Game Over: Final Thoughts on Age of Conan Unchained (PC)

I downloaded and installed Age of Conan Unchained last week. After 8 levels and less than a week of playing, I'm ready to call it quits.

Here are the Top 3 Things That Make Me Go RAAAAAAWR Like A Barbarian In Age of Conan Unchained:


3. Power Overwhelming! - In the first few minutes of the game, you were guided pretty well on what you have to do, which is a good thing for newbies in the game like me. The minimap in the user interface is an essential tool telling you where you should be at any given point in time. Until you get to the first town.

Go here! No, go here! No, go there instead!

There's just too much going on. Your only guide to the game becomes practically useless with tons of arrows pointing in all directions due to all of your quests and all the multicolored exclamation points for the ginormous amount of quest givers. I'm sure you can toggle some options somewhere to make it more understandable, but hey, I just want to play the damn thing.

The quest stories were actually engaging, but there are just too many of them, unfortunately diluting what could have been a promising experience.

It also doesn't help that my rig starts to complain after just a few minutes inside the busy town, in the lowest acceptable graphics setting at that.

2. By Krom! My Eyes! - I guess it's more personal of taste, but a game has to look decent even at low settings, especially for a game that is supposed to be good graphically. Unfortunately, the realistic art style doesn't scale down too well.

Prepare yourself for a visual assault.

UGLY

1. Uh Huh Huh. Boobies - I know the nakedness goes with the lore, but I just can't help but think that the game is pandering to a very specific segment of the gaming population: juveniles.

Pics or it didn't happen!

Woot woot!

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The game, the little of it that I played, is actually decent: the user interface is generally streamlined, the more action-y combat is refreshing, and the game world is immersive. Unfortunately, they should have eased new players better into the game; the amount of things that can be done are just too daunting, even for an intermediate player like me.

But hey, it's free, so go check the game out for yourselves.