The first issue of the magazine Giant Robot I ever came across featured the Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai on the cover--this was enough to stand out on a crowded newsstand in the mid-nineteen-nineties. But what caught my attention were the teasers for a random assortment of other stories, about gangs, surfing, shaved ice, orgies. But who was I? I was a teen-ager and desperate to know. I suspected Giant Robot could help me figure it out. For anyone under the age of forty, this level of impressionability might sound a bit silly.

With apologies to said chicks for unnecessary specificity, there's no better way to enjoy giant robots than in video game form. And one of the best giant robot games ever made, Titanfall 2, is on sale today for just three greenbacks. I've poured out my love for this game and its predecessor before, bemoaning the fact the publisher EA and developer Respawn seem to have abandoned it in favor of Star Wars and battle royale. But to save you some reading time: it has a fantastic single-player campaign that's worth the price of admission alone. Fast-paced, parkour-infused FPS action in "pilot" mode contrasts with stomping around in your robot pal for big action set pieces. The sci-fi buddy cop story is decent and the level design is occasionally jaw-dropping.

It's been just under nine years since Titanfall landed on the PC and Xbox, and just under nine years since publisher Electronic Arts has been underutilizing one of its most interesting and promising franchises. With the rumor that EA has canned a third Titanfall game after years of development, I think it's time we look back on what this game was, what it could have been, and lamentably, what it never will be. What is Titanfall right now? Part of the first wave of Xbox One titles and one of the console's very few exclusives, the original Titanfall was the first game developed by Respawn Entertainment, which was founded by former executives of Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward. It made a splash from its introduction at E3 2013, wowing gamers with a mix of fresh, parkour-infused multiplayer shooting and the titular Titan mechs as a fresh addition to the genre.

Around here we love Into the Breach, the 2018 tactical RPG-slash-chess game-slash-giant robot power fantasy from FTL developer Subset Games. The deceptively simple title hasn't lost any of its charm in the last few years, but today there's an expansion out that's adding a few thousand tons of content (get it, because the mechs are big?) to the sterling formula. Best of all, this "Advanced Edition" is a completely free update to both existing owners and new players. If you're new to Into the Breach, it's been described as "chess with giant robots." That's a bit reductive -- chess starts off with no less than 32 pieces, and Into the Breach rarely has even half that many on the board -- but then, so is the game itself.

Adam-Troy Castro's story "Arvies," first published in the August 2010 issue of Lightspeed magazine, imagines a society that believes only fetuses have souls. One consequence of this is that it's normal for people to use advanced technology to never leave the womb. "There are two kinds of people in that story--fetuses and the'arvies,' which they ride around in and have fun and replace regularly," Castro says in Episode 519 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "[The story] bounces back and forth between the point of view of one of these fetuses and those where you go to the basically mindless woman--by design--whose fate is to carry her around." "Arvies" was a huge hit for Castro, winning the 2011 Million Writers Award for best short story and appearing in books such as Nebula Awards Showcase: 2012 and The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2011.

The robot is modeled after a figure in "Mobile Suit Gundam," a Japanese cartoon first launched in the late 1970s about enormous battle robots piloted by humans. The series spawned multiple spin-offs and toys and gained a worldwide following.

A new company founded by two former USC students wants to change the way rockets are made by using enormous 3-D printers. The company's initial project is called Terran-1, a 100-foot tall rocket that initially will carry satellites of up to 2,800 pounds into orbit around the earth. The current plan is to radically simplify manufacturing, using 100 times fewer parts to create a rocket that's so easy to manufacture, an AI can handle it. Relativity Space is based in Los Angeles, where its working on building a rocket that could launch as early as 2021. Relativity's founders see 3-D printing as the key to the company's success.

A fire-breathing Dragon, which looks similar to a creature from Harry Potter's movie. The Alpha1S robots are 16 inches high, weighs just 1.63kgs, looks pretty much exactly what science fiction told us. It is developed at the National Institute of Technology, Nara College in Chiba, Japan. They are leading manufacturers of the various type of industrial robots. Spyce Robot delivers salads and grain bowls in three minutes or less.

Monday's Business section looks at Broadcom's scuttled deal to take over San Diego-based Qualcomm. It turns out Broadcom wildly miscalculated when it came to President Trump, who shot down what would have been the largest technology deal in history. The reverberations have only just begun. Trump dinged the deal on national security grounds -- but not because Broadcom, which is based in Singapore until it moves to the U.S. later this month, posed an immediate threat. The big worry was China, Trump's nemesis in trade.

The following is an excerpt from Soonish by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. Thanks to recent advances in robotics, computing, and other technologies, a small but growing number of scientists and engineers think robot-made housing might finally be possible. In fact, not only is it possible, it may be far better. Robotic construction may increase the speed of construction, improve its quality, and lower its price. There are a number of ways this could work, including giant gantries that behave something like 3D printers, and robotic arms on wheels that might directly replace construction workers.