Game journalists aren’t the most manly bunch. We’re usually too thin and weak to start fights, or too fat and lazy to run away when someone starts on us. Our suppressed macho instincts can only be satisfied within a safe and digital environment. Therefore, when a game as red-blooded and butch as THQ’s Conan came in to the office, we wasted no time clamping our lips around its hairy, testosterone-enriched teat – filling our little bellies with all the milky virility needed to keep our bruised egos alive. Mmmm, now we feel like real men.

Thankfully, developer Nihilistic has steered Conan’s fifth videogame outing a safe distance away from the risible Arnold Schwarzenegger films, and slap-bang into the boisterous, antihero slipstream of Robert E Howard’s original Conan short stories. Nihilistic’s Conan is no hero. He’s out for personal gain, merrily tearing enemies to pieces, yanking out intestines with his massive man-hands, and leering at bare-breasted nymphs. We love him, and we wish he was our dad.

While the story is pure hokum, Conan’s dialogue is sharp and racy. The sexual innuendos and gruff voice-acting perfectly capture the tone of Howard’s stories. Even better are the visuals, which don’t push the PS3’s hardware at all, but are in perfect tune with the artwork of famed fantasy-painter Frank Frazetta, who was responsible for many iconic Conan book covers.

The gameplay is a simple hack-‘n’-slash affair and will draw many comparisons to God Of War. But while there are plenty of combos to master, Conan’s battles are slower paced than Kratos’s and rely far more on countermoves, which can trigger ludicrously gory death animations – so expect carpets of guts, limbs and severed heads layering the battlefield.

As much as we love Conan for its visceral combat and nostalgic fantasy-art style, its appeal is stunted by last-generation design. Levels take place in lush open jungles, but you’re directed through each one by invisible walls. There are also limited enemy models, and the grisly death animations soon lose their appeal. What you’re left with is a game that adheres too closely to old, side-scrolling beat-’em-ups such as Golden Axe. Nihilistic tries to mix things up by introducing QTE – when opening doors and battling bosses – but like in Heavenly Sword, these sections are too simplistic to offer anything more than novelty value.

Nevertheless, Conan’s brutish charm convinces us to turn a blind eye to many of its fundamental flaws. So, if you’re looking for old-school hack-‘n’-slash gameplay, combined with more blood and breasts than you can shake your chopper at, then Conan comes highly recommended. Go on, it’ll put hair on your chest.

Christopher Reynolds