That is a big problem, which is why I haven't played it more. Overall, excellent concept and reasonably well executed.

Pixeljunk Eden is a bit of an art game. You basically jump around beautiful, organic looking structures destroying geometric enemies to unlock seeds, which grow more of the organic structures so that you can jump higher and eventually finish the level. It is certainly interesting and unique, but I didn't find the gameplay to be that fun, specially for more than a few minutes at a time.