Catching up on news and releases

Not quite a set of reviews this time. Instead I wanted to share some of the very cool deals and updates that have been released lately. Some of these may not still be active (deals) if you are coming to this post after the first half of April 2014. On with the news items.

Hey! Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has started its release on mobile with an iPad version releasing in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (with other regions to follow soon). If you read my original beta review (here) of this collectible virtual card game, you know I like it and can't wait to have it in my hand on the go. This is an immediate download for me and should be for you as well.

Flick Kick Football Legends (review here) has been updated to add Infinity Cup play. In the Infinity Cup, you play in basically a single-elimination tournament where you start in tier 1 against 3 opponents. Beat them and you get a small cash reward and get to move to the next tier (against slightly harder opponents). You are also given a points score for each match based on how you did: number of goals, saves, etc. with bonuses for hat-tricks and clean sheets. The points go toward your Infinity Cup total for that attempt and you are shown your ranking on a leaderboard to allow you to see how you compare to other players' attempts. All-in-all this is nice addition to the game with a new way to earn a little cash and since it comes in 3 game tiers, you can play a tier without running out your stamina bottle. I did notice the game lags a bit more and sometimes hangs up on my original iPad mini but I imagine that will be corrected soon.

Like books? There have been some insane deals on e-books recently. If you are like me and just received your e-book settlement from Amazon and Apple, congratulations you have an opportunity to go and pick up these cheap omnibuses:

Terry Brooks' Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1, which includes the books Magic Kingdom For Sale SOLD!, The Black Unicorn and Wizard at Large is on sale for Kindle (or Kindle app) at Amazon for $1.99.

Not quite the deal it was before when it was on sale for $9.99, but still nice is the 5 book set of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which is on sale at Amazon or in iTunes for $19.99. Worth a read and your time if you want to know what the fuss over Game of Thrones is all about.

Also, FTL - Faster Than Light has been released for iPad. I don't have a copy yet, but probably will have one soon. It is the same price as on Steam, $9.99, and early reviews say it is possibly the best version of the game.

Finally, in case you missed it, Path of Exile was updated over a month ago with the Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion. This added new game mechanics, secret areas, monsters - a lot of content. There are now Vaal versions of skill gems that have insane effects over the normal versions of those gems. Additionally there two new leagues going, Invasion and Ambush. I haven't tried Invasion where each map area is invaded by monsters from another part of Wraeclast. I have played Ambush, which is fun with treasure boxes that are found (typically 1 or more per area) that are defended by monsters who Ambush you when you open it. Plus you can use your Transmutation and Augmentation orbs on them to make the boxes magic or give them better magically properties, like this:

1,872% increased rarity!

Here is what was found in one:

Yep that's a Legendary item and a rare drop, oh yeah!

Insane, right? Path of Exile continues to be the best action RPG out there in my book - wish my PC was more powerful so I could enjoy all the effects and polish at their best. Try it again if you stepped away from the game.

Lots there for you to go check out and keep you busy until next time!

FTL: Faster Than Light Review

FTL: Faster Than Light is a space simulator where you and your crew are piloting a ship trying to run from a Rebel fleet bent on stopping you from delivering key data to the Federation. FTL was developed by Subset Games (Matthew Davis and Justin Ma) and partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign. The game is available (Mac, PC, Linux) via the FTL website or through Steam.

I first heard about FTL from listing to the Major Nelson podcast where E mentioned that he was playing the game. From there I searched for the game and found the FTL website. There wasn’t much detail there, so I happened to come across this YouTube video of a play-through that gave a really good overview of the game:

FTL has minimalistic top-down graphics and real-time combat. You control all aspects of your ship from how much power you put into various ship systems to where you station your crew (they add bonuses as they become more proficient at a job – faster weapon power up, etc.) and how you upgrade your ship. The items you most have to manage are fuel, missiles, drone parts and scrap - the currency of the future. The controls are point and click and easy to learn and you can pause when necessary – which it is if your ship has been boarded, has a hull breach and is on fire – to help you think about where to move crew or what part of an enemy ship to target.

The basic elements of the game have you jumping (using FTL drives) to various spots in a given star sector. At each stop you may run into hostile ships, potential quests, black market stores or other challenges or dangers. At each you will have a series of choices to make that may help or hurt your overall goal to escape the Rebel fleet and reach the Federation. With each jump you make in a sector, it will (hopefully) take you closer to the exit point (where you can jump to the next sector) and away from the Rebel fleet (shown on the jump screen as a growing danger area you want to avoid – read you fight enemy ships every jump).

FTL doesn’t waste much energy on the graphics, but the sound is great and the game play is really engaging. It is similar to rogue-like games (Rogue, NetHack, etc.) in that death of your ship and crew is permanent. I found that it made me think fondly of NetTrek and similar minimal graphics starship games of the past. There are also Stats and Achievements to help you track how well you have done on each game. There are also multiple ship designs that can be unlocked by various achievements. I have played six games so far and unlocked one new ship design and haven’t come close to winning the game on normal, succumbing to a different death each time.

FTL is hard, fun and re-playable and at $10, you should go out and get it. If you wonder if FTL is right for you, watch the video above for a little while to get a feel for how it works and how quickly things can go from great to running at the edge of your seat. FTL gets 4 Mick Happies. Safe travels in the darkness of space.