The Download Munkey : Tracking the Treasure Down …

Just completed reading all the freely downloadable issue #1s (and assorted sample issues) for the comics / graphic novels published under DC Comics’s Vertigo imprint. I’m not a comics person and I don’t understand what gets categorized under graphic novels when both appear to be the same to me, so for simplicity’s sake, I’ll just refer to everything as comics here

Do note that Vertigo caters to adults so graphically violent and/or sexual images are to be expected together in these comics together with usually generous helpings of coarse language. Then again, given the nature of today’s movies and pop culture, it doesn’t really mean a big difference, does it?

Below I feature some of the comics that I particulary enjoyed.

© Vertigo Comics

My absolute favourite has to be The Losers : Ante Up written by Andy Diggle – a gang of ex-Special Forces personnel pull off some of the most outrageous heists I’ve ever seen in comics (or books … or even movies ).

© Vertigo Comics

V for Vendetta written by Alan Moore – the first comic / graphic novel that sparked my interest in Vertigo’s stuff after watching the movie adaptation. Only a four-page preview of the first issue is available though.

© Vertigo Comics

The Sandman : Precludes Nocturnes written by Neil Gaiman – Volume 1 of the Sandman series in which Roderick Burgess, a self-appointed Lord Magus and his cult attempt to summon and bind Death to their whims but captures Death’s younger brother Dream instead. Without Dream, people around the world sleep and never wake up and eventually the tables are turned on his captors themselves as they become increasingly fearful and tormented from lack of sleep. Meanwhile their captive bides his time waiting for the perfect opportunity to exact his vengeance…

© Vertigo Comics

DMZ Volume 1 : On the Ground written by Brian Wood – Intern Matthew Roth accompanies award-winning journalist Viktor Ferguson into the dangerous Manhattan DMZ where a ceasefire is being arranged between American troops and Free Army rebels, and gets into the thick of the action on his first day at work.

© Vertigo Comics

Northlanders Volume 1 : Sven the Returned written by Brian Wood – bloodthirsty Vikings make bloody good comic material

© Vertigo Comics

The Books Of Magic written by Neil Gaiman – Tim Hunter, a bespectacled boy who looks quite a bit like Harry Potter, is shown the ways of magic by characters from the Vertigo universe. Note the distinctive, almost photorealistic art style by John Bolton.

© DC Comics

Watchmen written by Alan Moore – I like this mainly for Rorschach, a masked vigilante equipped with good old fashioned brawling and zero superpowers,. I had absolutely no idea how closely the Watchmen movie matched the comic, cell for cell until I read this first issue.

Check out the above comics / graphics novels (click on the titles for the download pages) and others at Vertigo Comics (those indicated with #1 have the first issue free for download).

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Watchmen Wallpapers (Movie, Comics & Game)
Watchmen : The End is Nigh Demo Impressions
Marvel Official Wallpapers
Marvelous Papercraft – Boxpunx by Harlancore + Friends
The Darkness & Other Top Cow Comics Wallpapers

© Ben Stokes

A look at some of Ben Stokes’ creative outputs, who’s probably better known as Dimensional Holofonic Sound or D.H.S to techno fans. His track House of God or one of its many remixes has been played by DJs for two decades now, check out its music video at Youtube, also directed and animated by Ben Stokes himself. Or listen to the track itself at Junodownload.

© Ben Stokes

Also check out the music video for Steel Pulse and Damien Marley’s No More Weapons directed, shot and animated by Ben Stokes. Look for the video labelled Music Videos Part 1 at the Video section of his official website at holofonic.com or at YouTube – you definitely can’t miss the reggae vibes or the animated silhouettes of soldiers moving onscreen (reminds me of the Massive Entertainment animated production logo in the game World at Conflict).

© Massive Entertainment

My favourite work from Ben Stokes is definitely the ultra funky Drum Attack video released in 2003 consisting of multiple video clips of drummers doing their thing and expertly chopped and spliced together into a delicious two and half minute mini-mix, not unlike how hip hop DJs mix in different records at lightning speed like DJ Spinbad (or Aquasky for that matter, who crammed in 150+ records for a 5 minute mini-set for Annie Mac’s show on BBC Radio One in Jan 2006).

© Ben Stokes

Karate chops! Wait, have those got anything to do with drumming?

© Ben Stokes

Ends with a visual of Clyde Stubblefield who played the drums for James Brown’s Funky Drummer.

The quality of the Drum Attack video posted at Youtube is rather crappy so you might want to check out a clearer version at the website for Ben Stokes’ label Tino Corp or the Video section of holofonic.com where a longer 3 minute version of Drum Attack awaits in the Other Works video (fast forward to 2:34 mins).

Enjoy!

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Audiotool – Virtual Music Production Studio
Links to Direct Downloads for Selected Annie Mac 5 Minutes Mixes
Promo Video for Gayle San’s .Network Audiovisual Livemix Compilation
Tony-B Machine – Flash Toy for Creating Early 90’s Techno/Electro
Be Your Own One Man Band

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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IGWB (III) – Firefight – WWII Infantry Tactics Simulator
Warfare 1944
Autumn War – Zombie Killfest
Modern Tactics 3
Learning Your A.B.Cs with Viva Caligula

Caught the website for The Art of Games off Kekai Kotaki’s blog (he’s the concept art lead for ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2). This Italian exhibition showcases 14 artists, some whose artwork will be instantly recognizable to gamers. Perhaps you’ll even discover the names behind some of your favourite concept art like I did

Well-known artists like Craig Mullins have been delivering quality concept art for computer games for years – The Art of Games showcases his more recent work for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties and the iconic Master Chief from Bungie’s Halo – but I have seen some of his fantastic stuff for the Myth series (also by Bungie) published a decade back.

While many of these artists have been featured on the web through art and occassionally, game magazines, there’s a couple of artists who are entirely new to me (or I haven’t been looking hard enough). One is Alessandro Taini who is the artist behind several gorgeous concepts of the fiery redhead Nariko from Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword and the other is Jim Murray – I’m not too sure which games some of his artworks were commissioned for, but it’s all good

And of course you shouldn’t miss out on Kekai Kotaki’s incredible fantasy art and character designs at the The Art of Games and his own site at www.kekaiart.com – especially if you’re a fan of Guild Wars 2’s character designs.

For those who like to collect digital art, check out the press kit (look under About > Press Kit). There’s a trio of works from the press kit that I like a lot – Craig Mullins’ Master Chief, Stephen Martiniere’s Spring (apparently a book cover) and this artwork titled MEDIUM_Armor_F.tif (absolutely no idea by which artist or for which game – sorry!).

© Craig Mullins

© Stephen Martiniere

It’s not often that you encounter exhibitions that celebrate the art of computer games yet it’s surprising that they don’t seem to receive much attention through the mainstream gaming press. Really strange since the graphical and visual aspects of games nowadays are often their main selling points.

Check out the The Art of Games. The website is available in English, French and Italian.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Into the Pixel 2006 – Computer and Video Game Art Exhibition
Age of Empires III : The Asian Dynasties Wallpapers
John Wallin Liberto’s WWII Military Aviation Art
The Art of Phil Wohr – Halo Wars & More!
startdrawing.org – Asia’s Drawing Portal

Simon or AuthenticKaizen as he’s known at the TIGSource forums, emailed me a while back about his new game website Pixel Prospector. Half expecting another indie/freeware game site ala the IndieGames Blog, I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be another showcase of quality freeware games with a difference. You see, the focus at Pixel Prospector is on games that are still in development which is a bloody good idea IMHO, since there hasn’t been a website (bar the various indie game / game development forums) that presents the very best (and still unfinished) games on the Internet at the moment.

Obviously a labour of love for Simon, Pixel Prospector’s an incredibly handy resource for time-strapped gamers like me who want to try out some of the more promising non-commercial games in development without having to spend half their weekends personally hunting them down

New games are continually being added to Pixel Prospector, with screenshots and links to the official site (or forum thread for some) for each entry. Most entries even contain gameplay video trailers if the screenshots aren’t enough for you. The clean design should make finding interesting games at Pixel Prospector a breeze, but be advised that only games tagged playable (a complete list is available here) actually have working downloads.

A couple of my favourites from Pixel Prospector to start you off – zombie fragfest Zombpocalypse and retroish racer Polymaniacs (anyone remember Big Red Racing?) . Another duo which I’m anxiously awaiting playable versions of – The Proper Undead’s Pogo Pogo and Heavy Metal Thunder Warriors.

Check out Pixel Prospector (or just the list of games with playable versions). Subscribing to the Pixel Prospector RSS feed is the most convenient way to keep updated IMHO.

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100+ Best Freeware Games x2
GamerZines = Free Magazines for Gamers
Gametop.com – Stop Paying for Games!
Relive Gaming History with the Computer Gaming World Museum