with light colors instead of dark ones, creating the subtle blend of object and background found in oil paintings, and fog effects allowed the team to recreate Frazetta's use of shadows in the middle area of the image. To complete the game's appearance, the artists used darker color palettes, motifs, and themes to present a more serious mood, in harmony with the gore and nudity in the game. Music Mike Reagan, a music composer noted for his work in video games such as Darkwatch and God of War, was hired by THQ to write the music for Conan. To begin, he wanted to compose simple but powerful melodies, and looked to Basil Poledouris's score for the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian for inspiration. As Reagan played development copies of the game, he was influenced by two other works: Igor Stravinsky's barbaric and sensual ballet music The Rite of Spring, and Bernard Hermann's score from the 1958 action film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Each week, Nihilistic and Reagan updated each other with copies of their work-in-progress, synchronizing their efforts. Reagan also studied with noted percussion artists Denny Seiwell, Emil Richards, and Michael Duffy to gain further insight on the use of drums to accompany the game's bloody and violent plot. After mastering the soundtrack, he brought the music of Conan to an October 2007 Video Games Live show, performing it live in Los Angeles, United States. Reception Conan received "average" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Most critics agreed that the game's best selling point was its variety in combat. They had a lot of fun with its easy-to-learn controls, skill customization, and most of all, the varied brutal depictions of Conan's kills. TeamXbox said the combat system "blossoms into a complex string of commands that will reward the user (with gore) for pressing the right buttons at the right time". The pounding, militaristic orchestra tunes accompanying the action further enhanced the critics' experience with the game. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of all four sevens for a total of 28 out of 40, while Famitsu Xbox 360 gave its Xbox 360 version a score of one six, two fives, and one six for a total of 22 out of 40. Critics had mixed opinions about three prominent features of the game: voice acting, artwork, and faithfulness to Howard's writings. Perlman earned acclaim