Conan - Xbox 360
Review by Nintenfan1989

“Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”
– Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, 1932.
Created in 1932 Conan The Cimmerian, The Barbarian & The Destroyer has come a long way, through books, movies and now games. However does this game live up to a 75 year old legend?

The gamplay is fun, with loads of blood, gore and flying limbs its definatly worthy of the title “Hack and Slash”, but its incredibly buggy and you often find Conan stuck in the ground and only able to spin, arrows suspended in mid air, limbs floating all over the place like some bad space horror film or the AI attacking rocks for no reason. This shouldn’t put you off too much though, because its funny to see and can be just as entertaining as the game itself, and to make up for the horribly glitchy game play they have added a ton (over 100) combat moves and a load of naked women chained to the walls with only a bit of string between their legs to protect their modesty, and to top it off they are VERY glad to see you, chained up naked by horny pirates you would think these girls would be a tad bit upset, but instead they pull a stripper pose and purr something sexy to you in hopes that you will carry them off into the bushes.

 

Conan also has a few tricks up his sleeve (or rather, under his loin cloth, since thats all he really wears) the moves Conan can pull off are gory, violent and very entertaining, and with the ability to remove just about any part of the enemy’s body or even chop them in half vertically so each piece has a leg, same as a Sunday chicken roast, this game is full of entertainment for Conan or Hack and Slash fans alike.

 

Theres loads of enemys to slaughter and rip limbs from, but sadly they are basically the same thing copied over and over and just given different weapons, you have your soldiers that get tougher, better equipped and more combat skill as you progress, you have the odd lion and flying lizard thing and of course the annoying apes which repeat the same annoying and frustrating 2 moves over and over again, but apart from that each different enemy is only a change of graphics. But, no matter how repetitive it seems, with all them combat moves and different ways of killing someone you will always find something to keep you amused.

 

Putting the game play aside, the story line is pretty dull, your Conan and you have just woke up a sorcerer who has decided to enchant your armor and spread it across Hyboria. So now you must go and reclaim your armor, piece by piece with each one giving you new powers to overcome the sorcerer. He cant be too smart if hes giving you all these powers to destroy him, but then again what villain is.

 

The search for your armor does however lead to some of the most fun and hyper-violent boss battles a hack and slash could ever hope for, from smashing pirate bosses faces into their own clubs till point where their heads turn to mush or ramming a witches staff down her throat, to even climbing inside a sea monster to destroy its insides and then cutting your way back out through its eyeball.

 

My one put off of the story line however is the fact that Conan casts spells, anyone that has read the books or watched the movies will know that Conans pet hate is “Sorcerers and their tricks”, so why he would run round turning monsters to stone, creating portals to suck in unsuspecting soldiers, making fire rain from the skys and even spewing bats from his body is beyond me, because it entirely destroys the original Conan.

 

What does stick to the Conan universe however is the graphics, while they don’t look good enough for the 360 they do have some painted charm to them, which brings you back to the realms of the REAL Conan, it looks more like a painting then a game and has its own beautiful charm that makes up for the lacking detail in the models and jerky animations.

 

The voice acting and sounds are also very much like what you would get if you watched the movies, giving the games a small slice of the movies charm, but the surround sound could have been used a little more.

 

Overall the game could have used a good bit of polishing up, you just cant help but feel like its been rushed, but even though the downsides to the game are large and plentiful you will find that you hardly even notice them once you get into the full swing of the game.
Conan isn’t worthy of an immediate buy at full retail price, but once it drops in price i highly recommend it, it is a game that you shouldn’t miss out on if you enjoy a good bit of hyper-violent, blood and boob filled slash-fest.

 

Gameplay - 8/10 - Very fun, very violent but very glitchy
Graphics - 6/10 - definatly suiting to Conan, but not next-gen
Sounds - 7/10 - Its Conan magic, but the voice actors could have tried a little harder.
Overall - 7/10 - Well worth a buy, just not at full price.