STG's

I really enjoyed this. The overall start of the story is a somewhat common theme - the solar system is colonized (with mostly no magical tech, except maybe for a special fusion drive that is in itself a nice side story), and the powers (Earth, Mars, Belters) are on the edge against each other. Then something happens, and all hell breaks lose. The actual reason why all hell breaks loose is not that common, but really reminds me of Neal Asher 's books. Very good pacing and well kept suspense till the end, recommended.

For no good reason, I keep posting these early on every year. This year, almost every stat went down (counting my professional blog, restaurant blog and microsites): Posts: 152 (last year 232) Fiction Book Reviews: 39 (last year 51) Technical Book Reviews: 13 (last year 11) Game Reviews: 53 (last year 90) Visitors: 24712 (last year 33204 - this blog had some very successful reviews in 2012, so 2013 had a little more than half the traffic than in 2012 - all the others are actually doing better now) Overall, I am kind of OK with my posting habits, although I am fairly sure I completely skipped reviewing some books I read - and I do mind that. However, I am happy with the performance with my newest microsite, Directory Printer . Thanks for reading!

The Oil Blue is mostly a time management game. You have to take control of the machinery of abandoned oil rigs and produce oil. This is done by a mini game per oil machine type. One just consists of setting a speed and alternating cells to keep it going. Other requires pressing a pressure release from time to time, and guiding the drill to positions with oil. And so on. Meanwhile, you only have a tiny space for all that oil, so you need to sell it to make more room. The important thing is, you are not going through each machine. You have to control all of them at the same time. So you are constantly switching between screens to service each machine (plus selling the oil). To me, after the slower beginning this felt more like working against the interface than anything else. I imagine the game could be fun, but to me it felt more like work...

Dungeon of Elements is pretty much Dr Mario with some extra elements, as far as I can see. Mostly, you get into battles in dungeons with elementals of 4 different types (and thus colors), which you can defeat by joining 4 of the same color - using capsules with alchemical formulations. You can also get weapons that can be used to defeat them directly. There is more to the game, but quite frankly I really couldn't bear to keep going till those parts showed up. For whatever reason, I thought it would play a little more like Puzzle Quest (which I did enjoy a lot), but for me it really fell flat. Really not recommended.

I actually played the original (1994) XCOM: Enemy Unknown as brand new. I imagine it was the first turn-based tactical game I ever played. And it was pretty good, although it was very, very complicated. I even made a trainer for it! (it just maxed out the stats of all your soldiers). The rest of the series had good and lame moments. Terror from the Deep was just a re-skin. Several other were utterly unplayable. I liked XCOM: Aftermath, however. The new, 2013 version is as good as the original, if not better. And the whole interface system is a whole lot easier - and arguably better. The new scheme, instead of a numeric bunch of hit points, just allows you to move a certain range and perform an action, or run to a farther place and end the turn for that character. Gone are the complexities of counting individual steps (and subtracting stance changes on both ends) to find out the best move. Or figuring out how to fit another alien body or weapon in your backpack (the tiny space in ...

Lawful Interception is a novella by Cory Doctorow that take place just after Homeland . (as usual, Marcus Yallow fights corporations and the bought up government with cute tech that is either already available in real life or nearly there) If you liked the books, you will probably like this, and you can read it for free on Tor  . There is also a very nice pack of Tor stories you can get on Amazon for free  (it is available in other places such as iBooks too).

Kerbal Space Program is a spaceship simulator. You can assemble many types of spaceships with many configurations, and then fly them. And subsequently crash them. Or even land them. Flying isn't very hard, and there are some nice tutorials. It is still in beta, but it is already quite fun. I do have random freezes in the sound and occasionally on the game, though. I have also played a simpler, 2D version for iPad which is quite fun - SimpleRockets. I believe it is based on KSP. Recommended if you like this kind of simulators.