The Download Munkey

Art Friday : Heavenly Sword Animated Series

May 9th, 2008Roys4 comments

A wonderfuly animated five part series about the origins of the titular sword in Ninja Theory’s PS3 game Heavenly Sword and how Nariko, that lovely heroine with her distinctive flowing red tresses came to wield the sword.

It all started with a story of a holy warrior purportedly dispatched from the heavens above with his mighty sword to put an end to the murderous rampage of the merciless Ravenlord and his bloodthirsty warriors many generations ago.

The sword that the mysterious warrior left behind after defeating the Ravenlord later fell in the hands of mortals thus ensuring that death and bloodshed followed each successive wielder of the sword as ambitious men schemed and murdered in order to possess this powerful sword.

Watch the rest of the series to find out how the sword finally ended up in the hands of Nariko. Although the plot is rather cliched, it’s an engrossing piece of work, beautifully animated by the guys at Chase Animation Studio and well narrated enough to make it a must-watch for anyone who loves a good fantasy tale. A detailed list of credits can be found at FEED.

Watch the entire animated series at the official Heavenly Sword : Animated Series site.

While I try not to provide direct links, I figured that these gems might not be online forever, so here’s the direct download links for the five episodes (in Flash video ~20 MB each):
Episode 1 : The Legend of The Sword
Episode 2 : Guardians of The Sword
Episode 3 : The Rise of Evil
Episode 4 : The Divine Birth
Episode 5 : The Day of The Warrior

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Girls of Video Games Fanart @ Ryu’s Form Site
Kal Online Wallpapers
Legion of Man Demo Impressions : You Vs Many
Soul of the Ultimate Nation Trailers
Tenchu Z Official Wallpapers
Shinobido Imashime Opening Movie

Games Thursday : Tomb Chess - Ghoulish Ban Qi (半棋)

May 8th, 2008Roys9 comments

Tomb Chess is essentially similiar to the Half Chess (banqi) variant of Chinese Chess (xiangqi), albeit with wonderfully drawn undead and demonic pieces on a 6×6 chessboard / graveyard. Found this over at JayIsGames as usual

Tomb Chess can be played against the AI or hotseat against another human or even as a spectator sport while two AIs battle it out (of course, not to the dead since half of these guys are already dead in the first place )

The two players take turns to either unearth tombstones to reveal an undead creature which might belong to you (highlighted in red) or your opponent (in green) or move any existing creature already uncovered. In Tomb Chess (and similiarly in Half Chess), all pieces move the same way - one square in any of the four cardinal directions unlike in standard chess.

Tomb Chess is therefore much easier to pick up and less time-consuming to play but requires a bigger pinch of luck as opposed to the standard rules of chess due to the random locations of your pieces. There’s is still some strategy involved in selecting the most favourable tombstone to uncover as well as the need for improvisation of tactics to deal with the current situation at hand.

There are 6 different ghoulish creatures (or pieces in chess) in Tomb Chess arranged in ascending order of power.

Ghostly Pawn (Strength 1 : 8 pieces) - Essentially Pacman’s iconic ghosts. Although they get butchered by every other piece, guard them well since they are able to kill Demon Kings with a single headbutt

Rook of Doom (Strength 2 : 4 pieces) - A dagger-wielding ghoul on a drawcart. Reminds me of wheelchair-bound Doctor Finklestein from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Dark Knight (Strength 3 : 2 pieces) - Armed with a vicious mace to give Rooks of Doom and Ghostly Pawns a nasty bonk on their heads.

Satanic Bishop (Strength 4 : 2 pieces) - A mummified bishop to be exact.

Hellfire Queen (Strength 5 : 1 piece) - Inspired by the mythical Nagi, the Hellfire Queen that conquers all with a single swipe of her tail except for the Demon King.

Demon King (Strength 6 : 1 piece) - Bearing a slight resemblance to Demitri from Capcom’s Darkstalkers with extra pins on his head (probably as a conduit for the electricity he uses for frying his foes), the Demon King trumps everyone except for the lowly Ghostly Pawn.

Play Tomb Chess @ FreeWorldGroup.com.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Filler - Colour Strategy Game
Wodan : The Trial - Cute Strategy Game
Vantage Master Online - Tactical Fantasy Game
M.A.X - Mechanized Assault and Exploration @ Abandonia

Tags: Cute Flash Games

Wallpapers Wednesday : Lego Batman

May 7th, 2008Roys4 comments

Wallpapers for the Batman range of Lego mini-figs. Can’t wait for the upcoming Lego Batman : The Videogame to be released later this September since I’m a big fan of Traveller’s Tales games - their previous Lego Star Wars : The Videogame made me into a Star Wars fan.
Hopefully a romp through a Legofied Gotham City will change my opinion of the depressingly dark and gloomy Batman universe.

Also check out the six promotional comics for a quick primer on the major villains (below) as well as Batman’s garage of Legofied vehicles. Almost all the villains are present except for the strange omission of Catwoman. Hmmm….

More Dark Knight goodness in the exclusive debut trailer for Lego Batman : The Videogame which you can watch or download from Gametrailers.

Travellers Tales has another soon to be released Lego game in the form of Lego Indiana Jones : The Original Adventures but I think the Dark Knight is far cooler - although I have to admit that the exotic locations in Lego Indiana Jones as shown in the wallpapers do have their attractions

Apparently, Lego no longer has the Harry Potter license so I’m wondering which license they would use for the next Lego game -a Lego minifig version of The Lord of the Rings would be fantastic

Download the wallpapers or view the comics for Lego Batman.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Batman’s Batvan
BrikWars - War with Mini-Figs!
The Brothers Brick - Lego Blog

Tags: Comics Cute Games Lego Movies Videos Wallpapers

Military Tuesday : Lessons from BBC History Channel Games

May 6th, 2008Roys0 comments

A couple of educational flash games from BBC History Channel presenting two important battles from English history - the Battle of Hastings between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons under King Harold II and the Battle of Waterloo pitting the forces the Duke of Wellington against Napoleon Bonaparte. Both games allow you to exprience the battles from either side and the possible outcomes if either side had fought differently at critical points during each battle.

The Battle of Hastings : The Normans have infantry, archers and cavalry whereas the Anglo-Saxons is primarily a infantry based army.

A Norman victory (top) and an Anglo-Saxon victory (bottom)

The Battle of Waterloo : The heavily outnumbered French army has powerful artillery and better cavalry than the more numerous Seventh Coalition army comprising Belgian, Dutch, Hanoverian, Brunswick and British troops under the Duke of Wellington.

A Seventh Coalition victory (top) and a French victory (bottom)

Below, I present some of my findings after playing both games several times to discover all possible choices and outcomes.

While both battles took place in different eras, the same basic principle of preserving a mobile reserve to reinforce a successful breakthrough of enemy lines or to bolster a faltering defence or seal critical gaps in defensive lines is readily apparent.

Tactics of course vary according to the prevalent weapons of day. In the Battle of Hastings, the bristling spearpoints of the English shield wall provide an effective counter to Norman cavalry charges whereas infantry of the Napoleonic era form into equally immobile squares with their musket bayonets to deter enemy cavalry.

Above is Wayne Reynold’s illustration of the effectiveness of a solid shieldwall from the 11th December edition of Osprey Publishing’s “Advent Calendar”. Another shield wall is depicted by late Angus McBride on the 1st December edition.

These two battles still involve armies arrayed in formation against each other before the actual commencement of battle since massed infantry did not possess accurate ranged weapons to inflict substantial damage to their opponents during those times. This probably explains why the artillery were emplaced in front of the French infantry in the battle of Waterloo and the resulting disaster during the early days of WWI when armies attempted to use similar Napoleonic tactics in the face of vastly improved ranged weapons like rifles and machineguns.

The same lack of accurate long-ranged weapons could also make a heroic charge by leaders and their heavily-armored and armed bodyguards exemplified in the Battle of Hastings as a viable way of transforming a crisis into sure victory. A similiar valiant attempt would be pure suicide in today’s wars.

It’s apparent that tactical units have become smaller through the ages probably due to advancements in communication and signalling methods as well as the increased tempo of battle. The increased accuracy and destructiveness of artillery as it evolved over time was possibly a important factor too.

Play The Battle of Hastings and The Battle of Waterloo at BBC History Channel.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Osprey Publishing’s Military Art “Advent Calendar”
War and Game - Military History Blog
Wayne Reynolds’ Paizo Pathfinder Wallpapers
Legion Arena Review
Legion of Man Demo Impressions

Tags: Flash Games Military Recommended

Random Monday : Mecha Galore in A.C.E 3

May 5th, 2008Roys2 comments

This one’s specially for Mr Hardian

A.C.E 3 (or Another Century’s Episode 3 : The Final if you prefer) is a PS2 game by FROM Software, better known for their Armored Core series.

What’s interesting about this game is the sheer quantity of user-controllable mecha as documented in the Wikipedia article for A.C.E 3 - a whopping 103 mechas from 18 meta-universes in total.

Let me now try my hand at identifying all the mecha that I can find in the 2:46 min
intro trailer in the same order which they appear in the trailer.