Conan is such a heart-warming game. It may sound strange to many – given its famously gory premise – but it’s the kind of title that draws people in, and that, friends, is what games are all about. There’s so much hype around titles that promise to revolutionise that or raise the bar on this, but so few actually achieve those goals. It’s only the most intelligent of developers – and confident of publishers – that allow titles to speak for themselves. That’s what we’ve seen from Conan throughout its development. We’ve been presented with a title that’s trying to do what it does as well as it can.

And that it does. Sure, there’s an argument against having such a violent combat system, and many will look at it solely from that point of view, and more than likely to its detriment. But you’d be in error if you saw it as a one-trick pony, though, as it manages to encapsulate the feel of an old-school hack-’em-up, with a contemporary twist. That twist being absolutely buckets of gore and some savage dismemberment, but it’s welcome regardless. We defy any adult gamer to play through Conan and not be both impressed and uplifted by it. Impressed, because it has more than a handful of genuinely epic moments, and uplifted because it’s reverting to the aspects of gaming that make us love it.

Conan is a classical hero, the setting is very much rooted in the Thirties fantasy style of Robert E Howard and the horror of the combat is unflinchingly graphic. And we appreciate what that equates to – namely a solid game that many will see as the sleeper hit of the year. There are a few issues, most notably with longevity, but the range of quality combat mechanics, the epic nature of the narrative and the amount of good, old-fashioned fun outweigh the negative. Conan is worth a look, especially if hunky men with gigantic choppers is your thing.

Tom Leclerc