Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures [PC]

While playing Age of Conan over the past few weeks I've been using a computer with an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU at 2.40 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8800 GTX 768 MB card on Windows Vista 32-bit. You can see how well the game runs with this hardware by checking out the most recent gameplay footage we've posted. At home, I was playing on a Pentium D 2.80 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, a GeForce 8800 GTX 768 MB card and running Windows XP and the game still ran, though most of all the graphics settings had to be turned down. Regardless of what kind of level of detail you have turned on, however, the game is gorgeous. I love the armor designs, from the interlocking rings of the heavy armor to outlandish weapon designs, and the incredible detail packed into some of the more powerful items that drop off dungeon bosses. My only real complaint with the equipment is that the drops you get in the main game world seem to all be similar within their respective armor classes. For instance, before getting a set of legs from a boss in the Sanctum of Burning Souls, I'd pretty much been wearing the same style of knee-length leather skirt for 40 levels even though I'd switched out for upgrades multiple times.

Beyond the game's item designs, the environments can be breathtaking. From sunsets across scorched mountains in Stygia's Khopshef's Province and snow pack that gleams in the sunlight in Cimmeria's Field of the Dead to the spectacular Thunder River, the game's expansive draw distances and realistic graphical style is at times a wonder to behold. Some may be turned off by the lack of a more fantastical flair as most environments are combinations of greens, grays, and browns, but even so the game's terrain is so varied, rising and falling across ranges of hills, mountains and volcanoes, that it's difficult not to be drawn in. That is, of course, if your machine can run it. We will say we've received emails from readers complaining about performance with AMD processors, so that's something of which to be wary. Character animations are impressive as well, from the way melee weapons are swung to the running animations to the way human mobs clutch at their ankles when affected by a root spell.

An excellent assortment of music tracks and sound effects compliment the visuals. The smacks and slaps of battle are appropriately harsh and sickening when they need to be, like when someone's head gets chopped off, and effectively convey the chaos of battle. Magic effects aren't really as impressive as melee clangs, but they hold up well enough. What's even better is the soundtrack and ambient effects, like strings arrangements that swell between the chirps of crickets during the night in the Wild Lands of Zelata, the crackle of firepits in the stone traders hall in Old Tarantia, and the soaring vocal tracks mixed with ambient wildlife effect in Connal's Valley that combine with the graphics to provide an incredibly powerful atmosphere that fits perfectly with the game's fiction.

Closing Comments
Funcom succeeded on several fronts with their much-anticipated MMORPG. It's got a different, enjoyable gameplay style, offers a free-for-all PVP experience that fits with Robert E. Howard's fiction and boasts outstanding audio and graphical packages. It also offers fairly standard quest chains, a lackluster crafting system, and three weeks outside of launch still has plenty of technical issues, content either missing or unfinished, and is still in need of quite a bit of polish.

Does Conan have the groundwork to eventually become a fantastic game all-around? Sure. Should you start playing right now? Personally, I'd hold off for a few months until more of the game is patched up.

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