Viking: The Battle for Asgard is an action adventure/hack n' slash which follows in the footsteps laid down by Conan which followed in the footsteps laid down by God of War. It has the tragic hero. It has legions of bad guys which your tragic hero stomps on. It has lots of brutal, brutal violence. It even has quick-time-events. The only thing it's really missing are environmental puzzles. And you know what? I'm ok with that. For me, the puzzles in God of War were always just another thing getting in the way of bashing on monsters. The really new thing that Viking brings to the table is colossal battles between a Viking army that you raise (which includes dragons) and the legions of Hel.

The sheer enormity of the battles in Viking evidence some serious technical skills on the part of Creative Assembly, which is only relevant, of course, if the game is any fun. And it is. I have been glued to my 360 pretty much non-stop for the last for four days.

As often happens in such games, the first thing you get to see is your hero, Skarin, fall in a battle against Hel's legion (For those unfamiliar: Hel is an evil goddess who rules in the underworld, not a misuse of the word "hell"). He is then resurrected and granted limited immortality by the Norse goddess Freya. She calls him "my mortal" and "my champion" and other such things. Skarin can, of course, be killed. But he always comes back.

So, as Skarin, you must run about the Nordic country-side stomping on Hel's legion and rescuing other Vikings so that you may build an army to retake the lands that Hel has claimed. To build his army, Skarin must reclaim farms, quarries, vineyards (those Vikings love their booze) and various Viking camps. You must also find various dragon gems so that powerful dragons may be summoned to help you in your fight against Hel. While the "main events" of the story happen in a linear-ish fashion, you're free to do gather your army in pretty much any order you like. This is a little less apparent in the early game which gives a great deal of direction to you, but once you finish the first island (there are three), you're pretty much left alone to save the world in the order of your choosing.

So what of these battles then? The first, and perhaps most important thing, that comes to mind is: holy crap. Once you gather your army and summon your dragon, you're off to do battle with hordes of bad guys in effort to reclaim a major city. These battles have literally hundreds of warriors fighting in them. The scale is astounding. You of course, being the hero, aren't there to battle with mere minions. Your place as the general and super hero is to remove the big targets and to command the dragons. To command the dragons, you'll need to earn dragon runes. You do this by finding legion commanders and giving them the beat down. Then you can open up the tactical screen and direct your dragon to burn up one of the enemy shamans, which are typically the hardest target. If you feel like taking them down yourself, you're welcome to it, but it's a pain. Other possible targets for your dragons may include groups of archers or giants.

Once you run out of dragon runes, of course, you are going to have to get rid of those shaman the hard way. As with the gathering of your army, these wars can be fought however you like. You can focus on earning dragon runes by killing commanders and giants by hand, or you can focus on taking out the shamans and archers by your own hand. So long as that shamans go down, one way or the other, you'll win the battle. The shamans are key because they're the ones summoning the demon army that your army has to fight.

Each target town will have a set of portal stones which is the real target for capture. Once the main army is taken care of, there's usually some boss guy sitting there that you'll have to take care of. Surprisingly, those fights aren't insanely hard. It's just you and the one bad guy. So, the careful tactician will win the day, or at least, on opportunity to partake in a scripted quick-time-event. Many people hate these, but in the context of scripted boss fights, they have some merit. And Viking does them better than I've seen before. Each kind of boss has a specific set of quick-time-events which require a specific set of button presses. For each boss, they're always the same. This means that you can learn them. And since the QTE timer in Viking is fairly lenient, you're not going to be unduly frustrated by having to do them over and over again to get them right. In the end, they just end up feeling like a special combo that's required to kill that specific boss, rather than the target of hate and derision which is their usual lot.

As with any game in the hack n' slash genre, combat is a many button, many combo affair. You've got light attacks, heavy attacks, blocking, rage, and rage crystals. Rage is used to power your elemental attacks, and the crystals to power many of your special moves. As you kill legion, little red orbs will float up filling your rage bar. By placing fire, ice or lighting runes on your sword you can add the elements to your attacks which will use the rage you've built up. The more brutally you kill your enemy, the more red orbs you get. More red orbs means a fuller rage bar, which means a longer boost of elemental power. I'm partial to the ice rune. Nothing like turning your opponents into ice cubs and then shattering them into itty bitty pieces.

Rage crystals are gained on pretty much every solid, damage dealing hit you deal. So, while you can only have five at a time, don't save em up, they refill very quickly. These are used for special attack combos which (in my experience) have three main uses: breaking shields, killing assassins, and trying to escape from a jam. Once you get a feel for how fast they fill up, you'll be tearing through enemies like nobody's business.

Despite its button-mashing roots, combat in Viking is a smart, careful affair. Unless you want to die early and often, you have to make use of stealth (which is even better once you learn the stealth kill abilities), and you have to plan your assaults carefully. If you just go running in to the vineyard, you're going get the sharp end of many, many sticks. There's a horn blower guy in many of the legion camps, if sees you, you can expect an even tougher fight. If he sees you before you kill him, that is. He'll wake sleeping foes and call in reinforcements. In some cases, your best bet is to focus on freeing your compatriots before attempting to reclaim an area. They'll help you fight, and sometimes, you'll need their help which can be substantial if you activate your elemental powers in their proximity. Anyone on your side within a certain radius of you, gains the same elemental power on their own weapons.

While the story of Skarin is reasonably interesting, the presentation is a little weak. The main "cut-scenes" are essentially hand drawn illustrations with a voice over. The voice over is good, and the drawings are nice, but it's not overly compelling. Similarly, Skarin will have the occasional 10-20 second vision which in the same style, except all in red and black with lots of Nordic yelling. Thank goodness for subtitles. And for the "Press (A) to skip" note in the bottom right hand corner. The first time through, I did indeed watch them all. But I'm playing through it again on hard, and I don't really need to see them again.

Viking: The Battle for Asgard is quite possibly my favorite game on the Xbox360 yet. Everything it does, it does very well, with the possible exception of story presentation. And it does nothing badly. The only time that I experienced any frustration was in the final, final battle. It's hard. It's long. Set aside and hour or two before you try it. At that point, I was not frustrated with the game, but rather my skill. I can honestly say that I've enjoyed every single minute of playing this game.

Oh - and one more thing: no load times! Once the game is loaded you play and play and play. Since the game is fairly non-linear, travel is an important aspect. Quick travel is handled by ley stones which allow you portal to any stone you've been to so far. Even porting from one end of the island to the other: no load screen. It is literally instantaneous. Technical marvel, this game is. I love it.

Here's your disclaimer though: it doesn't matter how nice the chess set is, if you don't like playing chess. As a button-mashing hack and slash, I am of the opinion that Viking is currently unequaled. But if you don't like hack and slash, if you don't like seeing the limbs and torsos of your demonic foes ripped assunder in a shower of blood and gibletty bits, then Viking might not be for you.