The Download Munkey : Download This, Download That :)

Some cool concepts from the upcoming Star Wars : The Force Unleashed game as well as from the older Star Wars : Empire At War RTS series.

© Lucasfilm Entertainment Company

My favourite piece is this one showing Jedi Master Shaak Ti and three other rancor-riding Jedi attacking a secret apprentice of Darth Vader. One of those fearsome rancors is illustrated in greater detail below.

© Lucasfilm Entertainment Company

The secret apprentice using the dark side of the Force to bring a gigantic Imperial Star Destroyer crashing down onto a bustling city before bringing it to a halt right in front of him. There’s footage of this amazing feat over at E3 2007 trailer @ Gametrailers (below).

© Lucasfilm Entertainment Company

Next up is Empire At War : Force of Corruption concept art from the fansite kit (FSK) of developer Petroglyph Games. There’s loads of concepts for various land and space vehicles from the Star War Expanded Universe + assorted artworks in the FSK like the one below.

© Petroglyph Games

Darth Vader : Aspiring Graffiti Artist - How can any Darth Vader fan miss out on this one

© Petroglyph Games

A MPTL-2A mobile proton torpedo launcher of the Rebel Alliance.

© Petroglyph Games

A T4-B heavy tank, also of the Rebel Alliance

© Petroglyph Games

Crusader class corvette in the service of the naval fleets of crimelord Tyber Zann.

© Petroglyph Games

An Imperial SPMA-T (Self-Propelled Mobile Artillery - Turbolaser) - reminds me of the Spider Kbot from the classic RTS Total Annihilation.

© Petroglyph Games

Concept for the badass Defiler unit of the Zann Organization.

View the Star Wars : The Force Unleashed concepts or download the Petroglyph Games / Empire At War : Force of Corruption fansite kit from Petroglyph Games Community Site.

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While Giga Rensya’s mini-games are never going to win any awards for deep gameplay, some of these mini-games are guaranteed to keep you at the computer for the next 5 to 10 mins or so. Furthermore there’s a total of 23 mini-games to choose from starring the cat-like (Qoo-like?) creatures Kutar that appear in every single game.

While there’s several that stand above the rest, I’ve decided to list all of the available games for the sake of completeness together with short instructions for each since it’s not always apparent what you need to achieve in some of these games. I’ll introduce the first 12 games in alphabetical order of their filenames and leave the rest for next week.

To install each game, just press enter when you run the setup files and they will extract the game into a subfolder.

Apple

© Giga-Rensya

Frankly speaking, there isn’t much much fun to be had here - holding down the left and right mouse buttons will move Kutar left or right respectively to collect falling apples and acorns. Stay clear of the mushrooms through as collect a single one of them will end the game.

Balloon

© Giga-Rensya

Distribute balloons to the visitors at the theme park - give the little ones small balloons (left click) and the big Kutars the regular ballloons (right click). Things get hectic quickly and be alert for queue jumpers.

Sword Master

© Giga-Rensya

Not sure what’s the lightsaber-wielding samurai doing on stage here. Left click and right click to strike left or right. You need to hit those lightsaber ninjas only when they are within striking distance and one missed stroke means it’s game over (somehow reminds me of iaido).

Concert

© Giga-Rensya

Giga Rensya’s latest game pits you as a crowd control specialist at a J-Pop concert where your job is to keep the overenthusiatic crowd in line (literally). Left click on anyone who steps out of line to push them back but push an innocent fan and you’re out of a job.

End Roll

© Giga-Rensya

Steer your bike left (left click) or right (right click) and avoid those stones.

Hip Dance

© Giga-Rensya

Left and right click to throw your hands in the air! Oh and remember to follow the leader.

Harvest

© Giga-Rensya

Left and right click to dodge the obstructions when harvesting in the most incredibly obstacle-strewn wheat field in the world.

Ikki

© Giga-Rensya

Mash your left button to an attempt to quaff all the water from the water dispenser in record time. A surefire way to destroy the left mouse button (even better than Diablo II!)

Kodomo

© Giga-Rensya

Choose the correct Kutar with the colour formed by mixing the colours of the two Kutar that appear on the stage. 10 seconds are given for choosing the correct Kutar for each pair and points are awarded for each second remaining on the clock. Take your time to think carefully since the wrong answer ends the game.

Powder

© Giga-Rensya

Left and right click and move Kutar to collect the powder sprinkled from the hose above. (why can’t they just get a longer pipe?) Don’t let the powder fall anywhere else but the bag!

Lift

© Giga-Rensya

Left click at the right moment to help push those lazy butts onto the ski lift.

Lift X

© Giga-Rensya

Left click at the right moment to help push those lazy butts onto the ski lift. Oh wait, sounds exactly like Lift above which it is except for a set of lovely Christmas themed graphics.

Download these games from Giga Rensya or check out Independent Gaming Freeware Database where I found these games. Stay tuned for the rest next Thursday!

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A total of nine PC wallpapers, three PSP wallpapers, a iPod Touch wallpaper, two screensavers and 6 music tracks are all yours for the taking if you complete the missions at the recently updated Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots site.

A preview of the wallpapers.

© Konami

Next up, the two screensavers …

© Konami

The link for the 1024×768 sized version of the second screensaver doesn’t seem to be working, hence the cropped image while installing the 1600×1200 version on my desktop.

The unlockable music tracks Sin, Confrontation, Atonement, At Dawn together with Nano Machine and Patriots BGMs are not downloadable and are only available for listening at the site itself together with other tracks like Haven Troopers and Drebin 893 (Get Item Box > My Page after completing the five training missions)

All goodies can be unlocked by helping Grandpa Snake clear the five training missions through a series of multiple choice questions and collecting a varying number of Drebin Points™ for each choice. As usual, the stealthy options, preferably with MGS4-specific toys like the chameleonic OctoCamo suit, work best Wallpapers and screensavers cost 5000 and 10000 Drebin Points™ respectively. For extra points, you can always play the additional special missions but it’s too reflex-oriented for my liking.

The above wallpapers complement the ones downloadable from the Kojima Productions site. I much prefer the wallpapers below since each character is accompanied by his/her name written in stylish and attractive calligraphy.

© Konami

Download the new wallpapers from the official Metal Gear Solid 4 site or the other wallpapers exclusive to Kojima Productions.

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First seen at TIGdb, Caveman Craig by Tim and Rys Andrews is an interesting take on the simulation/management genre.

Caveman Craig is all about productivity as a efficiently productive tribe will enjoy a steady growth in numbers which in turn makes further expansion easier. To add a new caveman to your tribe, you need to acquire a certain amount of food in your stockpile and to produce this all-important food, you need to hunt dinosaurs or gather berries, haul them back to the cave and finally prepare the raw food for consumption.

As the leader of this tribe of cavemen, Craig the caveman is a hunter, gatherer and preparer all rolled into one. While you can elect to order Craig to fulfill all six different tasks as in the early stages of the game, the food stockpiling rate will stagnate and ends up being counterproductive in the long run. The key to expanding his tribe is therefore to teach new cavemen to assist him in doing any work required of the tribe and allow him to help out in whichever tasks are lacking in manpower.

Craig & three newbies = not productive

It’s to your advantage that you quickly train them in their two role-specific skills (throughly explained in the tutorial) after which they will stop following you and trundle off to automatically perform their specialized job of being a hunter, gatherer or food preparer. There’s also the option of releasing them after they have learnt one of the two skills to work on that single task learnt. While a caveman who has learnt two skills can be more flexibly employed, there are times when the advantage of time saved from training the second skill outweighs the long-term duration benefits of having two skills.

Planning the number and type of cavemen to train and delegate the different tasks required for food gathering is tough but absolutely essential for your tribe’s survival. The proper division of labour is very crucial to your development strategy since having too many cavemen in a single role will introduce bottlenecks in your food stockpiling rate since cavemen of each role are necessary to automate the entire three-step process of food preparation. Below is the result of not having enough preparers properly trained in the art of berry processing.

The importance of having a tribe of well-trained cavemen readily becomes apparent when vicious man-eating dinosaurs and rival cavemen start harassing your cavemen as well as the occassional attacks by fearsome T-Rexes which chew on cavemen like snacks. Learning to recognize the audio cues as different dinosaurs enter the vicinity helps Craig to decide whether he’s needed outside to fend another attack or just sit back and help out in the food preparation in the relative safety of the cave.

While the T-Rex is a mighty beast, it is not invincible and can be brought down with enough rocks. However, a tribe that survives with barely enough trained cavemen can be easily decimated by raptors that follow in the wake of of an successful defence against the T-Rex while Craig is busy training new replacements.

To prevent the game from becoming too repetitive, the developers have cleverly provided bonus items and other rewards when you achieve certain milestones during the game to help increase your tribe’s efficiency and growth.

While the game is fun and unique, there’s some issues with Caveman Craig including performance issues on lower-end machines and the seemingly random parabola when Craig throws his stone. It’s OK when hunting a defenceless herbivore but gets annoying when you’re trying to hit a raptor bent on having one of your fellow cavemen for lunch. It also gets frustrating when your hunters don’t always reciprocate the favor after you have just threw a whole load of stones to switch a raptor’s attention from attacking them to attcking you instead.

Download Caveman Craig.

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The Xbox 360 game Ninja Gaiden II has definitely broken the world record for the highest number of official downloadable wallpapers available. Not 100, not 200 but over 6000(!)

The premise of Ninja Gaiden II’s Embrace The Blade dynamic wallpaper generation feature revolves around the selection of weapons and equipment from Ryu Hayabusa’s rather impressive armoury.

You have to select 3 out of the 8 melee weapons (and yes, the order matters) , 2 of the 4 projectile weapons available and finally one of the ninpos (I assume they’re martial techniques )

The available choices are listed below. I’ll explain the significance of the numbers beside each item in a short while.

Melee Weapons

© Team Ninja / Microsoft

00. Lunar Staff
01. Tonfa - These weapons were originally used by farmers who were forbidden to bear arms.
02. Vigoorian Flail - An interesting variation of the nunchaku with sickles in place of batons.
03. Dragon’s Claw and Tiger’s Fang - The legendary Miyamato Musashi was the most famous proponent of the dual sword techniques.
04. Falcon’s Talon
05. Dragon Sword
06. Kusari-gama - The sickle is used to finish off opponents whose weapons were ensnared or disarmed by the attached chain. A famous proponent of the kusari-gama being Yamada Shinryukan according to the book Secrets of the Samurai (pg 317).
07. Eclipse Scythe

Projectile Weapons

© Team Ninja / Microsoft

00 Shuriken
01 Windmill Shuriken
02 Incendiary Shuriken
03 Fiend’s Bane Bow

Ninpo

© Team Ninja / Microsoft

00 Art of the Inferno
01 Art of the Wind Blades
02 Art of the Piercing Void
03 Art of the Flame Phoenix

Here’s a couple of the generated wallpapers.

© Team Ninja / Microsoft

A typical wallpaper link looks like the URL below:

http://www.ng2pvp.com/wallpaper/1024×768/n_01-0203-020603_1024×768.jpg

The first 2 digits after n denote the ninpo type, the next 4 digits the two projectile selected weapon codes (six combinations 0001, 0002, 0003, 0102, 0103, 0203 since order does not matter here) and the final six digits signify the 3 chosen melee weapons (order does matter here so 020100 and 000102 will generate different wallpapers).

As you can see, there’s a mind-staggering number of possible combinations as mentioned earlier (or more precisely a total of 6048(!)). If you’re just as obsessive as me in collecting every single possible wallpaper, you can either click your mouse to death for over 6000 times or load this handy text file with all the possible URLs into your favourite download manager. (my favourite is the open source Free Download Manager). Just be prepared to allocate around 500 MB for all the wallpapers.

© Team Ninja / Microsoft

There’s also another wallpaper of Ryu Hayabusa exclusive to the official site in 1024×768 and 1280×1024 resolutions (scroll down on the main page, nearly missed this one)

Download the Ninja Gaiden II wallpapers.

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