Here's a quick geography lesson for you: Bratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic. In case you're wondering why I mentioned this, it's also important for being the home of game developer Cauldron, a team that's making a name for themselves with a handful of quality PC and console titles. Released back in 2004, their action/adventure game, Conan, is a near-epic gem that truly captures the spirit of the character. The game lets players step into the boots of Robert E. Howard's hulking Cimmerian and captures for a few brief hours some of the brutal combat and high adventure found in the well-known books and films. You also get three multiplayer modes playable with a second controller and player, over System Link or Xbox Live. There are a few pesky technical issues, but it's hard to complain much, since the game gets more right than it does wrong.

Conan is a linear third-person action game that sends the Cimmerian out into the world to take revenge on the evil cult that slaughtered his village. Of course, there are bigger fish to fry as the story progresses, so expect a villainous wizard with great power to show up as a major adversary. Along the way, Conan slays many a wolf, guard, giant insect or other awful creature with sixteen different weapons and fifty dynamic, motion captured combat moves. The game's story manages to dip its toe into a few bits of the film for reference purposes, which should bring a smile to the faces of fans. You'll see the big guy punch out a camel in a cut scene, there's a snake-worshipping cult temple and he even uses the sword his father crafted in the film's memorable opening sequence.

Two things you're probably wondering are "Is Ah-nuld in the game?" and "Do they use that great theme music?" No and absolutely are the answers respectively, to get that out of the way. The Conan here bares zero resemblance to Schwarzenegger (no doubt cutting development costs significantly), a good thing, as the character of Conan goes back before the current Governor of California was even conceived. Cauldron has modeled their Conan as a big beefy barbarian somewhere between the film and comic book versions, with slightly more Slavic features. It's actually a nice touch that they've made him a human tank over a buffed up dude who can pirouette through the air as his weapons collide with enemies. Therefore, if you come into this expecting something similar to God of War then you'll be sorely disappointed. What this Conan lacks in speed, he makes up for in power, that's for sure.

The game takes elements from different Howard stories and expands on them in playable and CG cinematic form. Initially Conan starts out in the wintry Cimmerian hills with some wolves and a big snow beast or two to take down. You've got some basic sword, axe and mace moves at first, but as you kill enemies, you earn experience points that can be spent on new moves and physical enhancements like health regeneration or more damage. You won't need all fifty of those combo moves, but it is quite fun to buy some of the more intricate combos just to see the great motion capture work. Conan eventually travels to five other locations across the land of Hyboria, courtesy of some well-done transitional cut scenes, usually after defeating a boss or two.

Washing up in a Pictland village, you take a canoe ride to a ghost and trap-filled temple of cannibals where you meet and rescues a beautiful thief named Zairin. She helps advance the plot by directing you to her father in Kordava, who has important information about the cult that torched your village. Naturally, Zairin gets kidnapped again and needs to be saved, this time from the evil wizard. The Cimmerian then sets off to invade the cult's temple grounds and track down the first of three artifacts that the wizard needs to revive a deadly deity. Of course, the plan is not to let the fiend get his prestidigitating palms on the trio of totems, so there's plenty of death to be dealt as our hero cuts a path through the game's remaining levels. While this is all pretty violent stuff, you won't see dismembered limbs or rolling heads here; enemies bleed a bit when they're hit or expire and there's a high body count overall. If you carefully explore the levels, you'll find pieces of a powerful Atlantean sword that when assembled, gives you the ability to kill most enemies (and a few bosses) in one or two strikes.

There are some minor puzzles to solve, mixing mildly clever set pieces in with the combat. There's a rune puzzle here, a trap-filled cave there and others to keep the game from being a straightforward chase and chop festival. Nevertheless, none of these should stump you for too long if you're a clever enough gamer - these brain ticklers are nowhere near as obtuse as some of the infamous Tomb Raider deathtraps. The main thing you're fighting against is the game's slippery camera, which is way too loose for such a beefy guy with a not so fast movement speed. That camera has the tendency to float around Conan at random moments, which is annoying in tight, trap-filled hallways with sword-swinging undead lurching your way. You can (and will) reset the camera behind Conan by pressing in the right stick, but this can be disorienting while in the middle of a combo string or dangerous boss battle.

Even more pesky are the few areas where the camera can't be moved, or swings toward Conan when it shouldn't. The first big instance is in the cannibal caves, where a narrow bridge has huge swinging hammers above it that can knock you into a watery pit. The viewpoint is locked to the side, making a passage that should take maybe a minute of trial and error into a near nightmare, because it's hard to judge the distance of the hammers from Conan. The damage from getting knocked off the bridge isn't all that much, but given that the bridge leads to an even worse set of traps where you can adjust the camera, it's a pain in the rear the first few times you get hit over the side. There are also a few jumping sections that should also be short and sweet, but the twisting camera combined with Conan's not quite dainty movements makes these areas real nail-biters. When the camera does behave, the game can be exhilarating. Running into a room, sword or axe drawn, it's just awesome to cut down a pack of guards or reanimated skeletons, pick up some dropped health and move on.

Cauldron did a really interesting thing here, choosing to open the game with a nearly seven-minute cinema set in an empty ancient library with a camera slowly swirling around stacks of old books as a narrator speaks. You see some great looking character art and it's only in the last few minutes when you finally see Conan, as he races to his village atop his trusty steed. There's some wild camerawork here, with quick cuts and odd camera angles all set to pounding music from The Battle of the Mounds off the film's soundtrack. As he reaches the outskirts of the village and sees clouds of smoke, the movie ends and you're sent to the title screen. You'll want to let that sit for a minute or so for an even nicer surprise - a demo movie that uses the opening narration and entire dynamic, memorable main title from the film as it shows off some gameplay and CG footage.

While it's great that Conan changes gear and shows damage as he's injured, the character models tend toward the slightly blocky side. This is especially noticeable in the cinematics when the longer story segments play out. However, the motion capture saves the day here, along with the great voice acting. The environments are mostly superb; each location has a unique atmosphere that makes traveling to new places to kill people a wonderful thing. That driving snowstorm that you battle wolves and yetis in leads to some wonderfully rendered icy caverns, complete with crystal guards packing swords or maces. The assorted tombs and temples have some amazing texture work throughout that make them feel like real locations. Another really cool touch is that all of the in-game movies are letterboxed and subtitled, giving the game even more cinematic flair. Oh, in addition to the ice level, there's the ubiquitous lava level, but that stage is imaginatively handled with nice use of darkness, a bit of wall climbing action and some tricky jumping to shake things up.

Of special note is the lighting throughout the different levels; Cauldron has done an amazing job with a few visual tricks that show off the visuals very well. One great sequence has a skeleton bursting through a wall as blue-white light pours forth from the hole he's made. You then get to fight this lifeless thing in this wonderfully lit area and you'll hang out for a minute or so afterward just playing around with the camera angles. Another level sees you coming around a curved hallway to a balconied area as a storm rages outside. Driving rain, lightning and booming thunder make this short run a creepy one, even scarier than the pack of ghosts that were dispatched a few minutes earlier. There are also destructible objects like barrels full of assorted liquids, tree stumps that can be split into pieces and even shelves that collapse with a sword whack. Too bad you can only enter one building in Kordava - I'm left to just imagine the other interiors that the developer cold have created.

As I've already touched upon, the music is superb throughout - not only is the film's soundtrack used for three non-gameplay sections, but the score for the in-game action is a nicely varied selection of tunes. As for the voice acting, Conan's burly bellow is perfect, as are the majority of voices. The only complaint is a bit of repetition here and there; you hear packs of guards yelling out the same two or three phrases while the sellers in Kordava all seem to comment on Conan's newness to the town. Conan also lacks variety in his battle phrases, so expect to hear him yell "Die!" a lot, even if you're in an empty room practicing a newly purchased combo. One other note for the readers out there - the game also contains a number of lengthy scrolls to read that offer up bits of Hyborian mythology and even a poem at one point. It's not as deep as Morrowind's tons of tomes but it gives the game a nicely mature touch that balances out the brutality.

There's a challenging Quick play mode that drops you in the trap-laden cave level and challenges you to survive for as long as possible. Given that you can't save here and that you start the level with a lousy sword, this is tougher than it sounds. Dying here or in the main game while in combat zaps you to Crom's realm, where you need to take on spectral opponents in order to earn the right to continue. Speaking of saving, this is done by collecting small rune stones located in choice locations. There aren't all that many in the game and you can only carry four at a time, so you need to be fearless in combat and judicious with saving. On the Adventurer difficulty, you can go a while without saving, but on Warrior or Crom's Champion modes you'd best use a save before tackling a boss or tricky set of jumps.

The multiplayer consists of Deathmatch, Body Count and Time Challenge, with the game supporting voice chat as well as System Link and Xbox Live. Versus play is fun for a while, with a nice variety of characters and some small arenas to choose from, but unfortunately you can't use Conan in any of the multiplayer modes! I can understand why, however - everyone would want to play as him online or in multiplayer, so Cauldron has taken the easy way out by clipping him from the roster. Another omission is a playable female character - it would have been cool to see a Red Sonja skin for Tailian or, hell, even have her as a selectable heroine. Not to sound too sexist, but this really feels tailormade for the testosterone crowd, although I know that ladies who crave action will like it too.

Other than the game camera and up-close character models, the other main quirk is the ending. Once the last boss goes down you get a rather abrupt ending that could have used a little more exposition (or a longer cinema) to wrap things up more neatly. As consolation you get a nicely rendered model that echoes the final shot from Conan the Barbarian - King Conan sitting upon his throne brooding, which fades out to the end title music from the film. Despite the negatives, Conan is a well-made title that probably would have sold like gangbusters in the US with a few tweaks.

Given that the Xbox library is winding down rather quickly and that Funcom now owns the license to the character (or at least the game world), it's highly doubtful that Conan will ever see the light of day outside of its original territories. It would be brilliant to see this game or some sort of sequel come to next-generation consoles, particularly since the MMO Age of Conan doesn't feature the character as a playable hero (again, for obvious reasons). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out there's gold in this license and having another game worthy of it ready for the fans is money in the bank. Even if Cauldron isn't chosen to do the follow up, any developer who gets the call should definitely play through Cauldron's baby a few times to glean an idea or three.

Reviewed by Greg Wilcox for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).