December 12, 2007
Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures is not a game for the faint-hearted. Violence, suspense and a lot of blood are all involved in playing Funcom’s upcoming MMORPG. Thousands of people are eagerly waiting to see if Funcom was able to recreate the Age of Conan world, and stay true to it’s storyline and characters. The screen shots we’ve seen so far are impressive, and we are curious whether they will be able to optimize the frame rate enough to make it run decently on the average computer. What worries us slightly is the PvP action. In a title like Age of Conan you can’t have World Of Warcraft style PvP combat, it needs to be more direct to immerse the player. And although the combat system does include some new features it isn’t revolutionary from what we’ve gathered.
On our first foray into the Hyborean wilderness, we encountered the very same prostitute we’d met in earlier previews. We opted to rescue her in exchange for the promise of some future “reward,” which, from what we could gather, was going to somehow involve some lasciviousness. Immediately apparent was the distinctly mature flavor of our initial activities, because Age of Conan doesn’t sugarcoat anything: combat is bloody and brutal, sex workers are brazen and lascivious and men are covered with densely matted hair and look like they smell as bad as the other animals we encountered in the jungles surrounding Tortage.
The jungle environment makes World of Warcraft’s Stranglethorn Vale look like a kiddie pool lined with fern fronds. The wilds rimming Tortage are packed with marauders and vicious predators that attack at the slightest provocation. The tangled vines and dense foliage create an ominous atmosphere and we could almost feel the soft loam beneath our feet sink just a bit with each step. In terms of graphical fidelity, the jungle encasing Tortage was simply stellar — totally capturing the feral fauna and overgrown flora and presenting them as though both were locked in constant combat with Tortage, threatening to devour the small but fiercely defended community of brigands and wildmen.
Go to GAMESPY for the full preview!
