Ever since the release of Sony’s God of War, many titles have tried to emulate its success with gory decapitations, action-time button sequences, over the top violence, and of course, a likeable hero. While a few have tried, such as 2008’s Conan, none of them have put together a competent game in comparison to God of War. With Sega’s release of Viking: Battle of Asgard, Sega achieved a similar styled game with an aggressive approach to the action while also opting to focus on gigantic battles against hordes of enemies.
The storyline, in its entirety, is shallow but it works. It works because gamers who’ll be picking up Viking to play won’t be looking for a sweeping epic that grabs a hold of their emotions till the bitter end. What Viking delivers is a straight-forward storyline of a hero that must do a god’s biding to rid the world of an undead army called Legion that are lead by a demonic deity named Hel. Yup…your typical vanquish evil storyline, but like I said, it works.
As for specifics, players are pitted in the role of Skarin, a Viking set before by the goddess of love, Freya, to stop the ruler of the Norse underworld, Hel, from taking over Midgard (the human world). Hel was banished the heavenly realm called Asgard (hence the title) and brings forth mighty enemies that Skarin must topple on his way to reclaiming Midgard. The game starts out with a bang with having Skarin recapture towers, forts and cities for the sake of mankind while also recruiting new soldiers to build up an army to invade the major fortress/city of the island. Overall, there are three islands that Skarin must venture through and battle thousands of Legion soldiers to free Midgard. On top of this, there is foreshadowing to Ragnarok, the final battle between the gods and the giants; so there’s a lot of mythology for those who follow the Norse mythos.
Perhaps the most attractive area of Viking is the gameplay. Viking is a hack-and-slash game with a tremendous amount of gore and violence mixed in. Thankfully, Viking is done very tastefully in comparison to THQ’s Conan since there’s no out of place nude women standing around cheering while the men fight. The process of Viking is simple: go across the islands, free up captive soldiers from enemy camps to build up your army, and then attack the central fortified city to move on to the next island. With basically only needing the A and X button, Skarin is able to hack his way through waves of enemies without even blinking. The A button is for the faster maneuvers while X is for the slower attacks. Holding down either button will unleash a better attack on the opposing enemies.
While the A and X button are used more often than not, if players are able to stun the enemy, an X icon will appear above the enemy to have Skarin perform a lethal finishing move that comes in the form of at least 10 different finishers. From chopping the head off to impaling them from behind, the enemies won’t know what hit them when Skarin performs his finishers.
