Poor man's Heavenly Sword
A Customer from Guildford,
18th February, 2008
Third person swordplay in the world of Conan might sound like a match made in heaven, but the result is wildly uneven. The graphics are quite poor for a PS3 game, particularly in comparison to the lush Heavenly Sword, which is one of Conan's closest competitors at the moment. Conan also falls down on the production values side - the voice acting is flat at best, and the writing and cinematics are weak. And in keeping with its pulp fiction background, Conan seems to have been developed by a team of sexually frustrated teenagers. For example, one of the major sources of experience in the game is rescuing naked women chained to walls, who greet you with such howlers as 'where did my clothes go' and 'crush me with your love'. Oh dear... The combat (which is obviously the main focus of the game) is also just what you'd expect from Conan - gruesome, gory and gratuitous. You'll kill hundreds of foes over the course of the game, gaining experience that you can then spend to unlock fresh combos with which to dismember your enemies in interesting new ways. There's plenty of depth here, if you can remember what the dozens of combos do, and which order to press the buttons in to perform them. One nice touch though is that once you learn a new combo, you can gain further experience by 'mastering' the move, which means using it about 20 times in combat. This encourages you to use your new moves once you've bought them, and hopefully memorise them before buying more. Unfortunately, as you get further into the game you encounter more and more frustrating and repetitive sections. At times it's just lack of polish letting the game down, but at times it's downright poor design. Particularly painful are some of the jumping puzzles and ledge hopping sections, which fall far short of more adventure-oriented games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted, and often lead to Conan unexpectedly plunging to his death through no real fault of the player. The result is a bit like Conan himself - rude, crude and very rough around the edges, but fun enough in his own way. With a bit more care and attention lavished on it, this could have been a far better game. As it is, it's a decent enough rental for anyone who needs something to fill the gap between Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry 4 and the arrival of the new God Of War. Just don't expect too much from it.
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