Kotaku
Somehow I didn't realize that there was a Conan game in development for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. And that's weird, because I'm a huge Conan fan. I've been closely following the development of the massively multiplayer online game for quite sometime, but it wasn't until I was walking around inside SCEA's MoCap studio in San Diego that I spotted it running and did a double take.
I quickly sidled up to the dev running the game through its paces and listened in on the pitch. The game is centered around a Robert E. Howard Conan, a young barbarian first setting out on his own to make a name for himself. It has the character's trademark storylines, Conan's lithe fighting style, his savage attacks, the developer explains, even his womanizing.
"Womanizing?" I can't help but chime in.
"Yes."
"Which button is the womanizing button," I ask.
Much to my disappointment, there isn't one. Despite that, the game looks amazing. Instead of just inventing their own art style, THQ made a fantastic call and decided to mimic the look of one of the more famous Conan artists. Interestingly, instead of going with someone like Ernie Chan or John Buscema (two of my favorite Savage Sword of Conan artists), the team decided to go for the darker, more brooding look of Frank Frazetta's Conan.
It was Frazetta's Conan, standing legs akimbo, head down on the cover of the 60s version of the Conan the Ursuper paperback that first really hooked me on the series and the game really hits the nail on the head. Despite being, essentially a hack and slash adventure game, the artistic look of the title, the devilish detail in the way Conan wields weapons and seems to occasional move through a pose taken straight from some of that early artwork, really helps to set this Conan apart from other games of its ilk.
The attacks and their bloody results do well to replicate the way the books and early Savage Sword magazines depicted the battles Conan seemed to always getting himself into . And it's got the Camel Punch as an attack. True, that's from the so-bad-it's-good Conan the Barbarian movie, but it was one of the best scenes in the whole damn movie, and it's great that the developers decided to throw this little Conan pop-culture references in the game.
