CE Wills

    Hey, everyone. I have been playing a fun game that involves aliens, flying saucers, strange planets and a guilt trip. The game is called Air Master 3D , as the erudite among you must suspect by now. This game is free for the trial version and a paltry 99 cents for the full version. I played the free version for a few minutes, then went back and bought the full version. Here's the recipe.     First let me explain what I said about the guilt trip. If you fail to vanquish the aliens, the game tells you that because of your failure, a planet has been destroyed and billions of humans have been enslaved for eternity. If that doesn't inspire you to battle harder, what can?      In this game you pilot a space ship and you fight the enemy on several bizarre planets, which are beautifully rendered in  these nice pastel colors. In an innovation that I haven't seen before, you can actually control the height of the terrain that you are flying over, low, medium or high. I prefer

    Hey, everyone. Recently I bought the new game by Polarbit Studios called Reckless Racing 2. I really don't intend to review the game but I do want to talk about a brilliant innovation in the controls.    In the picture above, notice the silver bar and just above it the box you can check for Dynamic Difficulty. The studio people explain that dynamic difficulty is the practice in the gaming community of making a game get harder as you progress and have success in it. This is the instrument that ruins gaming for the casual gamers because they get stuck at levels and can't progress and enjoy the game they have paid for.     As you know, I have constantly griped about this, even threatening to give one star reviews for games I get stuck on when I have selected the easy level. (see my post entitled The Shadowgun Manifesto). The gaming industry has catered to the hardcore gamers who want games to be super hard so that they can prove something or brag amongst themselves or wh

    Hey, everyone. As you know, I am a Zombie Advocate, one who is concerned with the mistreatment of zombies. Unfortunately, I recently was asked to help deal with a zombie outbreak in a major city. To do so, I had to go to a futuristic world and the city to which I was sent was so desolate that I could not say with any certainty where I was at. I do know that it was a dark, cloudless night and I had situated my sniper 'nest' on top of a high building that bordered a large city square. Thus I had a tremendous open area before me, even though I was in the city. In such a position I felt I could bring the outbreak under control and protect the few humans left alive.    It was a chilly night, or was it just the creepy feeling one gets when he knows that there are creatures a prowl who desire your life's blood? It is hard not to constantly look behind you, believe me. At least until I heard the grunts below me in the city square. I maneuvered my rifle in the general direction

    Hey, everyone. My wife and I spent the evening watching old videos on you-tube. I really enjoyed this and we do this fairly often. We search for old concert appearances of entertainers we like. Some of the ones we watch are from the 1950's and 1960's, as well as later ones. What a wonderful archive of film  has been preserved. My great, great grandchildren will be able to see the singers that used to rock the world. They won't have to take anyone's word for how good these people were, they can see for themselves. It would have been a shame if future generations could not see a young Jerry Lee Lewis rock that piano or John Fogerty shred that great sounding guitar.     Tonight we watched Joan Baez and listened to that phenomenal voice sing Diamonds and Rust . We saw Judy Collins perform Both Sides Now. A 30 year old Neil Diamond rocked Sweet Caroline, Forever In Blue Jeans and other tunes in a live show from by-gone days. There is really no price that you could put

   Hey, everyone. Ever think that you'd like to leave the high pressure world of shooter games and just relax for a while? Try a game called Fairway Solitaire . This is a free card game with a golf flavor. In truth, the golf part is minimal. You have announcers, like in golf, and the game pretends that you are hitting good or bad shots as you play cards on top of one another. You have a deck to draw from and cards to pick from. The object is to play a card on the pile which is one higher or lower than the card exposed. If you can't do that you have to draw a card. If you run out of deck, you come up 'over par' for that hole. If you get rid of all the cards without using the whole deck, well, you are under par. There are several courses and several holes per course. The game is free, with in apps and a full game unlock for $2.99.     This game is fun and a good time waster. Carley, the puzzler, likes it, as do I. I especially like the sounds of the birds tweeting and t

    Hey, everyone. Today I want to stand up for the underdogs. It has become apparent to me that zombies are the new societal scapegoats. If we have a bad day, we go home and slay multitudes of zombies. If someone cuts us off in traffic or is rude to us in a store, we kill zombies. It seems that zombies are a crutch for people to channel their hatred and violence. I intend to sponsor a major psychological study concerning this phenomenon. For instance, has violence gone down in areas where people play a lot of zombie games? Is zombie-killing the real key to world peace? Can all the nations of the world band together and develop a huge video game? A game that all peoples of the world can play and kill zombies until we can all, at last, live in peace and love? A frustration-destroying genocide of the undead which will, at last, purge us of our barbaric lusts?     Oh sure, they are ugly. They are undead and ...dead. They drool and they smell bad. They wear shabby clothes and have grave-d

    Hey, everyone. I've been playing a lot of games today and I have several subjects to touch on. Firstly, lets talk about Shadowgun's new Leftover Expansion Pack . In this set of levels, there is a new bad guy. They are the armored shooters who are so difficult to kill. So far, it is my experience which dictates the following strategy. If you can find a place where you can cower behind a barricade without getting killed, the shooters get a little cheeky and walk slowly up to you. Then you can pop up and give them a shotgun blast to the face. This will settle their hash but it has to be at very close range. Otherwise, they merely do the thing where they sort of wilt and discharge electricity, then spring back to vigorous life. Other than this, even the plasma gun seems not to be a solution.     I read an interview with the co-founder of Madfinger Games the other day. This is the company that came out with Shadowgun . I noticed that the company is located in the Czech Republic

    Hey, everyone. A few months ago, Carley and I were planning on going to the theater and seeing the Johnny Depp movie called The Rum Diary. Due to work schedules and stuff, we didn't get that done so I just bought the DVD last night.      This movie was adapted from the novel by Hunter S. Thompson, a journalist. It is the story of a failed novelist and on-the-skids reporter who grabs a last-chance job with a struggling paper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. First of all, let me say that I love the beach, warm weather and all things tropical, so it was good for me to have a movie to watch concerning a place like San Juan. I gazed fondly at some of the scenery and daydreamed of having my own island retreat.    Johnny Depp stars as the above-mentioned reporter. His stay on the island gets off to a rapid start when a guy named Sanderson hires him to write promotional material for a planned resort complex. The development team wants to make millions and Paul Kemp (Depp) needs the money,

   Hey, everyone. It has been a pleasure for me to read Wilbur Smith's latest novel called Those In Peril . I consider it to be a solid 4.5 stars out of 5. It is a book I'd highly recommend. Let me say that it is not for the squeamish. It is raw, violent and disquieting. It chronicles some of the most evil men imaginable and their evil deeds. As hardened an old codger as I am, there were a couple of passages which I chose to skip. Here's the recipe for this fine book.     Hazel Bannock is the widow of the powerful founder of Bannock Oil. She is smart, beautiful and tough, yet she is a pain in the butt for her head of security, Hector Cross. She hates Cross because he doesn't kiss up to her. Yet, when her daughter is kidnapped, she turns to Hector Cross for help.    Cayla Bannock has been kidnapped by Adam Tippoo Tip, who is the leader of a band of pirates in the south seas. She is taken to a mountain fortress on the African coast and held for ransom. Her treatment is

    Hey, everyone. The Notch series is a group of westerns which I have written. They are short stories about a gunman in the old west. His name is Cedric Gant. In this 6th installment, Gant has a debt of honor to pay. A young man was killed as he fought to save the lovely Abby. Cedric feels bound to help the man's sister, Claire Nesbit. Claire lives in Texas and is being preyed upon by a crooked Sheriff and a man called David Windham. Windham has also accused Cedric of killing a woman, a charge which is not true. If Gant survives the trials he faces in Texas, he is scarcely out of the woods. He is being stalked by a lady gunfighter named Belle Rand. Her only interest in Cedric Gant is merely to put another notch on her gun.      This story is fast-paced, western action. It contains adult language and situations and is strictly for adults only. It is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. It will soon be available on all the other on-line stores. Check it out for the low price of

    Hey, everyone. I got a free game yesterday that you might like to try. As you might suspect from the title, the game is titled Pizza vs. Skeletons . This is not really my kind of game but I like it pretty well. It is certainly innovative. It has 100 levels for $2.99, which is reasonable. The levels seem to change in context quite a bit which is refreshing. What I mean is, at first your giant pizza is trying to roll over skeletons and crush them. Then they have spears. If you get stuck with a spear, your pizza bleeds sauce. No, in answer to your question, I am not joking. This is really an app store game. The way to defeat the spear-wielding skeletons is to roll over them from behind. You can also jump in the air by tapping on the screen. In this manner you can land on their heads, avoid the spears and crush their moldy bones. Unless, of course, their spears are pointing in the air. Then you just roll over them.     The pizza is a 'tilt to roll' pizza. I've never tried

    Hey, everyone. There is a warming trend in the southeastern U.S. today, thank goodness. The other night we had about an inch of sleet in ten minutes. It was the hardest sleet downpour I've ever seen. It gets very noisy when sleet hits the dead leaves, believe me.     I have been very busy with Notch 6 , my latest western about the gunman, Cedric Gant. I finished it and am currently preparing it for publication on Amazon and Smashwords.      This morning I looked through my songbooks and found the music to I Will Always Love You . I played it and sang along, thinking about Whitney Houston. By the way, I'd like to thank the nice lady for her comments on the post I did about Whitney. Thanks for reading the blog.    There has been a bit of a dry spell in IOS games that are coming out. I have not been too fired up about any new games lately. This gives me the opportunity to go back and conquer some of those games that I am stuck on. Last night I revisited Modern Combat 2, Bla

    Hey, everyone. It's a very cold night, here in the mountains. Earlier in the evening I was reading Google News and noticed that Whitney Houston had died. I went to the closet where I keep my videos, meticulously arranged. (This is to tease my wife, who fusses about the mess)     I have an old VHS tape of The Bodyguard with Whitney and Kevin Costner. If you haven't seen this one, you should check it out. Whitney does a good job as an actress. At the end she sings one of my favorite songs, called I Will Always Love You . She absolutely dominates the song, bending each word to her will. Her voice is so rich and deep! Wow! Good stuff. At the risk of losing my guy card, I must admit that I usually shed a tear or two at this point in the show.     I hadn't planned on a movie review, but as long as I'm here...      Whitney Houston plays a Diva rock star who needs a bodyguard. She wants to hire the best in the business, which is Costner. Actually, her manager wants to h

    Hey, everyone. It's a cold, snowy night, here at the green retreat. I have a fire going in the fireplace and I have been playing some games. I haven't played Shadowgun in quite a while. I was stuck on the Leftover Expansion Pack at the place where there doesn't seem to be any way to get into the control room with the glass wall. You could see several things inside that were lit up. For instance, the large blue gear which we are so used to seeing was in there. Well, I discovered that you have a yellow bullseye thing on the right side of the control room. You have to shoot that thing, through the glass. Make sure the red target is lit when you shoot it, just as you would on a human target. When you shoot the yellow bullseye the side door opens and you can go into the room. Heck, I had tried lobbing grenades through the fan and everything else.    Once inside the room, John Slade closes a steam valve. This allows that red hot pipe to cool off. Lo and behold, when you ret

     The title is a bit misleading, I suppose. The update does not mean that Gameloft has updated their game, but merely that I want to tell you guys how it's going in my quest to stop this zombie outbreak, down in South America.     This game gets better and better as it goes along and I have had a blast with it. It certainly has faults, but it is definitely worth the $4.99. Last night I played it for several hours and made steady progress. I love how the writers wrote the script for this game. I was trying to find a ship, down at the docks, and went into a big building. There was a huge pool, with dead bodies floating in it. I wanted to drain the pool, but when I cranked the drain valve open, it only drained half-way. So, guess who had to climb down there and do the job manually? Not to my surprise, I was attacked by zombies and yet another alligator. The dudes who wrote this had a landing built over the main floor and I fled up there. It was probably my only hope for killing th

    Hey, everyone. I had a pleasant surprise last night. As you know, I am a poor gamer and get stuck on every shooter game, numerous times. Many times I will give up on one and delete it. I bought Zombie Infection HD over a year ago, when it was on sale for 99 cents. In this game you are a guy who goes to South America to combat an outbreak of zombie infection. Hence the title. I had played it quite a bit and had battled my way to a spot where you have to cross a swamp. You have a choice of two bridges. I was hopelessly stuck because a huge alligator rose from the water and smashed through the bridge and devoured my scrawny butt. (No accounting for taste). So, I was going to delete it last night (the game, not my butt) and thought I'd try it one more time. I selected my shotgun and crept slowly onto the bridge with my gun pointed into the calm waters of the bay.  You tend to draw up, expecting the violent attack. When it came I started shooting and hitting both buttons and my g

    Hey, everyone. Due to the fact that I keep getting stuck on shooter games, I have been playing more puzzle games of late. At least you can have some fun, which would seem to be the object of a game. This weekend I played a new match game called Planet Buster HD . The bottom line of this game is that it is fun and I like it. Carley and I both rate it as 4 stars out of 5. Here's the recipe.    You have a board. On it are planets, comets, supernovas and black holes. The object is to match three or more tiles. Where this game differs from most match threes is the fact that you can swap tiles from anywhere on the board, rather than tiles which have to be next to each other. At the bottom right you have a 2.5 minute timer. If you can't 'level up' before time runs out, you lose. In the upper right is a scoreboard which goes down as you make matches. I haven't quite figured that out yet. In the upper left is a bucket of gold doubloons which goes down as you use your t

    Hey, everyone. Well, it was a good ball game in Indy. There has to be a loser. It was a well-played game for the most part, with a bit of nerves exhibited at the end. I thought that the officials missed a pass interference call against the Patriots but it turned out that they lost anyway.     That was a great catch by the Giant's Manningham on the sideline. As I've said before, big players make big plays in big games. If those players can keep their feet on the ground and not get puffed up, they can have a nice springboard to a career with a play like that one. On the other hand, some folks can't handle success. The spotlight reveals our cracks, our weaknesses.      I thought the Giants messed up, part way through the second quarter, when they quit pressuring Brady. Throw out all other game planning except this: either put the heat on Tom Brady or you lose. They started bringing the heat on him again, late in the game, and won. How long does Brady have to be in the le

    Hey, everyone. It's late but I am wide awake. I've been busy today, writing Notch 6 , the latest in my series of western short stories. It is almost like I'd know Cedric Gant if we met on the street. If we did, I certainly wouldn't invite him to draw. Ha, ha.     Meanwhile, in Indianapolis tonight, there are a bunch of other sleepless men. Odds are, they are not writing a book. They are thinking about playing in the most important game of their lives, the Super Bowl. Soon, all the hype will be over and it will come down to tackling, blocking, running and catching, as it always does.     True, the game is nowhere near as important as their health, their wives and babies or their faith, whatever that might be. Yet, millions in salary, bonuses, endorsements are at stake. Even those cushy, 'talking head ' jobs with the networks are much easier to get if you have one of those big rings. More important still, to some of them, is the professional satisfaction of

     Hey, everyone. First of all, I'd like to thank a nice lady called Marcia Carrington for her kind review of my short story titled Tale of the Black Mushroom , over on Smashwords . She is a romance novelist and I went to Lulu Books and downloaded her story called Looking Back . I enjoyed it very much. An odd, peaceful feeling came over me as I read this story about an elderly lady's look at her life. I suppose that this is because I have been a bit frustrated with my own life, lately, and was in need of some perspective on the whole aging thing. I will give you a link to her books below. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/MarciaCarrington      In other news, I went tracking today in an area several miles from my home. The last time I went to this place, the group I was with found a ton of tracks. Today, not so good. I found almost no tracks and surmised that this was due to the fact that we had torrential rains recently that not only washed away existing tracks but filled po

1) Superman gets a lot more chicks. They love it when he takes them flying; more exciting than a Corvette, I suppose. 2) Superman has superpowers, Batman has none. 3) Superman has x-ray vision. This alone is the voyeur's delight. With Wonder Woman you don't need much imagination, though. 4) Superman can fly but the Batmobile has to be worked on. Tires, gas, etc. He can't even take it to a shop. You come home from a battle with The Joker and have to change your ****** oil. 5) Superman has a nice, well-lit Fortress of Solitude. Batman has a ****** cave. 6) Superman is called 'The Man Of Steel'. Batman is called the Dark Knight. If you were a chick, which one would you go out with? Ladies really don't dig rodents, darkness or caves. And really, a nice 55 Chevy would look better than a Batmobile. 7) Superman can just walk in and address the UN council. (Superman 4) He has that kind of stroke, prestige. Batman is a loner. Even the police commissioner has to fla

     Hey,everyone. It's a foggy night at the green retreat. Do you remember when I mentioned the idea I had for comics? I wanted to have an on-line store for comics similar to I-Tunes for music, except that I would offer any comic ever published for 99 cents each. I was on comixology the other day and saw that they had quite a few older comics for $1.99 each, with a few for 99 cents. I downloaded a copy of a 50 year old issue of Wonder Woman. In this issue she was wearing a skirt instead of the short-shorts. That may tell you how old it was. That site needs someone really good to work on it and make it easier to find stuff. I typed in things like 1960's comics or 1960's Spiderman, Thor etc. and got back a negative result. I think they should drop their prices on older books, also. Current comics are $3.99 each with no ink, no paper to buy. Yikes! Let's gouge the consumer, everybody else does.     Lest I rant, I'll switch over to gaming. Let me start by eating a li