Ultimate Combat, The Player's creed! ...and my own Art of the Ultimate Soldier Gallery!

                     GDC at Moscone Center

There I was last Friday, wandering the halls of the GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE at Moscone Center in San Francisco, assaulted on all sides by the absolute newest in video gaming development, and it came home to me, not for the first time, how much GAMING is about elemental STRUGGLE. 

In other words: COMBAT! Whether between armed forces as we know them, or between future forces in interstellar ranges, or between us and the undead, or between the forces of light and darkness, it's combat, combat, combat!!

The only respite was the occasional non sequitor of a recruitment booth or a group touting their latest variant of of an SDK, or another booth, GMOCloud, introducing all the ways they can help you market your games in Japan.       ...then...

OMG! WORLD OF TANKS!!

Credit worldoftanks.com site intro video

THERE, in all its glory: The  WORLD OF TANKS   booth!!! BLAM!!! POW!! BUDDA BUDDA!! Budda!!

"Pick your buggy...y'like that T-80?  How about a nice little Sherman, an M-1A? Right over here's a little beauty you may remember, the Panzerjager's fave: the PANTHER, introduced at Kursk in '43 (to not so great reviews- they were handed their lunches by swarms of T-34's yeah?)  HEY, we've got 'em in SPADES!!  Dude, ...WHERE'S My ABRAMS??!!"

The RETRO CONNECTION:  

Marc's Op Whirlwind for Broderbund 

More action for Op Crusader
for Atomic Games

                                                                    

                                                                                                            

HALO,  Ace Combat, Medal of Honor series, All these games, are still mining that thick vein of ore that runs deeply through the human psyche: 'I wonder if I can TAKE THIS GUY OUT? 

That's my son Richard (known to many as Ixobelle) posing
as a rescued youngster in Ikari II: the Rescue

SO LET'S KICK ASS and WATCH out for that  HOT BRASS!! ....Somebody could get burned.

Some of the 21C boys: the Ultimate Soldiers!

THE RETROS go all the way back to 1977 and earlier, with games like Atari 2600's 'Combat' video game featuring 127 separate battle scenarios.  

My career certainly featured MANY COMBAT RELATED GAMES:

SNK's P.O.W. Prisoner of War, Broderbund's Whirlwind, Strategic Simulation's Typhoon of Steel, Tengen's Afterburner, the entire Pacific 360's V for Victory Series. They go on and on.

I ALSO HAD MANY BATTLE TOY COMMISSIONS from companies like Tyco, Zee, and Galoob, including Twentyfirst Century Toys, recreating large scale historically accurate action figures from WWII and Vietnam (my own theater), which were more collector's figures than toys. These 21C illustrations I have gathered as a gallery you can view by clicking the Art of the Ultimate Soldier title here:   Art of the Ultimate Soldier

FINALLY

I reflected, actually having been under a fair amount of enemy fire ( ...And on one occasion, some heavy friendly fire, ...a story for another day...) and finding it unsettling, at the least, and bowel loosening somewhere in the middle, ...we won't mention what it is at its worst, that:

It is good to note that these games don't require a Graves Registration Unit to move through the house following a rousing battle, and that the winners and losers are able to RAZZ one another over a beer or a soft drink while drawing up an after action report...

...and that there are no letters to loved ones that need writing. ...And there are  no body counts.

Let's try to keep it THAT way.             

In the Delta with team mate
Dennis Erickson (left), great friend.

Cheers,  Marc.