The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

Introducing Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition, a little freebie I found at the official World of Warcraft goodies page while looking for a HD version of Mr T’s old WoW commercial featuring his custom Night Elf Mohawk. (What? You don’t know Mr T?) While I’m not a fan of World of Warcraft, but hey, a free game is a free game

Popcap’s Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition is essentially a free sampler of their original best-selling Peggle comprising 2 stages of five colourful World of Warcraft themed levels each. Resembling pachinko or “Japanese pinball”, the player has to eliminate all orange pieces by play by shooting at them directly or indirectly (duh )

It differs from pinball in the sense that that are no flippers which greatly simplifies gameplay since it’s a game intended for casual gamers but apart from that, it’s loaded with lots of blinking lights, whizzy sound effects and insane scores in the hundreds of thosuands, just like being at a pinball table.

Despite its apparent simplicity, it’s oddly addictive since most of the later levels require more than a fair bit of logic and puzzle-solving skills – you can’t just mindlessly shoot and hope to clear the level with pure luck – just see this strategy page for Peggle. As for replayability, there’s really little incentive in replaying levels after you’ve completed them unless you’re aiming to bust the high scores table. There is however the Challenge mode to boost the longevity factor although it’s mainly aimed for the masters or hardcore fanatics.

If you like Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition, there’s always the original Peggle with 55 levels and playable on a mind-boggling array of platforms – PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, iPod Touch, iPhone, mobile phones, online and even as a free 12 level World of Warcraft addon.

Download Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Faerie Solitaire
Stomping Grounds
She Asked … for a Bejewelled Clone
Bubblets – Jawbreaker for Windows
Filler (Puzzle Game)

An enhanced shareware version of Battleship, the classic turn-based game for two in which each player attempts to be the first to sink all his/her opponent’s ships, Strategy Lights Series’ Battleship WW2 Gold Edition is an innovative PC-based version that adds substantial depth to the original game with a selection of well-thought out features.

Don’t judge Battleship WW2 by the archaic in-game graphics because under those utilitarian visuals lies a solid, engaging naval strategy game – or a wargame-lite if you will. Definitely more realistic than pencil-and-paper Battleship, Battleship WW2 is no hardcore naval stimulation by any means though – lightly-armed corvettes aren’t likely to sink a battleship, not in this modern age and definitely not back then in WWII, but they do in this game.

Loads of stuff to play with … if you buy the full version, of course

If you can overlook this slight lapse in realism, you’ll find Battleship WW2 perfect as a simple introductory naval strategy/wargame. With 50 types of ships, submarines, planes and coastal artillery and a larger fleet that can move around on a significantly larger playing area, you can simulate historical scenarios with ease – something you definitely cannot do with the original Battleship game.

Since ships have different radar ranges to detect enemy ships and planes and in addition, only select classes have sonar to detect those nasty submarines, there’s loads of strategy involved in tailoring your battle fleet before starting each mission and when manuevering during the actual mission – a battlefleet comprising only the mightiest battleships may look good on paper but will quickly succumb to enemy submarines which can approach undetected and then make quick work of the entire fleet of behemoths without any fear of retaliation.

Sure, you’ll still need battleships, heavy cruisers and their heavy firepower to destroy enemy capital ships and/or aircraft carriers with fighters to defend against marauding torpedo-bombers and bombers to attack coastal fortifications but a combined fleet with corvettes/destroyers steaming farther ahead to screen these larger ships from prowling enemy submarines stands a much better chance of completing the mission successfully. Other essential ships to reinforce your fleet include unarmed auxiliary ships to repair damaged warships and of course, submarines to hunt for unwary targets.

Battleship WW2 uses attributes like movement range, firing range, radar/sight range, number of shots per turn (simulating the number of guns/torpedoes on each ship) and armour (hitpoints) to represent the different classes of ships available. It does a very good job differentiating the various ships, but the fact that hits from a cruiser and a corvette both cause exactly the same amount of damage does jar the realism somewhat.

Hunting the Bismarck

Different mission objectives call for different fleet configurations and range from the direct annihilation of enemy shipping to liberation of enemy ports or the defense of friendly ports in the area of operations.

More missions! … if you buy, buy, buy

The full version of Battleship WW2 contains a total of 110 missions, 4 campaigns of 10 to 15 missions each and allows the construction of all 50 types of units to equip your forces. The shareware version lacks the campaigns and most of the missions and ships. Still, there’s a lot of fun to be had experimenting with the optimum fleet build and testing them out in battle

Download Battleship WW2 Gold Edition.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Renders of WWII Battleships from Navyfield : Resurrection of the Steel Fleet
Sea Victory Tugboats
WWII Anti-Submarine Warfare Tactical Lessons from BBC
Visby Class Stealth Corvette
Turning Point – Fall of Liberty Trailer

There’s a lot of free-to-play MMORPGs nowadays – so many that I always see at least one ad for these games everytime I visit any games-related site (a good example is The Download Munkey, at least on Thursdays that is ) and that’s exactly how I found Atlantica Online

© Ndoors Interactive Inc

While the concepts and wallpapers aren’t distinctive enough to scream Altantica Online when you look at them, unlike how the art for major players such as Lineage II or Guild Wars do, the artworks here are of a consistently high quality (and high-res to boot). On top of that, there’s a generous selection of concepts and wallpapers available (24 wallpapers in total) at the official site with more in the fansite kit.

© Ndoors Interactive Inc

Now on to the concepts for Atlantica Online. The one below is my absolute favourite – a warrior monk wearing lamellar armour. This must be the coolest monk character concept for any game that I’ve ever seen

© Ndoors Interactive Inc

Download the Atlantica Online concepts, wallpapers and fansite kit.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Warrior Epic Concepts and Wallpapers
Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning Illustrations & Concept Art
Korean MMORPG Wallpapers (X) – Tera Online
Exclusive Hero Saga Laevatein Wallpapers @ GA Graphic
The Art Of Prince of Persia Screensaver

Dissidia : Final Fantasy is a long overdue fighting game featuring the heroes and villains from each of the Final Fantasy games from first Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy XI.

Final Fantasy V was the only one that I completed but I can neither recognize Bartz Klauser or Exdeath in both wallpapers – one for the forces of Cosmos and the other for Chaos.

© Square Enix

In contrast, Cloud and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII are instantly recognizable despite the fact I never played the game

Download these wallpapers from the official website for Dissidia : Final Fantasy (choose Cosmos or Chaos and then click Multimedia)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Square Enix Member Fanzone Exclusive Wallpapers
Exit Fate – Excellent Freeware RPG
Warren Louw – Illustrator
Magical Orchestral Score, Wallpapers & More from Blue Dragon Fansite Kit
Magna Carta (Korean RPG) Wallpapers

Came across this interesting article at Neurophilosophy on parasitoids with the capability to “brainwash” or modify the behaviour of their unfortunate hosts. From Wikipedia:

A parasitoid is an organism that spends a significant portion of its life history attached to or within a single host organism which it ultimately kills (and often consumes) in the process. Thus they are similar to typical parasites except in the certain fate of the host.

That said, the behaviour of some of these plants and animals can be a truly engaging read although it’s best to leave this stuff alone until after lunch or dinner. For the same reason, graphic photos are kept to a minimum too

I’ve elected to provide a short summary of the contents of this interesting article instead of simply regurgitating what I read – you can jump to the actual post for the juicy bits

The article introduces the genus of parasitic fungi cordyceps, of which cordyceps sinensis is one of the most well known species for its prized healing properties in traditional Chinese medicine (I’m taking some pills made from it to speed up recuperation after a bad spell of eczema flare-ups, that’s how I found this article ).

At Neurophilosophy, the reader is introduced to another species cordyceps unilateralis which has a startling ability to influence the behaviour of its infected ant host to ensure its spores disperse over a wider area and increase its chances of infecting other ants. There’s more photos of cordyceps fungi and their hosts over at www.fruit.affrc.go.jp and www.utexas.edu if you’re so inclined.

Photo by L.E Gilbert @ The University of Texas

Camponotus ant with Cordyceps lloydii.

And if you thought that these plants were creepy enough, wait until you read about the gordian worm It appears that these two species are just the tip of the iceberg, just browse around in Wikipedia and check out freaky stuff like the suicide-inducing parasitism category, the phoridae family of flies or the Solenopsis daguerrei species of parasitic ants.

Learn more at Neurophilosophy.