Conan for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

This is like playing a designer impostor version of God of War and Prince of Persia combined. The artwork is incredibly good, the storyline is somewhat intriguing. The problems with this game lie in the mechanics. In boss battles, like in God of War, you are expected to push certain buttons in a sequence to execute stylistic kills. Conan tries to copy this, but fails miserably. The reason it's such a failure is that the button you're supposed to push flashes for only a split second. By the time your mind registers it, your window for pushing said button has closed. Only if you're lucky can you pull off these ridiculous button pushes in time. Even if you are able to fight the boss multiple times in your quest to mash the buttons properly, there is no guarantee that they will be the same the next time around. In other words, even after that final boss kills you for the 20th frustrating time, you will be no closer to memorizing the sequence of buttons the 21st time around; therefore, prepare to die, often, while pulling your hair out in frustration.
Another problem is that there are too many moments where the controller doesn't work with you. In Prince of Persia, when you had to execute a leap, you could almost execute it perfectly. Conan's poor imitation is likely to have you leaping into the abyss five times before you master the exact angle you're supposed to be pointing at before making the jump. SImilarly, there are too many moments when you'll find yourself running around aimlessly wondering where you're supposed to go. A map or compass would have done wonders here. After a while, you will realize the developers were trying to be clever by putting in a few puzzles to break up the monotony of button mashing to appease the hack and slash set. Unfortunately, this doesn't make for a good game. It makes a player angry. This is definitely worth a rental, but replayability is lacking, so don't buy it.