The premise of the game is pretty standard. You play as Skarin, a Viking warrior charged with the task of fighting back against the monstrous hordes summoned by Hel, the goddess of death. Hel wants to cover the entire world with Viking zombies and ultimately summon the wolf-god Fenrir, in order to... look, none of this is hugely important. What’s important is that you’re given a brilliant excuse to slash up thousands and thousands of undead soldiers in a series of side-missions and genuinely epic battles.
 |
 |
|
| "Poor bugger." | "Skarin's back, yesterday." |
The game doesn’t have a set structure, per se – after a few introductory tasks, you’re simply left to roam the island and are given a number of objectives you can tackle in any order you see fit. The majority of the objectives simply involve attacking a group of enemies in a particular location that are guarding a cage full of Vikings, who you set free so that they can join your army. Somewhat disappointingly, the extra troops will simply clear the surrounding area of enemies, then bugger off back to your hometown. There is, however, a good reason for this that we’ll come to shortly.
The game’s combat is surprisingly tight. It’s no Ninja Gaiden, but then it’s not really trying to be – you’re a Viking after all, not a ninja. At first, the combat feels sluggish and unresponsive, but give it time (and a couple of unlocked special moves) and you’ll be flying through the enemy hordes with ease, blocking or dodging enemy attacks and using shield-breaker moves when appropriate. It’s not massively complicated, but it’s just enough to keep you on your toes, whether you’re just fighting against a couple of opponents, or wading into one of the game’s larger battles.
Once you’ve completed a certain number of objectives across the current island, you’ll be permitted to go ahead and storm the next enemy stronghold that stands in your way. It’s during these battles that the game really shines – all of the soldiers you’ve been rescuing on your travels are all summoned to help you out, and the end result is literally hundreds (if not thousands) of on-screen characters smacking the crap out of each other. Even more impressive than the sheer number of combatants, is the successful balancing act the developers have undertaken with them – with the player only controlling one member of an entire army, it can be difficult to make the player feel useful without just turning the non-player characters into a mass of bumbling idiots. Viking, however, pulls this off with ease. While your fellow Vikings are quite happy pushing forward into the battle, there are certain objectives that only you can pull off. For the most part this involves killing prominent enemy soldiers, and shamans who will regenerate the enemy’s army if left unchecked. Of course, you can’t just head straight towards the objectives by yourself – you have to bring the army with you. Run off on your own and you’ll quickly find yourself getting killed, but stay at the front of your army and you’ll be able to slowly-but-surely push forward. So – you need the army, and the army needs you.
It’s not all good, of course – despite the game’s five-year gestation period, a number of glitches have made their way in. For a start, a fair few sound effects just seem to be missing - this doesn’t ruin the game, obviously, but it does sort of pull you back into the real world when you tear an enemy’s head off with an axe in total silence. On top of that, we had one or two occasions where, upon being rescued, a group of Vikings would just stand still, and the current quest would remain unfinished. The only solution we found was to go and kill ourselves by jumping off the nearest cliff – which once happened by accident when Skarin decided to automatically vault over a nearby waist-high wall, and into the sea. Now, the automatic wall-vaulting is a nice little feature when you’re trying to get around, but when it sends you to a watery grave, it’s more than a little irritating. Then there’s the bit where the game made us upgrade our sword, only for us to find absolutely no change to it whatsoever. Not really a glitch, obviously, but a rather weird oversight nonetheless.
 |
 |
|
| "Guess what happens next!" | "Wheee!" |
Still, the real trick to Viking, despite its various flaws and largely unremarkable premise, is that it never leaves you hanging. Despite its ostensibly open-ended nature, the game makes sure you’re always pointed towards the next fight, with each one building you up for the next full-scale battle. And when you realise that the large battles only become more and more epic as you progress through the game, you start to become genuinely excited about making your way towards each one.
Top game moment:
VIKING: BATTLE FOR ASGARD VERDICT
Should you buy it? Well, it’s not the longest game out there – most people seem to be finishing it in around 14 hours, and there’s not a huge amount of replay value to be had once you’re done, especially if you played it on hard mode right off the bat. If, however, you’re just looking for a bit of dumb medieval violence, and you’re willing to see past the game’s technical flaws, you could do a hell of a lot worse.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Being vastly outnumbered by enemies at the edge of a cliff, then promptly tearing through most of them whilst kicking the odd one straight off the cliff to his doom.
