After much anticipation, we finally got our hands on the retail copy of Age of Conan, Funcom’s new and exciting MMO based on Robert E. Howard’s brutal world of Hyboria. This game does stay true to Howard’s world, as you'll mash, decapitate, slash, pummel, and murder your way through the game world. There’s promiscuous ladies, witch doctors, the undead, and corrupt town guards to deal with, it's all here.
When you start the game you're a slave aboard a ship that's about to be struck by disaster and you're given the choice to start as an Aquilonian, Cimmerian, or a Stygian. Each race is can choose from specific class archetypes, 12 classes in total. The 12 classes are broken down into 4 archetypes, Rogues, Priests, Soldiers, and Mage. A wide variety of play styles are covered in each of these classes and Funcom has really tried to cater to the masses by giving each class the ability to fill multiple roles at once.
Character creation is fun and pretty extensive. You can make yourself tall and skinny, or short and fat, even to the point of changing the size of your backside. They have a big selection of body markings as well as facial and body size customisation, which makes a great change after playing a game such as World of Warcraft. Although, as is consistently a problem in many games, the variety of actual aesthetically pleasing faces still falls short from more than a few of each sex, there's some pretty rough looking facial templates included but this is Hyboria after all.
As soon as you start the game, you instantly know you’re in for a fun ride. You start off having to rescue a scantly clad woman (who later offers you a little “something” for saving her) and you’re almost immediately set into action killing things to get used to the combat system. The beginning is a very intricate and lovely story of you, the hero, rescuing Tortage (the beginning city) from the clutches of the corrupt town guards. The story is intense, and a little misleading as to what to expect after the first 20 levels, but it's a dazzling way to bring you into the game, and the world really feels filled with story and lore. Not that there isn’t story after you leave Tortage, there is a consistent story in which you actively play a part. There are some story lines that span between levels but the story does die down somewhat at later levels and you’re kind of on your own. Thankfully these periods are short lived and things start picking up the pace.
Early on in the game Funcom offer a single player portion to get you used to the game. Each class is set on a series of night time missions, think if them as a right of passage. These mission take you up to about level 10 and are a great way to get used to the game works without the hassle of other players getting in the way, especially if you chose a PvP server. You have the option to leave the night time missions at any point and join the 'real world' and it all works rather well.
The first thing you notice when you jump into Conan’s world is the combat. It’s fast paced, it’s pro-active, and it’s fun. At first, things seem a little peculiar, especially if you choose a melee class, as combos can sometimes be a little confusing to start but it does'nt take long to get used to it, it's not your usual MMORPG combat system seen in most games in the genre.
Overall, melee combat is unique and entertaining. Spell-casters can either rejoice or frown at the fact, depending on how you view the combat system, that their game play isn’t much different. It’s pretty much point and cast, much like any other MMO out there but the combos add a different slant which requires slightly more skill when playing than your average MMO.
It’s important to note that class imbalance is definitely an issue - Hyboria is not a perfect world - but it’s not horrid. If you start off as a Tempest of Set, you’re going to be one-hitting everything from the start with your lightning spells. On the other hand if you choose the Bear Shaman, you may struggle with multiple enemies until you reach higher levels. Fortunately, the death penalty is pretty negligible in AoC. You receive a 30 minute debuff lowering your stats, but if you retrieve your headstone from where you died, the debuff is banished.
It is fair to say that melee combat is more fun if you’re looking for something different from combat in other MMOs. We can’t talk about the combat in AoC unless we talk about fatalities. While fatalities don’t really benefit you in any way other than aesthetics, it is fun to try and pull them off, and they always add some nice closure to a battle. It’s just plain awesome when you cut someone’s head off, yes it's gory but it's incredibly satisfying at the same time.
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