Sayvara said:
Oh by the way, I must mention one thing Yahtzee did get wrong in the review: that of the big nerd. The big nerd who would complain about Daisy McSword-Boobs's haircolor does not exist around the Conan franchise.
You should drop by the official Robert E. Howard forums, there are TONS of these big nerds who have complained about hair colour and things like that. Such as myself.
Conan is a pulp production, nothing else. People are not in it for the fine wristings of a linguist who invents fictional languages to all races in the book; but for the gore, ale and whores, ok? This game is not about pretty re-creations of Rivendell with fine limbed elves gracefully gliding around paradize on Middle-Earth. No, this is about vice, plain and simple.
Conan is a pulp production, certainly, but it has far more depth than many people give it credit for. The gore, ale and whores are the DRESSING, not the meat: that's the philosophical musings of the duality of barbarism vs civilization, the tragic heroism of fighting a battle you cannot win, man and his role as a human and animal, order and chaos, personal freedom and civic responsibility, and all manner of deep philosophical stuff that elevates it above garbage like Thongor or Jarik or whatever. A perusal of http://www.thecimmerian.org will show just how philosophical Conan can get.
This was something which annoyed me in Yahtzee's review: like so many, he dismisses the Conan mythos as being nothing more than adolescent wish-fulfillment about a big oiled-up dunderhead having lots of sex with simpering wenches. Dismissing Howard's Conan like this is the equivalent of ignoring "The Dark Knight Returns" based on the (at the time) far more well known Batman TV show, or Burrough's Tarzan on the Weissmuller movies.
So no... the Big Nerd is not here. /S
Most "Conan" fans couldn't care less about authenticity to Howard, or even the stories, since they are in it for the blood, sex and gore. Fans of Howard's Conan are in it for that, and something more.
