The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

No idea how I missed out writing about this slick game Mastermind : World Conqueror produced by Michael Swain last year. Still, it’s not too late to enjoy this Flash game where you get to unleash your inner despot while conquering Earth in style.

Mastermind : World Conqueror lets you plot and scheme your way to world domination via a sleek and atrractively animated menu-like interface. The voice acting is superb too – I just love how the narrator pronounces “minions” in a Dr Evil-esque kind of voice.

The tutorial gently eases you into the devilishly simple process of taking over the world by hatching and carrying missions to steal technology and cash to facilitate more grandiose plans like brainwashing the population of an entire continent. For your schemes to work, you will need minions, general purpose lackeys who will execute your missions, staff your illicit businesses and become part of your mini private army when the good guys come knocking at your door.

Choose your #2 from twelve different heinous henchmen to bolster your defences and teach those foolhardy do-gooders a lesson. On the operational end, you can hire up to a total of three patsies to supervise your goons and confer various bonuses to each of your diabolical schemes depending on their individual specialities. And if you ever decide to hire a new replacement, you can always rely on your trusty minions to bump off one of the existing patsies during a mission.

For a change of scenery, you can opt to purchase and switch your base of operations around the globe, be it a humble office, a Irish castle, a jungle base or the ultimate in villainous living, a lunar base, each with its own pros and cons.

While stealing technology essentially unlocks new powers e.g toxic gases, new weapons to arm your minions and more powerful turrets to better defend your base against those meddlesome good guys , you still need cold hard cash to purchase all these goodies (on top of hiring a load of nameless minions for all your dirty work) and conduct certain types of missions.

Money is the key to end all your woes. Your ups, your downs, your highs and your lows – Run-DMC were right on the money on this one

Basically, all Mastermind : World Conqueror requires is that you strike a fine balance between these two priorities until you amass enough cash which then makes collecting the remaining technologies and later conquering Earth, a rather trivial matter indeed.

The first 10 to 20 minutes will probably be the most hectic time of your evil career when you have to stave off the good guys while maintaining a healthly bank account for implementing your more ambitious plans to bring the entire world to its knees. Do remember to equip your minions with new weapons or use your newly acquired defense powers by clicking on the shield with the red cross at the top – it makes defeating enemy attacks much easier (provided correct tactics are used, of course).

Take over the world now in Mastermind : World Conqueror.

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During the recent merger between Gray Solutions and Beige Dynamics, the HR division devised a revolutionary new system to better empower their employees by allowing them to weed out the less capable ones among them, division by division, thus creating a leaner and more efficient corporation as a result.

Welcome to HRmageddon, yet another tongue-in-cheek parody of corporate culture developed by THUP Games and published by the wickedly cool people at Adult Swim. As with any AdultSwim game, there’s bound to be a bit of their trademark mature themes in there but it’s generally all good old tactical squad-based action.

Four different personnel stereotypes are yours to hire : managers provide defensive bonuses to their co-workers but are useless on their own, receptionists are masters in delivering volleys of staples to the faces of the opposition, salesmen zip around dealing massive damage with their equally huge bar charts and IT guys generally mess around with computers and disrupt multiple enemies in the vicinity with abilities like Server Crash.

Pick your six staff wisely and get ready to wipe the opposing division off the new company’s payrolls. Simply take over the required number of cubicles in the office to forcefully retrench the rival division (you can’t work when you don’t have a cubicle to work in, can you) or better still, literally terminate them all (permanently). There’s no limitation to how many employees of each type you can hire in your division, which partially explains why the corporation wants to cut costs – anyone who has ever worked in a place where there were more managers than workers will definitely understand

While it’s obviously just a game, some of the fundamental (and unwritten) rules of work still apply here – pay raises always boost staff morale – but their supposedly positive impact on employee health in real life is still a hotly debated topic Also more coffee = more power (for special attacks) – although I’ll like to readily admit that IT guys like me are more prone to cause server crashes (accidently, of course) from lack of coffee than with more coffee as depicted in-game

The tactical gameplay is surprisingly deep due to the the number of possible division setups – 720 – as the factorial of 6 proves (see, maths is good for you). Understanding how and when to use each special attack for each character for maximum effectiveness as well as how each of your staff complements the others is crucial for victory.

Every cubicle that you control for your division further increases the offensive bonus for your entire division so you have to strike a fine balance in your strategy between a wholescale murder of your rivals and a all-out race for the cubicles.

There’s also several power-ups to be collected, some which will affect your strategy depending on which character picks them up – clone a speedy salesman with the copier to quickly grab more cubicles or a manager for extra healing support for a sustained battle with your foes. For those random effect powerups, you’ll just have to make do with what they confer on your fortunate (or unfortunate) employees and re-adjust your strategy accordingly.

Definitely loads of fun to be had in HRmageddon especially if you like your tactical games sprinkled with a generous dose of irreverent humour.

Play HRmageddon – as recommended by Indie Games

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1066 – the year Duke William of Normandy was crowned King of England after successfully invading and defeating the English led by King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings on the 14th of October that year. Vikings commanded by King Harald Hardrada of Norway had landed in northern England a month earlier and gained a foothold there after crushing the outnumbered forces of Earls Morcar and Edwin during the Battle of Fulford. The English later defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge but had to quickly march southwards after that battle in an attempt to repel the Norman invasion and the exhausted state of the English army has often been cited as the major factor for the eventual Norman victory.

The Vikings

The English

The Normans

All three battles are playable in this wonderfully animated game developed by Preloaded for British TV network Channel 4. The single player campaign places the player in control of all three factions – the Vikings at the Battle of Fulford, the English at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and finally, the Normans at the Battle of Hastings. The Vikings excel in ferocious charges, the English form steady shieldwalls while the Normans are the medieval equivalent of a combined arms force. Alternatively, the game can be played in skirmish and multiplayer modes which are handy for simulating hypothetical scenarios with different army setups.

A combination of strategy, tactics and a trio of mini-games awaits in 1066 and yes, those mini-games will essentially decide the fate of the British Isles.

Before a battle, each side summons their warriors to battle via a points system similiar to tabletop miniatures games. The sight of warriors flocking to your banner as you add them to your army is a glorious thing indeed.

After choosing your warriors, deploy them on the battlefield taking into consideration the forces arrayed againist you as well as impassible locations on the map which will offer advantages for defensive moves during the actual battle.

Each turn, both sides plan their orders and then the orders are executed simultaneously in an arbitrary manner. Thus, two units may charge each other while trying to move to more favourable positions or an infantry unit may have rushed forward in an attempt to charge only to find that their target has withdrawn from range.

The tactical portion of 1066 involves maneuvering your units into formations for bonuses. Outflanking isolated units by moving two units above and below it is a great technique to rout shaken units off the battlefield with minimal loss of lives.

Three infantry units arranged in a vertical row will lock their shields together to form a shieldwall which confers additional defensive bonuses and is particularly useful for withstanding a cavalry charge.

Boar snouts are formed by moving three infantry units into a wedge formation and coupling this formation together with a charge into enemy lines can be very devastating to unprepared or wavering units.

Careful thought must be put in the movement of each melee unit as the two armies close in – charging with its substantial shock damage is very important and can only occur when a fair distance separates the two opposing units (indicated by a red arrow instead of the usual white arrow when moving the unit).

When the two sides eventually clash, melees are resolved between individual units one at a time. Melee damage is calculated by how accurately you press the cursor keys as they appear on the screen (akin to rhythm games like Beatmania) while the effectiveness of your archers is strictly determined by your skill in gauging the correct angle and power needed to release a hail of arrows directly onto the heads on your enemies. It’s always amusing to watch inept enemy archers fire into the backs of their own infantry until you commit the same mistake or fire indiscriminately into a swirling melee and wound more of your troops than the enemy’s.

Taunting and calling your enemy names can be a very effective tactic in a hard-fought battle since a series of perfectly-executed taunts can quickly knock down enemy morale and rout units with already flagging morale. It all depends on your typing speed though

Hmm … Foxbeard … not sure my morale would drop if someone called me that

Thus, while you may be a superb tactician, your reflexes must be equally as good to win most battles since they often involve close fights between two evenly-matched forces of roughly similiar numbers (which means more mini-games). For the reflex-challenged, I recommend playing at the lower difficulty levels since they offer a better test of your strategical and tactical abilities without overly demanding that you perform very well in the mini-games.

Play 1066. Thanks to g4g.it for featuring this game on their site, wouldn’t have found it otherwise.

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Dragon Fist 3 – a must-play game if you have ever wondered who would come out victorious if the legendary Bruce Lee had challenged the folklore hero Wong Fei Hong to a fight or if a Chinese broadsword (大刀 – used in battle as recently in 1933 during Operation Nekka) was superior to the spear or even a Japanese katana?

Now here’s your chance to prove your theories with Ben Oldings’ awesome fighting game with over 32 fighters – some legendary heroes in Chinese folklore, others movie stars and the rest probably fictional – and look, there’s even a Shaolin monk and Japanese swordmaster Miyamoto Musashi in here. All carry a weapon ranging from exotic hook knives to nunchaku and even throwing stars for the ninjutsu proponents.

Each fighter has his/her own special move like Billy Lo who packs a gut-busting one inch punch or Mr Lee who unleashes a flurry of rapid kicks to his unfortunate opponent’s chest and face.

Combat is a tactical affair with fighters trading punches and kicks and evasion and parrying thrown into the mix. Evasion is more effective than parrying for certain characters – especially Li Mu Bai from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon who jumps like a kangaroo Of course, with so many characters you’re likely to meet opponents who seem nigh impossible to beat with your current character like the pair of Dragon Guards who quickly make short work of reckless unarmed fighters with their Chinese halberds (关刀) but the game is fairly balanced on the whole.

There’s a lot of different techniques and combinations to keep things interesting, some of the basic ones being simply whack your opponent hard enough to charge up your power meter to execute special moves or string up a series of punches and kicks to knock your opponent to the ground (watch the red meter above the the health bar) Weapons can also make fights easier to win with their range advantage (when used properly, of course) but they also prevent your fighter from using their special moves.

Alternatively, sweep your unwary opponents off their feet, grab their weapon and hit them back with it. Throw your flying knives or grab that pesky defensive, parrying opponent and then follow up with your special move – just two more ways to dominate any fight.

A character editor is also unlockable to create your fantasy characters once you’ve completed the game at the Beginner difficulty.

Obviously, Ben Olding’s tribute to kungfu movies and games, Dragon Fist 3 emphasises playability over realism although the different kungfu styles that each character adopts is very convincingly animated, plus it’s always fun to watch Beggar Su’s fighting in his drunken fist style. Besides, there aren’t many games for the PC that allow you to argue the relative merits of kungfu styles and melee weapons – the PS had the unique Bushido Blade at least.

Download or play Dragon Fist 3 : Age of the Warrior online.

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Caught this promotional mini-game for Theatre of War 2 : Africa 1943 published by Battlefront who created the very fine Combat Mission series, from the equally fine Tacticular Cancer (which would be even finer (more fine?) with a RSS feed ).

It’s time to show the world the power of Italian armour!

Choose one of four nations – USA, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, represented by the M4 Sherman, Valentine Mks I/II/III, Tiger I and Ansaldo-Fiat M15/42 respectively and wage all-out armoured warfare!

If you’ve played games like Benoit Freslon’s Nano War, Rudolf Kremers and Alex May’s surrealist Dyson or even Dreamspike Studios’ Space War Commander, you’ll know what you’re already in for – an abstract game of resource management and conquest. Each of the bases under your control generates tanks which you can then deploy to garrison other friendly bases or to launch attacks to conquer neutral or enemy bases.

Your tanks will engage any opposition in its path while on the move so take that into account when reinforcing your bases near enemy territory or when planning a major offensive deep into enemy territory – hardly advisable with a small force when you have to run a gauntlet of enemy bases to reach your final objective. Battles between tank groups on the move always favour the larger groups so it might be wise to assemble larger battle groups at bases nearer to the enemy instead of attacking piecemeal.

The game may seem deceptively simple but a population cap on each base i.e each base can only produce a fixed number of tanks, means that a wise commander will keep an eye on rear bases which have produced their maximum allotment of tanks and move thems to reinforce the forward bases to allow these bases to start production again, hence increasing the overall number of tanks in your army.

Coupled with the map layout and the occassional unfair advantage AI nations have in numbers and default base location, this Theatre of War 2 : Africa 1943 mini-game can be very challenging at times – I gave up trying to complete level 3.

It’s a pity that the nation you select doesn’t seem to make any difference to the gameplay since that would make an even more tactically challenging game – I would have expected that Germany would generate their more powerful Tigers at a lower rate but it appears that they are churned out as fast as Shermans and go down like one.

Play this Theatre of War 2 mini-game over at Battlefront.

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