The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

Wallpapers from the PS3 game Valkyria Chronicles aka Valkyrie of the Battlefield : Gallian Chronicles, which looks more like an interactive anime film than a game thanks to the unique rendering techniques used by its CANVAS graphics engine.

While most of the content for the Japanese site for this SEGA game is already accessible (not that it would make any difference to visitors who can’t read Japanese since Google Translate can do nothing for Flash-based sites), the wallpapers section is still under construction with only 3 out of the total 20 wallpapers being downloadable at this time.

© Sega

What really interests me about Valkyria Chronicles aren’t the beautifully designed characters nor the refeshingly different anime graphics but the world in which Valkyria Chronicles is based.

Valkyria Chronicles takes place in a fictional pre-WWII Europe where the tiny nation of Gallia (somwhere in The Netherlands) is wedged between the forces of the Atlantic Federation and the East European Imperial Alliance (a pre-war NATO and Warsaw Pact if you will). Most of this information is stuff that I gleaned from watching the various Japanese trailers posted at Gametrailers so there may be some inaccuracies here and there.

© Sega

The game retains that WWII feel familiar to most gamers except for the seemingly outdated East European infantry who still wear 15th century sallets rather than WWII helmets and are armed with cumbersome giant pikes. The infantry later actually reveal the true function of these pikes as early model RPGs by employing them in an offensive anti-tank role – you weren’t half expecting the infantry to form up into square formations to await a charge by tanks, do you?

© Sega

Since the main characters fight with or alongside the blue tanks, I assume they belong to the Atlantic Federation. Curiously, these tanks look very much like a turreted version of the late production model of the German Sturmgeschutz III Ausf G with its distinctively contoured Saukopf gun mantlet/shield (check out thisTamiya model of this exact StuG III version which I used as a reference.)

© Sega

The brown tank of the East European Imperial Alliance (above) appears to be a more sensible version of the monster Soviet T-35 multi-turreted tank with a boxy turret reminiscent of the KV-2.

Download the wallpapers from the official Valkyria Chronicles site or check out the trailers @ Gametrailers.com.

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Tompei’s Museum of Machines
Wallpapers from Paolo Parente’s Dust
Renault Char B1 bis ‘Eure’
Wallpapers from WWII/Occult Game Operation Darkness
Motofumi Kobayashi – Japanese Military Artist : Panzers, War Machines & More

A stunning vexel illustration of a Heckler & Koch MP5 and definitely one of the best firearm illustrations that I’ve ever seen out there on the Net. According to Scottsdale Gun Club, it should be a MP5A3 with the “Navy” trigger group with full-auto and semi-auto firing modes only (the MP5A5 has an additional 3 round burst mode).

© John Norris

This beautiful illustration is also conveniently sized for use as a wallpaper on a 1280×960 screen

Illustrated by John Norris aka donbenni who also does a mean vexel Mitsubishi Eclipse (below) among the various car illustrations in his deviantART gallery.

© John Norris

Check out John Norris’ MP5, Mitsubishi Eclipse and his other artworks at deviantART.

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Tracking Your Favourite Deviants via RSS
Masada ACWS Technical Drawing
Heckler & Koch Catalogue 2007
Russ Schwenkler (dangeruss) – Vexel & 3D Cars and Motorcycle Art
Wallpapers from JDM Option : Japanese Car Tuning and Modification Magazine

A new series of articles on some edutainment games that I have recently found from various sources so that we all can feel less guility when we’re supposed to be working on things that are more productive

First up is TypeRacer, discovered on Ian Timothy’s blog via the Ping.sg RSS feed. More games coming up in the following weeks as and when I find time to write about them.

Typeracer is an online-only game where you’re randomly matched with other players to type a quote from a book or movie. This game not only hones your typing skills but helps to maintain an perfect illusion of you working diligently (especially when you’re in the software line like me ) while you’re hard at work typing furiously during another round of Typeracer.

Your progress is tracked by a little Volkswagen beetle (product placement?) moving from left to right as you type, emphasizing the Racer part of Typeracer. I actually improved my typing speed by 2 to 3 words WPM after playing several rounds consecutively but I believe there’s a limit to the maximum WPM for someone like me who does not apply the proper typing fundamentals.

For the non-competitive or solitiare players, there’s always the Practice option for you to train up before unleashing your mad typing skillz in races with other Typeracers.

Play TypeRacer.

BACK @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Learning Your A.B.Cs with Viva Caligula

Don’t want to deceive anyone hunting for the actual Call of Duty 4 Limited Edition artbook that the PDF that I’m recommending today is the real deal – at least I hope it is isn’t because a 30 page book is an awfully thin artbook

© Activision / Infinity Ward

Anyway, I grabbed this PDF from the eclipse e-sports clanpages – it’s a fifteen page PDF formatted in double spread (which translates to 28 pages) and contains concept art and their transformation into onscreen graphics. The text is in German though – I doubt anyone would seriously bother about the text in an artbook

Screenshots of some of the pages in this mini-artbook.

© Activision / Infinity Ward

I would much prefer that Activision or Infinity Ward released the actual artbook as a free download like what 2K Games did for the Bioshock artbook for some extra publicity and fan love but hey, Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare is probably far too popular to need that extra boost of hype and publicity.

Download the Art of Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare Mini-Artbook and check out more concept art and renders at the ConceptArt.org Forums.

BTW, does anyone have the Limited Edition artbook? I would really to like to know how thick it is and whether it’s worth forking out the extra money for the Limited Edition.

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Alliance of Valiant Arms Wallpapers & Concept Art
Next-Gen Infantry Concepts from Tom Clancy’s EndWar
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Possible Influences for Weapons in Frontlines : Fuel of War

Titans of Steel : Warring Suns, the commercial sequel to the previously freeware Titans of Steel by the same developer Vicious Bytes has been released as freeware by its publisher Matrix Games since February 2008.

Being a fan of the original game, I must say Titans of Steel : Warring Suns’ definitely a much improved game although the notoriously unintuitive management interface has been carried over from its precedessor – newcomers will surely be confused by the usage of the next and back arrows to navigate through the management portion of the game

Beneath that interface lies a relatively deep and complex turn-based mecha (“Titans”) wargame where you can nurture a team of rookie pilots (“Jocks”) as they are sent into missions or campaigns against AI opponents.

Skill points can be distributed between the piloting, combat and miscellaneous skills (333 points each) and attributes can be improved by using the same number of skill points from all three categories per point. While improving attributes help increase base skill levels and maximum skill levels, a jock with high attributes but low skill levels is not likely to be of any assistance to his comrades on the battlefield.

Your jocks can only improve with combat experience by participating in any of the included campaigns and missions via Solitary Game > Start New Game > Load Team from File > Select Map > Load Mission / Load Campaign. I recommend the first campaign as a good introduction and target practice for your inexperienced jocks. Press F10 for mission objectives and optionally E for exit zone.

After a few missions, you can assign them to battle AI opponents in random maps to further boost their experience, attributes and skills. Credits earned after completion of each missions can be used for purchasing, repairing or customizing your titans with a selection of weapon, armour and equipment upgrades as well as for recruiting additional jocks to your team to a maximum of 8.

The in-game tutorial is very much recommended to grasp the finer points of titan piloting and combat before you even start creating your own team of jocks. Reading the included PDF manual is also a must if you intend to fully understand the significance of each stat and skill for your jocks as well the critical differences between the myriad of weapon and armour choices when buying or upgrading your titans. It’s only 48 pages long so it won’t take too long to read or at least glance through the contents.

A word of advice though, the rookie jocks and recon titans that you can recruit while assembling your team are at most one third as skilled as Tiger I and his Cobra light titan that you control the tutorial so be prepared to adjust your expectations or you might be severely discouraged when you see the dismal hit percentages when the actual slugfest begins

Thankfully the combat module of Titans of Steel : Warring Suns is a blast to play with the difficulty much toned down from the previous game – I still remember my team of jocks who would consistently fail at least one third of the movement skill checks and bruising their titans before even entering firing range of the enemy. The helpful auto-move feature also alleviates the tedious micro-management of the previous game while you’re advancing under relative safety (Alt + Right Click).

The event-based turns get a bit confusing at first as turns are assigned to jocks when certain events occur, e.g when any weapon on his titan are recharged and ready to fire (press x) or when his movement order is complete or even when encountering a new enemy titan (press (w,u,e), etc. After playing a while, it really becomes a very efficient and powerful way to manage the titans in your team. Pressing F3 can interrupt the jock’s current order for reassignment of new orders but may require a skill check while aborting the current order.

The clean functional graphics and sounds are nothing much to crow about since the main draw of this game is the RPG aspects of progressively upgrading your team of jocks and titans. The ungainly interface and relatively long battles (at the beginning when you have a team of rookies with equally crappy titans) mean that it’s not for everyone but for those with more than a passing interest in turn-based mecha combat, Titans of Steel : Warring Suns is a definite must-try.

Download Titans of Steel : Warring Suns 1.2.1 from Matrix Games.

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