A Good Adaptation Ruined by Miscasted Voice Actors
The video game Conan, successfuly captures the feel of Conan and the Hyborain Age. In Howard's original stories, the Hyborian Age, though full of magic, wasn't protrayed as an enchanted land full of candy ruled over by a party loving king. Instead the Hyborian Age was protrayed as a very dark world, populated by all mannor of monsters and evil sorcerers. The game successfully captures the dark, gritty feel of the Hyborian Age.
The game's other major strong point is it's combat system, which like the Ninja Gaiden games, allows the player to slice and dice the enemy, with a variety of weapons and spells, and the game's music only adds to the dark feel of the game.
While the game has it's strong points, including graphics, the combat system and the feel of the world, it also suffers from it's fair share of problems. The worst of these are the voice actors, chosen to play the title characters. With the type of description you have in Howard's novels, you would expect Conan to have a deeper, darker sounding voice, however in the game when Conan speaks, he sounds more like a librarian then a warrior. The other major flaw the game has is it's game play, which tends to grow repetitive, and the lack of special moves also robs the game of a lot of promise with it's game play.
Conan, while not on par with the other major Conan games, is still a very appealing game, and will appeal to fans of Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, and other hack and slash type games, as well as fans of the Conan stories.