DnD Attack wing: next step in wargaming evolution.

Today I saw the future. It was magnificent. It was fast, quick to learn, easy to understand, difficult to master, it had a rich lore and could be packed into one relatively small box. The biggest surprise was that it had Dragons, which did not needed thousand special rules, and could operate on same principles as any other unit in the game. Other surprise, was that i did not needed 50+ hours to assemble my army and crash course in miniatures painting in order to have ONE HOUR OF FUN. All I did, is opened the box, put some models on a base and learnt how to plan, move, and roll some dice to see who wins the fight. Was it easy? No! Game has a tactical depth, asks for a great deal of strategical thinking. So as any other wargame, you may say.

You would be absolutely right about it, but what make DnD Attack wing special, is that frees your mind from huge amount of needles work like calculating number of shots, number of inches travelled, bonuses for charging, special rules, stupidity of sword challenges in plasma-gun firefights and loads of other geek pleasures. (Yes, Warhammer 40000, I'm talking about you.)  

What it offers in return is game play where almost everything is automated, except process of making decisions and dice rolling. your movement follows template pathways, allowing for flanking and tactical retreats when necessary. Movement itself is very important, as it places you models in more favourable position if you are able to outflank enemy outside of his firing ark. 

Combat is surprisingly simple and interesting. Attacker rolls his dice if target is in firing arc, defender roll his defence dice and possibly spends his Evasion tokens. Terrain, items, like shields, spells and other abilities may add more dice to your roll.  Then defender cancels number of attack equal to his evades. On top of that, if defender has got an Armour, he automatically cancels one attack for each point of armour he has. 

Armour saves? Cover saves? Invulnerable or Feel no pain saves?! Please. 

Armour, however is not unbeatable, if attacker rolls a Critical Hit, then it will bypass armour and will inflict a face up damage card. My luck was such, that in my first critical was "Shattered Armour", which successfully destroyed my one point of Armour. In some cases, just concentrating firepower of your units on one Dragon, or most dangerous opponent will bring it down, without need of Critical hits. 

Magic, has its own simple and beautiful rules. In essence, there are one-shot spells and items, which act as normal attack with some additional effects. On the other hand there are timed weapons, like Breath weapons for Dragons. After they are used, in the same fashion as any other attack, player places several time tokens. Each one of those tokens is removed at the end of the turn. When no tokens left, you may use weapon or ability again. 

Let's talk about ground troops. They are represented by models in your unit, card and several tokens which has Firepower, Defence, Life and Armour values. The biggest change and innovation is how units stats change after it takes casualties. Meaning: when attacks and life points go down, Defence goes up! This is an ingenious solution representing lonely troopers trying to survive under fire breathing Dragon! Smaller targets are much more difficult to hit. Each race, of coarse gets its special fantasy abilities, like free focus, or charge. But I'll let you discover details for yourself. Just, watch out for Giants, they are nasty. 

There are several actions your unit may take, each one giving you a specific bonuses.

Focus: lets you change focus result into a hit or evade

Aim: lets you re-roll dice when attacking target

Evade: gives you one automatic evade result when being attacked

Charge: lets your unit re-roll attack dice in close combat.

Wait, you may ask, where could I've seen that? X-wing miniatures game and Star Trek attack wing are using essentially same system designed by FFG. So why this system is a next step in wargaming evolution? Is it so new that makes all over systems old and useless? Short answer is no. But what x-wing system does, is truly an evolution: it takes most common elements of any wargame and makes them so player friendly as never before. I'll compares some of the most important elements of x-wing system with some of Games Workshop products.  

Lets start with units movement. Pre-made move patterns use in X-wing, Star Trek and DnD Attack wing are not so new, Aeronautica Imperialis have used similar method, with manoeuvre cards, however it save player a huge amount if time, as it removes measuring with builders measurement tape, and then dragging all of your models to a new location. 

This is followed by positioning. With exception of fantasy warhammer, positioning in 40k did not really played such an important part, as most unit had 360 degree firing ark, unless designers artificially denied it, like they did to Storm Talon. Here. positioning becomes paramount, as one millimetre out of firing arc may sometimes cost you the game, thus adding an extraordinary level of tactics, not usually seen in most other games. 

Most important is secret planning and alternative activation.  When size of the table-top army reaches hundreds of models just waiting until opponents finishes all of the planning in his head, then movement, then rolling bucket of dice to see if anything hits will take a long time and will put opponent under stress and boredom. With secret planning, you choose your movement on a dial and then alternate movement of your units in order of initiative. If models overlap they either stop or engage, in any case this keeps BOTH PLAYER PLAYING, and paying attention to what happens on the table after every move. Perhaps, Lord of the Rings would be able to find itself on positive side with this aspect. 

 Finally, simplified damage and combat system. Only one roll made by each player for each combat. ONE!!! Compare that to this procedure:  roll to hit, to wound, roll to save, roll for invulnerable save, roll for cover save, roll for feel-no-pain save. If its a vehicle, then roll on a damage table. When Warhammer was born, it was pioneering ways for other wargames, and being drawn around small, platoon sized engagements, this complication was acceptable. But these days players will spend an hour just setting up the models! Then another 4-5 hours rolling those buckets of dice. What x-wing did, is just simplified the very same system to one roll and deck of damage cards. And I firmly believe that DnD attack wing will become a new standard for wargames just because of this elegant simplicity. 

One more thing: becoming best seller. Despite all odds, huge controversies like practically terminating relations with brick-n-mortar game shops, oversized and overcomplicated rules Games Workshop is still a leading company in wargaming. For now. (muhahahaa!) GW main product Warhammer and Warhammer 40k became icons and standards for this industry when no other opponent like that existed. With careful  marketing and expansion Warhammer became a bestseller and system copied and followed so many times, that none cares to count. Every time you look at some other rules for fantasy or sci-fi games you will find a resemblance to Warhammer by Mr. Rick Priestly. 

One of the biggest reasons for that is "stealing" gamers from GW by a new upstart. This rules similarity allows players switching to something new to shorten their learning curve, as in essence it promises to let them do something they were not able in Warhammer. One of latest examples is Dropzone Commander, which despite its small scale, elegant modelling is still a clone of W40K, modified, upgraded with command cards but essentially a clone. Does it sells? yes it does. Is it a great game? No. 

So when x-wing in less than 2 years became a world phenomenon and created portfolio of order for 3 years ahead, Games Workshop kept losing its market, its customer base and profits. Current half a year financial review shows that despite bringing so many wonderful coloured books, card, new edition of rules people are gradually losing interest in Warhammer. Will GW fortunes change for the better? I doubt  that. The simplest reason for that is both systems needs to be replaced with something completely different, modern and quick and GW is not a company know for drastic innovation.

So, the new king has arrived, and his name is X-wing. Now relax and watch other copy its ideas, spreading them around and slowly eating away what's left of GW share of market. 

Your megalomaniac, 

Mark-Paul Severn.

  

      

  

   

  

   

Review: Deadzone game mechanics

Enforcers with Captain

Deadzone, huh? The first time I had a look at this game I thought it just another Necromunda-clone. Despite having 3-dimensional approach to space and different morale status my presupposition was not changed. After all, small scale skirmish games are established genre, what new could be possibly made there? All of them revolve around same ideas established by Rick Priestly in early W40K and later in Necromunda and Mordheim. Difference in minor details or skills (like Infinity for example) do not make a game revolutional. So I admit:

I was wrong. 

Deadzone by Jake Thorton does not blow you away with its absolutely new game mechanics, it takes your heart slowly, but surely. You'd still do all the usual things: determine initiative, activate models, shoot, move, fight, give commands and use special card. But first of all you do not need to count number of shots or punches in combat. It is probably The Newest Approach to skirmish games we have seen for a long time.But before I will go into details of how it works and what it does, allow me to summarise what this game is about. 

Deadzone is wargame of tactical unpredictability. You as player, would have to fight on several level of the game. 

• Preparation: gather your team of specialist and prepare for the unknown.
• Tactical: you need to make an analysis of yours and prediction of opponent's mission objectives. 
• Combat: you must use your team wisely, play to its strengths in order to prevail and survive.   

Now the most important difference of Deadzone from other games is its core mechanics, which is dead simple on a first glance, and deep on the second. In short it could be described as: highest number of successes wins. In order to succeed in most actions player takes a test, usually on 3 d8. To achieve success they need to roll a equal or higher number of the stat used. For example, for Survive 5+ you'd roll 3 d8 looking for 5 or higher result. 

The real difference begins with two things, first of all: result of 8, is an exploding dice, i.e. gives you another dice for the same test. If again score 8, it gives another dice, and so on. Second: biggest difference of game mechanics is comparing the result of the test. There are 3 stages of success: one success more than opponents, double and triple. The higher is obviously the better. For each level of success in close combat, shooting, commanding or other special actions there is a chart with effects. 

Another big difference is that every model can take either two Short actions or one Long actions. This alone makes for a very intense tactical decision making. For example, in ranged combat you have a choice to either Shoot to kill one model, Blaze away to Pin down entire square with lets say three models, or take an Overwatch and wait till enemy walks into a crossfire.   

One of most controversial mechanics of Deadzone is Cover system. Cover against normal Shooting works as you'd expect: give bonus to your defence. However against Blaze Away (pinning fire) it provides negative modifier. Why? Because it's comfortable to be in cover, and while enemy is trying to pin you down you are more likely to curl and hide. Controversial? Yep, but works fine.

Less controversial, but still unusual system is Command. Some models have a command value , creating your Command pool (number of orders per battle), but shouting orders is a Long Action. With 6+ test on 3 d8 it is a risky business as well. However each level of success, Normal, Double and Triple has three separate entry for effects. This is a bit tricky, because you can't plan your order, you see if your are successful, and then determine the order. However all three entries have 3 distinct similarities: 

• boost your troops by giving a free action. 
• confuse enemy by marking one of his models as activated. thus denying him chance of using that model in his turn.
• get an extra battle card, either from deck or discard pile     

The Battle cards is another level to this game. They act as instant bonus to your troops abilities or actions. Cards are divided into Active - could be used in your activation, Reactive - used in opponent's turn, and Hybrind which could be used in any phase. 

From my experience of playing Deadzone, it's a very alien concept at first, which takes a very different route form most of skirmish games. However once you drop the "bullet counting and cover saves" mentality, and concentrate on decisions and tactical situation around your team, the game flows. What's most important: this game allows situations to build a story of your team, lucky shots and epic fails almost as good as old-timers. Rulebook has an inbuilt campaign system, equipment, perks and special abilities as well as doze of information of major protagonist Enforcers, Plague, Marauders and Rebels.

   

Those pinky goons are Plague. 

TIE Phantom review: origins, rules, upgrades

"Scanners are picking up something strange;
 I can't get a firm fix on anything."

TIE Phantom is one of the ships of 4th wave for X-Wing miniatures games. At the moment of writing this post its couple of week away from release along with TIE Defender, E-wing and Z-95 Headhunter. I was lucky enough to acquire Phantom during Assault on Imdar event in my local gaming store. 

Origins: TIE Phantom was featured in computer game Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire, where Darth Vader was extremely annoyed at his egg-heads who kept testing this stealth fighter instead of delivering it under his command. Well, in events of that game (released in 1995 AD), the entire fleet of Phantoms along with cruiser Terror explodes in typical Star Wars manner. For more fluffy story on TIE Phantom (V39 Phantom) look here.  

Rules: Now lets have a good look at rules and card for this fighter. Box comes with two generic pilots flying Phantom: Sigma Squadron - Pilot Skill 3, Shadow Sq - PS 5, and two named pilots: "Echo" - PS 6 and "Whisper" - PS 7. As you can see on a picture, Phantom has Firepower of 4, Agility 2, Hull 2 and Shields 2. Incredibly impressive firepower is delivered by five laser cannons, which makes this beast most dangerous opponent in Range 1 with its 5 dice to hit you. even with Agility 3 and guaranteed Evade, there is few ships able to leave without scratch. (unless your dice hate you)

Points: All this goodness comes at a steep point price, Sigma Sq: 25 pts, Shadow Sq: 27, Echo: 30, Whisper: 32. And we have not yet looked at upgrades!  

Manoeuvrability and cloaking: this is the best part of Phantom, its unique (until arrival of Jedi fighters and Stealth-Wing) ability to cloak and become invisible. Game mechanics works in following matter: you spend an action and place a fancy Cloaking token next to the ship. This adds +2 to Agility of the ship and stays until decloaked. The pay-off is that you cannot make an attacks while cloaked. However Decloaking IS NOT an action. Let me say that again: decloaking is not an action. Which means that that after you appear on the field you still can focus, barrel roll, evade or put target lock (if you have an upgrade, because Phantom does not have it as standard). 

TIE Phantom manoeuvre dial

Decloaking is made before you reveal you manoeuvre. After you decloak ship must move ahead 2 or make a barrel roll of 2. Then you make a move depicted on a dial. I will talk about it later in tactics section, but just imagine the possibilities! Muhahaha! Phantom's manoeuvrability is close to TIE Interceptor, but without K-turn and direct ahead of 5. But with decloaking move of 2 it not a bad compensation at all.

   

Upgrades: TIE Phantom can take following upgrades: Elite Pilots skills (named pilots only), Crew, System Upgrades, as well as Modifications and Titles. Box comes with five of the upgrade cards: Recon Specialist - adds extra Focus token (3 pts), Fire-Control system - allows you to gain a Target Lock on a ship you just attacked (2 pts), Tactician - ship defending from your attack in Range 2 takes a stress token (2 pts),  Stygium Particle Accelerator -  allows free evade token if you perform Cloak or Decloak (2 pts) and Advanced Cloaking Device - enables you to perform free cloak action after you perform an attack (4 pts). 

All in all, TIE Phantom is an exceptional addition to the fleet of Empire, with its firepower and mobility it will make a great hunter. However there are some big question to which role this craft should be assigned in your squadron, as well as its high price and effective combat application.

I will explore this more in TIE Phantom Tactics. 

The delicate magic of Halo

-Sir! I think we lost Master Chief!
-"no you didn't..."

From the day my friend told me the story about Halo: Combat Evolved until its recent incarnation at number "4" I loved this game. How original, huh? I'm definitely not the only one. Today however, after a long time I decided to take a look at what components actually made Halo series a cultural phenomena rather than just good game. Perhaps, to make my journey and your reading a bit shorter and easier I'll state them in short order:

1. Rhythm of game play
2. Well defined characters 
3. Balanced  weapon line-up
4. Varied opposition 
5. Enveloping story

1. Rhythm of game play.

Probably the most difficult to achieve in any FPS is balance of adrenaline rush, interesting story and what RPG players call "rail-roading". Second to that comes the question of how to avoid player being distracted by surrounding world of game from fighting. How Bungie and now 343 Industries approached it?

They created a perfect illusion of huge world around player but actually kept the player most of the time in confined space. In its core Halo is a corridor shooter, where we are confined by surroundings and forced to shoot our way through waves of enemies. This makes our heart beat rate goes up, adrenaline rush in, and we desperately dashing for cover. All of this is enough to make us forget to enjoy the big world around us. Not to mention that while we fight through locations, Bungie delivers a graceful views of planets, stars, huge spaceships and sunny horizon in a very delicate matter: enough to give us an impression of freedom, but not enough distract player from combat.

This line is really thin, give too much combat, and player starts to complain about "repetitive process", give too much of free world and player starts yawning because "nothing is happening" or "these huge open spaces are boring". Even when we are fighting in the open air maps, with a lot of opposition Halo manages to pass between those extremes (most of the times) by either rushing us towards objectives on limited time, so we must avoid excessive fighting, or by cutting opposition into manageable portions. A a result keeping us busy and poised for next portion of baddies.

2. Well defined characters

Here we have the classic archetypes: quiet and confident Warrior, smart, caring and emotional Girl, all-knowing Mother Halsey, animals aliens under religious leadership (big boo from out secular society), monstrous Hive mind, disgusting parasites (even bigger boo from cleaning-concerned housewives), and ever-loyal and heroic Soldiers of Democracy with cigar smoking Sergeant. Add a cyber-enhanced Forerunners with glowing light, which as we all know is a sign of superior technology.

We have seen all that in different variations from Hollywood trash to Medal of Honor. Where is the BIG difference is that in Halo all of them are forced to "make" choices as world's picture changes during the game. What is also important: they have position towards player, and we respond to that. Most complex character of entire series IMHO was Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, who in a matter of one campaign went through loyalist in need for redemption to human ally and major actor in Covenant's fate. Well established and played characters are believable and understandable, even if their motifs are world domination.

3. Balanced weapon layout

Less is more, and each weapon has it niche and drawbacks. Most importantly we are still restricted to our 3 weapon slots. Simple and elegant solution which denies some pleasure of hoarding loads of guns. At the same time forcing players to think and try all possible load outs even with the useless Needler. High speed of most firefights also overshadows the secondary weapons like under-slung grenade launcher or dual wielding pistols.  It does exist in real world and in Crysis but absent in the whole Halo universe. Simply put: one gun - one trigger. No time and place for fancy show-off tricks or customization. Is it comfortable? Sometimes. Is it playable? Of coarse! Is it fun? Yes.  

4. Varied opposition. 

FPS games are obviously all about killing the enemies. However, anyone will get tired of shooting the very same baddie even if given loads of different weapons and scenarios. In FPS games simulating modern conflicts this is solved by changing the scenery and mumbling about importance of the mission against the baddies. Sometimes we get to customize out gun as a game in itself. Halo is free from our politically correct world and allows us to kill anything that is bigger and does not speak our language. However the curve of difficulty is constantly  growing up: more Elites, Knights or Brutes as well increased number of hit points and resilience will make a game challenging and interesting even after first play through. Here is one of the main advantages of background work of Halo: all characters are incredibly believable and have unique "natural" behavior. Elites roar, Brutes charge in, Grunts love plasma grenades and chatter, Knights express anger by glowing orange and Flood is simply desperate for a hug.

5. Enveloping story.

Simply put from the very first game to latest one - we save the world. There is not much choice for player, except to aim and shoot those who desperately want to destroy it. The brilliant trick of Halo  is that world we are saving is not a distant propagandistic picture, on every turn of the game  this world has both personal touch and grand design properties. What is more important, those are interconnected on both logical and emotional levels. In addition every major objective takes us further on  the curve of storyline.  Let me elaborate on that. 

In Combat Evolved we started in desperate situation, where Cortana needed to be rescued. Even if she would only be an witty half-naked girl, that would be enough for male gamers to have fun. But as story progresses, saving Cortana and Earth from Covenenant invasion becomes a minor job. Now we are in charge of saving the Universe, because someone, sometime, somewhere have left a doomsday devices. Typical story of hero's job? Yes. But there is still room for saving the Captain, escape the trap filled with Flood, finding common language with AI of Halo and shooting lots of bullets. And every step of the way, there is gorgeous girl helping us. 

As series progressed stakes are even higher, the very heart and soul and reason for our heroics is trapped by Gravemind. This makes even invasion of Earth a minor problem, now player must save Universe in order to get to the girl. This is where Halo storyline get very close to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, one of the greatest pieces of literature describing similar subject. Luckily we have a secondary points of view, a Covenant and ODST. This lets us see a bit more of the Universe and its internal struggles, without stopping for a lunch break in combat.  Following the internal logic of any conflict the main baddie must be defeated in the last sequence. Victory is hard fought, but rewarded with kiss from a damsel on distress, reunion with Cortana. Who manages to save our hero from exploding Halo thanks to her AI abilities.

Halo Reach, was an interesting side step: it revolved around what will happen with Master-Chief and Cortana and gave insight into military aspects, political unrest of UNSC, gave refreshment to old Human-Covenant conflict and generally stepped aside from formula of 3-side conflict, which fueled the previous games. It retained the formulas of speed engagements and weapon balance, but added the teamwork as main factor to the gameplay and storyline. Kat, may not be Cortana, but she is still a smart girl, who's death will be avenged many times over.   

   

Finally, Halo 4 brought us back into the boots of Savior in power armour. For more than decade Halo refined its success formulas and they all are here: 3-way conflict between Humans, Covenant and Forerunners, dramatic crashes and escapes from one conflict into another, silent and strong hero with emotional and vulnerable girl, team of super-soldiers on a mission, internal intrigues which release our hero from military routine, weird and varied aliens, doomsday weapon which was unleashed and mighty Mr. Evil who took away Cortana. In the end of all that, Master-Chief takes off his helmet and armour leaving us sad for his personal loss and defiant glory. Every high and low point of series was reinserted into the 4-th Halo and it still works pretty well. 

Halo 4 leaves us with a lot of question as well as new ways of answering them. Will the Forerunners help us or be utterly defeated? What will happen with remains of Covenant? How humanity re-take legacy of the Forerunners? Is Flood completely eradicated?  How Spartans will evolve humankind? Will Master-Chief meet Cortana again? 

The Reclaimer Saga is the answer.    

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn @2013

Boarding Marines: rules overview

Boarding Marines of Imperial Fists

Boarding Marines have been around ever since Forgeworld conceived Badab War books. Their primary mission would be to board and assault enemy ships in void space. As a player of Black Templar's successor it would be a perfect unit for my style of play. I was tempted to either buy one of the books or just buy upgrade kit from Forgeworld. Both temptations were successfully resisted thanks to the price £90 for the book, content most of which was not interesting to me. You would not pay such amount for 2 pages of really useful stuff, would you? In case you would, you will need a Badab War part I book from Forgeworld. Second reason was lack of open references to the boarding marines equipment. The site states: 

Detailed resin conversion kit consisting of two lascutters, a graviton gun, and sufficient boarding shields, weapon arms and heads to build five Boarding Space Marines, as well as additional components to build a Boarding Sergeant.       

Forgeworld loves to invent old-new weapons and leave their profile buried in books and useless pictures. What type of lascutter? Is it a graviton gun from old codexes or similar to Blood Angels graviton grapple? What is the difference between boarding and combat shield? £90 is an answer. I would assume that if you live outside UK its even more expensive. So a scrapped the idea. 

However, the Emperor has answered to my prayers and gave me a chance to have a look inside of one these blessed books. I saw the pictures. I saw the rules. I saw the points. Then I closed the book and congratulated myself on saving some money. Let me explain why.

1. Profile. Boarding Marines are absolutely no different from any other codex Space Marine stats. Same stats as any Tactical squad. No bonuses, no extra skills, nothing. Extra 50 points. 
2. Really "unfluffy". Forgeworld authors describe that becoming Boarding Marine is more of death sentence from the Chapter. WTFK? These guys should have done a research on Black Templars, who fight most of their battles in space and zero gravity. Not to mention that this kind of operations would require at least some skill and training. No, in their mind Boarding Marines are just over pimped cannon fodder.
3. Questionable Equipment. With boarding shield marine gets 5+ invulnerable save. Wonderful, isn't it? But Space Marine with power armour in zero gravity CANNOT RUN WITH IT! Yes, super soldiers need to visit the gym more often. On top of that, even if Boarding Marines will assault anything they never gain bonus for extra weapon. Why???! To represent that shield is so heavy and its so difficult to fire bolter while carrying it? Or to limit us to using them as move and fire unit? Then why Captain, Veterans or even Sergeants may take storm shield with power armour? 
4. Strange lascutter. Imperial Armour 2: Project Aphelion featured lascutter in Elysian Drop troopers inventory. Range: base contact, S:10, AP:? auto hit on immobile targets except infantry; ideal for breaking doors and cooking big bugs in assault. Boarding Marines get a lascutter which adds +1 to our Initiative in assault but we lose any bonuses for charging. Auto hit in assault with S:9, AP:1, ignores armour. Why lose Strength? Why repeat that it ignores armour if in most cases it is a case of Instant Death? Poor Guardsman can charge in an wipe the 'nids face with it, and super soldier can not? Mind you, I'm paying £90 for this.

So is there a bright side for Boarding Marines? Well, yes there is. 2 models per unit may take either support weapons like multi-melta. Unit may accompanied by 2 types of Drones: Fire Wasp and Devastation drone: one with flamer other with demolition charge of 5" blast, (again, why not use normal Blast?). Graviton Gun is actually a cool weapon with Range 18" AP3 and nasty surprise to anything which will come under a blast area. But despite everything, if you really like Forgeworld resin you will enjoy the quality of the kit, don't mind the rules. Unless of coarse you would take a risk and make a conversion.

     
Sincerely yours
Mark-Paul.

Yamamoto Isoroku: book critique

I was not  planning to expand my little blog into the area of historical publication and analysis but during research for one of my projects a came across this book: Yamamoto Isoroku by Mark Stille, published Osprey publishing in Leadership-Strategy-Conflict series. The reason behind this purchase was lack of English printed source on this famous admiral. The result of reading through this book is a really mixed feelings about book and the way in puts an information an facts. 

Perhaps it was my expectations were a bit too high, for I wanted to see and in-depth analysis of Yamamoto's past, turning points, important influences, positions on key events in World War 2, analysis of strategy and tactics used by him, and perhaps even reflection on his actions and overall Japanese strategy in WW2. That was not to be. 

"Mark E. Stille (Commander, United States Navy, retired) received his BA in History from the University of Maryland and also holds an MA from the Naval War College. He has worked in the intelligence community for 30 years including tours on the faculty of the Naval War College, on the Joint Staff and on US Navy ships. He is currently a senior analyst working in the Washington DC area. He is the author of numerous Osprey titles, focusing on naval history in the Pacific." 

So naturally, reader would succumb to the weight of authority and expertise. Well why shouldn't you? Author stands his position in the beginning of the book that: "as with any famous military commander there is always reality and myth. For Yamamoto they stand in stark contrast." After that author goes in lengths about how overestimated, under planned and with how many gross mistakes Yamamoto went through his career until his death by heroic American interceptors. He pinpoints and emphasizes Yamamoto's weakens, sins and mistakes puts a label on them and then describes how Americans were superior to Yamamoto.

One of the few label author puts are: gambler, womanizer, indecisive and political admiral. Only by the end of the book, he gives a voice to people who served under Yamamoto's command to mention that he was a very humble person, disliked the "aura of heroism" around him and was loved and obeyed without question by his men. His major achievement: the attack on Pearl Harbor is portrayed as work of one man in charge of planning Commander Genda Minoru and his attempts to persuade reluctant Naval General Staff as behavior of capricious and moody gambler not a calculated risk of an admiral. Mark Stille rejoices in scrutinizing mistakes, but gives no clue of whatsoever under what conditions, intelligence, resources and strategy Yamamoto was operating. By the end of the book he gives a portray of Admiral Nimitz, who (as you might expect) is decisive, aggressive and dedicated to the victory of his nation. To make matters even more propagandistic, he is compared to Yamomoto, suffering from illness, stress, fatigue but still enjoying good food and luxurious quarters and his flagship Yamato. 

The strong and positive sides of Yamamoto's character are generally mentioned in the descriptive manner: like his mastery of kendo, skill in appointing the right people for the job, or mentioned in diminished manner: like Yamamoto's service in aviation and impact of his activities on creation of Japanese naval aviation are mentioned as non-sufficient, despite the fact that he lobbied creation of G4M bombers and creation of carrier fleet in opposition to battleship-emphasized navy. The fact that he actually succeeded to influence that policy is not even mentioned. 

To make matters worse author shows complete lack of understandings of Japanese culture, it "yes" and "no", its obvious differences from American culture and approach. To be frank, there is not even an attempt to do so. To illustrate that, author emphasize that Japan's supply lines suffered heavily from American submarines, while Allies enjoyed relatively undisturbed shipping and suppl lines. Author does not notice the fundamental difference in psychology and means of waging the war: Japanese saw conflict as battle of two equals, two samurais if like, while American approach emphasizes production numbers and undisturbed supply line. 

"Liberty ship" - the famous transport was an epitome of this thinking: build more than they can sink. While Japanese preferred (and frankly were capable) of building less ships, but with better capabilities.Yamato - is a one of kind (plus its sistership) example of this thinking.  

In conclusion, should anybody consider buying this book? If that is your first book on Admiral Yamamoto, then avoid it. Wikipedia with its article on him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto does similar job and largely unbios towards him. If you already have a strong opinion or looking for it then you may try it. Even if you will find it lacking analysis (as i did) book still provides an overview of Yamamoto's life and biographies that followed on him. 

Sincerely yours,

Mark

  

      

Apocalypse vs. Boredom

Ever since human being realized that they are mortal the idea of Apocalypse have emerged. However only Christian tradition have taken this idea to its extremes and made it popular and well know to every brain they could reach. Religions of India and Far East do not use excessive fear of Doomsday, Judgment Day and Savior as a last hope.  They postulate concept of everlasting and ever-changing world in general. I'd like to stop my reference to religions and philosophical practices at this point, to avoid going astray.   

Like it or not, Apocalypse is used and re-used countless times in movies, books and other cultural references. It is part of any European cultural understanding of world, and majority of  other cultures at least understand what do we mean by Apocalypse.

In game design however it has became an ultimate answer to boredom and i think the ultimate excuse in setting development. Whenever you need to portray dark, hopeless future/past or situation and therefore justify the need of exterminating the opponent "A" in various forms is present. To bring some popular examples which allows player to act out of mundane life restrictions: 

1) the War, which wipes out humanity and finally allows us to kill everything that moves,

2) invasion of horrible aliens - no sentiment here, get out of my lawn you alien/nazi punk!,

3) zombie horde - I will remain alive-white-human-armed-with-shotgun no matter the cost!

4) we made it - human activity finally screwed everything on the planet. Yuppi! Its shotgun time!

5) personal "A" - they killed my dog/family/canary/planet/tentacle choose appropriate, guess what's gonna happen.

6) Not on my shift! - apparently the "A" is about to happen and player must stop it using lots of bullets and pressing the red button in the end.  

I may have missed some interpretations of Apocalypse in games but the point of "A" remains the same: give a player an excuse to act without thinking too deep why he is doing it, a strong emotional anchor that he not only pressing the right button, but he is making something IMPORTANT. Some players may bluntly ignore the storyline, especially in FPS games or table-top war-games where primary activity is concentrated around annihilating opponent, but the reasoning why has been done before the game begin: my action matters.  

Accordingly, the bigger the threat of "A" the more important player should feel himself, when in fact he has not even left the sofa. The better the reasoning behind it the more people relate to matters of game and characters on the screen, the more real the Apocalypse becomes and more meaningful players actions become. 

After all how many chances we get to save the world in our mundane lives? That is the biggest catch of a really good and well-selling games (with exception of solitaire, perhaps :-) ). 

 

Oddly enough, computer games industry have outperformed movie industry in volume of sales by 2005 (i think),  a good proof that some real talents are going there to make this illusions believable and keep players occupied and happy. 

 

  

         

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is dead. Why?

By the time you read this it's an old news: Stalker 2 as computer game was cancelled, though "we find it necessary to inform that GSC Game World and Sergey Grigorovich remain to be the sole owners of all the intellectual property rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series and the brand overall, including all the trademarks, the game universe, the technology etc. This can be easily verified with the trademark services online.", states company's official website http://www.gsc-game.com/. 

As a rule of our cynical world when king dies, his pants become a major point of profit. On one hand those who did not know about existence of this product will be curious, and hardcore veterans will spent some coin on final "golden" edition or side-line products like table-top game, hats and t-shirts. 

However, I'd like to elaborate why this game came to this sad conclusion, did not fared well on western market in comparison with other FPS games and lost big part of it Russian supporters. 

Starting with most obvious problem of any major game trying to become AAA (world wide) product: development time. Stalker was developed for almost 8 years before it reached people who waited for it. 8 years is enough to see a child walk and talk, and in computer game industry an entire generation of technology as well as clients taste has changed. During development this difficult baby had to refresh its graphics at least twice to be in line with modern shooters and other high-tech games. 

Post-soviet game developers have not yet been among creators of high-end games like Halo or Crysis. (Perhaps with exception Il-2 Shturmovik by Maddox Games, but this lies outside the subject of this post). Both these games have clearly stuck to tested path of FPS-bestseller: simplicity and power with lots of graphical candies and marketing support. Ever since Doom, FPS games have always been about player getting adrenaline high as result of shooting some bad guys (aliens, Nazis, commies, invaders, frags, demons, other players, underline one you prefer), all other things are quite optional, like storyline or surroundings. The trick of any good FPS game is how to justify appearance of another portion of enemies in order to keep player busy and high on adrenaline.

This is where we come to one of the biggest problems of Stalker - unclear concept.

Game was sold and positioned as SURVIVAL/HORROR FPS. However, as a survival it made player eat and take a lot of pills when screen was flashing with danger sings. My first reaction on seeing radiation sing appear was a bit of surprise. How can a human detect radiation without Geiger counter? Do i have a skill for that? Do i have that equipment? If that would be an RPG those question would be answered, but in this case i had to adjust to a flashing screen. It may seen minor but this is where survival in STALKER ends, leaving us with pressing buttons for another med-kit. It may be very FPS style, but its not horror. Later on in the game and its add-ons RPG elements were introduced into the game, but remained minor adjustments, rather than serious rethinking of how game works. 

On the FPS side STALKER does a fairly descent job. It provides you with gun, enemies who ignore head-shots, re-spawning frags and monsters, and impenetrable cover. In close quarters its still a good shooter, and will provide you with adrenaline and entertainment for some time.  

Now if you look at what as player has to do in the Zone apart from shooting at random monsters and walking around anomalies. You are suppose to do quests; find stuff, kill stuff, and get somewhere where your hero supposedly wants to go. This is a clear RPG territory, and luckily by third installment Call of Pripyat they made quest viable and important, not just a notes in the diary you never read or even notice. 

The roots of this idea lies in the free-to-explore-world concept on which STALKER is build. During early stages game developers mentioned that they looked for inspiration to Fallout and Fallout 2. These iconic games are not only RPG, they have a solid narrative base behind every location, quest and personalities. Unfortunately, this where is the weakest spot of Stalker: they gave us freedom, gun and shooting range but forgot why that world exists and what is out place in that world. Despite the great work on humor, endless fan-fictions its still a mystery what does our stalker feels towards Zone, factions and reasoning behind their conflicts.Whats more upsetting on occasion when we get a chance to recruit NPC they fit into profile of unnamed-guy-about-to-die-for-the-cause. 

One of the reasons that group of original Stalker developers formed 4A Games and started to work on Metro 2033 was, as they stated " that Stalker was trying to be everything a game could be". As a result it lacked something important, we may add.

To double the trouble of open world programming, scripting and creating Stalker does not have a major hero. Yes, you read that right. 3 installment and our main protagonist is deaf, mute and unlovable. He is clearly designed to be a focus for our own exploration of Zone, but what is he like? Mystery. There much worse games out there, for example some versions of Splinter Cell and its add-on games by Ubisoft Shanghai, but unlike Stalker, they carry on the day using power of Sam Fisher (or any other hero) charisma. By making hero a living, breathing and relating to world around him even a bad game can survive long enough to make a profit. 

This is one curious situation, to be fare. Despite all aforementioned problems Stalker lived for more than a decade, spawned a book series and recently a board game and some curious cultural activities like films and fan-fictions. Now it should continue its spirit as Survarium, another breakaway project. 

So, the King is dead. Long live the Stalker?