Product Description

• The story of a Viking Hero. Skarin is an uncompromising force. A plaything of the gods rebelling against their selfish agenda. The definitive Viking warrior.
• Rich Viking Lore. The violent and glorious world of Viking mythology brought to stunning life. Players will write their own legends to be told around the campfire.
• Vast open world environments. Explore, uncover and fight your way across huge next gen worlds full of combat, exploration and quests
• High impact, brutal combat engine. Experience intensely physical melee combat. Dismember enemies with deadly combat moves in a whirlwind of death.
• Mythical Powers. Tame dragons and command them to rain fire upon your enemies. Call on magic and the power of the gods to win the mortal war
• Free your people. Liberate your Viking kinsmen from the clutches of Hel. Earn their trust and their sword arm. Fight alongside them in battle.
• Epic Battles. Lay the foundations for huge battles featuring hundreds of dynamic NPC warriors. Subtly influence the battle through targeted assassination or wade in to save stricken allies. Become one amongst many and turn the tide in favour of your kinsmen.
  
  

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1920 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2008-03-28
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Dimensions: 6.69" h x .79" w x 5.51" l, .26 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

The task of stopping Hel and defending the future of mankind falls to Skarin a promising but deeply flawed young warrior, ignorant of the true reason for his favor with the Gods...

Skarin is an uncompromising force, a play-thing of the Gods rebelling against their selfish agenda in a whirlwind clash of flash and steel set against the back-drop of a rich Viking culture and mythology.

Percussive moment of impact combat, savage and brutal, Vikings combat is a range fuelled meat grinder directed by the player; fusing over-the-top dismemberment with disturbing realism by displaying the gore-soaked real nature of close combat in detail. Transitions in real time from small scale skirmishes to mass battles, become on amongst many and turn the tide in favour of your kinsman.

Customer Reviews

Lack of variety kills it
An average hack and slash game, in which you play a Viking warrior tasked with reclaiming the land from Hels Legion. This involves roaming the lands liberating buildings and people until your army is strong enough to launch an assault on Hels forces.
Sadly all this requires is going to a marker on the map, cleansing it of enemies, and then performing a fetch quest. Sometimes you're required to kill more enemies in order to get the group to join your cause.
It all becomes very repetitious, although one side quest does raise a smile (while investigating a strange noise). Levels have a similar feel to Oblivion, although the graphics are more cartoony.

Viking is at its best during the large scale battles. Yet the frame rate always drops to a near unplayable level. It soon becomes clear all thats required to move onto the next stage is to kill the Shamen as quickly as possible. This ruins the sense of challenge and variety once again.
QTE's are used when slaying larger enemies, which is fine. However, repeatedly tapping O to open a door or a treasure chest quickly gets boring. The sense of immersion is also ruined by the fact Skarin cannot swim or indeed fall from any height without dying.

After the first map is conquered, theres little new Viking has to offer. The missions are repeated (e.g continue to fetch kegs of mead but for a different person, summon a different dragon etc). This isnt a bad game, it just gets boring very quickly.

Good fun hack and slash
Just finished this games yesterday, and I had a lot of fun with it. One of the few games where I wanted to pick it up any free time I had to do the next stage. Good points are good story (with the great BRIAN BLESSED shouting as always!), good graphics, amazing variety of gory kills and some nice cut scenes. However a couple things let it down, the lack of variety and the length of the game, probably completed it in less than 20 hours. However very enjoyable, and definately recommended at the lower price!

Viking: Battle...to stay interested.
The idea behind Viking is a very good one, a third person view action/ adventure game with missions, RPG elements, the ability to chop your foes into bits with very cool finishing moves and huge battles involving dragons. Sounds great, hence why I bought it. But in reality Viking: Battle for Asgard is a load of Pants with a capital P.
The charactor moves very slowly but this is the least of the problems here. Despite the fact you can upgrade your moves, there is very little advantage given in doing this and when in the midst of a battle you inevitably end up button mashing anyway. There are two reasons for this, firstly the new moves do not give you the ability to take out groups of enemies and secondly theres just so many jolly idiots running about like headless chickens, its literally impossible to keep track of where you are or whose limbs you are lopping. The graphics, compared to Assassins Creed, are PS2 standard. No better than God of War...if only it was GOW I'd be a happy man. Alas...
I am currently playing this on hard and its not particularly difficult at all, in fact I've just won my first battle without the help of my trusty winged friend (the dragon) and I simply took out the shamen's and that was it. End of. The missions are boring, less interesting than those found on Assassins Creed (and that may be saying something) and the moves in general are substandard to the likes of god of war and Prince of Persia, although the same principal is used i.e. hit the button when it appears above the foe your are despatching.
So in summary Viking: Battle of Asgard is a cheap rip off of the games mentioned previously. It fails to keep you interested, I doubt I will finish it, and it should have been a PS2 release. So if you are thinking of buying this, please rent before you part with your hard earned cash. I gave this 2 stars for fun as the limb lopping is the only good thing about it. Aside from that...tumbleweed.
P.S. you may be interested to note that I have the new PS3 sixaxis controller with rumble and this game does not even spur the rumbler into action. Not even the slightest vibration.