The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

I recently restarted playing M. Sekiya’s freeware game Avaris which I found years ago and thought that it might be nice to introduce this rather obscure little game here.

Avaris pits you as the captain of a band of mercenary swordsmen and archers hired for the defense of the city of the same name (not sure it refers to the same Avaris of yore which the ancient Egyptians under Pharaoh Ahmose I liberated from their hated conquerors the Hyksos). No mention is made on the identity of your allies nor the invaders although the enemy infantry certainly does look a bit like the ancient Egyptian deities (at least to me), the snouted warrior resembling Set, the headgear of the archer resembling Osiris and the general himself resembling Amun respectively.

The game starts with the city of Avaris under siege and you being paid to assist in lifting the siege and eventually bring the battle to the enemy capital.

Before every battle, you can buy a better sword and/or shield for yourself before heading into the fray with your band of trusted mercenaries. Together with the allied armies (light blue in the mini-map), your mission is to eliminate the enemy’s general while protecting the general of your allies.

Skrimishes and melees occur automatically so your objective in each battle is to manuever your avatar and your small force of men to exploit and attack the weak points in the enemy armies (e.g the flank) while allied armies occupy and fix them in position. If you prefer a more aggressive style of play, you can charge straight into the army of the enemy general and cut him down before the sheer numbers overwhelm you and put an end to your mercenary career. Vanquishing an enemy general through your own personal valour also rewards you with an additional warrior to your warband.

Any other enemies that you and your mercenaries dispatch on the field of battle also adds to your experience level which will increase your hitpoints (Comes in really handy when all your men have been slain and you’re in hot pursuit by an entire enemy army ).

And what if your allies are crushed and start routing? Just keep out of reach of the pursuing armies until the battle ends (each battle lasts around 2 minutes of real time or until either general is killed) and live to fight another day

Download Avaris. (Click on the shiny blue button that says ダウンロード)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Mount & Blade
Legion Arena Review
War and Game – Military History Blog
Edutainment Games (III) – Know Your Gladiator & Medieval Armour

Since I’m cutting down on the posting frequency, here’s a trio of sites which I recommend for your game wallpapers fix. I regularly visit these sites to look for new wallpapers as well as to keep track of the new games that they promote. Incidentally these sites are also the top three results in Google Search when you enter the keywords game wallpapers or gamewallpapers

GameWallpapers.com is probably the most well-known of these three sites since their wallpapers appear on CDs and DVDs of the major game magazines. They also offer wallpapers in 16 different resolutions to suit almost all modern monitors (including widescreen ones) and even the PSP. Their wallpapers mainly focus on games from the bigger publishers and a paying subscription is required for some of their wallpapers.

Download wallpapers from GameWallpapers.com.

GameWallpapers.ru (no relation to the first site) is my second favourite game wallpaper site because they offer wallpapers for Russian-only games on top of the usual American and European games and MMORPGs. Wallpapers for most of 1C Publishing’s games are often showcased here before other wallpaper sites.

While the pop-up ads are a trite annoying, the selection of featured wallpapers is quite good. Some of the images seem to be re-compressed versions of the original wallpapers, probably to save bandwidth.

Download wallpapers from GameWallpapers.ru.

Best Wallpapers

Another good place to get wallpapers for the more commercial games. Only one resolution for each wallpaper is displayed which usually means that widescreen users are out of luck over here. Wallpapers are usually retained at their original quality or compressed at higher quality than most wallpaper sites which mnimizes the chance of downloading images with colour graphical artifacts.

Download wallpapers from Best Wallpapers.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Mini Language Reference for Download Junkies
Searching for Japanese Game Wallpapers

Read about this Heckler & Koch MP5 lookalike from The Firearm Blog. The GSG-5 series outwardly resemble their Heckler & Koch counterparts, namely the MP5, the MP5K and the MP5SD, but are chambered for the .22 LR HV. The Heckler & Koch MP5, of course needs no introduction, being one of the most recognisable post-WWII submachine gun designs in the world today.

© German Sports Guns

The manufacturers, German Sports Guns, aren’t the first to build Heckler & Koch replicas though – Red Rock Arms BW5s, Special Weapons SWA5s and Vector Arms V53s being three good examples.

Photos © American Tactical Imports

GSG-5P Pistol

Photos © American Tactical Imports

GSG-5PK Pistol

The official website of the American importer for the GSG-5, American Tactical Imports, has the obligatory technical specifications in PDF format for the three models of this semi-automatic firearm as well as a link to their Flickr account where you can view high-resoltuion promotional photos of their products as well as assorted marketing paraphernalia like this eyecatching poster of a lady wielding dual GSG-5PKs (just like in computer games ).

Photos © American Tactical Imports

German Sports Guns has a similiar ad for the GSG-5 (below) with the model holding the weapon in a more plausible and tactically more sensible stance

© German Sports Guns

More information at American Tactical Imports and German Sports Guns. (Info for the SD version of the GSG-5 which comes with a faux suppressor to mimic the MP5SD series is currently only available at the German Sports Guns website.)

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
H&K MP5 Vexel Art by John Norris (donbenni)
2nd Amendment Fonts (Firearm Silhouettes) & Other Cool Dingbat Fonts
Assault Rifle Basics Vidcasts
Tokyo Marui Airsoft Gun Wallpapers
Heckler & Koch Catalogue 2007

A selection of concepts from Isotx’s fascinating Iron Grip universe as seen in their RTS-FPS offering Iron Grip : Warlord. This richly detailed steampunk-ish universe specially created for Isotx’s Iron Grip series of games draws so many constrasting influences from the past, present and future that it’s incredibly diffcult to pigeonhole the world of Iron Grip as being defined by any single time period.

Below are just some of the combat scenes featured on the offcial Iron Grip : Warlord website.

© Isotx, Inc

There’s a Herran Legion General of the invading Fahrong Army in Napoleonic dress (complete with the trademark bicorne hat) and scale armour (!) on horseback leading a line of the dreaded Herrad Legionnaires in gasmasks and armed with WWII bazoookas.

© Isotx, Inc

Armour of the elite Herrad Legion is distinctively WWI (also note Prussian-style spiked pickelhaube helmet) together with the inclusion of kneepads and the occassional ancient/medieval helmet – note 11th century Italo-Norman helmet influence (inset).

© Isotx, Inc

Confederate troops with WWII-vintage bolt-action rifles and a S54 Scarab which looks suspiciously like a British Daimler Dingo armoured car (right) on the advance supported by a trio of the spiderlike steam-powered walker tanks aka Arachs in the background. The above artwork by Slawomir Maniak.

© Isotx, Inc

Concept art for the Confederate S75 “Ontos” tank by Keith Thompson. More concepts of the vehicles of Iron Grip at his personal website (yep, the same awesome Keith Thompson I wrote about some one and a half year back after a tipoff by the mysterious e)

© Isotx, Inc

The varied arsenal of the Atelian militia (the faction that you play as in Iron Grip : Warlord) – there’re revolvers and assault rifles, a Praetorian heavy machine gun (top left) which resembles a man-portable Browning M1917 machinegun and even an antiquated Gamonov Autofiring Handgun not unlike one of those early firearms (a flintlock possibly?) modified to load from a magazine.

© Isotx, Inc

A motley militia of poorly-armed and equipped Atelians illustrated by Slawomir Maniak. Of special interest is the foremost character (probably an Atelian warlord because of his better equipment) wearing a helmet partially inspired by that worn by a Roman murmillo gladiator (either that or the morion of a Spanish conquistador).

Check out more fantastic artwork from the official Iron Grip : Warlord website, devinatART, grab the wallpapers or explore the world of Iron Grip. There’s also a demo for Iron Grip : Warlord – more on that in the near future.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Keith Thompson’s Macabre Mechas
Killzone 2 Concepts
AT-43 Concept Art & Wallpapers
Command & Conquer : Red Alert 3 Units – Past and Present Inspirations
Metal Gear AC!D 1 & 2 Concept Art

Stomping Grounds is an addictive strategy/tactical casual game developed and released by aptly named Mind Control Software in 2006. Found out about Mind Control Software from a programming forum of all places

The single player campaign follows Leo the Lion as he travels the world in search of his missing brother Lee. He must recruit new members to his herd to battle against other hostile animals which would block his way on his journey.

Each encounter with an enemy herd on the map (above) involves six consecutive bouts known collectively as a Stomping Ground (and hence the title) which will really put your strategical and tactical skills to the test. The tactical aspect of choosing the correct target for your animals during each round isn’t all that difficult but the selection of up to eight animals for each fight will pose a serious challenge to your resource management abilities, especially at the beginning when Leo starts with a tiny herd of raw recruits.

Since animals must spend the next round recovering their strength after fighting (animals knocked out during a bout spend the next two rounds recuperating), you have to decide on the number and type of animals to deploy for each round depending on both the quality and size of your opponents as well as the prize at stake which can be new recruitable animals or food for your herd. Strategic choices abound for this team management portion of Stomping Grounds – should you hold the stronger animals back for later rounds or stretch your available forces thin in an attempt to win every single round?

Since you do not always have the numbers necessary to fight with the full complement of eight animals for each round, deployment becomes very tricky indeed. Even when there is a choice between two prizes, you must decide whether to pick the animal or food since there is also the need to collect a set amount of food at each stomping ground. Food is also required for improving the fighting prowess of individual animals in your herd after each victorious stomping ground. Recruiting more animals to your herd makes it easier to field larger numbers per round but also increases the number of mouths to feed and consequently reduces the amount of food available for upgrading your fighters.

Skipping battles is also possible when you perceive a low chance of victory or wish to conserve your units for the upcoming rounds. Do remember that each bout that you win not only rewards you with the prize at hand but also gives you a key that unlocks one of six treasure chests at the end of each stomping ground for additional food and animals so skipping battles should only be resorted as a last-ditch tactic.

The trial version offers you one full hour of gameplay which should allow you to at least complete the savanna and jungles ares of Stomping Ground against the gazelles and baboons in the singleplayer campaign.

Download the trial version of Stomping Grounds or purchase the full version for 19.95 USD (~29 SGD).

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
IGWB (II) – Battle of Tiles
Explore 3000 Rooms & Kill 10000+ Monsters in Meritous
Legion Arena Review
Combined Arms Warfare in Battalion : Nemesis
Brutal Football @ Abandonia