General Discussion

In this Beyond the MMORPG column, Managing Editor Jon Wood takes a look at a small aspect of the recently released Conan game for the XBox 360 and expresses concerns about "franchise" or IP MMORPGs.

As you all can probably imagine, this last week has been a busy one for us over here at MMORPG.com. With the holidays coming up, family to visit, Reader’s Choice and Editorial Awards to plan, illness due to crazy weather and other wacky adventures have kept me away from my PC for the last week save for work, which means that I don’t have a new game to talk about in this week’s Beyond the MMORPG. Fortunately for me, I spent some time this past week watching my brother play the new Conan title for the Xbox 360. While I didn’t see a whole lot of play, like any good loud-mouth, I do have a few comments.

For those of you out there who are interested in this kind of thing, Nihilistic Software is the company behind the game, and THQ are responsible for the publishing.

So, I sit down on the couch to watch my brother play Conan. I’m doing other things, so my attention isn’t really focused on the action on the screen. I look up from time to time, and I see pretty much what I expect to see; impressive visuals. Frankly, the game looks great. It’s gritty, and gory and, if I wasn’t mistaking, even showed the occasional breast or two. Really, in that department, it’s everything you might expect from a Conan game.

Read the whole column here.

Or pull the "Turbine" and have some lousy one-liners for your characters that totally ruin it for me...LOTRO is a fine example of a disappointing game license...as the overall feel is not right...

Graphics- Awesome

Sound - Ok

Playability - like every other MMO on the market...yet, more boring..

And lets not mention the whole "Woe is me" attitude of everyone you talk to, with their one liners...they pull me out of the game. But, voice overs have always been the bane of MMO's...as most do not have them...or maybe have too much (EQ2, which really has some excellent voice work, but may go on just a little to long at times...)

I hope WAR and AoC can finally be next-gen, and bring something new to a genre that is starting to get a little stale...I really want a game that gives me a reason to leave my current MMO.

Cheers!

Interesting that the early 360 Conan game has poor voice overs while, judging from all the hands-on reports that came out last week on the 'Age of Conan' MMO (entirely different game but licensed from the same people), that games' voice-overs and voice acting are superb.