The genre of “hack and slash” has been pretty scarce on the Xbox 360 platform over the past two years. Sony has always had God of War but Microsoft never really dove into that style of gaming, they have Halo. Times are changing and within the next month we are getting two God of War-esq games; Conan and Beowulf. The first to arrive on our review desks was Conan so let’s go through it first in this review. Conan has been a famous TV character for some time and one actor that sported the famous loincloth is now governor of California. Whether gamers are familiar with the franchise is another thing but let me say from the start that I was not a big fan of the TV show. But when I saw that THQ was bringing a Conan action game to the 360 I decided to give it a chance and see what happens. I walked away after completing Conan with a small amount of joy;
the game was fun to play through but I have a feeling the memory won't last forever. Conan features some of the best third-person action gameplay available on the Xbox 360 right now; overall it is a slightly above average hack and slash videogame with a lot of blood and breasts.
The storyline of Conan features a mysterious bad guy unleashing a handful of ultimate bosses on the world that the barbarian lives in. He runs into a beautiful warrior along the way and together they race off to save the world. There is nothing revolutionary in terms of the plot but it did manage to keep me interested throughout the game and features some pretty cool CG movies. I have already described Conan as a “hack and slash” type game so let me explain what that means. Basically you could complete the entire game by pressing one button, over and over again to fight your way through the levels. Luckily the developers decided to take it up a notch and increase the combo list, weapon list, and cause Conan to turn into more of an action/adventure game. The in-game camera is a basic over the shoulder, third person, fixed camera system that works great most of the time but can cause some really big problems other times. There are a few moments in the game where the camera will either get stuck on some invisible barrier or make it impossible to see where you are running. The few platforming levels in Conan can also get quite flustering because of the camera, like I said though most of the time it is fine so no biggie.
The control set in Conan is made up of mainly two buttons, light and heavy attack. There is also a grab button, a block button, and an action button. Using a combination of light and heavy attacks can cause the barbarian to pull of some pretty sweet combos, all of which are un-lockable through the Conan store, via points earned throughout the game. This small RPG element is nice to see in such a bloody and action orientated game. Having the option of grabbing enemies and doing a slew of painful things to them also mixes up the gameplay, this is not your classic button masher that many gamers were worried it would turn out to be. If you press the block button right before an enemy attacks you an option comes up to press one of the face buttons in a short amount of time, if you pull this off the game treats you to a fantastic instant kill. These instant kills vary from slicing a head off, numerous sword stabs to the bag, or even pulling out the guy’s heart. Because there can be a large number of enemies on screen at one time these instant kills come in handy more than once; they are not just for looks.
The other thing that helps keep the battle system in Conan fresh is the option of using different weapons, and different combinations of weapons. Conan can wield a single small/medium sword, dual small/medium swords, or one large sword. Each preference has different combos to learn and techniques to master. My personal favorite was the two small-sword option, because it was very quick and very brutal. The variation in weapons adds something new to an old and used up genre, well done. Throughout the game Conan will battle (and kill) a number of different enemies while traveling through a good number of stylized levels. Each level includes new enemies and new challenges; the settings are also very different so the game does not start to feel repetitive around the halfway mark. The game not only features your run of the mill slash-em-up gameplay but also includes some freaking horrendous puzzles to solve. Puzzle options vary from hacking a chain to open a gate, slashing through vines to find a hidden pathway, or lighting a bush on fire with a flaming stick. They are all very basic enough that a small child could solve them but I guess it is nice to have some variability throughout the game, even if it should have been left on the cutting-room floor.
