The game is set in Midgard where the Legions of Hel have invaded and all seems lost. The character you will play, Skarin, is wounded and dying and all seems lost. The God Freya comes to him and chooses him as her champion. She gives him an amulet of great power and restores him to health. She then performs magic, which banishes the legion from the village, and leaves Skarin to do her will. Which is to raise an army and lead it against Hel.
During the long course of events as Skarin rebuilds the infrastructure of war, we meet Drakan who is Hel's champion and our nemesis. We find out about Drakan's past as Freya's fallen champion and are led into a quest to find out about Skarin's own heritage. The story builds to a suitable apocalyptic conclusion.
During the game I was enjoying the story, however it did seem to build and build to a great last act only to just stop and give up. Hel is defeated and Skarin sees that he has been used by Freya as a pawn in the God’s games and is left wanting revenge. This game feels more like the start of a trilogy, as if it was meant to have a cliff-hanger to be continued ending. Shame it didn’t as this game wraps up the rest of a two game epic story line in a two or three minute voice over with concept art. The fact that there seems to be no sequels planned leaves a bitter aftertaste.
The game is set in a series of three free roaming islands each one larger than the last. The first two look similar and summery and the final one is in the grip of winter and has an active volcano with lava all over the place.
The view is third person from behind Skarin. Controls are the usual sticks for movement and camera control. There are slow and fast attacks with various combination button presses leading to differing attacks.
As you wander you can speak to various a.i. characters that give you objectives to complete.
The objectives are fairly varied though by far the largest mission type is reaching an area where Vikings are imprisoned and freeing them, where they will aid you in battle to free the area from legion occupation. The locations for these skirmishes include farms quarries, distilleries, and lumbar mills. There are also guard towers to liberate, enemy patrols to destroy and items to recover for characters.
Some factions need you to go somewhere specific, kill the larger enemy there and bring back a trophy to prove your worth before they pledge their aid for the cause. You also find yourself looking for dragon stones and amulets to give you control over the dragons of the land.
Combat is fairly repetitive stuff, and you find yourself getting by without much skill until the later islands where the introduction of armoured and shield carrying enemies mean that you need to learn to block and have a bit more strategy than simply hitting the nearest enemy. Bosses, giants and Champions need their health taken down a bit and then quick-time button presses come into play to finish them off.
The unique part of the game is the two huge battles on each island, one to open the other half and the other as the climax of events on the island. These battles can be triggered when you have met criteria, e.g. having enough troops, having dragon air support etc.
Once the battles are triggered it's a matter of storming the castle or fortification with your mass of troops, there is only one real objective for the player here, to kill off the enemy shaman who are responsible for spawning endless replacements for the enemies you kill. Once they are dead the legion's reinforcements are cut off and you must bring your shaman to the summoning stone, where they perform magic that banishes the legion from the area.
The battles are huge with an astonishing number of characters on screen. There are siege weapons and giants amongst the melee. Your dragons can be summoned once you have enough dragon runes. Killing a shaman gets you a dragon rune, there can be up to ten shamans to be killed in the later levels.
The dragons can be used to air-strike certain targets taking them out of the game, for example, archers or giants that are making it difficult, or the shaman's saving you the trouble of killing each one individually. Shamans are killed by destroying the four posts surrounding them, which breaks their magic shield, it's then a swift sword thrust to kill them off.
The first time you see the battle it is astonishing. There is true chaos and everything seems exhilarating. After 6 battles you know the drill and the effect wears off. Don't get me wrong the battles are still a spectacle, it's just that you know you are just going from place to place killing shaman. That is your only role, maybe a bit of variety of objectives in the battles might have kept it fresh.
The fortresses have two roles, to be the site of the final battles and also the site of stealth missions. You are tasked with obtaining a certain item from inside the fortress, and have to sneak inside. If you are seen then the alarm is raised and you will find yourself fighting against overwhelming force. To progress you must find a very deliberate route into and through the fortress killing using a stealth attack which is instigated when you are near an enemy that has it's back to you by pressing x, which silently kills in a satisfying manner.
The stealth missions are almost on a par with Splinter Cell and Metal Gear games here. Which is a bonus and it mixes up the game-play. The only thing I can say in criticism is that the stealth missions are necessary to complete the campaign. Those that bought a hack and Slash open world sandbox game might not have wanted to play a stealth action game It would have been nice to have been told that stealth would play a big role in the game before purchase. Might also have gained the game more sales from the stealth action fans.
There are the obligatory shops where you can upgrade your sword with combat runes and buy ranged weapons like axes and firebombs. You can also buy maps, which show the location of gold on your radar, this makes the collection of money for buying said items much easier. There are in addition to the gold barrels of mead dotted around which will be paid for by innkeepers.
Collecting rage orbs from the dead allows you to use the magic of fire and ice for a limited period until the rage energy runs out. Giving your blade the ability to freeze or set on fire the legion.
There is also a ghostly warrior trainer who in return for gold will teach you newer and more devastating combat moves.
There are a large number of ruins and caves, which can be explored in a tomb raider style to find gold. Sometimes just getting from place to place due to the landscape can be a bit of a puzzle.
Finally ley lines can be used to fast travel across the island once the stones have been found by walking to the location.
The a.i. is average, they do stupid things like walk off ledges to get to you, and usually just approach you and stand in a circle around you waiting their chance to strike.
The boss fights are fairly simplistic with you basically hacking and dodging until their health is down and a quick-time sequence finishes them. The bosses like the champion are introduced slowly then used increasingly throughout the game. There are two real main boss characters, Drakan and Hel herself.
Drakan is fought twice and Hel is the end of game boss. I have to heavily criticise the Hel fight however, the difficulty spike here will kill you. From being a fairly easy game the final fight is a real problem. I spent about four hours trying to kill Hel and screamed at the screen and threw controllers around. I will go as far as to say that the final fight tarnishes the whole game.
You have to fight many enemies in tight confines while destroying Hel's shaman pillars before finally getting to her. It's not the actual fight with Hel, it's the sheer weight of numbers of advanced hard to kill enemies that force you from being average at the game the whole way through to become a master of it's combat.
One tip for anyone playing Viking after reading this review is to stock up on health potions and firebombs before attempting the fight. Be warned though, once used they don't re-spawn with you when you come back for another go. I know it's the end of game boss and it should be hard, however this really is a huge jump in difficulty.
The islands are very well designed. Beautiful locations and thoughtful real world places. The areas look drab and lifeless when controlled by the legion, once liberated the sun comes out and everything looks idyllic. The art direction is perfectly in sync with the Viking legends.
Graphically the frame rate is good for the most part with understandable drops in the huge battles. This isn't a criticism, the number of objects on screen is staggering, on a par with Kameo and Heavenly sword for huge battle melees.
I don’t know what game engine was used here but it should be used more often.
Sound is good with some good voice work, especially the perfectly cast Brian Blessed. Checkpoints come after each mission or item pickup, and are handled transparently by the game to good effect. There are a few checkpoint gaps near the end of the game which are a little unfair, however not a real problem. Menus are sparse but functional.
I played Viking for around 20 hours and received a very nice 960 points. Most of the achievement flow from completing the story and upgrading the character, which really is necessary anyway. No real achievement hunting points, apart from finding hidden skulls in the fortresses. Which is a little unfair, as you can't travel back to an island once you leave for the next.
No multi-player at all, and it isn't missed. I doubt it would work well.
I had a lot of fun with this game, it never got as much hype as some games. Leading to many dismissing it as a purchase or even a rent. Having played two games recently with Norse mythology I know which one was better and it isn't Too Human. I would urge everyone to play this game. One of the better releases of 2008.
Scoring
Graphics 9
Gameplay 9
Story 5
Level Design 9
A.i. 5
Total 7.4
