The point of all this is that Howard's lead character all too often gets adapted when, really, it's his Hyborian universe that possesses the depth and interest that has sustained the franchise decades later. Thus enters Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (AoC), an ambitious MMORPG that has been in development since 2003 and is due to be released on PC shortly with an Xbox 360 version to follow in 2009.

AoC really puts the "massive" in MMO, so we've managed to see the title in various stages of beta testing. The main game is vast and in a weekend PvP match staged by the game's creators Funcom, we were given a little taste of it before trying to stick weapons into our fellow online human foes.