May 25
Klaus Leidorf ≋ aerial photograph — striped crop fields, a curving road, one tree, and the shadow of a plane
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from Russia
seen from Netherlands
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Venezuela
seen from United States
seen from Moldova
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from Germany
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from China
Klaus Leidorf ≋ aerial photograph — striped crop fields, a curving road, one tree, and the shadow of a plane
Ancient cities seen from the sky. I used 'blend' of several photos of real cities, including Philae in Egypt and one of the Borromean Islands (Isola Pescatori).
by Midjourney v6
Metal Gear Solid
The success of a creative work is more often than not fickle, capitalizing on some trend, some theme, some demand that’s could never have been predicted but seems obvious in retrospect. Pac-Man is a very good video game, made by talented people, but it also benefited from video games exploding out of university mainframes and into bars, malls, and movie theaters, where there were waiting quarters in eager hands.
The same could be said of Metal Gear Solid. It rode a wave of excitement that descended upon the industry with the technological advancements of the 1990s. Consoles rallied forward with exciting new innovations – CD storage! Polygonal rendering! Rumble & analog sticks! – and games like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII showed that the industry was striking at Hollywood, integrating strong narrative, memorable characters, and fantastic presentation into more striking video games.
But it wasn’t just luck, not for those titles and certainly not for Metal Gear Solid. The game is full of an undeniable creativity, powered by massive leaps in technology and informed by the unique perspective and skills of its creators.
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⟲ The city coils before it crosses — Osaka
Into the Eagle’s Nest
World War II and video games have gone together like peanut butter and chocolate during the medium’s existence. Interpretations of the historic war range from serious strategy games & detailed simulators to the high-flying fare of Wolfenstein 3D or the Call of Duty series. Interceptor Micros, a publishing studio riding the wave of British microcomputers, had their take with Into The Eagle’s Nest, released in 1987, on a host of computing platforms of the time. Its setup and pedigree had potential to be something quite thrilling, but the finished product leaves much to be desired.
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Metal Gear Solid 2
How do you follow up on a bona fide success?
It is the eternal question of the creative person, and one that was facing Hideo Kojima and his team at Konami Computer Entertainment Japan after Metal Gear Solid in 1998. Their game blew up as a critical and financial darling on the PlayStation. People clamored for more. More Snake. More stealth. More weapons. More silliness. Endless creative possibilities lay ahead of the developers, as well as the potential pitfalls of a sophomore slump. It needed to be amazing, to show off the technical merits of Sony’s own PlayStation sequel. It needed to be huge and thrilling, to exceed the work they had already done. With so much riding on it and expectations set so high, what could they possibly do to meet them? How could Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty even hope to rise to the occasion?
Naturally, by pulling one of the biggest bait and switch of all time and swerving into the deeply philosophical and utterly absurd.
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This is a quick and easy air fryer chicken recipe for one that can easily be scaled up for more people.
This picture looks like a tabletop RPG game map. It was supposed to be a picture of the City of Brass.
by Midjourney v6