One of the few positives about Conan is its gory combat system
I just beat this game for the first time last night, so I decided to write up a review on the game now. I’m still on the fence if I’m going to try for the full 1000 or not, as it has a lot of annoyances. To a degree, I can see why it’s a budget title but for those curious about whether or not this budget title is worth a shot, check out my review.
Good
- inexpensive
- if you’re a fan of Conan, you get to play him
- gore-filled combat
Bad
- lack of polish
- bland and repetitive
- terribly designed end-game boss
Intro
Conan the Barbarian practically needs no introduction. He’s our parents’ generation Spider-Man, probably made most famous by the Arnold Schwarzenegger films in the 1980s. What other barbarian do you know? Apparently a few years ago, time was ripe to begin capitalizing on the Conan franchise again, as both this console game and the PC MMORPG, Age of Conan, were developed and released. There is no resemblance between the two games. While Age of Conan doesn’t allow any player to actually be Conan, Conan on the 360/PS3 was developed to allow the player to enjoy being Conan in all his barbaric glory.
The developer behind Conan, Nihilistic, has had a shaky portfolio. Their first release, Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, for the PC, actually garnered some fans and is perhaps their best title to date. Since then, they’ve gone on to work on Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, a fighting game that got terrible reviews, and Starcraft Ghost, a Blizzard game that was pretty much canceled most likely due to the poor quality of the game. Conan is the final game in their portfolio, an average game that sold poorly and cost the publisher, THQ, to lose $20 million in its 2008 fiscal year. It is unknown what Nihilistic is currently working on since Conan.
Gory kills are all in a day’s work for Conan
Storyline and Premise
Conan’s storyline takes place in the world of Hyboria, a fictional Earth taking place about 10,000 BC. In this fantasy world is where the stories of Conan take place, and this console game follows a plot-line similar to a Conan story called “Queen of the Black Coast”. In this game, Conan begins the game looking for treasure, but accidentally frees an evil wizard who scatters all of Conan’s magical armor around the world.
Conan sets out to retrieve the pieces of armor, meeting up with a strong female warrior named A’Kanna who has her own ship. The two team up and sail to different locales to find the armor pieces and put an end to the evil wizard. Each of these locales then serves as a backdrop for Conan, as he goes through several levels to eventually confront a boss and retrieve one of his magical armor pieces.
Slain enemies reward Conan with red runes, allowing him to learn more moves and combos
Gameplay Mechanics
Combat
The combat in the game is pretty intuitive – and perhaps the best feature of the game. It’s bloody, gory, and to a degree, fun. Conan has a light attack and a heavy attack, and is able to use combos, holds, and counters to decimate his foes. There are dozens of different combat moves that Conan can learn and use throughout the game, allowing him to kill his enemies in a variety of different ways: severing limbs, impaling enemies through spikes, slicing heads off with his shield, ripping intestines out with his bare hands, etc. Conan is often confronted with multiple enemies at the same time, and while they are perhaps a bit too predictable, there is a certain level of satisfaction in the amount of gore that can come out of it. To a degree it almost reminds me of Mortal Kombat, as you’re pretty much pulling fatalities on all the enemies you’re fighting. Killing enemies produce either red, green, or blue runes. Red runes are like experience points that allow you to unlock new moves and combos, while green and blue runes refill your health and magic.
There are a few negatives though with respect to the combat in the game. First of all, there is not enough variety in enemy types. I think I can count on one hand the different types of enemies you encounter throughout the entire game. In addition to that, the collision detection is a bit strange. Lack of auto-targetting makes it so if I start a combo, and it eventually gets me close to an enemy, it’ll lock into that enemy to continue the combo. While that works to a degree, the lack of auto-targetting gets annoying because when you’re performing a combo to remove an enemy’s shield and the enemy you end up locking into doesn’t have a shield, you get punished for it. On top of that, the camera is not controllable. For the most part it’s manageable, but the last boss of the game is often times offscreen so when he performs attacks, you can’t even see them so you can’t prepare.
The Two “Special” Meters
Below your green life bar sit two meters: an empty one and a blue one. The blue one is your magic meter, which allows you to cast magic spells that you learn as you regain control of your magical armor pieces. The magic powers include spells like turning enemies to stone, meteor showers, and unleashing ravens upon enemies. The middle meter, is something like a rage meter, filling up as you fight and combo without taking damage. Combo enough and the orange bar will fill up until it hits a certain threshold before the “Song of Rage” automatically kicks in, increasing your damage output in all of your moves while the meter slowly empties out.
Weapons
By default, Conan starts with a one-handed weapon. Throughout the course of the game, he can pick up a shield to accompany that one-handed weapon, another one-handed weapon so he dual wields, or a two handed weapon. Combos and attacks are based off of those three fighting styles: one-handed weapon (with or without shield), two one-handed weapons, and a two-handed weapon. It doesn’t matter if Conan is holding an axe or a sword – they are all the same and fit into either a one-handed weapon or a two-handed weapon type. Enemies as well follow the same setup: they could potentially be wielding a weapon and shield, two one-handed weapons, or a two-handed weapon. Killing them drops their weapons on the ground, so Conan can easily change weapons anytime he wants.
Treasures/Maidens
Throughout the game are hidden treasure chests and chained maidens. If Conan happens to come across any treasure chests, he can open them and is awarded red runes. Chained maidens are no different – they are chained and call out for help so when Conan tears off the chain, he is also awarded red runes. The maidens also happen to be topless, which is perhaps the only game besides God of War to implement nudity in a console game.
Bosses in Conan are large and interesting, but gameplay wise are poorly designed as you have to fight each boss over and over and then deal with quick time events
Achievement Design
Conan has no multiplayer, so all 1000 Achievement points have been assigned to the single player game. The Achievement design is very typical: awarded for beating various stages, beating the game on various difficulties, finding all of the hidden treasures and maidens, upgrading your abilities, etc. What sucks though is that there are Achievements in the game that require you to kill hundreds of enemies a certain way, while not carrying these killcounts from one playthrough to another. So if you don’t get the 100+ kills a certain way in one playthrough, you will have to do them again in the next playthrough.
There are also cheats that are enabled once you beat the game on each difficulty type, and the cheat codes don’t affect Achievements. What’s the point then of beating the game on the hardest difficulty if after cheats it’s easier than normal difficulty without cheats? But I guess at the same time it’s somewhat of a boon for those that don’t want to play the game any more than they have to in order to get the 1000.
Lions are one of the few enemy types that Conan will come across
Final Thoughts
The truth is, I’ve played worse games on the 360 than Conan. It’s a decent game, especially for its sub $20 price these days, but I would be appalled to hear that anyone actually bought it for $60. The game is best described as a bland version of God of War.
I give the game a C. So many things could have been made better with the game, such as a more refined combat engine, better graphics, better collision detection, more variety in enemy and level design, a less annoying end-game boss, less loading time, skippable cutscenes, less glitching, etc. And those are improvements I can think of off the top of my head. But in spite of all that, the game is still quite playable.
At the end of the day, you can take on controlling Conan, pick up a couple weapons, “go Mortal Kombat” on enemies by knocking limbs and heads off, and rescue naked maidens in an 8 hour adventure. It’s mindless and can satisfy certain gamers that aren’t as critical as I am, so if this game still seems fun after what I’ve told you, give the demo a try since it’s a pretty good indicator of what the full game is like.
