Viking: Battle for Asgard – video game review

Game: Viking: Battle for Asgard

Platform: Xbox 360

Studio: Sega

Rating: /10

Corporate line:
You must stop the goddess Hel from wiping out all of humanity with her army of resurrected Viking warriors. You are the deeply flawed young warrior Skarin in the violent yet spectacular world of the Vikings and their God. Leave a bloody trail of dismembered foes as you master an involving and 6addictive combat style with destructive mythical powers and abilities. Explore vast and visually stunning open-world environments while slaying your enemies with a huge array of devastating and brutal combat moves. Tame mighty dragons and unleash their rain of fire, laying waste to the enemy hordes that stand in your way. Free enslaved warriors to wage war on Hel’s legion and lead them into huge, epic battles featuring colossal giants, powerful shaman, deadly assassins and Hel’s own champions. Use your emerging skills to help turn the tide of conflict with a timely murder or a visceral wave of slaughter. Stop Hel and save the future of mankind before it’s too late.

Three massive open-world Nordic islands present both large-scale battles and smaller skirmishes. Explore, uncover and fight your way across huge Norse worlds full of combat and exploration Lay the foundations for huge battles featuring hundreds of warriors at once. Subtly influence the battle through targeted assassination and sabotage, or wade in to save stricken allies.

The review:
Vikings are cool, at least historically. Here they end up being nothing more than a name attached to a killing machine. You get some quests that never amount to too much. Certainly the portion that allows for exploring could be unbelievably cool. Imagine being a viking and exploring different countries based on what we know of history. It never ends up being as cool as it could be. Instead you free some some warriors and go on the attack. It’s always the same scenario with a different setting. The actual fighting doesn’t save the game but at least it makes it interesting. The dragons are fun and killing zombie warriors is sweet. The problem is vikings are already cool without all the added fiction. A historically accurate game could have been amazing, instead we get a fictional game that is just plain average.

The graphics are occasionally good. They suffer most when in battle and a stunted framerate. There is the occasion when you slash an enemy in half and watch as his insides fall to the floor. The environments seem dead. There are areas which are without plants or life. The audio is founded onorchestration but how could you be wandering in the forest without the sounds of birds, animals, anything. Not even the wind can be heard.

Finally:
Vikings did live a life of death and destruction–but zombies and dragons? Sure, its fiction but sometimes fact is much more interesting and in this case it would have been.