Valhalla Awaits! | War of the Vikings Review

<p>One of the Steam achievements in <em>War of the Vikings<&sol;em> is entitled Ragnar Lothbrok&comma; who also happens to be the fabled hero of the current TV series Vikings&period; One of the games upgrades is called Blood Eagle Edition&comma; another historical factoid illuminated by the TV series&period; Whilst some devs would try to hide their &OpenCurlyQuote;inspiration’ under a veil of coincidence&comma; it seems Fatshark seem keen to brazenly toss it in our faces&period; I cannot decide if I admire their honesty or deplore their impudence&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There has never been a cooler time to be a Viking though&period; Charging down a hill waggling an axe and screaming something about Valhalla is the flavour of the week right now&period; Gameplay in WotV consists of choosing what kind of warrior you want to play as &lpar;axeman&comma; swordsman&comma; archer&comma; etc&period;&rpar; then hopping onto an online server to battle against other like-minded folk&period; Saxons vs&period; Vikings locked in an epic never-ending struggle&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105518&sol;WOTV-1&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-61546 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105518&sol;WOTV-1-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"WOTV-1" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There is no single-player mode aside from the very basic tutorial&period; Your only foes will be other human opponents from around the interweb&period; Gameplay revolves around learning how to use your weapons effectively&comma; as well as figuring out how to stay alive long enough to use them&period; The basic mechanism of fighting and blocking is directional&comma; and identical to most other historical battlers&period; You swing or block in one of three directions&comma; and use the timing of your power bar to inflict more damage&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There are various types of battles with subtle differences&period; The main battle type allows players just 1 life&comma; and once you die&comma; you stay dead for the rest of the round&period; This discourages reckless digital bravery in favour of decent teamwork&comma; sticking together to overpower the enemy forces&period; However&comma; on deathmatch servers&comma; things tend to be far too random&period;  You spawn very quickly after dying&comma; and it is all too easy to spawn right in front of a band of aggressors&comma; to be dispatched once again before you can so much as soil your tunic&period; This has the added effect that when you carefully check an area for danger and turn away to fire an arrow at your foes&comma; you can then be stabbed from behind by somebody who has just spawned right behind you&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105510&sol;WOTV-2&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-61547 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105510&sol;WOTV-2-1024x576&period;png" alt&equals;"WOTV-2" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There are also some servers that are purely for duelling&period; This is an interesting concept&comma; as you face up against an enemy in a private battle&comma; and other players are not allowed to join in until one of you has died&period; Then someone else can join in and take on the victor&period; So if there are 4 Vikings and only 1 Saxon&comma; each remaining Viking must wait their turn to take on the last Saxon&period; Even when matching up against a potential adversary&comma; you are encouraged to use a gesture to show that you are ready and willing to fight&period; This adds a strange but refreshing etiquette to fighting&period;   There is a thrill to know that if you win&comma; you do so through your own actions&comma; not because somebody shot you in the head whilst you were exchanging bladed pleasantries with somebody else&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Whilst the overall concept of WotV is appealing&comma; there are a number of issues to deal with&period; Firstly the lag problems&period; I have a completely average internet connection with no major problems&period; However&comma; over all the matches I played online&comma; I was auto-kicked from over 50&percnt; of them&period; Most servers have a ping limit&comma; and the second you cross over that line&comma; no matter how briefly&comma; your match is ended and you are unceremoniously dumped back on the title screen&period;  Extremely frustrating&comma; especially if you&&num;8217&semi;re having an intense battle with a really decent bunch of teammates&period; Even worse is the fact that a number of people lag considerably worse without getting kicked&period; It is a common occurrence to swing your sword right through somebody without any hit detection whatsoever&period;  This may be less of an issue overall if there were more localised servers&comma; but there are only ever a few servers that have a low enough latency for people to play on&period; And that is a common complaint from around the world&comma; not just a European issue&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105459&sol;WOTV-3&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-61548 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;05&sol;05105459&sol;WOTV-3-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"WOTV-3" width&equals;"750" height&equals;"421" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Perhaps the biggest issue comes when you consider the previous offering from Fatshark&period; <em>War of the Roses<&sol;em> is a historical 3rd-person slice-em-up in exactly the same fashion&period; Whilst there are indeed a few changes&comma; it is worrying that just by renaming the sides&comma; and adding Viking-esque character skins&comma; you genuinely struggle to identify the difference between the 2 games&period; In fact it is debatable whether WotV is even a real improvement over its predecessor&period;  And the killer blow is that <em>War of the Roses<&sol;em> is a Free-to-Play game so you can keep playing it for an almost identical experience&comma; without paying a single penny&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>So should you buy <em>War of the Vikings<&sol;em>&quest; For most of the gaming public this is a superfluous purchase&period; There is little need to purchase something that is already available for free&period; However&comma; if you happen to have an obsession with everything Viking&comma; and some spare dosh just lying around&comma; then there is certainly fun to be found&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Tonight&comma; we dine in Valhalla&excl;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;