Viking: Battle For Asgard Comments by Kristan Reed

ouch, what a shame, the previews looked alright to me..

Quote from review :"For now, save your money."

I was planning to but thanks.

Bummer! I really hoped for this game to be good.
Vikings, blood, hack 'n' slash what would you want more, one might ask.
Thus thanks for the review. I'll pick it up when it hits the bargain bin.

Pity, I actually like Spartan: Total Warrior, it was like God of War Liter

It's too bad. Spartan: Total Warrior was alright I suppose, but CA should stick to PC games, because they make top-tier strategy games. Stop distracting yourselves and give me Empire: TW, dammit!

I'm gutted.

well thats weird ... my brother bought this game on release day and we've both been quite enjoying it!

The combat does get repetitive, and the *quests* do get samey at times (eg, you have 2 paths - one has loads of nasties on it, the other one looks like the sneaky route. Choose the sneaky route)...

The biggest problems with the game are technical - awkward controls compounded by no safety-detection (running upto a cliff without a fence leaves you not falling, but stopping yourself..but if the cliff has a fence, you leap over it to your doom quite happily) and some minor graphical glitches - another month of polish wouldn't have hurt in any way whatsoever. Oh, and the worst camera I have seen in a game for about 5 years (Settlers 2 beats it for "having a camera which shows you something useful")

but ... 5/10? C'mon EG you give bigger scores than that to absolute drivel

Hmmm.... bit of a harsh review. Yeah it's a simplistic game, but isn't that a good thing in this modern day of hardcore gaming? "appealing to the masses" anyone? lol.

I bought the game and am really enjoying it. 8/10 so far.

Having played half way through the game i agree it becomes a little tedious after awhile in the same way that AC did.
But i disagree with the harsh 5/10 considering the 7/10 for Samurai Warriors 2 and Dynasty Warriors 6. If those are a 7 this should be atleast 7 in my book.

Hmmm... harsh. People on my friends list seem to like it a lot more than 5/10. I will get it when it hits the bargain bin then. Saves me some money ;)

i think this is OK so far, but Skarin has possibly the least character of anyone ever, he just sort of stares straight ahead and lumbers around looking like a bit of a tit all the time...and every NPC in the world that speaks somehow knows who he is lol
so yeah i'm not impressed but i'll see it through to the end.
oh, and i didn't find the big battles anywhere near as exciting/interesting as i'd imagined, just kind of awkward...with a bad framerate.

They're just giving themselves room to manouver...NG2 will be getting a 7.

Hammer the Heavy Attack? Surely that should be the Quick Attack? If you keep pressing the Heavy Attack you'll just get hit over and over, most of the combos are on A (with LB held down).

Personally I thought that the combat was actually pretty good, held my interest for the entire game, although you will end up using only a hand full of the moves most of the time, there is just enough variety to make it fun.

As far as I'm concerned this is at least a solid 8, it might even be more. I'd recommend anyone put off by the review should find a way to actually play the game and try it out before dismissing it.

Maybe a bit harsh. I would have thought an easy 6/7.
I nearly always agree with Kristan's reviews and scoring but not on this occasion. To be fair a lot of the comments are spot on, but I have played a few "broken" games and still got some enjoyment from them, as in Dark Messiah last month.
I'm enjoying as much as I did with Conan. I'm on the second island. I like the idea of the mass brawls, it would have been nice to have control over your fellow Vikings,but it still works for me.
I'm no lover of hack/slash games, the setting and historical period have to interest me. On these two points it scores, so it will do until Condemned 2

Shame, I was really hoping for this to be good!

Roll on GTA IV

snap!

Personally I thinik the review is a bit harsh, I'm on the third island and still enjoying it a lot.

I normally agree pretty closely with Kristan's reviews, but not on this occasion.

Of you course you can just sit and attempt to beat every opponent by bashing a single opponent, much as you can with most fighting games - but given that the game gives you a decent range of moves and tactics you'd be daft to do that.

It's a 7/10 for me - just over £30 from Woolworths at the mo. At that price I thought it was worth a gamble, and I'm enjoying it so far.

I completely disagree with the score, I think this game deserves at least 7/10 as I've been hooked on it all weekend so much so that I've spent ten hours playing it to finally reach the third and final level. Yes, it's a very simple game, yes, it lacks depth and, yes, it has it's shares of flaws but I can honestly say that I'm really enjoying this game. It's consistenly entertaining even though I know it's not a classic or anything.

The adventuring stuff is fun even if amounts to just taking item A to place B but the (mostly) open world design of each of the three islands means it's enjoyable to explore and the atmosphere of the game reminds me a lot of World of Warcraft. It isn't a tough game, even the bosses are fairly straightforward, but that just means it's a game that I can enjoy more rather than get frustrated with part-way through because I can't get any further. The main assaults on the strongholds with hundreds of characters onscreen are exciting even if it is far too easy to just rush up to the Shamens and kill them because the A.I. is so unsophisticated. The developers have added enough variety to the game that it's been keeping me playing it to see what comes next.

The graphics are good rather than amazing, relying on decent art rather than effects and polygon counts but at least this game runs well on the Xbox 360 without any screen tearing or texture pop-in issues and there's only some slowdown during the impressive large scale battles but it doesn't affect the gameplay IMO.

Hmm, i've seen so many different reviews of this game, but i was interested in it, and i couldn't wait for EG's review, so i bought it on Friday.

My views, this game is an 7.5/8 out of ten. After a weekend of throughly playing it, i immediately dived back in to play it on hard. The game is a lot of fun. It is a hack and slash, so be prepared for a lot of hacking and slashing, which will mean using the same buttons over and over. Yes, that can be boring for some, but you do get plenty of different moves, and the stealth kills do break things up. Dont blame the game, if you decide not to use the combo's.

Secondly, the game is STUNNING looking. There are some amazing looking locales in this game. Secondly, the mass battles are stand out moments. I'll never forget charging a fortress, while a rain of flaming arrows comes down. Literally as close to LoTR Battle of Helms deep as i have ever seen.

In terms of negatives, the story is poorly handled. The decision not to have Skarin speak at all is a mistake. Even a few lines of dialogue from him what have helped a little, and the way the story wraps up is poorly done.

There is some slow down during the mass battles, but this is only centered on the shamans, and the particle effects around their totems. If you use dragons to take down the shamans, you might never see slowdown.

Some times the sound is borked. In some cut scenes, the sound effects are really muted, which can hurt them a lot.

Look,all reviews are subjective, but my advice to you is, try it, don't base your decision on this review. I really don't understand reviewers needs sometimes, maybe they get jaded, but this is a very good title, that could have been excellent with a little more work on the story. I know some people have mentioned the camera, but until i read the complaints, i never even noticed there was a camera problem, and i still don't think there is one.

Seriously, try the game, i've played it and completed it once, and i'm playing through again and it's kinda better the second time around. As the EG preview said, you do feel like a mother f**king hero sometimes.

Not too surprised TBH. I read the ridiculously hyped previews in GamesTM (journalistic standards are low but there is nothing that's much better) and was wondering what amount of cash was parted because what they described did little to warrant the hype. The Creative Assembly are amazing developers when it comes to PC strategy titles (the TW series is only bested by the Civ one IMO) but consoles are a different beast. But it's only their second try if I'm not mistaken...

Harsh.
It's been getting plenty love in the forum, a lot of us have been playing it all weekend.

I think the review is a little harsh 5/10.
I've been playing Viking all weekend and having a lot of fun doing it.
at least 7/10

Hello Wendy, I saw you had a good gamerscore result from it!

Anyway, I can't understand why these reviews cant come out on release day or before, I really fancy universe at war, but am waiting for a review.

Look out their is a revolt brewing. Kristan you must reassess the review and score. We demand it!
The society of, "Viking Is Rad Get It Now"

Anybody who is buying Condemned 2 (360) fancy a swap with this once you have completed, as long as you complete games very quickly, that is.

''almost as boring as halo3''
Ohhh, you bad bastard you, that was a right zinger!....

Way harsh.

I rented this and its a solid 7/10. Certainly a lot more fun to be had than this review indicates.

Yeah, it does feel like there arent a lot of moves but you only need to unlock a few to expand your moveset. no idea why the review keeps banging on about 'heavy attack' as its all about the quick attack as far as I can tell.

Regarding the gold vs exp thing, yes it can be a boit of a pain having to round up gold to unlock things and 'level up' but if you unlocked things based on EXP the game wouldnt work as you could just go into one of the big battles, avoid the shamen and just grind through minions until you ranked up.

Its certainly not perfect but it is a good laugh, you do feel like a badass and the massed battles are actually pretty amazing really.

Definitely worth a rental if not a 'buy,rinse,trade' anyway.

(and yeah, how is this worse than the effete, impenetrable, dynasty warriors games?)

For the record, I completed it, and have rarely been so bored while doing so. It was one of those 'why am I wasting my time?' afternoons. Maybe others will find their appreciation of the game diminishing as I did as they go along. For the first half of the game I did think 6, maybe 7. Mindless enjoyment, etc. But for the game to keep doing the exact same thing over and over just got so tedious.

No, I do mean heavy attack. B button. Over and over and over. Quick attack (A) was useless I found.

trust the review or the comments?

I think I will give this a try.... EG reviews are loosing their appeal to me lately. I found the forum more informing.

Well I'd rather play a game like Viking BfA than stuff like Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Dark Sector or even Gears of War because I prefer more adventure orientated games and this one reminds me a lot of Fable (18-rated version) and World of Warcraft. For the most part it's retro and could run on the Xbox or PS2 (except with fewer characters in the big battles maybe) but then so was Bully and that wasn't a bad game was it? In fact both Bully, this game and Devil May Cry 4 are my two favourite games of this year and they're all old-school really. None of them are military shooters and for that I'm thankful! LOL

This is definitely a marmite game - and not dissimilar to assassins creed - particularly in terms of repetition. However, some gamers like repetition - personally I loved assassins creed and while this isn't quite a good is still a good game and very enjoyable - and in both cases for the same reasons that many reviewers slated creed and which Kristian criticises Viking.

What does suprise me is that reviewers don't acknowledge that there are a set of gamers who will like games like this for such reasons. Obviously a review is subjective and is scored accordingly but with reviews of both these games there has been a clear sense of frustration, and even a note of glee in then taking the game apart. While reviews should have subjective comments and scored as such they should also attempt to objectively contextualise their points.

That should be clear from the very varied reactions to creed and this is clearly the same sort of game - games with mechanics that can be frustrating for some gamers but rewarding for others. Not a hard point to make and obvious in games like this.

This could be down to reviewers syndrome (definitely the case with creed) where a game has to be played through to be reviewed and isn't played to be enjoyed - just get through it and finish to it to write the review. With the result that the subtleties of gameplay are missed and the actual rhythm of the game becomes a burden to playing it.

So, not for everyone's tastes certainly - and if you don;t like repetitive gameplay/quests its probably a 4. If you do (and liked creed/diablo) then its an 8.

Expectations surrounding game review scores have been broken for many, many years. Probably because the system was set in place in a more innocent time by people writing as fans and enthusiasts rather than critics. That's how 7/10 became the average score, and "I enjoyed it" became the only argument that mattered. Fact is, 5/10 should be the average score. It's not bad, it's not awful, but it's perhaps too shallow or too derivative - and it sounds like Viking fits that bill.

But that has nothing to do with an individual's enjoyment, and it's here that things get muddled. See, it's perfectly possible to enjoy an average game - even a bad game, under certain circumstances - but our amusement can't make the game itself any better, only our experience of it.

That's where our understanding of games criticism has a long way to go compared to more established areas like film criticism - we need to learn to separate Games That Are Good from Games That I Like. Often the two are the same, but in cases like this - games that are nothing special but far from awful - the distinction is important.

If you go around throwing 7/10 at every game that might provide a weekend's distraction then criticism - that is, actual criticism rather than simply writing about games - is rendered pointless.

All I can say is I traded DMC4 for this, and I found DMC infinitely more bland, repetitive and tedious.

dan that is too simplistic, a game that I like is a game that is good to me. Okay I concede the point that I can enjoy average games and films, but I am alos often aware they are average. There is a subtle difference with games or even films that you percieve to be good and enjoy that other's don't - this is a typical problem whatever medium.

I don;t think there is that much difference with film or even book criticism tbh - they have all gone down the same increasingly muddled genre sub genre, five star review route. In terms of theory fo games to theory of film or lit theory yes gaming (and film) has some way to go. Like film, game theory will pick up off (often bad) lit theory.

dan that is too simplistic, a game that I like is a game that is good to me. Okay I concede the point that I can enjoy average games and films, but I am alos often aware they are average.

But if you are aware they are average, then surely you must understand when they get an average score?

@DanW

Its true that a lot of people view 7/10 as average and that mathematically 5/10 should really be the average. I think, however, that this stems from the fact that for most people there is only so much time and money they can dedicate to this hobby, and so the automatic reaction is that there are enough games rated 7,8,9,10 to fill my gaming time so why would I ever bother with a 5 or 6 or below?

I guess for a lot of people '7' is the cut off, the threshold between whether they are prepared to fork over the cash. So '7' probably is 'average' if you were to look at a curve of game sales vs review scores.

Whether it's a five or a six (I was going for the latter for a long time, before the game proceeded to do nothing new for the latter two thirds) doesn't matter. In film parlance, this is a three star game, pretty good, but flawed on a fundamental level. I'm not saying you won't enjoy it. For a while I *did* enjoy it a little bit, but the novelty value of pretty graphics and dismemberment wears very thin the thousandth time you've seen it.

Tbh, I expected a score backlash on this, because first impressions are pretty favorable. I'd have thought the same thing as many, that it's more of a 7...that is until you play it through as see how it develops, or rather how it doesn't develop.

I enjoyed Bladestorm reasonably well but disliked Warrior Orachi, so I suppose will also feel that the value of my money would not worth purchasing this game but still going to give this a rental go.

I've been playing this for the last three days, and whilst it's certainly got it's rough edges, I'm enjoying it. It's a solid 7/10 from me.

Anyone played Demon chaos?

Seems similar to this game, that is a button smasher but with lots (up to 65,000) of enemies on screen at once. But at least Demon Chaos had the thing that while you were almost immortal, you had an army and without the normal useless guys you couldn't beat a stage so most the difficult was keeping your men alive.

Is a shame of score, I liked Spartan total warrior.

@Krudster - IMO a totally linear game like Gears of War or Rainbow Six Vegas which has you taking moving and shooting enemies until the end of the game is far more repetitive than Viking. I feel Viking has enough variety in the open world environments to do that, far more than any shooter anyway. There's some adventuring/exploring to do, new enemies are introduced, there's some platforming bits, collecting stuff like treasures as well as all-out combat and stealthy bits, at times it feels almost like a sandbox game. I'm part way through the last level and I'm certainly not bored of it yet. I had to drag myself away from the game yesterday because it was getting late, always the sign of a good game for me! :)

I played this through to completion over the weekend and can honestly say I've not enjoyed a game this much for months. I think the score is extremely harsh - this deserves at least a 7/10.

Yes, when you look at the combat system in cold logical terms it is fairly simple. But then again, what game isn't?

I don't usually disagree with reviews on this site but I think this time the game has been scored a bit unfairly. Maybe Kristian had a bad weekend...

I think, however, that this stems from the fact that for most people there is only so much time and money they can dedicate to this hobby, and so the automatic reaction is that there are enough games rated 7,8,9,10 to fill my gaming time so why would I ever bother with a 5 or 6 or below?

Aah, but the reason there are enough games rated 7,8,9,10 to fill people's gaming time is because games are still habitually overrated. It's a vicious circle. Sites like Metacritic merely compound the problem - full of 7/10 reviews that describe generic, uninspiring, technically mediocre games - thus cementing the 7/10 cut-off point as the inarguable statistical majority. I've lost track of the number of times I've seem comments denouncing a 6/10 review as wrong because "Metacritic has it at 73%".

Way,way too harsh.

Krudster, I wonder if part of the issue is that due to deadline/time pressures you have to play something like this continually to get through it?

For you the repetition issue is going to be right up there, wheras if you're picking it up and playing for an hour or two like most of us that's really not a problem?

Dan,

I agree that 7 shouldnt be the cut off anf that reviews are naturally warped as a consequence but then arguably, maybe if EG wants to buck this trend of 7 being 'average' it should use something other than a rating out of 10?

Wow so the game I have been loving all weekend is a 5/10? not seen a review on Eurogamer so wrong in some time.

It's a solid 8/10 for me so far.

What amazes me is that Koei's Dynasty Warriors 6 got 8/10 and those games to me are less varied and far more repetitive than Viking but I guess at the end of the day it's one person's opinion. Kristian's review does read like a 5/10 game, which is fine, but there will be those of us who disagree with him. It doesn't mean we're right and he's wrong though, just we don't agree with him.

I didn't rush through the game - certainly no more so than any other game. In fact, I finished the whole thing over the course of about six sessions over four days - hardly a rush.