STG's

I have been interested in the Sniper Elite series for a while, as I usually like sniper games, but never got one because I thought the hard ballistics would be annoying. But it was a game in this month's Humble Bundle, so I decided to try it. First of all, at the lower levels there are basically no ballistics. You aim, you hit. That might be annoying for some, but I felt it was fun enough. I mostly liked the missions, and how useful stealth were, while not being a requirement. Graphics are good but a bit dated. I love how fast it starts (and in an HD!), and how fast saving and loading games are. What I didn't like was how short the campaign was (7 hours), and the minimal progression of guns (kept the first one all the way through) and skills. I've gone through all the DLC levels and they are totally worth the current price. Overall, pretty good at a discounted price.

Salvation: A Novel - is the latest book from Peter F. Hamilton. It does not take place in the CommonWealth universe. I am a huge fan of Hamilton (both the CommonWealth and several of his other books) and this one did not disappoint. There are quite a few parallels between Salvation's universe and the CommonWealth: - They use portals (even more, here) - They are invaded by stealth aliens that can take human form It was great fun to see all the ways portals are used - like how they use threading to get large portals around, and the use of portal ships to use breakaway glaciers to "terraform" deserts. Also portal homes. I read that some people was upset at ALL the background stories getting in the middle of the action. True, they take a lot of the book but all add to a big deal in the end. The story is a little hard to describe well. A few important envoys take a journey to a distant star where an alien ship has crashed. On the way in a ground car (used to protec