Great Legends: Vikings

Speak to the leaders of modern religions and they’re full of talk about peace, love, forgiveness and charity. But the Vikings knew how to worship. Theirs was a faith in which you savagely sacrificed your enemy for a seat at Odin’s table, and no one was concerned about following strict doctrines or discussing the virtues of being virtuous.

You hoofed the unbelievers in their nuts, pillaged their village and called it a day of good, hearty religious observance. And if the Gods didn’t like it, then to hell with them.

So it actually makes perfect sense to carve a beat-‘em-up from that Norse mythological rock, and GlobalFun has made an impressive effort to bring the ancient pantheon to video gaming life.

Unfortunately, on his journey from the divine to humanity it seems Odin forgot how to have fun.

Loki and his brood are up to their usual mischief, on the verge of ending the dominion of the Gods. Before Odin can take up a celestial sword to thwart his wayward godly colleague, he’s forced to take human form and do it the hard way - though it naturally still involves killing everything with a battle axe.

Graphically the beat-‘em-up scene is set quite well, with larger than life, slightly manga-esque characters and plenty of rampant testosterone. The controls don’t attempt to do anything fancy, much to the game’s credit, with ‘5’ working as a simple attack button to launch your combat sequences.

The rest of the fighting is pretty much handled through double-taps of the direction keys, which is a decent enough concept though the moves themselves are something of a letdown.

The head butt, kicks and grabs are a little too lacklustre in their execution and limited in their range to encourage you to make much use of them, which is a shame since limiting Odin’s repertoire does Great Legends: Vikings no favours.

It’s a shallow enough game without resorting to button mashing, you see. The game advises you to dash between enemies to build up an attack combo multiplier, yet the levels are distinctly under-populated. On the early missions you could count the number of enemies on one hand and three fingers, and even as the boss battles finally come into play the bland characters you’re up against don’t inspire much fury.

The addition of a magical element and the ability to whip Odin up into an invincible rage makes sincere promises of vigorous brawling just around the corner, yet the game never quite delivers.

You spend more time smashing open barrels for essentially worthless treasure than you do hacking and slashing at thralls, goblins and Loki’s hench-demons, which makes it very difficult to sustain your interest beyond the second level.

Great Legends: Vikings has all the makings of a classic early ‘90s beat-‘em-up, but fails to add that vital energy to the gameplay that this easily misunderstood genre demands. Packing in the moves and an easily bashed attack button doesn’t make a fighting game, and while the graphics do the game justice, the gameplay falls tragically short.

Great Legends: Vikings

An overemphasis on good looks and a mashable attack button leaves Great Legends: Vikings too shallow to care about, and Odin’s trip to thwart his nemesis is a distinctly solitary one. With a few more enemies and a lot more action, this could have been a worthy beat-‘em-up. As it is, it’s more of an RPG without the role playing
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Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.