Conan (360)

Considering that the previous Conan the Barbarian game in 2004 was released with little critical or commercial acclaim, you’d be forgiven for expecting Nihilistic Software’s latest for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to be anything more than a standard action title. Surprisingly, then, the latest Conan game delivers an unexpected, yet very welcome, level of fun.

The opening of the game sees an armour-clad Conan raiding a tomb in search of a valuable treasure. Through desire and intrigue the barbarian manages to release a powerful sorcerer who attacks him, knocking him out and removing his armour. Once conscious, Conan finds himself floating in the sea near a pirate-populated island and, after some exploration and combat, meets up with a female warrior. The two team up to retrieve Conan’s armour, preventing it from falling into the hands of evil.

Plot-wise, it is far from thrilling but, as an action-heavy game, it proves to be enough to provide the game with a purpose for action. And action-heavy it certainly is. The basic premise is to advance through linear stages with your thumb hovering eagerly over the face buttons; ready to strike just about anything that moves with a series of quick slashes and powerful slices of your sword. Conan is all about hacking and slashing your way through small waves of enemies using a variety of button combinations, with a small amount of puzzling and rescuing topless girls in between. It sounds very repetitive, and the game does let it become so before the end, but while many other hack-n-slash titles become a tedious mess before the final stages, Nihilistic have lavished on a ridiculously-gratifying amount of violence in an attempt to offset the repetitive nature of the genre.


Conan is incredibly violent.

Perhaps ‘ridiculously-gratifying’ was an understatement. Every slice of Conan’s sword sends huge amounts of claret bursting from the enemy, and when you’re faced with not one, but ten of them swarming around you, the results are viscerally satisfying. It becomes a bloodbath of dismembered limbs, gushes of blood and the occasional bodily organ and it could prove to be too much if it wasn’t for the fact that the game generally doesn’t take itself seriously, so it’s very easy to find joy in hacking through waves of foes.

In another attempt to prevent Conan from running out of steam, it is possible to unlock new combat moves through the use of red orbs, which are collected by means of defeating enemies, smashing scenery and opening hidden chests. The frequency of unlocking new moves is very high which means that there are always a new combat opportunities to have fun with. Conan isn’t just limited to his sword, either, as almost any dropped or scattered weapon can be wielded by our muscle-bound hero. Each type of weapon boasts its own set of moves, including single weapon, dual-wielding and two-handed. Though the least powerful, dual-wielding is arguably the most gruesome of the three, producing the most graphically violent kills of them all. There’s something oddly satisfying about hacking off both arms of an enemy simultaneously.


Yup, very violent indeed.

Thankfully, the combat doesn’t just consist of constant attacking. Apart from the usual quick attack, power attack and block, Conan allows you to perform several grapple moves that have devastating results on the opponent. Better still are the counter-attacks, moves which require a parry followed by an on-screen prompt to perform. Though harder to initiate, these moves are undoubtedly the highlight of Conan’s combat repertoire. One counter-attack sees our hero launch an enemy up into the air before slicing him in two, and another involves impaling the already-dead enemy before ripping his sword out of the battered body. As stated previously, this game is incredibly violent, and although it will never topple Sony’s God of War for refined combat, it definitely borrows a great deal from Kratos as far as violent combat goes. Even boss battles play out in a similar way, requiring you to do sufficient damage to the monstrous creatures before performing a series of button presses that produces a highly impressive, Hollywood-style kill.

Unfortunately for Conan, this is where the similarities between the two games end. Although it may not be fair to compare a low-profile title to one as prolific as God of War, the unfortunate difference between the two is that Kratos’s adventure is compelling from start to finish, whereas Conan, despite Nihilistic’s best efforts, simply becomes tiresome before the needlessly frustrating final boss. Though the game tries its best to keep the combat fresh and exciting, it simply isn’t as fluid and responsive as it would like to be, and at only six hours long it certainly isn’t promising. The length of the game perhaps works in its favour; ending the game before it becomes too samey.

Conan also suffers from a variety of small niggles that hamper the overall game experience, the first of which brings back memories of pre-21st Century games. The game is littered with invisible walls, most of which are designed to prevent you from falling from your death during combat, and while this should actually be a welcome addition to the game, it becomes very frustrating to realise that the placement of them seems too random to be helpful. The checkpoints are very generous in Conan, allowing you to get straight back into the thick of the action, but when you are only placed a few minutes back it becomes a mystery as to why it takes upwards of twenty seconds to load.

But the most annoying parts of all are undeniably the jumping sections. Even during combat the jumping feels clunky and unresponsive, but when you encounter sections that require Prince of Persia-style leaps to progress, without the grace and acrobatic skills of the Prince, it’s far too easy to fall to your death.

There’s also a lot of potential wasted on Conan in terms of additions to the game. As you progress you unlock magical abilities, obtained by re-collecting Conan’s lost armour, that aid you in combat, including the ability to encase your enemies in stone or summon a shower of flame-covered rocks from the sky. Although a welcome addition, by the time you have the fourth and final piece of armour the game is almost over, giving you very little time to experiment with them all. As mentioned, lengthening the game wouldn’t be an option to counteract this oversight because it runs the risk of becoming too repetitive. In this respect, Conan simply cannot win.


Conan features muddy graphics with good lighting.

Graphically, Conan is quite the mixed bag of glorious-looking environments, muddy textures and beautiful lighting. From a distance the game looks rather nice with a great deal of thanks going to its large colour palette and its soft lighting. Up close, however, the lack of detail on the characters becomes unattractively apparent. Not all of the game’s presentation is bad, though, as its musical score is a wonderfully-orchestrated set of high-tension pieces that compliment the action-heavy game perfectly. - Heavy violence gives the game a mindless fun feel.
- Great orchestral soundtrack.
- Counter-attacks are a great inclusion.
- Good lighting. - Tries to mask repetition with heavy violence.
- Features several annoying niggles.
- Graphics lack much detail.
- Magic feels completely underused.
- Far too short at only six hours. It’s an incredible shame that Conan features so many oversights that detract from the otherwise solid game. Through visually-rewarding combat, this hack-n-slash almost has enough in it to stand up to some of the larger titles in the genre, but the frustrations and lack of real depth prevents it from doing so. Although the contents don’t justify its price tag, you could do far worse than this surprisingly decent title.