The Download Munkey : Finder of Things …

Discovered John Cooney’s I Love Traffic off Armor Games’ official blog back in April this year – a a short 20-level puzzler combining elements of twitch gaming, quick thinking, pattern matching and estimation skills. I Love Traffic is refreshingly addictive for a game that contains no violence and has a soothingly pleasant colour palette to boot.

Inadequate allocation and (occassionally) criminally-neglient misplacment await you in each level as you control ALL the traffic lights in an attempt to prevent congestion while maintaining a perfect 0% accident rate at the same time.

One of the more sensible road designs

By controlling when each traffic light change from red to green and vice versa, you’ll attempt to squeeze as many vehicles across one or more junctions with every change of the traffic lights to beat the time limit and complete each level. If you think that juggling multiple traffic lights and atrocious road designs was already bad enough, the random appearance of speeding police cars, slow-moving buses and long trailers will definitely drive you bonkers. But then again, there’s nothing like seeing a lumbering trailer clear the junction moments before a police car streaks past.

The first ten levels are essentially confidence-building exercises – later levels especially the final level will really test your estimation skills and multi-tasking skills.

Play I Love Traffic at Armor Games or check out John’s other games.

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King’s Bounty : Armored Princess is an expansion pack to the 2008 remake of the original King’s Bounty which was the inspiration the Heroes of Might & Magic series.

© Katauri Interactive / 1C Company

For this expansion (a weird name,if you ask me), we have wallpapers of the titular Princess Amelie who’s pretty, not exactly well-armored and is apparently single and has a Nordic temper (interesting details but do we really need to know all that?) If yes, head on down to the English site where there’s more information about the game but is unfortunately missing the wallpapers.

Download King’s Bounty : Armored Princess wallpapers from the official Russian site.

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Quite enjoyed my complimentary copy of Faerie Solitaire from Subsoap (thanks Brian!) so here’s a little review of it and how it stacks up to Fairway Solitaire (recently reviewed here at The Download Munkey ).

First off, players familiar with good old Windows Solitaire will immediately feel at home in Faerie Solitaire. You see, unlike Fairway Solitaire where the underlying golf theme is closely tied into all aspects of the game, Faerie Solitaire definitely feels closer to an actual game of Solitaire albeit with a deck of cards adorned with fantasy illustrations. While this might suggest that Faerie Solitaire is inferior graphically and gameplay-wise, these differences actually work in Faerie Solitaire’s favour when it comes to really casual players like my mom (who still has difficulty relating pars and golf scores to their actual effect on each hand in Fairway Solitaire). The less cluttered screen also makes for faster gameplay which is why I much prefer Faerie Solitaire since I can blaze through 9 hands in under 10 minutes

Now, the gameplay in Faerie Solitaire is very similiar to Fairway Solitaire but it would be most unfair to dismiss Faerie Solitaire as a mere clone. The biggest difference between the two games apart from the obviously different graphical theme and sound effects would be the extra elements that carry over game after game in Faerie Solitaire to provide some continuity and replayability in what would otherwise be a series of Solitaire games.

You still have something similiar to Fairway Solitaire where you can buy optional game-enhancing items but there is now an extra incentive to continue playing each stage not only to unlock the next stage and advance the story. You see, Faerie Solitaire rewards long-term players with a selection of 32 little critters you can encounter and collect in your journey to save the faeries. It might seem a relatively minor addition but it does alleviate a lot of that repetitive feeling when there’s a (very small) chance to acquire a new creature in each hand that you play – and believe me, you can easily play over a hundred hands in a single hour

While the critters are an interesting diversion, the fact that they do not add any special abilities to your gameplay seems to be a rather superficial feature at best. Perhaps in a sequel

Overall, an interesting twist on the solitaire genre which will appeal to players who are looking for an addictive card game that’s simple to learn and play. The lovingly illustrated cards (I love the swamp lizards on the 6s) and the dreamy background music add a sparkly magical experience without overly distracting the player from the actual card game.

Download the demo for Faerie Solitaire from www.subsoap.com. The full version is now available for purchased at Big Fish Games at a promo price of 6.99 USD.

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Wallpapers for Combat Arms published by Nexon Corp. It’s another multiplayer FPS I know – sorry if I’ve been posting wallpapers for games of this genre lately since I’m currently on a mission to find the wallpapers for as many of these multiplayer online-only FPSes (at least for those with a modern military theme)

© Nexon Corp

I sometimes find it strange that given the popularity of these modern military multiplayer FPSes, there is an interesting dearth of good predominantly singleplayer FPSes with the same theme – I can only recall Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare and the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas series at the moment.

Download these Combat Arms wallpapers from the Nexon site.

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I’ve been a fan of rally racing games for the PC after playing Colin McRae Rally 2.0 (CMR 2.0) years ago. It was probably the first racing game that I actually played for months at end because 4WD rally cars were easier to drive and tended to spin less frequently. Each stage was a individual event which meant you competed to beat the time record alone instead of competing with other drivers at time.

Colin McRae Rally 2005 continues this fine tradition with more cars, more stages and of course more visual eye candy. Gameplay-wise, it’s nearly the same as CMR 2.0 (I missed out on CMR 3 and CMR 04 because my computer back then was crap), but it’s now only USD 9.99 as a digital download on GOG.com so you might want to give the demo a test drive.

The demo contains three stages to race in – a gravel/mud stage in th UK (Gwyddelwern), a tarmac/gravel stage in Germany (Niederlauterbach) and a snow/ice stage in Sweden (Hjalmarson). Two 4WD cars (Peugeot 206 and Toyota Celica GT4) and the classic RWD Lancia Stratos are available in the demo with an additional 31 other cars in the full game.

Aesthetically speaking, the car and damage modelling is way ahead of CMR 2.0 and the mud and rain on your windscreen when you drive around with the in-car camera is really impressive.

The graphics for the tracks themselves are a mixed bag though as most objects are 3D while others are still unmistakably 2D – the biggest eyesore being the sprites for the cheering crowds – which jar the immersion facto quite a bit. You’ll probably not notice these graphical niggles when you’re hurtling along narrow forest dirtpaths at full speed with the responsive controls though

The improved detail of each stage is not only in terms of visual quality but also translates to additional complexity for the player. You’ll really need to listen carefully to your co-driver/navigator as he reads out the turns ahead since some of the turns aren’t visible from the in-car view until you fly off the track

Like its predecessors, the only music is the whine of high powered engines and the crackle of dirt being ignited by the hot exhaust fumes when you slow down. Besides, you need to concentrate on driving and pay attention to your navigator

Download the demo for Colin McRae Rally 2005 (cnet.com mirror) or buy the full game at GOG.com.

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