for his vocal performance and gravely voice that matched the game's dialogue, but he also received criticism for not sounding like a barbarian. A few applauded Nihilistic for capturing the oil painting feel of Frazetta's art, but several others said the graphics consisted of drab-looking environments that were jagged-edged and pixelated when zoomed in. Although the animations were rated to be smooth and vivid, the lack of variety among enemy character models was criticized. Several critics also praised Nihilistic for recreating the atmosphere of Howard's stories. The decision to have Conan use magic was, however, called a "blasphemy" by IGN. G4 Canada disagreed and forgave the game on the grounds that it was mostly faithful to the books. Ray Huling of The Escapist said the game's developers misunderstood Conan's appeal to the masses. In the journalist's opinion, Howard's depiction of Conan's brutal physical nature called attention to the dull nature of their lives and offered them a temporary escape. Furthermore, Huling said that Nihilistic used the characteristics of Conan for superficial purposes and that, in copying the mechanics of another game without any groundbreaking innovations of its own, Nihilistic missed the essence of Howard's stories and created a shell of what its game could have been. Comparisons to God of War Many critics complained that Conan copied many ideas from God of War. Game Informer referred to this imitation as "[Conan] groveling at Kratos' feet, begging for gameplay wisdom". A few reviewers, however, found this forgivable and said the game was made to be fun without any higher ambitions. Conans camera system irritated several critics for failing to provide an adequate view of the situation at certain critical moments. Its puzzles were oversimple and lacked clear directions for proceeding to the next step. The artificial intelligence for the adversaries in the game was found to be predictable and flawed by a few critics. In addition, they found the final encounter with Graven to be overlong and frustrating. Calling the fight "as painful as a trip to the proctologist", IGN and Game Informer judged it to be one of the worst boss fights in video game history. Sales Despite the average reviews and success of Howard's franchise, Conan sold poorly and failed to recoup THQ's investment. The publisher publicly announced that the game's poor sales contributed to their US$20 million write-off in fiscal year 2008. Mature content Although the game's violence