Review: Planetes Anime
In Short: Planetes is a well made, character-driven anime that depicts life and work in Earth’s orbit in the near future of 2075. Its realistic portrayal of space, combined with its complex, well-rounded ensemble cast, delivers humor and fun along with a strong helping of angst and character drama. Even though its art direction is top notch, Planetes is an older series, and that sometimes shows…
Bite-sized Backstory 57: The Showdown at Dwindler’s Ridge
For decades, Shin Malphur hunts the man who killed his friend, mentor, father figure. Shin and Yor finally met atop a place called Dwindler’s Ridge. And… this is how it played out. I don’t often quote large portions of Grimoire Cards, my goal is to summarize and make available, not to copy and paste, but this showdown is one of my favorite scenes in all of Destiny’s lore. It is a scene that…
Bite-sized Backstory 56: Thorn vs The Last Word
For the next several years Jaren Ward stays at Palamon after freeing it from Magistrate Loken. We know that Shin Malphur thought of him as the town’s savior and eventually came to think of Jaren as a friend and father figure. The Fallen were still a major problem for Palamon, however. It sounds like the town gets hit hard by Fallen raiders again. Jaren Ward and a few of the toughest survivors…
Bite-sized Backstory 55: Rezyl Azzir & Dredgen Yor
If Jaren Ward was the embodiment of Light and Hope, Dredgen Yor was what you get when that hope dies. You see, long before the Titan we know as Dredgen Yor became perhaps the worst, most corrupted Guardian in history, he was a man known as Rezyl Azzir. Rezyl was one of the Risen. One of those found by their Ghost before the Iron Lords, or The City, or the concept of Guardians existed. Rezyl,…
Bite-sized Backstory 54: Jaren Ward
Even though he is the gun’s original owner, Jaren Ward is really just a minor character in the story of The Last Word. He came to the town of Palamon nestled in the snowy, tree covered mountains one day like a heroic gunslinger out of an old western. He walks in from the south and everyone stares but no one talks. That is, until someone we recognize, Shin Malphur, the child of light, now a…
Bite-sized Backstory 53: Child of Light
Destiny has a lot of lore. There are so many good stories that you can pursue and so many different types to read. Sci-fi, drama, epic fantasy, political intrigue, you can find all these and more, you just gotta pull on the right thread. But one of my favorite stories, and one of Destiny’s oldest and longest, has all of the above. I want to tell you the story of The Last Word, an iconic…
Bite-sized Backstory 52: A Power Unknown
Once the dust settled and the fires of the Fallen attack were put out, Mara takes stock of her Awoken. One in three of them are gone, either killed in the Fallen’s attack or else they left and have gone to try and aid the Humans on earth. For the Awoken that remain on their ships with Mara near the large asteroid Vesta, new work begins. As Mara says to Uldren, …never again can I allow my people…
Meet Magma
“I think they know we left…” Magma hears one of her companions say. A quick glance at the three rock-walled tunnels behind shows that to be one fabulous understatement. Coming down each tunnel are elite guards with weapons drawn and torches in hand. And ahead of them, backlit by the flickering flames? Spiders! Thousands of them! Maybe tens of thousands all spilling forward down each tunnel…
Landing Pictures
I found them. Or, what is probably most of them. So, these pictures are the “full rez” 1024×768 versions of the Aftermath landing pictures. One for each world the player could land on. I believe the actual in-game size was somewhat lower and more rectangular, but I’m happy these are the ones I have and not the smaller versions. Each of these pictures was made in a program…
Aftermath, Just A Few Years Later
What feels like a long, long time ago, I hung out on the message boards of the Mac shareware company Ambrosia Software. I talked with like minded kids about things like games and movies and tech. The Ambrosia forums must have been my first real push out into the world of internet friends. Along the way I did my first coding/hacking/game design by making levels and missions and even an interesting…