My Sack Lacks The Power To Actually Be Killing

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Multimedia presentations are becoming more and more common, particularly of course with PC games, though even board games are starting to use tools such as online videos for instructional and marketing purposes.

As with all things, it will take time to get used to the new technology. Some companies have already begun to push the envelope in terms of using new technological tools. For example, to promote their PC game Panzer Command: Kharkov, Matrix Games prepared an online tour in Google Earth, showing how their maps were drawn from real world terrain.

The interactive display lets one click on a specific date to see the location of the front line and the identification of major formations on the German and Soviet sides. Clicking on specific locations brings up historical data, battle maps, and a look at the in game 3D maps that PC:K lets you recreate portions of the real engagements on. It's an extraordinarily creative tool tying the game in to real world history.

The initial release of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 was also marketed via online video, with the game's developer and one of the technical advisors (if memory serves, retired Colonel John Antal of Armchair General magazine) walking through a game, giving clear discussion of game features, tactics, and historical background. It showed some of the highlights of the game system, including the ability to duck and peer over obstacles, as well as giving an indication of the depth of the research, down to the distinctive "ping" of the M-1 rifle's cartridge clip being ejected.

Strangers in the New World
Some companies are still feeling their way into the multimedia world. Martin van Balkom (aka Martin Turewicz aka Moon) of Battlefront.com released a series of "After Action Report" videos that may be the most unintentionally funny multi-media marketing supports released to date. In a Borat-style accent (which apparently is native for the European van Balkom and not an affectation), at the 1 minute 20 second mark of the video above, he deadpans the line:

I don't think that my sack necessarily has enough power to actually be killing.

It will not supplant All Your Base Are Belong To Us in the public consciousness, but it highlights the danger of using the new tools poorly. And even if one refuses to descend to the depths necessary to enjoy a piece of schoolboy humour made at the expense of someone for whom English is a second language, there is much else to wonder about in the video. For example, I'm not sure what ten minutes of mumbling through the game without any reference to a map or an overall plan was supposed to achieve (I understand this was the fourth installment but it is clear he simply set up an engagement with lots of shooting in it and little strategy); in fact, it seemed to highlight the downsides of real time play - one of the criticisms of the new CM titles among veterans of the three older titles - rather than convince newcomers to buy the new game based on this much-touted new feature.

Worse, the video also depicts how outclassed the Syrian side is in the game, another major criticism in some quarters. Instead of picking an engagement that might show to advantage how asymmetric warfare might be modelled, Battlefront oddly chose a scenario that demonstrated how badly the Syrians fare in the face of U.S. firepower - culminating in the outmatched human player feebly surrendering and noting "no surprise there" that he suffered a total defeat as the end game screen is displayed. Generally when a game is criticized for being unbalanced, the immediate response would be to demonstrate that there are other ways for the supposedly out-classed side to be competitive. Battlefront did enough of just that on their forums, trying to defend the Syrian setting. Some of their arguments were compelling. Yet the video does nothing to reinforce the company line. How odd.

My final word
Not to be too rough on battlefront; that's two blog entries in a row they have been singled out for criticism. I think the tactical wargaming community, if there is such a thing, has benefited greatly from their presence and - one hopes - will continue to do so. I'm reminded of Redmond Simonsen's comments about Crescendo of Doom in 1979, however:

I joke a great deal about this game system - not, as one defensive reader supposed, because I secretly admire it - but because it is so unabashedly a kitchen sink style design that succeeds in charming its adherents into suspension of disbelief.

"There's nothing so bad about that," Simonsen added, "but there's nothing wrong with me tweaking old Avalon Hill a bit now and then either..." I think perhaps we might say the same about battlefront and its own kitchen-sink simulator-cum-game Combat Mission: Shock Force. At least until they stop posting videos invoking the magical power of their testicles for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan. Despite Simonsen's misgivings about Squad Leader, it has engendered something of a following nonetheless, though of course, Avalon Hill itself didn't survive to see the fullest expression of the system's success...whether that was the fault of their marketing staff or not is still the subject of debate.