First of all this is based on the books not the Arnie films, hence the flat skulled, mulletted brawler. Once that disappointment wears off you can console yourself with this violent little treat.
Here's a game that's earned its 18 rating with Honours. Arms, heads, legs and bits of torso are flying around all over the place with some nice meaty combat. Your weapons feel like they impact properly when they connect unlike say, Dynasty Warriors where you might as well be fighting sheets on the washing-line outside.
Most enemies can be brushed aside with ease; the only problems arrive with the swine's that have learnt how to block. Bring them down with a block breaker combo or go for the super cool, well timed parry and counter attack.
While God of War is going to be blamed for a lot of rubbish copycat hack 'n' slashers, this thankfully is not one of them. There are plenty of GOW moments with matching onscreen button prompts during boss battles including a hydra, sorry a giant squid at sea.
The best boss battle has Conan battling a huge dragon that chases him around a castle and rickety scaffolding. You're forced to do a bit of platforming here but it works well and you won't get killed by the camera when it lurches away for no reason mid-jump. This is a long battle but it has a few checkpoints so you'd don't have to start over from the beginning if you stuff it up at the last moment.
There's a nice range of pointy death-sticks on offer, single handed, two handed, dual wielding and spears, hell even some of the shields have blades! Conan can learn extra techniques with the orbs he collects from chests and fallen foes, these techniques can themselves be levelled up simply by using them.
After most boss battles you are rewarded with a piece of your old armour and with it a new magical ability such as freezing enemies temporarily or having fireballs rain down from the sky. You don't really need these but they're handy if you get swarmed.
It's not as good as Heavenly Sword but it's a hell of a lot better than the god-awful Beowulf and much less stressful than the experts only Ninja Gaiden Sigma. The graphics are nothing special but far from ugly and like the movies the music is suitably epic.
While it'll only take you around six hours to finish, it's enough. Any longer and it would start to grate with its repetitive nature. That said there's not much replay value not with the promise of unlockable artwork as an incentive. Seriously how hard is it to walk round the office one day with a camera and film a few staff members talking about the game? No more artwork, we've had enough!
This is an enjoyable romp of limb-lopping carnage if you're not expecting the next God of War. The well behaved camera and some great combat with immense boss battles make this a great rental or a buy if you can get it cheap.