Age of Conan Review

Conan the Barbarian was a character that was created way back in the 1930s and his exploits were initially published by a magazine called Weird Tales. Over the years, the character of Conan became a pop culture phenomenon as any masculine brute armed with long hair, a sword and shield would be called a looking like Conan. The character became somewhat of a household name thanks to Arnold Schwarzeneggers portrayal of him in the 1982 film called Conan the Barbarian. Conan also spawned a series of comic books and of course video games as well.

The latest video game based on Conan is a MMORPG game called Age of Conan. The game was released back in 2008 as a paid subscription game. Thankfully, developer Funcom announced the game went free to play from June 2011. Although free to play gamers have somewhat limited access to the game, they can still play the game for free but wont be able to play the premium content on offer here. The limited content only allows you to get to level 20, although this is better than nothing. The PC specifications for Age of Conan arent too high; but I have to warn you though that the game is 25GB big. Its a hefty download that takes hours and hours for it to be complete. If youre internet speed is slow or you dont have enough hard drive space to play this game, Id advise you not to not download Age of Conan. Before you begin, you will have to create your own character much like with every other MMORPG game out there. You can create either a male or female human character. It appears you cannot create any characters from any different races so you wont be seeing any elves or other fictional races here in this game. As always, you have to choose a class. There are 12 classes in total in this game which is the most Ive ever encountered in a MMORPG game before.

You have the fun option of altering a characters appearance in this game. If you want to, you can make a female body shape more to your liking or a male character to appear as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Theres also the option to change a characters hairstyle, eye and skin color and a lot more. It has one of the deeper customization options in a MMORPG game and Im sure some gamers will spend several minutes trying to make their characters look beautiful.

Production wise, Age of Conan is a high quality video game. It is one of the few MMORPG games that have full voice over recordings and the graphics are phenomenal for a game that was originally released back in 2008. The game starts off on a sandy beach where your character has been shipped wrecked. The amount of detail to the environments is just gorgeous to look at as the vegetation looks lush like on a real island. You can even strip your character to appear naked if you want too. The controls are pretty comfortable and everything is controlled manually by the player. You will move your character using the W,A,S,D keys and combat is controlled by the number keys. Different number keys correspond to different attacks. I actually liked the hack-n-slash style of controls and gameplay offered here in Age of Conan. The game feels more like a console action game more than the traditional MMORPG system of pointing and clicking on your enemies. You will have access to more skills and abilities as you progress further on which makes the gamplay even more fun.

The real-time combat system means the PvP offerings here in Age of Conan are better than in most other MMORPG games Ive played. The point and click system from other games means you cannot avoid being hit and the person who always wins usually has better armor and weapons or is at a higher level. In Age of Conan, you can move around and dodge attacks making it a more skilful challenge. It was quite fun and I found the PvP to play better than in other games. Another thing Age of Conan includes that other MMORPG games dont is a great soundtrack. Theres more than just one song that loops over and over like on other games. The soundtrack is what you would expect to hear from an epic fantasy based game like this and I assure you that it does not disappoint in any way. Overall, I felt Age of Conan was an excellent game with a unique combat system and great graphics to boot. Bear in mind its labelled as a mature MMORPG game so its not suitable for young children. But if youre old enough, Age of Conan offers a very memorable and satisfying experience. Just take note of the 25GB installation it requires.