I've only recently got an Xbox 360 and therefore have been buried under the number of games I now can play after transferring from my faithful but limited laptop. I've played all sorts of genres on pc before but never considered the hack'n'slash genre of action gaming. The lack of popularity of pc hack'n'slash titles is due to the fact that keyboards cannot be as easily mashed in QTEs or for the sake of combos. I played the Lord of The Rings: Return of the King tie-in game which wasn't too bad all things considered but now with my new Xbox I decided to give a current generation hack'n'slash a go.
So I got Conan. There are very few hack'n'slashers out there and the reviews on Amazon were ok so I figured I'd take it from there. The box arrived looking promising with Conan looking very shadowy and serious while scantily-clad maidens look on in the background.
Graphics aren't bad. There's a feeling that someone has been trying to copy some of the artwork from the original stories, giving it a grainy feel and textures look a bit clunky sometimes. By no means FarCry 2 but decent enough.
The learning curve is gentle, sometimes a bit too slow but it helps to adjust to the fact that the right stick now controls your diveroll ability rather than the camera which gave me a little trouble every time the camera repositioned itself of its own accord.
Gameplay is fun- the fixed camera gives you a particular perspective on each section and there is a varied list of combos for single weapon, single weapon and shield, dual weapons and two-handers that allows for some replay value. Even when you find yourself confronted by the game over screen with its fake epic taunts (my favourite example being "The maidens question your virility") having to reload and go over another fight section doesn't feel like a punishment for being a bad player, just an opportunity to try out more awesome moves. The boss fights are nothing special- whittle down their health until you go into the QTE section and then its merely a test of hand-eye coordination.
You navigate the levels by walking along until you come to a dead-end whereupon you look for a door. If there is no door, find something to climb. If there is nothing to climb, smash a wall. If there is no wall to smash, knock something over so it smashes a wall or bridges a gap. Repeat as necessary, hitting save points along the way.
The story is hardly worth mentioning- Conan battles through successive locations and types of enemies, growing in strength until he can face the ultimate bad dude who threatens the normal kind of worldwide dramatic devastation associated with magic, swords and big muscled men. It's nice that though this is a fantasy game, the fact that it uses the Conan mythos (which I know squat-all about) gives an original flavour to the story.
You gain XP by killing enemies and use it to unlock attack combos. Extra XP can be gained by finding secret treasure chests and freeing maidens. Please note that the maidens are a computer geek's image of primal femininity who pose and preen and unconvincingly squeal phrases that will make anybody present laugh at you.
As mentioned before, combat in Conan is based around building attack combos. These are incredibly enjoyable as there are some truly nasty, graphically-depicted ways of dealing with enemies- I enjoyed the one where Conan stabs an enemy in the gut then swings the impaled body in a circle to knock down everyone in the vicinity before launching the impaled body into the horizon. A nice feature of this game is the parry-kill system that is another hand-eye test with a reflex exam thrown in: just before an enemy strikes you can block their attack and an image of one of the colour buttons will flash up. If pressed in time, the payment for your twitchy reaction is a nice close-in view of Conan performing a particular finishing move that corresponds to the button you pressed. All moves can be 'mastered' to give you magic, health or XP bonuses when you perform them. This is particularly useful in the later sections where health pickups are rare.
I have only two and a half gripes about this game:
1) The fixed camera. If you have to have one, let it at least behave in a logical and player-friendly manner and not swing into totally unnecessary angles to show off the scenery and not the particular enemy who is trying to kill you.
2) The final boss fight. It was too long and dull and took ages to get right. Will not say anymore for fear of spoilers. But it's this sort of thing that has pushed hack'n'slash into the mud.
2.5) There were some bits that must have some form of evil code written into them because they required so much repetition. Small issues with collision detection and physics that made one jump into a mountainous obstacle.
But that's it. Actually I really enjoyed myself playing Conan and the replay value is that I now have all the unlocked moves so I can amuse myself by testing them out on everyone. Conan is fun, casual amusing fun that can be used to unwind if you feel like a bit of old-fashioned gore. If you want to get into hack'n'slash Conan can show you both the good and the bad sides of such a game.
Hope you enjoyed reading this, Wolfshrimp
So I got Conan. There are very few hack'n'slashers out there and the reviews on Amazon were ok so I figured I'd take it from there. The box arrived looking promising with Conan looking very shadowy and serious while scantily-clad maidens look on in the background.
Graphics aren't bad. There's a feeling that someone has been trying to copy some of the artwork from the original stories, giving it a grainy feel and textures look a bit clunky sometimes. By no means FarCry 2 but decent enough.
The learning curve is gentle, sometimes a bit too slow but it helps to adjust to the fact that the right stick now controls your diveroll ability rather than the camera which gave me a little trouble every time the camera repositioned itself of its own accord.
Gameplay is fun- the fixed camera gives you a particular perspective on each section and there is a varied list of combos for single weapon, single weapon and shield, dual weapons and two-handers that allows for some replay value. Even when you find yourself confronted by the game over screen with its fake epic taunts (my favourite example being "The maidens question your virility") having to reload and go over another fight section doesn't feel like a punishment for being a bad player, just an opportunity to try out more awesome moves. The boss fights are nothing special- whittle down their health until you go into the QTE section and then its merely a test of hand-eye coordination.
You navigate the levels by walking along until you come to a dead-end whereupon you look for a door. If there is no door, find something to climb. If there is nothing to climb, smash a wall. If there is no wall to smash, knock something over so it smashes a wall or bridges a gap. Repeat as necessary, hitting save points along the way.
The story is hardly worth mentioning- Conan battles through successive locations and types of enemies, growing in strength until he can face the ultimate bad dude who threatens the normal kind of worldwide dramatic devastation associated with magic, swords and big muscled men. It's nice that though this is a fantasy game, the fact that it uses the Conan mythos (which I know squat-all about) gives an original flavour to the story.
You gain XP by killing enemies and use it to unlock attack combos. Extra XP can be gained by finding secret treasure chests and freeing maidens. Please note that the maidens are a computer geek's image of primal femininity who pose and preen and unconvincingly squeal phrases that will make anybody present laugh at you.
As mentioned before, combat in Conan is based around building attack combos. These are incredibly enjoyable as there are some truly nasty, graphically-depicted ways of dealing with enemies- I enjoyed the one where Conan stabs an enemy in the gut then swings the impaled body in a circle to knock down everyone in the vicinity before launching the impaled body into the horizon. A nice feature of this game is the parry-kill system that is another hand-eye test with a reflex exam thrown in: just before an enemy strikes you can block their attack and an image of one of the colour buttons will flash up. If pressed in time, the payment for your twitchy reaction is a nice close-in view of Conan performing a particular finishing move that corresponds to the button you pressed. All moves can be 'mastered' to give you magic, health or XP bonuses when you perform them. This is particularly useful in the later sections where health pickups are rare.
I have only two and a half gripes about this game:
1) The fixed camera. If you have to have one, let it at least behave in a logical and player-friendly manner and not swing into totally unnecessary angles to show off the scenery and not the particular enemy who is trying to kill you.
2) The final boss fight. It was too long and dull and took ages to get right. Will not say anymore for fear of spoilers. But it's this sort of thing that has pushed hack'n'slash into the mud.
2.5) There were some bits that must have some form of evil code written into them because they required so much repetition. Small issues with collision detection and physics that made one jump into a mountainous obstacle.
But that's it. Actually I really enjoyed myself playing Conan and the replay value is that I now have all the unlocked moves so I can amuse myself by testing them out on everyone. Conan is fun, casual amusing fun that can be used to unwind if you feel like a bit of old-fashioned gore. If you want to get into hack'n'slash Conan can show you both the good and the bad sides of such a game.
Hope you enjoyed reading this, Wolfshrimp