It’s safe to say that just about everyone this side of the sun has heard of Conan the Barbarian in one form or another. Whether it is from the incredibly long running Marvel comic book series or the movie of the same name that featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan is known for his giant sword, bulging muscles and savage fighting. Funcom, the creators of immense role playing games such as the Longest Journey and its sequel are bringing the burly barbarian to life in the grandest fashion possible.

Age of Conan: The Hyborian Adventures is an online only Action-RPG-MMO and by online only, it will be a must to have an internet connect to play even the single player portion of the game. As most MMO’s, you will begin by creating your character through the customization selection screen. Here you will be able to tailor your characters clothes, looks and race. Everything from the face shape, battle damage and colors can be changed to your liking. Once you have your avatar selected, you choose which race you are to be part of, be it Aquilonian, Stygian or Cimmerian and you will then be set off in your adventure where you start aboard a slave ship, unknown how you arrived there and totally unaware of your future density that is intertwined with the King, Conan. The first few levels will help you get your feet wet in the world of Conan and help you get used to the diverse fighting systems. Conan features a fighting system for Hands-On melee combat called “The Dance of Steel”. You string together attacks from six different directions in succession and if pulled off successfully, you will do more damage to your foes than you would with regular swipes and swings. Another interesting feature of the attack system in Conan is that you are able to attack more than one enemy at a time. Whether the enemies are surrounding you or standing side by side, you will be able to hack and slash at more than one poor soul to take groups down faster and inflict greater carnage.

Other types of fighting that will be included for Hands-On combat will be ranged and mounted. Ranged is the usual distanced fighting, where as mounted will find you on the back of a horse attacking enemies with swords, lances and staffs. The faster your mount is galloping towards as enemy, the more damage you will do to your foes. Aside from Hands-On Combat, there are two other types to be found. There is Formation Combat where you and allies fight against other groups of enemies and Massive Combat, where you will plan full scale raids which, when started can take up to weeks to complete as you wage a war on an enemies city. Conan never has been one for the kids and this game will be no different. Geared towards the more mature gamers out there, Conan features some exceedingly bloody and brutal fighting and will also even include sexual intercourse. As of right now however, it is unknown how the sexual ingredient will be implemented in the game, and needs to be worked out with the ESRB, but the team seemed pretty adamant that it would be included.

The graphics are fully scalable but the lush environments and smooth animations will have you wanting to squeeze every ounce of juice you can muster out of your PC to enjoy the game they way it should be. Age of Conan starts out as a twenty level single player adventure, and once the multi-faceted twenty levels are played through, you will have the choice to pay a subscription fee and enter the massively multiplayer online section where you will find yourself in a world with thousands of other players. When you move from the single player portion to the multiplayer, your stats and skills will crossover, so being wise in creating your character during your time alone will pay off as you jump over to the populated world. Leveling through Conan is experience based and each level will get you skills to better your character. Higher than many other MMO’s, Conan’s level cap flatlines at 80, so it’s safe to say there will be plenty of action and adventure before you eventually reach the highest you can get. The game is currently in pre-beta and is looking fantastic from everything that we were shown. Players should be on the look out for the closed beta that will be unleashed sometime before the full version of the game is released later this winter. - Jeff 'Judasen' McAllister.