Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 14th October 2008

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Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures Details:

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	MMORPG
	PC
	Funcom
	Funcom

18+

Out Now

MMO

Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures is probably the most anticipated MMO game since World of Warcraft. But does it live up to all the hype that the PR machine spewed out in the weeks leading up to its launch, or will it leave us gamers raging like a barbarian?

The games story starts with you as a galley slave, standing on the burning beaches of Tortage. With no memory of your past, Conan the barbarian has finally seized the throne as king of Aquilonia but his rule is on the brink of chaos as his nemesis Thoth-Amon attempts to resurrect the ancient civilization of Acheron. This is were you step in to help the resistance and ally with Conan to stop Thoth-Amon and carve out your own destiny.

Like in most MMO games the most important thing for players is their character and whilst Age of Conan offers plenty of character customisation options the game does only allow you to play as one of three races, all of which are human. The game also only offers a limited number of classes some of which are only available to certain races.

There are four classes to play as with each class having three sub-classes. The Soldier class is made up of Guardian, Dark Templar and Conqueror. The Priest class is made up of Priest of Mitra, Tempest of Set and Bear Shaman. Barbarian, Assassin and Ranger make up the Rogue class whilst the Mage features the Demonologist, Herald of Xotli and Necromancer sub-classes. As you would expect each of the classes and sub-classes has access to items, weapons and armour that others don’t, as well as having a different range of skills and abilities so finding a character class to suit your playing style should be fairly easy.

Once you’ve created your character and start playing Age of Conan one of the first things you’ll notice is how combat orientated the game is especially in comparison to other MMORPG’s. There are all kinds of enemies to do battle against ranging from various beasts such as Crocodiles, Tigers and Panthers to Slave masters, pirates and demonic creatures.

The games combat system has been implemented brilliantly! Various attacks can be placed in hotkey slots allowing you to control your various attacks by pressing the number keys on the keyboard or by simply clicking on them with the mouse. As you expect you start the game with a fairly simple range of attacks, however more powerful attacks soon become available once you gain experience and level up.

Experience in Age of Conan can be gained fairly rapidly mainly due to the number of enemies and creatures you will have to slay during the game. Also as a nice addition to the standard ways of gaining experience such as killing and completing quests Age of Conan also has a daily kill bonus feature that gives you an additional experience boost. To claim this daily bonus, however isn’t easy as you have to kill 20 enemies of equal or higher level (not including minions). This is fairly easy to do on your own during the early stages of your playing time but once you reach a higher level it can become difficult as you obviously have to face more formidable foes.

One of the biggest gripes I had with AoC is that you don’t seem to have as much control over the development of your character as in other games. New abilities are awarded to you automatically with no choice from a selection. Also it seems to take an awfully long time to gain decent equipment and the game seems to attach various useless items to your character very early on which is fairly annoying.

On a more positive note Age of Conan features an excellent quest system which includes separate quests for you to play on your own and advance the games story, these are set at night and allow you to advance your character gaining a reputation amongst the games NPC’s and uncovering the plot against Conan. The games day time quests are mainly designed with social play in mind and Funcom have made it very easy to share quests with friends via the quest log.

Tasks themselves are pretty much the standard, collect item from character A and give it to character B. However in Conan to get said item you usually have to slay about 50 enemies before you get it adding to the games intense combat feel.

When you travel to areas to undertake certain quests you are occasionally asked if you would like to play the Normal or Epic version. Epic versions of quests are not for the faint of heart and are more combat orientated then the normal mode which in themselves are pretty much combat intense, so you know your’ in for some intense and gory action playing the epic version of a quest. It’s also not a good idea to undertake an epic quest on your own as you’ll probably end up dead.

Unlike in some MMORPG’s in which you can go long periods of time with little to do it seems Funcom have done the opposite with AoC and almost every character you speak to has an adventure for you to go on. Some may find this a little overwhelming and it’s fairly easy to lose track of what you currently doing if you don’t pay close attention to your quest log.

Age of Conan looks amazing the game world is lush and highly detailed. The scenery draws off far into the distance and it’s nice to be able to walk to your destination and see it draw closer rather then it pop up in front of you all of a sudden. Character models are also nicely detailed with good facial expressions and animation. One slight gripe is that there’s little variation in the characters and all seem to have a similar look.

The games audio doesn’t quite follow in the footsteps of its graphics. The score is excellent and helps set the intense atmosphere of the game. Voice acting has been done brilliantly despite some of the dialogue not being the best, sound effects are standard and nothing really special.

Age of Conan will be keeping players constantly busy with quest after quest however some may feel a little disappointed by the games limited character development options, but aside from that it offers a pretty intense and quite often barbaric playing experience.