Conan Demo Impressions (PS3)
The Conan demo is now available on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace and while it’s most definitely an M-rated title loaded with brutal melee combat its pacing and style has a place all its own between two of my favorite action game franchises from the PlayStation 2: God of War and The Mark of Kri.
The game is also very much a licensed property and it looks like the developers have done the right thing in terms of giving Conan and the game a clear personality. Their choice of voice actor gets the job done and projects just the right amount of barbarian via dialogue that doesn’t make him sound unintelligent. Conan comes across not as a dumb barbarian, but as a warrior who just does things his own way. He’s not in-your-face-arrogant like Kratos in God of War, and he’s far from silent like Rau in The Mark of Kri. He gives intimidating one-liners often enough during the gameplay that you are never kept in any doubt that he’s here to kick some butt. And by kick he means chop into little pieces and leave them for the vultures to eat.
The art style definitely edges towards a cartoonish, almost plastic look for the soldiers and men and the environments and pickups have a stylized look almost in the vein of Diablo — realistic to a point, but all in service of the over-the-top almost swashbuckling gameplay.
The game’s combat and level layouts most closely resemble God of War with a weak and strong attack, jump button, block button, grab/punch/elbow-to-the-head button, and the usual timed button presses at certain points. An action button gives you a more brawler-like game with the ability to pick up some barrels and crates and throw them at your enemies as well as pick up swords dropped by your enemies. Picking up crates doesn’t make you drop your weapons, either. Conan can wield a two-handed sword, dual-wield one-handed swords, and even pick up a third sword by stashing one on his back for use later. Any second sword can be thrown at enemies, letting him pull the third one off his back if he has one available and continue dual-wielding. This level of variety in weapon usage makes things more fun. And it seems in the demo at least that Conan is a swords-only kind of guy. Getting hit by an arrow requires him to pull the arrow out or it will continue doing damage to him — a nice touch compared to arrows in other action games just doing a set amount of damage and then vanishing.
The variety of enemies looks like it might be good, too. You fight unarmored warriors for most of the level but have to deal with an archer mid-way through and later in the level must fight a group of armored foes that can block some strikes and take more damage before losing armor and eventually their lives. Some of the armored enemies can also throw small bombs or use two-handed swords and make unblockable attacks. Enemy variety might not be a problem, and it looks like it’ll be all humans in this game if the demo is any indication. Gods and monsters need not apply.
Blocking and swarms of enemies deserve special mention because it highlights an interesting aspect of the combat — its pacing. The timing of enemy strikes is a bit slower than in God of War and while the always-block button works well you’ll need to time your counter-strikes to avoid taking your guard down and getting jabbed by another enemy. The rhythm of the enemy sword strike combos as well as how Conan looks when blocking reminds me most of The Mark Of Kri. While you don’t get that game’s unfortunately-patented lock-on system on the right stick, the right stick does let you roll out of harm’s way.
The game definitely likes to show you Conan hacking people to pieces — dismembering them and beheading them with much blood letting but not ridiculous amounts of it after the initial strike — so it definitely earns its M rating. It also likes to celebrate Conan’s might more than the kill itself by slowing down the action during specific combos to show just how his hit throws the enemy off their feet.
As you can tell I’m happy with Conan as a brawler and depending on its length could be worth owning despite its single-player-only gameplay. Don’t take my word for it, though, download the demo for yourself and take it for a spin. If you like third person action games you should get a kick out of it. Conan is slated for release on October 23rd for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
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Trev
