Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures (PC)

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We're certainly looking forward to 200-player seiges

AoC also has a combo system, which is where you'll see some of the game's most gruesome, blood-splattering finishing moves. These combos are assigned to your toolbar at the bottom of the screen like spells and other special attacks would be. Once you initiate a combo you then have to press the right melee attacks in the correct sequence to string together attacks. Funcom says the combos, which will be up to four attacks long, are the way to do the most damage, so they're an important skill to master.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to use any combos - they're not available until level 20. So I was left making my way towards Tortage city with 1, 2, 3 and a big stick. I faced humanoid pirates and brigands, jungle demons, jungle apes and ape kings as I escorted the woman to the city gates, by which time I was level five.

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In Tortage, play is divided up into day and night, switched by sleeping at the inn. During the day the starting area plays out like a normal MMO, with other players running around doing quests and what not. But at night you get your very own version of Tortage and the surrounding area to do some of the main quests that progress the story.

One of these quests highlighted another bug. It involved befriending a powerful witch who gave me a gown to wear that was bugged when I put it on. My arms were by my side and the gown sleeves were to the side - I looked like a demented chicken flapping about in the wind.

While questing I noticed that some of the dialogue didn't work properly - I would talk to an NPC I'd never met and was able to ask it about a quest it had previously set me on. There was texture pop-up where it shouldn't be, frame rate issues and graphical problems with the map too. And it looks like some of the combat animations haven't been implemented yet, because there wasn't much going on graphics wise mid-scrap. You just don't expect this kind of thing from a game only a few months from release.

Will AoC hit its March 2008 release date? Only time will tell.

As my time with AoC's starting area came to a close, I left feeling a bit deflated. The graphics are lovely and very gruesome for an MMO, and there are nice little touches that show off how Funcom has tried to make the fantasy MMO thing a little more user-friendly. Things like not every corpse dropping loot, which made wading through masses of mobs much quicker. Then there's the mini-map, which clearly tells you where you need to go for whatever quest you're on. But it all felt very familiar. I've been bashing mobs, running escort quests, farming items and putting points into skills and talent trees for years now, and, well, let's just say I was hoping for something other than extreme violence to set AoC apart.

For newcomers to MMOs however, AoC's first 10 or so hours should be simple and enjoyable enough - almost like a single player mini-adventure. But the big question is this: Will MMO fans stick around long enough to experience AoC's genuinely interesting high level content? Stuff like mounted combat, 200 player sieges, guild castle construction and more? Now if only Funcom had shown me that stuff, I'd be a lot more enthusiastic.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is scheduled for a March 2008 release on PC and sometime after that on Xbox 360. Check back tomorrow for VideoGamer.com's interview with the developer and Wednesday for a preview of AoC's mid level group play and player versus player combat.

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