Age of Conan: Unchained

markbennett

Sep 6, 2008

3

I played from launch, and the game ran smoother then, than it did when i stopped playing, but if anyone is sariosly interested in the game, get it grind to lvl 80, and wait for funcom to fix the entire game , that is when every one will be back, lets just hope they can do that before the tank. GL Funcom.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

JosephL

May 22, 2008

3

Pros: Amazing graphics. It's Conan. Combat mechanics are much, much more realistic than other MMOs. Cons: Tutorial levels just aren't fun (1-20). You end up dreading ever making a new character just because you don't want to ever go back to Tortage. The combat system isn't entirely knew, it just requires more time to master (auto attack is split onto direction attack Pros: Amazing graphics. It's Conan. Combat mechanics are much, much more realistic than other MMOs. Cons: Tutorial levels just aren't fun (1-20). You end up dreading ever making a new character just because you don't want to ever go back to Tortage. The combat system isn't entirely knew, it just requires more time to master (auto attack is split onto direction attack hotkeys). It's still just hitting hotbar buttons, but it is disguised well and requires your full attention at every moment. It's just like every other MMO in the fact that it's a major grindfest. Also, the quest system is the same as every other MMO (collect this, fetch this, kill this, deliver this, etc). Certain things completely kill the immersion: e.g. The Stygian Tempest of Set's heritage quests revolves around doing tasks for Mitra (rival God), helping Mitra's priests who constantly bash Stygians, and helping the weak and powerless (Set is merciless). It just makes no sense and would be an easy fix (replace a few quest mobs or change the dialog slightly). Conclusion: Funcom is a master of PR and capitalizes on/generates hype better than most companies, but the game itself isn't as great as everyone claims. However, if you're the type of person who only cares about being number 1 on the PvP scoreboard, then you'll probably love this game. I suggest you play something else and read the Conon stories if you want to be immersed in the world of Conan.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

BobD.

Jun 18, 2008

3

For what its worth I've played the game all the way up to 80. Graphics: I'm guessing they'd be nice if they worked correctly. If you change your draw distance to max the game looks quite nice, the problems some in many of the smaller zones. Specifically there are repeatable mansion quests that are bland, have some dynamic lighting effect coupled with the engine rendering For what its worth I've played the game all the way up to 80. Graphics: I'm guessing they'd be nice if they worked correctly. If you change your draw distance to max the game looks quite nice, the problems some in many of the smaller zones. Specifically there are repeatable mansion quests that are bland, have some dynamic lighting effect coupled with the engine rendering things behind 2 walls and the celling and suddenly the FPS takes a nose dive, mobs aren't rendered loot doesn't show when it drops. This happens far too often. especially when you try to complete the final quest to leave the newbie zone. The 'brutal' fatalities 80% of the time clip through each other so instead of hacking a guys limbs off with my 2handed axe I beat his limbs off with my elbows. Failed mechanics: The cutscene-esque view for talking to quest npcs is hysterical on a pvp server. You can easily get stuck in a conversation and slaughtered... by someone 50 levels below you. Combat: The mechanics are clunky and require real time micro managing of your timing. Combos trigger by pressing the skill button and playing simon says, the combo itself only activates if the final blow of the simon says time lands thus pvp combat revolves around closing to melee range for that final hit. Caster classes are gettign better but still a joke. Proper use of the active blocking system (consume stam for reduced melee damage) defense system (keycommands to redirect your 'defense' to specific regions of incoming attacks depend on system performance. Which is already substandard. Large class imbalances are in place with nothing being addressed at the current time to resolve that, specific abilities are getting brought to reasonable levels but fundamental flaws in gear, class design are ignored. Itemization: Worse than wow's at the end of beta. Until recently the only effect armor had was on health/stam/mana pools and damage immunities, naked was the same as full plate except for a 4% reduction in slashing damage. Even with the fixes introduced many stats have no effect (con which should be +stam +stam regen and +health only gives a randomly truncated additional hp ranging from 3.5 to 4.1 per point of con). Stats are also itemized to be worth roughly 1/20th of stam/health/mana. Raiding: Tier 1 raiding content has been completed by some guidls, tier 2 is 3-4 months away according to unconfirmed GM reports. Raid lockouts are 1 week + many bugs reported with them. Due to the nature of combat (melee heavy, heavy system requirements and a number of other issues) a raid focus of this game is bewildering. PVP: Several pvp minigames exist in theory, nobody plays them. PVP servers are basically gank fests, luckily stealth/stealth detection mechanic is HEAVILY biased to stealth. Player made battle formations are a joke, yes you cannot run through a player but there are no choke points to take advantage of a wall of well geared tanks blocking access to your squishy ranged dps (most of your dps will be melee and clustered around your tank). You cannot command NPCs as proudly stated in the synopsis. Crafting: Gathering does work and isn't too bad just waste a few hours and get all you need, some idiotic mechanics exist but they're for pretty much a one time thing and not too bad. Crafting: Jewel crafting sort of works now, very complex and obtuse system made harder by terrible crafting control panel. Weaponsmithing not too bad, material requirements for higher tier weapons are beyond stupid. Armorcrafting is terrible requiring vast amounts of resources and time. Architecture is UNBELIEVABLY expensive with plays for a single wall segment costing the same as your inner keep (1.25g) inner wall = 15+ segments, outer wall is MUCH larger. Alchemy is broken, pots are cheap enough up to level 70 that its more expensive making your own. But you can't level alchemy up to 70 the drops needed for it are non existent. PVP endgame: The press releases spoke about player made cities and massive battles between guilds over battlekeeps. Player cities exist and so do battle keeps. The npcs that spawn to attack your city aren't implemented nor is there any space on the map for them to exist (unless they build a city over resource nodes). Battlekeep mechanics are such you can't attack another battlekeep if you already have one. Additional PVP changes are including an outlaw status (repeated griefing ie killing lowbies or camping one person) will ultimately result in players looting money/equipment from your corpse. With the aforementioned lack of itemization this isn't a consequence but an annoyance. _________ TL;DR: Interesting premise and initial design concept could make for an interesting MMO. Execution of concept poor. Game engine a joke (check out your error files, you'll have several hundred pages of mesh errors and bone errors from model rendering). Graphics memory leaks, multiple clipping bugs, poor model design, bad model animation. Combat system is simply a new skin on what 90% of other mmos do 'press these 6 buttons unless I need to press these 9 buttons'. Content: bugged quests, confusing quest options, long clunky initial leveling process and scripted quest chains that adds 'atmosphere' which makes leveling from 1-20 longer than 20-50 that cannot be skipped. Instance quests that don't work (which is noticeable due to an amazing shortage of instances). Support: Petitions automatically time out after 4 hours of 'inactivity'. You have to use a whisper command to bring up a dialogue box, scroll to the bottom of the box and click a hyperlink to maintain activity. Inactive petitions are assumed to have been resolved! Petitions that are answered when you are offline are also considered resolved! Emails to support go unanswered.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful

LouieA.

Jun 21, 2008

3

A half-baked game with little to add to the genre. The multi-player questing areas are small, overcrowded and mob spawns are slow. There's not nearly enough soloable instance content (or "night mode" as they call it) to justify going past lvl 20. Lazy development in an another squandered fantasy universe.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

CraigM.

Jun 2, 2008

3

Over promised and under delivered. The world feels small and empty, like a single player game. The quests are dumbed down more than WOW, and the combat is only a half step above button mashing; it's just a lot more button mashing.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

BenThere

Jun 23, 2008

3

Pros: Looks nice, sounds nice, good music. Cons: Game is unfinished, probably needed another year of development. Bad UI. No class balance. Core features broken or not implemented. ZERO customer support, some people have had bugs that caused them to be unable to even log in to their characters for days at a time. Voice acting ends after the tutorial island. Quests are uninspired, not Pros: Looks nice, sounds nice, good music. Cons: Game is unfinished, probably needed another year of development. Bad UI. No class balance. Core features broken or not implemented. ZERO customer support, some people have had bugs that caused them to be unable to even log in to their characters for days at a time. Voice acting ends after the tutorial island. Quests are uninspired, not difficult, and never make you think... especially when the game holds your hand for the entire process. Every class has skills, abilities, and feats that are broken, buggy, or just don't work at all. Animations on npcs rarely work. Tradeskills are tedious and completely unrewarding. Enemies can evade, parry, or block your attacks even if their back is turned, or they are stunned, or they are knocked on their back. Fights are either incredibly easy or insanely hard, there is no middle ground. Loot is an absolute joke, every piece of armor of any given type generally looks exactly the same from levels 1 to 80. Rare equipment is often worse than common equipment of several levels lower. Stats do nothing at all. Female characters attack 20% slower than males and do less damage. Combo attacks are treated as a single attack, if your seven attack combo is interrupted on the 7th attack, all damage caused by the preceding attacks is negated and the target is healed as if it was never struck. PVP is so unbalanced that some classes are unable to kill other classes even if one of the people are AFK. Running is based on a percentage of your stamina, yet stamina potions restore a fixed amount of stamina the result is that classes with low stamina can actually out run any other class... fighting a mage class in pvp? they'll just run away until your stamina bar is empty, making you unable to execute a combo, and then nuke you with their full mana bar. This game is so unfinished that anyone who is actually paying a subscription fee after the first 30 days is going to be paying Funcom to beta test their game for them. Do yourself a favor, wait six months or a year or you'll be wasting your time and money.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful

SebastianS.

Jun 8, 2008

3

Level Flow: The first 20 levels are fantastic. They're a real eye-opening experience as far as MMOs go because every quest has full voice acting, multiple conversation branches (although they all ultimately lead to "yes i'll do it" or "no I won't) and a unique "single player" campaign where you can do a series of storyline quests without fear of other players. Unfortunately Level Flow: The first 20 levels are fantastic. They're a real eye-opening experience as far as MMOs go because every quest has full voice acting, multiple conversation branches (although they all ultimately lead to "yes i'll do it" or "no I won't) and a unique "single player" campaign where you can do a series of storyline quests without fear of other players. Unfortunately after these first 20 levels things go downhill, and fast. Voice acting stops completely and utterly, you end up skipping the scripted dialogs because you either no longer care or you are too scared of being ganked while accepting quests (which you can do nothing about). You end up running out of quests completely in the mid 30s which is about the time you will likely give up on the game. Gameplay: The combat mechanics are new and relatively varied for melee but the same old crap for casters which creates an even greater rift between the archetypes in PVP battles. Graphics: While the graphics engine is very impressive, the level design and repetitive and unimaginative use of textures ultimately lets it down in the graphics department. Sound: Fairly average overall with nothing really remarkable or downgrading.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

SteveA

Jul 27, 2008

3

What were the official 'critics' smoking? They obviously played AoC for maybe 15 minutes to come up with their reviews. AoC released as an UNFINISHED game. No end game content, no DX10 support, meaningless item stats, graphical glitches, no buddy passes (CE owners can use them as of five days ago), and host of other problems. Not to mention that the so-called mature content has What were the official 'critics' smoking? They obviously played AoC for maybe 15 minutes to come up with their reviews. AoC released as an UNFINISHED game. No end game content, no DX10 support, meaningless item stats, graphical glitches, no buddy passes (CE owners can use them as of five days ago), and host of other problems. Not to mention that the so-called mature content has been getting nerfed over the last month or so. Gamers beware! Maybe have a look if you're curious but this game is about a year away from being as good as it was suppose to be at launch.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

JakeG

Aug 30, 2008

3

I have played this game to level 80 and to be honest when you get to level 55 you have to grind grind and grind. There isnt enough content for higher levels, there is only 2 pvp type mini games which pretty much suck. When you get to level 70 and manage to get to the level 70 playing area, there are always the regular gankers which camp both spawns and the exit out of the area. Not enough I have played this game to level 80 and to be honest when you get to level 55 you have to grind grind and grind. There isnt enough content for higher levels, there is only 2 pvp type mini games which pretty much suck. When you get to level 70 and manage to get to the level 70 playing area, there are always the regular gankers which camp both spawns and the exit out of the area. Not enough area in game, not enough content, way too many gankers but hey decent graphics.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

WR

Aug 5, 2008

3

New WOW clone now in Hyborian clothes. If you read REH (creator of Conan) books from Hyboria...you don't find that world from AOC. Really really shame. Game alone is full for bugs and poorly copies game mechanisms and classes from WOW. Nothing truly new.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

DoomyHendric

May 17, 2008

3

I've been in the closed beta, tech test and so on. Since the NDA and everything has been lifted. I would say this is the biggest letdown of this year. The game simply does not even live up to what they claimed to offer (no persistant world, no 64 bit support, no directx 10 support). This MMO is buggy at best and should not be released without at least 12 months of testing. The gameI've been in the closed beta, tech test and so on. Since the NDA and everything has been lifted. I would say this is the biggest letdown of this year. The game simply does not even live up to what they claimed to offer (no persistant world, no 64 bit support, no directx 10 support). This MMO is buggy at best and should not be released without at least 12 months of testing. The game as it is right now has constant load screens and so on.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

Errolb

May 22, 2008

3

Combat cool having lag issues with it, the biggest problem i have is the whole game being instance based and not being able to see all players in areas.. to me thats guild wars and not a true mmo

0 of 0 users found this helpful

Susan

Jul 13, 2008

3

Don't waste your money. I've been playing since the game opened to all players. The beginning island is finished and is fun to play, but the rest of the game is not. PVP, Siege, quests and crafting, something you expect from an MMO, is virtually non-existent. Even though Siege is listed as being in the game - it's not. Funcom's idea of class balancing is to nerf Don't waste your money. I've been playing since the game opened to all players. The beginning island is finished and is fun to play, but the rest of the game is not. PVP, Siege, quests and crafting, something you expect from an MMO, is virtually non-existent. Even though Siege is listed as being in the game - it's not. Funcom's idea of class balancing is to nerf classes and then conveniently forget to put it in their patch notes. After level 35, the game becomes extremely boring and repetitive. There is a complete lack of content, direction and story line after level 35 and to level beyond that, you will spend the majority of your time doing the same 3 level scaling quests. With every patch, performance gets worse along with game play. Simply put, Funcom, even though it has experience with MMO's, (Anarchy Online), has no idea what it's doing with this game. I was a huge fan at first, but after you begin to level, along with the bugs and nerfs, you realize just how much is missing from the game. Funcom released a buggy, machine hog lacking content, direction and story line. The mature themes disappear after level 20 or so, so again - Funcom falls short on their promises. If you spend your $50.00 on this game, you'll get something that's fun to play for about a week. After that, you'll be as angry and frustrated as 90% of the players are. The game forums are no longer an indicator of player satisfaction as each unhappy post or suggestion is merrily deleted by Funcom's "new" moderators. That's the game in a nutshell and from someone who played it to 80. With no end game content, no siege, there is nothing to do after reaching 80.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful

StephenK

May 21, 2008

3

It's an ok game. It doesn't feel fluid as say Oblivion or DDO does. They have tried to make dynamic animations and changing enemy weaknesses as a substitute, and it really doesn't work. For example, can I use terrain to my advantage? No.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

CD

May 24, 2008

3

Boring. I really cant pay attention to the game because it just isnt fun. its also way too graphically demanding for a MMO; my computer ran about 120 FPS max settings on wow and i barely get 10-15 FPS in AoC. freakin awesome. the combat system seems like it would be interesting, but it doesnt deliver. it is too hard to pay attention to everything in an MMO while doing the whole hack and Boring. I really cant pay attention to the game because it just isnt fun. its also way too graphically demanding for a MMO; my computer ran about 120 FPS max settings on wow and i barely get 10-15 FPS in AoC. freakin awesome. the combat system seems like it would be interesting, but it doesnt deliver. it is too hard to pay attention to everything in an MMO while doing the whole hack and slash thing. overall, the game is pretty on the surface but is just shallow.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

MarkL.

Jul 16, 2008

3

The the Meta Critic readers, those who are intelligent enough to do research on a game prior to purchasing it, I'd like to issue a firm and heartfelt warning about this game. The early portions of this game are fairly polished, with plenty to do; and dungeons that work as they should, but as you progress; and as you advance your character it becomes clear that this game was clearly The the Meta Critic readers, those who are intelligent enough to do research on a game prior to purchasing it, I'd like to issue a firm and heartfelt warning about this game. The early portions of this game are fairly polished, with plenty to do; and dungeons that work as they should, but as you progress; and as you advance your character it becomes clear that this game was clearly not what it was hyped up to be by the developers. Those looking for a cut above the average MMO will be sorely disappointed, as this title fails to do anything different from the regular mold; aside from the combat system. But I will give you more information on that later. Let us start with the graphics, which manages to be the most worthwhile, and most detrimental aspect of this title. To put it bluntly, the graphics themselves are amazing, Whether you're traveling through the breath taking conall's valley, or fighting the horrific aberrations of the Field of the Dead, you will be pleased with the visuals. Of course, with these visuals come a very steep system requirement, and even though you may find yourself meeting you exceeding the supposed "recommended" system specs, you may have performance issues with the game. What makes this an even larger problem is that lowering your graphics setting to increase performance has the OPPOSITE effect for no adequately explained reason. The gameplay, as far as Player Vs. Environment is concerned is passable. The combination system works reasonably well; and is a breath of fresh air from the usual MMO fare. But again, this has a huge downside: I of course speak about the PVP ramifications of such a convoluted combat system. Novices and "newbies" alike will have a difficult time managing the excess of hotkeys you must use to be successful in combat; should you choose one of the 5 melee classes. In addition to three manual directional attacks (FIVE at level 40), you must manage an excess of activated abilities, double tap abilities, and in the cases of some classes; both a mana and stamina pool as well as managing shields and the like. Diving deeper into the gameplay subject, those looking for a long lasting MMO experience should look elsewhere at this time, as once you get to around level 50-60; the content dies down almost fully. There are no instanced dungeons to be done, quests are few and far between, and the few quests that you may manage to find are uninspired at best. Those choosing to push into level 80 will find that nobody participates in Mini Game PVP, nobody participates in siege PVP and even the 'contested border kingdoms' lie a muddied ghost town. Facts are facts in the end, and while some may try to defend these current imperfections as typical for the genre, I will state that I have played quite a few of these games in my time; and I have never run out of things to do this quickly. When one combines the patches that seem to introduce more bugs than they fix, sieges that not only have no incentive, but are broken; and a lack of a PVP system this game is only good for about a month of semi casual play. Is 50$ worth a month of game time? That's question you will have to ask yourself; but as this game is now - I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone. Thank you for reading.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful

AnonymousMC

Jul 14, 2008

2

The game has it's advantages, but also many weaknesses. One of the bigger problems is that the game is still in development..yes thats right you are paying for a game that is not finished yet. Wait about 6 months or so with buying it, then they might have fixed all the bugs from the beta that should have been fixed before they released it..also the game does NOT support directx10 asThe game has it's advantages, but also many weaknesses. One of the bigger problems is that the game is still in development..yes thats right you are paying for a game that is not finished yet. Wait about 6 months or so with buying it, then they might have fixed all the bugs from the beta that should have been fixed before they released it..also the game does NOT support directx10 as they state on the box....… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

DevonS.

Jul 19, 2008

2

This game is terrible. It's not really any different than World of Warcraft or any of the other MMORPGs. It drags its feet right at the beginning, and you have to be a whopping level 15 or so before you can start exploring the world. Even when you get to that point, you get the feeling you're not actually traveling very far when you do move around. There's nothing exotic This game is terrible. It's not really any different than World of Warcraft or any of the other MMORPGs. It drags its feet right at the beginning, and you have to be a whopping level 15 or so before you can start exploring the world. Even when you get to that point, you get the feeling you're not actually traveling very far when you do move around. There's nothing exotic about this game, it just looks different and promises more, and then proceeds to deliver exactly what games that have been around longer (and already worked out all their kinks) have managed to do already.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful

CarriganK

Jul 9, 2008

2

Wow another great game from funcom... rather go and play a dead game like diablo 1 wasted 90$ on collectors edition not worth it plain and simple huge let down...was looking forward to time game since it was announced.... Don't buy it don't play it.

0 of 1 users found this helpful

MattC.

Aug 20, 2008

2

LAG, and CRASHES, and BUGS, OH MY! The only things Age of Conan had going for it at launch was superior graphics. Everything else, including gameplay, stability, and class balancing was absolutely pathetic, pitiful. I quit after the first month.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

RasterM.

Sep 5, 2008

2

Bugs, crashes, lacking content for the majority of the game, memory leaks, and is full of jerks due to the attraction that is blood, gore, and nudity. Don't let them fool you, they, and this game, are not mature. It is merely unfit for younger audiences.

1 of 2 users found this helpful

AdamW.

May 23, 2008

2

Yet another boring WOW clone (with a more adult theme).

0 of 0 users found this helpful

RutgerH.

Jun 12, 2008

2

AoC is a short three phase process of excitement (hype & installation), fear (desperate tweaking to get any playability at low low settings), and disappointment (buy new grapics card to get high high settings and indeed see EQ2 with an extra helping of bugs, a very shallow combat system, and amazingly boring quests). Uninstall.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

sfc19711971

Jun 24, 2008

2

Vanguard 2 or worse Anarchy Online 2? Funcom had to release this game early due to investors getting restless and it shows. Levels 1-20, those typically reviewed by the press are reasonably well polished, quests at least can be completed and there are not major problems. Past that, PvP and PvE balance is a mess, quests are bugged, huge memory leaks, crafting broken even resulting in Vanguard 2 or worse Anarchy Online 2? Funcom had to release this game early due to investors getting restless and it shows. Levels 1-20, those typically reviewed by the press are reasonably well polished, quests at least can be completed and there are not major problems. Past that, PvP and PvE balance is a mess, quests are bugged, huge memory leaks, crafting broken even resulting in crashes, content missing, skills not working, feats either badly described, not working or both. Female attack speed slower then male attack speed. The list goes on and on. Customer support is absent with petitions in game on any subject just not being handled. To those who played Anarchy Online, this is all to familiar. Funcom has NOT learned its lesson. If you must, just wait till AoC follows AO into free to play hell.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

ChristopherF.

Jul 31, 2008

2

As bugged and incomplete as any mmo at launch except that even the content is mostly missing. good style, bad implementation and the patches have actually progressively made the game less stable.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

JakeK.

Jul 6, 2008

2

Terrible game where the allegedly innovative combat system forces players to press 3 or five buttons instead of one. This game is so bugged that at certain points in the game the higher system settings produce higher fps than the lowest ones. Excluding the often beautiful visuals this game is more of a step backwards for MMO's than anything else. The first few levels are lukewarm at Terrible game where the allegedly innovative combat system forces players to press 3 or five buttons instead of one. This game is so bugged that at certain points in the game the higher system settings produce higher fps than the lowest ones. Excluding the often beautiful visuals this game is more of a step backwards for MMO's than anything else. The first few levels are lukewarm at best, but once someone reaches level twenty they experience heavy instancing and very few opportunities for teamwork except to keep gankers at bay. The visuals are the only thing that keep this game from getting a 0… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

JG

Jun 28, 2008

2

This game is simply awful. I played up to level 32 on my assassin character, and then promptly uninstalled the game. The quests are either mind-numbingly easy and thoughtless or frustratingly impossible, based on you level. While the game does indicate quest difficulty in respect to your level with a colour-coding system, all one has to do is wait to achieve a certain level and then plow This game is simply awful. I played up to level 32 on my assassin character, and then promptly uninstalled the game. The quests are either mind-numbingly easy and thoughtless or frustratingly impossible, based on you level. While the game does indicate quest difficulty in respect to your level with a colour-coding system, all one has to do is wait to achieve a certain level and then plow through them. This is because once you are a certain number of levels above the non-player enemies' levels, they will completely ignore you unless you hit them for damage first. So a level 30-something character can run through the quests in the Cimmerian region in a matter of hours, breezing past enemies that anyone else on a lower level will have to slog through on their way to the objective (dying repeatedly of course). I never played in a single group the entire time I was in-game because none of the few people in my area would accept my "join group" offers and I quit bothering to try after so long. I would have to say this is just a really pathetic single-player fantasy. I was so appalled with this half-hearted attempt of a game that I didn't even bother to see whether or not the PvP could have salvaged the experience for me. The visuals are...underwhelming. It's performance is terrible on a system that can run Crysis smoothly on maximum settings (although I believe this may have something to do with the Age of Conan's half-finished state). Just a terribly conceived aesthetic. You have to see it in action for yourself (screenshots just don't do it justice--mostly because all of the screenshots I saw came from Funcom and were taken to show the best the game has to offer). Character animations are goofy, and goofiness is something that tends to alienate me from a game that is trying to be a tough sword-and-sorcery epic. The drunkard NPC's (abound in every city or town setting) make these ridiculous, gibbered grunts that had me rolling my eyes every time I heard them. Although I came across some amusing situations with the NPC's, it's mostly all too campy. And the voice-acting is bad. Really bad. I was actually okay with the fact that it stopped altogether after the Tortage region (although it is a jarring change in terms of the game experience). Oooh lawdy, are the trees and vegetation just down-right ugly! Bloody ugly! AoC uses a similar foliage system as Oblivion, but for some reason the AoC foliage textures look like they came out of a 16-bit Super Nintendo system. I'll say it again: ugly! Combat is...well, how could the developers possibly think they were on the right track with this nonsense?! The classes are unbalanced for starters, a fact that seeps its way even into the "single-player" quest portions of the game, where spell-casting enemies can stand thirty feet away from you and pound your health while you waste your invaluable stamina racing to their position to engage them in melee combat! And then you usually find that two or three more enemies will respawn in the vicinity (because the PvE areas are instanced) and outnumber you while you're still working on that first spell-caster. Second of all, the targeting system bites the bag. Tab is supposedly for targeting the closest enemy. Yet, every time I used it to focus on the next enemy in line for a healthy serving of my wrath, the game would choose some enemy a half a mile away, leaving my character swinging into the air! I only have two hands Funcom, one's on my mouse, and the other's on my keyboard! So don't put the combat keys all over the place! Speaking of combos, boy what a good idea for an MMO, but executed in the worst way! You just better hope you live close to a server is another thing I'll add to the combo business. Well, I'm out of time, but there are so many other things I'd love to whine about here. The bottom line is this: the game feels like a beta (and, yes I can attest to the abundance of glitches and bugs still present there), so I'll be waiting another six months before I even think about looking at this game again.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

UbieW.

Jul 31, 2008

2

Great graphics and beginning levels, but the bugs and memory leaks make the game unplayable at times even on the best machines. Most promised game aspects are missing or crippled by bugs. It might be a good MMO down the road, but alot of community feel mislead and I'm not sure it will overcome that.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

CraigB.

Aug 12, 2008

2

Was fun at first but gets boring quickly after you get out tortage. past level 20. Still many horrible bugs so long after release, but don't just take my word for it, check out their general forums to get the general feeling of the players.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

WestW.

Sep 12, 2008

2

Yet another MMORPG with a good-but-not-great combat system, tedious crafting system with poor rewards, and unbalanced PVP combat. The map is the standout feature that elevates this from a 1 - instantly knowing where to go for every quest saves a trip outside the game to look things up on a fan site.

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33	#33 Best PC Game of 2008
9	#9 Most Discussed PC Game of 2008
45	#45 Most Shared PC Game of 2008

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