The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

If you’re into electronic music, you’ll recognize some of these machines that shaped early electronic music : Roland’s legendary trio of the TR-808, TR-909, the TB-303 (acid!) synthesizers.

Together with a selection of effects processors, Hobnox’s Audiotool allows you to produce tracks for free (much thanks to GeekNews for the heads up)

While Hobnox provides a video tutorial on the basics of using Audiotool and the virtual TR-909 and the TB-303, knowing how to use the equipment doesn’t translate proportionally to your ability to create music. I’m been fiddling with Audiotool for hours and I still can’t figure out how to create decent drum n’ bass beats.

The default drum n’ bass setup

I did create a simple 4/4 track which you can torture your ears with over here – a crappy example of tweaking the various knobs and buttons – I didn’t create enough patterns to substantially evolve the rhythms and basslines though.

Try out Audiotool.

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Despite the overload of flashing ads flooding Gametop.com, some of the freely downloadable games there are actually quite good. There’s currently a list of 80+ (and growing!) free games and as befits Gametop.com’s motto, are genuinely free without any hidden catch – you don’t even need to register to download

Obviously, you won’t find any Game of the Year winners in here but there’s quite a good selection of casual gaming gems at Gametop.com for those five to ten minute gaming breaks.

Below are my five recommended picks with a brief description of each one.

1. RIP3

An arena shooter by Elephant Games with some really quirky characters – how many games give you the chance to play the Grim Reaper?. Blast away truckloads of enemies, upgrade your skills, pick up new tools of destruction and repeat. RIP3 is best savoured in frequent small doses as the over-the-top bodycount tends to numb the mind (and trigger finger) after playing for too long. A more detailed look at this game in the near future.

Download RIP3.

2. Pirates : Battle for The Carribean

Defend your island stronghold, protect friendly convoys or simply survive the onslaught of various kinds of ships from the Age of Sail – galleys, galleasses, caravels, huge galleons and even nasty wooden ballistic submarines. As usual, kill everyone shooting at you, upgrade your little island fortress and repeat.

Download Pirates : Battle for The Carribean.

3. Star Sword

A mouse-controlled shoot-em up which grants your space destroyer incredible agility (and makes it a bit too easy for hardcore shoot-em-up fans). Upgrade your ship and weapons after each stage.

Download Star Sword.

4. Extreme Racers

A decent arcade racer which encourages frequent use of the nitro boost since the other cars are incredibly quick. Graphics are reasonably OK but don’t expect GFX like motion blurring and high quality shadows.

Download Extreme Racers.

5. Forex: Learn to Trade

I’m not too sure this one can be categorized as a game (perhaps a business simulation?) Watch the realtime graphs, plan and send your orders and watch your virtual profits soar. Now if it was so easy in real life

Download Forex : Learn to Trade.

More downloadable games can be found at Gametop.com. Subscribe to their RSS feed to be notified of new additions to the list of free games.

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I always enjoy collecting wallpapers featuring ensembles of the various characters in games and comics. Can’t recall the exact word now but I remember reading about a collective noun for superheroes … (Wordlab suggested fraility and a forumer at PPRuNe mentioned halo)

Basically, I meant walllpapers like this one from Marvel Comics, …

© Marvel Comics

… Mortal Kombat : Armageddon, …

© Midway Games

not forgetting DC Comics, …

© DC Comics

Transformers, …

© IDW Publishing

and of course, the wallpaper of the day by Dean Fraser who runs Springfield Punx – 88 of his creations in a single wallpaper

© Dean Fraser

Download this wallpaper and marvel at Dean’s other Simpsonized creations at Springfield Punx.

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Pobediteli : Soldiers of the Great War (or Victors in Russian) is an award-winning Russian interactive multimedia resource which retells major events of the war on the Eastern Front during WWII, starting with Operation Barbarossa, the over-ambitious German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Completed in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, Pobediteli was one of the 5 winners in the e-culture category of the World Summit Award that year.

Watch the offensives and counterattacks unfold on a virtual map of Eastern Europe and Russia, complete with rarely-seen footage from the archives and first-hand accounts by Red Army veterans which provide insights of the conflict from the men and women who fought against the German invaders during the war.

A Russian Il-2 pilot recounts a chance encounter with a flight of Ju 87 Stukas

Pobediteli allows you to appreciate the scale of the conflict in ways that books can’t – especially when you visualize the relentless advance of the German panzer armies towards Moscow in 1941 as well as the equally breakneck charge of the victorious Soviet armies towards Berlin in 1945 on the animated map.

The German gains by the end of 1941

The endgame : Berlin surrounded by the victorious Red Army

The video clips show memories of victory – Soviet infantry advancing on the German Reichstag with the Soviet flag in hand.

… of defeat – Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at the surrender of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.

… and the devastation of war – the city of Minsk reduced to rubble.

Learn more about war on the Eastern Front with Pobediteli : Soldiers of the Great War

UPDATE (01 Dec 2009) : Keir has very kindly pointed out that there is a downloadable version for viewing offline. (click on the first link – a 133 MB RAR file – 7-Zip or WinRAR will be needed to extract the files from the RAR archive)

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A satirical boardgame from TerrorBull Games on the War on Terror. The colourful box art and card artwork by Tom Morgan-Jones initially attracted my attention as the artistic style reminded me of Quentin Blake’s pieces for Roald Dahl’s series of books. However, the Empire and Terrorist cards with their illustrations and witty little captions are quite possibly the main draw among the contents of the game package (which includes a balaclava incidentally )

© TerrorBull Games

Whatever your opinions on the actual War on Terror, terrorism and the War on Terror isn’t something that can be easily nor clearly defined as right or wrong. Take this Terrorist Upsurge card from the board game as an example.

© TerrorBull Games

Some of favourite cards include Terrorist Attack, Nuclear Disarmament and Spin the Axis of Evil. Yes, this boardgame even comes with a Axis of Evil spinner built into the gameboard.

© TerrorBull Games

© TerrorBull Games

I haven’t seen this in Singapore before – TerrorBull Games does ship the game worldwide at £29.95 (inclusive of postage and packing) if you’re suitably impressed

Meanwhile, you can go have a look at the official War on Terror – The Boardgame site where you can find Rules and the Empire Cards and Terrorist Cards galleries.

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