Expeditions: Viking review: Norse by Norse West
I am the oncoming storm.
I am the one who arrives in new lands, who brings destruction upon enemies, whom the Gods favor. I am covered in armor, I wield a sword, I bring pain and blood but also mysticism and faith.
I am the first Viking.
At least, that’s how I feel when playing Expeditions: Viking, the new game from developer Logic Artists.
Never mind that my father just died and I have to inherit his lordly title, or that I have friends and relatives ready to stab me in the back, or even that my father’s death was mysterious and the lands are falling apart — I’m still a badass with a big sword, and I love it.
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Because of emphasis on other aspects of the game, it gives the impression that the visuals were sort of a casualty. Environments look good from a distance, but the closer we get the more rough around the edges they become. Though my PC isn’t as powerful as the latest Titan-based products, it’s only a couple of years old and can hold its own, and fit within the recommended specs of the game. A slightly wet wash seems to cover the world, as if the art direction was trying to bring the in-game digitally painted scenes to polygons and missed the target.
There are some minor technical issues that plague the game as well. Even through the multiple pre-release updates, excruciatingly long loading times make me wonder if the game has stopped functioning or not, and the screen scroll can be unpredictable. None of these are game-breaking, and are typically the kind that are worked out in post-release patches, but they do slow me down at times.
Getting past a few of these annoyances leads to the kind of experience that may very well bring me back to PC gaming. The expert mix of mysticism, exploration and authenticity leads to an engaging history lesson, and the combat and game mechanisms provide depth and replayability that I can see lasting an entire Summer. It’s a game worthy of the subject it hopes to teach us about. Expeditions: Viking has me donning the armor and soul of one of antiquity’s greatest human weapons, and I’m ready to do it again.
Time to get my mind sharp and my sword bloody.
