Comic book games in the beginning were pretty good if they were made by the right company like Capcom, which made great licensed Disney games and great comic book games like the Punisher beat ‘em up video game, and their famous Marvel V.S Capcom series, or like Konami’s infamous TMNT: Turtles in Time Super Nintendo game. Nowadays, they don’t really seem to hold up unless you think they do. This time I’ll review Conan for the Playstation 3 and Xbox360. Does this barbarian hold a bloody axe to the light or does it fade in the dust?
The plot of Conan takes place in the old times of lord of the rings in some way, but without the Hobbits, and a ring fetish midget. Conan, being the man that he is known to be, is on another adventure, this time for treasure. When he finds the treasure, he accidentally unlocks an evil wizard who knocks out Conan and takes his armor and dumps his body in the ocean. Conan needs to get his armor back and take down an evil wizard.
Now, let’s talk about the game play first. It’s in the form of a God of War or the new X-Men Origin’s style game play, where you beat the heck out of everyone and everything in your sight. Like X-Men Origins or Hellboy: The Science of Evil, the combat is more on the line of close combat and not as much long range combat that can be used in God of War. Another addition to fighting, is wielding the ability to use wrestling-like moves, like the infamous pile driver and body slams. A good thing about the combat is the ability to wield a total of 3 weapons if you have two smaller weapons, or two weapons if you’re wielding a 2-handed sword or spear. The boss fights have to be my favorite part of an adventure game since they’re usually giant, and fun to fight. My favorite has to be the barbarian stereotype, the giant squid. The levels are long, but they don’t get boring, since they hand you a different puzzle every level, which gives the player a new problem to solve.
A bright light to the game is a pretty good voice cast and witty dialogue with Ron Pearlman doing the voice of Conan, who is also famous for portraying Hellboy. The music is just amazing. I mean, it’s so pleasant to listen to, and you actually feel like you’re in that time of barbarians and magic. No wonder, because it was the same person who composed the God of War series that came in and was hired by THQ to do the soundtrack for the game. I kind of wish they had made a CD for it, so I could put it on my mp3 player.
Now, get your favorite beating weapon and let’s conquer the bad parts of the game. There is a reason I haven’t talked about the graphics for the game. The reason why I haven’t is that they aren’t that great. It looks like a polished up Playstation 2 game instead of a Playstation 3 game. My guess is that they were making it for the Playstation 2, but then the Playstation 3 came out and they thought it would do better on the new console. The enemies in the game are pretty stupid compared to the enemies in God of War or Hellboy the Science of Evil. Sometimes, they just stand there unless you get close enough to them. I have even recharged my magic and health, and the enemies have stayed in one corner of the room. The levels can get repetitious since they do mostly beat down enemies and solve puzzles. The story seems well… pretty bland even for Conan. Now, in no way am I saying it’s a bad story. It just seems like it’s been done over and over. It’s not complex, but it won’t make you bored.
All and all, it keeps the candle of Conan lit, but they could have worked on it a little more. If they could have just taken more time with it like Nintendo does with its Zelda games, it would have been a must buy for both consoles. What I am saying is that you should rent it to see what you think.
This game gets a 7 out of 10.
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