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By: scott posted Jan 29th, 2011 - 3:20 pm
Magicka is one of the most amazing, and shitty, games I have ever had the opportunity to play. It is a game which, at its core, is lovingly crafted in all the ways that I can't help but enjoy very much. There are so many geeky jokes and references in the game that it is hard to imagine that the development team is anything less than a group of uber-geeks who wanted this game to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Well, it was... but not for the reasons I was expecting. When I purchased this game on Steam I hadn't read any reviews beforehand. The game had just come out that morning and I was excited to try it for myself. The preview video and screenshots had me almost salivating for the opportunity to craft magick out of the different elements and blast my foes to smithereens.
It was with great anticipation that I launched the game for the first time only to have the menu stutter so badly that I spent almost 15 minutes trying to change my resolution to something that the game could handle. Please keep in mind that although my computer is by no means the most powerful gaming rig ever created, it would be considered by most standards to be a high end gaming machine.
I finally settled on 800x600 and the game ran well enough to play with a decent frame rate. Actually playing the game made me giddy. I love all the quirky little things about this game. Everything from the running "I am not a vampire" joke to the gibberish voicing of the NPCs made me grin to myself. There was a very obvious King's Quest reference as well as an achievement by the same name. I was truly immersed and thrilled as the beginning levels unfolded around me.
It wasn't until I had gotten to a harder area that I began to notice the warts. Oh boy, and did it ever have them. One of the issues I've encountered is that I have dual screens and it is possible to accidentally click onto the other screen while you are playing and completely derail the game. You have to click back on the taskbar to get it to come up again and it will resume right where you left off. Unfortunately, that seems to be right before a bomb blows you into tiny giblets. It's too bad that my right click was onto the second desktop and not to blow the bombs back at the goblins.
Speaking of goblins, there are just as many enemies regardless of how many players are playing the game. Yes, you heard me... this game is not balanced for single player. Fuck you if you don't play it multiplayer. Oh, and good luck with that. It's not really working. If you judge by the angry forums it looks like most people feel like me. They want to love this game. They want to defend Paradox. They want to give it glowing reviews but it is just so buggy and terrible that you can't.
There, I said it. I want to give this game a loving and glowing review but right now it seems like that's going to have to wait a while. I will probably re-review this game after what is apparently the public alpha phase is done. I wouldn't even say this game is polished enough to be called a public beta right now. To be fair, Paradox has owned up to how horrible the game is and they are working like crazy to make it work. I tried to get an interview with them prior to writing this review but they didn't respond to me. Hopefully, this is because things are at defcon 5 over there and they are rowing like mad towards some massive game patches.
I feel the need, at this point, to say a few more nice things about the game because this review is feeling a little more harsh than I intended. This game is charming. I love the graphics (even at 800x600) and it is a very stylish game. The spells are interesting and unique and I've enjoyed discovering new combinations of spells. The spell-casting system is incredible, if flawed. Sometimes it is frustrating that the game lags so much that it won't register your elements as fast as you can type them. I am hoping that this one issue will be patched soon along with the rest.
Even with all of its problems Magicka is a game that I've enjoyed. It kind of reminds me of a restaurant where the food is incredible and the service is atrocious. You want to love it. You will keep coming back and hope that the service improves. If it doesn't after a while, you will probably never try it again. At the end of it all, it doesn't matter how much I love the flavor of Magicka... the delivery is all wrong.
Good luck Paradox/Arrowhead! I hope you successfully make the game you set out to make. If you do, I'll be back.
