I've been writing reviews for Xbox World Australia for almost five years now, and in that time, I've had to compare a lot of games to a lot of other games to help convey my point. One of the biggest challenges as an Xbox exclusive site has been trying to keep those analogies within the realm of Xbox, just in case our dear readers have never heard of this fangled playing station, don't have cubes for their games, or think that a Wii is exactly what it sounds like.

I don't feel bad about breaking this rule for Conan though, because you'd have to be seriously infophobic to not have heard of Sony's amazing God of War series of games. Yes, I made up a word there. But it is as though the two games are inextricably linked...after all, God of War's protagonist, Kratos, takes his cues from Conan – a sullen man of few words driven by a lust for women and war, who hates the gods and their sorcerous ways, preferring the sharpened edge of steel to cut their swathe through all that stand before them. So it's almost poetic that Conan should look towards God of War for inspiration on how to bring the mighty Cimmerian kicking and screaming into the next-generation of gaming.

Conan's adventure begins as they have before: with the warrior-thief attempting to pilfer a priceless object. Unfortunately for the Cimmerian cat-burglar, the statue he busts up to get the shiny trinket is actually an evil sorcerer of immense power, imprisoned for all time to keep civilisation safe, and smashing his statuesque form frees him to wreak havoc upon the world. Hate it when that happens! So Conan awakes on a deserted beach with nothing but his furry loincloth and a few equally fuzzy memories. So he does what any self-respecting barbarian warrior would do: meet the locals, engage them in conversation briefly, and then proceed to dismember them all and set their homes on fire, hoping that one of them has some Panadol for his splitting headache!

Let's be honest here...Conan is pure sword & sorcery fantasy; if you came here looking for deep storytelling filled with Faramir-son-of-Boromir-owner-of-Lassie, you're in the wrong place. Conan's penchant for slaughter-filled adventure is what makes him perfect for a videogame, and let no storyline or character development get in the way! This Conan game definitely does not disappoint, with all pretence of sensible plot politely stepping aside so you can focus on the biff. When it does pop up, it rarely makes much sense – it's basically just there to steer you from one conquest to another, and yes, that's a deliberate double entendre.

Conan comes from the good old days you see, when women were prizes, and spent their days wearing only a g-string, chained to the nearest object so their masters could keep an eye on them. Conan can liberate these wenches though, and they'll be glad to repay him with some stripper-worthy writhing and some classy lines like "crush me with your love!” Yeah, it's pretty random, but gratuitous nudity fits Conan like a, er, glove. There is an actual benefit here though: freeing the strippe..um, the imprisoned damsels will yield red orbs, as will busting in other people's treasure chests, and these orbs are pretty important. Much like in God of War, your abilities can be upgraded as you progress through the adventure – in this case, Conan can learn new combos for each of his battle-stances.

Unlike Kratos, Conan came pretty unprepared for the party, and doesn't have any of his own special weapons. Instead, the Cimmerian loots his fallen foes for blades, axes, shields and two-handed death-dealers, and each combination of gear has its own, well, combinations! You can go one-handed with a shield, dual-wield or use a two-hander. Personal preference will ultimately dictate which setup you choose because they're all quite viable, although each has a distinct advantage...the shield'n'sword combo allows for easier parrying of enemy attacks, dual-wielding makes for some super quick swordplay, and the two-handed weapons pack a mighty whallop and can easily break your enemy's shields and feeble attempts to block.

On its own, buying new moves would be a nice touch that provides a little RPG-lite gameplay but doesn't do much beyond that. Thankfully the guys at Nihilistic added another layer to the proceedings by allowing you to master moves through frequent use. Mastering moves gives you a one-time experience boost, but it also adds permanent benefits to successfully pulling off a combo: bonus health, experience, or magic for example.

Yes, I said magic. Those of you who are Conan fans will know that the hillborn savage distrusts all things magical and keeps away from them when he can. It's understandable really when smashing open a simple statue can unleash a magical super-sorcerer hell bent on destroying the world I guess! Without giving away the game's only real plot development, let's just say that Conan will be granted magical abilities whether he wants them or not, and more become available as he progresses throughout the game. They are mainly used for crowd-control and are pretty useless against bosses, but then, that's a problem in and of itself.

Boss-battles are both strength and weakness in Conan: on the one hand they make for easily the most memorable and enjoyable encounters in the game thanks to their epic scale and design. But on the other hand, virtually none of your advanced combos will work on the bosses at all, which means you'll have to resort to just spamming the X or Y buttons, occasionally using the right-stick to dodge or the left-trigger to block. This detracts from otherwise excellent set-piece battles, and the occasional context-sensitive attacks you are offered only reinforce just how great the boss-battles could have been. Spearing a dragon's tongue then running up it and kicking him in the face makes for a helluva lot more fun than mashing X.

Speaking of context-sensitive combat options, Conan also makes sporadic use of Quick-Time Events, but unlike God of War, which used them quite consistently, they pop up almost at random in Conan, often during what you think is a cutscene. This can lead to some moments of controller-throwing frustration, particularly against the game's final boss encounter, which has three or four of these QTE's. Ultimately, it all combines to given Conan a really patchy feel; it's as though the developers knew exactly what they needed to do to make a great game, but lacked the resources to quite pull it off with the polish gamers expect these days.

This is especially true when it comes to the visuals, which run the gamut from good to awful. In many places, it feels like the textures are waiting on a normal-mapping pass or something to bring them up to the proper level of detail. The environments look nice enough, particularly the lush jungle levels, but both up close and long-distance backdrops look a bit ordinary. Not so the character and enemy models, which are detailed and dismember nicely – the blood looks a bit odd, but there's so much of it flowing freely that you'll hardly complain. The animations go a long way to redeeming Conan, with some truly brutal moves that almost rival God of War's depravity. The only real complaint here is that the bulk of Conan's moves are useable only on the humanoid enemies, and as such the majority of baddies are indeed people. The few exceptions – like giant apes - do have context-sensitive attacks much like the bosses, but these are pretty uncommon, which is disappointing.

The fixed-camera positions in the game also warrant mention, because they're incredibly competent at keeping your character and the action in focus. Sometimes this is achieved by being a smidgen too far zoomed-out to make the most of the visceral combat, but on the whole the camera does great during combat. The only shortcoming is really when Conan is attempting the game's clumsy platforming elements, with the perspective often being weird enough that you totally misjudge your jump and plummet to your death.

Conan's audio department is a little bit better, featuring a suitably epic sword'n'sorcery style soundtrack and the sort of b-grade voice acting you have come to expect after two Conan movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Conan voiced by Ron Perlman, actually has a few funny lines and brings Conan to life. Likewise Claudia Black (who, ironically, voiced Artemis in God of War) also does a good job with what she was given, but you can't help but feel that with a bit more emphasis on the script, this game could've been a real winner.

As it is, Conan is a solid action-adventure title with no real peers on the Xbox 360 platform. God of War demolishes it in every single regard, of course, but with no real competition on Microsoft's machine, you could do a lot worse than Conan. The story mode makes for an enjoyable 7-8 hours, and you can nab about half the Achievements on one playthrough. Getting them all will require replaying on harder difficulties however, which extends the lifespan of the title a bit more for completists.