Art Friday : Scenes of War

Friday, May 16th, 2008, 12:00 amRoys

A collection of my favourite concept artwork depicting the chaos and destruction of war from various fansite kits (FSKs).

First up is Par Green’s artworks for the four combat arms - Infantry, Armour, Air and Support in Massive Entertainment’s World in Conflict. The Infantry artwork really evokes the intensity of close-range combat with tracers flying all over the place. Can’t imagine anyone attempting to advance in the face of such firepower.

Midway’s Blacksite Area 51 is primarily an post-modern alien shooting FPS but there’s modern-day scenes like this sniper team in the vicinity of a deserted Middle Eastern bazaar (#16 under Media > Concept Art) or this tank advancing into the wreck of a former courtroom (#21). High resolution versions of these concept art and more can be downloaded at the official Blacksite Area 51 site.

Next is concept art from Medal of Honor : Airborne. German troopers in a ravaged town square scan the night skies with powerful searchlights during an Allied paratrooper assault. Found this amongst other concepts at Gamewallpapers.ru but I can’t find these same images at the Downloads section of the official Medal of Honor : Airborne site. Strange…

More Medal of Honor and paratrooper art can be found in the FSK for the PS2/Wii game Medal of Honor : Vanguard relating to Operation Market Garden. Below, allied paratroopers land near a bridge emplaced with dragon’s teeth (anti-tank obstacles) whereas at the other end of the bridge lies a German pillbox, apparently unaware of the impending airborne attack.

In the same FSK, there’s also an interesting concept of the internal structure of a coastal battery opposing the Allied landings in Sicily during Operation Husky. The austere interiors of th fortification is further emphasized by the bare essentials lying around - only ammo for the machineguns and cannons at the top of the fortress can be seen together with a map table.

Finally, the Turning Point : Fall of Liberty FSK has this extremely high resolution render of formidable German aerial and naval forces in attempt to invade and conquer America in a hypothetical WWII scenario.