Citrus Service: Military

Showing posts with label Military. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2026

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

"V has come to."

I played this when it came out on the Playstation 4 and even got the Platinum Trophy for it. Now, after 11 years I do the same but on PC. This is a 'solid' (pun intended) contender for a game that is infinitely replayable or at least worth revisiting on a semi-yearly bases.

I enjoy games about stealth. The Assassin's Creed series, Hitman, Tom Clancy's games, and the occasional Sniper Elite. However, none of these games managed to reach this height of stealth sandbox that MGS:V offers.

Me and a friend playing the Co-op mod.

While the story is incomplete due to the whole Kojima fiasco, when he left Konami on less than ideal terms. I'm glad they went ahead and released this game.

To me the story of the Metal Gear franchise is a mixed bag of real world conflicts and fictitious advanced technology. Having only played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, 4: Guns Of The Patriots, and V: The Phantom Pain to completion. The main appeal to me is the stealth and military setting of the franchise. With the weakest thing to me in all of them, is whenever the Mechas are unveiled, aka the metal gears. Metal gears are always treated in the world of the games as the ultimate Dreadnaught; a weapon surpassing nuclear weapons, despite being a platform to launch them! Oh and I dislike Mechas in general.

I love the nerdy gun facts of MGS3 and it's setting. I love the actual gameplay of MGSV and freedom to complete your missions in any way you want. But man! Is the story so convoluted and complex for the sake of being complex and nothing else. My friends' group grew up on this series, unlike me. I don't have a favorite character or moments from these games. I'm here for the fun gameplay and cool setting. With that said I'd like to try and play Peace Walker, it released recently as a remaster and I might grab it during a sale. I'm hesitant due to the low graphics quality of the game, but I'm really curious about it.

Your base of operations: Mother Base, has some nicely designed signs and iconography, that always manage to catch my eye. In my head, these signs are made to be as clear as possible to account for the fact that the soldiers of Mother Base are from all around the world; and thusly speak different languages! So having a universally designed signs to break the language barrier—Same as the pictograms of the Munich Olympics of 1972 (Watch this video for context)—is a really cool touch.

In the end. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is The most definitive stealth game in the world, undisputed since 2015. Fun movement options and numerous available playstyles are valid and accounted for. In addition to a vast arsenal of toys, gadgets, and weapons for you to tinker around and experiment with.

Remember to press every button and have fun!

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Wednesday, April 1, 2026

SNS - Best of Sakura NeoMilitary Songs 1-6 (2017)

Famous military marching songs and tracks, done in Japanese.

I want to share this collection of military marching songs, covered in a whiplashing Japanese rock/pop style. Safe to say, they're Admiral approved.

Language barrier is the biggest obstacle in looking up and searching about this stuff sadly. From my limited googling and cursory research, I found that, the SNS is a musical project performed by Sakura Nakamura in addition to her performing regular voice acting for Anime roles.

This playlist is missing one of my favorite songs; The British Grenadiers.

And one more I found on YouTube; Our Rommel.

Also, I'm partial to this cover in particular; Rule, Britannia!.

Links:

Saturday, March 7, 2026

HS Kimon's Welcome Party

The latest addition to the Hellenic navy.

HS Kimon is a multipurpose FDI (Defense and Intervention Frigate). This French-made vessel—named after a famed Athenian general who fought the Persian Empire during the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC— is the new flagship of Greece's navy.

I don't follow the news that closely however, when I saw how the Hellenic navy welcomed the Kimon; by sailing two of their most iconic ships side by side, creating one of the best naval images in recent history, I had to post about it. Enter Olympias a restored trireme (also commissioned by the navy):

Secondly, the Italian-built armored cruiser/battlecruiser from 1910 (now a museum ship), Georgios Averof:

Now, enjoy the trio that spans more than two millennia:

Links:

Monday, August 25, 2025

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (2016)

The only reason I got myself a VR headset.

It's true. I have been watching the devlog videos on H3VR (Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades) since forever, then a couple years ago a friend of mine lent me his VR headset. I believe it was a Meta Quest model, which got me a first-hand experience into the world of VR, which I wasn't too interested in (and I still am). However, this game was something from my dreams.

A firearm and ordinance simulation unlike anything else on the market—I did try Pavlov for a while also but it's not as elaborate and nuanced as H3VR. The sandbox and various scenes provide an endless game loop, finding a particular weapon to mess around with, try out different ammunition types, the attachments, and of course the shooting.

The feeling of awe and childlike wonder, is displayed by my gaping mouth and unblinking stare that is glued to my headset, as I fire a bullet at a grenade shell and hear it explode sending everything around me flying, I realized what I've done after the smoke cleared. Or, when I tried out the musket for the first time, after the confusing process of reloading the thing. I was baffled by what I saw after I fired the thing, and said to myself out loud "Oh.. too much powder." the musket was in two pieces, one in my hand and the other somewhere else.

Any gun-nut worth his salt should get this game or, at least try it.

I'm still learning the mechanics and different aspects of this game. I'd love to see mod support in the future, and the ability to switch the sosigs (the game's NPCs) with a more humanoid NPCs.

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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Cossacks II: Battle for Europe (2006)

A charming Napoleonic experience.

My first exposure to this gem was from this video. I enjoy a bit of Real Time Strategy games, however, not all RTS games are created equal, literally. Most RTS games are way too zoomed out, with multiple fronts and battalions. These aren't my type of games; I get easily overwhelmed by the amount of resource and army management aspects, resulting in a mostly menu gameplay without the fluff —looking at the animations of the units, soaking in the ambiance of the environments, and so on— So, when I saw how you could arrange your units' formations in this game, along with the firing line mechanics, with no menus to speak of, I got really excited to try it for myself!

Aww Shucks!

Now, I only managed to finish the French campaign and when I tried to start the Prussian one, it dawned on me; after playing the first mission I just couldn't stand how the AI was blatantly cheating with the amount of resources and units it had. It soured my experience a bit so I decided to stop playing this game before my opinion on it would change from positive to a more negative one.

Love the flanking unit hiding in the woods.

The game has some slav jank, but it compensates for it with fun stuff, like: building cannons and attaching them to horse carriages to get them to the frontline faster and having some beautiful art, sprites, architecture, and overall environment.

From my short time playing this game my biggest complaint (other than the cheating AI) is the quick depletion of coal, used in making gunpowder for your army. It runs out way too fast, in my opinion.

The soundtrack is generally nice, with my favorite tracks being: Britain, Egypt, and France.

The game has some charming FMVs that appear on the bottom right of the HUD. I wanted to share them here but, looking for these videos on the internet proved fruitless so, I took matters into my own hands and made this little compilation of the videos I found in the game's files. The videos are muted by default so I added the soundtrack from the game to them. They have poor resolution due to their miniscule size on your HUD in the game. Believe me when I say: It looks better in game.

I have to say, pictures don't do this game justice. The game looks way better in motion than it does in screenshots. Still, I'll leave you with my remaining screenshots:

Marching to the Prussian's town!

And thus the siege began..

Advance!

Reporting to the emperor himself.

Alternate history.

A bit unrelated (maybe?), I came across this unorthodox video about the history of Napoleon except, it's about his favorite dish!

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Saturday, January 11, 2025

Little Armory (2015)

Illustration by カロ

Little Armory is a product line of 1/12 scale plastic kit military-style models and figures, by the Tomytec Co. With kits ranging from pistols, and rifles, to grenades, and anti-tank weapons.

Illustration by samaru

However, the main thing that drew me in the first place was their advertisements, aka anime girls with guns. With beautiful illustrations by some of the best military artists in the business. I'll try my best to credit them.

Illustration by daito

From what I can tell, this series has been around as far back as 2015 - 2016. According to the official site, Little Armory also has a novel and manga. I couldn't find either with a quick search so, I'm thinking this has got to be some really niche stuff (at least for a non-Japanese audience).