Posts Tagged ‘genre’

Heroes of Might and Magic 2: Best old-school turn based strategic game to play on your Android mobile phone

Monday, June 16th, 2014

heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-for-your-mobile-smartphone-android-screenshot

Probably many people which are my age (I'm aged 30 now), spent many days and sleepless nights being totally addicted playing probably one of the most addictive (and in my view greatest strategy game of all time) – Heroes of Might and Magic II (HOMM2).
In that thoughts it will be a great news for you if you're owning smartphone that you can turn-back some nice memories and play (for free) a port of Heroes 2 for Android.

Free Heroes 2 Android port is it is made to support multiple screened devices so game  version could be played on both Android Tablet a tiny screen smart phone or a middle sized mobile. Also Free Heroes 2 mobile port allows you to choose 'The Magnifying glass' option on first game boot, so if you're on a tiny screened mobile you can still zoom by pointing on a game object. Free Heroes 2 Android port is there thanks to Gerhard Stein who is also an author of OpenTyrian mobile phone port and the amazing old computer jump-and-run arcade Commander Keen. Game pointer controls of FHeroes2 are pretty convenient and playing the game is almost as confortable as played with a PC mouse.
Free Heroes 2 is port of Free Heroes 2 engineFree implementation of Heroes of the Might and Magic II engine in SDL and because SDL is platform independent Free Heroes is also available for both Windows / Linux. Maybe here is time too mention that Heroes2 original DOS game works perfectly on any modern Linux distribution when started through DOSBOX DOS emulator.

By default Free Heroes2  has no game campaign support yet. In order to enable campaing support into Free Heroes 2, download FULL Heroes 2 gameput data files to mobile SD card to dir app-data/net.sourceforge.fheroes2 and campaign option will be there too.

heroes_of_might_and_magic_ii_play-on-android-best-strategy-old-game-for-android

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 – The succession Wars (or HEROES2, as it is widely known in Gamers communities) is a turn based strategy game  from year 1996 developed by Jon Van Caneghem by his New World Computing company it was marketed under on the market under brand of 3DO Company. Heroes II was voted the sixth-best PC game of all time by PC Gamer in May 1997. Heroes2 has also a game expansion pack called the Price of Loyalty released in 1997 as well as Heroes of Might and Magic II – Gold – from 1998. The game graphic design looks very beautiful and combined with the soundtrack makes playing it an awesome and calming experience. The game is very notable especially for soundtrack which is all of a beautiful classical music.

Heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-best-games-of-all-time-screenshot-HOMM2
(Picture taken and copyrighted by Wikipedia)

Gameplay

The titular heroes (horse) are player characters who can recruit armies, move around the map, capture resources, and engage in combat. The heroes also incorporate some role-playing game elements; they possess a set of statistics that confer bonuses to an army, artifacts that enhance their powers, and knowledge of magical spells that can be used to attack enemies or produce strategic benefits. Also, heroes gain experience levels from battle, such that veteran heroes are significantly more powerful than inexperienced ones.

On a typical map, players begin a game with one town of a chosen alignment. Each town alignment hosts a unique selection of creatures from which the player can build an army. Town alignment also determines other unique traits such as native hero classes, special bonuses or abilities, and leanings toward certain skills or kinds of magic.

heroes-of-might-and-magic-town_castle-sorceress-screenshot

Towns play a central role in the games since they are the primary source of income and new recruits. A typical objective in each game is to capture all enemy towns. Maps may also start with neutral towns, which do not send out heroes but may still be captured by any player. It is therefore possible, and common, to have more towns than players on a map. When captured, a town retains its alignment type, allowing the new owner to create a mixed army. A player or team is eliminated when no towns or heroes are left under their control. Usually the last player or team remaining is the victor.

As heroes visit special locations called obelisks, pieces are removed from a jigsaw puzzle-like map, gradually revealing 'The Ultimate Artifact location to the player. Once found, it confers immense bonuses to the player capable of breaking a stalemate: the grail can be taken back to a town and used to build a special structure, while the ultimate artifact provides the bonuses directly through possession.

heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-battle-for-castle-screenshot

Whenever a player engages in battle

The game changes from the adventure map display to a combat screen, which is based on either a hexagonal or square grid. In this mode, the game mimics the turn-based tactics genre, as the engaged armies must carry through the battle without the opportunity to reinforce or gracefully retreat. With few exceptions, combat must end with the losing army deserting, being destroyed, or paying a heavy price in gold to surrender. Surrendering allows the player to keep the remaining units intact. Battles can be led army army to army or castles / villages can be fight and (captured) occupied. Owning a town gives your hero daily an income of money later used to buy and upgrade castle buildings.

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Also you your moved heroes could overtake mines producing different goods like minerals, sulfur, gold, emeralds etc. Building different buildings and building war units for army usually cost gold and some kind of resource.

Game Story

Heroes II history continues after Heroes I. Ending of Heroes I results in Lord Morglin Ironfist's victory. In the following years, he has successfully unified the continent of Enroth and secured his rule as king. Upon the king's death, his two sons, Archibald and Roland, vie for the crown. Archibald orchestrates a series of events that lead to Roland's exile. Archibald is then declared the new king, while Roland organizes a resistance. Each alignment is represented by one of the game's two campaigns. Archibald's campaign features the three "evil" town alignments, while Roland's campaign features the three "good" town alignments.

If Archibald is victorious, Roland's rebellion is crushed, and Roland himself is imprisoned in Castle Ironfist, leaving Archibald the uncontested ruler of Enroth. The  ending, however, results in Roland's victory, with Archibald being turned to stone by Roland's court wizard, Tanir.

If you're more interested to play modern games and get some more games modern games more entertaining take a look at Kevin Martin's JoyofAndroid Best Adnroid Games post here.

Enjoy

The Satanic roots of Metal and Rock Music genre – Two parts Christian movie exposing connection between Satanism and Metal music

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Some long time ago a bit before I repent and believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, I've done quite an extensive research on the trustability of the Holy Bible and mostly the Church and Christian writtings. In that times, as an ex-metal head I had a profound interest if there is really a connection between Modern Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Music?

My research back then was quite thoroughful and I found plenty of proofs clearly showing a clear connection between most of the hard rock and heavy / death metal bands to satanism. I used to listen this anti-christian music for about 8 years repeatedly believing the message is not  really bad, even though subconsciously I knew something is not right with the music.

It was quite shocking to me to find that one of my favourite hard rock / psychedelic bands Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Doors, Rolling Stones etc. e, had a clear connection with Alester Crawley (a new age occultist magician and a forefather of modern satanism …).

Crawley was a completely insane person proclaiming himself under the alias "The Beast". This psycho travelled all around America, cursing people and cities and teaching people to worship evil. In other words the guy was a complete modern day anti-christ. I found in youtube few short 20 minute, movies exposing the relation between the new age ecumenistic beliefs and Crawley. Along with the musicians spoken about and their exposure to be a bible and God deniers, the movie explains why the message of this popular figures is anti-Christian in essence. This short few movies explains how this terrible guy Crawley become an inspirator of many of the today world popular played rock bands in most of the radio stations …


Satanism – The Root of Rock Music (part 1)


Satanism – The Root of Rock Music (part 2)

Another interesting documentary exposing some of the major pop and rock culture and musicians connection with satanism and the occult is They Sold Their Souls to the devil. The movie is again a short research on popular musicians, who openly say in their interviews they sold their souls for fame to the devil. . Many of the star musicians featured in this videos, even say openly they're possessed by evil spirits.


They Sold Their Souls to the devil part 1 of 3


They Sold Their Souls to the devil part 2 of 3


They Sold Their Souls to the devil part 3 of 3


They Sold Thir Souls to the devil part 4 of 4

Some people might think this is a joke non-serious, some crazy christian propaganda, but if you watch it without bias and analyze it nomatter if Christian or atheist you will see most of the things said in the video reflect the reality. Actually it's very sad reality, today's world has rapidly headed towards non-christianity, occult and satanism. Believe it or not, the elite in the world, we see daily on TV or hear on the Radio and read for as heroes in the newspapers has a strong connection with magicians, occult and fake spirituality. Many of them think loving evil is fun and okay but in fact it is a big lie we're said. As I've red someone says, once a lie is repeated many times it appears to sound like truth….
Anyways we should know Evil is evil and no good can come of worshipping the evil our ancestors and forefathers knew that pretty well and they used to teach us in a spirit to obey good and walk after good and not evil. Modern pop-rock culture teach us something else it teach us to go after the ways of dis-obeying satan took … Pitily our dying generation forgot that evil seeking will bring just evil and now systematically many  governments and medias are working seriously for  destroying the Christian moral and pureness hence by that we  seek to destroy ourselves hurrying towards our own destruction….

Lets hope God will be merceful and turn more people to him and unveil them the truth we read in the Holy Bible. I have hope more and more people will realize that we have to be living in a moderate and saintly way and not like the rock and pop stars shown in those videos. We should pray for each other and love each other and keep an eye on our children to let them not go the bad ways of witchcraft, unholiness and sinfulness  the modern pop – rock culture push us to.

The Living of Saint Peter and Saint Fevronia – a fascinating Russian cartoon retelling the saints story

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Saint Peter and Fevronia Orthodox Christian saints protector of happy family, love and blessed marriage

The anime Living Story of Saint Peter and Saint Fevronia is a modern story remake of an ancient Church living of two bright Russian saints.
The official movie genre is orthodox christian kids animation movie.
The 14 minutes cartoon re-tolds the living story of St. Peter and st, Fevronia in a playful and entertaining way like for kids or youngsters.
Nomatter the movie primary target audience is children, the cartoon is great to see for adults people as well :).
The movie genre is orthodox christian kids animation movie.
The plot is based on a true (historic record) story of two saints venerated each year across Orthodox Churches around the world.

The original story I watched was a Bulgarian translation from Russian. But since I found it to be so valuable, I look for a translated video and got one in youtube.Take 14 minutes break and watch it, I'm sure you will like it so much, that probably give it a second time glimpse alone or with your wife, children or girlfriend.

Unfortunately, the english title is mis-translated as it says "Tale" and not "Story" and there is difference in meaning between this two words.
It is not tale as tale is made up story and this is not a made story but a story based on the two saints who lived in the end of 12 and beginning of the thirteen century.
Here is in short the real Church living:
The two saints were living in Murom Russia. Peter was prince and Fevronia a poor maid a daughter of a beekeeper who made his family living by collecting wild honey in the forest.

Prince Peter was striken by a severe sickness and in a vision it was revealed to him, that the only one that can cure him is Fevronia (a village maid living in the village of Laskovo Russia. The prince went to her and since he saw she is a pious, good and wisdom rich maid promised her, if she manage to heal him to take her as a bride to his place.
By her warm prayers to God and herbs, Fevronia succeeded in healing the prince sickness. Being fully restored st.Peter changed his mind and wanted to break his promise to marry her, cause the young made not part of the aristocratic Russian society. He didn't yet reached his home and the sickness, came back. This time with a deep repentance, he came back to Fevronia and she cured him again. Then the prince merried her and made her a princess of Murom
 

St. Peter and Fevronia Orthodox Church saints protector of marriage

However there love in Christ had to went through high temptations. Once the couple married, the prince proud boyars requested the prince to leave his new bride, as they didn't wanted to accept a simple girl as Fevronia will be governing them. Being in uneasy situation prince Peter prefered to leave his governing power and castle but to stay with his life. Together by boat by the near river Oka they left the kingdom. Soon after Gods wrath came Murom because of people's rebellion and the people requested the chased prince family to be restored to power.
Pushed by the peasents, the boyars bringed back the couple to power. The two saints governed their kingdom with great wisdom, love and mercy to the people.

In their old age the decided to become monks in separate monasteries. St. Peter received his new monk name David and princess Fevronia took the nun name Evphrosia (Evfrosia). Even living a sepate monk / nun life the couple continued having a deep love to each other and asked God to take them from this earthly life on the same date. God answered their prayer granting them to depart this earth on the same day in the same hour!
Like in life even in death people tried to separate them.
Fevronia was put in a coffin in the nun monastery, where Peter was prepared for a monk funeral in the man monastery and they put them in separate graves.
In the morning the graves were empty and their bodies were found buried together in one grave. People realized it is Gods will they are buried together and left them buried together. Today the incorruptable bodies of the two saints can be seen and venerated in Holy Trinity's nun monastery in the town of Murom Russia. St. Peter and St. Fevronia are considered patron of the Christian marriage, couple's love and family happiness.
It is common that many young people are, asking for the two saints prayer intercession in front of God for getting a good spouse in life and good marriage.

Also the two saints are oftenly asked for prayer for improving a marriege bindings.
The two saints feast day is like the Orthodox Antipode of the Roman Catholic feast of couples in love – St. Valentine.

As you see, St. Peter and St. Fevronia living is full of wisdom and true spirituality, and there is plenty we the modern disbelieving people can learn from it.
Let God by the two saints holy prayers have mercy on us.

What’s goin on recently

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

At Saturday I had my first driving license. The instructor let me drive on the road for Balchik. Happily the driving went smoothly of course I made a lot of mistakes which is pretty normal for a first time driving. In the afternoon we went out for a walk with Niki. We just went out when Vlado (Hellpain) called, he came back to Dobrich for a day, we met for a coffee after which we stayed for 2 hours in the central park. Today as usual I attended the liturgy at the orthodox Church. Today it’s a big Christian Orthodox holiday, it’s the day in which the Our Lord Jesus Christ send the Holy Spirit to the early Church fathers (the apostles). The apostles heard a great noise and they see the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in a form of burning tongues, each tongue coming above the head of each of the apostles and the rest of the first believers in our Lord and Saviour Jesus. I’m still in doubt should I decide to go or not to the Netherlands. I applied for a room there through http://vivare.nl yesterday. But still haven’t received a confirmation for approval and I haven’t send a deposit for a room. I made research about the Arnhem Business School (ABS) and talked and I’m talking with a friend who went to study in Holland the last year. In the afternoon I watched an old russian movie which is marked as a SCI-FI genre (Kin Dza Dza), I got the title from the top 20 in IMDB. Yeah I can say that the movie was pretty freaky :). Vladi did call me again and said one of the servers in the office had crashed I spoke with of my colleagues with a request to go to the office and restart the box but it seems the box isn’t booting. Tomorrow I’ll catch an early bus for Varna and went to the office to see what’s wrong with the machine (hope it’s not a serious hardware problem). That’s most of it. To be honest although God grants me a lot of his divine grace I still feel a bit of lost and pathless and struggle to fight my lack of faith, and bad habits. I’m praying everyday for a physical healing but I still haven’t completely recovered from my sickness. I have sinned badly in my past and I deserve to have that sickness but still I honestly I’m repenting day after day for my bad life in the past and the near present … Another think I should say is that a friend of mine has died I saw his obituary hanging on a tree 🙁 , His name was Alexander (Sashe) known among us by the nickname (Saketo), he was a drug addict and that killed him I hope he is with God know peace be upon him. END—–

Death Metal singing animals :)

Monday, February 20th, 2012

Alex, just passed me by few funny videos, with "animals singing death metal"

Death Metal Singing Rooster

This Rooster, should definitely contact Six Feet Under (SFU) 's vocalist – Chris Barnes for a solo album 😉

I guess this Camel should start innovative metal music fork to Grind Core or Noise Core metal genre sub-division 🙂


I'm sure you never imagined the donkey could be an awesome Metal singer, Well believe it or not it is a fact the donkey has a talent 🙂


This dog is quite experienced in Death Metal vocalist stage behaviour 😉

There is plenty of other Metal singing animals in Youtube, for more laugh check the related videos. Enjoy ! 🙂

Midnight in Paris (2011) -A tiny movie review

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Midnight in Paris Movie Cover 2011 review

Yesteday with Baky (my dear Orthodox Coptic Christian friend) and Kliment (a good friend from the old rock’n’roll years), we went to the Dobrich Cinema (sadly just one cinema for the city is available). The cinema in Dobrich is called Cinema Club Icarus (Ikar). For all foreigners who wants to enjoy some movie, the Dobrich Cinema does offer a plenty of English speaking movies (with Bulgarian subtitles).

Pitily the Dobrich Cinema website http://www.kinoikar.com/bg/info/2 is not existing in English, though anyone wanting to check the current projected movies in the cinema can use the movie trailers and the movie pictures to get the necessery info.

Anyways I haven’t been to a cinema for some almost two months, so going for a movie was really relaxing enjoyable experience. Besides that, we were lucky to see a movie which fitted quite well to my movie genre preferences –

Midnight in Paris

. Midnight in Paris is a Romantic Comedy for intellectuals and people who have a glipmse on art. Its a Bohemian movie so to say and I believe it wouldn’t hold a big interest for the avarage man who doesn’t keep interest in Arts, History or Philosophy.

The movie plot revives around a young engaged American couple who went to Paris for a business trip, just to find out there whole life is gonna be changed by this.
The main actor Gil a just grown man is writting a Novel book, trying to make a shift of his profession from being a movie directory to a novel publicist. Gil (Owen Wilson) is an odd Bohemian kind of man, who quickly fells in love with Paris rich culture architecture and old fame.
Next to that Gil is a dreamer who (just like me dreams about the old glorious times), when people were more respectable better moral and more idealistic than in the current age. After one night of heavy wine drinking, Gil’s fiancee wents for some dancing and leaves him on his own. Gil makes a round in Paris and losts himself and decides to stay for a while in front of sold old Roman Catholic Cathedral, a mysterious very old car crosses by the street and suddenly some “party” gang asks Gil to join. He has no idea where he is going and suddeny finds himself in the epoch of the world famous 1920 of great book publicists like the Fidgeralds family.
Night by night Gil is being transferred to a different epoch back in time to meet a world famous artists and authors, people like Ernest Hemingway, Picaso, Salvador Dali etc. etc. 😉

The movie shows many personages of odd world famous people with some of their strangeties known by the current age. It appears all of them are dreaming for all and the same thing, to live in a earlier age to live in the Golden Age of Arts and Poetry 😉

The movie is real fun in Gil’s personage I’ve seen a lot of “me”, also I’ve seen a lot of me in many of the other famous people as of course presented in the movie. I hardly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to take a break, have a good mindful laugh time.
Here is Midnight in Paris movie trailer as well to get an idea what to expect:

Sjecas li se dolly bell? – Do you remember Dolly Bell? – A classic serbian movie by Emil Kosturica

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Sjecas li se Dolly Bell / Do you remember dolly bell?

Sjecas li se dolly is a piece of classic in the well known Kosturica genre, the movie is from the distant 1981. The movie action takes place in communistic Yugoslavia. It clearly contains anti-communistic nuances. I’m really amazed that this movie see the light of the day in the early ’90s while still communism had strong influence on information media in Yugoslavia.

As I’ve lived until the age of 7 in communism and post-communism (and experienced myself communism), the movie was especially interesting to see. In the family in the movie I can see many things I’ve seen and suffered many of the anti-human communistic bull-shit in my own family in my boy years.
Communism has cripppled us the Bulgarians as a nation and destroyed any society which it was in (clearly observable in all post-communistic countries).

Interesting thing to notice among the communistic Marxist ideas in the plot is the growing influence of the Western World (seen in the anti social behavior of the actors),the enthusiasm to look for occult of the main actor the teenager boy – (Dino), the desire to look follow Italian western culture etc.
The movie also keeps the mark of the negativism and crazyness which is so distinct about all Kosturica movies I’ve seen. Anyways from an art point of view the movie is a real master piece.

The movie plot takes place in the so conflict area of Sarajevo, a place predominated by Muslims. What is shocking about the movie considering its time of make, is the explicit erotic and sexually related scenes. The censorship in communistic times was quite severe so it’s amazing, how this anti-communistic movie containing society unacceptable scenes ever came to existence.
Do you remember Dolly Bell? is a drama movie, presenting a sad reality, we still partially continue to live in the Balkans. Though 20 years has passed since the fall of communism pitily not much has changed here…

Near the movie end there are some religious scenes as well obviously attempting to fill in the material emptiness of communism with something spiritual. The religious scene,is a muslim local tradition of a funeral preparations.
The relation between the movie and Islam is understandable as Kosturica had some Bosnian Muslim roots from the line of his father. This kind of muslim influence is also observable on the other Kosturica movies as well.
Nowdays since 2005, Kosturica is officially Orthodox Christian baptized in Savina Monastery which makes me happy as myself am Orthodox Christian 😉