The Download Munkey : Download This, Download That :)

Discovered this game via the HD trailer posted at GameTrailers.com showcasing gameplay footage of a battle between the Royal Army and the National Army (which resemble the Allies and Germans in WWII respectively). Some stills from the trailer - it’s quite funny, do check it out

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

The family-friendly equivalent of squashing the enemy under your tank’s steel tracks

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

While the game might seem silly, the physics don’t - witness this powerful backblast from the main cannon

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

Extra air support - the aerial variant of tank desant tactics practised by the Soviets in WWII

Battlefield : Heroes is an upcoming free-to-play multiplayer third-person shooter from EA / Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the creators of the Battlefield series of first person shooters. While the bright cheery colours and cartoony characters definitely draw comparisions to Valve’s Team Fortress 2, the characters in Battlefield Heroes are loosely based on WWII soldiers and weapons unlike the fictional stereotypes in Team Fortress 2.

Take a look at the veteran soldier below with a Tommy Gun look-alike : soldiers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the famous 101th Airborne Division “Screaming Eagles” also had Ace of Spade markings emblazoned on their helmets during WWII.

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

This tank is of course inspired by the mainstay of the WWII American armored forces, the M4 Sherman.

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

This game will be released as a free download during summer 2008 and promises to support relatively low end machines - I say relatively low end because Battlefield Heroes still requires 512 MB memory and a graphics card that supports Pixel Shader 2.0 which is frankly not my idea of a low end machine While it’s free to download and play, it will be ad-supported - thankfully there aren’t going to be any in-game ads

© EA Digital Illusions CE AB

Download these four wallpapers (in 1024×768, 1280×960, 1440×900 & 1680×1050 resoutions) from the official Battlefield Heroes site or track the development progress at the developer blog.

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For those that still confuse Euro-house with proper techno, this post is really not for you

Check out this 1:40 min video clip edited from video footage taken during Japanese DJ Takuya Kashiwada’s two hour set at the Under Water Bar Praha (Niigata) on 03 Nov 2007. I think it perfectly sums up the reasons why I still love techno after listening to this genre since 2000 (although the current minimal craze is slightly distressing )

First track played is fellow Japanese producer Takaaki Itoh’s Shadow Play, followed by Hideyuki Eto’s Permutations and finally two copies of Studio 1’s old skool minimal track Green.

The fact that multiple techno tracks can usually be layered on top of each other coupled with the genre’s suitabilty for turntable and mixer trickery sets it apart from most other electronic music genres which tend to favour either fluid mixing or turntable antics but seldom both (with the exception of perhaps drum n’ bass e.g DJs like DJ Hype)

The full 2 hour set by Takuya Kashiwada which spans multiple genres of techno can be downloaded from Japanese techno/house label Asian Dynasty’s site which happens to be the very same label that homegrown electronic music producers/DJs Angela Flame and Case Woo release their tracks on. Check out the tracklist which includes tracks like Damon Wild’s Avion, Ian O’Brien’s melodic Jarrett’s Blues, Octave One’s lush Detroit classic Blackwater, Fumiya Tanaka’s percussive Talking Drums and of course, Takaaki Itoh’s Shadow Play and Studio 1’s Green.

His earlier 40 Tracks Abuse Mix from 2004 which is also downloadable from Asian Dynasty contains even more funky minimalistic techno - especially the final track : Captain Funk’s O.Y.M.

Also check out the other newer mixes on Asian Dynasty, my firm favourites being Dualtek’s energetic set at the massive Awakenings 2007 festival in Amsterdam and Toshihiro Komine’s digitally mixed house/electro/techno set at Tokyo’s Womb club. Notable tracks in the latter mix include Kei Kohara’s uplifting house track Anklet remixed by Yasu.exe from the Heavenly Reworks EP (below) and Locutus’s shuffling Datch Dragon

© Asian Dynasty

If I’m correct, the artwork for the Heavenly Reworks EP was done by Roy Gerritsen of Boompje Studios who has designed several of the sleeve artworks for Asian Dynasty’s releases such as the Perfect Strangers EP. (below)

© Asian Dynasty

Download Takuya Kashiwada’s Under Water Bar Praha set, other mixes or check out Asian Dynasty releases on Beatport and Juno Records.

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Well, breakdancing is still a form of art, no? I will be adding the occassional music and dance posts to Art Friday from today onwards, since it’s sometimes hard to find the time to write, select the artworks and obtain artists’ permission to post cool illustrations up here every week

© Elephant Eye Films

Planet B-Boy is an upcoming feature-length documentary by Elephant Eye Films on the unique dance artform known as breakdancing. I love watching breakdancing since it’s one of the most visual application of physics that I have seen

© Elephant Eye Films

Some shots from the intro trailer released a few weeks back at Apple Trailers. (direct link (4.9 MB))

© Elephant Eye Films

More shots from another trailer posted at SpikeTV displaying some mad skillz by dancers around the world - on the streets in Osaka and commuter trains of Seoul to picturesque locations in view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the glitzy neon lights of Las Vegas.

There was another film, Stomp The Yard, released last year which featured krumping, a dance style quite similiar to breakdancing. There’s some slick dance moves in there, so watch the video on YouTube or better still download the HD trailer from Apple Trailers

Finally, here’s the the music video that started my fascination with breakdancing - Jason Nevins vs Run DMC - It’s Like That (That’s Just The Way Life Is) (Wikipedia) featuring a awesome battle (plus nifty synchronized moves) between two rival breakdancing crews which you can view at YouTube.

Visit the official site of Planet B-Boy for more information.

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Promotional trailer for Success Corporation’s Raiden : Fighter Aces compilation for the Xbox360 featuring three shoot-em-ups from the Raiden Fighters spinoff series, 1996’s Raiden Fighters, 1997’s Raiden Fighters 2 and 1998’s Raiden Fighters Jet.

© Success Corporation

Raiden Fighters - Classic Raiden fare.

© Success Corporation

Raiden Fighters 2 : Operation Helldive - Seems like it’s only a graphically upgraded version of Raiden Fighters from the look f it

© Success Corporation

Raiden Fighter Jet - Love the little details like the spinning propellers on the massive aircraft idling on the runway in this one but I doubt anyone seriously playing the game notices these kind of stuff while playing.

While the gameplay in the three games is pretty standard shooter fare with the prerequisite fuild animation, eye-watering weapon and explosion effects, what kept me glued to the entire 3 minutes of this trailer was the incredible reflexes of the player being recorded in the video - or was it just a pre-programmed demo?

By the way, if you’re itching for some Raiden action on your PC, there’s a pretty faithful fan-made Flash version of Raiden which you can play online - RaidenX - enjoy!

Download the trailer from Gametrailers (Quicktime or WMV) or the Raiden Fighter Aces (WMV only) site.

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If the Allies had been swept clean off Europe during World War II and The Third Reich had undertaken an invasion of USA, what weapons of war would the The Third Reich field in this alternate history? Watch this trailer to find out

© Codemasters

Massive zeppelins for the biggest airborne invasion

© Codemasters

Double-barrelled tanks (Afraid the video is too dark - it’s somewhere on the left side of the screenshot).

© Codemasters

Flying wings

© Codemasters

An armada of Bismarck class battleships

© Codemasters

Oh, and a massive flag

Download the trailer from gametrailers.com or visit the official site for Turning Point : Fall of Liberty.

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