Dawn of War: Dark Crusade – Skulls for the Skull Throne!

Although this blog’s focus is less on current releases but rather on timeless milestones, I could not help but rejoice as I heard the news: Dawn of War 3 is coming – and large armies and base-building are back! I tried its predecessor, Dawn of War 2, but the focus on small squads of heroes just isn't my cup of tea. Instead, I present to you my favourite Add-On of the series. The real-time stragegy game series Dawn of War is based on Games Workshop’s giant science fiction tabletop-franchise Warhammer 40,000, a grimdark future where there can only be war between aliens, religious fanatics and demons.

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War – The Dark Crusade, released in 2006, is the second Add-On of the first Dawn of War from 2004. It adds two new factions (Necrons and Tau), a new unit to each existing race, and a wholly new campaign, which will be the focus of this article (Notice that for multiplayer matches playing as one of the “old” races, you need the predecessors; for the campaign and everything else, having Dark Crusade installed will suffice).

 Intro.

A unique feature about the Dawn of War games is that instead of collecting natural resources, the player has to conquer requisition points and maintain a good energy supply by building power plants. But what really makes this game stand out among nearly every other real time strategy game ever is that you can play a total of 7 (!) different races, each with its own carefully crafted campaign and viewpoint on the overall setting – the conquest of planet Kronus. 

 

Kronus is genuinely inhabited by the Necrons, robots reminiscent of those seen in The Terminator-series of movies, but they don't bother hiding their mechanical bodies. The planet is also inhabited by  the Imperial Guard, whose soldiers and tanks are reminiscent of 21^st century military, but with some laserguns, medieval inquisition and technology worshipping priests thrown in. Also, there are the Eldar (space elves) and some Orks (green hooligan aliens with a fetish for scrap metal).

Among the invaders are the Space Marines (genetically modified superhuman monks), the Chaos Space Marines (genetically modified superhuman sectarians) and the Tau (blue aliens with high tech stuff and primitive allies). Each race has standard and special troops, tanks and a super unit that can be unlocked by collecting enough resources and conquering a relic. These super units are demigods, demons or giant tanks – loads of fun! 

Ingame-screenshot of Necrons fighting against Chaos Space Marines. Source.

The voice acting adds a lot to the atmosphere: While some races sound very proud and determined such as the Space Marines and the Eldar, the Chaos Space Marines sound just as insane as they are, Necrons are silent for the most part and Orks prattle as much gibberish as you would expect from space hooligans ("Dakka dakka dakka!"). Fortunately, too, Relic has managed to make each of the forces play differently and added some unique gameplay mechanics to each race: While Necrons don’t need requisition points to make units unlike every other race but solely rely on energy, Orks need an extra resource to control their rowdy minions, and differences in upgrades, abilities etc. offer various tactical options making an actual difference between the races. However, it has been argued that the races are not perfectly balanced in Multiplayer, which players who have fought the Eldar in the campaign probably already know.

The campaign screen. Source.

The campaign setup is not a linear follow-up of missions, but instead presents you with a map where you can choose which of the neighbouring provinces to visit first. Depending on whether you own that province or not, you can choose what to do: Move to or conquer a province or planetary fortress of one of the other factions or just stay where you are and skip a round. If you choose to fight, the game switches into real time strategy gameplay. As you finish your turn on the campaign map, the computer takes over and shows how the other 6 factions move and fight on the map. This means that the player not only gets to conquer, but also defend provinces, which is made easier by the fact that the computer memorizes what you built in each province, so you won’t have to start from scrap again, and you may add to it each time you defend it.

Each province you own earns you control points on the campaign map (independent from those in RTS mode), which can be invested in stationary forces to make defending your provinces even easier. Also, conquering certain provinces not only comes with special goals other than killing the enemy’s base, but unlocks additional benefits, such as the opportunity to move twice (instead of once) during your turn or to buy an honour guard for your general. The leader himself gets weapon and armour upgrades that make him more powerful in battle. These RPG elements definitely enhance the gaming experience, since they reward your efforts appropriately (without making the game too easy).

Each race's leader can be upgraded during the campaign, for example the Necron Lord. Source.

If you leave an area of the campaign map untouched for a long time and leave its destiny to your enemies, there is a chance that your decision will backfire sometime. Playing as Chaos Space Marines I once had to face an Imperial enemy who had gathered an honour guard consisting of 9 units, including a tank. Ultimately, I had to give up several provinces because the AI general would just overrun each colony with his honour guard. Playing on difficulty level “hard”, it really felt like an achievement when I finally destroyed his planetary fortress with my Chaos Space Marines, lead by my general who had turned into a Demon Prince by the time I had reconquered everything. Another great moment was beating the Tau, because those blue faced bastards have, very much like in the tabletop version, a reputation for using big, nasty guns, while Chaos Space Marines prefer melee weapons (in the 41^st century, melee combat is still pretty viable). 

Dark Crusade's successor Soulstorm, is alright, too, but having to travel from planet to planet felt like less fun than just having all the factions squeezed together on one big map. Also, rebuilding your bases when defending is not fun – it forces you to play the same map under the same conditions over and over again. These are the reasons why Soulstorm, although it added another two races – Dark Eldar (evil space elves) and Adeptus Sororitas (female Space Marines) – was not an improvement to the series but just a mediocre addition. 

Dark Crusade, however, is a milestone in the series, as it masterfully captures the grimdark feeling of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. The different factions with their unique gameplay and story and the random interactions of the AI generals in the campaign provide enough replay-value for weeks. Of course, there are some bugs and the Eldar are a bit imbalanced, but the game is fun, nevertheless. Whether you are hyped for DoW 3 or not familiar with the franchise at all: I seriously recommend playing Dark Crusade.

Survival of the Dead - Cowboys vs. Zombies

In 2009, George Romero made another zombie movie. Oh, well, you might ask: Zombies are everywhere – so why would anyone care? Let me tell you why. First of all, Romero's zombies are special. They are vicious, cannibalistic beasts, but with each movie, they gain a little more consciousness. From Dawn of the Dead on, zombies can be observed as they are trying to find back into the lives they once had. They start imitating the living, be it the zombified guy at the gas station who does not know where to go with his fuel pump (Land of the Dead) or the undead mailman who keeps stuffing the same mailbox over and over again (Survival of the Dead). Aside of being zombies, they aptly show how monotonous most of human work is and in Land of the Dead they even become a kind of undead homeless working class. 

Cowboys will be cowboys.

The story of Survival of the Dead revolves around two clans on an island who have nothing better to do than fight each other to the death during the apocalypse. The conflict centers on the question whether one should chain the dead like cattle but not harm them (a process dangerous enough in itself) or kill them to avoid further tragedy. Ironically, the anti-zombie family (O’Flynn) is the one that is more sympathetic, but their patriarch, Patrick O’Flynn, is banned from the island as a result of the two (Irish) families’ disagreement on the zombie situation. 

 

Romero’s movie is strangely reminiscent of real-life disputes between pro-life (here: pro-unlife) and pro-choice activists. Hence, the pro-unlife faction (the Muldoons) is portrayed as very conservative (“I trust in God”), whereas the pro-choice faction (the O’Flynns) is willing to adapt to the new situation, which makes killing a few zombies now and then unavoidable. Patrick O’Flynn may be robbing helpless survivors while in exile, but at least he lets them live. Not so old Muldoon, his family-first antagonist. He shoots ‘immigrants’ mercilessly at the shore of his island as they arrive, and as his rule crumbles, ends up preferring the dead over the living. 

The Muldoons ready for action.

The movie combines Western and zombie apocalypse, but manages to be not trashy - in contrast to many other cross-genre Western movies (Cowboys vs. Aliens, anyone?). Both parties suffer from conflicts emerging from within as the crisis reaches its climax, and the only characters that come off as a little bland are the soldiers who are, ironically, the actual main characters in our film.

 

Although the movie treats them as protagonists and the viewer easily identifies with them, they are the least interesting. They, being the good guys, naturally cooperate with the O’Flynns, and beyond that there is little worth mentioning about them. They adopt a young fugitive – who has his very own mind – but they all stand together when it comes to facing the Muldoons, who have figured out their very own way of solving the zombie problem. Without going into further details in order to not spoil the movie, I can assure you that it backfires to some degree.

Trailer

If you need something to fill the pause until The Walking Dead returns, Romero’s work comes highly recommended, in general. Romero’s Dead movies stand out among the mass of brainless zombie movies for being both gory and intelligent, but Survival of the Dead effectively adds both a new setting and new aspects to the zombie theme, leaving urban areas for a silent, but nonetheless deadly island.

Trumbo - A man who wouldn't be silenced

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to the cinema. We did not know which movie to watch, so we settled for the sneak peek preview. And oh, boy, were we in for a surprise! None of us had heard from the movie we were going to watch: Trumbo. Neither did we know that Breaking Bad-Star Bryan Cranston would play the main role!

When we realized what kind of movie this would be, we were skeptical. We had not come to the cinema with the intention of learning about a communist screenwriter living and working in America during the 1940’s and following. We were not sure if we were in the mood for ‘something intellectual’. 

The story is concerned with Dalton Trumbo, a man who believes in fair wages, but who does not want to give up his privileges at the same time – a moderate socialist, you might say, but nevertheless a member of the infamous “Hollywood 10” (alleged communists in the movie business). Thus, he is considered a radical and a public enemy. Trumbo has to endure public shaming, first and foremost led by journalist Hedda Hopper (well portrayed by Helen Mirren), whose slanderous reporting inspires one angry viewer to shove his drink in Trumbo’s face.

Trumbo defending himself. Source.

A little bit later, when famous movie star John Wayne (David James Elliot) tries to lecture Trumbo on being a true American, Trumbo embarrasses him, reminding him that he, unlike Trumbo, never fought for his country during WWII – only on screen. As Trumbo notices that Wayne is on the verge of exploding, he just says: “And if you're going to hit me I'd like to take off my glasses.” Wayne walks away, leaving a baffled crowd, both on and off screen, behind. 

If anything is clear from that scene on, it is that Trumbo is not only brave, but resilient. A short clip from the real Trumbo's testimony given during the hearings in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities gives you a good idea of Trumbo’s chutzpah in the face of his prosecutors. Cranston masterfully revives this one of the most daring testimonies of history, comparable to Oscar Wilde’s passionate speech in his 1895 trial. 

Official Trailer

Later on, Trumbo is convicted – without having committed a crime. The movie succeeds in portraying this little known director both as a humble and – most of all – truly sympathetic hero, certainly influenced by his two daughters, Nikola and Melissa, who were involved in the writing of the film. The importance of Trumbo's story can hardly be overstated, for it depicts the American Nation when it had just defeated a great evil – Nazi Germany – but instantaneously became oblivious to its own oppressive power during the McCarthy era.

What the movie falls short of, however, is to keep up its very interesting start. By the end, watching Trumbo’s biography feels a little tedious. However, the actors’ great performances make up for it, and if characters sometimes seem comical (most notably B-movie producers Frank King (John Goodman) and his brother Herman (Stephen Root)), it is for the better. In most cases, however, performances are spot-on. 

The Trumbo biopic is definitely a movie you wouldn’t want to miss if you are interested in American history. It is a well-deserved tribute to one of Hollywood's greatest directors.

Misfits - Why not?

Misfits is a British series broadcast from 2009 to 2013. And oh boy, is it Bri'ish! No American series could handle such a great amount of adult topics. Certainly, Americans have no problem with violence. But since this series tells the story of a bunch of horny teenagers, it cannot live without a drastic amount of sexuality, and viewers are granted more than a peek through the keyhole. 

The series indeed reminds me of a title of a weird, weird zombie movie – Dellamorte, Dellamore (literally translates: Of Death, of Love). Each episode features at least one death or one explicit sex scene, I swear (and they do, too). The plot revolves around five teenagers who are forced to do community service because of minor offenses, but everything gets much worse when a supernatural thunderstorm strikes them (and, as the viewer is to find out, many other people, too) and they suddenly get superpowers. These superpowers are meant to be the fulfillment of wishes in the Freudian sense: Even the paradoxical and bad ones, nightmares, everything. 

Simon, Kelly, Alisha, Curtis and Nathan - hitting puberty while struck by lightning. Source.

The message of the series is thus similar to the story of The Monkey’s Paw by William Wymark Jacobs (†1943): Be careful what you wish for. You’d better be happy with what you are, even if you are a miserable young delinquent. These could have been Alisha’s thoughts exactly when she found out that everyone who touches her immediately wants to have sex with her, taking her desire to be desirable much too far. The only one who really profits from the supernatural thunderstorm seems to be Nathan (Robert Sheehan), but I will let you find out on your own what happens. 

Speaking of Nathan: Many started to miss him once he was replaced at the beginning of the second part of the series. Nathan is a young man who clearly has daddy and general authority-related issues, is constantly horny and a true pain in the ass to the rest of the group. Many fans have argued that from the moment he left the series went downhill, but I don’t think so. Rudy is more than a worthy replacement, and Joseph Gilgun does a good job portraying a character who couldn’t be more self-contradictory. During the mysterious thunderstorm, his soul was split, and now he has to deal with a Doppelganger of himself. Ultimately, it is hard to tell who the real Rudy is – the constantly cursing jerk or the nice chap who chooses his words carefully. As a matter of fact, the slow replacement of the main roles brings a much-needed breath of fresh air into the series (fellow time travelers agree).

Misfits - Trailer

As you can tell by now, one of the series’ greatest virtues (if you can call it that) is that it is really, really weird. A guy who can control the flow of milk becomes a raging murderer? Why not. A zombie cat infects a group of cheerleaders, resulting in a fatal killing spree? Certainly. Nothing seems impossible. By the end of the series, Rudy starts visiting a support group where the creators seem to have deposited those ideas which were not worthy of an entire episode, which doesn’t mean that they aren’t absolutely adorbs (One guy is just a turtle. Brilliant!).

So there you have it: A series which offers (almost) everything, be it love, be it tragedy, be it all the awkwardness in between. Life ain’t easy, but it is all the drama that makes it worthwhile. Go and watch Misfits, I dare you.

Hubert & Staller - Kann man schon mal machen

Hubert & Staller ist eine deutsche Krimiserie, und eine Krimiserie fürs deutsche Fernsehen zu machen ist entweder eine sehr mutige oder eine sehr feige Entscheidung. Denn das deutsche Fernsehen ist überschwemmt mit Krimiserien - das Format kommt an, aber die Chance, in der Menge unterzugehen, ist ebenso groß. Nicht nur diverse Wiederholungen von Navy: CIS, Mord ist ihr Hobby und Konsorten, sondern auch nordische Krimis und nicht zu vergessen die diversen Tatort-Varianten, vom hervorragenden Münsteraner Tatort bis zum Action-Schweiger tummeln sich hier. Und natürlich gibt es da noch die Briten: Inspector Barnaby, Sherlock und Father Brown. 

Haben sich die Macher von Hubert & Staller womöglich gefragt: Was gibt es da noch zu holen? Vermutlich nicht. Denn wie alle großen und kleinen Kreativen haben sie‘s einfach gemacht und ihren eigenen Stil entwickelt. Auf den ersten Blick unterscheidet sich Hubert & Staller durchaus nicht so sehr von Mord mit Aussicht, dem anderen beliebten, etwas betulichen, deutschen Provinzkrimi. Wo aber bei Mord mit Aussicht das Dorf- und Kleinstadtleben noch ganz urig daherkommt, sind die Landschaftsaufnahmen bei Hubert & Staller bahnbrechend und sehen verdächtig nach einem bayerischen Caspar David Friedrich aus. 

Hubert, Staller und noch ein Rindvieh. Quelle.

 

 Bayerisch-deftig

 

Aber der schöne Schein kann durchaus nicht über den zuweilen derben Humor hinwegtäuschen. Christian Tramitz, den jeder aus Der Schuh des Manitu oder Traumschriff Surprise kennt, und Helmfried von Lüttichau, den keiner kennt, geben ein hervorragendes Ermittlerteam ab. Während Tramitz (Hubert) stets der clevere, coolere und sarkastische ist (aber dabei nicht vor Zankereien mit Karin Thaler, die die Pathologin und zugleich seine Exfrau gibt, gefeit ist), gibt Lüttichau den, der stets mit der Tür ins Haus fällt, der schon mal jemandem spontan in die Schulter schießt oder mit dem alten Dienst-Audi über den Fuß fährt. Lüttichau (Staller, liebevoll: Hansi) scheint das gesamte Spektrum abzudecken, nicht nur ist er auf ungeschickte Weise impulsiv, sondern auch für sämtliche fleischlichen Gelüste zu haben, vom Alkohol im Dienst bis zu jeder weiblichen Nebenrolle ever. 

Das Chaosteam eröffnet den Fall stets mit einem unglücklichen Leichenfund und einer flapsigen Bemerkung dazu, und Hubert und Staller nehmen sich nicht viel im Wettbewerb um die ungeschickteste Todesnachrichtenüberbringung („Ach, es geht um mein Auto?“ – „Na, mehr des Abschleppseil. Da hing ihr Mann dran.“). Wenn der Fall verzwickt ist (und das ist er meistens), dann wird Riedl (Paul Sedlmeyr), der ewige Praktikant, mit einer unliebsamen Aufgabe betreut, die häufig überraschend sinnvoll ist, beispielsweise, wenn er einen Umweltverschmutzer überführt und dieser spontan den Mörder wiedererkennt. Ungeachtet dessen ist Riedl nur allzu häufig the butt of the joke oder der Arsch vom Dienst und erfüllt alle Pflichten mit einer an den Strombergschen Ernie erinnernden Fügsamkeit, allerdings ohne dessen Hysterie. Ob Mobbing am Arbeitsplatz wirklich so lustig ist, darüber lässt sich streiten, Hubert und Staller belassen es aber im humorvollen Rahmen: „Mit dem Rad 10km, und das bergauf?“ – „Ja, und auf dem Rückweg haste ei' riesn Spaß!“.

Im Gegensatz zu etwa Inspector Barnaby wird eine Ladung Hubert & Staller im handlichen 45-Minuten-Format serviert, was auch genau richtig ist. Bis dahin haben Hubert und Staller mehr oder weniger erfolgreiche Ermittlungstechniken erprobt, der Chef (Michael Brandner) sich aufgeregt und ansonsten nichts geleistet (außer hausmeisterliche Tätigkeiten an Riedl weiterzureichen) und der Friede in Wolfrathshausen ist wiederhergestellt. Seit 2013 kommt die Serie auch ganz gut ohne die etwas zu neugierige Lokalreporterin Barbara Hansen (Monika Gruber) aus, die es den sympathischen Helden immer noch ein Stück schwerer machte. 

Wer gerne eine spannend-entspannte Krimiserie und einen Sinn für pointierten Humor hat, der wird mit Hubert & Staller glücklich. Wer hingegen keine Krimis mehr sehen kann, hat aber durchaus mein vollstes Verständnis.