Conan - PSN Demo Review

Conan the Barbarian is a bit of a cult icon, mostly through the 1982 movie starring "The Man", Arnold Schwarzenegger. The movie that basically made his career. It was and still is a popular movie. Sadly, the film was made in 1982 and no one cares about the books and this is 2007.



Conan, while still popular as a movie, is pretty much irrelevant as a character in 2007.

It's why I was surprised by a Conan game for PS3 and 360 (and even more surprised when THQ snuck it out Halo 3 week without any reviews).

First, the good points:

1. The slow down when you kill someone is exactly like 300
2. The design is somewhat like 300
3. It's a decent game in its own right.

The bad points?

1. The slow down when you kill someone is exactly like 300
2. The design is somewhat like 300
3. It's a decent game in its own right.

Allow me to explain.

1 + 2. It seems almost like THQ couldn't get the licence to 300, so opted for the licence of what was probably a cheaper franchise. They wanted to modernise it, so added features from 300. If you replaced the Conan character model with one of Leonidas and changed the backgrounds and enemies slightly, BAM, 300: The Game. This would at least have given the game a fighting chance considering that even thought both films are manly as fuck, 300 is less than 6 months old and was just unleashed into homes.

3. It's the same hack and slash formula that games like Heavenly Sword, Ninja Gaiden and God of War do a lot better. The problem is speed... Conan is really slow moving, it means the game is not fast paced, like these games need to be to keep interest. The fact it's "just decent" means that it's so mediocre and by the book, there's no reason to play it. Nice touches are the ability to grab up to two weapons from dead enemies and actually use them in addition to throwing them and the gameplay doesn't try to pretend it's anything more than a dumb button masher.

I wish this game had been good, the ability to introduce the movie to a new generation is reason enough for games like this to exist, but not when it doesn't feature the actor who made the role famous and has a guy with a terrible American accent and a really bad character model with bad hair in his place. Voice acting is a big problem with this game. I guess, it just doesn't make me thing of Conan the Barbarian as much as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. That's probably my fault, but fans of the film will have the same issue. Conan is just kind of, well, shit in the game.



Overall, this game may be worth grabbing if you can get it on the cheap if you really like Hack 'n' slash games and even then, only if you sleep with a copy of Ninja Gaiden beside you.