Smite your enemies
Through playing Conan i often wondered what the game would be like without the exist of God of War. It certainly tries to set itself of in such a manner as to which you can't help asking that question. However once you get bast this barrier of hating unoriginal gameplay, you'll find that Conan is actually a fun little game
Conan begins as he opens a tomb and releases the black plague amongst the world. While doing this he loses his armor and must go back and retrieve it. He meets a young warrior maiden in the process and "befriends" her. They sail to go find how to fight the black plague, and find answers along the way, since somehow the magic that unleashed the plague erased Conan's memory of the event. During this journey you will find yourself going through deserts, islands, jungles, snow capped mountains, cities, and even caves. Sounds like a lot on paper, but pleases know that the actual game lasts around 6 hrs.
Soundwise Conan is really average. The clanging of metal on metal sounds well and the disembowelment of living things sounds really gives you that feel of power. The music is loud and in your face, but sometimes the points in the game when it occurs feels off. During dialogue moments it tends to keep playing and actually drowning out conversation, and it seems to be lower in actual gameplay, which doesn't make sense to me. The voice acting has the same feel as the movies and sounds real cheesy, but for the avid Conan fan you'll feel right at home. Although, Conan is slimed down from the "Arnold" movie version for a more lean and understandable character instead of only grunting and yelling Krom all the time.
In the Graphics department you'll see that the bulk of this game is on par with the average game of the day. Some graphics such as blood and a few main character models are done real well. On the other hand it overshadows the actual environment making you feel like the artist spent more time making the blood look better than the actual landscape of the game.
The game plays like maybe Spartan: Total Warrior or a dumbed down version of God of War. Doors are opened by command prompts that appear when you activate the highlighted item, and they are predictable. The combat feels sluggish at times, but i expect thats what they were going for, as Conan is a barbarian not some monk with a lot of finess to his attacks. With that said the combat is sometimes more difficult than you would think considering the game doesn't take itself serious, and you may find yourself wanting to play on easy before you figure out that waiting on your opponent is the only way to beat them without taking to much damage. It does however keep some depth as boss fights all have some certain pattern you must figure out in order to beat them, and certain mission objectives have you tinkering with different things such as: bastillas, torches, and a whole lot of pulling on chains to bring stuff down. Conan must have been really great at tug of war. You also will come upon some maidens in distress to rescue and in return you get experience points. There are also treasure chests to find that do the same. These experience points will got to learning new moves that can be done with 1 blade, sword and shield, 2 weapons, or a two handed weapon.
The game seems to be aware of itself as you never feel as if you are in an epic battle, but instead you get the feeling that your just going around killing a bunch of dudes and that is really what the game is all about. The storytelling is not that great, nor is it deep. It really only sets up a place for you to go to work on a bunch of bad guys and have a great time doing so.
