Viking: Battle for Asgard: game review, features and reviews

Game Viking: Battle for Asgard, the review of which will be devoted to this article, in the not so distant 2008 conquered the hearts of fans of the genre "slasher." And also admirers of Scandinavian mythology, Vikings and northern gods.

Plot

Actions unfold in a fictional universe. The plot is simple: the hordes of the undead raised by the goddess Hel, invaded Mithgaard (the world of people, according to Scandinavian mythology) and sow the sea and destruction.

In the midst of the battle, the most brave warrior named Skarin is the goddess Freya and lays the mission of the savior of mankind to the mighty warrior. And the gods, of course. Freya is represented by the goddess of war, which carries the idea of stopping the queen of the dead and sending her back to Helheim.

Initially, Skarin is not aware of the real causes of the riots that has begun, because he simply follows the path of the berserk and seeks to purify his native lands from strangers. In this difficult case, the protagonist is assisted by the allies. These can be either randomly encountered Vikings, or prisoners of enemy camps.

The sequence of single battles and epic sieges of cities ultimately leads the player into the lair of the dark goddess, after the victory over which, Scarin demands in reward from Freyha a well-deserved place in Valhalla.

But gets rejected, then frees the world wolf Fenrir, and begins Ragnarok. Voice-over broadcasts that a century-old winter has come, the gods have been defeated, but their spirit is still present in the world of people.

How to get to Asgard?

Game Viking: Battle for Asgard, many meet on a beautiful schedule, an interesting intro video and escorted for the absolute stereotyped straightforwardness and the lack of an interesting story. And the desire to stop playing arises in the middle, where there are no exciting battles, screensavers, somehow clarifying the meaning of everything that is happening around. About ornate dialogues, romantic lines at all can be forgotten - they are not here.

The above-mentioned companions meeting on the expanses of the three islands on which Skarin travels periodically help get out of a difficult fight and not fall in battle. However, the mind brothers do not always help. Basically all the battles take place in a one-on-one mode. Team management in the game is completely absent, therefore after the formal help to the player, the satellites disappear (probably to drink honey in the nearest tavern).

Positive sides

None of the video review of Viking: Battle for Asgard is complete without mentioning that the game contains interesting moments for which the project deserved a rating of 71% according to Game Rankings.

Beautiful graphics and soundtrack - by itself. But, in addition, reviews Viking: Battle for Asgard celebrate the battle system based on the technology of Quick Time Events - dynamic moments during the bout, when a certain key lights up, which you need to press to perform a dizzying combo, capture or strike block. The listed elements of combat bring a grain of RPG genre into this project.

Reviews of the passage of the game V iking: Battle for Asgard note an interesting idea of the developers - killed with combo enemies give access to the dragon runes. As a consequence, these mysterious creatures are summoned to help Scarina.

Reviews of gaming publications

In March 2008, the printed editions were full of headlines like "Productive Season" or "Neskuchnoe vremya" ("Neskuchnoe vremya"). Section "What to play" is also in the publication "Igromania". Review Viking: Battle for Asgard took a few paragraphs in the mentioned heading along with projects such as Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry 4 and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

Representatives of the publication noted the novelty with positive reviews, describing the game as very simple, but very interesting. Anton Logvinov, whose company is engaged in "Videomania" - multiplatform video continuation to the magazine "Igromania" - indicated that the game seems to transfer into the atmosphere of the distant nineties. The player just goes to the questor, he says a couple of words and gives out the assignment. No lyrics, ornate, harassing dialogues, only a cold action. In the best traditions of hack and slash.

How is the passage going?

Reviews of the game Viking: Battle for Asgard do not distinguish some memorable puzzles in the game. These are simply absent. As mentioned above, everything is as straightforward as possible. Came, saw, won.

The hero passes not the levels, but the "islands". Visually, the territories between "our" and "strangers" are divided into dark and light sides. When Skarin crosses the border, leaving on the lands of enemies, gloom reigns everywhere, it's raining and the wind howls. And also constantly attacking enemies.

Releasing the captives and defeating the bosses, the protagonist sheds light on the dark areas. In a literal sense. On the bright side, peace and quiet are always a sunny day, flowers, greens and fish splashing in the water. But even here there are quests.

Criticism

Anyway, but negative reviews of the game Viking: Battle for Asgard more than positive. First of all, because of the plot, or rather, the lack of a clearly worked storyline. Do not like players who are accustomed to the ornate turns of the plot, as in many RPG type Mass Effect, the usual "slasher." This is what destroys every desire to play after the middle. Two or three videos for the entire game does not add to the project of any highlight. This cupcake remains stale.

On the second place in the frequency of mentioning among the minions is the so-called imitation of imitation. It is worth noting that the idea of the release of such a project arose after the success of God of War, telling about the bloody adventures of Kratos. Studio Creative Assembly released the project Spartan: Total Warrior, which ends in failure, and takes revenge with the release of Viking: Battle for Asgard. But it turns out the next clone, only in the "Scandinavian" wrapper.

And also the project deserved negative reviews because of the poor development of the game world. In fact, the locations are of no interest. Enemies are there, but they are monotonous. The game world is empty, it practically does not interact with the character at all.

The general opinion

Despite the failure of the project as such, any review of Viking: Battle for Asgard leaves the desire to still play. It is necessary to understand what attracts the attention of the story of Scarina.

In the game itself, there are trifles, which make you put all the "schematic" of the project into the background and the absence of a plot. For example, the protagonist frees fellow prisoners, who can eventually be rallied into a large army and called for the siege of the fortress. Gamers, who are interested in the process, rather than the result, have come to taste such a clever development of developers.

Of course, the final battle requires a large number of Vikings. And if the dragons are called, the battle turns into a real fantastic saga.

Conclusion

In the end, it should be said that the developers swung on a very interesting topic in the games - the mythology of the Scandinavians. In the distant 2008, the general public did not know about Ragnar Lodbroke, who was loved, thanks to the Canadian-Irish historical drama "Vikings". Even if you completely copy the image of the hero Travis Fimmel from the series and in the game nothing much to change, the rating will increase significantly.

In addition, it would be better to study the match-up before the development of the game. The first thing that catches your eye if you review the game Viking: Battle of Asgard from the height of 2017, it's the image of the goddess Freya, who does not compare with the image from the myth. Freya from the game is more like empress Celina from Dragon Age: Inquisition, which is a secular lioness, rather than a sword and shield maiden.

The image of Hel and her kingdom in the game more like a classic biblical hell, rather than Helheim from mythology - the realm of ice and fog. In addition, the army of the dead from there emerges only on the day of Ragnarok on the ship Naglfar, which is made from the nails of the deceased.

The hero at the end frees Fenrir, and Ragnarok begins, and the centuries-old winter descends on Mitgard. According to myths, Fimbulinter leads not only to the death of crops, but also to the war between human families for the sake of survival, which in no way converges with the "voice narrator", which speaks of warming and that people have successfully survived the winter.

In itself, the liberation of Fenrir's wolf does not entail the Last Battle - Odin is beating on her with a wolf. And in the end both die. The serpent Jormungand, the enemy of the Torah, must also appear in battle. And also the army of fiery sons of Muspell, led by Surt. In addition, if the goddess Hel is defeated, who will lead the dead to battle with the gods?

In the end, Freyja does not take warriors to Valhalla - not her competence. The goddess calls souls into her palace Volkwang. If the developers had better thought through this moment and designed a meeting between Skarin and Odin, perhaps the decision about the eternal feast in the hall of the soldiers of Asgard was taken in the direction of the protagonist.

And so, it turns out that the young lady refused, because this is not her professional sphere, and in Volkvang Skarin did not ask specifically.