The Download Munkey

Military Tuesday : Pobediteli : Soldiers of the Great War

November 18th, 2008Roys0 comments

Pobediteli : Soldiers of the Great War (or Victors in Russian) is an award-winning Russian interactive multimedia resource which retells major events of the war on the Eastern Front during WWII, starting with Operation Barbarossa, the over-ambitious German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Completed in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, Pobediteli was one of the 5 winners in the e-culture category of the World Summit Award that year.

Watch the offensives and counterattacks unfold on a virtual map of Eastern Europe and Russia, complete with rarely-seen footage from the archives and first-hand accounts by Red Army veterans which provide insights of the conflict from the men and women who fought against the German invaders during the war.

A Russian Il-2 pilot recounts a chance encounter with a flight of Ju 87 Stukas

Pobediteli allows you to appreciate the scale of the conflict in ways that books can’t - especially when you visualize the relentless advance of the German panzer armies towards Moscow in 1941 as well as the equally breakneck charge of the victorious Soviet armies towards Berlin in 1945 on the animated map.

The German gains by the end of 1941

The endgame : Berlin surrounded by the victorious Red Army

The video clips show memories of victory - Soviet infantry advancing on the German Reichstag with the Soviet flag in hand.

… of defeat - Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at the surrender of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.

… and the devastation of war - the city of Minsk reduced to rubble.

Learn more about war on the Eastern Front with Pobediteli : Soldiers of the Great War.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
US Army Center of Military History Prints
Scenes of War - Concepts from Video Games
Motofumi Kobayashi - Japanese Military Artist

Tags: Military Recommended

Random Monday : War on Terror - The Boardgame

November 17th, 2008Roys0 comments

A satirical boardgame from TerrorBull Games on the War on Terror. The colourful box art and card artwork by Tom Morgan-Jones initially attracted my attention as the artistic style reminded me of Quentin Blake’s pieces for Roald Dahl’s series of books. However, the Empire and Terrorist cards with their illustrations and witty little captions are quite possibly the main draw among the contents of the game package (which includes a balaclava incidentally )

Whatever your opinions on the actual War on Terror, terrorism and the War on Terror isn’t something that can be easily nor clearly defined as right or wrong. Take this Terrorist Upsurge card from the board game as an example.

Some of favourite cards include Terrorist Attack, Nuclear Disarmament and Spin the Axis of Evil. Yes, this boardgame even comes with a Axis of Evil spinner built into the gameboard.

I haven’t seen this in Singapore before - TerrorBull Games does ship the game worldwide at £29.95 (inclusive of postage and packing) if you’re suitably impressed

Meanwhile, you can go have a look at the official War on Terror - The Boardgame site where you can find Rules and the Empire Cards and Terrorist Cards galleries.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Double Fine Wallpapers
David Andro - Military/Police Illustrator (GIGN, GIPN, RAID, etc)
Modern Tactics 3

Art Friday : Killzone 2 Concepts

November 14th, 2008Roys0 comments

Concepts for Guerrilla Games’ Killzone 2, one of the three games on my must-have list if I had a PS3 (the other two being Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of The Patriots and Motorstorm)

The similiarities of the greatcoat and helmet shape to that worn by German soldiers in WWII (see this Tamiya model) bring to mind the conspiracy theories about a Fourth Reich (the Nazi regime was also known as the Third Reich) that I read about recently in Alan Baker’s book Invisible Eagle - History of Nazi Occultism.

Seeing all those concepts of Helghast troopers in their ominous gas masks make me very curious what actually lies beneath those masks. As quoted from the Wikipedia article for Killzone, it’s pretty obvious that they have mutated quite a great deal from their human origins but the question is by how much?

… the Helghast are a faction of human descendants who colonized the planet Helghan many generations ago. The planet’s harsh environment forced the Helghast to adapt and mutate so much that they can no longer be considered human.

The ISA tank is an imaginative yet believeably practical idea of of future armour design. Looks like an ultramodern spinoff of the air defense variant of the US M2 Bradley, the M6 Linebacker with four additional autocannons and an extra generous allocation of smoke grenade launchers.

Likewise, the ISA’s infantry assault rifle could easily pass off as a bullpup M16A4 with a M203 grenade launcher and and an EOTech Holosight (the one you get to use in the singleplayer missions of Call of Duty 4)

The Helghast infantry weapon with grenade launcer could be said to be a cross between the infamous Uzi (the sights) and the Russian PP-19 Bizon except that the underslung cylindrical object is actually the magazine for the Bizon.

The jaw-dropping lighting FX and the oppresively gloomy industrial cityscape that comprise the battlefields for the ISA and the Helghast are well demonstrated by the screenshots at the official site (a small selection below). And if you have never watched the E3 2005 prerendered trailer for Killzone 2 before, you really don’t know what you’ve been missing out

Download these high resolution concepts, wallpapers and screenshots for Killzone 2.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
E3 2007 Goodies - Killzone 2 Trailer
Operation Darkness Wallpapers
Next Generation Infantry Concepts from Tom Clancy’s EndWar
Operation Tannhäuser Wallpapers

Tags: Art Games Recommended

Games Thursday : Lego Batman Demo Impressions

November 13th, 2008Roys1 comment

I’ve been a big fan of Traveller’s Tales’ series of Lego games with the sole exception of Lego Indiana Jones - I didn’t like the muddy palette (khaki, brown and more brown) and the jumping puzzles were too frustrating for reflexively-challenged me. Most of the time spent playing the demo was helping Indy fall into bottomless chasms or exploring spike-filled pits while been chased by a giant boulder

Now, the Lego Batman demo is a different beast entirely. It’s an enjoyable romp through a bright and shiny Lego (Legoized / Legofied ?) Gotham City with excellently animated Lego minifigs of familiar characters from DC Comics’s Batman universe (and less of those bloody jumping puzzles). It doesn’t seem to be tied to any of the Batman films unlike the other Lego games for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises which probably imposes less creative restrictions on the developers.

Lego Batman now sports Hero and Villain modes so that fans of supervillains like dastardly The Joker get to start off as the bad guys immediately rather than having to unlock them first after playing the good guys as in the Star Wars series. Batman is far less “goody-goody” than most typical superheroes but it’s a welcome addition nonetheless. An uzi-toting Joker and acrobatic Harley Quinn are yours to control in the demo.

Robin in his Magnet Suit

New suits which dynamically change the special abilities of your characters allow you to approach some of the puzzles in your adventures through Gotham City in multiple ways. Most puzzles still require that certain suits be worn in order to advance to the next area.

There’s also a new Batarang mode for the good guys which allows you to precisely target and hit distant opponents or objects. It’s something that works better on paper since not everything can be hit with the Batarang and the aiming is rather finicky at times.

The poor man’s batmobile

Top-notch animation : Batman shimmies across a rope with ease while Robin follows along in his clumsy Magnet Suit

Batman prepares to pound a petty thug into tiny Lego bits

As with Traveller Tales’ series of Lego games, Lego Batman manages to appeal to gamers of all ages, non-gaming fans of the Batman universe and Lego enthusiasts. The gameplay won’t exactly challenge any serious gamer but it’s entertaining and endearing (the Lego characters are surprisingly expressive despite the fact that they don’t even speak a single word in the game.)

The series is also highly addictive : I still remember replaying the Star Wars game multiple times to collect enough coins to unlock additional characters and goodies to play with)

I wonder what’s next in store for Traveller’s Tales and the Lego videogames. Since Batman is a Warner Bros license, another WB franchise (Harry Potter or even better, Lord of the Rings) might be already in the works for Traveller Tales. Let’s keep our fingers crossed

Download and play the Lego Batman demo.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY
Dan LuVisi’s Portraits of Movie Characters & More!
Lego Batman Wallpapers
BrikWars - War with Mini-Figs!
Boxhead - More Rooms Zombie Shooting Flash Game
Warhammer 40,000 Vehicles in Lego

Tags: Games Games Downloads Lego Movies Recommended

Wallpapers Wednesday : Crusaders - Thy Kingdom Come

November 12th, 2008Roys2 comments

Wallpapers and concepts from Neocore Games’ RTS Crusaders : Thy Kingdom Come set in the time of the Crusades. The exact Crusade isn’t mentioned on the website, but it’s probably the First Crusade which culminated in the capture (and infamous massacre) of Jerusalem in 1099. No news about a demo version either

Below are the concept art of three of the five playable heroes in-game. From top to bottom : Roger of Hastings, Godfrey of Toulouse and Roberto of Naples.

The background stories for the five characters can be found here.

While the unit models don’t seem to share the randomized look of Medieval : Total War 2, the detail of each model is rather impressive, especially the ornate armour of the knights and their chargers. The terrain doesn’t look half bad either like the rolling hills behind Godfrey of Toulouse below.