C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 78

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 review

    I'm catching up on all of the various Resident Evil titles I've missed since I stopped following the series around Code Veronica. That's quite a few games and I decided to start with Resident Evil 4, moved on to Resident Evil 7, and am now just finished with Resident Evil: Revelations 2. I wanted to play Resident Evil: Revelations first but, well, that's not yet available on Xbox One. Also, I was kind enough to get the first episode in the series free and that was another g...

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson review

    If you want to read two novels to get a sense of the cyberpunk genre, I generally recommend either Neuromancer or Snow Crash. This is interesting because Snow Crash was meant to be a parody of the genre. An affectionate parody but a parody nevertheless. After all, how can you take seriously a story about Hiro Protagonist, hacker/samurai/pizza delivery guy? A story which opens with the fact he has thirty minutes or less to deliver a pizza or the mob will come down on him lik...

Excerpt from The Tower of Zhaal

 
The stars were not right. This fact was burned into the minds of every human being living on the ruin we called planet Earth. Once, the stars were white pinpricks of light against a black sky. They were comforting guides to astronomers, lovers, and sailors. The little dots of light hinted at vistas that humanity might one day visit. Those are not the stars of tonight’s world. The stars I’d grown up with, which hung above me this evening, were red, orange, and yellow burning orbs that p...

Delvers LLC by Blaise Corvin review

    Since Mark Twain did A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, there's always been a desire by some people to be the guy who goes to a fantasy world in order to make use of their knowledge to take over. Err, I mean be a big hero. My favorite of this subgenre is probably Army of Darkness followed by Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series. Still, Blaise Corvin's Delvers LLC has probably supplanted the latter as my second favorite of all time. The only reason it's not at the top...

Tears of a Clone by Brian Parker review

    I was a big fan of the Immorality Clause by Brian Parker last year. It was basically a variant on Blade Runner with the premise of a Louisiana Detective in the future doing his best to find out who was responsible for the deaths at a gynoid sex club. I was, thus, extremely interested in the follow-up book as far too many books are interested in the trappings of cyberpunk versus the more nuanced ways of examining how technology can be used to screw up people's lives. 'Techno...

Resident Evil 7 review

    So, Resident Evil 7 is possibly my favorite horror video game. Well, after Silent Hill 2. Actually, I have far better feelings toward Resident Evil 7 than I do Silent Hill 2 but James Sunderland's' Bogus Journey wins out on the basis that the introduction to this game is clearly inspired by it. Also, Ethan Winters is more or less a cipher as a main character and I think those are cop-outs in writing. About the only games I think which rival Resident Evil 7 I've played are A...

Rise of the Tomb Raider review

    I've had this game for over a year and never got around to writing up a review for it because it is, ultimately, forgettable. This is kind of an impressive feat since I loved the new Lara Croft, gave the Tomb Raider reboot a 10 out of 10, and was anxiously awaiting the sequel. I was sure the plot would be amazing since I love Rhianna Pratchett's writing and consider Overlord one of my all-time favorite video game concepts along with said reboot.

    And the p...

Writing Update February 2017

 Hey folks,

I have some great news for those who are interested in my writing. Which, hopefully, includes all of the readers here. The first is that THE SCIENCE OF SUPERVILLAINY is almost ready for release. We've got the sketch for the cover available here which depicts Kerri Karkofsky and Mister Inventor.


Kerri Karkofsky is the brother of protagonist Gary Karkofsky a.k.a Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM. She's been a real ensemble darkhorse and just about everyone loves her. Mi...

Resident Evil 4 review

    You may ask what the point of reviewing Resident Evil 4 may be. It's a game which generally stands up there with Super Marrio Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Streetfighter II, Halo, and a handful of others for "you know, that was really-really good." It's actually almost unheard of for people to have much in the way of criticisms about it. While hardcore survival horror fans may hate on the game for 'ruining' the series, generally people tend to think of it as the best of th...

Villains Rule by M.K. Gibson review

    Have you ever wanted to reach into the reality of book or movie and shake the villain? Ever since Scott Evil pointed out he had a gun in his room and it would take just a few seconds to get it so they could kill Austin Powers, we have been in dire need of a villain consultant. This book seems to have been inspired by the Evil Overlord's List and that's fairly high praise by itself. We've all wanted a smarter more savvy villain in our fantasy and that's what the protagonist...