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Sound, Graphics and the Miscellaneous

 It truly is a disappointment that Age of Conan probably won’t become fully voiced, because the sound quality of this particular title is astounding. While the voice acting may not always make total sense, the quality of their tone rings as true and lifelike as if they were standing beside you. Along with the voices in the game, the music and general sound quality within the areas of AoC is astounding.

Utilizing my THX-certified Logitech Z-5500 speakers combined with a Creative Audigy sound card, the 5.1 and music that emerged from the game was awe-inspiring. Using their Dolby Digital Pro Logic II technology, the Logitech speakers picked up every nuance within the sound environment, from the rushing rivers to creeping lava to ululating Pictish warriors. The sound effects from my own warrior thundered in a crescendo that often ended with the splatter of a foe’s brain matter across the ground.

The music and ambient sounds in Age of Conan immerse you in the game world.

Rarely have I experienced music that I truly enjoyed with an MMOG (even the EverQuest theme grew tiresome after awhile), yet the music within AoC was a testament to my ears. Whenever I would enter a new zone, I’d often turn up my speakers just to hear the crescendo of vocal lyrics and instrumental majesty. I can’t say enough about the sounds and music in AoC; the audio directors truly matched the auditory scenery with the world that Funcom created.

Just as the music sets players up to be immersed in a fantasy world, so too has the art direction for Age of Conan hit upon the perfect style to encapsulate Robert E. Howard’s tales of thick jungles and hard-edged northern wastelands. From the heads on pikes outside of the Connall’s Valley settlement to the gruesome monsters lurking within the Sanctum of the Burning Souls, each piece of Age of Conan seems to just add another chunk to the still forming puzzle.  

In general, the views in Age of Conan are simply spectacular. No other MMOG can really compare to the level of fantastic realism that AoC displays, and few MMOG development studios would really try to emulate their work. That said, it would be safe to assume that Age of Conan has had a fairly large impact on the sales of graphics cards in the last few weeks. While most computers with an Nvidia 8800GT run the game perfectly, there are a few computing exceptions that have problems with Age of Conan far past what you would attribute to simple graphical slowdown. However, as I said in my first impressions I’m running Age of Conan on a fairly modest computer (2.2 Ghz Dual Core, 8800GT 512 MB, 2 GB RAM, and a decent sound card) without hiccups.

The graphics in AoC are beautiful.

While the graphics in AoC may be fairly upscale to look at, there are a number of graphical bugs that still exist within the game world. Many NPCs often have miscellaneous body parts appearing through their clothing (including some nipples), while other NPCs randomly have their eyes closed when you talk to them or hands that appear to big for their bodies. Of course, all of these things are small, but they only serve to break the level of immersion in the game for many MMOG players.

On the miscellaneous notes side of the coin, I’d like to also add a piece about the strange axis behaviors that seem to occur consistently within Age of Conan. While I may be walking around town, my character seems to “catch” on certain graphical tiles within in the game, forcing me to either jump around the foreign object or find some way around it. This may not seem like a big deal, unless you’re journeying with your party on auto-follow and look up to find yourself without a group and surrounded by vile creatures. Ouch.

Final Verdict

Despite all of the qualms that I laid against Age of Conan, there are few MMOGs in the post-World of Warcraft era that have filled me with this much excitement and caused me to stay up into the wee hours of the morning in order to hit that next level. Each new area opens up a fantastic new adventure for me to journey through, and I get truly excited when I open up new options for my chosen class. Though the game still needs improvement, the developers at Funcom have created a true dedication to Robert E. Howard’s works. As Age of Conan's game director Gaute Godager described in his many writings, this game was a testament to Robert E. Howard’s writings. I expect that Howard himself would be proud of this epic adventure.

(4 / 5 Hammers)