Age of Conan.

this will be the last time i'll get anything from electronics boutique. seriously, how can one not know when the stock is arriving? especially a huge multi corporation like eb. anyways to the main issue, i finally have my retail copy after a week past the early access and frankly, i never expect it to be so big. i had to carry not one, but two of those huge encyclopedia wanna-be from the city back to my room and it wasn't a easy task. an artbook, dvds and a leather map does not justify making the box that big in my opinion.

fat. *see how small my k800i is*

and the loots.

for those that haven't heard of the game, the lore or history, conan and hyboria is a fantasy setting created by robert e. howard in 1932. and 76 years later, spanning a wide collection of novels, comics and movies *one in particular starring a certain californian governor* the mmo game is finally here. the game is made so one can choose to be either one of three races, aquilonian, cimmerian and stygian and also one of the twelve classes avaliable. like most rpg games, certain classes are restricted by the race one choose. *no gnomes /cheer*

character making screen.

now before i go on, i have to make it known that aoc carries a mature rating here in australia, which means by law only 18+ year olds can play it. *as if that deters anyone below 18* and humbly request to please do not make this a age of conan vs world of warcraft debate. pretending that i do want to hear about it, all i have to do is just log into the forums and see the multitude of posts dedicated to it. both games are different, like an apple and an orange, both have their own unique flavours. that being said, i'll continue on.

stygian armor sets.

aoc is without doubt a visually stunning game and in order to enjoy it fully, one must try to play with high visual settings. being honest here, one definitely need a good system in order to run aoc smoothly. right now i'm running on a vista-32 with a 8800gt gfx, 4 gigs of ram and an intel core2 6400 2.13ghz processor and it's barely enough to run the game on high settings. i have to tweak the settings slightly to run the game on high - medium visuals and even then i'll still get an average of 25 fps with a few fps spikes here and there. the landscapes, the ground details, and the environment is just breathtaking. as one runs along the field one can see the grass wavering, the fading decorations of long abandoned ruins, and when your avatar enters the water, the game engine adds in the ripple effect. the armor designs are detailed and eye catching as well, especially the egyptian themed stygian designs. last but not least, i truly enjoy the little things the developers have added in such as hearing rats run away from your character as you explore the damp sewers, or watching the sun rise above the mountains as you stand near the top of the valley. also, instead of the normal click quest, click hand-in, click okay quests, one can actually select from a variety of dialog to make the role-playing much more enjoyable.

the forgotten ruins.

what is so unique about the game is the combat system. instead of the normal auto-attack / skill mashing system like other games, one must actually execute each strike and through combos. it may sound tedious and boring but with the huge variety of combos available, many different combinations can be made. if you like, one can even chain a series of combos together to deadly effect and may even achieve a fatality. when i say fatality, i mean the kind you find in those old mortal kombat games where you behead, disembowel or chop the enemy in half kinds of fatality. how do one know if a fatality has occurred though? through the blood splatters all over your screen of course, followed by the dying moans of your victims. best of all, this feature is just not limited to npcs, non-playable characters but also to other online gamers as well. there was this time where another player decapitated my character while questing in the sewers, and i just sat in awe watching my character head roll into the drain and my poor decapitated body slowly fall to the ground in a puddle of blood. the music score is impressive and matches the theme of the area to a t, especially hearing the soft melancholy muse while you stand atop the mountains in conall's valley giving you the saxon-like feeling from braveheart.

finish him!

more fatalities ingame.

it would be a sin not to mention how much effort the developers have design the starting area or also known as the newbie area. after making your character, the screen shakes and you see yourself flung into the sea. after a short cinematic, you find yourself washed up on the beach where you start your first steps in the game. your first quest involves saving a scantily clad female tied up on the island then making your way to the main city, tortage. as with many role playing games, tortage is a culturally diverse place of vice and danger and with plenty of quests and plot devices to keep you entertained for ages. you will be guided through the basics of the game within your first five levels and by then, all you need is practice to get used to the system. completing certain quests pans out into a nifty in-game cinematic that brings life into the characters in game, not to mentioned the impressive and sometimes hilarious voice actings as well. i won't give away much but one will ultimately end up in a city riot, where one will see the town transformed into a burning pyre and the npc's you have interacted with running around the streets in confusion.

overlooking a part of tortage.

nipple slip *oops*

this game has a few faults as well though, the most obvious one being the small cluttered chat box. it's easily rectified though by dragging it bigger and selecting what information you want displayed in the chat window. *though it took me a while to figure out how* another fault i have is the ingame minimap, where too much information may be presented and how small the party icons are shown. dying and resurrecting in game brings you to a load screen, which means if one has an average system, it may take a long time to load back into the game and especially on a pvp server, it may mean another death. that being said, i'm sure given time funcom will continue to upgrade and patch the client to a more tolerating interface. it's hard to say whether it will be big enough to compete against blizzard and their pet project but i'll be enjoying myself with this game for a fair bit. *after my exams of course ^^*