Gather around those of you who would listen; I have a tale to tell.

I finally got Conan from my queue. It’s been in such high demand from Gamefly, that I’ve had it as my number one pick for two months, and only now received it. It is a mature title, and features over the top violence, nudity, and Ron Perlman. Final verdict: it is okay.

Gameplay wise, Conan is a blatant, unapologetic God of War ripoff. This would be alright, because God of War was a great game, even if I loathed the story. It takes some great things about Kratos’ saga, and then fucks it all up with elements from Super Mario 64. Seriously. This game goes back to the earliest formula for gamer woe – Jumping Puzzle + Shitty Camera = Woe. This might have been due to the developers’ time constraints with making their publishing deadline. There is a lot of polish on some elements of the game got, none at all on others. This includes the most annoying bug I’ve ever stumbled upon. They forgot to include a sound effect in one of the levels about halfway through the game, so an annoying beeping noise that may have been a fire alarm plays instead, at 500% volume. Despite this and while later areas got kind of confusing, some parts of the game play fantastic. I’d dare say Conan sometimes surpasses every hack and slash game that has come before it. Other times, it’s like getting a whiff of flaming sulfur.

They also have a really nice, intuitive flow that never breaks up the action, and when played on easy, even a forty year old friend did okay. I didn’t get "stuck" trying to figure out what comes next until about two hours into the game. The one weakness in the combat system is that enemies sometimes don’t feel the giant sword you just cleaved through their body. They take damage, but they don’t react and continue with whatever they were doing before you taught their torso the riddle of steel. This isn’t a very nice aesthetic, and is a real pain when you’re trying to pull off a more gory combo. On the plus side, the moves, when successful, are pretty brutal. For example, one of the earliest moves you can learn, X X B, has this description.

The story is not horrible. An asshole sorcerer betrayed his noble brother and started eating his own children to achieve immortality. The good brother saved one of the kids and magically imprisoned the evil brother with a jewel – which Conan steals on one of his splunking expeditions, accidentally freeing the sorcerer. The bad guy somehow infects entire nations with the Black Plague, a disease which causes men to become violent maniacs and turns their eyes Sith yellow. Conan now has to kill shitloads of people in order to make things right, while stopping every once in a while to look at titties. Awesome.

I’ve always meant to dive into Robert E. Howard’s work and the Conan universe, because I’ve loved the movies and cartoons since I was just a Bodhi Hobo, but it’s something I keep putting off. I don’t know if this is an original story, or an adaptation, but the cut scenes are perhaps the best part of the game. When Conan first meets a warrior queen, she has him at arrow point, and says, "Don’t move or I’ll kill you where you stand." Conan keeps on walking, muttering, "I’ll do as I please, woman." The delivery of these lines is part of what makes the game so great, and the actors better do a good job, because there’s only four of them: Claudia Black from Farscape, Ron Perlman of everything that’s awesome, some voice over actor who does all the "Ugh!" and "Nngg" and various arrow-through-the-throat-type-gurgling noises, and a girl who plays all the chained up naked women. But really, if you think about it, that’s all you need.

Conan definitely isn’t a bad game, but it definitely could’ve used a few more months in the oven. It’s certainly a popular game, and even though it got lost in the sea of last year’s big releases, it’s still selling really well. Here’s hoping that there is a sequel, and the developers will improve on what went wrong, and continue to improve on what was great, in Conan 2.