www.1up.com has completed it’s week-long look at Resident Evil 5, including new info and media…all in all a great read!

Check it out…

This is not “console politics”…this is just about what, IMHO, is a garish garish aesthetic choice.

Behold the X-Box Exclusive Resident Evil 5 Console “Used Tampon Edition”.
(PS3 owners, be thankful you dodged this bullet!)

Rumor: Silent Hill remake coming to PSP/Wii?
http://www.psu.com/Rumor–Silent-Hill-remake-coming-to-PSP-News–a006550-p0.php

Concluding Mr. Johnson’s comprehensive review started Monday…

STORYTELLING
Here at last Dogs of War gets into the nuts-and-bolts of bringing military and paramilitary settings and stories into your WoD chronicle.

One of the first things that caught my eye is the “trigger system,” an alternate take on the Morality rules in the World of Darkness base system.  This new system seems to present a much more realistic view on the acts a soldier must commit and how it might affect him.  Applying the base Morality rules might well drive a combat solider mad even faster than would happen in a “real” war, and this new system takes this into account.  Killing for a cause, after all, although horrendous, shouldn’t have the same moral effects as cold-blooded murder.  In a sidebar, the book also suggests the trigger system might work well in crime, police, or other high-violence chronicles.  Although I’ve never used this new system in play, I would caution against being too liberal with this new system, lest you take the teeth from the Morality rules altogether.  War tests the soul like almost no other circumstance, so while the trigger system seems to work well in this setting, I’d probably leave it there.

In their section; “Life in the Hot Zone,” Dogs of War takes a look on what it must be like to live in an actual combat area.  The narrative text gives a prospective Storyteller all kinds of ideas about how to describe life in a war zone to players.  These include things you might see, smell, and hear; the behavior of civilians caught in the crossfire; and possible ideas for supernatural involvement.  None of them are pretty.

With the “Situational Awareness” rule, however, Dogs of War gives a fast, easy way to put players in the chaos of modern combat.  The rule is quick and simple, with random attacks coming “out of the blue” based on a Wits + Composure roll, with some modifiers.  These attacks can represent anything from unseen snipers to mortar shrapnel, and by hanging this proverbial “Sword of Damocles” over the players’ heads, manages to give a real sense of threat in a dangerous setting.

In the “War Games” section, Dogs of War tries to provide a slightly more detailed, less narrative resolution system for large-scale battles in which the player characters might find themselves immersed.  I might’ve been a little hard on this section, because me and most of my own troupe came up in actual table-top wargames long before we ever got into role-playing.  This, plus our heavy military interests, have resulted in some very involved “house rules” for mass combat in Storytelling System and WoD games.  Acknowledging that we’re the exception and that our level of mass combat detail is probably far greater than most role-players want, I made the following observations.

Some of the ideas presented in the “War Games” section are half-measures of which I’ve never really been fond, such as reducing health levels of so-called “extras.”  The idea of rolling a single attack and then applying it to a random character (modified by certain overall-all combat conditions of the battle) works a little better, in fact this is how I usually resolve certain “random” attacks like artillery and mines.  Picking one “commander” on each side to roll initiative instead of rolling initiative for all individual PCs and extras is an excellent idea – not only does it save immeasurable time but it also recreates the importance of combat leadership.  Dogs of War also suggests having the enemy attack “in waves,” a good idea if you want a high enemy body count.  Just be warned that this gives your players a huge advantage, allowing all their firepower to be assessed against portions of the enemy in detail.  Another suggestion made is to assess all damage against one extra at a time, rather than “spreading it out” amongst them.  This definitely makes the storyteller’s paperwork easier, but again, gives a somewhat unrealistic advantage to the players, with all bullets magically hitting the most vulnerable targets.  Then again, the PCs are supposed to be “heroes.”

The “Strike Power” characteristics given for sample units, and the system whereby you can create your own units and resolve them in combat, definitely comes the closest to an actual “wargame” simulation of tactical battlefield events.  Many of their values seem a little off (only +5 for a bomber air strike?), and their measurement for the size of the unit is question seems a little simplistic.  But overall the system is fair, elegant, and fast, usually what’s required in a role-playing game.  Their quick three-stage “combat round” reflects pretty well the ebb-and-flow of a battle.  After all, whether you’re simulating Roman legionnaires or Navy SEALs in Afghanistan, your combat has to be fast.  One last thing I liked about this system is the suggestion that a combat unit can be defeated by losing “strength points,” which also reflects morale as well as the composition of the unit.  Almost never does a unit lose a battle by dying to the last man, instead suffering irreparable damage to its courage, spirit, and will to fight.  This is one of the most realistic aspects of the system Dogs of War presents.

New optional rules are also presented for explosions, firearms, “bleeding out,” and shock, all of which are designed to make the battlefield an even more unpleasant place.  Most of these are pretty well-presented, realistic without making the game outright murderous or bogged down in detail.  I especially liked the rule about characters caught close to an explosion’s epicenter taking an additional 50% damage.  Blast and shrapnel damage close to ground zero is indeed horrendous, but falls away with surprising speed as the distance from the epicenter increases.

Lastly, Dogs of War presents a number of NPC templates and character ideas for how to incorporate vampires, werewolves, mages, changelings, and even Prometheans into “military” units.  Of course the bulk of this text outlines just how hard it would be for any of these character types to even contemplate service in a conventional military unit.  Vampires are almost impossible to feed and can’t fight during the day, werewolves can’t be controlled by human officers, changelings are half-mad, Prometheans typically have difficulties with their appearance, etc.  But Dogs of War gives ideas and examples of less conventional “paramilitary” options for these kinds of characters.  My favorite was the “guerilla pack” idea for werewolves, an idea our own troupe has in past military chronicles with great success.  Many times there is a “war within the war,” with WoD factions fighting back and forth in the shadows while the “real” armies duel on the battlefield around them.  Missing persons, dismembered bodies, explosions out of nowhere, and massed gunfire – typically the kinds of things WoD characters have to avoid in a civilized setting – are sadly typical on the modern battlefield. In such a setting, supernatural combatants can quite literally “get away with murder.”

CONCLUSION                                                                                                                        
In all, Dogs of War is a solid sourcebook for any players or Storytellers interested in bringing a military feel into their World of Darkness chronicle.  White Wolf has kept up their tradition for good black-and-white artwork, superlative research, and rules that toe the line between nuts-and-bolts accuracy and narrative playability.  The sidebars are well-stocked with ideas for military story threads, rules explanations, and explanations of real-world aspects of the military world.  In short, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a serious treatment of the military in a World of Darkness chronicle.

 
Resident Evil 5 scores big in Famitsu

http://www.psu.com/Resident-Evil-5-scores-big-in-Famitsu-News–a006540-p0.php

Dante’s Inferno Screenshots, Artwork

http://kotaku.com/5159887/dantes-inferno-screenshots-artwork

Continuing Mr. Johnson’s comprehensive review started Monday…

IRREGULAR UNITS

In its second chapter, Dogs of War talks about all those who engage in warfare without necessarily drawing a government paycheck or putting on a uniform.  This is intensely important in a World of Darkness setting, whether you use paramilitary characters as PCs or antagonists.  As player characters, paramilitary archetypes enjoy more latitude and freedom, which most players enjoy.  As antagonists, a fully-equipped and well-trained military unit (properly and authentically run by a sadistic storyteller) would probably rip most troupes apart, supernatural edges be damned.  Hence, paramilitary opponents usually present a better option.

The first strata of “irregular units” the book deals with are terrorists.  After a carefully-worded disclaimer about what the publishers do and don’t endorse, the writers make some excellent points about just what a terrorist is … and isn’t.  As the saying goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.  Depending on who you ask, names like Arafat and bin Laden might be put right next to others like Adams and Washington.  The book also makes the points that terrorists operations are almost always aimed at  political rather than military goals, take decades to achieve fruition, and run the risk of being counter-productive to the goals in question.  Their differentiations between the different types of state terrorism (direct and state-sponsored) was also something of an eye-opener.  All this stands as proof yet again that White Wolf always does its homework and will print five pages of background storytelling material for every page of nuts-and bolts “roolz,” a trait that’s always endeared me to their products.

For guerrilla units, Dogs of War again does an admirable job of distinguishing between these units / operations from conventional military formations and terrorist cells.  It’s amazing how much is not known about what exactly constitutes a guerrilla.  To take a historical example, ask the average layman to explain the difference between the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Cong, and you’ll probably see what I mean.  Dogs of War goes a long way in clearing this up right off the bat.  Their inclusion of the UN Charter on the legal definition of a mercenary was also a nice addition, in fact I had no idea such a resolution had been passed.  Even for the “amateur expert,” reading a White Wolf sourcebook almost always teaches something new.  I was also impressed by the description of the “three-tiered” guerilla command structure, complete with the doctrine as written by Mao Tse Tung.

The section on arms dealers, however, I think exaggerates the importance of these people to a slight degree.  Descriptions of arms dealers securing “surplus battleships” might be an example of tongue-in-cheek literary exaggeration, but the overall impression of the section I feel slightly inflates the kinds of gear these people can actually acquire.  That being said, the collapse of the Soviet Union has definitely opened up some warehouses, as anyone who’s watched Lord of War knows.  But even more than this, the arms manufacturers of certain nations (France, the Czech Republic, and Brazil are good examples) are notoriously lenient with just who they sell their first-rate equipment to.  Examples could include platoon and company level infantry weapons (automatic grenade launchers, guided antitank and anti-aircraft missiles), all the way up to armored personnel carriers and light tanks.  However, these are “legitimate” businessmen of billion-dollar companies, and would probably fall more into the PMC template than the shady “arms dealer” in the back of a Karachi café.  Dogs of War does make this distinction, however.

With their descriptions of existing guerilla, resistance, and terrorist networks, Dogs of War is back on target.  In particular, their descriptions of the Tamil Tigers, the Basque ETA, FARC, and Hezbollah are detailed and insightful.  The writers manage to explain many aspects, beliefs, and goals of these lesser-known organizations … all without seeming overly sympathetic.

When Dogs of War starts talking about supernatural WoD characters in the context of “irregular units,” the writers make a number of excellent points and observations.  Foremost of these is simply where in the book this section appears, in irregular units as opposed to the conventional military.  Given the secrets WoD characters must keep and the weaknesses they bear, staying in the “real” military for any length of time becomes almost impossible, as the book states well.  With irregular units, however, options are much more varied, whether the supernaturals join, manipulate or must fight against such forces.

The book also makes some very original observations about how and why different supernatural groups may get embroiled with irregular units.  Many wars in which these units fight are steeped in old hatreds, with children fighting the wars of the great-grandfathers.  Such is fertile ground for Kindred with their long memories and ancient feuds.  As we see in Iraq, much the of the sectarian violence stems simply from which families the combatants are from.  Sounds like vampiric bloodlines and covenants to me.

For the Forsaken, Dogs of War also makes the point that many of these “brushfire” wars are also fought over intense attachments to land.  Such settings can often fit well with the intense territoriality of the Forsaken.  Also, such wars are usually fought within a state rather than between states, another parallel with the Forsaken and their ancient strife.  Lastly, these wars are often fought with a level of savagery well beyond the “legitimate” campaigns between armies, far from the protection of the Geneva Convention.  Thus, the ferocity of the Forsaken can make also them a “creative fit” in such situations.

For the Awakened, however, Dogs of War is correct to remain a little more reserved.  While the book does say that mages might like to “test their abilities” in a setting where spectacular effects are commonplace, the idea of mages engaging in battlefield warfare seems like a stretch … not to mention a cheapening of war itself.  The book maintains that mages are rarely concerned with mundane affairs, at least mages advanced enough to survive the modern battlefield.  Put another way, mages are supposed to be enlightened, and despite all the writings of Clauswitz and Sun Tzu, war is too stupid to be a science and too ugly to be an art.

A WORLD IN CONFLICT

This is probably my favorite chapter in the book, a continent-by-continent synopsis of recent and current wars, sprinkled with ideas on how to possibly bring them into a World of Darkness setting. 

Starting with North America, Dogs of War soberly reminds the reader that war right here “at home” may not be as far-fetched as we think.  With insightful writing about American militia groups and urban gangs (especially the behavioral and social parallels the writers draw between gangs and the “legitimate” military), the book offers paramilitary food for thought for homeland settings, which is admittedly where most WoD chronicles will probably be set.

Next, Dogs of War talks about Haiti and the Mexican Drug War.  Their section on Los Zetas is especially insightful, a drug cartel in Mexico built almost entirely from Mexican military officers (the History Channel’s Gangland, Season Two has an excellent episode devoted to Los Zetas).  The three-way Colombian war between the right-wing government, left wing rebels, and the drug cartels is also handled well, especially the sidebar that discusses the actual tactics and likely objectives of such conflicts.  The Balkans War, Kosovo, and of course the myriad of wars in Africa, are all presented with White Wolf’s renowned attention to real-world detail and conscience.  These are real wars and genocides (with the exception of a few of the “story seed” sidebars, of course), listed for the storytellers and players to use at their peril.

Trying to list everything I like about this section would practically re-type the entire chapter, and there is frighteningly little that is incomplete or erroneous.  Once again White Wolf catches a grim truth:  No matter how horrible the supernatural “shadow” may be, it’s the real-world, everyday backdrop of human cruelty that puts the real “dark” in the World of Darkness.

To be concluded…