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Viking: Battle For Asgard!

The latest from Sega features the warrior Skarin, a vicious but deeply flawed Viking, caught trying to stop the goddess Hel from rising Ragnarok to earth.

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Weak Tales: With a story like that, and drawing its concept from the often brutal Viking lore, it would seem that this game would have a strong story worth listening to, sadly the story disappoints. When you play the game, you will discover a very weak story that basically just serves as an excuse to slaughter mindless grunts.

Don't get me wrong, there is a story here, but it's hardly worth any time. As I aforementioned, the game revolves around the young, but flawed Viking Skarin, who is called upon by the Goddess of Light to fight the forces of Hel, whose undead army is killing people to create a new Valhalla.

There's also something that has to do with Skarin having haunting visions and nightmares and untold anger toward at least one of the gods. Sound familiar? The story is told via cutscenes that are reminiscent of the graphic novel/movie 300, but they're typically short, hard to follow, and fail to tell the game's tale in any understandable matter.

Something's Flawed, But It's Not Skarin: Without a passable storyline, all that lies as hope is the gameplay, which is occasionally enjoyable, but most of the time just plain mediocre. The main draw-in with the gameplay of Viking are the massive battles (not unlike Heavenly Sword) that features hundreds of enemies on screen at one time.

Before you get to these wars though, you have to follow a few tedious tasks. The first thing you do is run over to an enemy camp, then kill the inhabitants, and then free the prisoners that were being held captive. After you free enough prisoners you will be "allowed" into the battles.

While Heavenly Sword pulled off the all-out wars so well, Viking does not. The reason being that once you enter one of these skirmishes, it is extremely easy to be overwhelmed quickly. The fact that you can barely last two minutes takes a lot out of the enjoyment, forcing you to just run ahead and kill the Shaman, then battle the boss.

Once you master this, you won't have any trouble because every battle after that is exactly the same -- it just lasts longer.

Ghost Town: The world of Viking is divided into three levels (a la Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion...a good game) but on a much smaller scale. Having this much free room is initially exciting, but this soon turns into disappointment and then quickly to boredom.

The problem is that there is nothing to do and nothing to see. The towns and fortresses are oddly absence of people, the environments look bare, and the world looks ridden of life except of you.

Also, while you wonder these lifeless dimensions, you will be subjected to horrible music, if any. Yes, while you "explore" most of the time you will just hear the thumps of your shoes. Viking was almost no music in the game, no matter what you are doing, and if there is, it's ear-bleedingly bad.

Please...Grant Me Mercy From This Torture: The missions are boring and tedious and the exploration is unfulfilling, but al least the combat is okay -- for a few minutes. Skarin is armed with a sword and an axe used to destroy Hel's legion of the undead.

Your attacks are limited at first, but new upgrades can be bought as you progress. Skarin can charge up his attacks in order to deal more damage (and even break shields) and he can also unleash elemental magic attacks like ice, fire, and even lightning.

This can be fun for a little while, running over to enemies and using a new combo, beating them into bloody juices or just loping off their heads. But this type of gameplay gets old way to fast, and you will find yourself just doing the same thing over and over in a very repetitive fashion.

Another one of Viking's flaws (of the many) is the incredibly dimwitted AI. The AI will endlessly run into their doom, either by not seeing you charge toward them, or by mindlessly charging at you, giving no care to their own safety.

By far the worst part of Viking: Battle for Asgard is the horrible camera is the disappointing graphics. The landscape looks strangely devoid of any life at all, and the enemy models look un-intimidating and bland.

To add to that, there are only a handful of different enemies, and the rest look like carbon copies of each other.

Rent vs. Buy: If you like repetitive, head-chopping against extremely dimwitted enemies, then you might like Viking: Battle for Asgard, but otherwise burn this game with a cross and holy water.

Report Card

If you like repetitive, head-chopping against extremely dimwitted enemies, then you might like Viking: Battle for Asgard, but otherwise burn this game with a cross and holy water. (Krakrabbit.com)

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