Reviewed by: Drumbaby
Developer: Nihilistic Software
Publisher: THQ

Conan was a favourite of mine back in my Marvel comics reading childhood. Plus the Frank Frazetta paintings were a constant source of fascination to me, with their dark, brooding, often bloody menace. So the prospect of playing a Conan game on a next gen' system was an exciting one.

Before I get too far into the review I'll get one thing out of the way: Conan is a God of War clone. It feels like Kratos' adventure in nearly every conceivable way, from its combat/ dodging mechanics, to the platforming, through to the boss encounters and the methods used in vanquishing them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as God of War is the best story-driven 3rd person hack 'n' slasher out there, so there are worse games to base a Conan adventure on. But this also means that I'm judging Conan on that basis...So, how does it measure up to GOW?

The story itself is fairly standard fodder, told pretty well through in-game engine cut scenes and female voiced narrative. The chapters are very much compartmentalised, so you don't really get the effortless flow of GOW or the feeling that you're living the entire adventure on a minute-by-minute basis as Conan bludgeons his way from place to place. This diminishes the epic stature of the game, but this is offset by the handy feature of having all your stats listed on a score sheet at the end of a level. Favourite combos, number of limbs hacked off, score, and number of deaths etc. Quite an extensive data sheet, but it feels a little out of place, and perhaps even a little out of time for this kind of game. I'd sooner have the story played out with a natural flow, with none of these interruptions, and perhaps just leave the stats to more hardcore combat games like Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry. That's not to say the story is bad...it isn't. Conan's adventure, and indeed his character is as rich as a homicidal skull-cleaving lunk's can be, with Ron Perlman's voice giving it some haughty humour and vengeful vigour throughout.

As far as adventuring goes, as you make your way through the levels the desire to explore the rich terrain is gradually knocked out of you by the realisation that the game is actually very linear, and in a completely transparent way. The tendency is for sections of the maps to be copied and pasted throughout, so a means of gaining entrance into a new section will be repeated 5 minutes later. Whether this be throwing a rock through a lattice of branches, or opening a door only for rocks to fall down behind ensuring your progress is ever forward, the sense of mystery is soon bled from the game, and little white swirls flash at the foot of the next objective, mean that as long as you never question following the straight line, no puzzle will ever require solving. In God of War seeing the next vista or finding the next mystery was as compelling as fighting the next boss. Conan dispenses with this gameplay element, and seeing as how numerous the enemies are per level I'm assuming that this is intentional. However it is a missed opportunity, as the lands of Conan lore are as fascinating as the blood baths.

But fortunately the meat of the game is its combat, and in this area Conan puts up a pretty convincing argument. Conan upgrades his mighty brutality throughout by accumulating red runes given out by slain opponents. These can be used to purchase new and stronger moves. The controls are extremely responsive, with light and heavy blows employable in various combos, and carefully timed blocks allowing retaliatory QTEs (Quick Time Events), often with spectacular results. Some of Conan's scripted responses yield a truly jaw dropping ballet of claret spraying splendour. Conan can also roll out of trouble with the right stick, stun opponents, throw objects, pick up shields and use discarded weapons and even set fire to flammable parts of the map with torches. The list of combos unlocked throughout the game is very respectable, matching those of GOW or Rygar with ease.

Sometimes the preponderance of grunt-type enemies can make using Conan's acumen a bit of a drudge, but occasionally an elite version of the current soldier type, archers, or wild animals of all descriptions can lead to a situation where your knowledge of mixing up of the combos is put to the test. The elite guards have unblockable moves, so you have to chip away at them. Roll, parry, use heavy and light combos (slow and fast respectively) and time those blocks just right. This is where the combat can become truly transfixing. There are a lot of enemies per level, leading to spectacular body counts, and so often some hair-raising moments where your health is flickering on the last red notch. Luckily a kill can net you health as well as red runes, and the landscape is often destructible, with green health runes flooding out from a shattered rock. You can also boost your health bar's maximum limit by finding all the green triumvirates in a level. Similarly Conan's magic powers can be augmented with blue triumvirates, and his upgrades with red. There are also the urns and chests (straight out of GOW) lying around the place, so you're usually okay unless you blunder into traps and get cornered by elite guards, lions and giant apes, to name a few.

There are also much bigger brutes to contend with, and also some impressive bosses. Conan's bestiary lives up to the comics and books. The boss encounters are again straight out of God of War, with the battles often moving you around the map in scripted/ staged chapters. They start with standard bashing the beasty to bits until the health bar is gone sections, but these always give way to the QTE sections. The scripted carnage Conan dishes out during these sections is always spectacular, but the mechanic can sometimes feel a little strained. Some of the battles would benefit from having a bit more room and a more mobile boss, and decreasing of the life bar being the player's objective, rather than racing through to the QTE, sometimes with little or no skill required. This is a shame, because most of the bosses are truly impressive, often vast, and the setting of their inevitable demise often particularly atmospheric.

My one main criticism of Conan's actual gameplay mechanics is that the platforming is absolutely tear-your-hair-out awful. Worse even than Genji on the PS3, and that is saying something (Genji could have been a great game but for the sloppily implemented jumps). First of all the game engine seems a little twitchy during these sections. Often too sensitive to your input, and even a little bit bogged down with clipping issues. Also some of the 3D perception used in judging the jump can feel a little esoteric, leading to constant repetition of what genuinely seem run-of-the-mill jumps. This can kill the urgency and pacing of even the most combat heavy game, and unfortunately this is one area of GOW that doesn't seem to have been recreated particularly well in Conan. Shame.

Technically it's a mixed bag. The graphics are obviously benefiting from the extra muscle of the next gen' consoles. The character models animate smoothly, with all the inertia and weight you'd expect. They all look solid (although some of the boss characters, especially the sand dragon, look almost toy-like in their plasticity) and are very well lit. Sometimes the environments can look drop-dead spectacular, especially when sunlight is filtering through moving foliage. Sometimes though the landscapes can look a bit plain and bland, and some of the water effects are particularly ugly. Overall though it's solid and convincing, though it lacks the real next gen' sheen found in fantasy games like Heavenly Sword and Folklore. The framerate never dips, which keeps combat feeling smooth and punchy. The sound is loud and brash, and the soundtrack appropriately rousing, in a seventies 'B' movie kind of a way. The voice acting is fine, even down to the soft porn actress sound-alikes used when a maiden thanks you for freeing her, and then offers herself up to servicing your barbaric loins. Yet another nod to GOW, but perhaps a little overused!

Conan fans looking for a solid gruesome romp through an authentic fantasy setting will be very happy with Conan. People looking beyond the Conan moniker and hoping for the next God of War but on next gen' hardware will probably come away feeling a little disappointed. Basically there is already a more epic and spectacular (and even bloodier) experience to be had on the ageing clunker that is the PS2. Conan doesn't feel as progressive as Heavenly Sword (as derivative as HS undoubtedly still is) but then again Conan as a property was never particularly highbrow. I personally would like to see a sequel to this that attempts to combine the already accomplished combat mechanics with a more skilfully told story, with more agile platforming and perhaps less of the the QTE reliance marring the boss fights. But all in all this is a very solid entry into what is still a relatively uncrowded genre on next gen' consoles, and as such is worth picking up -- both for Conan and action-gaming fans alike.