Conan Goresplosion!

Forget everything you might have seen in '80s movies and crappy cartoons - nobody, but nobody batters and chops his way through a gore-soaked adventure quite like Conan the Barbarian. Kratos and Nariko might have swords on chains, but Conan breaks men's backs with his bare hands. For fun. While simultaneously having drunken sex with three chicks in jeweled loincloths. That's just the kind of guy he is.

The hard-drinking, hard-loving murder machine returns to videogames this October, and he's bringing massive amounts of tits, blood and limb-ripping brutality with him. How massive? We'll show you. Every Wednesday for the next few weeks, our exclusive videos will give you a glimpse of the most brutal moves waiting to be unlocked in the new hack-and-slasher, along with a play-by-play for each one. We're not talking wussy punch-kick combos or needlessly elaborate sword flourishes, either - like Conan himself, these attacks all cut straight to the bone, sending fountains of chunky grue spurting all over the screen. Conan's got dozens of them, and although he can get barbaric with any weapon he finds, this week we'll focus on the diverse fatalities you'll be able to pull off with his plain old default sword:

Wasn't that fun? You should see what kind of atrocities Conan can commit with two swords - and you will, if you check back next Wednesday. In the meantime, here's a detailed run-down of what you just saw:

Warrior Suplex
Square, Triangle, Triangle (PS3)/X,Y,Y (360)
Watching this one just never gets old. Rather than simply running his enemy through or hacking him to pieces, Conan merrily grabs him from behind and, in a stunning display of wrestling prowess, suplexes him so hard his head comes off. Being in the WWE is apparently much more dangerous than we ever thought.

Thief of Bel
Square, Triangle, Circle (PS3)/X,Y,B (360)
Sure, you could just cut your enemies down with your own sword, but why stop there when you can steal theirs? Thief of Bel lets you snatch away your enemy's weapon, leaving him standing around defenseless while you use your new second sword to hack off his now-empty hands. Don't just kill - insult!

Bel's Revenge
Square, Triangle, Circle, Square, Square (PS3)/X,Y,B,X,X (360)
Once you've mastered pulling off Thief of Bel, unlocking this move will let you follow up the sword-snatch with a couple of deft, fluid strokes that will leave your enemy not only defenseless, but headless. Just imagine the look on his face as what's left of it flies offscreen.

Bel's Gambit
Triangle, Triangle, Square (PS3)/Y,Y,X (360)
Whoever this Bel person was, he seems to have had a thing for humiliation through disarmament. This cool little combo uses Conan's sword to flip his enemy's weapon right out of their hands, confusing them just enough to be vulnerable to a quick, decapitating death blow.

Monkey Slam
Square, Square, Square, Triangle (PS3)/X,X,X,Y (360)
In this curiously swordless, dismemberment-free killing blow, Conan grabs his enemy by the neck and slams him into the ground like he would a monkey. (Conan doesn't like monkeys.) Mostly bloodless, we admit, but still one of the least dignified ways to die on this list.

Spinning Death
Square, Square, Square, Triangle, Triangle (PS3)/X,X,X,Y,Y (360)
If the Monkey Slam is undignified, Spinning Death is like drawing your final breath in a clown suit full of poop. Unlock this, and Conan will finish off the combo by grabbing the nearest chump by the legs and spinning him in a circle for as long as you hold the final button down. Not only is it a humiliating way to kill your once-proud enemies, but it'll conveniently clobber any other goons who stand too close to you.

Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.
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