Customer Reviews:
 The best all round game I've ever played... and I've played a few... May 21, 2008
Ronin James (Oxon, UK)
49 out of 61 found this review helpful
Well I hope I didn't give it all away in the title... Just so you know I'm playing this in the early access program and have invested about 6 or 7 hours playing it so far spread over 3 days. The character I have is now L18
This is a truly great, well rounded, astoundingly presented and fantastically immersive online RPG.
Here are a couple of things about me so you can judge my bias - I have played world of warcraft when it first came out casually and really liked it, - I'm no wow hater, but after a couple of years on and off I grew tired of the style. Years ago I played a few of the classic RPG's like Baldur's Gate and Planescape etc. I've also read all of the original R Howard Conan stories.
I dont play computer games that much anymore because I find them too simplistic and samey but I thought since I liked the Conan books so much I'd give the game a shot.
I'll just cover a few important areas
Story - the story grabs you from the first minute you enter the game through the tutorial levels - I dont want to spoil it and give it all away but its on par with classics like planescape and KOTOR. It should be noted that its really unusual and refreshing to see this sort of detail in a MMORPG right from the word go.
Graphics - The game looks amazing. Granted I have it on high settings but my comp handles it fine - I have a 2.6 intel duel core and a 9600 GT GPU card n 2 gig of ram. The work thats gone into the level of detail is astounding; you can gaze up at the buildings in the town and spot new touches each time you do.
Sound - the music is super good - it vaires a lot from energetic to very soothing arabian classical. However it isn't obtrusive at all and I sometimes stop what I'm doing for a proper listen in between the action.
Quests - 90% (I really mean 90%) of the quests I've done so far have been great with a decent story behind them - sure there have been one or two slightly silly fetch and carry style ones, but the quests are so well presented with spoken word dialogue that I'll forgive them a couple of duds.
Combat - Its really fast - and the interactive system that they use is so much more involved that the point and click rubbish from previous online rpg games.
Community - the server 'Aquilonia' that I'm on is (so far) full of helpful and friendly people - the word on the general chat is super positive too, again fairly unusual for a release in the first few levels.
Finally - I must confess it took me until I was about 4 hours in and had got to grips with the combat and control system generally to really get into Age O Conan. So if you load it up and it doesn't blow your socks off give it a chance and at least level to L20 before you draw a conclusion.
I dont normally give out high marks (check out my other reviews) but this little number really deserves it. I just hope it doesn't suck up all my time...
cheers n thanks for reading
 Promising, but incomplete June 4, 2008
Joe Ardy (London)
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
I've been playing since the start of open beta, through early access and now have a level 76 character on a pvp server, so I have experienced the majority of the available content.
There are things which I love about this game and there are things that I dislike immensely, let's start with the good. Characters and combat are really fun, the combo system works really well, and for spellcasters no need to stop and target, as long as you are facing an enemy your spells should select the target.
The graphics are very impressive, notably in the first 20 levels, White Sands Isle is particularly nice with sun bleached sand and rippling azure water. however later areas lack some of the polish of the early zones. A zone like Thunder River is still impressive, but seems visually to be a bit more rough around the edges. You are given a fair amount of choices when designing your character, and there are more sliders than you could shake a stick at, however a few more variations of skin tone and hair colour would have been nice. I also really like the design of the weapons and armour, they are stained, cut and dented. Even the lower level items look good on your character, I have a level 20 assassin who is wearing flip flops, how cool is that :D
There are three resource zones where the majority of gathered items can be collected by players, I actually found it fun expoloring these zones as quite often mobs of your level will spawn while you are collecting. This leads me on to what you are collecting for...
Guild Cities, this is what has kept me motivated to continue with the game, your guild collects resources and then starts building a city in an instance of one of the resource zones. So far my guild has managed to build most of the fist tier of buildings, you get a good degree of choice in where to place the different buildings, and it is always nice to see them being raised from the ground. When I say a city, I really do been it, these things are big, maybe 2/3 of one of the capitals from WoW.
The clases also seem very fun, I have been playing a Priest of Mitra, which I have found has some intersting and clever abilities and is a real pleasure to play. I have tried out most of the classes at lower levels and they all seem interesting. Also if you enjoy playing a healer type class you should really enjoy the three priest classes, they are all unique and can all also do a fair bit of damage, which is a nice change from other MMOs.
Sounds good so far? Be prepared here come the negatives...
There are alot of loading screens, each zone is a seperate area that has to be loaded, this sometimes gives me an impression that I am playing in a series of, admitedly large, room, rather than being part of a seamless world. I used to play World of Warcraft and looking back I really enjoyed the fact that you could travel the entire length of a continent without seeing a loading screen, Conan does not make me feel the same way.
There is not enough content in the game yet, meaning you will have to spend much of your time in the later levels grinding. To be fair to Funcom they have stated they know this is an issue and are adding additional quests in the next few weeks.
The big selling point of this game for me was the Siege Warfare, this has not been implemented yet alongside many of the end game raids and dungeons.
Ther are many bugs such as extremely long respawns on quest items, mounts going slower than a walking player, quests that cannot be completed, graphical glitches, crashes etc. Age of Conan definitely feels unfinished.
Personally I will take a break from the game and come back in a few months when hopefully some of these issues have been resolved, I do think it has the potential to be a great game, in a few months time.
 Over hyped. May 24, 2008
D. Hicks (UK)
27 out of 34 found this review helpful
*** Repost from the CE ***
This game exceeds with it's selling point (the graphics), but overall it's very poor.
Ok to start -
Good points:
* Graphics are amazing even on low.
* Quest system is a breath of fresh air. Very few fed-ex style quests.
* Combat system is a great change from the auto attack most games have.
* User UI is customizable, and user friendly.
* Leveling is fast. (both good and bad, depending on your view)
* Ganking is minimal overall
Bad points:
* Very poor launch.
* CE editions arrived with keys that didn't work.
* Pre-order keys also did not always work.
* GM support is limited.
* Leveling is fast. Funcom advertised 2 weeks solid hardcore gaming to reach 80, there were people lvl80 within 3 days of the early access going live.
* Unless you a PC that meets the recommended specs, it'll run pretty poor.
* An 8800GTX (or similar) and 4gb RAM is needed to run high settings at a reasonable rate.
* Not true open world PvP. Zones are instanced. So grouping can be troublesome.
In my personal opinion, wait a few months before buying. Funcom are swarmed with complaints at the minute, and those are growing by the day.
This isn't to say everyone has had issues, some are happily playing away.
For me personally, I think I wasted 60 buying the CE. This game was launched 3 months too early. It's pretty much still in beta in terms of support, glitches, bugs etc
Don't go canceling that WoW sub just yet.
Quick spec check: (to get 30+ fps)
Required to play high - 8800GTX (or similar) 4GB RAM, 3GHz C2D
Required to play medium - 8800GT, 3GB RAM, 2.5ghZ C2D
Required to play low - 7900+, 2gb RAM, 2.2ghZ C2D
It'll play on lower spec machines, but Funcom's minimum spec are a complete joke.
Buy at your own risk.
 over hyped waste of time May 22, 2008
Liam (Brighton UK)
12 out of 43 found this review helpful
Well, i tried it on early access after a 31hr download. Nothing blew me away. Nothing new. The deflector shields were a bit odd. A lot of button punching for a so called new combat system that looked and felt very dated to me, reminded me of early 90's gaming. Great new idea that, press LMB really quickly and you always win. This is just my opinion but i would seriously recommend ,if you can, try it before you buy it. And if you're happy with your current MMO stay put, nothing new or good here.
Shame about the delivery May 17, 2008
Stuart
11 out of 26 found this review helpful
Hmm ... this is a promising product with an intriguing premise, but Funcom (and Amazon) haven't yet delivered to the end-gamer.
The Conan stories are perhaps best known through the two major Arnie films, but the author, RE Howard, described a very different picture than today's "15" movies allow.
The game, given only about 20 hours' play, promises much of the mythology, however both Funcom and Amazon have struggled to bring it properly to market. True, it has to be said that no MMO has enjoyed a smooth start to life, and I guess this game is no exception.
I'm most looking forward to 23 May when the game opens, as I have been unable to take part in the Early Access programme (there are limited numbers) but thoroughly enjoyed the Beta.
Stuart
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