GDC 07: Kotaku goes Hands On with AOC!

GDC07: Conan, Combos and Fatalities

I spent a little time this morning with the Funcom people and Age of Conan. Unfortunately, the servers for the massively multiplayer online game were up and down for much of the presentation so I didn't get to see as much as I was hoping to.

The game will be sent in the world of Conan during the time shortly after when he becomes king and the borders are in turmoil. While I'm still a bit disappointed that the game didn't try to mimic one of the classic art styles of the Conan books, magazines or comics, it still has a very distinct look.

The character creation seems quite robust allowing you to tweak just about everything with you character including adding a surprising array of facial hair and even tattoos right off the bat.

While the game's "bread-and-butter quests" will still rely on the text balloons that seem so popular now among MMOs, the developers are trying to have a lot of cut-scenes featuring voice acting and cinematic angles for the larger, more central plots.

My first look at the 185-square-mile world left me feeling optimistic about the direction the game is headed. It certainly seems to capture the feel and look of the Conan world and the environment was suitably lush.

The most unique aspect of the game, though, is it's ability to string together attacks in a real-world setting allowing you to create an array of combo attacks.

Because of server limitations and, I'm sure, limitations with the game's engine, you can't string together more than four attacks at a time.

The way these combo attacks work is that you select a type of attack on a sort of circle of pointers and once you select it the next attack needed to create a combo lights up for you to select. If you string together enough you increase you chance at delivering a fatality which seems to often involve lopping off body parts, like the head at the chin.

The animation seems to have more heft than is common with most MMOs and I liked the way the creatures looked, they certainly had that Conan feel to them.

The game seemed still too early to get a good sense for how the end result is going to deliver the Conan experience, but I'm holding out hopes.

The Funcom team says they havce the IP through 2023, so I'm sure they're not going to ruin it so early into the deal. Brian Crecente