The Download Munkey : Download This, Download That :)

A wonderfuly animated five part series about the origins of the titular sword in Ninja Theory’s PS3 game Heavenly Sword and how Nariko, that lovely heroine with her distinctive flowing red tresses came to wield the sword.

© Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

It all started with a story of a holy warrior purportedly dispatched from the heavens above with his mighty sword to put an end to the murderous rampage of the merciless Ravenlord and his bloodthirsty warriors many generations ago.

© Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

The sword that the mysterious warrior left behind after defeating the Ravenlord later fell in the hands of mortals thus ensuring that death and bloodshed followed each successive wielder of the sword as ambitious men schemed and murdered in order to possess this powerful sword.

© Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Watch the rest of the series to find out how the sword finally ended up in the hands of Nariko. Although the plot is rather cliched, it’s an engrossing piece of work, beautifully animated by the guys at Chase Animation Studio and well narrated enough to make it a must-watch for anyone who loves a good fantasy tale. A detailed list of credits can be found at FEED.

© Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Watch the entire animated series at the official Heavenly Sword : Animated Series site.

While I try not to provide direct links, I figured that these gems might not be online forever, so here’s the direct download links for the five episodes (in Flash video ~20 MB each):
Episode 1 : The Legend of The Sword
Episode 2 : Guardians of The Sword
Episode 3 : The Rise of Evil
Episode 4 : The Divine Birth
Episode 5 : The Day of The Warrior

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Wallpapers for the Batman range of Lego mini-figs. Can’t wait for the upcoming Lego Batman : The Videogame to be released later this September since I’m a big fan of Traveller’s Tales games - their previous Lego Star Wars : The Videogame made me into a Star Wars fan.
Hopefully a romp through a Legofied Gotham City will change my opinion of the depressingly dark and gloomy Batman universe.

© Lego

Also check out the six promotional comics for a quick primer on the major villains (below) as well as Batman’s garage of Legofied vehicles. Almost all the villains are present except for the strange omission of Catwoman. Hmmm….

© Lego

More Dark Knight goodness in the exclusive debut trailer for Lego Batman : The Videogame which you can watch or download from Gametrailers.

© Lego / Traveller Tales

Travellers Tales has another soon to be released Lego game in the form of Lego Indiana Jones : The Original Adventures but I think the Dark Knight is far cooler - although I have to admit that the exotic locations in Lego Indiana Jones as shown in the wallpapers do have their attractions

Apparently, Lego no longer has the Harry Potter license so I’m wondering which license they would use for the next Lego game -a Lego minifig version of The Lord of the Rings would be fantastic

Download the wallpapers or view the comics for Lego Batman.

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This one’s specially for Mr Hardian

A.C.E 3 (or Another Century’s Episode 3 : The Final if you prefer) is a PS2 game by FROM Software, better known for their Armored Core series.

What’s interesting about this game is the sheer quantity of user-controllable mecha as documented in the Wikipedia article for A.C.E 3 - a whopping 103 mechas from 18 meta-universes in total.

Let me now try my hand at identifying all the mecha that I can find in the 2:46 min
intro trailer in the same order which they appear in the trailer.

© From Software

King Gainer from Overman King Gainer - The dreadlocks on this one looks really awful.

© From Software

VF-19 Excalibur from the Macross Plus universe with its distinctive forward swept wings not unlike Grumman X-29.

© From Software

Roy Focker’s VF-1S Super Valkyrie from the Macross meta-universe.

© From Software

Wing Gundam Zero Custom from Gundam Wing : Endless Waltz.

© From Software

A hoverboarding Nirvash typeZERO from Psalm Of Planets Eureka Seven.

© From Software

Shin Getter-1 from Getter Robo Armageddon - Loved the original 1976 Starvengers / Getter Robo G

© From Software

Gundam X from After War Gundam X.

© From Software

Cannon fodder in the form of RGM-79[G]s appear throughout the trailer to be blasted and chopped into tiny bits.

The trailer then concludes with a flypast of 15 mecha including the awesome Rx-93 Nu Gundam.

Check out the intro trailer at Gametrailers or visit the official A.C.E. 3 site which has info and renders on all the mechas in the game.

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Wallpapers from the PS3 game Valkyria Chronicles aka Valkyrie of the Battlefield : Gallian Chronicles, which looks more like an interactive anime film than a game thanks to the unique rendering techniques used by its CANVAS graphics engine.

While most of the content for the Japanese site for this SEGA game is already accessible (not that it would make any difference to visitors who can’t read Japanese since Google Translate can do nothing for Flash-based sites), the wallpapers section is still under construction with only 3 out of the total 20 wallpapers being downloadable at this time.

© Sega

What really interests me about Valkyria Chronicles aren’t the beautifully designed characters nor the refeshingly different anime graphics but the world in which Valkyria Chronicles is based.

Valkyria Chronicles takes place in a fictional pre-WWII Europe where the tiny nation of Gallia (somwhere in The Netherlands) is wedged between the forces of the Atlantic Federation and the East European Imperial Alliance (a pre-war NATO and Warsaw Pact if you will). Most of this information is stuff that I gleaned from watching the various Japanese trailers posted at Gametrailers so there may be some inaccuracies here and there.

© Sega

The game retains that WWII feel familiar to most gamers except for the seemingly outdated East European infantry who still wear 15th century sallets rather than WWII helmets and are armed with cumbersome giant pikes. The infantry later actually reveal the true function of these pikes as early model RPGs by employing them in an offensive anti-tank role - you weren’t half expecting the infantry to form up into square formations to await a charge by tanks, do you?

© Sega

Since the main characters fight with or alongside the blue tanks, I assume they belong to the Atlantic Federation. Curiously, these tanks look very much like a turreted version of the late production model of the German Sturmgeschutz III Ausf G with its distinctively contoured Saukopf gun mantlet/shield (check out thisTamiya model of this exact StuG III version which I used as a reference.)

© Sega

The brown tank of the East European Imperial Alliance (above) appears to be a more sensible version of the monster Soviet T-35 multi-turreted tank with a boxy turret reminiscent of the KV-2.

Download the wallpapers from the official Valkyria Chronicles site or check out the trailers @ Gametrailers.com.

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A HD trailer for Sergei Bodrov’s film on the infamous Temüjin who rose from a impoverished tribesman to become leader of the united Mongol tribes and later founder of the vast Mongol empire which stretched from central Asia to modern-day cities of Kiev in the borthwest and Baghdad in the southwest at its peak under his son Ögedei Khan.

© Picturehouse

Interestingly, the English version of the official Russian site names the film as Mongol : Part One which means that there might be a sequel to this film which received a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2007 Academy Awards.

From the trailer released at Apple Trailers, it appears that Mongol covers mainly Temüjin’s early years as the son of a Mongolian chieftain to his capture by raiders of another Mongolian tribe and later, his marriage with Borte at the age of 16. The abduction and subsequent rescue of his wife from Merkit tribesmen (below) is also portrayed in this film.

© Picturehouse

Some captures from the HD trailer.

© Picturehouse

Heavy cavalry with dual sabres - not too sure if these cavalry were Mongolian since I have never read about them being armed or armoured in this way.

© Picturehouse

Wonder which nation did this banner represent?

© Picturehouse

The Mongol hordes

While Genghis Khan was definitely a great and brillant leader, the extremely brutal result of some of the Mongol campaigns must have left a massive stain on his legacy - I read over at War and Game that an estimated 80,000 to 1,000,000 citzens were massacred after the successful siege of Baghdad in 1258.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this film will be shown in Singapore when it’s released later this year

Download the HD trailer for Mongol or visit the official site / official Russian site (English version).

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