Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

"A Great Engaging Game."

I'll admit I was skeptical coming into Age of Conan. I've been let down by quite a few MMO's since I got into the genre, but this one has yet to truly dissapoint me.

All story-stuff aside, the first twenty levels take place on an "introductory island", which gives you plenty of time to learn the basics of the game and what your primary role is for your class. Part of the game is single-player (which takes place at night), and part of the game is multiplayer (during the day). You can switch back and forth between night and day as you wish.

After "noob island", you head for your home region for a more open-ended style of game. The day/night cycle mimmicks that of the server's time zone, and your free to travel around the world. There aren't many multiplayer instances to do, though, until you get to the high thirties. This can be dissapointing to people who are into multiplayer instancing, but from what I can tell, that part of the game really starts to appear once you hit 40 and above.

The basic quests are interesting, though they haven't strayed too far from the "kill x of these, gather x of these, click on x of these" formula of other MMO's. Still, there are a few quests here and there that really break the mold and make you feel like the world is alive, and this is done mostly through scripted sequences and big battles between lots of NPCs.

At the moment, grouping is a big pain in the butt, mostly because of confusion caused by multiple instances of the large out-door areas. A group leader can summon group members to his instance, but then the summoned member is transported to the nearest graveyard. However, there is no way to summon a member to your position, so you'll find that a large portion of your time in groups will be spent trying to locate each other and get organized. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that you can't see other group members on your map unless they're standing within sight, which defeats the purpose of seeing them on the map anyways.

Combat is different and exciting. Rather then just tapping a line of number keys to nuke your enemies, players must actually react to their enemies in combat as they'll constantly be changing their defense. Classes that use melee abilities and combos, require stamina to operate, while casters utilize mana. Every character also has the ability to sprint, which also uses stamina. This points to an obvious problem, in that casters can sprint all they want and still be fully operational in combat, while rogues and soldiers (who depend on stamina to function) are basically useless after they've been sprinting.

Music is awesome and epic. Graphics are clean and crisp, and the scenery is so nice I often find myself sight-seeing. And while finding group members on the map is difficult, finding quest-givers and quest locations is easy. The map gives you arrows to point you in the right direction, and even places markers on the map to show where you can turn a quest in, where you can find the enemies you need to dispatch, what area you can find the items you need to collect, and so on. If you're into exploring and hunting down your quest objectives, you can turn this feature off.

Overall, the game is great. I've only just gotten into my mid-thirties after about 25 hours of play-time, and it's getting better and better.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/08

Game Release: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (US, 05/20/08)