Recent reviews by Qutlaw

Nothing more to say, I just started playing this game recently. Even purchased the rest of the DLC I was missing. Not sure I can fully recommend the music DLC, as I rarely use it. But the game itself is worth grabbing if it is on sale. A recent Humble Bundle gave me most of the DLC cheap, and that brought my attention to this game that has been sitting in my Library for years.

I really wish I had played it sooner. It is a great deal of fun if you like city building games.

Make sure to google graphic settings, otherwise you'll see a bunch of blurry graphics. But there are solutions if you care enough to search for them. In a nutshell... worth the price if you can get everything on sale. Can't say the same if you have to pay full price. I for-see a ton of fun playing this, and plan to stream this on my Twitch channel.

Look me up on Twitch, at Qutlaw. Thanks for taking the time to read my unnecessary review of a really fun city building game!

This game -could- have been fun. But, Funcom being Funcom has once again taken a great resource (the Conan universe) and ruined it. Then they drove it further into the ground and stomped on the remains. Conan would be proud, and Crom himself applauds this company.

There are so many things wrong with this game, it is really difficult to know where to begin. I did acquire the game in a Humble Monthly, and decided to try it. I even bought the DLC, because to be quite frank, I -wanted- to like this game. Who hasn't seen the movies and wanted to play in this setting? I took a chance, and lost. And that would have been the end of it.

COMBAT: The combat in this game is a joke. You have two attacks, left click or right click. That is IT. The left-click attack is meant to be a light attack, while the right-click attack is meant to build a "chain" of attacks, and depending on the weapon does the heaviest damage to you opponent. This isn't so bad in theory, but since the NPCs have such a huge difference in hit points, fighting a regular opponent means hitting them from 4 to 10 times, and they die. However, if you fight a "boss" mob, you will need to hit it about 1000 times. Again, this could be explained away by mentioning that these "bosses" should be harder to kill. I -could- have accepted that, but your friends cannot help you because if they get too close (easy to do) you'll kill them, or they'll kill you. You have very (VERY) little control over where your attack lands, especially when using the right-click chain attacks. Sure, you can "lock on" to an opponent, but you'll end up in a very funny sequence where the NPC attacks the air because your "chain" moves you around, and you'll attack the air because... well, you simply cannot control your strikes very easily. If you do hit, it is wham, bam, thank you... sir and / or ma'am.

BOW COMBAT: So, as mentioned above, you can't attack with your friends because you will hit them. So, let's try the bow. Uhm, that isn't going to work because you have very little control over WHEN the bow will "fire" - Sure, it is easy to time your hits with the bow, just hold right-click, and a couple of seconds later your arrow flies. It hits your target quite easily once you get the hang of it, but... and there is a BIG BUTT there... you'll do about one-one'thousandth of that health bar in damage. Even with the absolute best bow, and the absolute best arrows, the bow is, well, useless. Trust me here, useless is the best word for it. Bow combat is not something to look forward to, which means all those points you might have spent to increase your skill with the bow will need to be spent elsewhere (like Encumbrance).

Speaking of which, don't even try to move too far from your first base. Well, you can't move too far from your first base unless you simply refuse to loot. Until you have leveled a little, you will constantly be weighed down with things you NEED to build your base. This means you'll be staring at the same terrain for a little while. Be prepared.

Terrain: Oh boy, I could go on for hours about the terrain. You will look at a LOT of desert and rocks until you level up enough, and are clever enough to learn how to climb out of the desert into a more pleasing looking area. Once you DO get there, you'll have to deal with rain. A LOT of rain. Raining 95% of the time in the area north of the desert will get on your nerves. Maybe if you bribe an admin, he can turn it off. But be warned, it can (and usually will) start raining immediately again.

Broken Systems: There are so man systems that are simply broken. This includes the "Temperature" system. You'll be hot and overheated in heavy armor in the desert areas, and if you move into the Northern areas, you'll freeze. Then, in the middle of the frozen north, you'll find your ultimate goal of the Volcano where all the best thralls are located, along with the best metals and boss fights. The problem? That warm weather gear you crafted after a tremendous amount of effort, will kill you since you are wearing warm gear, and the volcanic areas will cause you to overheat. Of course you can always carry an extra set of gear with you, as long as you are there for the loot. Which.. you will be.

The rest could best be put into a pile of jumbled words, with the same amount of planning and attention to detail that Funcom put into their second attempt at a Conan game.

The building system is frustrating, since the building sets are incomplete and placing items without a mod from the workshop, and some frustrating tricks that can only be done in admin mode, it is all a joke. Trying to place items is so difficult in most places. There are peices missing from sets, like stairs and roofing parts. Trying to make items "snap" doesn't always work, and there is no way to STOP peices from snapping when you don't want them to.

The NPC in the game have only one function each. To tell you a story, to sell you ONE thing, and ONLY one thing each, or to attack you. And they can see you coming from a mile off. They will reach you and then just stand there for a few seconds, probably considering why they were drafted into this joke of a game. You can defeat them with little effort, unless you are still struggling with that whole "should I right or left click here" disease you caught while waiting for the game to load. They have little to NO actual AI. There is NO strategy involved. ALL aggro NPC's simply attack until one of you dies, or you kill your buddy because he didn't feel like standing back while you attacked.

Honestly, I could go on forever and have very little nice to say about this mess of a "game" - it should never have left Early Access. It is incomplete at best, and a joke at the worst. But, I did hint at some "good stuff" so here goes...

The GOOD parts: There are not many, but the team at Funcom did an outstanding job at the cut-scenes, the voiceovers and took the time to make some pretty decent documents and things for you to find scattered around the map. They did even better at hyping the game. And the parts of the DLC they released had some very pretty cosmetic things. But that is about all of the good, and to quite frank, I am being a wee bit generous here.

I purposely left out anything PVP related, and that is because I played with friends, and felt the game was too lacking to enter into PVP of any kind. I can left or right click an NPC just as easily as doing so versus another player. There is so little strategy involved that it would always be decided on who had the best gear, the most healing food/potions and the most friends. Certainly not strategy or choosing the right attack. PVP in this game would be even more of a joke.

Don't make my mistake, go play something else with your friends. This one has a few more years of planning to do before it could be considered a finished or proper game.

I am half-way in, so my comments are based on my progress so far.

First, the game was absolutely worth the purchase. There are a lot of secrets to find, like in previous Doom games, and it is very easy to miss them. But I do like how they integrated everything into the map seamlessly. And the maps are very well laid out, even though they can seem confusing at times, with a bit of exploring you'll find that the maps are much smaller than they appear at first. There is only one level so far that was highly difficult to figure out where you are supposed to go next.

The suit upgrades are a bit meh, to be honest it feels like they had an "idea" for the suit upgrades but just ended up putting very little thought into the actual implementation. The weapon upgrades are a bit better, but most of them are just there to eat the weapon tokens (currency for upgrading your weapon mods).

The gameplay is much better, in my opinion, than the last Doom release. There is simply no need for a flashlight this time around, and anyone that played Doom 3 knows how much they used dark areas and "scare tactics" in the dark to give that game some life. Hah. It didn't work then, so they definitely avoided that mistake this time around.

The UI is very well laid out, and easy to use. The information (as you progress) is a very nice touch, even if you start out at the very beginning with not even a clue as to who you are, or why you are where you are. And there is NO explanation in the beginning as to why YOU are in the situation you are in. This is most likely done for a reason that will be explained to you later on, at least it seems that way.

Overall, this has been a very enjoyable game. I have taken my time on every level exploring and finding all the secrets and data, and am not rushing through. You have no choice in some areas, but in most cases you can backtrack over the entire map, and proceed only when you are ready.

I'd give it a 8 out of 10, and that is just my opinion.

From, A loyal iD and Doom fan.