Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Review
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AoC departs from the typical MMO is that there are few magic missiles, and the game is line of sight in many regards. You will not attack an enemy behind you, but will have to turn your character to face that opponent. The game gives you, at the onset, three target areas to attack: to the left, to the right and down the center. These come into play by watching how your opponent attacks and countering. You can also use the X button to dodge though it is not always successful.
Double-tapping a movement key (WASD) in combat will have you leap to the side, which may have an opponent's attack go well wide.
As you level, you will get combo skills, which can reduce your stamina or mana, and work in concert with the three keys linked to attack zones. The higher the skill you get, the more combinations of keys will be required to successfully launch that attack.
The game defaults to the third-person view, but if you are looking for a challenge, zoom in to first person. If you are using a ranged weapon, you get a targeting cursor and actually have to move the cursor with the opponent you are attacking. This is not a lock-on system, but rather a challenging and effective element to the game.
The user interface is serviceable, but if there is one downfall, it is in the arrangements of the hotbars. AoC could have taken a clue from other titles, like Everquest II, that allows for the display of several hotbars along the bottom, with access tied to the regular number keys as well as the Control and Alt keys in concert with the number keys. You can open other hotbars in AoC, but these float, can be moved and will, on occasion, jump from a horizontal display to a vertical display. The Alt key will display another hotbar, but it just pops up in the UI and unless you know precisely what is on there and have a sense for the cooldown reset times of skills camped there, this is less than effective.
