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One of the first books I remember checking out from the library detailed Norse mythology and legend. Thinking back on that work, it bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the world of Viking: Battle for Asgard and its hero, Skarin. Who knew that Mjolnir was actually the third dragon gem?! All this time, I'd bought the story about that big guy Thor, his hammer, and thunderbolts. Incidentally, the first two dragonstones are Hugin and Munin - despite what you may have heard about them being Odin's ravens. Don't bother with Odin, by the way ... who needs the enigmatic all-father of Asgard when we can have a catfight between two of the goddesses in Norse mythology! Rawr!

*sigh*

OK, it's obvious that I was disappointed in the complete and utter lack of adherence to source material. Lying that aside, what did I think of Viking: Battle for Asgard?

The story begins on the smallest of the continents of Midgard, which has been overrun by the Legion - the demon forces of the goddess Hel. Beginning with the last Viking stronghold, a Viking warrior named Skarin (that's you) will single-handedly free besieged warriors, liberate resource-producing areas like mills and quarries, and assassinate important Legion targets. This evens the battle to the point that the forces of good - serving the goddess Freya - can enter a huge battle for the island's main stronghold, and free it from Legion.

This process grows more complex on the next island, which is larger and more firmly in Legion's grasp, and culminates on the third island - where Hel herself has chosen to entrench in a fortress swarming with Legion forces. Not bad!

There’s also something about a love story between Skarin and Freya ... and there's the fact that Skarin is touched by Fenris so he has horrid visions that make him a pariah, despite the fact that he's saving people left, right, and sideways. We never really see much of these visions, but they are there and they're a big part of the story! Then there's something about freeing Fenris once Hel is dead ... and, and ... oh man - let's just pretend there's no story, aside from "heroic, young Viking warrior kicks butt to save his people." OK?

As you might imagine, liberated Vikings want to lend you a hand and they do so according to their means. Warriors join your army amassing back at the stronghold of Freya, while craftsmen give you items to help you in your battles. From flame potions (think grenades) to throwing axes, and health potions to max-health boosters, you'll grow a tidy inventory of weapons including magical runes on your blades.

Flame potions function, as noted, exactly like grenades - great fun! My biggest complaint is that Skarin takes a bit of time to throw them, and any hit taken during that time stops the throw ... but costs you the potion. This makes them a long-range weapon, typically used in alpha strikes, and while that's fun - the opportunities to use them are very, very limited. Throwing axes are also provided for purchase, and are a very simple lock-on weapon capable of taking out a scout or patrolling Legion peon before they can call out for help. The mystic runes imbue your weapons with the power of the elements: fire, ice, and lightning. Using these powers will require rage which you build in battle. Each use will begin draining your rage - and won't stop until it's gone - but while you're amped up on the elements, you really can dish the hurt. It's a nice Ace in your sleeve.

Basic combat in Viking is very hack and slash. There's also some hacking, and more slashing. Past that you have hacking, and also slashing. You get the idea. You have a generic "block" ability that is an adirectional defense mode. Attacking while blocking will shoulder charge the enemy, knocking them off balance for carving. The carving itself is largely a string of basic combos, finished off with execution moves or stunning blows to allow further combo-ing.

You also have special moves which require combo points. A point is awarded each time you strike an enemy with a basic attack or combo swing; using these points to launch special attacks gets you instakill flurries, shield-breaker swings, quick charges, or fast strikes laden with extra power. Combos and special attacks can be overkill - which is great fun to watch as enemies will veritably explode in the face of your assault - but this comes at a price. Ideally, you want to reduce your enemy to a dazed ruin that isn’t quite dead. At that point, you launch an execution that will involve splitting of the torso, rending of limbs, or the old favorite: decapitation. This execution generates red orbs which you collect for rage, which will power your elemental attacks.

Also of note is your jump button. Though typically not a good idea in combat, if you can land a jumping strike you'll score big damage and either disarm your enemy or shatter their shield as appropriate. Should you jump while a holding defensive pose, you'll quickly dodge back from enemy attacks, leaving you in great position to counter attack as you see fit. Typically, the combat I have described above comes against small groups of opponents - four or five at most - and occurs at small targets such as farms. A few Vikings will be held there, so they're not watched over by many Legion.

You see there are a lot of "sideline" missions in Viking. The only other type of combat that you engage in is the pattern-matching movie-style Quicktime fights that come about when you battle enemy champion units. It's as simple as can be, really; see an "A" on screen? Push A. See a flashing "Y"? Push Y repeatedly. While you do this, a movie of Skarin kicking butt plays in the background. It's entirely too zoomed in, and not really that interesting all things considered, but hey - kicking butt is always nice! It's a small mini-game that isn't particularly inspired but certainly doesn't detract from the game.

Another type of combat mission is the stealth mission. In this circumstance, you're infiltrating a venue with so many Legion that you can't hope to wade in and take them all out, no matter how awesome you are. This is reinforced by infinite waves of reinforcements that will arrive in the face of direct engagement! The justification for these missions is pretty decent. In one instance you’ll need to get an artifact from the fortress that Legion has occupied. In another, you sneak in to assassinate a Viking betrayer so his former comrades will join your army and abandon their quest for vengeance. You only fight when you have to and you sneak through the rest of the time.

You're aided in this pursuit by several ambush attacks that kill quickly and completely as the bulk of these missions is climbing and dashing into places where you can kill off sentries and sneak by their posts. The main issue with these is that the places you infiltrate are big, and there isn't always an obvious path. That's very realistic, I imagine, but for free-time gaming it can occasionally be a bit frustrating. You're never quite sure you're on the right path, even when you know you're headed in basically the right direction; and hitting what feels like a brick wall when you're not sure it's a brick wall is always a pain. But overall, I thought these missions were a great mix of basic stealth and sudden combat. Nothing too intense regarding painstaking infiltration, and a nice break from the hacking and slashing of basic Legion whacking!

The massive battles that you undertake are probably the coolest part of V:BfA. The basic mechanic for each battle is that a series of large arenas are created, and hundreds of Viking warriors and Legion soldiers go at it in the presented terrain. Each side has shaman who summon in reinforcements at set periods, so protecting your shaman is paramount. You won't be protecting shaman, per se, so just focus on killing the enemy shaman as fast as you can. The best defense is a good offense and whatnot!

The Legion has a series of champion-style units that kicks butt in certain areas. You are the counter to these units. It greatly behooves you to find and slaughter giants, champions, and the like for two reasons: 1) They stop pounding on your guys, who are then free to kill more Legion foot soldiers, and 2) You can pull dragon runes from their dead bodies. These dragon runes can be used to call in strikes from dragons that you've summoned and befriended. There's a story-based explanation for this - but remember, we're ignoring the story. It's for the best. Anyways, spending some dragon runes allows you to select a strategic target from the battle overview, and direct your scaly friends to blow it to heck. It really is that simple!

Once you've killed the enemy shaman, your warriors mop up and everyone moves on to the next arena-style battlefield, complete with more challenges. If you win each arena, the battle is yours! My one complaint about the battles in general is that it's far too hard to get rage built up. It's almost impossible, really. It's so cool to launch off your fire runes and watch all the Viking swords catch fire while your warriors go to town, I wish it happened more. Sadly, once you spent that initial wave of elemental fury you'll have a hard time building up enough executions to launch any more meaningful power-assaults.

The assaults are exceptionally cool except for one, well, two. The battle at Hel's Citadel is the ultimate mass assault, and it (and the "mission" immediately following it) are worst executed pieces of the game. Enemy shaman are placed on these wooden towers that you have to scale using ramps around the sides. The towers are very easy to fall off of in the course of fighting, yet enemies seem to leap onto them from nowhere. The towers are also rife with snag-points for your camera, which keep you from being able to see the battle. If you can see, it's probably at some odd angle that makes targeting hard and that can be exacerbated by the sheer volume of enemies.

In such close quarters you also lose a lot of the furious, charging attacks that make fighting as Skarin fun. OK, you don't lose them - but if you use them you're at risk of charging off the side like a bull past a matador. A successfully gutted and skewered matador, granted, but what does that matter when you've fallen down? Again.

Also problematic in this battle are the close-quarters hallways you must fight through in Hel's Citadel. The camera issues continue for much the same reason, but "falling off the side" is replaced with "stepping into a wall of flame" which damages you for a fairly high amount. The good news? You can totally cheese these hallways. I know - that doesn't sound good (and it isn't), but at least it's a way to combat the bad. Enemies spawn at set triggers on the floor, so if you kill one batch you can stand around and wait for health to regenerate before stepping forward enough to trigger the next enemies. Lame? Yes. But, it helps ease the sting of all that flame damage you shouldn't have taken, but did because of the crappy targeting abilities in the hallway.

The few last bits of miscellany that I want to mention involve the terrain in Viking, the red fury orbs, and a particular set of achievements that annoyed me. First, I'll tackle the achievements. "Skullbagger" is an achievement that has you looking for red skulls in and around the stealth missions. Great fun, nice addition, you might think! Problem is, some of the skulls are basically impossible to get to without committing suicide to get to them. Googling leads me to believe that the way a whole lot of people get the skulls is by running around like a Keystone Cop while being chased by Legion that are finally going to catch and kill you. That's completely against the theme of the mission, and while it's abstractly funny, I think it was an ill-conceived achievement just thrown in to give people something hard to try to accomplish ... that people immediately cheesed. (Brie not cheddar.)

Next are the red fury orbs. They're somewhat "sticky" as to fly towards you when you get close, but they're not sticky enough. You can kill a guy on the edge of a cliff, and his orbs shoot out over the edge. Even creeping to the very edge, you can't grab his orbs and get fury for the kill. In mass battles, you can't always get the orbs from your executions; and it's hard to get executions in mass battles - not to mention how cool having fury is for the massed rushes. Were this my game, I'd have just awarded static fury for completed executions - screw the orbs.

Lastly, Viking is a terrifically "leveled" game. Sometimes, excessively so. You have a mini-map that shows you objectives (actually, it's a magical amulet - the Brisingamen - but there's no story in Viking ... this we have sworn) represented by tiny dots in a black field. The problem I found is this black field doesn't show terrain. You could have an objective 5 feet in front of you, and 200 feet up a cliff. Nine times out of ten, the solution is to run 50 feet to your right, where there's a ramp. The ramp leads 100 feet back left and upwards. Then another 100 feet back right. Then 50 feet back left. OK, seriously, did we really need the switchback trail to be that long? I get it - I'm going uphill...just get me there!

While I have spent the latter part of this review complaining, I should stress that the game is a lot of mindless combat fun. The massed battles really are cool, and it's a shame that the last one was such a pain. The story may be weird and nonsensical, but the artwork used to present it is pretty neat. The combat may be somewhat basic, but there's something fun about cutting through a small crew of Legion and chopping off their arms. The stealth missions may be big and vague, but popping up behind a sentry, killing him with a single blow, only to sneak off into the night is quality entertainment.

I was not truly disappointed with Viking: Battle for Asgard except in the utterly ridiculous storyline. The game had some issues here and there in its various mechanics and missions, but that seems to be par for the course in today's day and age. As such, those of you that like to rend and chop will probably dig Viking: Battle for Asgard! (Just remember, there is no story beyond, "heroic, young Viking warrior kicks butt to save his people!")