The battle for Asgard is over...

...for I've just beaten Viking, and this game fucking rocks!!!

It looks like a lot of critics disagree with me, and funnyman too, but overall it looks like the gaming community liked the game, which either means that we're all wrong or that sometimes critics, in all their wisdom, forget exactly what makes a game fun. But on with this review - sort of...

I've already covered the GTA-style of free roaming, the graphics and the combat system in my previous post, but there are still things to talk about, like the assaults on fortresses that put your entire army against the legion of undead! These scenes are FUCKING EPIC and so far they're as close as you can get to experience a LOTR-style full scale war in a fantasy setting. There are literally hundreds of units on the screen at the same time, fighting and killing each other, advancing and retreating on the battlefield, while flaming arrows pierce the sky and dragons roam freely, incinerating foes at your command. It is AWESOME and, along with the free roaming gameplay, it makes this game stand out as a really unique title, different from every other action game out there.


Unfortunately your soldiers don't just appear on your base camp, you have to search the wilderness for their villages, save them from the legion's grasp, and often perform additional tasks before they join you (ungrateful bastards, we just saved them from horrible deaths and they still demand additional favours...). You also have to summon dragons, upgrade your weapons and often sneak in enemy fortresses to retrieve certain items, enough tasks to make you crave for the next big battle. Unfortunately, as you progress, the game starts to get a little repetitive, but trust me, you'll want to do everything to fight in the last huge battle, for it is worth it.

So, overall Viking is a very unique and intense experience, and it deserves its place in the gaming history as the first game to put you in a battlefield surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of allies and enemies, all in a glorious 3rd person perspective and with a truly next-gen graphics engine. There is nothing like it out there, and I definitely hope to see more of it in the future. If you like the viking theme and huge battles, don't miss this game.



After finishing it, I was left with nothing to play so I decided to try and finally beat Dark Messiah of Might & Magic: Elements, but man, that game is so fucked up...


It was a disappointment, because I had really high expectations about it, specially because it's rare to play a 1st person fantasy game that's not an RPG, but unfortunately this game is broken, plain and simple. Despite being released more than a year after the original pc version, it's still full of bugs, some of them annoying, some that actually can make you loose all your progress, and at times it's just fucking boring. I still want to finish it, but I'll need huge amounts of patience...