Viking: Battle for Asgard

"Hop in your long boat, grab your rune stones, and save Asgard!"

Vikings. Norse myths. Demonic hordes. As you might expect, in Viking: Battle for Asgard, you will be controlling a mighty warrior, charged with saving his world from evil. Skarin hacks, slashes, magics, outwits, and downright destroys his foes in ever way imaginable.
Without further ado, let's jump right in, shall we?

Graphics - 8 They are what you would expect during this period of the current generation. Pretty much everything is polished and beautiful. Animations in combat and while on the move are fluid and fit the game world. Landscapes are gorgeous and expansive, from running streams to grand fields, through massive forests and over mountaintops. The main character has several animations for both combat and traversing maps. The backup NPCs, since there are so many on screen usually, are detailed but mostly the same model every third character or so. The Legion (bad guys) look strong, scary, and fit their part well also. The weapons are gorgeous. The magic effects get the job done just fine. Atmospheric lighting and weather elements look almost perfect. You will no be dissapointed here. Every now and again, you might be able to swing the camera through a wall or hill, but this doesn't happen often and won't hurt your game at all. It's hardly worth notice. Right near the end game I noticed a couple of Legion walking through what should be solid rock, but again, it wasn't a big deal and had never happened up to the end. There is very little, if any slowdown during the massive battles. I only witnessed it once, and it was only for around five seconds, near the end game.

Sound - 7 The game suffers here more than anywhere else if you ask me. Don't get me wrong. The sounds of steel on steel (and flesh), the magic effects, the dialouge, is all well and good. The problem here is that there isn't much variety. After one battle you will have basically heard all the sound effects for fighting this game can offer you. If you have a short attention span this may work towards boring you. I say work towards, see below for more detail. Also, the music is awesome. It is epic during the moments it should be. It mounts when doing something major in the game, and it ebbs away when things die off. Sadly, this most exellent music only seems to kick in during major plot points (read, once or twice per chapter), or maybe five or six more times, almost at random. Otherwise, you've got nothing. No music while roaming the massive countrysides. No music during small fights, even battle worthy encounters are left only with the sounds of your hero grunting and striking the demonic hordes. I sort of liked the peace during the map areas, but I also wish for at least one new generic battle track per chapter. Again, during the massive army battles or something you do that effects the plot, there is really great music. I just felt there could've been much more. Everything else is fine, but repeated (battle sounds and running around). Nothing remarkable here, it just gets the job done. The character voice actors are good. The hero, Skarin, is a mute for some reason. I think this is, like in many games with mute heroes, to make you feel like you are him and that you can say whatever you want. I kind of wanted him to have a voice, myself.

Gameplay - 8 This is, of course, very relative. As a gamer writing a review, I try to be as objective as possible. I myself give this area of the game an 8. If you don't like hacking through hordes of enemies, you may want to knock off a point, and make it a 7. Read on. From the outset, you are shown that you are basically alone in your world. You are charged with raiding small enemy encampments along the massive island maps, sabotaging or outright destroying your foes in every way you can. You are also charged with rescuing hostage Vikings, and general item collection to benefit your freed encampments. Every army needs food and weapon supplies, right? After you prove yourself by liberating various points on the map in many ways (from purging forces, to enemy ambush, to gathering items, perhaps saving important warriors, or powering up your character and/or army force), you are given access to your army. I should note before going further, that the maps, even the first island where you're basically learning, are HUGE. This is not a bad thing, however, as there is a ton of hidden gold to be found and earned. You can also purchase multiple maps for varying treasure types.

While on this subject, you can purchase magic rune upgrades for your sword, health, and later in game two types of projectile attack items (throwing axes and bombs). Now, back to what I was saying. When you have met all the critera for storming a major enemy stronghold, you may sound your father's battle horn and call your army in to attack. The screen is absolutely flooded with Legion foes and Viking allies alike. You are then given several goals to achieve during this frenzied battles. Mostly, the goals are to activate your Dragon's attack to destroy large areas of the enemy fortress and lower their overall numbers. Later in the game you will also be charged with killing off very powerful Legion troops called Champions, and later still, their massive cyclopses. Of course, during these large scale battles, you are also free to just fight as much as you want, but the enemies are unlimited until you accomplish your goals. That's pretty much the entire game. You enter new islands after you liberate two or three massive fortresses or castles per island. As I said, you can begin these liberation army assualts by building your army up through dozens of smaller quests, alone.

The fighting portion of the game is the largest part. Fortunately, the combos are easy, intuitive, and brutal. You literally tear your foes apart. You can gain more moves for offense and stealth as you unlock and master the battle arenas, where long dead vikings teach you their personal moves. There are projectile items as well, but mostly you'll be doing things up close and nasty. There is a limited fast travel system in this game. You must first locate the leystone portals, which activates those spots on the map. You can then travel from stone to stone. They are placed just right, if you ask me. You will seldom grow bored of travel so long as you use these stones to traverse the giant islands in each chapter. Other sections of this game include limited stealth areas. These are mostly pretty simple (though one near the end of the second island tried my patience) and quick. A couple of them will take several minutes of patience and a little resourcefulness. During these sections, you will find plenty of objects to hide behind. If seen, you can try to very quickly kill off the handful of enemies, but usually this leads to the ENTIRE city of demons chasing you down for the slaughter. You have to learn the guard patterns and stake your own route through towns and cities to get to the objective without being killed. Of the four or five sections like this, only one gave me trouble. They aren't too frustrating if you keep your cool. Some games throw in stealth as an add on and it really hurts the overall gameplay flow. This game is not one of them. It feels natural and fine, plus it fits the plot well.

You can also pretty much go stealth any time you want in this game, by just staying out of the enemy line of site. This game has a wonderful map and compass system, but if you think for yourself you'll do even better. By that I mean, want to storm an enemy camp? Try going around the back or sides, silently killing the sparse guard presence there, then snake up the middle and save your men. Now you have a trojan horse on your hands, as you and thirty of your men destroy the enemy base from the inside out. More fun than just mindless slashing through every single enemy in the game right? Also note that sometimes, you MUST travel carefully on maps, plan your route, survey the lay of the land, and pick your battles carefully, or you will be overwhelmed and killed by 20 or more demons. So to say this is a mindless hack n slash is a bit wrong. I'd say 70% of the game is, but it's made well enough that you can play however you want. The magic rune system is fine. It's not mind blowing, nor is it poor. You charge your weapon with fire, ice, or lightning, and there are special moves for each, though normally just slashing while embued with an element is enough. If your men are near you during a fight, you will also enchant their weapons within a sixty foot radius! Very cool. You gain the ability to use magic through killing your foes and absorbing the red orbs they spit out. Sometimes (very rarely) they even drop some health, but mostly you can take care of yourself by simply buying health potions before a major conflict.

Overall, this game has wonderful gameplay that I found addictive, not repetative. Cut loose and have a little fun. Explore the landscape, plan your attacks ahead of time, build your army up, upgrade your hero and go kill some Legion demons!

Storyline - 8 The story is good. I wouldn't say incredible, but very good. For the most part, it's not incredibly new. But that doesn't mean it's boring, and the Norse mythos theme is very well done. The hero, Skarin, is slain in battle with the forces of Hel, the Legion. Hel is a demon goddess cast out by Odin for her vainity. You will learn more and more about her as the game progresses. Hel's desire is to occupy all of Asgard with her Legion, which would grant her the power to break the great wolf god Fenrir's chains and bring about Ragnarok, the long winter and war of the Gods. Anywho, her Legion has stormed a fringe island, home to Skarin and his men. As he lay dying, the goddess Freya comes to him and grants him a form of immortality. He is still very much human, and can feel pain and hunger, but he will not permenantly die when put down in battle. As the champion of Freya, Skarin must first earn his Father's men's trust, take back the fringe island, then begin a major assualt against the demonic troops of Hel. Along the way we learn that Skarin receieves visions from the Gods, as well as holds a secret about his birth. Freya will compel you to complete tasks in her honor, and wipe out all of Hel's Legion, for Asgard, and Midgard's sake!


Buy or rent?

In closing, I would say this game is very, very fun and well made. It's not incredibly deep action, nor is the storyline, but it more than gets the job done. The characters are good, the story is good, the gameplay is good. My only major complaints, are that Skarin does not speak, and that the total gameplay on Normal mode is probably less than ten hours of play. On hard, I can't imagine it being too much longer, since you already know how to play and what to do on each map. So the replayabilty is very low, unless you just plain love the subject matter deeply. Even then, there isn't much story here to immerse yourself in, other than the NPCs talking to you and the brief chapter intros. So I would say rent unless you love the genre and the game itself very, very much. Wait for the price to drop to around half it's original selling price and then it'd be worth a buy, certainly.

Until then, you will probably be able to ace both difficulties and nail down all the achievements within a five day period if you play each day for around five or so hours. By the way, the achievements are well made, though fairly easy to get. Many are simply "learn the moves" or "use the magic". Others are checkpoints within the game's story. There are a couple of collection achievements that are a real challenge (finding things during the stealth modes), and there is a final achievement, assualting the end game without dying once, that are difficult, but fun to try and earn. In the end, I'd say this game is the perfect rental, and will be worth a buy in a few months when the price is lowered.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/08

Game Release: Viking: Battle for Asgard (US, 03/25/08)