The dingy tavern was silent. Looking around you see several buxom wenches (probably selling themselves to the drunken soldiers that pass through) and unconcious drunk patrons slumped over chairs and on the floor. You spot Tobias Masters sitting over in a dark corner. He gestures for you to sit at his table. His face hidden by dark hood, he leans over the table and whispers:

"Do not speak, we haven't much time..."

You look surprised and just as you try to ask about what's happening, he raises a hand to silence you.

"Please listen carefully... there are those who would hunt me down and flame me for what I am about to tell you and if you happen to agree with me then they will hunt you too"

You give Tobias a puzzled look.

"They are the trolls, they wander around and flame people like you and I for expressing our opinions, that is why I called you out here so late at night... hopefully they're all sleeping or looking over their extensive porn collections by now. Come closer to me child, you must hear me quickly..."

Age of Conan... never have I seen a game manage to simultaneously succeed and fail in so many areas. It's such a shame because AoC held so much promise...

Now I'm going to warn you right off the bat: This is only MY opinion and nothing more. I'm well aware that there are a huge amount of gamers who are going to want my head over what I'm about to tell you. Why, you ask? One word:

Boobies...

I know, I know. You're thinking "Hey Tob, I like boobies as much as the next guy/girl (don't deny it ladies, you perve as much as we do) but why would I flame you over your opinion?" and you're right to be puzzled. See it's not you I'm afraid of... it's them - the horde of shallow minded gamers who define a game's quality by simple things such as graphics, gore and (of course) boobs. Hell, it's why so many people (myself included) like the Dead or Alive series, but I digress.

First thing's first... the install. Normally I wouldn't include the install in any analysis of a game as it's not actually a part of the game itself - but this is different. The game files are approximately 25 gig in size! It's frikkin' huge! And this is before the extra gig of patches! Surely you would think that such a huge install must amount to an excellent game... sadly this is not the case.

AoC is a good game, to be sure, however there are too many good points that work against the game as a whole. Let's walk through this step by step shall we?

The character creation is very extensive. Just about every part of your chacters body can be modified using sliders - this means you can create a completely unique look. This seems like a great idea seeing as some of the biggest complaints directed at MMO's is about limited creation choices. In practice though it eliminates texture caching, which means that every player and NPC takes 20-odd seconds to load up, every time.

Oh, and anyone who has a look at a female character model on the creation screen is going to get their first two heaping eyefuls of naked breast and again, this seems like a great idea, but it just about guarantees that 90% of all players will end up as half naked females, jiggling away merrily on top of mailboxes. The aforementioned shallow gamers are already trying to figure out exactly what's wrong with that.

AoC has an innovative (if not entirely unique) combat system involving three melee attacks: left, right and overhead. These must be bound to three of your hotkeys or put in one of the other quickslots where they're not nearly as useful. There's no automatic attacking either so combat quickly degenerates into either frenzied button mashing or repeated yawning while performing the same combo over and over again, which quickly devalues the entire melee combat system.

The environmental graphics in AoC are superb. Lush tropical islands filled with overgrown ruins and scenic vistas as well as the best water graphics I've seen in any MMO to date... all ruined by the environment design. Each area is designed in an extremely linear way, removing any feeling of freedom from the game. Exploring is punished as well, with certain areas trying to kill you ("A poisonous miasma surrounds you" and slowly kicks your ass... I found that out while stuck behind a tree =S ) if you stray too far from the beaten path. And by too far, I mean 15 yards in some areas.

The quests in this game have drawn me in like no other. They're not particularly special in on their own, but those who look deeper are greatly rewarded. All quest npc's are well scripted and voice acted, which I imagine would make up a huge bulk of the 25 gig game file as there are a hell of a lot of quests - which means loads of sound bites. The drawback to this is that most of the voice acting is terrible. It sounds forced and unenthusiastic for the most part, which is a damn shame. In certain cases it shines, such as the blacksmith outside of Tortage. Overall, despite the bad parts it still adds to the immersion of each quest, it's just so hard to shake the nagging feeling that the voice acting might've been slighlty overlooked.

I mentioned the great rewards as well. I chose a Demonologist as my first character and was tasked with infiltrating a witches lair and posing as her apprentice for one of my quests. The witch asked me to gather ingredients for a demonic ritual in exchange for some diabolical powers. I completed the quest and got my powers, while the original quest giver told me not to worry about this ritual I helped to start as he had a plan... nothing special right? Right.

Until I spoke to Neramaar that is. Nera is currently playing as an assassin (he's writing a full review for AoC as we speak) and I told him about my quest. He looked quite stunned and told me that his assassin quest tasked him with sneaking into that same witches lair and disrupt the demonic ritual that I had started. That, my friends, is the kind moment that I look for in a game. The guy or girl at Funcom who came up with that idea deserves a pay rise.

It's really easy to see that AoC is shooting for the stars... it's such a pity that it keeps punching you in the gut with disappointment. Bear in mind that I haven't gotten too far myself yet,this is just my first impression of the game. Honest to God I hope I'm wrong. I hope that just around the corner lies the magnificent experience I've been looking for in AoC. It's there the whole time, so close you can taste it, but numerous small things keep pulling me back down. Keep in mind that I don't think that AoC is a bad game, quite the opposite in fact. The sad truth is that adding so many great features to AoC is also what causes such a huge feeling of disappointment throughout.

-Tob

Stat Monkey:
*Gibberish curse words invented after being assassinated by other players: 14
*Unbroken time spent staring at demon boobies: 3 minutes
*Amount of time spent ranting about female NPC's tiny heads on huge bodies: 17 minutes