An MMO for a more "mature" audience, at least that’s the mantra Funcom utters about their recently launched "Age of Conan". What exactly makes this a "mature" game? The "M for Mature" ESRB rating, the fabulously gory fatalities, or is it the promise of in game nudity? After spending much of my free time this past weekend playing through "Age of Conan," I’m still not sure what exactly makes this game so much more mature than your other MMOs other than the potential for topless women and the occasional vulgar language and brutal fatality.

Upon initial impression "Age of Conan" is a beautiful looking MMO, no doubt about it! The promise of future support of DX10 effects via a "soon to be released" patch will only benefit an already gorgeous MMO. In an era where most MMO worlds look ages behind our current gen graphics, "Age of Conan" is an MMO graphical jewel.

The character creation screen is pretty robust for an MMO allowing you to make various small and large tweaks to your appearance, including several tattoos and scars. Of the several cultures to choose from, each has its own interpretation of the various basic fantasy RPG classes. I created a male Tempest of Set, which is the "spellcaster/healer/priest" class of the Stygian culture.

Every newly created character arrives in the city/state of Tortage after a devastating storm wipes out the slave ship you were serving on. It is here where you will learn to play the game and your class properly for the next 20 levels, give or take. Tortage is your typical "n00b" zone with your basic fetch quests, kill x number of this, and solve that mystery.

What really sets Tortage apart from other MMO starter cities is the well done voice over work for all your quest giving NPCs. Reading blocks of text explaining why sorcerer Y needs X number of frog tongues is not really my idea of "immersion." I demand voice overs for all MMO quest NPCs from this point forward!

Another very unique feature of Tortage is the ability to carry out story specific quests in your own private instance of the world (aka single player mode). The entire single player mode in Tortage takes place at night, while the multiplayer mode takes place during the day. This MMO single player mode for important story quests ensures that you will experience the story on your own without any griefers, or long periods of waiting for the quest item/enemy to respawn. This is an ideal way for my "lone wolf" styled play habits of most MMOs I play, while still maintaining the option to "group" and take on more "epic" challenges. Who really needs to group up to run fetch quests anyway?

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My main (and only) character at the moment is a level 22 Tempest of Set. This particular class is a spell caster/healer, which is my specialty in most other MMOs. "Age of Conan" has created a unique role for our healers/spell casters in this game. Gone are the days of standing in the back of the group spamming healing spells whenever needed. Instead, the Tempest of Set is actually made to be in the thick of battle going mano a mano against the strongest of enemies. At a certain level, in order for a Tempest of Set to maintain a sufficient mana pool and strengthen their heals/attacks, this class must inflict heavy damage to the enemies. This means a tempest’s ability to heal is directly linked to his ability to inflict damage!
*note: My character is level 22, and I have only experienced a very limited aspect of this class’s handling.

Unfortunately, my favorite aspects of "Age of Conan" came and went…the NPC voice overs seem to be present only in the starter city of Tortage, afterwards big blocks of text are all you get. I really hope Funcom is working on adding voice overs for all other areas/zones, but this seems like something that should have been present at launch.

Also, upon leaving Tortage, you will no longer have the ability to slip into "single player mode." This isn’t a big deal, but I was just getting used to the fact that I could isolate myself to my hearts content in an MMO and choose to experience the "massively multiplayer" aspect of this game on my own terms.

The gory, bloody combat system is another banner feature of the game which promised to make it stand out above all others. Every melee weapon in the game is controlled in what seems like ‘real time’ and instead of a generic "attack" button players are provided with three directional buttons in which to control their weapons with.

• The "Up" button swings your weapon in a downward slash, hitting any enemy directly in front of the player.
• The "Left" button swings your weapon in a left-to-right arc which damages any enemies besides or in front of a player.
• The "Right" button swings your weapon in a right-to-left arc which damages any enemies besides or in front of a player.

Enemies have an additional "shield" marking directly over, or to either side of their character, which indicates which side their armor/shielding is best at. Naturally, you want to strike an enemy on its weakest point, making the up/left/right buttons very useful for directing your precise strikes. Certain special abilities and strikes can be linked together to perform "combos" which inflict even more damage or various other bonuses.

Fatalities is a pretty major bullet point on the list of features this game sports. Every once in a while, your character will perform extra brutal executioner style "fatalities" on enemy NPCs. It seems that each type of weapon has its own unique fatality animation. Unfortunately, I cannot elaborate further on the fatality aspect of the game. It seems that a Tempest of Set rarely ever performs fatalities of any kind, and when the miracle fatality does occur, players have been left underwhelmed and disappointed by the mere electrical melting/disintegration of enemy NPCs seen below.

I still intend on playing "Age of Conan" for a while longer, but the post-Tartage let down after the initial awe of the coolest starter city I’ve played in is a huge deterrent for me. With the added fact that my chosen class seems to rarely experience the bloody, gore infested, fatality system, I might not be around more than a month or two. I really hope that the game starts to pick up during the higher levels and with the almost daily patches/fixes Funcom has been churning out since launch.

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