Viking Battle for Asgard is looking *phenomenal*

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_6196_e...

Why in all the publicity stuff Sega has put out for this game did they fail to mention it's an RPG with wide open environments and exploration!?!

This looks so far up my alley, went from "eh sort of interested" to "Hot Damn! Now, want NOW".

They need to do better with their publicity. It's been well under my radar for some time, every trailer I've seen frames it up as some kind of random hack and slasher. This is the first indication I've seen that they're doing a more open world style.

This trailer is a fine example of how not to do it.

Color me interested now! Looks like it could be a sleeper.

The one thing that stood out for me was the high level of polish in character animation. All of Skarin's movements look agile, responsive, and squeaky-clean. The same can be said of both his allies and enemies, which makes one wonder how they ever manage to have the system handle hundreds of units on a battlefield simultaneously, and seemingly without slowdown.

It was the first chapter that was shown in the trailers, which is treated more as a tutorial, meant to prepare the player for the things to come. With that in mind, I can understand the less than exciting combat, which suffered more from the bland and weak enemies rather than Skarin's versatile combat style. I can also stomach the repetitive nature of the quests, which, as seen in the trailers, seem to consist of little more than force-opening a series of identical cages, freeing groups of identical Viking warriors, and clearing the areas of all identical mobs. The final epic battle showed more promise, but still ended up providing a fairly simple challenge. I'd like to see more of the game, especially the challenges players will face later on.

Sinatar wrote:

Why in all the publicity stuff Sega has put out for this game did they fail to mention it's an RPG with wide open environments and exploration!?!

It is? I thought it was a God of War clone (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing). Either way, it looks good to me.

Sinatar wrote:

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_6196_en.html

Why in all the publicity stuff Sega has put out for this game did they fail to mention it's an RPG with wide open environments and exploration!?!

ZONK?!
count me in!

EDIT: I've watched first part and it looks much better than I've expected. Game looks great (it's a good example of making nice game without going over the edge with tech), animation is fluid, my only objection is some of the art/animation/presentation style. I've played Fable, and I'm done with these kinds.
Also, sensible plot + narrative would be much appreciated.

Certis wrote:

They need to do better with their publicity. It's been well under my radar for some time, every trailer I've seen frames it up as some kind of random hack and slasher. This is the first indication I've seen that they're doing a more open world style.

This trailer is a fine example of how not to do it.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/3...
This one was better one. I wonder, maybe they used some sort of catch-phrase generator?
"I remember a time when we were NOT at the endless war" (see? we're at endless war? know what i'm saying?)
"the most deadly weapon"
"the ultimate revenge"
And my favourite: "He's viking! He's VIKING! HE'S VIKING!"

Thanks, Sinatar! This was on my radar before, but knowing that it has simple RPG elements makes it all the sweeter. I am definitely interested now!

This one also came out of nowhere for me. I downloaded a trailer off XBLM and my interest jumped from zero to "Gadzooks!"

I'll be keeping a close eye on GWJ for some impressions.

Wow, thanks for pointing that stuff out! Was completely off the radar. Which is crazy, considering it's suppose to come out next week.

Y'know, um.... I'm viking. I'm VIKING! I'm VIKING!

Just sayin'...

Ooh. Thanks for pointing this one out, Sin.
Looks like it could be one for the 'if I ever pick up a 360' pile.

I'm holding out for a while despite how interesting it looks. While all the gameplay footage looks enticing, almost every hands-on preview I've read mentions how awkward the controls are.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Y'know, um.... I'm viking. I'm VIKING! I'm VIKING!

Thinking about it now, that would make a perfect cell phone ring. I think I'm gonna extract audio from this trailer.

kuddles wrote:

I'm holding out for a while despite how interesting it looks. While all the gameplay footage looks enticing, almost every hands-on preview I've read mentions how awkward the controls are.

Isn't it out already? I thought it was slated for Easter release.

I just noticed in the trailer that it was developed by Creative Assembly, the same folks who made the Total War games (Rome, Medieval, etc.), and the reasonably well-regarded last-gen Spartan: Total Warrior. Seems like a good pedigree for this type of game.

KillerTomato wrote:

I just noticed in the trailer that it was developed by Creative Assembly, the same folks who made the Total War games (Rome, Medieval, etc.), and the reasonably well-regarded last-gen Spartan: Total Warrior. Seems like a good pedigree for this type of game.

Interesting, well I liked all three of their previous games but I think it's still gamefly for me.

Now I know what I'm trading Condemned in for, thanks man.

How did this one slip? I'll still wait for the reviews.. but.. man...

I will probably rent it. As much as I love Creative Assembly fot their 4X strategies, I'm weary of such a huge genre jump.

Skippy wrote:

I will probably rent it. As much as I love Creative Assembly for their 4X strategies, I'm weary of such a huge genre jump.

This is a completely different area of the studio, the same that did Spartan: Total Warrior. Almost none of the team are the same as those who worked on the Total War series.

Spartan: Total Warrior was pretty trite, but it was their first stab at it. I'm hoping they're applying a lot of lessons learned to this new one.

Quicktime events. Yippee.

TeamXbox - 8.2 (Link)

D+ on 1Up. I think that counts as a fail. Dammit.

I'll still end up taking one for the team on this one. I am after all that guy. You know, that guy you all know one of. The one who actually likes the Dynasty Warriors games (of which this bears more then a passing resemblance).

Yea thats me.

Sinatar wrote:

I'll still end up taking one for the team on this one. I am after all that guy. You know, that guy you all know one of. The one who actually likes the Dynasty Warriors games (of which this bears more then a passing resemblance).

Yea thats me.

I'm with you.

I bought Conan.

Game rankings has the average at 68.3% http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpage...

I'm going to gamefly this one, and hold out to purchase Too Human instead, because of it's co-op oriented play. singleplayer beat-em-ups just get old after a while to me, and I inevitably wish I'd just rented them for 2 week snstead of buying. But randomly generated co-op dungeons? Skill trees similar to WoW? Epic loot drops and multiple group-oriented classes? Yeah, I'll wait for TH.

I rented both this and Dark Sector today. I've likely made a horrible, horrible mistake. Two games enter, one game leaves!

Certis wrote:

I rented both this and Dark Sector today. I've likely made a horrible, horrible mistake. Two games enter, one game leaves!

Sounds like you're about to have an average weekend! I'll be waiting for your reviews.. I really, really want to kill things Viking style.

On one hand, I can definitely see why this game isn't reviewing incredibly well. On the other, I've played about three hours tonight and I've enjoyed myself despite the wading pool shallow design. There's plenty to like here if you're into cutting bad guys in half and calling in the occasional dragon. I'm not sure why people complain about the lack of a tagetting system. I think it flows fine without it since the game isn't all that technical a fighter anyways. Just keep in mind this isn't Oblivion, this is crackdown with less to do and no buildings to climb.

I don't regret renting it, but I'm glad I didn't make the full purchase.

Thanks to everyone who saved me $60 on this game. I'll wait the 3 months until it is clearanced out at Target for $15.

I'll give it a rent then.
In the meantime this will be on loop to get me "stoked".