Archive for July, 2007

Wallpapers Wednesday : Taiko no Tatsujin DS Wallpaper


© Bandai Namco Games

This wallpaper from the Nintendo DS version of the drumming game Taiko no Tatsujin makes me happy :) Download from the official site and click on the second last button (see below for the button which you should click on)


© Bandai Namco Games

Also available is a relationship diagram for the characters in this game which you can download from . I’m not too sure which version of the game this character sheet applies to though.


© Bandai Namco Games

I only saw the arcade version of this game last weekend – haven’t been to the arcades for a long long time :(

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Dr Badman’s Cute Warhammer 40000 Avatars
Cute Wallpapers from Hey Hey Creative
Makibishi Comic – Cute Point & Click Adventure Game in Flash
The Bitter Stickgirl

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Military Tuesday : FM 3-90 – Tactics

I love reading about tactics and strategy and applying them in video games – usually to disastrous effect :(

FM 3-90 is a US Army Field Manual teaching tactics. Not exactly an exciting read (hey, it’s a military text) but covers topics that should interest tactical gamers, war gamers and any avid enthusiast of military science and history.

Chapter 3 : The Basics of The Offense and Chapter 8 : Basics of Defensive Operations should be particularly interesting to gamers.

Try applying what you read in games like the Combat Mission series, the tactical battles in Total War series, the older games in the Close Combat series or even in the excellent freeware WinSPWW2 or WinSPMBT (alternatively Steel Panthers : World At War) – It’s a lot of fun.

The PDF used to be freely available to the public via the General Dennis J. Reimer Training and Doctrine Digital Library on a US Army domain a few years ago but access is now restricted to members of the US Army.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Free military history books from Focal Point Publications
WinSPWW2 & WinSPMBT
People’s Tactics
Wodan : The Trial

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Random Monday : The Gorbenko Report

The blog of a certain Dimitri Gorbenko who works as a programmer (and allegedly spy :p) at Massive Entertainment, the studio responsible for the Ground Control series as well as their upcoming World in Conflict game.

Gorbenko provides a wickedly hilarious and (slightly insane?) peek into Massive Entertainment, featuring interviews with some of the guys working there, what he fears at work and of course, his impressions during a gaming session with the World in Conflict beta. Very silly tongue-in-cheek stuff to brighten up your day :)

I found his blog by chance via Google Image Search and landed here. Below is the fantastic image which caught my attention.


© Dimitri Gorbenko

According to this picture, Mr Gorbenko is a Jedi from the (ex) Soviet Union and our saviour no less :)

The above image seems vaguely familiar – anyone know how to search the .NET for additional information about a particular picture?

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
World in Conflict Trailers
Star Wars Comics Wallpapers
Who’s That on Star Wars Tales #17?

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Art Friday : Links to SG-related Pixel Art and More :)

Found this wonderful Singapore Navy commissioned pixel art at sparklette.net (some wonderful visual art stuff there).


© Ari & Thalia & Sok Kuan

I actually seen it in a newspaper ad for the Singapore Navy Open House on 26 May 2007 but I didn’t realize that there was a digital version on the blog of one of the creators of this impressively detailed pixel artwork.

Read Veron’s interview with the artists involved over at sparklette.net where you can view a high resolution version of this image.

Anyway, this ad wasn’t the first time I saw pixel art being used commercially in SG. The first was Habbo Hotel and the second was Singapore Institute of Management’s Build Your Own Future advertising campaign. (not linked to SIM’s official site) Found the links instead from The Treasure Trove of Useless Information (which is pretty interesting despite what the title implies).


© eboy / SIM

The main page of Build Your Own Future website shown above. Some pixel art collectables are available from the Build Your Own Future downloads section – 32 icons, 5 wallpapers and 1 screensaver for eye candy nuts like me.


© eBoy / SIM

Watch a pixelart animation used in the marketing campaign for SIM.

Artwork for this campaign was done by eBoy (See how many Singaporean stuff you can identify in the poster below, taken from hello.eboy.com – I see the Esplanade and the Yellow Top taxis.


© eBoy / SIM

Also check out the Berlin, Venice and London pixoramas amongst others in the Pixorama category :)


© eBoy

Pixelized London – click on the links above to see the high resolution versions.


© eBoy

Foobar (above) is my favourite of all eboy’s pixel art – how many website logos can you spot there?

Some other pixel art (more game-related) stuff that I read the past few weeks (months?) which you may also be interested in :)

Meteor Busters game for PixelBoy virtual console
Komirad’s Isometric Mapmaker (in Flash)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
startdrawing.org
Shin Tanaka’s Cool Paper Toys
Art Lebedev (including one pixel artwork)

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Games Thursday : The Last Stand & The Endless Zombie Rampage & Crimsonland

A couple of (quite old) zombie-themed Flash games with different play styles which I have been playing lately (and an even older shareware game which I will save for last)

The Last Stand
This game by Con Artists Productions recommended by gHacks, pits the player as the leader of a band of survivors who have to survive 20 nights of zombie attacks behind a flimsy barricade – always wondered why the zombies don’t attack from the other side :) After each successful defense, you get to allocate the time until the next attack in search of better weapons and other survivors to assist you in holding off the zombies or repair the damaged barricade. You can only carry two weapons from the armory with you for each defense every night.

I especially like the sound effects of bullets against dead flesh. The weapon balance is OK although the assault rifles could use a bit of buffing up.


© Con Artists Productions

I still find the game a bit too easy because spray n’ pray burst fire coupled with the fast reload time, works just as well as precise single shots (which is more fun IMHO – try aiming at specific body parts with the hunting rifle). Not sure if there’s a newer version of the game coming up because I got something which looks like a Barrett M82 .50 rifle in my armory which I can’t seem to select :(

UPDATE (30/07/07): The Barrett is conifrmed to be in the game – the last time when I found it, it was unselectable. (see first picture – left side) I guess I was playing an older version because I just replayed it today and lo and behold! A shiny .50 BMG rifle (second picture). Many thanks to DK and the other guys for pointing this out :)


© Con Artists Productions

Nevertheless, it’s excellent for short breaks plus the reloading animation for the shotgun is really cool :)

The Endless Zombie Rampage
Found out about this Diseased Productions game from DK’s blog @ DecayOnNet, is one of those games where you play as a hopelesly outnumbered defender against a horde of zombies using a variety of real-life weapons. Only the appearances and names match their real-life counterparts as the stats do not really match up.


© Diseased Productions

To help you survive, XP points are accrued after each successful defense which you can use to purchase new weapons. This RPG aspect keeps you going for game afer game until you give up or your boss comes in, whichever comes first :) Thankfully, you can pause the game which is an essential feature for games like this which eat up time for breakfast :(


© Diseased Productions

This game rewards players who fire short bursts and does tactical reloads instead of firing full auto (as accuracy drops drastically beyond the effective range of eaach weapon) and reloading only the magazine is empty. This issue is due to the reload time being relatively slower compared to other games plus the fact that most of the starting weapons are woefully underpowered. The game becomes a bit repetitive after acquiring some of the more overpowered weapons later (20+ mins into the game) One annoying part is that you cannot abort a reload and switch to another weapon – I would drop my empty weapon and open fire with another weapon in real-life ;)

For a quicker game, try Survival mode where 9500 XP can be used before the game starts to configure your character, I didn’t like this mode much though :(

Crimsonland
There was a similiar shareware game a few years back, Crimsonland whereby you fought against a relentless horde of monsters (zombies, spiders,etc) with overpowerd weapons to accumulate XP in exchange for Fallout-style perks, which you might also be interested in if you like The Endless Zombie Rampage. See screenshots below.


© 10 Tons Entertainment

Play The Last Stand, The Endless Zombie Rampage or Crimsonland.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Desktop Tower Defense 1.5

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