Conan for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

There are boobies in THQ's new action button-masher Conan. Lots of boobies. The "collection" portion that seems requisite for all action and adventure titles these days has the famed barbarian searching for half-naked slave girls chained to rocks. There are a lot of these sultry (and yes, topless) young ladies to be found. For this reason, I expect the majority of the IGN office to play Conan with glee. The abundance of ta-tas is, however, the only truly bright spot in what is otherwise a run-of-the-mill brawler.



Developed by Nihilistic, Conan is "inspired" by God of War. And by inspired, I mean that almost every aspect is taken directly from God of War. You'll smash jars to release colored orbs that float towards you and regenerate health; opening doors requires rapid tapping of a button; you roll-dodge using the right thumbstick; boss battles are a mix of hand-to-hand combat and cinematic events that require precise button presses. If any licensed game fits well with God of War's design ideas, it's Conan. But when you take so clearly and directly from another developer, it's impossible not to compare the two. And that is one battle that the mighty Conan cannot win.



The bulk of Conan's seven-hour adventure requires you to beat the crap out of a variety of enemies. You begin with only a handful of combos unlocked, but dozens of more moves can be purchased throughout the game. Combos are divided by weapon type. There are four categories to choose from: grab moves, one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, and dual-wielded weapons. There are weapons all over the place, so you can easily switch to a different set of combos by picking up a new blade.





Some might wonder why there aren't weapon-specific moves. Say a cool unique move for a battle axe and one specific to a pole arm. The decision to focus on broader move sets is likely due to the general lack of unique weapons. Yes, there is a battle axe in the game. But most often you will be using a sword. Sure, the swords change in look, but there's little difference between Conan's default sword and a scimitar. It's just cosmetic. The combat system works very well and there's enough diversity in the moves that it won't get boring from start to finish. You are going to be doing the same thing almost the entire game -- enter an area, fight a squad of goons, move to next area and repeat. But the gruesome nature of the finishing moves (expect lots of dismemberments) was enough to keep me interested.



One nifty wrinkle is the parry system. If you time your block perfectly with an enemy's attack, a button icon appears above their head. Tap it and you will witness an especially brutal kill move. These are outlandish finishes that sometimes involve juggling an enemy and disemboweling them in mid-air. These do get old fast, though. It is also a little strange that the choice of which type of finishing move is used is not in the hands of the gamer. It is chosen by the AI. You may not want to split someone in half, but that may be the only finisher that flashes on the screen.



Conan's combat is not for the weak. Even on the default medium difficulty, there are some challenging portions in Conan. The AI is programmed to swarm. And at times it can become almost impossible to even tell which way you are facing. You can get by with blocking in the early stages, but in later, levels most enemies can break your block. There is certainly frustration from being tagged left and right by enemies or being juggled back and forth between the same killer combos. And there are definitely some cheap moments where it feels as if the AI is taking personal satisfaction in exploiting some of its unblockable moves.





It's not all about might in Conan. There is also magic. The barbarian wields four different magic powers. For those who have never read a story by Robert E. Howard, this probably sounds like fun. Who doesn't want to rain down fireballs on their enemies? To those who are fans of Howard's work, this is blasphemy. Conan gladly using magic? It doesn't fit the character. The magic, which is overpowering to an extent that it ends some of the game's tougher battles in a matter of seconds, seems unnecessary. This is an old design trap: every action game has "spells" or "powers," right? But it's untrue to Conan. And this is, after all, a licensed game. You have to make a good game, certainly, but you also must stay true to the character and his world.



As with God of War, Conan attempts to break up the combat with a few puzzles. These, however, are pathetic. The puzzles in Conan amount to walking around until you find a highlighted column and then pushing it over to create an exit. The puzzles aren't much more than variations on ways to open doors. More thought could have been put into this aspect, as Conan would have benefited from better pacing. Instead it's pretty much go forward and kill, push over this column and kill some more.





The boss battles tend to follow the same formula: strike at the boss until his health is down to nothing, enter a mini-game that requires you to press the right button combination, and repeat several times. There are some nice boss battles in this game, including a tussle with an Elephant Demon (a nod to one of the very best Conan stories) and a snake-woman. At times the boss battles drag on a bit too long. This is especially true of the final boss battle. I was actually enjoying Conan until I reached the end. While in no way a great game, I was ready to recommend it for those who enjoy button-mashing. But that last boss is one of the worst I've faced in the past five years.



The battle is an exercise in frustration. Every aspect of the fight is tedious. There is no enjoyable aspect. It could last an hour, mainly because you will die often. How anyone could test this battle (which is too long even without the many deaths) and not realize it needed to be fixed is a mystery. This last fight is abysmal. It's no fun at all. And when a game builds to a moment that is just no fun, then it's a game ultimately not worth playing.







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