The Download Munkey : A Link A Day ;)

Just remembered this recent Chinese movie The Warlords while re-reading a book about the incredibly violent and destructive Taiping uprising in China from 1845 to 1865. I think it’s probably the first movie ever produced that featured the Taiping too

© Media Asia

Above are some of the wallpapers depicting the main characters from this movie who attempted to better their own lives as well as those of their followers during this turbulent period of Chinese history by joining the Qing forces attempting to put down the Taiping insurrections (albeit for differing ideological and personal reasons).

Can’t say how historically accurate the Taiping and Qing troops were represented in the movie though since the only illustrations of the Taiping I’ve seen come from Osprey’s Men-At-Arms 275 which offers an excellent if limited pictorial reference to the Taiping and their Qing (and later European) adversaries.

Most pictures of Qing military officers tend to depict men with brightly-coloured armour rather than the dour black armour worn by the leading men (Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) in the movie.

The book that reminded me of The Warlords is God’s Chinese Son : The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan by Yale University professor Jonathan D. Spence which thankfully reads nothing like a typical bone-dry history book. Accounts of the organization and tactics of the Taiping armies, the internal politics and infighting amongst the Taiping Kings and of foreign mercenaries fighting for the Taiping (pages 237 to 241) make for some really interesting reading.

Chronicling the rise and fall of the enigmatic Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from Hong Xiuquan’s purported visions of God to the formation of the Taiping Heavenly Kindgom partially inspired by Christian values and the eventual defeat and execution of the remaining generals and Fu Tianhui heir to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom by the Qing, this excellent book is a valuable addition to anyone interested in this strange period of history, more so when there are very few English books about the subject.

Download the wallpapers for The Warlords.

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Illustration of Qing Troops from Age of Empires 3 : The Asian Dynasties
Romance of the Three Kingdoms E-Book

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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Into the Pixel 2006 - Computer and Video Game Art Exhibition
Konami Games Wallpapers
Scenes of War
Alliance of Valiant Arms Wallpapers
Call of Duty 4 Mini-Artbook PDF
Dick Kramer’s Promotional Art for FN SCAR

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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Shinobido Imashime Opening Movie
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Corporate Ninjas Art from Shadowrun
Tenchu Z Official Wallpapers

The Battletech foodchain as depicted in one of the wallpapers from the fansite kit for the Xbox 360 game MechAssault 2 : Lone Wolf.

© Microsoft Game Studios

Click on the picture above for the original wallpaper in 1600×1200 resolution.

Pilot
Battle Armor
Elemental Power Armour
Rommel Mk II Tank
Karnov UR VTOL
Raven
Owens
Uller
Cougar
Raptor
Uziel
Vulture
Catapult
Loki
Thor
Mad Cat
Ragnarok
Atlas

Hopefully I got the names of all the Mechs right

More information on some of the Mechs in the Battletech universe can be found on this MechAssault page, this MechAssault 2 PDF manual (direct link - 6 MB), Wikipedia, or via this old MechCommander 2 Encyclopedia featuring very small scale models of some the mechs.

© Microsoft Game Studios

Mech description page from the MechAsssault 2 PDF manual

Some of the other wallpapers from the FSK - the first one rocks

© Microsoft Game Studios

Download the MechAssault 2 : Lone Wolf fansite kit (direct link - 33 MB).

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BattleTech Technical Lineart @ miotd.com
MechCommander 2 Encyclopedia
Keith Thompson - Mecha Illustrator
WWII Mechas in Code Guardian
Transformers Comics Desktop Wallpapers
Girls & Mecha ≠ Girls + Mecha

A collection of my favourite concept artwork depicting the chaos and destruction of war from various fansite kits (FSKs).

First up is Par Green’s artworks for the four combat arms - Infantry, Armour, Air and Support in Massive Entertainment’s World in Conflict. The Infantry artwork really evokes the intensity of close-range combat with tracers flying all over the place. Can’t imagine anyone attempting to advance in the face of such firepower.

© Sierra

Midway’s Blacksite Area 51 is primarily an post-modern alien shooting FPS but there’s modern-day scenes like this sniper team in the vicinity of a deserted Middle Eastern bazaar (#16 under Media > Concept Art) or this tank advancing into the wreck of a former courtroom (#21). High resolution versions of these concept art and more can be downloaded at the official Blacksite Area 51 site.

© Midway

Next is concept art from Medal of Honor : Airborne. German troopers in a ravaged town square scan the night skies with powerful searchlights during an Allied paratrooper assault. Found this amongst other concepts at Gamewallpapers.ru but I can’t find these same images at the Downloads section of the official Medal of Honor : Airborne site. Strange…

© EA

More Medal of Honor and paratrooper art can be found in the FSK for the PS2/Wii game Medal of Honor : Vanguard relating to Operation Market Garden. Below, allied paratroopers land near a bridge emplaced with dragon’s teeth (anti-tank obstacles) whereas at the other end of the bridge lies a German pillbox, apparently unaware of the impending airborne attack.

© EA

In the same FSK, there’s also an interesting concept of the internal structure of a coastal battery opposing the Allied landings in Sicily during Operation Husky. The austere interiors of th fortification is further emphasized by the bare essentials lying around - only ammo for the machineguns and cannons at the top of the fortress can be seen together with a map table.

© EA

Finally, the Turning Point : Fall of Liberty FSK has this extremely high resolution render of formidable German aerial and naval forces in attempt to invade and conquer America in a hypothetical WWII scenario.

© Codemasters

Donwload the World in Conflict wallpapers, Blacksite Area 51 concepts, Medal of Honor : Airborne wallpapers, Medal of Honor : Vanguard FSK (103.8 MB) , Turning Point : Fall of Liberty FSK (95.5 MB).

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Call of Duty 4 Mini-Artbook PDF
Motofumi Kobayashi - Japanese Military Artist
Alliance of Valiant Arms Wallpapers
S.T.A.L.K.E.R : Shadows over Chernobyl Wallpapers
Next Generation Infantry Concepts from Tom Clancy’s EndWar