Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

The New Age of Conan Game (Hyborian Adventures) has some unique features about it. And one of them is the crafting system.

When it comes to games and game playing I am a real packrat. I love to accumulate things and I love to make new things. I enjoy collecting up and questing after unique armor and weapons. For me that is more than half the fun of any game. It’s better than all the fighting!

One unique thing about the new Conan game is the crafting skill of architect where you can make buildings, castles, keeps, catapults, trebuchets and even whole cities. It seems to be pretty cool to me and it will be a lot of fun.

So, if you are probably never going to build a castle in real life you can still experience the thrill of building and owning your own castle in the virtual world of Hyboria! Who’s to say which is more real?

Here is an amazon link to the game and below is a video that shows crafting and the architect skill.

 Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Want to see more videos of the game? I have a couple right here: Age of Conan Videos

Popularity: 23% [?]

Yup that’s right. Think you are bad enough, or man enough, to take on the world that Conan himself roams? Well, tomorrow, May 23rd Hyboria goes live.  It’s the very much anticipated Eidos game called Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.  And it is the worlds first +18 Rated game. Whoa! Finally a game that is aimed at the biggest population of gamers: Adults! Yup, plenty of us over 18 who love our video games and want something tough, exciting, challenging and intelligent! No more cartoon games for me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I used to play Warcraft, and I loved it. But hey, they gotta aim at a very broad range of customers and I really got tired of all the little gnomes running around. Hey and once I reached level 70, got my epic flying mount and hit most of the big dungeons I just got tired of the grind. I have been looking for the next game to play and I think Conan might be it.

I had looked into it a while back and was following it closely. And here are some really unique things about this game (dare I still call it a game?)

• The folks at Eidos are really touting a revolutionary new combat system where you choose every move you make. No more auto fighting for me.
• An extraordinarily detailed crafting system where you can make just about everything from armor to weapons and well complete cities! Yow, This I really love. Crafting has always been appealing to me going all the way back to my early days with Ultima Online.
• And here is a big thing: The game starts out as a 1 player adventure! You go through a whole series of things and learning before you hit the mmo aspect of the game. It feels really unique and it takes some of the newbie feel out of logging into an online game for the first week while you still don’t have a clue as to what’s going on.

Anyway, Another big thing for me is the tribute and respect to Robert Howard. I am sure they spent a lot of time researching and paying homage to the world created by Howard. And I think the game is going to have quite a great feel to it. Give it a look if you think you are man enough ! It’s available on amazon at midnight. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Stay up and order it unless you are afraid of creatures that lurk in the night.

Want to see some videos of the game? I have a couple right here: Age of Conan Videos

Popularity: 20% [?]

The summer movie season is kicking off and hollywood is starting out with two big blockbusters that are looking really great. For those of us that are big fans of fantasy we are in for a special treat and it is great to see how our favorite genre has gotten really popular over the past several years. Gone are the days where fantasy movies were considered to be escapist and shallow and the underlying themes of both our new summer movies can attest to this. Here is a look at the two movies.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - (Movie opens May 22nd) This is the fourth installment in the Indiana Jones franchise and the inspiration for the movie is based on ancient Mayan legend that there are 13 crystal skulls that when united hold the power of saving the Earth. It is a pretty interesting story and there is a lot of controversy surrounding these skulls that supposedly possess mystical powers. One of which is that no skull can be documented to be more than a couple of hundred years old yet they are often proclaimed to have originated from between 300 and 900 A.D. 

 If you want to read more about the Crystal Skulls here is an AP article.

About the Movie: Here is the offficial movie site - The film has been shrouded in secrecy so I really can’t tell you a whole lot. And it has been such a tightly held secret that the studio actually registered a variety of phony titles for the movie to throw people off track. They even have taken legal action against an extra who violated his non-disclosure agreement.

There are some indicators of success for this movie - This is the widest release that Paramount has ever done and the movie will be premiering at Cannes. This is something that no Spielberg movie has done since E.T. It is also reported that the movie needs to make 400 million to break even which does tell us they didn’t spare any expenses on it.

Who’s In it: Karen Allen returns to this movie which should be some nostalgic fun. Sean Connery is not in it which is probably for the best. He states that he is enjoying his retirement. Harry Winstone is also in it. (He played Beowulf in last summers Digitial enigma of a movie) Cate Blanchetts Plays a villain, ala The Bond Franchise sexy villianous which should be fun.

About Harrison Ford: My first reaction to this movie was “Wow, Isn’t Harrison Ford getting kinda old for this kind of film? He is 64 after all.” But after reading some promo materials I am leaning toward a good for him kind of thing. He states that he has been working out three hours a day for the film and he refused to dye his hair for shooting. I say bravo to that. His attitude was  that his return to the character of Indy would help Americal get over its paranoia about aging. So kudos for that. I agree with his stance.

Wrap Up: So will the movie be good? Beats me, there really is no telling and sometimes movie studios will push a movie real hard because its the only thing they can do to try and break even with it. It isn’t the ground breaking new adventure film that the first one was of course but it should be a great addition to the Indiana Jones Franchise.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Movie Opens May 16) Official Movie Site

Ever since I read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time as a youngling I can never get enough of these fantasy stories about children having great adventures and exploring fantasy worlds. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Narnia movie for what it was: A lighter version of LOTR.

There has been a lot of buzz about this movie being a lot better than the first and I tend to agree with this because  it is a much more epic movie with a bigger scale and bigger things going on. Me likes me stories to be epic!!  Another thing I like is the common fantasy tool of differing time rates. For the Narnia children one year has passed yet in Narnia it is 1300 years later. Kind of cool. I use this in my writing and it is in lots of other fantasy writing. Gives a sense of immortality to our plain old earthling children/heroes.

Wrap up: I think its going to be a really good movie. Disney has a penchant for making this kind of movie. They learned a lot in the first one and I bet this one will be even better.

One more thing: While you are over on the official Narnia website register to win a trip to the set of the next narnia movie in New Zealand!

Popularity: 21% [?]