As announced, Opera Software has released today the final version of Opera 10. Despite the major change in the version number, the list of brand new features is actually not that large, and after looking through the changelog, one might say the Opera team focused its efforts on improving existing features, adding a couple of nice touches here and there, and polishing everything else, something to which some of the new features contribute. After the bittersweet release that, in my opinion, Opera 9.5 came to be, it's nice to see the browser going back to its usual high standards.

Or maybe they just borrowed a page out of Chrome's playbook, who knows...


As expected, Opera Unite didn't make it to this release, and will debut in a future Opera 10.1, along with form autocomplete and extension support ;-). So far, the browser feels great, and while is still early to see if the annoying issue I encountered in 9.5 is fixed (HDD trashing, the rest of the problems remain), the only thing worth griping about is minor cosmetic issues with the skin here and there which, otherwise, is fantastic. Hat off to Mr. Hicks.

Also, a new icon! nontroppo must be happy ;D

If there's any XBOX 360 user in the forum, Braid will be old news to them, as the game was originally released in XBOX Live Arcade more than 8 months ago to critical acclaim, and receiving several awards during the year.

For those who don't know nothing about the game, Braid is simply a 2D platform game. Nothing more, nothing less. You run around and jump on your enemies heads while collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces. The final objective of the game is to rescue a princess, very much like Super Mario Bros. (there are various nods to this and other games during your playthrough).

What makes it different from another platform games, apart from the really nice graphical style that it uses, is the various ways you can manipulate the passage of time for your own benefit, either to grab a jigsaw puzzle which is completely out of your reach, to grab a key that lets you open the door that blocks your way, or simply to correct your mistakes. It starts letting you rewind time to save you from a certain death at the hands of the enemy (much like in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), but as the game advances you discover new uses based in how certain objects in the game world react to your time manipulation. The developer took advantage of this feature to implement various puzzles here and there that requires certain thinking in how to solve them, which manage to be not very difficult to solve but original at the same time.


The game was released for Windows just yesterday, and the demo is available at the various game distribution systems which offer the game, which includes Impulse and Greenhouse (Steam, for the time being, offers the game and a trailer, but not the demo). A Mac version is also planned. The system requirements are extremely low, so practically everyone can run the game, including netbook owners. The price is very adequate, which makes up for the fact that it seems to be a short game, although probably longer than certain games from the big names in gaming, which are everything but affordable.