STG's

Influent is an interesting edutainment title for learning languages. The basic principle is that you walk around an apartment, clicking on items to add them to your vocabulary list. Then at every ten items, you get quizzed on them, and have to find them and click on them (or on the flight mode, shoot them). The idea is that this works as a more fun version of SRS (Spaced Repetition System) to learn words. And I'd say it probably works, although you do have to remember two things in the game - what the word means and where you can find it at the apartment! There is more to the game than that - there are also adjectives, alternate and verbs associated with objects. You can choose from a few languages (the UI is just in English and Japonese, though), but only the first comes with the purchase of the game - all others must be bought as DLC. Overall, the graphics, sound and music are adequate, and I believe that the learning works well, although of course the words are limi...

During reviewing Risk:Factions, I set it to Windowed Mode. However, it was impossible to return to full screen because it lost focus of the cursor and wouldn't get it back. There is a very simple solution - just alt+tab way and back DURING the revert settings screen, and it gets cursor focus again.

Risk:Factions is based on the classic board game Risk. Some of the added features are silly characters, and a whole bunch of level specific game mechanics. For example, on the level on the screenshot, whoever has 3 barracks get control of the missile. The missile adds to your attack power on territories within range. On the next campaign level, you have mines. Whoever has the mines get extra troops depending on troops stationed at the mine. The animations are well done - specially the (somewhat silly) cutscenes. The sounds and music are ok, albeit a little repetitive. The only thing on the interface that really bothered me is how you select the number of troops to deploy or move - you have to move the mouse, but the control moves too fast and you have to try more than once to get it right sometimes. Overall, pretty good for the fans of the genre. Risk:Factions EA Review Date: 2011-03-09 4 out of 5 stars

Spacechem is a puzzle game. You use sequences of blocks to - and that is the very original part - assemble molecules from atoms. I have in fact played many similar games (i.e.: connect blocks to achieve a certain effect). I've rarely really liked them, and that is the case here. I just don't see much fun in it. The music is pretty good, though. If you like this kind of game, you might enjoy it.

Another semi-generic retro game. Cute neon wireframe graphics, somewhat annoying music. In a variation on the classic 2D racer, you have shields and a few different weapons. Not worth the time of trying it out, unless you specifically like this sort of game.

Rush is based on a classic computer puzzle game - some sort of entity (in this case, colored cubes) are released or start from a point in the puzzle, and you must use some sort of tool (here arrows, teleports and conveyors) to make them go safely to a specific spot. As usual, you get the exact type of tools you need to complete the level (at least for the levels I played). The graphics and sounds are nice, but I can't say that the super abstract style seemed to help.  I just didn't like it. However, I'm not a big fan of this particular puzzle type. If you are, you might want to get their demo.

System Protocol One is another tower defense game. The game world is based on cool looking grids and components representing a server, in the glowing wireframe of the now classic retro look. The game has a competent tutorial, ok soundtrack and an interesting theme. It seems to have all the classics of tower defense games, both on attackers and defense, and a few interesting twists. If you are a fan of tower defense games, it's worth taking a look at this one.

I loved Fallout 3. Sure, the story was a little silly at points, and the interface wasn't perfect - specially for inventory - but it was a great game and I spent a lot of hours playing it. So, when Fallout 3: New Vegas was about to be released, I bought it right away. It's pretty much the same as Fallout 3. I've heard criticism on some reviews that the graphics could be better, and I have to agree, but that isn't very important - the graphics are very reasonable. What is important is HOW BUGGY IT IS! Argh! Not only have I lost plenty of time till I realized that Auto and Quick saves didn't always work - and for some people, even the manuals saves have problems - but the map geometry is often messed up. This seems to be particularly bad for scorpions - I've already seen 4 or 5 get stuck on the ground. Something that annoyed me terribly is that now drops aren't completely fixed. So a couple of times, I got awesome items at a vendor or random location, ...

This is a very quick review, since I only bothered to play the game for a few minutes. Booster Trooper is a side-view (plataformer) shooter. It reminds me of Soldat, but I liked Soldat a whole lot more, while I really hated this one. Maybe the tempo of the game is too fast, or maybe it's because I'm older and slower :-) . The graphics and music are nice, but the gameplay didn't work for me.

As usual, a game was on sale on Steam so I went and checked out the demo. This time it was Power Of Defense, which is a common theme on flash games - you choose certain units, which will be sent to attack the enemy. You can usually choose the units for specific effects against the enemy types. That is basically it. Except that I've seen a dozen flash games that were better than this...

I've just noticed the demo for Iron Grip: Warlord on Steam, and checked it out. It is a mix of RTS, FPS and a tower defense game. The graphics are so outdated it's silly. The level design is barely ok. That said, I just loved the gameplay... I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a demo so much. And if you have an older computer, it should still play fine (an advantage for those outdated graphics). I've sometimes thought of RTS/FPS hybrids. This one is everything I dreamed of. After playing a level I went and bought it - it's pretty cheap at US$9.95. Totally recommended. Drop by their site  now, and download the demo.

Alien Breed: Impact is a third-person shooter, on a spaceship invaded by aliens. The game uses Unreal Engine 3.0 and it's graphically beautiful. I've found the gameplay - full of aliens that pop out of nowhere and explosions that happen just as you arrive - to be incredibly annoying. The demo constantly stopping to show you a cutscene didn't help either. Really NOT recommended.

MadBalls in BaboInvasion is free this weekend on Steam, and with a 75% discount too, so of course I downloaded the game and tried it. It's an interesting little shooter, where the main character and most enemies are well, balls. With faces and nice graphics. They just roll around, shooting, throwing grenades and Molotovs. Rolling ball games used to be popular - I remember playing them back in the 80s, but nothing particularly memorable. There seem to be a lot of unlockable weapons, among other unlockable items. One thing I found quite interesting is that you can buy the unlocks as a pack. Not a very common way to monetize a game. Overall, only vaguely interesting. The graphic and sounds are good, and I found the gameplay barely okay, but nothing worth spending time (or money) in for me.

Reading the Gamersgate newsletter, I learned there was a discount for Colony Defense, which I had never heard off. So I downloaded the demo. It's pretty awful. The design was clearly made for use with a gamepad. For example, instead of clicking on a tower to select it to upgrade, you rotate the world to place it. The 360 view looks cute, but is pretty annoying. The overall result is awful. You can probably do much better going to a flash game site like Kongregate.com and choosing one of the top tower defense games.

I've just noticed Galcon Fusion on Steam, and downloaded the demo to check it out. I've already played the original Galcon, and some other clones. Galcon is a "simple" game - you own planets, each with more or less ship production capabilities, and you move ships around to conquer other planets. I quoted simple because it can be quite complex to play well, as it is easy to lose planets by leaving it too uncovered, or not send enough ships on a conquest and waste them. Galcon Fusion seems to be exactly the same, except with much nicer graphics. It does have a few other modes, but, alas, they are not included in the demo...

I've recently purchased Zuma's Revenge, when PopCap was holding an Haiti donation of 100% sales of the day. I did play the trial, and wouldn't have bought it without the donations. I was a big fan of the original, and played it through several times, as well as a few of the clones. The new Zuma is very similar to the original. There are a few extras, but they don't have that much impact. One thing that is considerably changed is the graphics. They are quite beautiful, particularly the water and the volcano levels. Overall the game seemed a bit easier, specially the ending. There a few extra modes. So far, they seem almost identical to the main story. One funny thing in Heroic Frog mode - the bosses (at least the first one) openly remark about the rematch, and not doing any better than the first time when they lose. Pretty funny. And if you thought the main game was too easy, you will probably like Heroic Frog mode - it's MUCH harder. Overall, if you like the ball-s...

Browsing Steam, I noticed a new(ish) demo - Magnetis. It's a dropping block game where instead of forming lines, you form lines with Magnetis. It's cute and well done, as far as I could see in my limited play time, but I didn't find it very interesting or fun.

Another very late post. I downloaded Everyday Genius SquareLogic Demo because of a Steam weekend sale. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to playing it until way after the weekend, because the demo is very nice. It's a variation of Sudoku, which I really like, and will no doubt remind anyone who played Kakuro (also called Cross Sums) of it. Every puzzle is a grid of numbers, which has blocks where an operation (sum, equals, minus, etc) on those numbers must equal the specified result. As usual, you can't repeat numbers inside a grid. If you like Sudoku, definitely worth trying.

I've recently got my pre-order of Red Faction Guerrilla. The game looks wonderful, and the building demolition is awesome. Too bad it locks up constantly and has severe audio stuttering problems. I couldn't possibly recommend it as it is now. I'd give it a 2/10. I'm hoping there will be patches soon.

QuantZ is an interesting take on match-3 - it is done on 3D on a cube, and the spheres are subject to physics, so that as you rotate the cube, they move around on their cube faces, to other cube faces or off the cube (just for an instant, they are attracted back). As usual, there is a launcher of other colored spheres, which you must try to match. Graphics and music are great. I wasn't crazy about the gameplay, but it's worth a try if you like match-3 games.