Visiting Age of Conan: Unchained

Age of Conan has recently become free-2-play and so I decided to give it another go, having played it a couple of years back for only a brief time (it didn’t seem to hook me.)

After the staggeringly long time spent downloading the damn game again I finally managed to clock in a few hours as a good old guardian. I wanted big swords, heavy armour and sexy ladies.

And that is what I got. Kind of… I started off by producing my burly warrior, adjusting a bunch of sliders and options to make him look like a balding Chuck Norris. The customisation options here were good even if slightly limited. Then it came to picking a class. Little did I know but each race that you choose (3 for the free to play people) is limited to certain classes. For example one race called the Stygian can only pick the Demonologist class unless you pay for the game which unlocks a further 5 classes. This seems really quite limiting to me, and through the 3 races you can only choose 4 classes compared to premium users who get 12.

Lets move swiftly on to my magnificent guardian Rajus. He is a poorly slave shipwrecked on some crazy bitchin’ island. He picks up a broken oar and proceeds to mash down 4 poachers. No mercy fools. The first thing you notice when you start the game is the graphics. The really are very good. Lush green environments littered with small details of ruins. Your character seems to fit into the environment well and once I’d smashed my way through some pesky slavers I looked the part with a cloth cap, tattered blue vest and a scimitar.

The combat can almost be seen as a secondary point in MMO’s even though it is the aim of the game. Age of Conan fights like most other games in the genre, you have a task bar and get abilities where you click them to use them. The interesting twist is that instead of auto attacking you select between an upper left attack, an overhead attack or an upper right attack. Some abilities will have a certain attack direction associated with it and so when you use it must use the directional attack straight after the gain the effect. Enemies also have defensive features. White brackets appear either to their right, top or left and the more brackets indicate how well defended they are on that flank. For example 3 stacked white brackets is a strong defence and so if you attacked that side of them with your directional attack you would deal significantly reduced damage. It is an interesting mechanic and makes fighting a little less dull and more skill orientated.

I have not gotten too far into the game and so can’t really comment on too much more. I still need to check out PvP, dungeons and partying up… But so far it is looking positive. I will have to see if it holds my interest past the level I got to last time. Till next time Rajus!

 

 

You can sign up to play Age of Conan: Unchained for free HERE