Viking: Battle for Asgard

Review from Carl - Thursday, 10 July 2008 @ 12:16am

When looking at the vast majority of videogames, there are a few obvious periods and cultures in time that have been focused on more than others. God of War revived our love for ancient Greek mythology, Ninja Gaiden maintained our love for ninjas, and the Middle Ages have been trotted out more times than I could possibly remember.

Strangely enough, never in a millions years did I conceive a game involving Vikings.

But hang on a moment, aren’t the Vikings best known for their raping and pillaging (the two most common words associated with the Viking culture), cruising from place to place and stirring up, then burning down any village they passed through, picking up a few bountiful wenches along the way? Sounds like an awesome game, don’t it?

Yes but then again, Vikings are also known for their incomprehensible, little known (and blatantly unpronounceable) legendary places and characters of myth, coupled with their reputation of being the biggest, sweatiest, ugliest, hairiest bastards of old. And somehow I think that if the Hot Coffee Mod from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was too much for the world to handle, Viking rape might not make the cut.

Despite this, Viking: Battle for Asgard has been released, and though it isn’t what God of War did for ancient Greek mythology, it certainly hasn’t done Norse mythology a serious disservice.



So, what is Battle for Asgard all about? Well sit down children, and listen carefully. For the two of you who might not be up to scratch with your Norse mythology, Asgard is the where the Norse gods hang out in the city of the Æsir, surrounded by an incomplete wall attributed to a Hrimthurs riding the stallion Svadilfari (according to Gylfaginning).

Confused? Well it gets worse. Hel (the ruler of Hel (ironically enough), the Norse underworld) has been expelled from Æsir by Odin (The Lord of Vahalla) and decides to take Midgard (A place somewhere in the middle of Yggdrasil, apparently) for herself. Freya (Goddess of love and war) is appointed the task of stopping Hel. So she (the lazy cow) appoints our monosyllabic hero Skarin (Random Monobrowed Viking) to stop her. Simple, right? Yeah, and Uwe Boll is a great director...

All this is explained to you through some artsy stills of battle and a narrator who desperately wants to be Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings mode. While the narrator literally make me laugh like a drain, the approach is different, and just good enough to keep a gamer enthused.

So what does the plot really entail? Who gives a stuff, time to kill people!

The gameplay within Viking: Battle for Asgard basically revolves around free roam hacking and slashing. There are three massive lands to traverse within the game, each of which is stuffed to the hills with monsters to slay, battles to be waged, caves to be explored, barrels of beer to be found (?) and Viking mates to save. There is certainly no lack of things to do, and with plenty of creatures to kill, you won’t get bored quickly.



The variety of campaigns/missions that Skarin can embark on are fairly pleasing. Pillaging enemy strongholds, liberating allies held captive by enemies, quests to slay specific beasts, the list continues and thankfully means that you’ll rarely find yourself repeating mission types. Except rescuing captured Vikings (It seems that Skarin is the only brute is Asgard who isn’t tied up every five minutes).

Each land culminates in an impressive battle, and the lack of frame rate issues is impressive in these situations. These battles themselves are much fun, with plenty to kill. Even if you are killed, the gods will just respawn you in the middle of the fight. Take that, enemies!

At the beginning of the game, Skarin is equipped with his trusty sword and a handful of combos to use, but as you set off on your campaigns of murderous glee, you will quickly yourself rolling in the dough (oh, how I love to pillage!), and able to purchase better health, spells and combos. Reminiscent of learning extra combos in Canis Canem Edit, you can also unlock new moves by killing enough foes to impress the gods, who will grant you increasingly cooler ways to kill.

Graphically, Viking: Battle for Asgard is inoffensive, with a variety of location to show off. As Skarin you will wander through ancient ruins, grassy meadows, rocky caves and the other garden variety of locales. By no means is your Playstation 3 going to be breaking a sweat, but you won’t exactly be dazzled by what you see.

I’m going to step up onto my soapbox for a moment here, just to point out my biggest gripe about this game. By no means is it the overall worst feature of the title, but it’s something that no game should be committing here and now in the year 2008.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present ‘The Blank Main Character’.



Throughout videogame history, developers who have created some recognisable games that have sadly skimped on the main character. Viking: Battle For Asgard is one such game.

Look, I get that he’s a Viking chosen by the gods, but...freaking Jesus, man, say something! I know that if I had to traverse three massive lands going into fierce battle with a range of monsters, I’d have something to say on the matter.

There are two schools of thought on the matter of the main character. I can see from the developer’s point of view that the main character should merely be a stand in for the player themselves, but to be completely frank, the greatest enjoyment I ever got from any game (particularly Grand Theft Auto IV) was learning about the main character, his background and how he deals with various situations. At no point did I go:

“Hang on a minute; my character is showing some semblance of personality. This game sucks!”
What it boils down to is that the main character should be just as interesting as the game they feature in. Using a voiceless character with little to no character advancement just doesn’t cut it anymore (unless you’re Shadow of the Colossus, in which case, I love you).

Far from my vicious soapbox rant in the last few paragraphs, Viking: Battle for Asgard plays like a free roaming version of EA’s Lord of the Rings titles from the Playstation 2. There is a lot of running, a lot of hacking, and a lot of slashing, and by no means is that a bad thing. It’s one of the features that endeared me to this game. There’s a lot of fun to be had if you love mindless hack’n’slash. But by the gods is there a lot of it.

Though there is very little interest to be had in this game plot-wise, and though it is a pet peeve of mine, by no means does it detract from the gameplay itself, and I doubt anyone who wants this game is looking for a deep and meaningful story.

Overall, Viking: Battle for Asgard is good enough to warrant some looking in to, but it ‘aint Shakespeare. It’s a dogfight. And only the Viking with the biggest sword/monobrow will win.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some pillaging to do...

Summary

Mindless Hack'n'Slash fun, no more, no less.

Pros

Hacking and Slashing is still damn fun! Plenty of missions and side quests

Cons

Needs a better main character Even mindless hack'n'slash gets old sometimes