STG's

The Rhesus Chart - by Charles Stross - was another excellent entry in the Laundry series. I read this on release, but this was months ago, so I'm just going to say that I really enjoyed it, and I really want to see what the follow up for this will be!

Broforce is an interesting retro 2D platform shooter. You play as several 80s movies characters, such as Rambo, Ripley from Alien, Robocop, TimeCop, MacGyiver (one of the best - throws explosives), etc, etc. Each has their own different guns and skills. And every time you die or free another one (they are in cages around the levels) you switch. It is still an Early Access game, and since it is been this way for so long, I'm not sure if there will ever an official release, but it is playable now. The coolest part is how explosions and fires can destroy pretty much everything. There are plenty of user maps available, too. The most annoying thing I can think of about it is that your firing range can vary a lot from characters to character, and can be a lot less than your enemies. Overall, pretty much recommend for the price.

Space Run is an interesting variation on Tower Defense (TD) - you design a ship that has to quickly cruise through a set of pirates and asteroids to make a delivery. You get a few variations on guns, engines and shields, that are upgraded as the levels go, and you also get to re-do levels to get more money (although unlocks require using the max stars on each level instead). Difficulty increases sharply on replays. Graphics are reasonably good, and playability is good on the first few levels, but gets a little annoying later. Unlike most TD games, you often have to rotate your guns or activated some special items, but you don't have any way to pause. Overall, pretty good, but ultimately can be a little frustrating.

Plague Inc: Evolved is an interesting sim game where you try to make as much damage to the world as possible as choosing the best place to start and the right genes to make a dangerous disease. It is still on Early Access (i.e.: beta), but it is still pretty fun. I last played several months ago so it has several new features, but I found it already somewhat interesting for the price.

Desktop Dungeons is an interesting roguelike with retro graphics in which levels almost feel like a puzzle. Mostly you go around fighting enemies (that do not move at all). You get a nice prediction of what will happen on your next attack, and can go around walking through undiscovered tiles to regain health. You will slowly improve your level so that you can kill the harder enemies in the maze. It can be pretty though since the difficulty is calculated so that you will use the spells and special actions on a nearly exact manner. It ends up being a bit too tough for me, otherwise I would consider it to be quite fun.

IonBall 2 is an interesting Arkanoid clone, with a spaceship theme and plenty of guns and upgrades. It has some interesting semi-original ideas, and wildly hectic gameplay. The one major issue I (and a lot of people, just see other reviews) have with it is that the effects can make it very hard to keep track of the ball. Other than that, very enjoyable.

Drunken Robot is a bullet hell FPS with procedurally generated graphics. It is almost good, but personally I didn't enjoy it at all.

Luftrausers is an interesting, retro styled shooter. You command a ship fighting other planes and small to massive ships on full bullet hell mode. The interesting twists is that there achievements you can fulfill that gets you new parts, which you can use to customize your plane. For example, you can have a five shot spray gun, a laser, an engine that works by shooting behind you, extra armor, etc. Overall, nice, but I only enjoy it for small breaks.

Steel World, by B.V. Larson, is a sequel to Dust World, an SF Military title. In the universe of the series, humans are a minor player in a galaxy filled with aliens, and can only earn galactic credits with their mercenaries. In this one, the mercs go what is called Tech World - an usually cushy job running security on a space station filled with alien tech that as always for the series, goes to a terrible mess. Overall, pretty good, and another very interesting setup for the continuation of the series.

Dust World, by B.V. Larson, is a sequel to Steel World, an SF Military title. In the universe of the series, humans are a minor player in a galaxy filled with aliens, and can only earn galactic credits with their mercenaries. Overall, pretty good, and a very interesting setup for the continuation of the series.

The Curve of the Earth, by Simon Morden, is the fourth book in the Petrovitch series. Overall, it is good and I'd recommend it if you already read the first 3 and wanted more. But it wasn't nearly as good as them. Nice setup in the ending for future stories, though.

The Petrovitch Trilogy, by Simon Morden, collects the first three novels in the SF series. The books take place in a post apocalyptic London where a lot of the world has fallen into anarchy. The main character is Samuil Petrovitch, which is a genius physicist who is also pretty good as a general. There is also plenty of AI consequences, some nice cyberware tech and some bits that reminded me of Dune (the blind and still seeing bit, particularly). I've read this months ago, so I will only share my general impression, which is that this was pretty good and well worth reading for SF fans.