More Banana Man!

I wonder if anyone has done a movie featuring Banana Man and the Muppet's song Mnah Mnah? (Du-du-duh-dudu!)

Awesome Article: See No Evil on The Escapist

Link Heavy Post Warning!

See No Evil
(Alt. title: Where are the concentration camps?)

This isn't mine, obviously, but it touches on a subject I have always felt was missing from WW2 FPS games.

I have stated elsewhere in this blog how much I despise when games developers, usually Americans, use European history and legend as a free ideas bucket to sprinkle over their games for flavour (Too Human, God of War-series, Viking). FPS and Adventure games are particularly prone to this, with the RTS genre mostly getting the stuff right (Total War-series, Age of Empires, Rush for Berlin, Europa Universalis etc.), but I put that down to the RTS genre being riddled with history buffs like Prince of Macedon.

The FPS genre, as soon as it touches on the history of WW2, partially falls into the same pit as those games that use myth as a free-idea bucket. Why? Because whilst they might get the layout of Berlin down to the very last cobblestone outside the Reichtag as you storm it as a Soviet soldier, you never encounter (and presumably kill) any civilians. In a city with a population measuring somewhere around 3 million pre-war. 3 million invisible civs! Quite a feat!

Or how about the Normandy landings? Why always Omaha or Utah beach? Why never Gold, Juno or Sword? Maybe that's because those beaches were won by Australians, Canadians, English, French and Scots? Probably more nationalities, but not by US Americans and that is why we practically never get to see it. And once we're in France: where're the civvies? Where are the Resistance? Why not a commando mission pre-Normandy where you play as a Resistance fighter, sabotaging German railway connections and getting British airmen to safety?

And lastly, why not a scenario where as you play as a Wehrmacht soldier, fighting for his life against jaundice and Soviets in the final days before the collapse of Der Kessel outside Stalingrad in 1943? Or how about, as mentioned in the article, why not a last stand of Jewish fighters during the Warsaw uprising?
Why not? Because it's politically incorrect? That's my fucking middle-name, toots!

If gaming ever wants to be seen as something else than superficial entertainment with zero artistic value or educational, despite the few gems out there that are works of art (for example: Shadow of the Colossus, Portal, Final Fantasy VI and Psychonauts) or educational (Backpacker games (only in Swedish), Dr. Kawashimas Brain Training and Typing of the Dead oddly enough qualifies), it has to dare to touch upon politically sensitive issues. And it goes beyond the recent uproar around CoD: Modern Warfare 2 and the murder of civs (OMG!) in it. I'm talking about the effing Holocaust here!

In short, if we're going to kill Nazis, show us why we do it. "Dey R EBUL!!!" won't cut it in the future. For as Emanuel Maiberg puts it in the article See No Evil:

Because if a day comes when I walk in on my grandchildren shooting lasers at a cyborg Hitler, I won't be as polite as [my grand-mother].

Ayleid ruins (amongst other ruins) make no sense!

Tv Tropes: Ruins for Ruins Sake

The entire page, and all the examples they put up.

Of particular note this:

Nazi architect Albert Speer developed the "Theory Of Ruin Value", which proposed that monumental arthitecture shouldn't just look good, it should leave a good looking corpse. He borrowed heavily from classical architecture and worked in stone rather than modern materials wheverer possible, with an eye to ensuring that the Third Reich's great buildings would remain symbols of German culture for millenia after they'd been abandoned and fallen into ruin. Possibly the ultimate real life application of this trope.

What has always struck me with ruins in RPGs is how they always, always, strive to look good. Even if it impinges on the plausibilty of them. Like the Ayleid ruins of Oblivion: No wonder the Ayleids disappeared! Their homes are all full of swining blade traps and gemstones that shoot lasers at you if you come too close!
But hot damn do they look good!

Not even going to touch Shadow of the Colossus.

Which one is your favourite?

Review Corner! This time: Germania by Brendan McNally

I don't know what to call this. Seriously, I don't. Is it an alternate-history spy-thriller or a butt-kicking Jewish psychic revenge-story set in the last day of the Third and Flensburg Reich? I have no clue.

To be honest, it doesn't really matter, as I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it royally, although it took me some time to read. Not that the book is long; only 360 or so pages, but I was getting tired of WW2 stories in general and needed a break.

The story is essentially about four former Jewish child stars, named Ziggy, Sebstian, Manni and Franzi, in the last days of the Third Reich. Yes, you read that rightly. It is about how they, after being separated for more or less 12 years, try to get back together and eke out an existence in the ruins of, in one case in particular, their beloved Germany.

The story seems pretty straightforward, but thanks to the multiple protagonist cast, it gets quite complex quite fast. Add to the fact that we get to see things from some prominent Nazis' perspectives (Speer, Himmler and Dönitz) and things get very complex, but never confusing.

McNally also has a wonderfully clean, uncluttered language, which I put down to him being a journalist and American. In my experience, American journalists all channel Ernst Hemingway to a certain degree. A laudable ambition, in my book.

I have a few minor quibbles though, and I will deal with them here, since people don't come here to hear how good something is, do they?

Firstly: McNally has been bitten by the fly that carries Dan Brown-disease. This disease causes author's to split their chapters into tiny 3-6 page clips that barely count as paragraphs in some ways. I can see the basic idea behind it: to give more "speed" to the writing and give people the chance to finish a chapter before getting off the tram/bus/tube/unicorn to work. The problem is that in some works, like this, it can leave large portions of the book feeling very chopped up. Flow and pacing goes out the door. There is one point in particular, towards to middle of the book, where we get four very short chapters, that would've played better rolled into two larger ones. Or maybe just one very large one, but that is stretching things.

Also, talking about flow and pacing brings me elegantly, sort of, to the next point: Germania is McNally's first novel, and to be honest that shows. A lot.
Case in point is that the later chapters read much better in terms of "feeling" than the earlier ones, and one early chapter in particular comes to mind as being rather flatly written, quite belying the fact that Albert Speer has just escaped from death by a narrow margin thanks to the appearance of Manni Loerber. I never got the feel that Speer was in physical danger, quite apart from the fact that we all know he survived the war. This is what suspension of disbelief is all about, people!
If you can make the audience truly believe, and feel, that a historical character is about to die, you have done things right.
Also, to borrow from Yahtzee, the few physical fights described feel a bit awkward and "flow like a river of bricks". They aren't many, but it is sad when you can say you've read better fight scenes on fanfiction.net, although that was exquisitely well-written fanfiction. About ninjas.
Overall, I missed the feeling of being part of something, that I usually get from reading fiction. I could cut away the "I'm reading a book"-feeling, y'know?

Thirdly: Americans! Use your Imperial system or learn the metric system properly. Don't switch between them. Oh, and there's no fucking chance in Hell that a Kübelwagen could get from Marienschule to Schloß Glücksburg and back on only one (1) litre of gasoline. It's 15 km there and back. You can barely do it with today's engines.

Lastly: McNally has really done his research and his way of writing the historical people, especially the Nazis, comes off as well informed and well-rounded. These people aren't caricatures, with the possible exception of Himmler. Contrary to what people think, Speer isn't my favourite in this book. It's Dönitz. He might at first glance come off as your average die-hard military, but beneath, he has this ironclad sense of duty, which doesn't disintegrate the moment he realises he can go no other way than unconditional surrender. Despite his bull-headedness, I liked him, odd as it might sound.
And this complexity of the historical people, and in some cases antagonists, is a problem. About halfway through the book, I found myself more fascinated with Speer, Dönitz and von Friedeburg than with the Loerber brothers. Something is amiss when you have to think of the main characters as Batman-villains to regain interest in them (Ziggy's Two-face, Franzi is the Riddler, Sebastian the Scarecrow and Manni is the Joker). This probably sounds harsher than it really is, but it is apparently a very common critique of the book. So at least I'm not alone in thinking this.

Let's end on a lighter note than this though. The book does contain one of my favourite lines delivered by any character, ever. And it is of course one of Speer's:
"You have coffee?" which is closely followed by "You still have coffee?"

Oh, and my favourite Loerber brother? Manni. No contest.

Let's do irony

This comment

I can volunteer a 1984 Volvo 245 diesel. The engine's a six-cylinder pre-chambered diesel, quite sooty and can be tanked with that second rate diesel you find in Third World countries. Maybe it's too young, but it does seem to fit the bill nicely.

Irony points goes to me, I think, because the car is actually brown in colour and the diesel engines used by Volvo in the 80s were Volkswagen models produced on license.

So, whaddya say? Little experiment over whether diesels are poisonous or not, gais?

Space Marine power armour and me

It's a love-hate relationship, entirely from my side. I mean, it's fictuous armour; what can it feel?

I love Space Marine power armour, because it is usually quite fun to paint, and the shoulder pads offer nice clean areas to do free-hand designs on.

I hate it for the very same shoulder pads. See, I think it was Jes Goodwin himself who said that power armour was impossible to function due to the configuration of the shoulder pads. It became blatantly obvious on a painting by Adrian Smith in the recently released Space Wolves Codex. You can find plenty examples for yourselves in his gallery though. I can find an online copy of that particular picture, but it practically screams that it doesn't work!

So, this is the reason I hate Space Marine shoulder pads. As soon as you try to draw them at an angle, or make any kind of dynamic pose, the proportions are bound to get screwed in a royal fashion, because ceramite doesn't distort itself the way human flesh does. Heck, even an armoured knight from circa 1350 is easier to draw, and they were practically tin cans.

Consider this one long excuse to go with an upcoming picture of Edmund Charleston. I drew it traditionally, as I wanted more practice with markers, and I wanted an updated look to him as the current picture is nearly 3 years old now (That's the line art originals, not the colouring). He's more badass now, got more "fiddly bits" on his armour to reflect his veteran and commander status, though without getting as detailing heavy as Chaos Armour.
Speaking of which: Kharn is going to get an update too, to tie in with the Lord Kevlinn picture that is getting CGed after A'mon. Almost done with A'mon, but the last bit requires some planning as I have a How-To-video planned there.

Mythbusters of Psychology

"50 Common Myths about Psychology", a book review in Science Based Medicine journal.

Thanks to Orac for the heads up to that delightful read. Now to find the book in my bookstore or library.