C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 94

"What every sci-fi and fantasy author can learn from Halo?"

Here's an article I wrote for Ragnarok Publications which I thought you would be interested in. Basically, I took a moment to talk about one of my favorite game series and their handling of storytelling in the original games. Basically, some advice on how to "hit the ground running" when you're trying to capture a world.
What every sci-fi and fantasy author can learn from Halo
No, I don't mean how to tea-bag your opponents.
Nor do I mean selling out to Microsoft.
Not even how to craft excellent m...

Horror, Humor, and Heroes volume 4# review

    I'm a huge fan of Jim Bernheimer's work. While the D-List Supervillain series is my favorite, I've also enjoyed the Dead Eye, Spirals of Destiny, and Prime Suspect: A Clone Detective Mystery books. As such, I've also made it a point to pick up the collections of his short stories which he puts out on a fairly regular basis. The Horror, Humor, and Hero novels are pretty fun with the first one being famous for the original Confessions of a D-List Supervillain novella.

 &n...

Hitman (2016): Episode Two: Sapienza review

    The decision to make Hitman (2016) episodic went over like a ton of bricks with the audience. I absolutely loved the Paris level and felt it was probably the single-best designed level I've ever played in a video game. Despite being confined to a single building, it was a huge level with hundreds of NPCs and dozens of opportunities to assassinate your targets in both entertaining as well as theatrical ways. I drowned them in toilets, dropped them over ledges, hit them with...

The cover art for THE SECRETS OF SUPERVILLAINY

THE SECRETS OF SUPERVILLAINY is the third book of the Supervillainy Saga. It's a great depiction of Nightgirl and Ultragoddess by Raffaele Marinetti.

THE SECRETS OF SUPERVILLAINY follows Gary Karkofsky a.k.a Merciless the Supervillain without MercyTM as we join him one year after the events of THE GAMES OF SUPERVILLAINY. Desperate to find a cure for his wife's vampirism, Gary has taken to practicing black magic and dealing with the worst scum of the magical world. His world has been turned ups...

Hitman (2016): Episode One: Paris review

    I'm  a huge fan of the Hitman series. I'm a fair late-comer to the series with my first game being Hitman: Absolution before I went to play the compilation trilogy. I was really interested in the upcoming video game sequel, simply called Hitman. I was curious if this was going to be a reboot or  sequel by the title before realizing, in Hitman, it doesn't really matter.

    The Hitman series is a series without much in the way of plot. As Agent 47 you...

Halo 5: Guardians review

Warning - this will contain some spoilers for Halo 5: Guardians.

    Halo Month at the United Federation of Charles comes to an extend not with a bang but a whimper. How do I put this in a way which shows my immense respect for the Halo franchise but doesn't lie to my audience? Hmm, that's a difficult question. This is a really well made game but I hate it. Really-really hate it.

    Now, actually, let me qualify that statement. I think it's a very well made game i...

Tom Clancy's Division video by Extra Credit

    This isn't my video but I have to say it reflects a lot of my views. It's always a crapshoot looking for artistic merit in video games, not because the artistic talent and vision isn't there but because so much of it is the product of multiple storytellers working together.

    A strong central vision is needed and when there's not one, you can very often have conflicting, watered down, or just plain dissonant viewpoints expressed. The Division isn't any of t...

SNAFU: Hunters review

    Military-science fiction is never going to die. Why? Because everyone likes risk and there's nothing higher-stakes than combat. It's also inherently fun to imagine conflict against cyborgs, zombies, aliens, demons, and all manner of creatures. There's a juvenile part of every science fiction and fantasy fan which loves to imagine how their favorite action heroes, militaries, or units would do against the creatures from another favorite work. SNAFU, military parlance for a c...

Halo: Last Light review

    Halo: Last Light is a novel set in the Halo universe which follows the adventures of Master Chief, Cortana, and a variety of military heroes as they struggle to defend humanity from the villainous Covenant. Halo: Last Light is set after the human-Covenant War when the super-soldier SPARTANS are being deployed in less-epic roles as support for the regular military. It's also a time when peace is being made with the various former Covenant forces and the biggest threat to hum...

The Magicians (TV show): Season One review

    The Magicians by Lev Grossman is a fantasy novel which is one of the few forms of unauthorized spin-off which I approve of. Not quite parody but written with a clear intent to examine themes of the original in a way different from the original. Watchmen took the characters of the Charlton universe to tell a story about superheroism in general. Here, The Magicians takes the premise of the Harry Potter books (a magical boarding school), Narnia (a far-off-magical land visited...