Viking: Battle for Asgard has been on Geek.com’s radar since late last year during SEGA’s Winter Wonderland. At that time, we just got to watch and admire the game. Later, at SEGA’s Sweet Celebration, we got a chance to get some hands-on time with the title. But for as excited as we were for Viking to come out, it’s hard to believe how much better the game is than previews would seem to indicate. Read on to find out why you’ll want to join in on the Norse madness.
Graphically, Viking: Battle for Asgard is quite impressive. It’s not just that you get to hack bad guys into little bits, decapitate them, amputate body parts, and otherwise cause them misery. No, that stuff is just cool. I’m talking about basically a virtual world here, in which many aspects of Norse mythology come together. It’s such a vast and open environment, featuring beautiful scenery, and yet there’s a sense of foreboding that hangs everywhere. There’s a great mix of light and darkness, and weather effects feel quite realistic.
Sound is sweeping and epic. The score is surely at its best during the gigantic battle scenes that put “Braveheart” to shame, but it will carry you through the vast wandering you’ll do as well. While the clanging of swords and goons grunting is well done, there’s something to be said about perfectly capturing environmental effects, etc. At some point, it takes on less of a movie feel, and more of a you-are-there sort of experience. And that’s what gamers want.
The storyline is kind of God of War, but with Vikings instead of Greeks. You are pretty much a tough guy, who gets tougher as enemies do. Most of what you do early on will be freeing your men and assembling a vast army. But once you get all your guys in order, that’s when the real fun begins.
A lot of what makes this game great is how well it fuses the sort of open gameplay you expect in an RPG with the fast-paced action of games like Devil May Cry and God of War, with the strategy of an RTS like Command & Conquer. Viking is not exclusively stuck in any one of these genres, but at its heart its an action title.
In any fight, there’s a number of different ways to approach it, including NOT fighting for now. That’s why there is a little more strategy than in some similar games. You don’t just fight a mostly linear series of battles. The game doesn’t just lead you by the hand; it basically compels you to pick your battles. See a guy all by himself? Sure, take him out. But see a vast army, and you’re by yourself, and you’re going to need to be creative.
Once you get into a fight, there’s some hack-and-slash, some magic, but both aspects feel very connected. You are an extremely powerful warrior, and there are hordes of enemies to dispatch–by any means necessary. The game features an almost Ninja Gaiden-like level of gore. Blood and guts are routinely flying all around, but it’s important to protect yourself from enemy attacks while you execute these devastating finishing moves.
Weapons and even your own body have a clear weight. Unlike some titles where giant men leap around like fairies, this game is slower, but not quite to the point where you feel it’s sluggish. That being said, there are times when you wish you could just whip around and clear out enemies, and luckily later on in the game you’ll be able to do just that.
The game is at its best when there’s a huge army gathered against you, and you know it’s all coming down to the weapons in your hands and, sometimes more importantly, the one in your head.
The game is quite smooth even with so much going on, and I didn’t notice many lock-ups even when it seemed like the 360 was giving its all.
Difficulty is sometimes an issue, but that’s almost by design. Once you notice you die a lot facing some enemy or group of baddies, it’s almost always better to take another approach. The game not only allows for this openness, but completely encourages and almost requires you to take advantage of it. The tactical approach to eventual combat is reminiscent of Bioshock more than GTA. That’s because GTA allows for you to choose missions in any order you want, but then once there there’s sometimes only one way of actually completing the mission.
On the negative, you could say that some of the aspects of the game feel kind of ripped off–particularly some finishing moves. Although the end result would seem to justify pointless button-mashing exercises, I think most gamers are sick of them. There has to be a better way. But that’s more an issue of game design not evolving than it’s a particular issue with this game. Viking doesn’t exactly follow the herd, and yet in this way it does.
Additionally, you may spend a lot of time thinking about how this game is kind of like God of War, just with a different mythology. While there’s something to be said about building a story around mythology, I think the use of Norse myth is actually very compelling. (It’s definitely a lot geekier to know the Norse gods, since pretty much everyone knows the Greek ones by now.)
All told, Viking: Battle for Asgard is not just a great game; it’s a definitive experience. It’s one of the best-looking, best-playing titles on the Xbox 360. When you see a game that turns out so well, it’s nice to be able to point to previews and say, I saw it coming. But in Viking, even all that I saw didn’t prepare me for just how excellent this title turned out. This game belongs in the collection of every mature gamer. Just don’t wear white; no amount of bleach will get out the blood stains.
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