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

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.

• 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…

I like the fact, too, that IC brings bits of Firefly/Serenity to the table and has a hard edge to it.  With only one issue under my belt, I’ve yet to see that sharp irony that’s always around in Joss Weedon’s work.  But we’ll see.  I’m keeping an open mind.

“One of the best movies about World War 11 was “The Best Years of our Lives (1946). As a Veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968, and 1969 to 1970 it said it all. War is a dirty rotten business the impact and the experience of War will forever change a Human Being.”

This movie is a favorite of mine as well, as it follows the personal stories of three WWII veterans who meet while traveling home to Boone City (in a B-19, no less). One man, Homer, is a double hand amputee and is played convincing by Harold Russell. From IMBD, we learn that Russell

was training paratroopers at Camp MacKall NC on June 6, 1944 when some TNT he was using exploded in his hands. He lost both hands. After receiving hooks, and training on them, he was chosen to make an Army training film called “Diary Of A Sergeant”. William Wyler saw the film and decided to change a character in his film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) from a spastic to a double amputee. Harold Russell played Homer Parish. For this role he received 2 Oscars, a Best Supporting and one for being an inspiration to all returning veterans.

The other two men, Al Stephenson (Fredric March) and Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) deal with other cultural shocks to the system, including integrating back into the work and relationship worlds. One memorable scene shows Homer and Fred at a soda fountain dealing with a man questioning the sacrifices of men like Homer, calling them “for nothing.” As you might guess, some “action” follows and it highlights the divide of war as an “idea” that is experienced second hand verses those who were there and understand.

If you click around in the related movies section on the youtube site, you can watch the whole thing online. The first ten minutes are here.

That said, I got my hands on a few stills from the intro of the movie where a good deal of exposition occurs (as in how the movie’s world gets from from 1940 to 1985 to the sound of Dylan’s The Times They are A-Changin’).  Near the start, a B-29 is headed right for you (and it’s a real close up, too) and we get to see a little nose art.  That’s Sally Jupiter, AKA the Silk Spectre.

There are many little details in the movie where Watchmen history is super-imposed onto details we know.  No matter what you think of Watchmen (the book or the film), you have to admire the art in it, even if the “whole” doesn’t ad up for you.  For me, it does.  Plus, the movie also reimagines that famous end of war sailor kissing nurse image, too.

Man, this one fell into my lap, as in “hey, you want this?”

“Sure,” I said.  Nice.

Between Hell and a Hard Place is a Hurtgen forest tale, and more than anything else, it’s a murder mystery. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this.

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Art: Joe Kubert (longtime ROCK keeper)

Let’s get to it: the story was engaging enough, though it lagged in spots. But the overall pacing of the narrative kept things from bogging down. Just when things start to slow a little, “BLAM!” Azzarello picks things up.   B+

I liked how the art was as close to black and white as it could be, yet there is enough color to show the nuance in a frame. The example here shows this, especially where Rock is leading a group of prisoners back to camp. Bits of red, green, and brown rise to the surface against a largely black backdrop.   This is the work of an artist at the top of his game. No question:   A

A few reviews are here…take’m or leave’m.

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/features/sgtrock_hell/
http://comics.ign.com/articles/673/673176p1.html
http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2009/03/sgt-rock-between-hell-and-hard-place.html
http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/079_kubert/079_kubert.htm

Careless Talk Got There First is a favorite of my comp classes when we discuss persuasion.  Most say that the image goes too far in showing what an idle comment back home might produce.  Would it really be connected in such a way, they ask?  Perhaps not, but the fear was there, and that’s all that mattered.

Back the Attack is one I seen before but only DLed recently.  It has a general message compared to other posters that push a single idea.  This one really doesn’t.  But it’s here nonetheless, and the Thompson machine gun with “gangster” front wood handle is a different look.  I’ve seen more (though I’m no expert, believe me) of the longer, rectangular handle, pictured here.

His Needs Come First is another I’ve found only recently.  The message here is put your money toward the war effort, and this is a theme that played out in hundreds posters produced during the war years.

They’ve Got the Guts is one of the more memorable posters from the war, at least to me, and even graces the cover of a recent WW2 book.  It’s dramatic (the soldiers are IN action) and is stunning in its look.  The red, gray, and green aren’t colors that you think would “pop” as they do, but they come together here in dramatic ways, especially as the eye is pulled from left to right, presumably from the wind on the field.  This is great image.

Where Are Men Are Fighting, Our Food is Fighting. This image…I wouldn’t think that red, white, and blue would work that well with this set of ideas: food and invasion, but it all does and I’m not sure why.  The message for food conversation on the home front is clear enough, but the colors, with the read as a focal point on a blue canvas, flanked by white chutes just come to together to make the image work.

Invest in Invasion – Buy War Bonds looks a little like a comic book panel compared to a few others here.  The message is clear: dramatic action is required by some; money is needed from all.

Three things caught my attention in this issue:

1) the P-47s. All I can say is…NICE! I really didn’t expect to see the narrative shift to the air, with the 4.5 Thunderbolt pages. This was the highlight of the issue for me, though I wondered if formations of aircraft really fly that close together (in comics they do, of course). There are several wonderfully rendered images here, but the most interesting to me was the ground up view of one clipping its wing (see image here). “Johnny” is lost in an effort to resupply the Lost Battalion.

2) This issue also felt a little like 1970s disaster-style movies in that there were many, many people involved in the main narrative and a good deal going on. Indeed, there are the thunderbolts, the introduction of several 441st members, including a medic who is introduced as a selfless hero, who is later blown to bits (much like Skip Muck in episode 7 of Band of Brothers), the German sniper’s Horrido call (see this for an explanation), a tank attack on the Lost Battalion, and some big boy philosophy from the guys in the 441st about combat and their role in the Army as sons of a displaced people.  Tucci played the family honor card…hard.

But then, this is what I like about comics: the chance for character exposition is there and Tucci took it. Even if it came off as a little over done, he took a shot and was able to show a little about a group of guys who went through the shit together, had crazy-high combat casualty numbers, and still forged ahead. You can’t fault the writer for taking the shot (better than no shot: think of the movie Terminator Salvation where John Conner is interrogating one of his imprisoned colleagues:

“Why?”
“Because!”
“Okay. Let her go.” (Are you kidding?)

3) I’ve been waiting for an appearance of Lili Marlene, and Tucci didn’t disappoint here. At the end, we have Germans singing with American harmonica accompaniment. I saw that one coming.

In the end, there is much to like in this SGT. Rock series.  Reviews of issue 5 and 6 are forthcoming.