News, reviews, videos, GameFret updates, you never know what you'll find in our blog so check it often.
By: scott posted Feb 4th, 2011 - 7:13 pm
I have to say it... I am so glad I bought Magicka. I want to also say how impressed I am with Arrowhead for working around the clock to fix all of the bugs that plagued the launch of this truly delightful game.
It would have been easy for them to patch the game weeks later, fixing all the bugs in one fell swoop, but that's not what they did. Apparently, there is a massive team of two programmers working on this game and they must be downing Red Bull and coffee non-stop because the patches just keep coming.
When I first reviewed Magicka, I said it was one of the most amazing games I had ever played were it not for the bugs. As of the time of this writing, I have not encountered a single one of those bugs that had ruined the experience for me before.
Magicka is everything I thought it could be: charming, thrilling, hilarious, interesting, and a time vampire of the highest order. (Vlad isn't a vampire, in case you were wondering.)
The game creates a lot of replay value by making the list of spells you can cast and combine nearly endless. Many of my favorite spells are ones I came up with by experimenting. It seems as if I am constantly finding new ways to obliterate my foes.
The game is very similar to other dungeon crawlers in appearance and perspective. It has a diagonal overhead perspective and bright, colorful artwork. The gameplay involves walking around by clicking in the direction you'd like to go. As you walk around exploring or completing objectives you are attacked by various monsters, goblins, and other things that go bump in the night.
The game is linear and follows a set storyline. Although there is not much to explore, doing so usually is a good thing because that's how you usually find new spell books and weapons. The spell books give you one of the 22 pre-made spells in the game. You cast them by combining the elements in the order that the spell requires and hitting the space bar.
Many of these spells are required to beat the game or are extremely useful as the game goes on. Some of them I didn't seem to use as much as the others but I can definitely see how they might come in handy when playing with other people sometimes.
Speaking of spells...
The spell effects are gorgeous and this game looks incredible. The audio is respectable and I honestly can't find any single thing to nitpick about the game as it stands now. Arrowhead should be very proud of themselves and their achievements with this title.
Magicka is one of those rare games that comes along and defines a new genre of game. I honestly expect clones to come out of the woodworks and I also expect the spell system to end up in other games as well.
I am so glad that it turned out to be the game I wanted it to be because I have had so much fun playing this game that it is easy to lose track of everything else I should be doing.
It's still very challenging as a single-player game but I have also had the opportunity to play multi-player. It gets even more fun with three people to play with you. The great news is that this game is only ten dollars! Go buy it right now on Steam. Trust me, this game is easily worth double the price.
One word of caution. This game does not do well on integrated graphics cards and the developer would rather spend time adding features and content than optimizing the game. Definitely download the demo and make sure it will work on your system before pulling the trigger. If it does, you are in for the ride of your life.
This is how video games should be.
