Conan: The Videogame (Xbox360 and Ps3)

Your face is awful, I can tell cause I've seen it.
 
IGN gives it a 7.5 :up:

7.0 Presentation
It's all kept very simple, with easy to navigate menus and storyboard-style cutscenes that serve the questionable plot well.
7.0 Graphics
Animations are fluid rather than fancy and environments lean toward the drab end of the spectrum. More variety in enemy designs would have been nice.
8.0 Sound
A rousing musicial score is accompanied by cheesy but engaging voice acting, plenty of guttural grunts and other manliness.
7.5 Gameplay
You'll either love Conan's combat-heavy gameplay or hate it. But if you're into action titles, Conan's tight combat and decent boss battles are great.
6.0 Lasting Appeal
There's no online gameplay and it's possible to blast through the single-player in about 10-12 hours. There are some 'secrets' but they're fairly easy to find.
7.5
Good OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)

Ahh....it feels good to be right.

Suck it, Freeman....suck it long and suck it hard.
 
What pisses me off is they still don't have a video review up.
 
Eurogamer score = 7/10 :up: I knew it....it's a game for real men.

I've just untied a female slave from a tree and she doesn't have much to cover her modesty. Her alarmingly inflated breasts are bouncing excitedly in the jungle air, while all that stands between the cruel elements and her delicate minnie-moo is a slender scrap of cloth roughly the size of a child's sock.

A very small child's sock.

Despite her inappropriate attire, and the fact that she's been tied to a tree by lusty pirates and presumably manhandled something rotten, she doesn't seem too upset with her situation. In fact, she seems quite...excited. "Oooh! Where are my clothes?" she purrs, arching her back and jiggling those painstakingly rendered bosoms in my direction. Needless to say, I've only got one thing on my mind: please don't let my wife walk in right now.

They say Americans don't do irony, yet this hilariously adolescent slash-em-up has been rated M for Mature in the US. Clearly, there's precious little maturity on display here but what is on display is a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of blood, guts, boobs, blood, guts and a bit more blood. And boobs. One of the first combos you unlock allows you to slice both an assailants arms off, leaving them writhing and spurting on the floor, and it only gets more bloodthirsty from that point on. Heads fly off, torsos are bisected, intestines are yanked out with bare hands. Following even the smallest skirmish, the ground is awash with blood and severed body parts. Mature? Heck no. Stupid fun? Oh yes.

Of course, this horny hyper-violence is all perfectly in keeping with the reactionary wish-fulfilment of Robert E. Howard's barbarian saga. The Conan of this game is a swaggering muscle on legs, a warrior, thief and adventurer who seemingly craves only sex and violence. No time for driving enemies before you or listening to "da lamentations of der vimmin" here. The plot, for what it's worth, is little more than an excuse to keep changing the scenery and enemies while introducing a range of magical attacks as our burly hero reclaims the bits of his enchanted armour from hulking end of level bosses. Although there are a couple of obvious energy-style attacks, the more outlandish armour powers - such as releasing a horde of angry ravens to tear your foes apart - are worth waiting for.

What depth the game has comes in the form of a three-tiered combat system, with hundreds of unlockable attack moves divided between three fighting methods: single weapons, dual-wielding and grappling. Successful fighting and the occasional treasure chest grant you experience points, which can be saved up or traded in for new attacks at any time. As with every other game of this type, you can concentrate on developing one style, or spread your skills evenly for maximum flexibility. The combo sequences are often the same between the two sword fighting styles, with only the resulting assault changing, so it's not the most technical brawler on the market. If you can string together five button presses you've got ample finger dexterity for Conan.

The game is generous with the experience points, generally doling out enough to purchase at least five new attacks per level to start with, so the emphasis is clearly on keeping players engaged through escalating carnage. Those weaned on Ninja Gaiden or God of War may prefer to head straight for the hardest difficulty settings, but while you can unleash combo after combo, there's no ability to chain your attacks meaning that brutal hack and slashing (in conjunction with a lot of blocking) gets the job done more often than not. Health refills are common - either from destroyed scenery, dismembered foes or glowing jars of wine that Conan gulps down heartily. However, rather than topping your health up immediately, these convenient beverages simply release floating green health icons which slowly home in your position. In the middle of a large melee, it's easy to get cut down while swigging or waiting for the swirling health top-ups to finish floating around the screen and actually, you know, heal you.

But such quirks are to be expected, as Conan is a very videogamey videogame, and few arcade action clichés go unused. Boss battles are a predictable and lengthy process of blocking repeated attack patterns and chipping away at their health. There are occasional puzzles and one-off action sequences - or at least moments where you have to stab buttons and twizzle joysticks to pull levers, operate crossbow turrets or topple pillars - but this really isn't a game where you'll spend much time wondering what you need to do next.

Graphically, the game is slick but functional. Conan himself has retained just enough Arnie to please most fans, but not so much that THQ need to worry about a visit from the Governator's lawyers. His voice comes courtesy of genre legend Ron Perlman, and his gravely tones hit just the right cheesy note to sell the florid dialogue, sort of halfway between wrestling smacktalk and the cod Shakespearean twaddle of Stan Lee's early Thor comics.

Elsewhere, sadly, the presentation can be patchy. Enemy character models are repeated to tedious effect, while the abundance of smashable crates and urns hardly suggests fresh thinking. The environments look better, with some nice lighting effects, but they're still plagued by invisible walls that keep you on a linear path as crudely as they did in 1995. When the road does diverge, you instinctively know that one path will be a dead end, laden with bonus goodies, with the other leading to the next designated brawling spot.

But just when the bitter tang of disappointment at the rote mechanics of the game start to creep in, the stylised visuals cohere into a rather enticing approximation of the famous Conan artwork by Frazetta or Vallejo. A little bit hazy, a touch crude around the edges, but definitely epic and iconic with a painterly scope. Fans of the character, and those artists, will definitely be impressed. When this happens, the deliberately over the top violence combines with generic but solidly crafted gameplay to create a shamelessly visceral experience that's simple enough to be accessible while remaining true to the pulp source material. It may not be clever, but it offers as much bloodthirsty fun as you'd expect from an 18-rated barbarian slash-em-up.

Conan doesn't set its sights high enough to set anyone's world on fire, and there's not really enough meat on the bone to recommend an immediate full price purchase, but it is a well-paced and generally satisfying hunk of tongue-in-cheek gory action. The lack of real depth to the combat engine means it'll never match up to the standard of its loftier genre peers, and the absence of any co-op or multiplayer mode in a game this demented is inexcusable, but it does make for a more shamelessly enjoyable blade-swinging romp than the similar but oh-so-dull Heavenly Sword. And it has more naked boobs. Always a plus.
7/10
 
Yeah, hard to trust someone who thinks this is better than HS. Hell he only has three reasons for liking it more: boobs, gore, and guts. It still looks like a pretty sweet gam that I'll get when it's dirt cheap. Motorstorm, HS, KZ2, Uncharted, RaCF, FNR3, Assassins Creed, RE5, MGS4, GTAIV are all going to be bought beforehand.
 
You know? I'm starting to think that maybe I'll get this game when it's cheap, as well.
I'm just glad it's getting decent reviews, because I'm a huge Conan fan and I wanted this game to be good.
Perhaps I'll wait until it drops to like 40 bucks or something :D :up:
 
So the demo is out on the marketplace, and ohh is it fun. I mean there isn't much to it, as you just go through the level chopping up everyone in site, but damn thats fun. The combat is really cool, and it works really well. There are a ton of moves you can unlock. Its real easy to fight alot of ppl at the same time, the blocks work well and the counters are just grotesquely AWESOME. One of em has you leap into the air, coming down on your opponents head with your massive sword leaving the enemy split in two, and theres NO shortage of blood. The entire map gets stained red, and you can see the after math of your battle with body parts and gore just all over the place. The voice acting is pretty dodgey from what i can tell, but i wasn't planning on playing this game b/c i wanna hear great voice acting. My fav counter has to be the one where Conan flings the enemy into the air and hacks him in two midair. Iv already played thro the demo multiple times. If you like gore, and want a hack n slash with pretty deep combat, then try this one out. I got a 10 dollar off coupon from Circuit City and i deff know what its going towards.
 
Yeah, I was just mentioning that...
I mean, I love how this game looks and all, but I won't buy it before say....Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect, you know?
I'll wait until the game is a bit cheaper, and then I'll buy it :up:
 
Yeah, I was just mentioning that...
I mean, I love how this game looks and all, but I won't buy it before say....Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect, you know?
I'll wait until the game is a bit cheaper, and then I'll buy it :up:

O deff, altho, im getting it when it releases JUST to tide me over until Assassins Creed. The more i take my mind of AC, the quicker itll get here.
 
Did you see the AC "Freedom" video?
Damn :up:


HELL yea! AC has got to be one of my most anticipated games...ever. Dont forget to check out IGN on Thursday for "one of their most anticipated previews"
 
Haha I won't :up:
I'm gonna go crazy when I actually get that game, I know it.
Everything about it looks so awesome.
 
If Altair had been included in "Kingdom of Heaven"...

Don't get me wrong, I really LOVE the movie (only the DC), but imagine something like Assassin's Creed done in a movie? Damn...
 
There's a demo for Conan on Xbox Live. Its about 480mb if I remember correctly. I'll probably download it later...
 
Ill pass on this game. The gameplay in the demo reminded me of God of War, but nowhere near as fluid or well done. The attacks felt a bit stiff and nonresponsive.
 
Looks good to me, but only cuz of the massive amount of gore and violence. HS is a finely crafted, BEAUTIFUL game, and it might be 7 hours long, but I play games around three or four times anyways.
 

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