Nordic Nonsense – Zombie Vikings Review

<p><em>Zombie Vikings <&sol;em> is the sophomore effort from developer Zoink Games and is again profusely demonstrable of their distinct visual style and dedication to bizarre humor&period; In achieving this uniquely weird and fun tone that has quickly become their calling card&comma; <em>Zombie Vikings<&sol;em> is supremely successful and it is only in the moment-to-moment gameplay that things begin to get a little more complicated&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Zombie Vikings <&sol;em>sets the pace for irreverent silliness as soon as it opens with a slapstick scene where in the gods of viking lore get into a goofy tiff &&num;8211&semi;Loki steals Odin&&num;8217&semi;s eye after making fun of his glittery war staff and runs off with it&comma; pretty much as a &&num;8220&semi;just because he can&&num;8221&semi; prank&period; Odin vows revenge and resurrects four truly unique &&num;8220&semi;zombie vikings&&num;8221&semi; each with their own twist&semi; one is part octopus&comma; another part crow&comma; and another feels like a bomb-vomiting twist on Sonic the hedgehog&period; Odin explains that he needs them to go on an epic quest to retrieve his eye from Loki&period; The resurrected vikings are invigorated and speculate as to what the world-saving gravity of this quest is before Odin quickly crushes that dream and explains that he just really wants it back&period; He then tosses the foursome a set of keys to his longboat and they set off on a hack and slash adventure to find his eye&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;wegotthiscovered&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;ZombieVikings&lowbar;screenshot10-w800-h600-640x360&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Zombie Vikings&comma; Zoink Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>This signature style of wacky tongue-in-cheek humor is ever present throughout the <em>Zombie Vikings&&num;8217&semi; <&sol;em>adventure and is no doubt where it shines most&period; It positively oozes that Zoink Games humor with everything from millennial cracks at Instagram and hash tags&comma; to a large cat character who&&num;8217&semi;s obsessed with cat pops &&num;8212&semi; basically other cats tied to sticks &&num;8212&semi; and it somehow continues to get weirder at every turn and never disappoints with each new character and cut scene&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The combat is a lot of what you would expect from the genre&semi; an attack and signature attack that both have variations based on pressing&comma; holding&comma; or fully charging them&comma; a block&comma; roll&comma; jump&comma; and the ability to pick up and throw items or other characters&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s simple and straight forward which can work well&comma; but it all has a feel that was really difficult to wrap my head around&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ll admit it comes together a little more as you play&comma; but the two biggest issues for me were not enough combat feedback to understand what is happening and a confusing plane ambiguity&period; When you&&num;8217&semi;re attacking or being attacked&comma; there is no real visceral feedback&period; You can block &lpar;and even counter&rpar; attacks but the timing is tricky and even beyond that it&&num;8217&semi;s just really difficult to understand where the hit boxes start and end &&num;8212&semi; both on you and your enemies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Unlike something like <em>Little Big Planet<&sol;em> where there are three distinct planes to shift between&comma; <em>Zombie Vikings <&sol;em>has you playing anywhere among a large variety where you can move left and right&comma; up and down&comma; and even to other sections of each level with a great degree of freedom&period; This sounds great in theory&comma; and all of the environments look great with that signature Zoink Games style bleeding out of every frame&comma; but it is just immensely difficult to determine what can hit you and what can&&num;8217&semi;t&comma; and what&&num;8217&semi;s within your attack&&num;8217&semi;s range&period; This only gets more complicated with more people on screen&comma; but the innate chaos of multiplayer makes it less difficult than managing combat by yourself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;push-start&period;co&period;uk&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;09&sol;ZombieVikings&lowbar;screenshot05&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Zombie Vikings&comma; Zoink Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Therein lies my biggest problem with such a decidedly humor-filled game with such an appealing style around every corner&semi; it is infinitely better with the more people involved and much harder to enjoy by yourself&period; I unfortunately didn&&num;8217&semi;t have anyone available to play the game with me for review and found its frustrating solo gameplay far outweighed its appealing personality&period; The humorous personality makes this a great game to cruise through for the story&comma; trophies&comma; and casual experience&comma; but the combat didn&&num;8217&semi;t appeal to me enough and was far too challenging solo to be fun&period; My lonesome friendless existence aside&comma; thanks to either the matchmaking system or just not enough people looking for games&comma; I was never really able to play multiplayer&period; I once waited 20 minutes for a coop game only to find one person who never hit ready after waiting another ten minutes&period; After two or three similar experiences&comma; I finally found someone to play with and started losing interest after playing a few more levels&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;images&period;pushsquare&period;com&sol;news&sol;2015&sol;08&sol;first&lowbar;impressions&lowbar;bashing&lowbar;our&lowbar;brainnns&lowbar;against&lowbar;ps4s&lowbar;zombie&lowbar;vikings&sol;attachment&sol;1&sol;original&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Zombie Vikings&comma; Zoink Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Zombie Vikings <&sol;em>stirs up that poignantly familiar feeling of wanting so badly to enjoy playing a game because of its high points&comma; but not being able to push myself through the parts that don&&num;8217&semi;t work&period; Yes&comma; there were some really significant screen tearing and framerate issues at launch&comma; but I can hardly blame developers for such issues with the way games are pushed into release dates today &&num;8212&semi; especially since there have already been two patches for the game and I&&num;8217&semi;ve noticed no technical issues since&period; The ability to customize your character&&num;8217&semi;s build with unique weapons and runes is a great idea&comma; especially when all of that humor extends to their descriptions and effects&period; However&comma; I quickly found that there were always one or two of each category that far surpassed the benefits of every other&comma; leaving me stuck with only those choices if I wanted to an advantage in gameplay&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A PS4 review code for Zombie Vikings was provided by Zoink Games for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;