The Blog Devoted to All Things Medieval; Weapons, Armor, Knights, Castles, Books and More ———–Never Give a Sword to a Man who can’t Dance - Old Celtic Saying
The John Carter of Mars series of stories are a great series of book in the old pulp fantasy style and I had read the whole series a very long time ago. I dug up some of my copies of the books here:
The movie is being written by Andrew Stanton who wrote Finding Nemo and Wall-e. You can read the post about this on the Pixar Blog. And it will be interesting to see how they handle this story and the movie. Will it be fully animated or will be something else? Either way it is probably going to be really good. Pixar always makes wonderful movies.
About The Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs:
There are eleven Mars books in the series and four of them (listed first) are John Carter books:
The Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars
The Warlord of Mars
John Carter of Mars (This book is a concatenation of two Novellas: “John Carter and the Giant of Mars” and “Skeleton Men of Jupiter”.
Thuivia, Maid of Mars
The Chessmen of Mars
A Fighting Man of Mar
Swords of mars
Synthetic Men of Mars
Llana of Gathol
I am wondering what the first movie will be about and what the real title will be. The proper first book is A Princess of Mars and this book sets everything up because it is where John Carter first finds himself on Mars. I have also heard rumors that there will be a trilogy of movies which fits with the first three Mars books.
The John Carter books are a lot of fun and they have been re-worked and repackaged several times over the last century including some covers and internal artwork by Frazetta, which is probably some of his most recognizable stuff.
About the famous curved rapier that is pictured on the Frazetta art. John Carter is famous for this sword and there is even a real version that has been made and is for sale. It’s pretty cool and you can take a look at it here: John Carter’s Martian Longsword
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.
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
