STG's

The Technician - Book Review

2012-01-29T16:21:00.000-02:00

The Technician - by Neal Asher is a book in the Polity Universe.

Most of the action happens in Masada, the homeworld of the ancient race of the Atheters. It was discovered previously that they erased their minds and created mechanisms to destroy all remains of their civilizations, and to keep their minds erased to the levels of animals.

But during the fall of the Theocracy in Masada (In the Line of Polity), a proctor was almost killed by a special Hooder (one of Atheters biological war machines) called The Technician. His face was stripped and something was placed into his brain...

Now, 20 years later, the proctor's mind is getting back together, and what it contains may destroy Masada and the whole Polity.

This book has cool battles, a lot more exposition about the Atheter and their biomachines, and the development of the nature of The Technician during the book was very interesting - as usual, Asher makes the best crazy monsters actually have a clear purpose and logic.

Very much recommended for Polity fans.

Unstoppable Gorg - Game Review - PC

2012-01-20T16:33:00.001-02:00

Unstoppable Gorg is a great looking Tower Defense (TD) game with a space - and 60 sci-fi movies - theme.

The game mostly consists of placing defensive satellites to defend planets from attacks of several different alien races.

The gameplay is reasonably fun, and its main difference from the average TD game is the use of orbits - which allows you to rotate the positions of your satellites.

This is particularly important because it is common to have changing paths from the aliens. This results in extra strategy, as all objects in the orbit move together, and so you have to think about how to optimize their positions to handle two or more simultaneous waves.

You get the average defense mix - Fast fire (Vulcan), Stronger but slower fire (Cannon, missiles), Money/Energy (Solar Collector, Plasma Generator), Research, etc.

The 60's SF theme allows for a funny ambiance, with some LOL moments. Graphics and effects look great.

Overall, very much recommended for TD fans.

4 out 5 stars

Solved - You have an incorrect version of driver "vmx86.sys" - VMWare Workstation 8

2012-01-17T15:04:00.001-02:00

I have just installed VMWare Workstation 8 over my old VMWare Workstation 6.5 on Windows 7.

On my first run I already got the error message:

Could not get vmx86 driver version: The handle is invalid.

You have an incorrect version of driver "vmx86.sys". Try reinstalling VMware Workstation.

Failed to initialize monitor device.

Obviously, I was concerned, but there is a simple way to solve it - just right-click the VMWare Workstation icon and use Run as Administrator.

This is a bit annoying, but at least it is easy to solve.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - MW3 - PC Review

2012-01-15T19:12:00.001-02:00

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) is the latest of the hugely successful series.

A common complaint is that it is exactly like the last couple of Modern Warfare.

I can't disagree. It really is. The thing is, that model works - and it works very well. So it is an awesome game, with the same problem it always had - it is mostly on rails.

That is, you have a nearly exact sequence of actions that you are expected to follow. There aren't half a dozen radically ways you can complete your objectives, as there was, for example, in Far Cry or Crysis (1, definitely not 2).

That can be good or bad, of course. Personally I'd really prefer it, but that is not to say that I didn't enjoy MW3. On the contrary, it is very good, and I like not only the regular campaign, but also the Special Ops missions.

My sole complaint so far is that - again - several of the Special Ops missions require two players. I'm really not into multiplayer, and thus this is a big annoyance for me.

And one major plus - the game starts impressively fast. I can get to the menu in about 3 seconds!

I'll update this as I play more.

PS: Every single time I see MW3 I think MechWarrior :-)

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx - Review

2012-01-15T19:06:00.000-02:00

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is a DLC package for Borderlands!.

Overall it is good, and has OK missions and plenty of new guns. It also has new vehicles, and the Monster has homing rockets.

There are lancer vehicles and drones everywhere you go. That is very annoying, as they are trivial to destroy with the homing rockets, but you have to stop at a distance, fire a few times, and continue. Again, and again, and again.

It gets very tiresome after a while.

One of the other problems with this DLC is the fact that the clever scheme they used to add the DLC - just go to a fast travel point and jump there - doesn't seem to expand properly.

I imagine they could just add extra items or a tree expansion for extra places inside the DLC, but they didn't. So if you stop at a mission at any point, you have to start from the beginning.

For me that is really annoying, and means that I can't really recommend it.

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot - Review

2012-01-15T19:00:00.000-02:00

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot is a DLC package for Borderlands!.

Mostly it involves fighting in arenas. The arenas are quite clever, and you get waves of enemies of different types - melee, bosses, etc.

This is further mixed up with clever bonuses - for example, you may have pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle, headshot bonuses. This really makes it more exciting.

The problem with Moxxi's is the exact same problem that all Borderlands! DLC (and many of the original missions) have - it expects that you have a lot of free, continuous time. You can't just stop at a specific wave after an hour of play - you have to keep going until you finish it.

For me that is really annoying, and means that I can't recommend Moxxi's.

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy

2012-01-15T18:42:00.000-02:00

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six's Legacy, by Pittacus Lore, is the third book in the Lorien Legacies series.

This one tells the story of Six, before she meets Four.

If you perhaps read Power of Six, you have basically read this book.

Sure, there are a few extra bits here and there, but it is almost all exactly as re-told in Power of Six.

Quite disappointing. At least it was cheap...

My blog stats for 2011

2012-01-12T22:45:00.000-02:00

2011 was an interesting year for me as a blogger. I found that I quite enjoy writing these little posts - I get to vent or praise about whatever last game I tried or book I read, and it is good exercise.

I was a bit curious about the numbers, so I went and collated them.

So counting this and my professional blog, on 2011:

Posts: 203
Fiction Book Reviews: 35
Technical Book Reviews: 9
Game Reviews: 78

Visitors: 19204

I was a bit surprised about the post totals!

So a big thanks go to all of my readers.

Micro - Book Review

2012-01-09T18:06:00.000-02:00

Micro - by Michael Crichton (who died while still writing it) and finished by Richard Preston, is another thriller where humans are reduced in size. I've seen quite a few of those.

However, the book is surprising by the depth to which they go in interesting facts about animals and physics in the micro scale. The descriptions are quite vivid and imbued with a sense of wonder of the biology.

Pretty good, recommended for SF fans.

Zombie Island of Dr. Ned - DLC - Review

2012-01-06T19:19:00.000-02:00

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is DLC for Borderlands!.

As you might imagine, it is zombie themed, and mostly revolves about killing a ton of zombies while carrying out missions, in the regular Borderlands! style.

The difficulty was adequate and killing zombies was reasonably fun. There are a lot of funny dialogs throughout the island, too, including Dr. Ned's Claptrap and the constant Jakobs Corporation announcements.

There are a few annoying things.

First, you only have a single fast travel point for the whole island. This means that you spend a lot of time walking around. There are no vehicles. And of course, a lot of the time you'll have to kill zombies on the exactly same point.

Where you spawn, there is a nice obvious place to jump that cuts through quite a bit of the walk - in theory. In practice, when you jump you are instantly respawned at the island entrance. VERY annoying. There are a few spots where if you walk to far from the coast the same happens - that is just bad level design.

Some of the special zombies have explosives. Obviously you have to be careful around them, as you can get killed with a single distraction.

Overall, I spent about 6 hours to finish and I recommend it given the price - specially if you get it on a sale.

P3 Profiler problem - fixed

2012-01-05T23:03:00.000-02:00

I just tried the P3 profiler plugin for WordPress.

It gets data on what plugins are slowing down your page loads. It is a very nice plugin and provided plenty of data (somewhat unexpected slower plugins) - on my Linux site. On my Windows site, it killed my WordPress blog completely!

Just in case someone have the same problem, you have to rename/delete both the wp-content/plugins/p3-profiler AND wp-content/plugins/mu-plugins.

Solved - Borderlands locks up when loading DLC Zombie Island

2011-12-30T14:27:00.000-02:00

I just finished Borderlands and so I bought the DLC pack.

When fast traveling to Jacob's Cove to access Zombie Island, the loading screen went on and on without disk activity. How do you get it to continue?

Well, what happened is that an activation window for the content popped up in the background, where there was no chance of me seeing it. You have to alt-tab to it (and for some reason I couldn't get the mouse to go there, but it works with just the keyboard), and then enter the serial for Zombie Island.

After that it will go online to activate the DLC, and after a while it will be able to finish loading.

Overall, a horribly implemented idea. All other DLC I ever bought just appeared in the game without further work in my part. AFAIK it is trivial for the program to use the Steam API to do it. No idea why they did it this way in this case...

Amazon.com Widgets

The Power of Six - Book Review

2011-12-25T20:42:00.000-02:00

The Power of Six - by Pittacus Lore - is the sequel to I am Number Four.

It is quite common for sequels to be worse than the original. This one felt a little shorter, but overall it was probably as good as the first - if not better, as the most annoying stuff in story logic and ridiculous battle scenes (with the dark realm) were not present here.

The book is a direct sequel, after the big school battle, John and Sam are being chased as terrorists. Another of the garde enter the story and there is a lot of going back and forth between them. On my Kindle book, there was no division between some of these segments, and on the spots where they quickly flipped between the stories that was a bit jarring.

There are plenty of battles, and the ending is clearly built-up for suspense for other sequels (which I'll buy right when it is released).

The Kindle version I saw had an extended scene (pretty weak), audio messages from Pittacus Lore (supposedly the alien leader, trying to warn us and the garde) and trailers from the movie.

Overall, it was a fun, light read. Recommended.

Renegade Ops PC Review

2011-12-24T18:28:00.000-02:00

Renegade Ops is a very nice looking arcade drive-and-shoot game.

The graphics are great, and one of the biggest points in the sales pitches is the number of explosives and destroyable structures. I have to agree, and it looks great.

However, I hate the control scheme. It uses WASD as most games, however it uses it to indicate the direction to drive - instead of the W for accelerate, A and D to steer and S for brake and reverse.

Seems like a small change, but even after playing for a while I'm constantly bothered by it.

I'm not sure I'd enjoy the game with another control scheme, but with this one, I really didn't.

Because of this, not recommended at all.

Trine 2 Review

2011-12-20T23:22:00.000-02:00

Trine 2 is a platformer that uses the same formula used in Trine, as well as many games over the years (The Lost Vikings - From 1992 - comes to mind).

You control 3 characters magically rolled into one, each with different abilities. You then face puzzles which need you to choose the right ability and the right thing to do with them.

Trine 2 is quite beautiful.

The music is nice but quite repetitive - I quickly got tired of it.

Everything seems pretty much like the first game, so if you liked it, you will probably like this one too.

However, I have to say that after half an hour, I started to get annoyed with the fairly similar puzzles, as well as the less-than-stellar combat.

I recommend trying the demo before buying.

I am number Four - Book Review

2011-12-19T23:24:00.001-02:00

I've just watched I am Number Four - the movie. While I realize that a lot of people hated it, I really liked it.

Sure, I realize that some points of the plot don't make sense, and that the whole story seems forced. But I still enjoyed the fights and the special effects.

That is when I decided to read the book. I mean, how frequently have I said that a movie was better than the book? Almost never.

Unfortunately, that book was one of those cases.

OK, pretending that the author is an alien trying to warn Earth is cute. But the mishmash of SF and fantasy really annoyed me.

For example, either they didn't explain it in the movie or I missed it - why are they being killed in sequence? The book explains - it is a charm that makes them invulnerable, unless they get the next one in the sequence. Oh.

Also, their superpowers. I would have hoped for the classic SF hand waving - the talents were bio engineered by a long lost tech by their ancestors (I'm thinking of Neal Asher and Jain tech here). But no, they suddenly started getting superpowers after they started treating their planet better - they are a gift from their planet. Aaaargh!

The final battle felt oh so more natural in the movie. In the book, the bad aliens move areas to a separate realm (for extra boring fights, as I understand). And they are so evil, their weapons eat the life forces of trees around them. And no, I'm not making this up.

Still, it is not completely bad. The rest of it is actually good, and I might even read others in the series. But I can't help but imagine that a different writer could have made this much more enjoyable.

I also reviewed the sequel to this book - Power of Six Review

Satazius Review

2011-12-19T23:09:00.000-02:00

Satazius is a REALLY old school arcade shoot'em up. In fact I just went and checked the release date, in case Steam just added a decade old game and I didn't realize.

It does look OK for the chosen theme. But the control scheme is incredibly annoying (the menus go back and forth using Z and X?!?! Escape closes the program immediately?!?), and I no longer can handle the annoyance of a single hit blowing you up.

I guess they do deserve props for the authenticity of their work, but I didn't enjoy it at all, and don't recommend it.

Prador Moon - Review

2011-12-12T13:40:00.000-02:00

Prador Moon, by Neal Asher, is another novel of the Polity.

This one covers the beginning of the Prador war - right when the the Prador and the Polity had first contact.

I particularly enjoyed the extra detailed explanation into Prador armor and augs.

The ending is satisfying but while the book pretend to be coy about it, it gives too much away for it to be anything close to a surprise.

Recommended for those who are already fans of the Polity books.

Disabling movies in Borderlands

2011-12-09T19:14:00.000-02:00

The start up movies in Borderlands! are quite annoying. OK, the Nvidia logo with the Claptrap is cute - but not after a few times.

You can easily remove them by editing some INI files.

Go to "USER NAME\Documents\My Games\Borderlands\WillowGame\Config" and find the file named WillowEngine.ini

Comment out (//) all entries on [FullScreenMovie].

Go to this page for more details and tweaks.

Borderlands PC Review

2011-12-04T15:13:00.002-02:00

Borderlands calls itself a RPS - Role Playing Shooter. They say it as if it was new, but I'd say that it has been done many many times, with varying results.

The one thing that is fairly unique about Borderlands is the visual, cartoonish style, which looks great and at the same time seems to bother my eyes after playing for a while.

The characters are pretty well made too, with very different looks.

The gameplay reminds me of Fallout 3 - you go around and talk to people, get missions and fulfill them, while getting stuff you can find around you and getting attacked by the local monsters and bandits. It also has plenty of different weapons, and seem to go on even more about their uniqueness - they all seem to have different bonus on accuracy, damage or recoil, or special stuff such as explosive, fire or lightning damage.

Meanwhile you accumulate experience points. Some guns, shields or class mods require minimum levels, plus you can get improvements to your special action.

For the soldier, the special action is a tower you can deploy that shoots your enemies. You can also improve it with healing capabilities, ammo restocking, fire bullets or rocket launchers.

An interesting aspect is that once you can a place, it gets repopulated. Crates with guns, ammo or cash get restocked, and enemies reappear. That is nice on the sense of making these sections of the game world last longer, but it is fairly annoying when you finish a large mission, and while you are going back all the enemies you already killed are back!

Another unusual thing is that whenever you are killed, if you kill an enemy during a timer, you get a Second Wind - some health is restored and you can continue playing.

Vehicle play is not particularly interesting. You can easily crush enemies, but it feels too plain (you just walk over them and poof they are gone). I don't like the use of look around for controls, either. They are useful for moving around quickly, however, specially before you get Fast Travel.

Overall I really liked the game. The enemies popping back up are a bit annoying, but the guns and enemy varieties more than make up for that. Recommended.

As usual, I'll update this as I play more.

Update: I've finished the game, and it took 31 hours according to Steam. That is pretty good value! I now bought the DLC pack, and will post about them separately.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed PC Review

2011-12-03T16:28:00.000-02:00

I've recently tried Star Wars: Force Unleashed II on the XBOX 360, and while I didn't really like it, it reminded me of the fact that I already bought Star Wars: Force Unleashed for PC on a Steam sale a while ago.

So I downloaded it - 25GB! and played a bit.

It looks pretty great, and I really loved the amount of damageable objects on the opening level. Lots of stuff exploding into pieces. The trees is particular looked pretty nice.

The control scheme and gameplay still feels a bit more on the videogame style than a PC FPS, but it is much more tolerable.

There is a nice progression system, in which you get extra talents,combos and powers.

Overall, I think it is OK - maybe good. If you are a big Star Wars fan, you will probably enjoy it, but I can't help but feel that it could be a lot better.

Rock of Ages Review - PC

2011-12-02T22:43:00.000-02:00

Rock of Ages is clearly a member of a very old game subgenre - where you roll some round object to an objective, while avoiding falling. Those are the boulders you use to destroy enemies, their structures, defenses and ultimately destroy their gates and kill their leader.

However, it adds much more, as there is a tower defense component on both sides - even on single player. You build stuff such as Towers (which just stay there), cows and elephants (which block and damage your boulder) and catapults (which deflect and damage).

It looks pretty good and has an unusual art style, specially on the cinematics. I particularly liked how they pulled the theme of the game of the Sisyphus myth - he got tired of rolling that rock up the hill all the time, and decided to use it to broke out of Hades. Pretty funny.

It is somewhat interesting, but I'm not sure how fun the gameplay will be after playing more.

Orbus - Book Review

2011-12-01T19:55:00.000-02:00

Orbus, by Neal Asher, is the third book in the SpatterJay series.

It changes the setting quite a bit from the two previous volumes - almost nothing of the story passes on SpatterJay. But ultimately, it is all about SpatterJay.

In particular, we get a full explanation of the origin of the SpatterJay virus, its purpose, and why it has almost magical powers.

It is hard to go on without dropping lots of spoilers, but I can say that the story of Vrell continues and end in a very satisfying manner, and that Orbus (I mean, duh! It is in the title!), Sniper and Thirteen are back, and that the book ends in the typical heavy battle.

Recommended, and I have to say I'm a bit sad to see the end of the series.

Thankfully, I've got several books to go with the Polity yet. I just bought Prador Moon and will read it soon enough.

SkyDrift PC Review

2011-12-01T12:14:00.000-02:00

SkyDrift is an old school plane race game, complete with the traditional boosts and weapons, such as cannons, missiles, mines and more.

The graphics are very good, and the gameplay is fun while still being challenging.

I like it, and I recommend checking out the demo if you like this kind of game.

Fruit Ninja - Review

2011-11-29T11:42:00.000-02:00

Fruit Ninja is a Kinect game for XBox 360.

The theme sounds spectacularly silly - you have to use hand moves with Kinect to slice fruits in mid air, while avoiding bombs. There are also special fruits, such as frozen bananas, which slow down time.

I wouldn't even have tried it, except that the same friend who convinced me to get the XBox told me to try it several times.

I was pleasantly surprised - this is quite fun. You get oriented by a shadow version of your Kinect image - which both fits the ninja theme well and is very helpful.

The one thing I noticed is that I have to take it easy in this game - if I overdo it I get really sore shoulders the next day!

I really recommend trying the demo.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - XBox 360 - Review

2011-11-29T11:33:00.000-02:00

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II looks pretty good. The effects and sounds are great, and the cutscenes look nearly perfect.

The force powers are well spread along the controller, too.

However, I pretty much hate it. Why? I'm not sure, but I really don't like this particularly top view with flipping relative fronts. Maybe it is because I'm too used to FPS, and because I really liked Jedy Knight II and the others in that line.

But the end result is that The Force Unleashed II feels too arcade for me.

Note: I only played the demo. Given how I really didn't like it, I doubt the full version would change my mind.

Kinect Sports Review

2011-11-27T23:04:00.000-02:00

I've recently got a XBOX360 and Kinect, and so far this is the game I've liked the most.

It has a few sports and minigames.
Soccer: The system is quite clever - you don't really play soccer per se, but get a bunch of semi turn based situations that are a lot like soccer. For example, you can intercept passes, kick the ball, try to defend goals. It is pretty fun.

Volleyball: pretty good too. You mostly have to touch the balls as they come in, as well as jump for the shots over the net.

Track & Field: not so much fun, and a bit hard on my knees. I have to run with knees really high for it to work properly.

Bowling: I didn't really like this one. Probably the control system is annoying me.

Table Tennis: pretty fun. I really played a lot of the real thing as a kid, and this version is nice. Of course, you just need to contact the ball, but at least you can put a spin on it.

Boxing: nice. It is not as therapeutic as putting on gloves and hitting a dummy, but I can feel a similar effect.

Every sport also has a few mini games. For example, Volley has one where you have to dodge objects thrown at you, and another where you have to hit fruits and dodge bombs.

Overall, I really liked Kinect Sports, and it does work well as fun, light exercise.

XBox 360 and Kinect

2011-11-24T23:12:00.000-02:00

I just got a XBox 360 with Kinect. It is my first videogame console since 88, when I sold my Intellivision (to buy more computer hardware, of course).

I have been playing all that long, but only on the PC. What changed my mind was Kinect (and a friend who just got one talking a lot about it).

You see, I'm pretty happy with the keyboard and mouse. And I've always felt that console games were, in sometimes subtle ways, less complex and interesting than PC games.

The games I've played so far didn't change my mind in that aspect. Kinect Adventures or Sports, with a regular controller, would be generic and silly.

But with Kinect, they are quite cool. I enjoyed pretty much every game on Kinect Adventures, and got a serious workout - even though I go to the gym three times a week and still do light exercise on most of the other days.

That is, of course, something that I can't say for any other game I've every played.

So, how good is the tracking? It is just OK. I'm using it on the TV room, and I barely got the 1.9 m (the minimum for single player is 1.80m). It is still pretty playable.

I was also impressed with the looks and ease of use of the XBox. The hardware looks great and is pretty small, the controller looks and feels great (not that I've really used it yet), and the whole thing only took a few minutes to set up. An HDMI cable would have been nice, but fortunately I had a spare.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing, but I only played for a little more than an hour so far, and I didn't set XBOX Live yet - I want to switch my old router for a new one.

I'll update as I play more.

What I got was local version of this.

A Beautiful Friendship - Book Review

2011-11-19T19:35:00.000-02:00

A Beautiful Friendship - by David Weber is a larger version of a story previously published on one of the Honorverse anthologies - More than Honor.

The story follows how an ancestor of Honor Harrington, who just moved to Sphinx, discovers and then forms a relationship with the telephatic, sentient local life form - the Treecats.

It is pleasant, but it does feel like a young adult book. In fact, overall it very much feels like a B direct-to-TV movie, with a young hero which is oh so much smarter than the adults beside her, and with the help of her pet saves the day.

Rochard PC Game Review

2011-11-17T14:51:00.000-02:00

Rochard is an interesting platformer. Your main gun mostly acts as the Half Life 2 gravity gun, except that it can also fire lasers, and you can also reduce the local gravity.

Gameplay is mostly about knocking out enemies, bots and auto guns, by launching and dropping box and explosives or firing at them.

A big part of the puzzles is also the use of fields. Each color has a function - red won't allow people to pass, yellow doesn't allow equipment, etc. So far I like the puzzles, but I'm not sure if it won't get too repetitive - that was a complaint in some reviews.

Graphics are pretty good and I really like the music. The Orchard Soundtrack is available as DLC on Steam.

Overall, I recommend checking out the trailer and buying the game if you like what you see (unfortunately, I couldn't find a PC demo right now).

Rochard Soundtrack DLC PC - How to find

2011-11-17T14:44:00.003-02:00

I've recently purchased Rochard (my Rochard Review), and I since I liked the trailer soundtrack decided to purchase it (it is pretty cheap when you buy the game).

I couldn't find any obvious place to get me to it on Steam. A quick search on the Steam folder found it on
c:\games\steam\SteamApps\common\rochard\Rochard - The Original Videogame Soundtrack

It includes the music on 320kbps MP3s, as well a very nice cover JPG and a nice looking PDF booklet.

There are some very nice songs in there, specially Grinder's Blues and Rochard Main Theme. Space Debris and John's Theme are pretty good too.

Remove Blog Name from Title on Blogger

2011-11-12T18:26:00.003-02:00

One thing that has bothered me for a while is the fact that every one of my blog post page titles starts with the blog name.

While in my case that is very short (just STG's), it still is worse for SEO than just the post title.

A quick look showed me how to fix it.

You just need to do a simple edit on your template (Design->Edit HTML on Blogger)

Then you find
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

And replace it with:
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

The Voyage of the Sable Keech - Review

2011-11-11T11:56:00.000-02:00

The Voyage of the Sable Keech, by Neal Asher, is the second book in the Spatterjay series.

In the first book of the series, a reification - a high tech zombie that is driven by a recording of his own mind (usually) got resurrected by nanotech. What isn't clear in the first book is that not only this isn't common - it just has never happened before.

Thus, a mass of other reifications are coming to Spatterjay to try to get themselves resurrected too. Obviously that is not going to go very well...

Most of the characters of the first book are back. Of interesting note is that Captain Ron now flies spaceships, Olian Tay made a sprine bank that now is the basis of Spatterjay's economy, and the adolescent Prador, of course, survives.
Also, Janer is involved in a skirmish between hive minds that may destroy Spatterjay...

As usual on Asher's books, the Spatterjay virus leaves people, Pradors or Giant Whelks capable of almost anything, including massive, nearly instant body changes.

This mildly stretches any common sense, but if you don't pay attention and go with it, it is a pretty good book, too.

Orcs Must Die: Lost Adventures - Game Review

2011-11-10T22:51:00.000-02:00

Lost Adventures is the latest DLC for Orcs Must Die!

What you get is:

- Five New levels: these seem to be more or less on the same level of cleverness/difficulty/fun as the original levels. The Reverse Tower is a bit of cheating - it is The Tower level from the original game in reverse, with the doors on the upper two levels and the Rift down below.

- Two New Enemies: the Frost Bat, which is basically the regular HellBats from the regular game releasing ice, and the Cyclops mage, which is OK.

- New Trap: the Mana Well can supply you with mana. Not very exciting.

It doesn't add a lot of stuff, but for US$3.99 it is good value if you already like the game. If you still want to upgrade any of the traps, the extra skulls (up to 50) should come in handy.

It wasn't obvious (at least to me) how to play the new levels. I'm posting on a separate article how to play the new levels in Lost Adventures.

Orcs Must Die: Lost Adventures - How to Play new levels

2011-11-10T22:48:00.000-02:00

When you buy Orcs Must Die: Lost Adventures it is not all the obvious how to play the new levels.

However, it is very easy - just click on Play and look for the button Change Campaign. Click on it to change to Lost Adventures and you can start playing.

The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III - Review

2011-10-30T14:59:00.000-02:00

The Hot Gate:Troy Rising III by John Ringo follows Live Free or Die and Citadel into what is called the Troy Rising series.

The series covers the events after Earth gets an interestellar gate, galactic tech and some new enemies.

The fight continues on the third book, with extra battlestations being built. The main focus is on the Termopylae, which - in a possibly offensive way to all south americans - is filled with incompetent spacers from Argentina, Chile, Equador and other south american countries. Apparently they are useless because of their culture.

I guess since Ringo kept Brazil off the list, I can't be nearly as offended...

Another AI breakdown happens (apparently they are a lot buggier than initially apparent, as one breaks down per book since the 1st...), Tyler and Dana Parker's relationship continues to develop, and as usual there is a massive battle to end the book.

Pretty good, as usual,

Data Jammers: FastForward PC Game Review

2011-10-27T23:17:00.000-02:00

Data Jammers: FastForward is a very nice looking, retro style game, which reminds me of a "lane hopping" game design that I remember playing in arcades and my Intellivision back in the 80s.

From what I've seen in the demo, you hop between lanes (which divide with very nice visuals, which reminds me of Tron Legacy) and use bombs or pushing to destroy your enemies.

It all looks great, and the trailer theme is adorable, but in practice I really don't get the gameplay. Enemies seem to come from everywhere, and all you have is area off effect bombs, which you can't really use all the time as you only get a couple and the eventual replacement.

I don't recommend it. But if you really think you are going to like it, try the demo first, which is only a few megabytes.

The Haunted: Hells Reach PC Review

2011-10-26T19:06:00.000-02:00

The Haunted: Hells Reach is an unusual third-person based demon hunting game.

It seems to have a lot of things I don't like - it is third-person based, no tutorial at all (there is a how to play section in the menu), and enemies that pop out of nowhere right in front of you.

Graphics are pretty good. Punching and kicking is OK and there are a few different moves. You can also shoot with a handgun, shotgun or commando rifle.

Overall, I didn't like it, but without a tutorial or explanations I don't think I really got the game at all.

I'll update this post if I play more.

The Skinner - Neal Asher

2011-10-23T20:27:00.001-02:00

The Skinner - by Neal Asher - is the first of the SpatterJay series.

I had heard it was pretty good, but I ended up reading the Ian Cormac series first. It was pretty good, so I didn't think the SpatterJay series could be much better.

I was wrong. Very wrong. The Skinner was simply awesome.

Asher seems to take a lot of pleasure in creating incredibly complex ecologies with horrible, yet believable creatures. Spatterjay, with the "magic" virus that can keep humans living forever while changing, and a veritable panoply of dangerous creatures, is easily one of his best.

There were plenty of battles and action on the book, and a new ECS agent - Sable Keech. The ending was quite satisfying yet leaving plenty for the rest of series.

I already bought the next one, of course.

Very strongly recommended.

Get The Skinner now at Amazon

Dungeon Defenders - PC Review

2011-10-23T16:34:00.000-02:00

Dungeon Defenders is a very nice looking Tower Defense/RPG .

It uses Unreal as the game engine and it really shows in the beautiful graphics.

My problem with it is the interface. It uses an incredibly annoying top view camera, which I pretty much hated. The movement also feels more like a RPG with indirect control, but it uses FPS controls.

So I really couldn't bear it for more than a few minutes.

I have been playing Orcs Must Die! - which in theory is similar, but have very different controls and that probably didn't help.

Really not recommended. Try Orcs Must Die! instead.

LightFish Review

2011-10-20T18:51:00.000-02:00

Lightfish is another QIX clone. For those that don't remember it, you walk only or borders, and must enclose a region of space, without being touched while drawing the limits.

It is not particularly bad, and the graphics are quite good (in a retro way), but I'm not a fan of the keyboard based control-scheme, and that really ruined it for me.

One QIX clone I really liked was Cosmo Bots (Warning: download link). The different bugs and map shapes made it quite fun, and I really preferred the mouse based control scheme. I'm a bit amazed that they still sell it for US$20 after all those years, though!

iTunes Error Solved

2011-10-14T16:17:00.000-03:00

Since I tried to install an update about a month ago, I've been unable to use iTunes.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times, but there was always a new error. Quicktime wasn't installed properly, Apple Software Support wasn't installed (but trying to install made the installer complain that it was already installed), and several more.

What did solve my problem was following this article by Apple . In particular, I looked at these folders and some of them still had files after I uninstalled everything.

Re-installing iTunes now seemed to solve everything.

BTW, I can't help but feel that the Windows version of iTunes (at least, I've never used the Mac version) is horribly full of flimsy dependencies. There are a ton of similar complaints about the web.

At least they are now designing their iOS so that you don't really have to use it for downloads or upgrades...

Orcs Must Die! won't launch - SOLVED

2011-10-13T14:21:00.001-03:00

I've just tried to run Orcs Must Die!, but I had a problem. It wouldn't run at all, just launch the icon and then disappear quietly.

I found the solution in this FAQ by the game authors. It is fairly easy:
- Find the game on Steam (if you have a large list like me, might be easier to switch to Recently Played games first)
- Right-click on the game title
- Choose the Local Files tab
- Verify Integrity of Game Cache

There were 8 files with problems on mine. After that the game ran fine. And I have to say that so far I like it a lot - see Orcs Must Die! Review for my opinion.

Amazon.com Widgets

Citadel - John Ringo - Review

2011-10-08T17:03:00.000-03:00

Citadel - by John Ringo is the second book in the Troy Rising series. I have read and reviewed Live Free Or Die last month.

In the series, an interestellar gate is installed near Earth, and trouble soon ensues. But Earth is fighting back, and Troy is the biggest weapon - a massive asteroid, with plenty of guns and armor.

In the second book, there is a lot expansion into secondary characters, and an interesting view from another angle of the shuttle incident in the end of the first book.

Of course, the fight continues in neat ways.

While it is a bit of spoiler, I was surprised that it took this long for the characters to go with a Project Orion style propulsion.

Very good, strongly recommended.

Orcs Must Die! - Review

2011-10-04T23:43:00.001-03:00

Orcs Must Die! is an awesome tower defense/FPS game.

Tower Defense/FPS is not a particularly common genre, but there are a few of them out there - such as Sanctum or Iron Grip: Warlord .

Orcs Must Die! is quite simple - you have to defend the Time Rifts in a bunch of different castles from an horde of Orcs. You will do it with weapons - such as a sword or a crossbow - and traps - on the demo all you get are floor spikes, wall arrows, tar traps and exploding barrels.

This allow for quite a bit of strategy in the placement. There are also crossbow and sword defenders, but at least on the demo they are at fixed positions.

The traps are also upgradable, and it looks like you collect new traps during the campaign. Another strategic element is that you only have a few slots, so you will have to pick which traps are best for your strategy and specific castles.

Graphics are great and so is the sound. I love the gameplay in the demo. It is just at the appropriate side of frantic while being great fun.

The demo is pretty short, so it is hard to tell if it will keep the fun going after the demo levels. But so far it looks like it could beat my current TD/FPS favorite - Iron Grip:Warlord.

I really recommend checking out the demo. I have already bought it, and will extend the review when it is available.

Update: I just got the full game. It loaded all my progress from the demo, and at this point it adds a nice new weapon - a belt that allows you to throw enemies back.

This is very useful as you can really do extra damage on the portal - just keep throwing them back and in the mean time keep shooting them while they are down.

There are also very convenient acid pools where you can drop orcs. You also get spring traps later that throw them automatically.

Barricades and Archers also add a lot of fun to the game.

Astro Tripper PC Review

2011-10-02T15:47:00.000-03:00

Astro Tripper is yet another space shooter.

I've been playing these since the 80s, and I can't say that Astro Tripper has anything new.

I've also seen nicer graphics on flash versions (although there are some nice looking effects).

I didn't enjoy it at all. Really not recommended.

Xotic PC Review

2011-10-01T16:56:00.000-03:00

Xotic is an unusual FPS. The theme is somewhat trippy - a mental entity called the Orb went crazy and it taking bodies across planets, which devastate them. You are another weird entity that will fix the planets -mostly by shooting at red balls - and take on the orb.

The graphics are OK enough, (and some items, such as the alien plants, look very nice) but I can't help but find that the style of the gameplay reminds of the Doom clones back in the 90s.

Not recommended - the game play is mostly annoying.

Frozen Synapse Review

2011-09-28T20:03:00.000-03:00

I just got Frozen Synapse in the latest Humble Bundle.

I've been meaning to check out their demo for a while, but never got the time.

The game is in an interesting middle of the road as genre goes. I've played a few turn-based games (my fondest memories being of Silent Storm), but Frozen Synapse is not really like that - it feels more like a shooter puzzle.

I like the gameplay, but I didn't really get the hang of it yet, so I'm still being massacred :-)

Graphics look very nice, with the whole neon theme, and explosions look great. It is always fun to see a game that allows explosions to properly take walls.

Since it is so different from most game I recommend that you try the demo first.

New Blogger Views

2011-09-28T12:10:00.000-03:00

Very cool looking new views for your blogs:

It is nice to see some innovation from Blogger - frankly I thought Google have given up on it!

Demolition Inc. Review

2011-09-27T16:15:00.001-03:00

Demolition Inc. is a very neat 3D chain reaction game. You are an alien who has to destroy all cities on Earth to return the planet to a pristine state.

Apparently they were all out of ray guns, because you will have to work with oil, glue, explosive cows and the like to set chain reactions with cars and trucks to destroy buildings.

The demo is VERY short, but I liked it. You have to suck the debris, both to get bonuses and so that the cars and trucks can keep moving. I've heard complaints of debris getting stuck, but didn't have any problems.

My sole complaint is that for whatever reason it decided to start on monitor 1 instead of the primary monitor, which is very uncommon (I think I've seen another game do this a few years ago). You do have an option to switch to whatever monitor you want, so it is not that annoying.

I recommend that you download the demo and try it out.

Update: The game was on sale and I bought it. Turns out that the demo levels were way more fun than the rest. No longer recommended.

Heat Rises - Book Review

2011-09-27T15:22:00.000-03:00

Heat Rises by Richard Castle (well, not really as he is a fictional character) is the third novel on the Nikki Heat series.

The series is a tie-in with the TV series Castle. While I'm not traditionally much of a fan of mysteries, all books in the series have been good so far, and the tie-in aspects really add to my enjoyment of the books.

This one is no exception. I did feel that the story on this one was more complicated, and I have to say that I never imagined who was the culprit - but I think it used the traditional Agatha Christie system of not giving up all elements that the detective has to the reader.

Nice references to the show (in particular the dedication to the captain, killed in the TV series). I really liked the tiny reference to Malcolm Reynolds - the main Firefly character which was played by Nathan Fillion, the actor who plays Richard Castle.

Very nice, recommended.

The Parasite - Neal Asher - Review

2011-09-24T14:12:00.000-03:00

The Parasite, by Neal Asher is a 1996 novella sized SF tale. It is does not take place in the Polity universe, although any casual reader familiar with Asher later works would probably assume it was - the main topic is an alien tech or species that takes over humans, making them better in the process. And it also has a golem that someone tries to make crazy and anti-proton weapons.

Clearly Asher was already interested in these topics way before he got around to the Polity books.

It is a pretty good read (and in fact it had been a while since I couldn't sleep before finishing a book), and there is a nice amount of action.

The ending is nice, but clearly less optimal to the creation of a continuing series than the regular Jain tech used later.

On a side note, it is somewhat interesting that this is the first time Asher self-publishes. I imagine that he gets a lot more per unit than on regular books. Good look with that!

Very much recommended.

Wasteland Angel - PC review - Demo

2011-09-21T15:53:00.000-03:00

Wasteland Angel is a cute top-view drive and shoot game.

The action is basically driving around shooting your enemies with machines guns, napalm, missiles and more, and getting power ups.

A big part of the action is saving citizens from slavers, which just entails shooting the special cars that kidnap them.

One funny thing about the graphics - the most I can set here is 1680x1050. Very surprising to see on a Full HD monitor (1920x1080). It also has a very common problem - the mouse cursor is not locked to the game area. So if you have more than one monitor, one larger move and you are thrown out of the game.

Gameplay is OK. The action is fairly fast, and there doesn't seem to have a lot of strategy involved. The physics of the cars is satisfying enough.

It also has some nice comic style cutscenes, like this one:

Overall, if you usually like that kind of game, I recommend taking a look at the demo.

Live free Or Die - Review

2011-09-21T14:28:00.000-03:00

I've just finished Live free Or Die, by John Ringo. It is, oddly enough, derived from a webcomic - Schlock Mercenary .

As quite usual for Ringo, the topic is aliens suddenly attacking an ill prepared near future mankind, who rise to the challenge.

I really liked this one. The book starts with an interstellar gate being installed near Earth. Right away aliens come to trade - and to demand tribute. One man figures out exactly the right thing to trade for, and builds on that to start defending the planet...

Very nice tech and large scale engineering, particularly loved the "Death Star" design.

Very much recommended. In fact, I just went and bought the two sequels - together with a bunch of other books - on Webscription.net

Blocks that Matter Review - Demo

2011-09-20T23:15:00.000-03:00

Blocks that Matter is an interesting puzzle game. The biggest innovation is that you go around absorbing cubes of matter, which can then be reused to solve the puzzle.

It is interesting but I rarely like puzzle games. If you do, you might want to try the demo.

Engineering Infinity - Book review

2011-09-17T15:29:00.000-03:00

Engineering Infinity is a wonderful collection of short hard SF stories, edited by Johnathan Strahan.

This is one of the best of all short story collections I've ever read in recent years.

Malak by Peter Watts

A nice story about an AI drone. Very satisfying ending - I laughed out loud.

Watching the Music Dance by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Wonderful little story about implants, a little girl and her music.

Laika's Ghost by Carl Schoeder

This one was quite clever, and involves data glasses, which seem to be coming back into fashion in SF with all the augmented reality apps in smartphones and tablets. Loved the use of the old Orion Project principle.

The Invasion of Venus by Stephen Baxter

Loved the BFG in this one!

The Server and the Dragon by Hannug Rajaniemi

I really the liked the Von Neumann galaxy-wide network scheme in this one. The dragon bits were quite whimsical.

Bit Rot by Charles Stross

Best of a specific Horror Subgenre (avoiding spoilers here) story logic ever. I've read a lot of Stross' books and short stories over the years, and I can't help but think that some of his best work must be in the short form - just a clever concept powering a little tale through.

Creatures with Wings by Kathleen Ann Goonan

Nice, very zen end of world story.

Wall of Flesh, Bar of Bone by Damien Broderick and Barbara Lamar

Unusual time travel story.

Mantis by Robert Reed

Very nice. I loved the bit about how you know that you are real (more people did, as it shows up as a popular highlight) - if things are constantly boring and ordinary, you must be real...

Judgement Eye by John C. Wright

Loved the nanite tech in this one. OK, it sounds so very very phony, but still cool. The ending is dark but lovely.

A Soldier of the City by David Moles

Mercies by Gregory Benford

Pretty cool alternate realities and serial killers story. Nice, adequate ending.

The Ki-anna by Gwyneth Jones

The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees by John Barnes

John Barnes has written many classics, and this one is definitely on his usual quality. The "Gasoline tree" of the title was a very cool construct. It fits very well with the book title, and makes for a very proper end to the book.

Hard Reset PC Review

2011-09-10T13:42:00.001-03:00

Hard Reset is a cyberpunk FPS. The developers - Flying Wild Hog - describe it is an old school shooter.

It is hard to disagree. I don't know exactly what gives it that feel, but it certainly is there.

The graphics are good, although some of the objects feel like they come from an older game.

The lightning arcs look great, and you will probably see a lot of them - one of the things the game encourages is blowing up electrical panels and the like to fry your enemies.

Your enemies - at least in the demo - are all different kind of robots. They look very nice and seem on the quirky side - they have a few different cool looking moves.

The weapons and upgrades look nice. You have the classic rifle and plasma guns, as well as many others - applied as firing modes on the projectile and energy weapons.

The weapon above, for example, is an electrical mortar. It nicely spreads lightning on your enemies, and then explodes.

The cut-scenes are comic book panels, with nice art.

I really liked the demo. However, it was pretty short, so I don't know if it gets boring after a while.

I really recommend checking out the demo for Hard Reset.

Update: I've bought the full game, and I've been playing. The action hasn't changed much from the demo, and I still like it.

Some sections are really full of small bots that come in groups, and the electrical mortal seems even more useful in these situations, as it can hold areas for a few seconds. That is particularly useful when enemies come in batches from more than one side.

Space Marine PC Review

2011-09-04T18:32:00.001-03:00

WarHammer 40,000: Space Marine is a rather intense third-person shooter set into the WarHammer universe.

I've only played the demo so far - I'll update this post if this changes.

You play a Space Marine captain. Space Marines are very tough and were not only trained but altered for the task.

On the game, you will usually be fighting whole hordes of Orcs, and be attacked from many different directions at once. You have both ranged weapons - pretty standard fare - or close-ranged weapons such as chainsaws and power axes.

The animations for the close-ranged weapons are pretty cool, and you can kill quite a few enemies at once with them. The game has an interesting mechanic for regaining health - you can stun enemies with a special key, and do a special execution to get more health.

The executions are particularly cool and involve throwing the enemies, or gutting them with the chainsaw.

Particularly nice are the jump pod sequences - jumping high in the levels is nice, but the best looking part is clearly the secondary attack, which involves you pointing at the ground and ramming with the jump jet. This will kill any enemies that are very near and stun many more.

The graphics and sounds are pretty good, but I've found the gameplay to be a little less fun than I expected. The jump jet sequences are more fun than average, though.

I'll probably be buying this when it eventually goes on sale, but it just doesn't seem good enough for full price.

Serious Sam Double D PC Review

2011-08-31T14:28:00.000-03:00

Vuvuzela monsters attacking, 6 guns stacked

Serious Sam Double D is a 2D plataform shooter, based on the old Serious Sam franchise.

Personally, I've never been a fan of the series, but this little shooter title is fun.

The coolest feature on the game is the gun stacking system. You collect guns while you play, and also special connectors. Then you can stack up to 6 guns.

It is a silly proposition (and looks bizarre in action), but it is fun to shoot the whole bunch of guns at once.

And it is also very useful, because the bizarre enemies sure do teleport in large numbers. A interesting twist is that as those enemies die, their bodies collect on the floor. And the massive numbers can be used to cross spike pits or reach higher places.

The graphics and music are acceptable, but definitely not nice. My only real complaint is unfortunately common - the mouse cursor isn't locked to the screen, which means that you can easily click out of the game if you have multiple monitors.

Recommended - Serious Sam Double D is fun enough for its price.

The Polynomial PC Review

2011-08-31T00:10:00.000-03:00

The Polynomial is a very abstract looking 3D space shooter.

The game is quite beautiful, and the lines you can see in the screenshots shift with the music in very spectacular ways.

It uses mostly the basic space shooter mechanics - shoot at enemies, get power-ups, with weird options for repairs (ghosts?!?!).

The gameplay does not compare to the looks, and I didn't find it to be fun at all.

Not recommended, but if you like this kind of shooter you should try out the demo.

Chatbots talking to each other

2011-08-30T13:25:00.000-03:00

Very funny. And I don't think we have to worry about the singularity or Skynet for a while yet...

Deus Ex: Human Revolution PC review

2011-08-29T14:24:00.001-03:00

I was a big fan of Deus Ex - the original 2000 game. It had a great cyberpunk theme and story, and specially great choices on how you could approach an objective.

You could use stealth, non-lethal weapons or just go in guns blazing - your choice.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is very much like it in this sense. In addition, they got RPG style quests.

The graphics are beautiful and the sound is good. The gameplay is a bit different from the original, with heavy use of cover and a food based energy system. There is also a mini-game when hacking, which is somewhat original and actually fun.

You have plenty of options on your Augmentations, such as improved hacking, armor, cloaking, and much more. You can receive Augmentation points through XP, buy them or just find them lying around. The latter shows part of the exploration mindset in the game - it can be very rewarding to go around looking for goodies.

You might have to - it is amazing how stingy the ammo is. Clearly you are not expected to get into many firefights.

And in fact, that is where the game shines. It plays much nicer as a stealth game. There usually is an approach where you can just use takedowns (where you approach an enemy from behind and either knocks him out or kill him with your bare hands) to reach your objective.

This does take patience as well as some trial and error, but it is more rewarding than just shooting everyone (including extra XP points).

Takedowns do drain your batteries, which are annoyingly tiny. You can expand this further with Praxis points too, just as your tiny inventory space.

I found the stun gun to be just plain fun, since you have instant silent unconscious enemy. Low ammo so far too, though.

I'll update this post as I play more.

Portal Video

2011-08-24T14:53:00.000-03:00

Very cool Portal video. Starts pretty slow, but the ending is nice.

Tidalis PC Review

2011-08-23T17:51:00.000-03:00

Tidalis is an interesting puzzle game, with aspects that vaguely remind me of match-3.

Basically, you have a bunch of colored arrows. Clicking on one of them starts a stream. The stream continues if it hits an arrow of the same color, and on the direction of the arrow.

If a stream hits 3 or more blocks, those blocks are removed. The blocks above them fall, and streams are started for each.

You can change the direction of all arrows.

This allow for huge and very complex sequences of streams from a single start, and plenty of strategy.

But is it any fun? Frankly, I didn't like it, although I do like several variations of match-3.

You might want to try their demo before buying.

Bastion PC Review

2011-08-21T15:29:00.000-03:00

Bastion is a action RPG game.

The game's description says that they redefine storytelling in the game. I guess that is fair, as the narrator reacts to what you do. As far as I can see, that mostly changes the timing and simple branching on the action, however. Still, I can't remember anyone doing this before.

Graphics are beautiful - hand painted, and it really shows - and the music is quite pleasant.

Visuals are quite unusual, as objects keep coming up or down from the sky, and walkaways appear as you go into a direction.

The gameplay itself is not very different from the average action RPG - you go around smashing your enemies and conquering objectives. The RPG part so far is pretty minimal - basically you pick tonics that enhances your character, such as more health, extra critical chance, etc. You also choose between a few weapons and special skills.

Very much worth taking a look at the demo, if you like RPGs at all.

4/5 Stars.

Wikiworld - Book Review

2011-08-21T12:36:00.000-03:00

Wikiworld is a very nice, clever story about a world where everything is coordinated through wikis - not strictly on the current sense, but more in the sense of a collaborative framework.

Paul Di Filippo is an awesome author, and known for quirky and unusual stories. Wikiworld is no exception.

There are plenty of wonderful made-up technologies - but that look like they could be reality soon. That includes an internet system based on aerostats, with augmented reality (which seems to be everywhere these days), subcutaneous RFID, and a wiki based democracy - including a Wikitusion in place of a constitution.

Very much recommended.

Black Swan - Bruce Sterling - Book Review

2011-08-21T12:29:00.000-03:00

Black Swan is an interesting parallel universe story - a classic SF theme.

I really like Bruce Sterling's work in general, but I can't say this story is particularly memorable. Still, it is entertaining given the time and money investment.

Alien Hallway Review

2011-08-21T12:27:00.000-03:00

Alien Hallway is a nice little strategy game. This type of game is very common on Flash games - basically, you make units that meet your enemy on the other side of the game field, usually with the goal of destroying some sort of structure on the other side (castles, fortresses, etc). In this case, it is the alien teleporter.

The graphics and sound are adequate (although even after just a few minutes the music was starting to get annoying). There are plenty of upgrades, but I didn't really notice much of a strategy angle - usually in this kind of game you use certain units to counter specific enemy units.

The game is somewhat fun, but looks like it would get boring fast. I recommend checking out the demo first if you are interested.

The Network Game Review

2011-08-19T18:58:00.000-03:00

The Network is a conceptual retro style shooter.

The graphics aren't bad for the retro style, but both the gameplay and the long, annoying pauses in the start and after a few levels really make it awful.

Really not recommended.

Really Big Sky review

2011-08-19T18:45:00.000-03:00

Really Big Sky is an old school shooter, with a few twists.

The biggest twist is that you can flip your ship into a drill. The drill is used to go through meteors and planets.

You also get plenty of upgrades options. That is good, because it is very easy to die with the regular ship.

The graphics are very good (specially the backgrounds and clouds), and the gameplay is fast and furious. My only complaint is that it takes away more than necessary to restart the game after going to the store.

From Dust PC Review

2011-08-18T14:37:00.003-03:00

From Dust is a new game from Ubisoft. Lately they are mostly known from incredibly annoying DRM that requires a permanent link, making pirating their programs much more attractive for paying customers.

Not only do they make me activate my game and create an account (which should be trivially easy for them using Steam's API, but they wouldn't get my e-mail this way), they also patch the game I just downloaded. No progress bar, just a message and an animated icon. Nice.

When it finally runs, all I get is a Connection Lost message:

Had I realized it was an Ubisoft game, I probably wouldn't have bought it. And they also managed to post in their forum that it would not require you to be online - see this article for comments on this, on the supposedly bad port, and on how to get a refund from Steam.

It started working. Another "perk" from Ubisoft DRM is the huge amount of time it takes to save a game after you exit (which of course is completely unnecessary and pure DRM related).

The game does look nice, and the start of the gameplay is interesting - you mostly move land to create land bridges and redirect water streams. But it gets old fast.

Really not recommended - 2/5 Stars

Path to War PC Review

2011-08-16T23:43:00.001-03:00

Path to War is a DLC add-on for Red Faction: Armageddon . It takes place just before the start of the game.

Path to War consists of 4 new levels.

In the first you use a flyer - as one of the cultists - to destroy the Red Faction base in preparation to the attack on the terraformer. Mostly boring and annoying.

The second mission takes place entirely on a tank, and is pretty much as bad as the first.

The third mission is, thankfully, on foot as Darius Mason again. It introduces the shard gun, which grabs pieces of stuff around you and throws them at your enemies. Trust me, that sounds much better than it actually is.

On the fourth mission you hunt down and kill the cultist you played as on the first mission. It is by far the best, and very near the regular game. You also get a new weapon, the sharpshooter, which shoots metal spikes that can impale your enemies.

Overall, I couldn't possibly recommend this. It is very very weak and also very short - which I'm not sure if that is a pro or a con.

2/5 Stars.

Burn Zombie Burn PC Review

2011-08-16T12:56:00.000-03:00

Burn Zombie Burn is a top-view, arcade run and gun game.

As usual in the run and gun game genre, you run around while shooting at some type of enemy. In this game, as you probably guessed, it is zombies.

The graphics are pretty good and in a comical style, and you get a few guns, as well as several different types of explosives. The bats are pretty fun, too.

The game gets its name from the fact that you have a torch that you can use to light zombies. They are afraid of the torch, unless they are already burning. Burning zombies drop different items.

I liked the game overall, but it has a problem of not capturing the mouse cursor, thus making it impossible to play on a multi-monitor configuration - you just click outside the game and it loses focus.

Cut-scene are annoyingly repetitives, and I found the fact that there are no key references on tutorials a bit annoying. The tutorials are a bit slow, too.

I'd probably recommend this game more if it wasn't for the problems. As it is, it is just OK.

Burn Zombie Burn - 3/5 Stars.

Crysis 2 Review

2011-08-15T23:36:00.001-03:00

This a very quick review. I got the game as a pre-release, and started playing on the first day.

I never got around to writing the review, because I got annoyed at a certain part and stopped playing. This is one of the reasons why now I start writing the review after my first game session, and just update it.

Overall, Crysis 2 is pretty good, and I particularly like being able to select "Powers" with fixed buttons. But what I really hated is that they pretty much killed the wonderful open world feel of Crysis, as well as the first Far Cry, and substituted it with a cookie-cutter "follow the obvious path" design. At best you get a couple of options on how to proceed.

I still liked it, but that really made it a much lesser game than its predecessors.

Pirates of Black Cove Review

2011-08-13T20:10:00.000-03:00

Seamen for Sirens Mission

Sea Action

Land Tactical Sections

Pirates of Black Cove is a strategic pirate game. There are sea and land action sequences.

The Sea sequences are OK. You begin with cannons and (weirdly enough) homing missiles. These are used to destroy other ships or, in an early mission (pictured to the right), destroying moving concentric gates while avoiding musical notes from the sires.

The land sections are incredibly annoying. It takes forever to get anywhere, and the action is mostly silly when you do.

Graphics are pretty good - specially at sea - and the music is tolerable, although very repetitive.

As mentioned before, I did not enjoy the gameplay at all. If it sounds like something you could like, I recommend you try the demo before you buy.

Edge PC Review

2011-08-13T18:46:00.000-03:00

Edge is a retro style platformer. The basic game is really old school - move a basic shape through platforms, picking stuff up and not falling.

I remember playing one of these in my ZX Spectrum back in the 80's.

There is a neat use of puzzles on special blocks, including sections that fall off after you pass, move around, bump you through several positions, and switches to change other sections.

The graphics are good for the theme, and sound and music are adequate.

I'm not a big fan of this kind of games, so I didn't particularly enjoy the gameplay. If you specifically liked others like it, you might want to check out the demo before buying.

Limbo PC Review

2011-08-08T14:23:00.000-03:00

Limbo is a platformer with beautiful art and clever (although sometimes annoying) puzzles.

The art is quite spectacular, but sound is pretty sparse.

I recommend that you get the demo and see if you like it first, but be aware that the full game is pretty short.

Rule 34 - Charles Stross - Book Review

2011-08-03T22:43:00.000-03:00

Rule 34 by Charles Stross, is another good near future SF book.

Rule 34 says that anything that can be conceived, there is already porn about it on the net. How that relates to the story? It doesn't. In the story it was just a mild joke about the computer crime department. I think it was more of a gimmick by Stross to make the book seem a little more colorful.

The main story is about a series of very unusual murders, mostly from the perspective of detectives in Scotland.

The technology of most of the book is very near future, as in many of his other books. And just like them, there were a few funny comments on his blog about actual news that seemed taken from the book.

Some of the tech on this book is augmented reality glasses being heavily used by everyone, 3D printers as a source of pirated materials and use of drones everywhere. The last two are already starting, and quite likely to get here soon enough (just read a news story about The News Corps use of drones...).

I'm not so sure about the glasses, although they do seem like they would be very cool (I've loved them in SF for decades now - Snow Crash Gargoyles comes to mind). I'd have thought that simple Bluetooth display for caller-id and texts would already be available...

The ending is somewhat satisfying, although possibly the best part of the story is the killer (I'm avoiding the spoilers here). The way that it was handled was not a first, but Stross managed to give it a particular realism that made it more fun.

Recommended, but I felt the middle of it was a little slow, so only 4/5.

Red Faction: Armageddon Review

2011-08-03T18:29:00.002-03:00

Red Faction: Armageddon continues the story of Red Faction: Guerrilla, but in a very different tone.

Taking down a tower

The beginning of the game is wonderful. You get pretty much the game stuff as Guerrilla - great destruction with the hammer, explosives everywhere and much more. And plenty of choices on how to kill your enemies.

The graphics feel improved and everything looks great. Destroying building seem to be a little bit better, too.

One of the first surprises is the nano forge. While you could use the nano rifle on Guerrilla to kill and destroy, this version of it magically restores man-made structures - such as stairs and floors. That is a big help for the level designers, as fully destructible levels can easily end up as levels that you cannot complete - something that happened quite a bit on Guerrilla when I damaged a building a little more than I intended.

You have plenty of extra weapons too, such as shockwave (stuns and damages nearby enemies), impact (can send enemies flying and destroy wall - aim it high, or it will destroy the floor from under you) and the magnet gun, which attaches one magnet to an enemy or level structure, and another elsewhere and hurls the first magnet to the other. Pretty cool.

In fact, I've played entire levels with just the magnet gun. It is just too much fun to hurl enemies around, into each other, or drop large pieces of a into them.

From the regular enemies of the start of the game, you soon go to an annoying, claustrophobic tunnel system while being attacked by big insect-like aliens. Really not as fun. I'm very thankful for the "GPS" (which displays where you should go to reach your new objective) - wondering around the tunnels would be even worse.

There are some nice sections with a heavy exoskeleton, which has a sweet homing missile launcher with fast refresh times.

A minor note - just as it starts, the game display skip [Esc] and pause [Space] for the cinematics - something I can't even remember the last time I saw, and which is very useful. I really hate when I get interrupted on a lengthy cutscene, and there is nothing that can be done.

There are some bits near the ending where the level design seems to fall short of the rest of the game, and you get very repetitive sections.

The ending is satisfying enough, except that if Mason could fix the terraformer in a few hours, why oh why didn't he just do it before???

The nicest bit about the end of the game is that you get a New Game Plus mode unlocked, where you start with all the nice upgrades and weapons you picked up on the way - including a couple of extras.

This makes it very likely that I will replay the game.

Very much recommended - 8.5/10

Steel Storm Review

2011-08-02T17:45:00.000-03:00

Steel Storm is an old-style, top view shooter.

The graphics and sounds are adequate - and there are plenty of destructible objects in the environment whose sole purpose seems to be exploding.

The gameplay is OK for a few minutes, but I found wondering around shooting baddies while dodging their fire gets boring fast.

The levels don't seem to help - looks like it takes a while to get anywhere. And the game hits on one of my pet peeves - teleporting enemies on scripted moments.

The weapons seem to be completely generic, with no strategy involved.

Overall, really not recommended.

Dead Horde Review

2011-07-31T23:22:00.001-03:00

Dead Horde is a top view, arcade style Zombie killing game.

The graphics and sound are adequate.

My problem with it was the gameplay, which mostly consists of holding the trigger (and all you need is point in the general direction - no precision required) and shooting at small groups of zombies while running in the other direction.

That is pretty much it. There is not much strategy involved, and for me, not much fun either.

You can also buy upgrades at a shop. While they do make some difference, it is not as much as I'd like.

The game has vehicle sequences. One felt like a bonus round, where you went around running over groups of zombies with an Humvee.

Another was a simple "puzzle" - you get into a forklift to raise a metal structure. The problem was - the first time, it didn't show me the control system (up and down arrows). So I was going around trying to figure out what to do. The second time I entered it displayed the controls. Personally I'd just go with the regular weapon controls.

On regular play and on the forklift, I had annoying clip problems on doors and also on the slightest terrain variations.

To be honest, there were many zombie flash games over the year that I've enjoyed more than Dead Horde. Not recommended.

Zombie games I can recommend:

E.Y.E - Divine Cybermancy Review

2011-07-30T17:49:00.000-03:00

E.Y.E - Divine Cybermancy is an indie RPG FPS with a heavy cyberpunk style.

While it does look interesting on the surface, it mostly feels like a mod made into a game.

The graphics and sound are good (I'd say excellent for an indie game).

There are some quasi-comical moments in the tutorial start - for example, a few times you'd get referred for a short video which could much better be expressed as 3 or 4 phrases (the basic movement tutorial or basic weapons, for example).

Your missions consist of killing, hacking (which has a somewhat clever mechanism) and other mayhem.

Personally I really didn't like the overall gameplay. Specially how enemies seemed to pop from anywhere...

Faerie Solitaire Review

2011-07-28T13:26:00.001-03:00

Faerie Solitaire is a Solitaire game (my favorite is the Spider version that comes with Windows 7).

The gameplay is quite simple - you have a foundation card that you must match with a lower or higher card.

There are a few variations added to this - for example, frozen cards that must be defrosted with a special card before playing, or cards blocked by thorns, which you unlock by clearing a rose column.

You can also buy extra powers, such as extra undo or seeing blocked cards.

The gameplay is reasonably fun, since there is a bit of strategy to the game. There is also an attempt at story, but it is very minimal - it looks like they had a checklist with a Story item, and had to uncheck it.

The graphics and sounds are acceptable. I do wish that it took the music off seriously - the music when a hand is over still plays...

There is what feels like a side game with pets that are hatched from eggs. They don't seem to apply to the actual game - you just get the resources to grow them from the game, behind the cards and by playing.

If you like Solitaire games, at the current price this one might be a nice use of a few lazy hours.

Runespell: Overture Review

2011-07-21T23:31:00.000-03:00

RuneSpell: Overture does not fit in the regular game genres.

It is a poker game with battles decided by card matches - much like Puzzle Quest. In a very similar way, you also get a number of other cards and allies that you can use during the game. There is some strategy involved in which cards/allies you choose for each battle.

Graphics are pretty good, but what surprised me the most was the quality of the music. I imagine many won't appreciate it, but I really loved the orchestral epic theme.

I very much enjoyed the unusual gameplay. I recommend checking out the demo.

Addthis widget javascript is huge!

2011-07-21T15:20:00.000-03:00

I just removed Addthis from my site after realizing that their script was, by far, the largest object in the main page.

Got my main page from 4s to 3.2s. And according to their stats (for my site), there really was no point in keeping it there...

I'm keeping Google +1, however - it is tiny and may have direct effect on searches.

Lucid Demo Review

2011-07-20T14:59:00.001-03:00

Lucid is a match-3 style game. It doesn't actually matches 3 (apparently it varies with the levels from 2 to 5), and it uses a different selection scheme than most games of the type.

Instead of clicking or dragging a block, you draw aline over the blocks you want to select. You also have to select all the connected blocks.

The game mode in the demo requests specific colors for more points. Sometimes it won't be possible and you will have to do another color to get the right blocks.

Overall, the sound and graphics are acceptable, only a little simple. I didn't particularly enjoy the gameplay, but if you like the game style you might want to try out the demo.

Critical Mass Demo Review

2011-07-14T23:30:00.000-03:00

Critical Mass is a 3D match-3 (actually, match 4) style game.

You rotate a color shape made of cubes to find the right spot to eliminate as many cubes as possible. You also have a few power ups.

The graphics are good, but the music is incredibly repetitive and annoying after a a minute or so, at most (something I've heard about elsewhere, so it is not just me!).

I found the gameplay more annoying than fun. While the 3D does add to the possibilites, constantly rotating to look for the best match didn't feel as nice as just seeing the best matches.

I have played a ton of match-3 games I've liked in the past, but this one really didn't work for me.

There is a demo available - if you think you might like it, do yourself a favor and try the demo before buying.

I'm off to play a little Bejeweled 3 - now that is great game music! :-)

MetaGame - Review

2011-07-12T18:25:00.002-03:00

MetaGame - by Sam Landstrom - was pretty awesome. It is hard to believe this is his first book. I certainly await anxiously for more of this quality - so much so that I immediately after finishing, I came to the computer to Like his page on Facebook and write this review.

The world in MetaGame is pretty unique. Sure, there are a few staples of SF - nanotech, virtual reality, immortality, and more. But in this world it is all about the game.

The game is not just a form of entertainment - every kind of work is rephrased as a game, where you get points instead of money. This can be used to optimize output - as mentioned in the traditional fake encyclopedia chapter starts, and also on real work (this reminded me of the chapter "Learning from Video Games" on Designed For Use which also mentions Flow in user design).

One neat point is that with ubiquitous tracking of everything you say applies to an universal affiliate system. All recommendations of a product that you make get points per person that hears you, plus a cut of the sales. That sounds incredibly possible... (I'm typing this as I look at the Amazon affiliate links on this review :-) )

The game is also a form of religion, which most people follow. And this religion can offer you immortality, if you can get enough points...

There is plenty of action in the book, and a very satisfying ending.

Very much recommended.

PS: Just heard this music after a while and remembered Rule Seven...

Call of Duty - Black Ops - PC review

2011-07-09T17:11:00.001-03:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops is pretty much the same as most other CODs.

Plenty of action, with minimum freedom of action (I miss the original Far Cry freedom to cover the objective in a dozen different ways!), and some nice shooting sequences from vehicles.

One thing I really hated about this COD is the annoying flipping sequences whenever you go back to a menu (or the repetitive video sequences on Zombie mode). Other than that it is regular COD - good with some memorable sequences.

What I really liked (although it gets tired fast) is the Zombie mode. Those are a few levels (at least with the full DLC - not sure how much and if any came with the original game) where you get attacked by zombies and slowly get extra "cash" to buy access to places and weapon. Pretty cool, albeit the hell dogs can be a bit though
for me - and I really hate the fact that they teleporting from nowhere.

A few levels have hilarious starts, such as the JFK/Nixon/McNamara/Castro pentagon level, and the Romero level with several famous zombie killers, including Buffy.

Having to watch a large sequence of the start videos before you can skip - every single time you start a level - is pretty annoying, though.

So as usual, a nice game, but not extraordinary.

Recommended if you are a COD fan.

Update: Lately I don't bother with Multiplayer, so I only noticed it months later - but Black Ops has a very nice bot mode, which I've really been enjoying lately.

Kindle vs iPad 2

2011-07-06T13:13:00.006-03:00

I recently bought an iPad 2. I already had a latest generation Kindle, which I really liked.

However, reading PDFs (which are quite common for technical books) is a major pain in the Kindle. It is slow (and slows down more the further I get into the book), and highlighting is pretty slow too. The screen for the regular Kindle is nowhere big enough for a regular A4 formatted PDF.

I had the option of getting a Kindle DX or a tablet. I kept hearing good things about the iPad 2, and it can do a lot more than just reading books, so I decided to try it out. (This is a Kindle vs iPad 2 comparison - I posted my iPad 2 review separately).

One thing I really like about the iPad 2 is reading PDFs. It is pretty fast and works great. iBooks is not perfect - it seems I can't set a zoom level for a PDF and keep it there. Nor can I highlight text and add notes, only bookmark pages.

I also read any Kindle technical books mostly in the iPad now. The bigger screen and faster highlighting make it a much pleasant and productive experience.

Kindle vs iPad 2: File Transfers

On the Kindle, every time I get a new PDF magazine or book I have to go grab my Kindle, connect it to USB and transfer files manually

On the iPad, I just drop them into DropBox on my PC and use the DropBox app on the iPad whenever I get around to reading them. The app isn't great (I miss decent sorting and refreshing), but it is very helpful.

I don't really intend to buy books on iBooks, however. Kindle's books can be read on iPads, Kindles, any Android phone, PCs and Macs. iBooks are limited to iPads and iPhones - a big difference. I usually continue reading books on my Android cell phone (Samsung Galaxy S) whenever I'm out and have to wait. The Kindle app even auto-syncs my position in the book with the Kindle.

Kindle vs iPad 2: Magazines

I never bothered to try magazines from Amazon. I did read several Asimov, Analog and IGMS issues on the Kindle, but they were bought elsewhere (Fictionwise and the IGMS site) - since they don't have DRM and can be read anywhere.

For other magazines, I understood that the black and white nature of the Kindle would be a major problem. For example, I tried Popular Science and Wired on the iPad, and they both look great and have extra features, such as interactive sections and movies. Prices vary - some are more expensive than the paper magazine, while some are really great - such as a Popular Science annual subscription for US$15.

Kindle vs iPad 2: Web Browsing

Something I really liked about the iPad 2 is web browsing. It is very good, and I found myself using it occasionally to look for interesting references while reading books on the Kindle (which has a browser, which is barely usable by comparison).

Kindle vs iPad 2: Screen

The biggest problem with the Ipad 2, compared to Kindle, is the screen. I can read for several hours with basically no eyestrain on the Kindle - it is just like paper, with slightly worse contrast.

The iPad 2, however, tired my eyes very quickly when I got it. It did get much better over time.

There is no current solution for this problem - while there are hybrid LCD/e-ink screens I don't see any serious commercial offerings. Given how well e-readers are doing, it is only a matter of time till they are available on Kindles or iPads.

Kindle vs iPad 2: Battery

Battery life is pretty impressive in both devices. My Kindle can go for weeks without recharging, even with more than an hour per day of reading. The iPad is more modest, but I only have to charge it after a week and a half of use on average.

Kindle vs iPad 2: Conclusion

So, what is the best book e-reader? If you are reading only fiction, I recommend you get the Kindle. It is much cheaper, it is really easy to buy ebooks on Amazon (and any other places that support Mobipocket files). And some other sites, such as The Pragmatic BookShelf and IGMS can even auto-deliver to a WiFi enabled Kindle (for free). It is much kinder on your eyes and can be read outside on the sun easily.

If you regularly get PDF magazines or books, and have other uses for the device, the iPad starts getting a lot more interesting. There are plenty of apps, and you can browse almost all the web (Flash sites excluded), talk to friends on MSN and Skype, and much more.

A quick reminder for those buying the iPad who like magazines - all issues I've seen so far are in the hundreds of megabytes. So the 16GB model might get cramped pretty soon.

Personally I got the black, 32GB, WiFi only model below on the left.

American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition

2011-07-05T10:54:00.000-03:00

I've just finished American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Neil Gaiman.

I did read American Gods about ten years ago, when it came out. However, after all this time it was quite blurry in my memory and I only remembered bits and pieces.

So I can't tell you exactly how much is changed in this edition. There are some obvious additions after the ending, such as a short scene with Jesus and a short interview with the author, that were midly interesting.

I liked the book the first time, and this second time was pretty good, though. It was a real page turner, and very enjoyable.

I'm not sure how to go to about the plot without dropping spoilers all over the place, however.

I can only say that I really recommend it.

iPad 2 - Review

2011-07-02T15:15:00.004-03:00

I just got an iPad 2. It looked pretty cool for a number of things, and while I love the Kindle for fiction books, it is pretty awful on PDFs (and also, highlighting, which I do an enormous amount of in some books). A decent browser would also avoid turning my computer on only to check minor things.

My first surprise was when I saw the box - it said iPad only, not iPad 2. Looking up the model number reassured me that in fact this is an iPad 2. I can't help but think that this is a very annoying idea. I hear that the idea is that they never sell older models, so whatever you buy is always the latest...

The box is pretty elegant, and reminds me a lot of the Kindle. The manual is even smaller...

About the device, it feels a bit heavy (I'm used to the Kindle) and the color screen is gorgeous. The only other touch screen device I've used was a Samsung Galaxy S. The touch screen seems similar in quality.

I really miss the return button - looks like it would be useful pretty much all the time. Still, most of the time usability is pretty reasonable.

PDFs in iBooks look great. Of course, the bigger screen really helps. I don't think I can highlight, however (and I'm not sure where my bookmarks go yet).

Reading for any serious amount of time is ~~seriously~~ somewhat (updated: reducing the brightness and getting used to the screen seemed to help a lot) tiring on my eyes (for reader reference, I'm 36). In this aspect it does not even comes close to the Kindle - it feels almost exactly like paper, and I can read for hours without getting tired.

Dropbox works fine for moving PDFs or ePub files, which does beat the Kindle option that requires connecting it to the computer and moving the files manually. It does fail to view files again and again, however.

I have a separate review on reading e-books on the iPad 2 on my Kindle vs iPad 2 Review.

The cameras are awful. The N95 I bought 4 years ago had a much better camera (and had a frontal VGA camera too). Of course, since I don't see the back camera as something I'll use, it is not a big problem.

I really liked the few magazines I looked at - Popular Science, Wired and Autoesportes. All had movies, special ads and relevant links added, and they look great on the iPad 2 screen. Prices for some - such as Popular Science - are very cheap.

The speaker sounds is acceptable. Watching videos on landscape mode, it is a little annoying that the sound comes obviously from the left (there is only one speaker, at the bottom of the unit).

Battery life, so far, is pretty impressive - after 6 days of use, I'm still at over 30%.

I'll update this post over time.

IGMS 23

2011-06-29T16:57:00.000-03:00

Intergalactic Medicine Show issue 23 was - as usual - good but not great.

The main story, The Discriminating Monster's Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching, by Scott M. Roberts, looked interesting from the moment I saw the title, and didn't disappoint.

Four Wizards and a Funeral by Mike Rimar - was a nice short story.

This Is My Corporation, Eat by Lon Prater is a story about profiteering from religion going amok.

The Hanged Poet by Jeffrey Lyman was pretty much beautiful.

Into the West by Eric James Stone is based on a clever (even if a bit silly) premise about time stopping on a certain condition (avoiding spoilers here), and explores the consequences. Pretty good.
Interview With Larry Niven - I've read many of Niven's books and I'm a fan. The interview was mostly about the changes in the status of current mainstream SF and why they happened.

Duke Nukem Forever Demo Review

2011-06-22T15:03:00.000-03:00

I played Duke Nukem 3D (and the 2D games before it) back when they were brand new.

It was the gold standard in FPS for a while. So everybody was pretty excited about a new release. That is, before the years passed and it became a standard joke... Of course, having Forever in the title was pretty much begging for it.

Not to mention the horrible stories of bad planning, and constantly switching from one game engine to another (instead of just getting a simple, nice game out).

And now, even after being cancelled, it is out. Every review I've seen says that it is just like the old Duke in new graphics - outdated gameplay and humor. I lost interest pretty fast.

But when the demo came out, I just had to see it myself.

Having played it, I have to admit that there is some point to all these complaints. It feels like old style gameplay, and not in the pleasant sense. The old humor is a bit grating, although I still like it.

But it is still somewhat playable, even if it is not good or clever by today's standards.

And I'm too curious to let it pass completely, but there is no way I'm paying launch price for this. I have no doubt that soon enough it will be on sale...

Solar 2 Review

2011-06-18T22:34:00.001-03:00

Solar 2 is an interesting game. If you play flash games, you might have seem the type - absorb (or shoot and then absorb) other particles to get bigger (or the beginning of Spore).

Solar 2 is similar to this in a sense, but you start as an asteroid and grow into a planet by bumping other asteroids. You then absorb asteroids till you get life - which is useful and a nuisance, as you get a shield and ships that attack enemies, but they also destroy asteroids and planets when you don't want them to.

You can them grow into a sun, and absorb whole planets and suns.

While the description might make it sound lame, I very much enjoyed the gameplay. The graphics are beautiful, and the songs are OK, albeit repetitive (as a funny side note, the first song that came up when I switched to my MP3 player was Shivaree's Goodnight Moon - very adequate).

You also get some missions, such as protecting planets, cleaning asteroids and such. I didn't like these as much as the open play.

The tutorial deserves a comment - there were plenty of funny comments, specially regarding the demo.

Overall, very much recommended. There is also a demo available.

IGMS 22 - Review

2011-06-18T14:18:00.000-03:00

A few neat items on this one:

- Love, Cayce, By Marie Brennan. The kids of a group of adventure's - RPG style - go on together to quest around the world. The story consists of a series of letters to the parents. Pretty funny.

- Exodus tides, by Alliette de Bodard. Unusual fantasy about the adaptation of merfolk to land life.

- A very interesting interview with Robert Silverberg.

Asimov 's SF - April/May 2011

2011-06-18T14:00:00.001-03:00

Asimov's always had more fantasy in it than Analog's, and this issue is no exception, which explains why I took so much time to finish this issue (and stopped in the middle to read The Line War).

There were plenty of enjoyable stories in the middle of the slow ones:

- Clockworks, by William Preston, was an interesting mistery with a sociopath surgeon building a doomsday weapon... but getting a conscience introduced surgically and going to the other side.

- The Homecoming, by Mike Resnick. Resnick can be counted for interesting aliens, and this is no exception. A very nice short story.

- The Fnoor Hen, By Rudy Rucker. Rucker's stories are always well in the weird side (I'm viewing his Wetware and Software books, in the bookcase behind my computer, as I write this - a very good example). Somewhat entertaining.

- A Response for EST17 - Tom Purdom. Pretty good. Remote first contact (only first for one side, though...) with very interesting premises. The tiny solar sail based starships with emulated humans remind me somewhat of Charles Stross...

- The one that got away - Esther M. Friesner. I literally LOL in the end. A very funny terror/comedy short story.

- Becalmed - by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Interesting story about a linguist in a cultural war. I felt the conclusion was a bit disappointing compared to the build-up, however.

- A very interesting article about Isaac Asimov.

A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda PC Review

2011-06-18T13:42:00.000-03:00

A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda is an old school platform shooter. As far as graphics and music goes, I felt a little bit like if I was in the 90s. But not in a good way...

The game is pretty standard for the genre. You go around jumping, shooting, and collecting materials for upgrades or new weapons.

The levels, the weapon speed and the enemies all seemed wrong somehow to me. I didn't like it this one at all.

Beep Review

2011-06-16T14:08:00.000-03:00

Beep is a neat 2D platform game, with plenty of simple physics puzzles.

I've only played the demo. The graphics are pleasant enough, although I've seen a lot of texture artifacts (banding, flickering transparency and the like), and tends toward the cute, like the sounds. Those are borderline annoying, however.

The starting gaming sequence (as well as between levels) seems mostly pointless - you just point and click a ship to get to the levels. It looks cute enough, but gameplay-wise, you could just as well have a list of levels and do an animation.

Then you have the main levels, where you jump (a lot - it IS a platform game), shoot and move objects around. To move objects around, you just drag them using your anti-gravity tool (which does remind me of Half-Life 2).

There are a few kinds of puzzles that use this, such as jumping puzzles (move objects to get a height), sliding platform puzzles, etc.

Overall, I didn't enjoy it. There was just not enough fun on the demo levels, and it felt more like a shore to get to the good stuff - which unfortunately never came before it ended.

If you think you might like it, grab the demo and try it yourself.

Vertex Dispenser - Demo Review

2011-06-12T14:43:00.000-03:00

Vertex Dispenser is an interesting abstract arcade game with puzzle aspects. It has a retro vectorial style, and you capture triangles by setting vertexes. You use the same controls to destroy your enemies.

You also have interesting powers such as teleporting, launching missiles, creating fortifications or attack robots. Apparently you get plenty more on the full game.