About two weeks ago, I was feeling my cellphone too slow. So slow I was starting to think about replacing it with a brand new one. I’ve heard excellent things about the new 2014 Moto X and it was the one that I would probably buy.

However, I believe that my Galaxy S3 is still very good. It is was once a very fast machine, so it might be a way to return it to its former glory. So I changed the focus to replacing big chunks of the software with new ones. My fear was that I was walking in a path that leads to the same place, because about 3 months ago I installed a new Android home screen app, Nova, getting rid of the horribly slow Samsung TouchWiz app, but due to the same set of other apps running was still making the general impression of a slow device.

I took the radical change. I was looking for a very slim Android distro to install. The closest to the vanilla Android, with just the essential extra software. The obvious candidate was CyanogenMod. I once installed in my first smartphone, the Motorola Defy and it was a blast new experience. I was hopping to get the same good sensation in this new run.

CyanogenMod, since them, evolved to a much more professional and organized organization. Their web site is now much more clean and well documented. They now have an installer that is a total breeze. No more almost-secret recipe list of instructions that, if not done correctly, would turn your phone into a brick.

So I tried. I backed up every thing in the memory card and… removed everything. No turning back.

Oh man. WOW.

What a difference. The first impression is generally very good. Because the lack of installed software of any new OS install, it generally seems so fast and responsive. It was not different here. The phone was responding to every command promptly. It was really nice. The whole thing was if it would keep its speed even after reinstalling all the essential apps, like Firefox, PDF reader, a To Do task (I’m my case, both Evernote and Wunderlist), and some messaging apps, like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Google Hangouts and a better TTS engine (Ivona).

I am glad to say that it is still fast. ‘Course that not like the clean state, but definitively a great general sensation.

CyanogenMod have a very close to stock Android with a good selection of apps. Their camera app is very nice, their configuration pages are well organized and the home app is fast and customizable. I did not try the default browser because because of pure habit, but I might give it a try soon.

For all the time I’ve already spent on it, I can only say that I recommend it. If you are getting too annoying of your current phone to the point that you are thinking about buying a new one, you might first take a much more economical approach installing CyanogenMod Android in your device. VIVA the phone rebirth!

What a great story! What a great universe! What a great art!

Without any further words, I loved Saga.

Saga is an epic space opera, with a rich and VERY weird universe, full of bizarre races and locations. Like Star Wars, there is a galaxy-wide conflict, but unlike the reference, there is no good-and-evil motto.

The main characters (the couple Alana and Marko) are involved, but they are not the center of the conflict. They are fugitives hunted by governments and bounty hunters and they challenge the odds to remain alive. All this with a newborn girl Hazel.

The story is incredible, yet believable.

The overall look is really good. Brian K. Vaughan, the author, mentions the amazing art from Fiona Staples several times in the author area over and over and I cannot disagree. It enhances the experience as it should. Comics are mixed of visuals and story and both are covered.

Probably one of the recurrent mentioned features of the series is the sex references. Sex is part of the story but is not vulgar. It is dealt with as a part of the universe.

The liberty given by Image Comics to authors pays off on Saga. Brian K. Vaughan is one of my preferred authors of this generation. I liked very much X: The Last Man, at least in the first half.

You have to read it

NOTE: I just read the first 8 issues. I want to read the rest.

Yesterday I played Witcher Adventure (still in Beta) again, this time I could play for a little longer. I am participating in the Beta program, to give the developers the much feedback as we can. The game is a digital implementation of the homonymous board game, launched by Fantasy Flight Games.

First and foremost, the beta label means that: the game is incomplete. The main mechanics are working, the graphics are there, but there are many details missing, things that you will notice when you try it.

I am particularly interested in the game because my next game, project Vaults Inc(EDIT 2021: not available anymore), can learn a lot from it.

Visuals

Visuals are great. The game is really pretty and follows almost exactly the board game. There are also several similarities to Blizzard’s HeartStone by giving a plain card game a 3D vivid feeling. In the visual aspect, its a 10.

Story

Witcher Adventure do not have a fixed story. Instead each player will have a mission and submissions during the match. Even being a very mechanic driven strategy game, the story elements work amazingly well. It is better than other games that just include some generic and irrelevant context.

Multiplayer

The beta is all about the multiplayer aspect. The initial menu options are all very straightforward because the game has no other options to offer. Because there was not many players invited to the beta (at least I suppose), for several moments that I entered in the game lobby looking for a companion I was alone there.

The whole lobby feature is lacking a lot of robustness. It just says that there is or isn’t people waiting to play with you, nothing else. It could be strengthened by looking into Valve’s Alien Swarm, because they are similar in terms of important variables: number of players and scenario/match duration players voted for. The “waiting for other players to join” feels so lonely.

Bugs

The current game is full of bugs. It’s a bit unfair, because most games are full of bugs. In an action driven game, all the bugs are generally forgotten seconds later because the player’s attention is needed again But in the case of a strategy, turn-based, very slow paced games, the logic is pretty exposed. You can see and analyze quite precisely the output of a given command.

In Witcher Adventure, the forum is full of minor bugs, but there are a couple of critical ones, in which the whole match is compromised. The most critical ones were related to network. ALL of my plays stooped due to a player’s network problem. Yep, I could not go to a single match to the end…

I want to play it more (if there is any people online to do so)!

Yesterday I watched the Free to Play movie, produced by Valve. I can be only seeing inside the Steam gaming platform. I’ve never knew that it has video player functionalities.

Without any further due, the verdict: very boring.

The film is about video gaming as an sport, particularly about Dota 2. It tells 3 parallel stories of players that will participate into the biggest tournament ever. The prize would be one million dollars for the winner. At the time, it was, but light years, the biggest prize in history.

The 3 main characters are not particularly captivating. They are portrayed as nerds that are taking a lot of pressure by family members to work or study instead invest the whole time into gaming. The characters keep saying that they are motivated and determined to win. But that is all. You see that they are facing difficult situations, but nothing different from a teenagers entering into adulthood: what should I do with my life?

Despite the fact that the announcement alone of a such big prize created a huge repercussion on the internet gaming community and media, the tournament is poorly described. During the whole film, I was never sure what was going on in the competition.

But one thing it was very impressive the CG scenes that describe some parts of the matches in the competition. I believe that Valve CG animators entered in action. They were short but very, very well done.

The bottom line is that this film is, in fact, a propaganda about video game as an sport and the Valve game Dota. It repeatedly say that this competition was a milestone and it might actually be the case. But even being free to watch, Free to Play is not worthy.

The acclaimed author of Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown brought another story from his symbologist Robert Langdon.

Now, instead of sitting under Leonardo Da Vinci’s works to create the conspiracy and mystery, the author drank from another Italian writer: Dante Alighieri. This fellow was responsible for writing the Divine Comedy, a narration about the 9 rings of hell.

Without revealing too much information about the book itself, I did not like the book. The character seems to know all the places too well, from secret doors, geography, history, and local informants. He knows everything. Also, he remains too calm and lucid even in life-threatening situations.

All the characters, good or bad, including Langdon, are also too resourceful. Do they need to travel across the globe now? No problem, there is always a contact that can spare a private jet, boat, or helicopter. There aren’t any dead-end moments, It is too much of a straightforward adventure.

Dante’s material is fascinating, but it was overused. He is not Da Vinci, it is not believable that everything in the world somehow conspired to link to his works. Finally, Brown used too many repetitive artifacts in his writings. It annoyed me by half of the book.

I would not recommend this book. I going to read some technical books to change the air…