When Viking: Battle for Asgard was first revealed I have to admit to feeling a little excited, I’ve always enjoyed watching movies based on this part of history and so to actually take part albeit in game form is something that I was quite looking forward to, but now that the game is here did it live up to my expectations?
Viking: Battle of Asgard see’s you take control of a tough Viking called Skarin, who faces the task of stopping the banished Godess Hel who has raised an undead army big enough to destroy Asgard and anyone within it. To enable Skarin in his task he must rescue and recruit Vikings for his army, for without their aid the land will meet it’s demise.
The main bulk of the game is mission based, pressing the back button on your pad will bring up a map, which in turn will show you each of the tasks which you are yet to accomplish, most of these missions involves rescuing Vikings from Hel’s Legion, which obviously involves a lot of dismemberment and splattering of enemy blood. Once freed the rescued Vikings will either join your army or give you a further task to prove that you are a worthy leader, this can range from bringing them the emblem of a Legion General to winning back key areas of the battlefield, although some of the tasks are a bit easier and involve simple tasks such as delivering a letter.
As well as rescuing Vikings you also have the task of summoning dragons to help you in the main battles, these were probably the most difficult parts of the game for me because they usually involve you having to infiltrate the enemy based in order to charge / find the summoning stone. Sneaking around an enemy base certainly isn’t the easiest of tasks, although done correctly you can get through without causing too much of a scene, although get spotted and it’s more than likely that you will end up killed.
When you have managed to summon a dragon and have met the other conditions needed to invade the enemies main base, then it is simply a case of going to your map and confirming your actions, this will result in a cinematic scene which shows your army marching towards the enemies camp. When the battle begins your main task is to worry about the shaman who are usually spread around the base, you can destroy them in one of two ways, first you can defeat a giant and get some dragon runes, then by visiting your map you can look through the eyes of your dragon, pick the shaman out on the battlefield and incinerate him. The second way to defeat the shaman is to do it yourself, he is quite easy to find as he has a red beam of light above him which stretches into the sky, once you find him all you need to do is take down the barriers which power his magical shield and then simply slaughter him. Once you have taken care of the shaman, you must protect your own shaman while she makes the base a good place to be again.
The scale of the main battles are pretty impressive, the screen becomes absolutely packed with enemies and allies, meaning you will usually have to hack your way through to get anywhere, thankfully though you do have quite a few impressive tricks up your sleeve to help you along the way. Although you generally stick with the same weapons throughout the game, they do get more powerful as you progress, this is mainly thanks to the runes which are available to buy from the blacksmith, these come in three forms which are fire, ice and lightning, each of these has a devastating effect on your enemy while at the same time helping any of your allies within the radius by blessing them with the same power.
When activated the runes are pretty impressive, fire will ignite your sword and then on touch set your enemies alight, lightning sends bolts through their armour while perhaps the most impressive, ice, will freeze the enemy just before you shatter them into a thousand pieces.
The games combat system starts off quite basic, you have a few moves in your arsenal to begin with, however as the game progresses you can visit the battle arena and be taught more devastating moves, these will allow you to sneak up on enemies and assassinate them, or break through even a metal shield with one blow. Without visiting the arena you will certainly make life more difficult for yourself that’s for sure.
The main thing that lets game down is that the story seems to take a back seat to the combat, since most of the game is generally spent rescuing Vikings and infiltrating enemy camps this becomes your main focus, however it doesn’t get boring due to the different types of enemy you will face and the challenge each of them present. Some enemies are really tough to beat such as the ones with steel shields, these guys present a real challenge, especially when there is more than one, the giants are also pretty tough, although without giving too much away I would generally use one of my fire bombs (bought from the merchant) to make them a little less tough.
Graphically this game will probably be one of the goriest you have seen in quite a while, heads, limbs and any other body parts you care to mention are chopped off with no detail left to spare, blood splatters all over the place and all of this usually takes place in slow motion, just to add to the horror, you can almost feel yourself look away as yet another enemy is chopped in two, nice. The games environments are also pretty impressive, the characters are well drawn and even when there are lots of enemies on screen, the action only really suffers from a little slowdown.
Unfortunately the sound isn’t quite as impressive, the voice acting is quite literally wooden, much like the Viking ships which are spread around the beaches, there is also a lack of atmosphere when wandering around the vast lands, which is a shame because everything else is presented so well.
Viking: Battle for Asgard has certainly surprised me, to be honest I didn’t really know what to expect and therefore I thought that this would be yet another run of the mill hack and slash game, however there is more to it than that thanks to the addition of the rune magic, dragon summoning and free roaming landscapes. This a certainly a game I would not think twice about buying, I really enjoyed it and think it is well worth anyone’s cash, it may be a shallow game to some but to me it was a game well worthy of a place in my console.
