Viking: Battle for Asgard

Viking: Battle for Asgard

Peter Jackson’s influence on the videogame industry will likely continue for decades to come. His adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, with its gigantic and implausible but enthralling battlefields filled with thousands upon thousands of orcs and trolls laid the template for so many next-gen hack and slashers to follow. Indeed, you don’t even have to squint your eyes while watching Viking: Battle for Asgard’s battles unfold to mistake this for being a game set in Helm’s Deep itself.

Huge boulders crash into the sides of towering stony turrets, balls of dragon flame scorch the dark grass below and huge fisted trolls lumber all leather straps and face masks through a sea of spears and blades. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Jackson’s fantasy war aesthetic suits this take on Norse mythology well and, while Viking’s characters and storyline is different, and the gore and violence more visceral, the borrowed sense of scale and urgency is fitting and awesome.

You take the role of Skarin, a young warrior picked by the Norse Gods to defend the mortal realm of Midgard from the Goddess Hel and her undead army. Hel was previously booted out of Asgard by king of the gods Odin and her aim is to bring about the fabled apocalyptic battle of Ragnorak as revenge.

While screengrabs show the game to be a pretty looking battlefield slasher – a kind of European fantasy-themed Dynasty Warriors, perhaps – in reality the game’s more diverse. The involved battles do come but before you get to hack your way through the demonic horde, you’ll need to carry out a range of different sub-missions to prepare adequately for the oncoming skirmish. The objectives include, for example, saving a farm to provide food for your army or recapturing a lumber mill so that you can build battering rams, each objective adding new troops and manpower to the overall war effort. While that sounds interesting, the way in which you accomplish these pre-fight goals isn’t: simply kill all of Hel’s minions in the vicinity and you’ll automatically meet the criteria.

That said, you at least have a few ways in which you can dispose of these enemies: the option to either employ stealth manoeuvres, slitting throats and slicing bodies on the quiet or charging in lungs blazing for face to face fisticuffs. Either way the end result is the same: a grisly fountain of blood and guts that goes toward completing your army-strengthening sub-missions ahead of the main battle proper.

The battle system actually sports considerable depth with a variety of moves on offer as you learn and expand your repertoire. However, most players will likely resort to the straightforward three hit combo as this is adequate for most tasks. Indeed, aside from the stylish set-piece kills, it’s generally possible to make it through the game using just two buttons, the sword runes and mythical powers just adding graphical variety rather than extra tactics to your tool set.

What the game lacks in interactive complexity it makes up for in visual exuberance. This is a good-looking game that delivers a rich and interesting (if extremely gory) visual punch. The exhilarating experience of fighting alongside other characters you’ve worked hard to rescue and recruit does drive you forward, even when the fighting eventually becomes repetitive, ensuring that fans of Koei’s output are well served by this heavily Jackson-inspired interpretation of the genre.

3 out of 5