World War II File

Trolling around the net this morning, I noticed about 750 articles were available about the series (via Google News). Some highlights:

• HBO is offering the first episode online for a limited time.  Check here.  Registration is required.
• Gawker (personal reflection)
• the Telegraph (UK) (review)
• The Baltimore Sun (the books behind the show)
• US News and World Report (personal reflection)

So…

It’s here. Episode 1 is in the books. First impressions: man, they got just about everyone in there. Robert Leckie, Sydney Phillips, Eugene Sledge, John Basilone. The first part of the episode was a little “jumpy” and the only reason I was able to follow the characters was that I watched on the previews via OnDemand.

But this first episode was more about building the characters up, especially Leckie. My wife dubbed him the thoughtful one, and his scene in finishing the lone Japanese soldier while other Marines were slowing killing him was the dramatic high point.

More to come on this as the week progresses…

Browsing through Comcast’s On Demand feature last night, I found many previews related to HBO’s The Pacific, which is set to run on Sundays through March and April, 2010 here in the US. Of note is the 8 minute airfield crossing, from Eugene Sledge’s book With the Old Breed, which is, to the say the least, a bloody mess.

Stay tuned for coverage of the series here.

On a recent trip back home (from east to west), my father mentioned he had some WWII-era newspapers.

“Huh,” I thought.  This is new.   And the story goes like this…

They belonged to my Aunt Eliza.  She never married and  lived in a room in my grandfather’s house in Monroe, Utah, though she was living in Salt Lake City during 1942.  When she died in the early 1980s, my grandparents just shut her door.  When both my grandparents had passed on, my mother and father were left with the task of cleaning out the house.  In Eliza’s backroom, my father discovered the papers.

So near the end of my trip, my Dad pulled out his “100 year tub,” a plastic document holder with the papers, and a half dozen other books from Eliza’s bookcase.  There were about 30 papers, from the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and the Los Angeles Examiner from June 1941 to December 1942.  The sample photographed here definitely has that aged news print look and it was extremely fragile.  I handed this one with great care and encouraged my father to donate the the stack to the local historical society or college library.

The headline British Claim African Victory (11-6-1942) caught my interest mostly because of the map above the fold.  However, the most striking feature of the paper is the size.  It was much wider than modern broadsheet, by several inches.

Image 1: The map is cool, but story next to the map is equally interesting: “Yanks Attack Japs in Two Isle Sectors – Marines Battle New Landing on Guadalcanal.”  The lead: “More Japanese troops have landed on the eastern side of Henderson air field on Guadalcanal, but United States marines, after being once repulsed, are pressing attacks against them, the navy reported late Thursday in a communique hinting that fighting is picking up momentum.”

Image 2: this snap is just for the ads.  Of note, Betsey Ross bread (see the loaf at the bottom), who “weaves the pattern of the nation.”

Image 3: I’ve heard about non-fiction serials of the era, though I’ve never seen one like this.  It’s called “Squadrons Up” and it is a “First Hand Story of the RAF.”  It’s huge (5 columns at 12 inches each, perhaps more).

Image 4: “America’s Secret Weapon.”  Give to the “War Chest.”  Of note, a reference to the everyman as “John American.”

Image 5: “Think of Them before you Travel.”  A bus ad (Burlington Trailways)  pimping air conditioned rides.

Image 6: A political cartoon by Reg Manning, showing Hitler and Goering.

A few weekends back, I found myself down at the harbor in Baltimore, heading for a day at the National Aquarium. I’ve written about the USS Torsk in a previous entry, but never knew much about the other boat moored behind a footbridge bridge. With the wind whipping around, and the other two in my party declining my request to get some decent pictures, I could only snap a few “far out” pix.

For info sake, here’s a bit from the USS Taney’s wikipedia page:

USCGC Taney (WPG/WAGC/WHEC-37) (pronounced /ˈteini/ “tay-nee”) is a United States Coast Guard High Endurance Cutter, notable as the last ship floating that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor, although she was actually moored in nearby Honolulu Harbor not Pearl Harbor itself. She was named for Roger B. Taney (1777-1864), at one time or another US Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

She is also one of two Treasury-class (out of seven total) Coast Guard Cutters still afloat. Serving her country for 50 years, the Taney saw action in both theaters of combat in World War II, serving as command ship at the Battle of Okinawa, and as part of fleet escort in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. She also served in the Vietnam War in Operation Market Time. Taney also patrolled the seas working in drug interdiction and fisheries protection and participated in the search for Amelia Earhart.

Be sure to check out the Taney’s WW II record there as well. The ship was everywhere. Pix of the USCGC Taney are here.

I recently picked up the third installment of the Brothers in Arms series (Hell’s Highway), and it did not disappoint ($17.99 at Gamestop).

The Good: the one thing that separates BiA from other WW2-themed FPS’s is the gameplay. In Call of Duty (World at War) for instance, it’s pretty much you against the world.  In BiA, it’s you against the world, but you have help in squads (up to three groups as the game progresses).  Within a given level, the gamer has the ability to place these teams strategically (base of fire, MG, Assault) and it makes the play much more interesting (check image here).  I liked, too, how each level present different sets of problems (choke points, basically) and you had to figure how to move around the level using available cover.

The game looked  F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S on the PS3, and the story actually kept me interested.  Loved how you could jump over low fences and you can even see your shadow (check image here).  Heck, anyone who throws in flashbacks, a little foreshadowing, and a few surprise twists has my undying respect (says the English major in me).  Plus, you get to drive tanks and command a bazooka team.  Just make sure to protect that guy because once he’s gone, he’s gone (at least for a bit…which leads me to the bad).

The Bad: FPS’s tend to get repetitive and BiA is no different.  This is just something you learn to live with.  Also, members of the team are shot/killed, but they return at the next save point.  It’s a gamer’s resurrection, and it doesn’t foster any sense of attrition or really any careful planning in the gameplay.

“Dead, you say?  No worries.  I’ll get’em back in a minute.”

I know, too, that these games on the singleplayer side are scripted events that occur as gamers pass beyond certain points in the level, but to be cut off from hoping in a fence or busting down a door to get to your objectives is a little silly (you options on how to proceed, but not enough).  The AI was a little stagnant, too, on the novice and veteran levels.  Once the enemy is pinned, they won’t make a move.  You can just sit there, use the cover command, and pick them off one by one.  Not too exciting.  Also, the closer the better with your teams.  They can’t hit anything from a moderate range.

Overall: B+

I liked this game.  The attention to detail is keen and I’d recommend it to gamers, even with the flaws mentioned here.  Gamestop has a few and the price is right.

Okay.

So it took me a while to get to this, mostly because I didn’t want to play the game on a PS 2 or wii. While those systems are just fine (come on! Tiger Woods 09 with the wii motion plus is AWESOME), I wanted to experience the game in HD with a next generation system.

Enter PS3 (and my nephew who had a copy of the game sitting on the shelf).

So this version of COD felt like the others I’ve played in the series in terms of the gameplay. As you advance, so do your colleagues. Of course, the longer you wait to do things, the more they die in waves, equal to your position. This is a given in COD and I can live with it. What really shocked me about this game was the “next level” gore. Maybe “shocked” isn’t the right word. I mean it’s an FPS, right? Gore is the thing. Having just arrived to the next gen party (and coming from the wii world where even Medal of Honor Vanguard was tame looking), I guess I wasn’t ready for it. Okay, I’m good now.

PROS–
The soundtrack. OMgoodness! Instead of playing on a crappy old TV, I ran a basic set of computer speakers through the 20 inch external monitor I’m using as a display. It made all the difference. The music tracked up and down, depending on the moment, and it was all especially dramatic when playing as the Russian private. It just sounded _decent_ which is something I haven’t really thought much about as a gamer. With this game, I noticed.

The weapons. Playing as a Marine, there was no better weapon than the flamethrower, which in this game is the great equalizer. I’m no hard-core gamer, but using this made sections play pretty effortlessly, even with the difficulty level up. There was a pretty wide variety of other weapons, too, and I wasn’t stuck playing with a machine pistol all the time. Hate that.

The Stories. You play as a Marine fighting on Peleliu and Okinawa and as a Russian moving toward Berlin. As a Marine, you are PVT Miller and you have get to have Kiefer Sutherland yell at you for the balance of the game (it’s true). The landing on Peleliu is stunning, and there are other visual moments that are “knock your socks off” great, including the misplaced level as a ariel gunner. You’re not Miller. Just some gunner and it’s your job to move between guns in the ship and shoot, shoot, shoot. That was WILD. Plus, in the final level as a Russian, YOU are the one who plants the flag on the Reichstag (moments before this comes the most violent moment of the game…your buddy slashes the shit out of the last German on roof with a machete to clear your path…)

The Bad

The AI. Of course, opponents spawn and return to the same spots (usually) if you don’t advance. But hell, those banzai charges flipped me out of chair the first time I saw one. Are you kidding me? At other moments, the AI acted just as you learned it will. Stand up. Fire. Duck. Repeat. Flank a little to get the job done.

All told, the designers took this game to another level. Sure, the AI acts a certain way in COD and that’s cool. But this one was the most immersive of the series yet (I’ve yet to play Modern Warfare…I’m getting there).

3.5/5 stars

HOLY COW! I can’t believe it’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated this blog. In the midst of work and an amped up family schedule, I’m not surprised. That said, I have a review coming up for the video game Call of Duty: World at War. With a new generation system on hand, the gaming _experience_ is certainly heightened (and more graphic than ever). More on this later.

So it’s taken me a bit longer to get back to the this series than I’d hoped (long story…) The narrative arc has reached its peak, with the 442 breaking through to the Lost Battalion. SGT Rock only has a few lines in this issue, and honestly, he’s sort of lost in the “big-ness” of the story. The German sniper is set to kill Rock just as…(the action shifts just as someone else appears in his scope). Tucci is such a tease.

But one thing caught my eye in this issue that I really liked: on two occasions, the artwork shifted from the established patterns of the series, to something less formal, raw. Background content is light, drawing all attention to the foreground.  At these two moments, critical events had just occurred, and the black ink “feel” is much more evocative. Check the gallery here for images.

Final comments on this series are forthcoming. All told, I’ve enjoyed reading it.

With school starting up on AUG 24 (and loads of prep work going on…), what better way to get back in the blog game (it’s been two weeks since my last post) than a Sunday Link Dump.  So for your viewing pleasure, please enjoy these assorted WW2 stories from around the inter-webs.

• Time Out Magazine Picks ‘50 Greatest WWII Movies via ww2db.com.  What?  No To Hell and Back?
• Review: Inglourious Basterds
• World War II pilot’s remains finally coming home to Akron
• World War II-era plane crashes at Ocala airport
• Canada Confirms U.S. World War II Plane Found, No Bodies Seen
• World War II veterans recall ‘we had it made’ serving on the Pacific flagship USS Wasatch
• Parents claim son, 11, reincarnation of World War 2 pilot

There you have it.  Enjoy…