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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Wallpapers and character concepts from Magna Carta II (the RPG series, not the historical legal document) featuring the unmistakably distinctive style of Korean artist Hyung Tae Kim – note the extremely detailed costumes and shoes and of course, his trademark female character designs, all with excessively well-proportioned figures.

© Softmax Co, Ltd

Wallpapers are now out at the official Korean and Japanese sites for Magna Carta II with Hyung Tae Kim’s characters superimposed on environmental concepts for the game.

© Softmax Co, Ltd

Three styles of Juto & Zephie

The separate character (2D, 3D and SD) and environmental concepts can be found in the fansite kit at the official Japanese site and more artwork can be seen at an unofficial Hyung Tae Kim fansite @ www.hyung-taekim.org or at Chae Ji Yun’s blog where there’s several high-resolution versions of the same character concepts from the fan site kit. BTW, www.hyung-taekim.org and Chae Ji Yun’s blog are two of the many recommendations from artist Leonid Kozienko’s personal web site (well worth a visit if you’re into glorious eye candy )

© Softmax Co, Ltd

Download the wallpapers from the Korean and Japanese sites for Magna Carta. The fan site kit is only available at the Japanese site though (scroll to the bottom and click on the button that says 規約に同意してダウンロードする ).

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Wallpapers for Chrono Trigger, one of my personal top 3 RPGs for the Super Famicom (or SNES) – undoubtedly a very skewed list since I have only completed the same number of RPGs for that console – Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG and Final Fantasy V.

© Square Enix Co, Ltd

Memorable characters and an engaging storyline with a time travelling theme made this one of the most unforgettable RPGs I’ve ever played for any platform – spunky crossbow-wielding princess Marle being my favourite character. In terms of storyline and plot progression, one of the better RPGs that I played recently and heartily recommend would be SCP’s freeware RPG Exit Fate released just a while back (read my impressions).

© Square Enix Co, Ltd

Download these wallpapers from the official site for Chrono Trigger (look under Downloads).

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Introducing Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition, a little freebie I found at the official World of Warcraft goodies page while looking for a HD version of Mr T’s old WoW commercial featuring his custom Night Elf Mohawk. (What? You don’t know Mr T?) While I’m not a fan of World of Warcraft, but hey, a free game is a free game

Popcap’s Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition is essentially a free sampler of their original best-selling Peggle comprising 2 stages of five colourful World of Warcraft themed levels each. Resembling pachinko or “Japanese pinball”, the player has to eliminate all orange pieces by play by shooting at them directly or indirectly (duh )

It differs from pinball in the sense that that are no flippers which greatly simplifies gameplay since it’s a game intended for casual gamers but apart from that, it’s loaded with lots of blinking lights, whizzy sound effects and insane scores in the hundreds of thosuands, just like being at a pinball table.

Despite its apparent simplicity, it’s oddly addictive since most of the later levels require more than a fair bit of logic and puzzle-solving skills – you can’t just mindlessly shoot and hope to clear the level with pure luck – just see this strategy page for Peggle. As for replayability, there’s really little incentive in replaying levels after you’ve completed them unless you’re aiming to bust the high scores table. There is however the Challenge mode to boost the longevity factor although it’s mainly aimed for the masters or hardcore fanatics.

If you like Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition, there’s always the original Peggle with 55 levels and playable on a mind-boggling array of platforms – PC, Mac, Nintendo DS, iPod Touch, iPhone, mobile phones, online and even as a free 12 level World of Warcraft addon.

Download Peggle : World of Warcraft Edition.

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Filler (Puzzle Game)

An enhanced shareware version of Battleship, the classic turn-based game for two in which each player attempts to be the first to sink all his/her opponent’s ships, Strategy Lights Series’ Battleship WW2 Gold Edition is an innovative PC-based version that adds substantial depth to the original game with a selection of well-thought out features.

Don’t judge Battleship WW2 by the archaic in-game graphics because under those utilitarian visuals lies a solid, engaging naval strategy game – or a wargame-lite if you will. Definitely more realistic than pencil-and-paper Battleship, Battleship WW2 is no hardcore naval stimulation by any means though – lightly-armed corvettes aren’t likely to sink a battleship, not in this modern age and definitely not back then in WWII, but they do in this game.

Loads of stuff to play with … if you buy the full version, of course

If you can overlook this slight lapse in realism, you’ll find Battleship WW2 perfect as a simple introductory naval strategy/wargame. With 50 types of ships, submarines, planes and coastal artillery and a larger fleet that can move around on a significantly larger playing area, you can simulate historical scenarios with ease – something you definitely cannot do with the original Battleship game.

Since ships have different radar ranges to detect enemy ships and planes and in addition, only select classes have sonar to detect those nasty submarines, there’s loads of strategy involved in tailoring your battle fleet before starting each mission and when manuevering during the actual mission – a battlefleet comprising only the mightiest battleships may look good on paper but will quickly succumb to enemy submarines which can approach undetected and then make quick work of the entire fleet of behemoths without any fear of retaliation.

Sure, you’ll still need battleships, heavy cruisers and their heavy firepower to destroy enemy capital ships and/or aircraft carriers with fighters to defend against marauding torpedo-bombers and bombers to attack coastal fortifications but a combined fleet with corvettes/destroyers steaming farther ahead to screen these larger ships from prowling enemy submarines stands a much better chance of completing the mission successfully. Other essential ships to reinforce your fleet include unarmed auxiliary ships to repair damaged warships and of course, submarines to hunt for unwary targets.

Battleship WW2 uses attributes like movement range, firing range, radar/sight range, number of shots per turn (simulating the number of guns/torpedoes on each ship) and armour (hitpoints) to represent the different classes of ships available. It does a very good job differentiating the various ships, but the fact that hits from a cruiser and a corvette both cause exactly the same amount of damage does jar the realism somewhat.

Hunting the Bismarck

Different mission objectives call for different fleet configurations and range from the direct annihilation of enemy shipping to liberation of enemy ports or the defense of friendly ports in the area of operations.

More missions! … if you buy, buy, buy

The full version of Battleship WW2 contains a total of 110 missions, 4 campaigns of 10 to 15 missions each and allows the construction of all 50 types of units to equip your forces. The shareware version lacks the campaigns and most of the missions and ships. Still, there’s a lot of fun to be had experimenting with the optimum fleet build and testing them out in battle

Download Battleship WW2 Gold Edition.

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