When you’re as much a geek as a gamer, it’s often difficult to approach a franchise title without a grossly unbiased perspective. You know the product, the characters, the setting, and if you’re really creepy, you can recite at length from memory a complete timeline of events occurring in the subject’s universe. Which is why, when taking the opportunity to review Slovakian developer Cauldron’s newest title, Conan, I was a little leery. A franchise that has been around for almost three quarters of a century, and I, having read Conan since the age of eight, feeling horribly, horribly biased. Fortunately as a fan, I have few complaints about the translation from book to binary. Unfortunately, as a gamer... well, that’s a whole different story.

As an arguably positive starting point the game is primarily influenced by the comic series, both in storytelling style and episodic presentation. For those familiar with this, it is likely to be a rather refreshing burst of nostalgia. For those less familiar, the seemingly random or drastic changes in scenery can be somewhat jarring, though they are not entirely unexplained. To fill in the gaps between episodes of gameplay, the designers were kind enough to craft lengthy, verbose, and occasionally rambling cinematic sequences. This wouldn’t be an entirely undesirable situation were it not for the voice acting, which ranges from “reasonably competent” to “awkward and painful to witness”.

The storyline begins with Conan returning home to his village in Cimmeria to find it razed to the ground, and events beyond his understanding already in motion. In traditional fashion he cares less about the fate of the world than about exacting his vengeance, and immediately sets out after the wrong-doers. As no adventurous warrior should face the world unprotected, the player can acquire and utilize different pieces of makeshift armor and gear over the course of their travels. Everything from helmets and boots to spiked shoulder guards and bladed gauntlets can be found, although they will often disappear between one area and the next. This does occasionally create some problems, as some items are found piecemeal requiring assembly, and required parts for an item found at the beginning of the game may not be found until near the end, at which point the player has lost all their extra gear several times over. None of the equipment has any noticeable impact in defense or play style, but it does provide an interesting distraction for those who enjoy an ever-changing appearance in their game avatars.

Taking a look at what is decidedly the low point of the game, the Conan we are experiencing in this iteration has far more in common with a bipedal tank than any sort of fleet-footed warrior. Though turning and over-steering issues are common companions when guiding our brutish avatar about the field of battle, they are the least of the player’s concerns when held in the light of Conan’s complete inability to jump onto objects when standing within a few feet of any structure higher than his ankles. Any attempt to do so will result in spasm-like flailing and settling down to earth back at the starting point. As a final cruel note many enemies employ bows and arrows or magic missile attacks, and with no real agility or maneuverability available the player has little choice other than to take his licks and hope to have enough healing potions to make it through the battle.

Naturally no warrior would be complete without an arsenal of attacks, and this need is met with a sizable selection of fighting techniques and combos. These moves can be purchased by the player with experience gleaned from defeated foes, and further upgraded to increase efficiency or speed. The player can also purchase attributes like faster stamina and health regeneration as well as increased damage and defense. Attack techniques are essentially divided into two schools of application: swords receiving their own brand of technique with axes and maces sharing theirs. Within these there is a fair bit of room for varying styles, allowing one to enjoy the satisfying crunch of thrusting a sword through the chest of an enemy, crushing their face against a rising knee, or simply twirling about like a pretty ballerina with weapon extended. All the weapons are two-handed and suitably impressive in size, with frequent upgrades available in the form of new weapons scattered about on various levels. In addition to these, the player can also acquire the pieces of the legendary Atlantean Sword over the course of the game, Conan’s signature weapon. While effectively the ultimate implement of mayhem in the game, the player shouldn’t worry too much about missing one of the four pieces as each one is suspended in a blazing blue column of light, and are thus fairly hard to miss.

The game does employ some curious design decisions, ranging from save tokens that must be collected and meted out carefully at the user’s discretion, and an interesting method of preventing death. As long as Conan dies in combat, which is to say is gutted or crushed by an enemy rather than stumbling off a cliff or into one of the various instant-death booby traps, he is sent to the realm of his god Crom to prove his worth by battling an enemy. If he can defeat them, he reappears on the battlefield where he passed away, fully healed and wading into combat. Though this transition and the load times which accompany it can become somewhat tiresome for the gamer, it’s still arguably preferable to receiving the Game Over screen and restarting the level.

As far as the graphics and engine, there isn’t as much to say about the game. While acceptable it is not impressive, and while competent it is not engaging. Level design and aesthetics meet the bare minimum requirements without attempting to reach beyond them, resulting in an often barren, bland landscape, populated by ill-tempered clones and stock environmental effects. While some levels do manage to achieve a visual mood or ambience most settle for murky or monotone themes, and players may find the game suffers significantly for this.

While a fan of the franchise could hardly complain for the few liberties taken by Cauldron in adapting Conan, there are few gamers who could not find fault with many aspects of play and control. It’s rare enough that a quality hack n’ slash comes out these days, and all the more frustrating to see a title which seems to be fumbling towards the elements needed to achieve greatness and falling short half-way. Unfortunately that seems to be the case in this instance, and when it comes to the hack n’ slash experience, it’s been done better by others in the past, with little else that can be said in that regard.