Viking is one of those games that flies in under the radar. The game you see that has one copy at your local retail store. Made by a company who hasn't really done anything decent recently, and really didn't make a splash with critics. But for one reason or another urges you to give it a try, and impresses you with something unique but ultimately falls into the average category. So what's the unique part of Viking?

Well it's definitely not the story. It's borrows elements of God of War and Black & White. You play as Skarin, a silent viking warrior who is almost completely destroyed in the heat of battle when the viking god Freya steps in and offers you a deal; kill her nemesis Hel and she'll spare your life. Of course Skarin accepts and thus you begin your journey to Hel's fortress to eliminate her for your god.

Nothing too special, and the story really doesn't keep you interested. You understand what you have to do, and why you're doing it, but you really don't care all that much.

Despite some issues, Viking actually looks pretty decent. Character models are good, the environments are convincing, and the number of enemies on-screen can be staggering. Overall though Viking does enough to make it good, but nothing to make it incredible. It plays it safe.

The graphics aren't great but it doesn't look to shabby either

There are some issues though. Walking on hills doesn't tilt your character in the appropriate direction, so when you're fighting you're always fighting as if you're on a flat surface. Looks kind of awkward, and hinders the gameplay a little (but more on that later.) In addition, lighting is pretty bad. You'll constantly see dynamic shadows that are glitching and flickering. Also, for some reason, mouths on characters don't move while they're speaking which looks really bad.

The unique part of Viking is certainly not the audio. For some reason the audio will randomly go really quiet, to the point where you're wondering if your tv is going dead. And then suddenly it all kicks back in. When it does work, however, it sounds pretty good. Voices aren't all that bad, and the sounds of swinging swords, dragon screeches, and warriors fiercely battling are quite good; when you can hear them.

The developers went with a no music style to the main gameplay. So when you're trekking through the island, the music will only kick in if you're in a battle for a village or encampment. The rest of the time the only thing you'll hear are the sounds of your footsteps, or environment-specific sounds like rain falling or birds chirping. When the music does cut in though, you know you've got a fight on your hands and it's actually quite a highlight.

Viking is a 3rd person hack and slash game with a cool twist; large scale fortress assaults. But more on that later.

The main premise of the game is to rebuild your army and take over each island. To do that you have to go around the island freeing enslaved members of your army and liberating other viking establishments. To do that all you have to do is hack and slash your way through the enemies defending that position, and free the people from their binds or cages by rapidly tapping one of the face buttons. Once their freed and the camp is liberated, they'll either return to your main base or re-establish the camp you just liberated. Sometimes these camps will give you extra missions as well, but they end up being little more than go here, kill them, bring me back this.

The actual hack and slash portion of the game isn't all that bad. You use one face button for a quick attack, one for a slower heavy attack, and another for jumping. The left trigger is used to blog, and while held down you can do other moves with by pressing the quick and heavy attack face buttons. You can also unlock combos from the local battle arena using gold you collect through your adventures. To use those combos you have to hold down the left bumper and hit either the heavy or quick attack button a certain amount of times to do certain combos. One combo is better at breaking shields, while another is really fast to get some of the quicker smaller enemies you'll face from Hel's Legion. Using these combos takes up combo points which you gain from using normal quick or heavy attacks. So you have to balance between blocking, combo attacks, and normal attacks in order to be successful.

With great looking hack and slash like this, what could go wrong?

At your base you can buy magic runes which give your sword and axe special qualities. The fire rune makes your enemies catch fire when you hit them, the ice rune freezes them or slows them depending on the size of the enemy, and the lightning rune stuns them and does a bit of damage. Personally I found the lightning rune pretty useless, and the ice rune to be the most effective. The only setback to the ice ruin is that when you kill enemies with it they don't drop magic orbs to refill the magic meter you need to use the rune in the first place. It's a good balance and ends up quite fun.

Also at your base you can buy basic supplies like health positions, throwing axes, health upgrades, and maps that make treasure chests that provide gold appear on your radar.

So you go back and forth from your bases and camps, liberating and fighting legion after legion. Once you've freed all the camps and liberated all the villages, it's time for the best part and the most unique part of the game; full scale Lord of the Rings style battles. I don't think this many enemies has ever been on screen and in-game at once. And this isn't one of those fake in-game things where you see the enemies in the distance, or it's a toned down version of the combat system you've been using all along. This is the same combat system, but with tons of your allies rushing in at tons of Hel's Legion. It's an incredible sight to see and be apart of, slashing your way through tons of enemies along side your army.

The goal of these large scale battles is to defeat the shamans inside, which are summoning reinforcements to the battle. You have to make your way to them, break the 5 shield pedestals around them, and then cut them into piece with one press of the heavy attack button. In addition, there are giant monsters in the battlefield with large swords, or giant trolls that look eerily similar to the ones in Lord of the Rings. If you are able to take them down (which amounts to hacking the stuffing out of them until a quick time action event takes place) you'll receive dragon runes, with which you can summon dragons to take down the shamans for you, or to take down archers to give you an edge. Usually taking down the shamans is smart