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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (PC)

Release Date: 23/05/2008

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In a world filled with cruel gods, mythical creatures, lost civilizations and a struggling human race, the mighty barbarian has finally seized the throne as king of Aquilonia. But Conan’s rule is on the brink of chaos, spiraling towards the doom of ancient evils. In this twisted fantasy world, dark magic and brutal combat lurk around every corner, and each man and woman must carve their own unique destiny under Conan’s reign. In the true vision of Robert E. Howard’s dark universe it’s now time for you to become a messenger of death.

Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Eidos

In a world filled with cruel gods, mythical creatures, lost civilizations and a struggling human race, the mighty barbarian has finally seized the throne as king of Aquilonia. But Conan’s rule is on the brink of chaos, spiraling towards the doom of ancient evils. In Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, dark magic and brutal combat lurk around every corner, and each man and woman must carve their own unique destiny under Conan’s reign. In the true vision of Robert E. Howard’s dark universe it’s now time for you to become a messenger of death in Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures!

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Features:

Enter the true Conan experience: The first official Conan online RPG sends you on a brutal journey in the footsteps of the worlds’ greatest fantasy hero. Meet Conan’s friend and foes, battle demons and monsters known from 70 years of Conan history, and step up to the ultimate challenge and befriend the mighty king Conan himself.
Explore the world of Conan: Enter Age of Conan's gigantic and unique gameworld containing more than 30 distinct regions spread across the three mighty nations of Aquilonia, Cimmeria and Stygia. Explore deep jungles, burning deserts, inhospitable mountains, vast valleys, dark dungeons or gleaming cities, and take part in an incredible journey of exploration and adventure.
Real Combat Engine: Experience Funcom’s revolutionary Real Combat engine, and fight mounted or on the ground. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures features a new multi-point melee system allowing players to swing their weapons where they direct, in real-time, going head-on against the formulaic nature of online RPG combat. The Real Combat engine also allow players to team up in battle formations and command both Conan NPC’s and other players in epic multiplayer battles, as well as giving you the chance to participate in massive Hyborian sieges.
Single-player vs. massively multiplayer: Emerge as a hero from the story-driven single-player experience and embark into even greater adventures in the massively multiplayer part of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The branching single-player story is created by Age of Conan's award-winning writers, previously behind The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Anarchy Online, so expect something extraordinary.
PvP and PvE: Meet the ultimate resistance in human opponents, and enjoy crushing the skulls of fellow Conan players in mini-games, sieges, arena fights and drunken brawls. Charge into the world of Conan, and fight monsters and demons alone or in groups.
Extensive guild and solo gameplay: Form guilds in the multiplayer game and lay siege to hostile castles. Let the catapults sing their merry song of death as the enemy is brutally crushed to a pulp. Team up with other Age of Conan players in large guilds, and explore a large range of Hyborian social gameplay opportunities. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures also offers extensive solo gaming opportunities, taking you through an amazing single-player journey and deep into the lands of Hyboria.
Varied Conan gameplay: Besides bringing the most brutal experience ever seen in a MMO, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures also promises to deliver what all fans of MMOs love and enjoy. Vast character customisation opportunities, a deep character creation, lots of social opportunities, crafting, a deep and fun RPG system, exciting classes and player-made cities are but a few ingredients in this powerful MMO RPG.
Amazing graphics: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures takes graphics in MMOs to a new level! With the latest and greatest in technology and an amazing art direction the graphics in ‘Conan’ immerses you into a world as never before seen in any online fantasy universe.
Stunning Sounds: Listen to a powerful and epic soundtrack in 7.1 surround. Hear gripping voices recorded by professional actors, and enjoy Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures' dynamic soundscape bringing players to the edge of their seats.
A story to die for: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures delivers a brutal, mature and compelling Conan storyline that will send you headlong on a journey of brutality, intrigue and depth. Mixing the finest of storytelling found in classic RPG’s with the open-ended approach found in MMOs, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures delivers a rare and special story experience.
The first mature MMO: In the true and barbaric vision of Robert E. Howard, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures promises to bring mature online players something dark, new and refreshing. This is no cartoony fairytale, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is made by grown-ups, for grown-ups, giving online gamers the chance to unleash the ultimate havoc and fury.

Previews

Game Previews

Do have a co, nan.

Massively Multiplayer Online role Playing Games are en vogue at the moment. World of Warcraft has been a huge success, and developers seem to be wising up to WoW’s victories and failings. Last week we covered Richard Garriot’s action-oriented MMO Tabula Rasa, and now we’re looking at another online starlet with Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

Fresh from Funcom, the folks behind Dreamfall, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is an MMORPG with that ingredient that’s always been missing from the genre – massive furry Y-fronts. In all seriousness though, the steroid-infused, barbarian-based Conan brand has been around for donkeys years in comic, cartoon and Arnie film guises, and its Hyborian setting is a no-brainer for a fantasy role-playing game.

In that sense, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ axe-swinging, spell-casting, quest-taking approach is nothing new, which my lead you to wonder what exactly Age of Conan offers to drag devotees away from Azeroth. Be assured, however; despite the familiar feel, there’s enough fresh gameplay features in Hyborian Adventures to make WoW fans quite envious.

Hulking brute battles

The big one, like Tabula Rasa, being real-time combat. Unlike the third-person shooting of Garriot’s game though, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures adopts a close combat engine, with the Q, 1,2,3, and E keys enacting slashes (left, three central and right-sided, respectively) with whichever weapon you’ve got equipped.

At first it seems somewhat slow and cumbersome, but with practice and improved character abilities Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ combat should make for epic battles between hulking brutes; bobbing and weaving, and lopping off limbs with surprising balletic grace.

Yes, limb loss. The Conan brand is a graphic one indeed, and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is, unusually for an MMO, a rather bloody affair. It’s also an impressively detailed one, rendering Hyboria in bright colour and with considerable scale. Armour detail, rich foliage and spectacular lighting combine with a sensational draw distance over Hyboria’s picturesque terrain, making Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures one lovely looking MMO.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is an MMORPG with that ingredient that’s always been missing from the genre – massive furry Y-fronts.

And a highly innovative one. The Age of Conan team’s experience on Dreamfall is being well used, with the first 20 levels of Hyborian adventuring set to innovatively mix multiplayer and story-driven singleplayer content. After creating your character with an impressive sliding scale system to define size, shape and looks, you’ll be washed up on an island and start talking to none-player characters and taking missions in the vein of an action adventure.

It’s only an hour into Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures that you’ll get to your first town, Tortage, and meet other players. Even here there’s a distinct playstyle schizophrenia; the daytime lets you party up, go on quests and general MMO it up with other people. Rest at an inn, however, and you’ll wake up at night with no-one around and more singleplayer story stuff to savour. It’s a unique way of luring players into an MMO world and should see Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’ learning curve be rather welcoming.

By no means is Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures an MMO-lite, though. Guilds are being catered for, and will even be able to build their very own cities – then defend them from other guilds in spectacular player vs player battles as factions war it out with armed combat, catapults and more.

Huge ambition

Speaking of PvP, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures boasts its own separate level-up system, currency (called Blood Money) and PvP-specific items. There’s also a feature called Drunken Brawling, in which you can stagger into a tavern, drink yourself stupid, and fight other inebriated Age of Conan players in skill-based combat with level and items disregarded.

All in all, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures boasts an impressive list of features, and should deserve to do well. It’s a game of huge ambition, with a massive fanbase in a monstrously popular genre. Whether WoW's denizens will pay it attention remains to be seen, but for anyone looking to make the leap to a fresher fantasy onliner, Age of Conan could be the one.

Preview by: Mark Scott
Preview Published: 26.10.07

User Reviews

Alison Ferguson posted on 10 Jun 2008

A stunning new MMO, that does its best to break the generic mould that MMO's have fallen into. Introducing a new and engaging combat system, which combines skill based combos with the unqiue shielding system to create the best combat ever in an MMO. Funcom have also added new "Destiny Quest" which carry out through the whole game, this allows them to add fanastic scripted events that really draw you into the story. Age Of Conan also has some of the best visuals ever in a MMO, from the dynamic shadows to high resolution texture really bring Hyboria to life. The game is based of the Conan lore, which proves a great setting for a MMO but you wont find any glowing weapons or gnomes here within its low fantasy setting, but there is lots and lots of blood...and its a good thing. Age Of Conan pvp is based mainly on a guild vs guild system, but does offer cultural pvp (wow-ish) if wanted. In conclusion Age of conan is a fanastic MMO not to be missed by any MMO fan. But still has

Gary Beesley posted on 06 Jun 2008

The game is not out of BETA and should not have been shipped, constant crashes, constant bugs, quests and vendors that do not work, un balanced PvP. Even the communications system is utter pants. Wait 3 months and then take a look, at the moment its not ready and gets frustrating,

Mark Komorowski posted on 05 Jun 2008

Not better then EvE online PvP wise.

Neil Frankham posted on 05 Jun 2008

It should be noted that several of the features listed in the description are not actually present in Age of Conan at this time. Siege Warfare and Bar Brawls are not in game, and many of the intended 30 zones did not make it in for launch. It is intended that they will be added in patches in the future.

N Duncan posted on 01 Jun 2008

I bought this just over a week ago and I've already decided to stop playing. It's just another mindless grind of a game. So if you have the time to waste doing kill, collect, rinse and repeat type quests. It may be for you. However if your the sort of person who would like to plug in and play, you may want to reconsider. Sure its still early days for this game but sooner or later you will get your hardcore no lifers that will dominate it, just like any other of the grind a thon games. The Pvp system is terrible, the graphics are ok if you have a high spec computer but the rest is just meh. At best this game is a space filler before Wotlk or Warhammer online.

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