C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 11

Review - Fallout: 76 - Six Years Later

 
    FALLOUT 76 is a game that both frustrates me as well as invites me in. Six years ago, I was one of the early adopters of the video game and it was one of the worst experiences of my gaming career. The world was lifeless, empty, lacking in any real stakes, and most of all felt unfinished. Fallout 76 was set in my home state of West Virginia where I lived fifteen years and yet somehow managed to not only fail to capture any of the places' uniqueness but didn't really have any of the kind of h...

Fallout: The Series Season One review

 

*plays Atom Bomb by The Five Stars*

    I love Fallout to an unhealthy degree. Seriously, I had a Fallout wallet for years. My wife got me a Fallout themed Xbox as a birthday present. I've loved Fallout since Fallout 3, like many fans, but have also played the original Interplay games. I can tell you the secrets of the Vaults, who three fictional Presidents were, and why you should never eat Iguana on a Stick. So, I am THE target audience for Fallout: The Series. Mind you, I'm also going to be o...

Star Trek: Being Human (New Frontier #12) by Peter David

    I actually finished this one awhile ago and didn't get around to writing the review. Indeed, I actually read this and the sequel back to back so it's doubly problematic. Thankfully, though, that means I can do their reviews simultaneously. For those wondering what the long delay of about a year and four months was, it was due to my niece moving in. Which obviously disrupted a lot of my online time. However, I'm getting back to writing my Space Academy books so I might as well get these...

"The Gernsback Continuum" by William Gibson review

 

    “The Gernsback Continuum” is William Gibson of 1981, looking back forty years to the the Golden Age of Science Fiction from the 1920s to the 1930s. While not quite as long from the Nineteen Eighties to the Twenty-Twenties, it’s pretty close and interesting to note that the same wistful nostalgia filter we have regarding cyberpunk as envisioned by Gibson and his contemporaries is the same that he was undoubtedly feeling when he wrote this story.

    The premise is pretty simple, a phot...

Star Trek: Restoration (New Frontier #11)

 
    This is the Western installment of the New Frontier series and I mean that in the most direct TOS sort of way. There's a big desert planet, an evil cattle baron, and Captain Calhoun comes down to become the new Sheriff in town. I actually love when Star Trek does this sort of stuff because as nonsensical and weird as it is, it is fully the kind of genre-bending I enjoy. It also doesn't take place in a holodeck and I give props for that.

    I don't really have a problem with Star Tre...

Star Trek: Picard: Firewall by David Mack review

    Star Trek: Picard is a controversial spin off in my circle as it draws out very strong emotions from its viewers. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people's feelings change between the seasons. On my end, I think the Picard show was of varying quality but came up with some of the best ideas the franchise ever had. Also, I think that it has consistently produced some of the best novels that Star Trek has ever produced. THE LAST BEST HOPE by Doctor Una McCormack and ROGUE ELEM...

Star Trek: Resurgence (PS5) review

    Star Trek is a deceptively hard franchise to adapt to video games despite the fact there's been dozens of games that have adapted it. There's good games, good Trek adaptations, and very rarely good Trek adaptions that are good games. Usually, the video games content themselves to try to do one thing very well like Elite Force where you are a bunch of Space Marines shooting up other universes on VOY or Bridge Commander where you single handedly eliminate the entire Cardassian Navy (Commander ...

Halo season two review

    This is a big improvement. I'm not the kind of guy who gets caught up in trivialities.There's plenty of people who would only want a Halo TV show if theMaster Chief never removed his helmet, and it only depicted a straight ten-episodeadaptation of the first video game with most of it being using Needlers onGrunts. I mean, I'd watch the hell out of that, but it doesn't get into thedeeper lore of the Halo universe. Halo does have a pretty deep lore toodespite being the Expanded Univers...

Space Punks II: Nightingale's Song by Anna Mocikat review

    SPACE PUNKS II: NIGHTINGALE' SONG is the sequel to SPACE PUNKS, which is at least a very accurate title to the story. I'm a huge fan of Anna Mocikat's BEHIND BLUE EYES series and really enjoyed the first of this series.  If I had to describe it, I'd say it's close to COWBOY BEBOP except hewing closer to cyberpunk motifs instead of Western. A bunch of sexy cybernetically augmented mercenaries live on the starship Nephilim, doing odd jobs for their mysterious boss, while being involved in both...

GI Joe: Retaliation review

    Oh God, this movie is terrible.

    It's fun but it's terrible.

    There are so many weird and inexplicable decisions throughout this film. The cast is fine, better than fine, I'd argue, but what they're working for is a trainwreck. I was somewhat hard on GI JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA but I felt that it was a movie with a lot of potential. It certainly set up the sequel pretty well with the character relationships and world-building off to a good start. Unfortunately, the sequel throws all of thi...